All Chapters of Caught Between The REID Brothers : Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

HARPERNobody spoke for several seconds after Madison said that.The music downstairs still shook the floor beneath us, people still laughed somewhere in the hallway behind the kitchen, cups still clinked against counters, but inside that tiny space between the three of us, everything felt painfully still.Ethan looked caught somewhere between irritation and panic.Madison looked done and I felt humiliated enough to disappear through the floor.“I’m finally saying something everybody else already sees.”“I think I should leave,” I said quickly.“That’s probably best,” Madison answered before Ethan could speak.His head snapped toward her immediately. “Seriously?”“What?” she asked without looking away from me. “Would you rather she stay while you continue pretending this dynamic is completely innocent?”“It is innocent.”That should’ve made me feel better, Instead it made my chest ache.Because innocent wasn’t the word I wanted.Madison laughed quietly. “That’s interesting considering

HARPER“Shit, that was harsh,” every single person standing there suddenly realized the conversation had crossed into dangerous territory and nobody knew how to recover from it.I genuinely forgot how to breathe for a second.Ethan stared at Ashton like he might actually swing at him for making this matter elongated.Madison looked at me with this awful mixture of vindication and pity that made humiliation burn straight through my chest.And the football players behind Derek suddenly looked deeply uncomfortable.“That landed horribly," Ashton said lightly after nobody responded.“You need to shut up,” Ethan said coldly.Ashton raised an eyebrow. “Interesting, you don't have the decency to say that's not true but instead you can tell me to shut up,”“Because I’m not entertaining this.”“But, you just spent months benefiting from it.”Madison replied quietly.Ethan turned toward her sharply. “What exactly is that supposed to mean?”“It means you knew Harper would always show up for you,”

Chapter 46HARPERThe question stayed hanging between.Because Ethan already knew the answer.That was the problem, he knew me too well, exactly how soft I became around him, exactly how impossible it was for me to deny him anything when he looked at me with that aching eyes like he was trying to hold onto something slipping through his hands.And maybe the saddest part was that I still wanted him to hold on.Ashton looked between us slowly.Ethan’s attention stayed fixed on me.“Harper?”I swallowed hard before finally speaking.“I don’t know.”Ashton cleared his throat beside me. “Okay, we’re ending this conversation.”Ethan ignored Ashton completely.“Are you seriously leaving with?”“Yes,” Ashton answered for me immediately. “Thank you for noticing.”“I wasn’t talking to you.”I rubbed at my forehead again, exhaustion crashing into me harder by the second.“Okay,” he said quietly. “Just… text me when you get home.”Something inside my chest twisted painfully at how natural the req

Ashton's POVI could only breathe properly when I reached the corridor outside the locker room, then suddenly I heard her heels.Sienna had a walk and she insisted that she wore heels to campus, which kind of seemed crazy to me. She was loud about it but because she had learned that arriving with intention meant people looked up before she said a word. I had always found it effective.I turned around before she reached me."Practice ended an hour ago," I said."I know when practice ends, have you forgotten that I had your schedule?" She stopped a few feet away with her arms crossed and her chin up. "We need to talk.""About what specifically, if I may ask?""You know exactly what." Her voice was sharp."Sienna, I don't have the time for this,""You benched two of your own teammates," she said. "Over Harper Quinn? You went to Coach and you had two players benched because of something they said about a girl that should mean nothing to you." She tilted her head. "So either explain that o

Ashton's POV“Why are you and Ethan like that?" she said.Harper asked me on a Wednesday afternoon, completely out of nowhere, while we were sitting on opposite ends of a bench outside the athletics building waiting for a light rain to decide whether it was going to commit to being actual rain or just be annoying about it.She had been watching me since I came out, which I had noticed and said nothing about."Like what?”"At each other's throats constantly." She pulled her jacket tighter. "Every time you're in the same space the temperature drops and everyone around you starts looking for an exit. I've been watching it for weeks and I want to actually understand it.""It's complicated.""Everything people don't want to explain is complicated," she said. "Try anyway, I am going listener."I looked at the rain for a second. "You really want to know.""I really want to know.""Okay, brace yourself, it's not a short answer.""I have time."I leaned back on the bench and looked at the sky