All Chapters of Off-Side Love With My Best Friend's Brother : Chapter 51 - Chapter 60

Wren povTheo didn't let go of my arm until we were outside, the cafeteria noise fading behind us, swallowed up by the wind and the wide grey sky.“Where are we going?” I asked.“You'll see.” He guided me toward the car park, his hand steady at my elbow like he thought I might bolt or fall apart, possibly both. “Get in.”I got in.He drove without saying much, just glancing at me every so often like he was checking I hadn't dissolved into the seat. The radio played low, something instrumental.The ice cream place had more flavors than I knew what to do with, a whole wall of tubs behind glass, and Theo stood there studying them like he was choosing stocks.“Pistachio,” he finally said to the girl behind the counter. “And whatever she wants. Two scoops, her choice.”“Cookies and cream,” I said. “And the strawberry.”We sat outside on a bench with our cones, and the evening had gone soft and golden in that particular way it did right before the sun started its real descent. Theo finished

Wren’s povI was already moving before I'd fully decided to, drink sloshing in my hand, the music pounding in my ears. I made it three steps toward the exit before I turned right back around and pushed through the crowd toward him instead.Theo's eyes widened the second he spotted me, surprise and something like an alarm crossing his face. “Wren…”I didn't let him finish. I tipped my drink straight over the girl's head, watching it splash down through her hair and onto her shoulder, her shriek cutting through the noise around us.“We just got together,” I said, voice shaking with something between fury and tears, “and you're already cheating on me?”“Wren, it's not what you…”I was already turning, already walking, weaving fast through the crowd with my eyes stinging. Behind me I heard him apologizing rapidly to the girl, then his footsteps coming after me, calling my name over the music.I made it outside into the cool night air before he caught up, his hand closing around my arm.“W

Wren’s povI woke up to my neck aching from falling asleep at a wrong angle, my laptop still glowing faintly beside me, three browser tabs frozen mid-search, and a half-written paragraph that made progressively less sense the longer I stared at it.I checked the time. Six forty. I'd gotten maybe four hours, most of it slumped sideways with my face nearly on the keyboard.My phone lit up on the nightstand.Theo: Wake up sunshineI smiled at that, despite everything, and typed back: barely alive but awake.He sent back a laughing emoji and nothing else, which somehow made me smile harder.I dragged myself downstairs, hair a disaster, and found Dani in the kitchen already dressed for practice, a mug of coffee in his hand.“You look like you got hit by something,” he said.“Thank you. Very kind.”“What happened?”“I have a project due in three days that I completely forgot existed until last night.” I poured myself a glass of water and drank half of it in one go. “Which reminds me. I stil

Wren’s povRoss had a notepad in one hand and the fridge door propped open with the other, scanning the shelves. “We have three eggs and a bottle of ketchup. That's it. That's the whole inventory.”“We've been busy,” I said. “Don't look at us like that.”“How do two grown adults survive on three eggs and ketchup?”“Badly, apparently.”“I'm going to need a real grocery run before tomorrow, or this birthday party is going to consist of me handing people napkins and apologizing.”Dani wandered in from the hallway, already reaching for his keys off the hook by the door. “I'll come. We need decorations too if we're actually doing this right.”“You don't have to,” Ross said.“I want to. It's your birthday. If I leave it to you, you'll buy forty bags of chips and call it a party.”“That was, genuinely, my entire plan.”“Exactly why I'm coming."The three of us piled into Dani's car, and we'd barely cleared the driveway before he glanced sideways at me with that look I'd learned to brace for.

Wren’s PovI went back inside, pushing through the crowd, looking for Anna. I couldn’t find her anywhere. Ryan wasn’t there either, which meant they’d probably slipped off somewhere together, leaving me alone with whatever was happening in my chest right now.I turned a corner too fast and walked straight into someone solid.Dani.His hands came up automatically to steady me. “Hey. What’s wrong?”“I just saw-” My voice cracked. I tried again. “Theo. There was a girl, she was kissing him, by the pool, and I don’t-”I didn’t get to finish. His mouth was on mine before I’d registered him moving, one hand sliding to the back of my neck, and for a few stunned seconds, I just stood there, completely frozen, the noise of the party fading into nothing around us.Then I was being shoved aside, hard, and the world snapped back into focus just in time to see Theo’s fist connect with Dani’s jaw.Dani staggered, then swung back, and the two of them collided again, fists and shoving, somebody’s dri