All Chapters of Falling for My Best Friend's Brother: Chapter 121 - Chapter 130

Liam's POVI stood there and thought about it for a second. I thought about just saying yes, telling Zoey that Avery was my girlfriend, watching it all fall neatly into place. One word and Zoey would have her answer and maybe, finally, she would back off and leave me alone. She was never going to stop pushing until she believed there was genuinely nothing left to push for, and a girlfriend was a wall she could not argue her way around. The idea had a clean logic to it and I could see exactly how it played out.And then I thought about Avery.I thought about Avery standing over there with her arms crossed and that closed expression on her face, with no idea any of this was coming. I thought about what would happen when Zoey walked over and introduced herself, which she absolutely would, because going over was exactly the kind of move Zoey made when she saw an opportunity. I thought about Avery looking at me like I had completely lost my mind, telling Zoey we were dating when we were ju

Avery's POVI sat on my bed with my back against the headboard and my phone in my lap and I thought about all of it.Two days. I had been ignoring him for two days and every time his name came up on my screen I had told myself I just needed a little more time before I could respond without saying something I would regret. The problem was that the more time passed, the more there was to say, and the more there was to say, the harder it became to know where to even begin.It had started with the photograph that Jade had turned the laptop toward me to show me, and the two faces in it that I had not been able to stop seeing since.Not the document filing on its own. Not even Dean being gone. The photograph was the thing I could not put down, because it had faces in it. And one of those faces belonged to a man whose son sat next to me in a lecture hall twice a week and had been texting me every day since Dean left. It belonged to the father of a man I was having feelings about.Did Liam kn

Avery's POVHe did not message me once since the day Zoey Banks invaded our class.After two days of texts that I had left unanswered, Liam had gone completely quiet. No good morning. No checking in. No asking about Dean. Nothing from Monday evening through to Thursday night. I told myself it did not matter. I had been the one ignoring him, so his silence was the natural consequence of that, and I should have been relieved. I had wanted space. He was giving me space. That was what I had asked for, in the most indirect possible way.I was not particularly relieved.I noticed the absence of his messages the way you noticed when a sound you had gotten used to suddenly stopped. It left a shape in the day where something had been and was not anymore. I did not go as far as checking whether he had somehow messaged and I had missed it. I told myself that was because I was not bothered, not because I knew the answer was no and did not want to confirm it.I did not message him either.Friday m

Avery's POVHis text came in at just past seven in the evening.'This is almost a week of no replies from you. I understand if you need space but I cannot let our academics suffer. Let's meet at the library tomorrow, for our project. Four o'clock. Let me know if that works.'I read it twice. I put the phone down on the desk and looked at it from a small distance. Then I picked it back up.He was not asking how I was. He was not asking about Dean or the house or any of the things he had been texting me about all week. He was being completely practical, which was fair, and which was somehow harder to receive than the concerned messages had been. At least with the concerned ones I had something to push back against. This had no edge to it at all and I felt bad that I had ignored him to the extent that he didn't think it was necessary to ask me another question about my well-being that I may not answer.I typed, 'That's fine by me. We haven't worked on it all week. We are a little behind.

Liam's POVI looked at her for a second without speaking.Avery had gone very still across the table. She had her pen in her hand and she was looking at it rather than at either of us, which was her way of giving us space without actually having any. Zoey was looking at me with the patient expression she always used when she was saying something she had already decided on and was not going to be talked out of, and the library was quiet enough around us that I could hear the second hand on the clock near the door."Zoey," I said.She looked at me with the expression that meant she was not finished and was not going to be easily redirected."I mean it, Liam. I did not come all this way to be treated like this. I just need you to hear me out properly, without you cutting me off or telling me this is not the right time. If you would just—""We are in a library," I said. "We are three people at a table trying to finish a project that counts toward all of our final grades, and right now you