All Chapters of Falling for My Best Friend's Brother: Chapter 311 - Chapter 320

341 Chapters

309: Asking Jade

Liam's POVI found Jade in the kitchen later that evening.She was at the counter with a textbook open and a pen between her teeth and music on her phone, and she looked up when I came in the way she always did."Hey," she said around the pen."I need to ask you something," I told her. I went straight to the point because there was no need to pretend I was in her space for anything else.She took the pen out of her mouth. "That tone is never good," she said."Have you seen the forum post?" I asked."Which one?" she asked. "There are about forty posts a day on that forum and most of them are garbage.""The one comparing Avery to the videos of a stripper from a club in town," I told her.Jade looked at me for a second. Then she laughed.Not a polite laugh. A real one."You are not serious," she told me."I am asking a question," I told her."Yes I have seen it," she told me. "Mia sent it to me. And Chloe. And about four other people because apparently the entire campus has nothing bette

310: Too smooth

Liam's POVI couldn't stop thinking about the situation and decided that I needed to ask Avery.I waited until Thursday evening.Not because I needed the time. I had made the decision to ask her the moment I walked out of the kitchen with Jade. The waiting was strategic. I needed the right setting and the right moment and I needed her to be relaxed enough that her first response would be honest rather than managed.I had learned that about Avery. The managed responses came when she saw the question coming. The honest ones came when she did not.She was at my place after practice. We had ordered food and she was on the sofa with her legs across my lap and her phone on her chest, telling me about a formation change Vega had suggested that she was not sure about."You think Vega is right?" I asked."I think Vega is experienced," she told me. "That is not the same thing as being right. She has been coaching for twelve years and sometimes twelve years of doing the same thing makes you conf

311: Ready

Avery's POVI woke up before Liam.He was still asleep next to me, his arm heavy across my waist, his breathing slow. I lay there and looked at the ceiling and thought about the conversation from last night. The forum post. His casual voice. The way he had watched my face while I delivered the dismissal.He had accepted it.But he had not believed it.I had known Liam Harrington long enough to know the difference between him letting something go and him putting something away. When he let something go his body relaxed and the conversation moved on and he did not come back to it. When he put something away his body stayed exactly the same and the conversation moved on and you could feel it.Last night had been the second.I slid out of bed carefully, went downstairs, made coffee, and took the chair at the kitchen table with my phone and opened the forum thread.The comments had grown overnight. Three hundred and twelve now. I scrolled past the ones I had already read and found the new

312: Game night

Avery's POVI felt them watching me before I stepped onto the field.Not the usual watching. Not the way a crowd looked at a cheer squad before kickoff, half interested and half waiting for the real thing to start. This was different. The attention had an edge to it, as if the crowd were looking at me and cross-referencing something else at the same time."You ready?" Chloe asked beside me in the tunnel."Always," I told her."You do not look always," she told me. "You look like you are about to walk into a courtroom.""I look like I am about to lead a routine," I told her. "Same face. Different context."She held the look a second longer than she needed to, then the music started and we went.The field was bright and loud and the stands were full. I took my position at the front of the formation, raised my arms, and called the opening count. The squad responded the way they always did, tight and clean and together.And I performed.I performed the way I always performed when everythi

313: Athletic conference

Avery's POVThe week after the game was supposed to be a recovery week. Light practice, no fixtures, the squad resting before the next block of the season. Instead Reyes had reminded us twice in the group chat that the athletics board conference was on Thursday and attendance was not optional for team captains and starting players.I had forgotten about it until the second reminder. Between the forum post and the phones in the crowd and the syllable that might have been Scarlett shouted from the stands, the conference had been the last thing on my mind.But Thursday came and I put on the version of myself that events like this required. The one that smiled at strangers and shook hands and said things like thank you for your support of the programme while holding a glass of water I did not drink.I was good at that version of me.Liam was across the room talking to Coach Reyes and two board members whose names I had been given and immediately forgotten. Jade was somewhere near the back

314: Drive home

Avery's POVLiam did not wait until we got home to ask.He asked in the car. Three minutes into the drive. His hands on the wheel, his eyes on the road."What did Colton say to you?" Liam asked."I told you," I told him. "Small talk.""Avery." He glanced at me. "You were shaking. In the lift. Your hands, your jaw, your shoulders. I could feel it through your back when I put my hand on you." He looked at the road again. "That is not a reaction to small talk."I looked out the window."He made a comment about my work," I told him."What kind of comment?" he asked."About Crestwood," I told him. "About the kitchen. He said something about how it was beneath me. That the captain of the cheer squad should not be washing dishes at a community centre." I kept my voice flat. "He knew it would land. I was already on edge about the forum thing and the game, and then he was standing there being smug about my job and I froze. It caught me off guard. That is all."Liam drove for another block with

315: The near drop

Avery's POVPractice on Friday started wrong and got worse.The energy in the room was off from the moment the squad walked in. I could feel it the way I had learned to feel room dynamics over a year of being the captain, the difference between a squad that was focused and one that had brought something in with it.Brianna was already on the floor when I arrived. She was stretching near the back wall with her group around her and she did not look up when I came in."What is the plan today?" Chloe asked, falling into step beside me."Full routine," I told her. "Top to bottom. Vega wants to see the pyramid section at full speed.""The pyramid section has not been clean since the second game," Chloe told me."That is why we are running it today," I told her."Is Brianna's group on the base?" Chloe asked."They are always on the base," I told her. "That is where they are placed."Chloe looked at me with something she didn't say."Let us get started," I said.I called the squad together. T

316: Proposal

Brianna's POVFour days after the near-miss stunt at practice I called the meeting.Not because of the stunt. The stunt had served its purpose and Vega's expression afterward told me she had noticed exactly what I wanted her to notice. But the stunt was not the reason for the urgency. The reason for the urgency was what Colton had told me on the phone that morning about what happened at the athletics board conference.We met at the bar. Same corner table. Same four faces. Nikki arrived last, took a seat, ordered nothing, and looked at Colton with the look of someone who had been given the summary and wanted the rest."Tell them," I told him.He leaned forward."I spoke to her at the conference," he told us. "Alone. At the refreshments table. Nobody else was close enough to hear.""What did you say?" Zoey asked."I told her I knew she worked nights," Colton told us. "I told her the establishment she worked at had an interesting reputation. I mentioned the nights. Wednesday and Friday."

317: The plan

Brianna's POVNikki did not waste time.She pulled out her phone and opened a diagram she had drawn herself — a sketch of the stage layout at the Velvet Underground, the wings, the lighting positions, the audience sightlines. She put the phone flat on the table and turned it so we could all see."Each performers set runs forty-five minutes," she told us. "She performs seven sections with transitions between each one. The transitions are where she adjusts her costume, takes water, resets her position." She pointed to a spot on the diagram. "The fourth transition is the one we need.""Why the fourth?" Colton asked."Because during the fourth transition she turns fully away from the audience," Nikki told us. "Every other transition she faces forward or turns to the side. The fourth is the only one where her back is completely to the room for approximately six seconds. She adjusts her costume at the hip and reties her hair. It is part of the choreography. She does it every single time.""

318: Can't stop thinking

Liam's POVThe thing about a thought you could not put down was that it got heavier every day you carried it.It had been ten days since I asked Avery about the forum post. Ten days since she laughed and counted the impossibilities off on her fingers and redirected the conversation to the campus cat investigation. Ten days since she fell asleep against my shoulder and I stayed there in the dark knowing her answer had been rehearsed.I had not brought it up again.I had done what Jade told me to do, which was drop it. I had done what Tate told me to do, which was focus on the person in front of me. I had gone to training and played the game and been in Avery's house and held her hand and kissed her goodnight, doing every single thing a boyfriend was supposed to do while carrying a question I could not ask.But the question was still there.And it was getting louder.I called Tate on Wednesday morning."I need a favour," I told him."Last time you said that you ended up at a club and I

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