Falling for My Best Friend's Brother

Avery Nash had two lives and one rule. Keep them completely separate.

By day she was the captain of the Crestwood University cheer squad and a Business Management student holding onto her scholarship by her fingernails.

By night she was Scarlett, masked and wigged and untouchable, dancing at Velvet Underground to cover the gap between what her scholarship paid and what her mother's deadbeat boyfriend kept taking from them.

On the night her boyfriend cheated on her with her biggest rival, Avery made one reckless decision. She followed a brooding stranger back to his motel room and gave him the one thing she had been saving.

Her virginity.

"Take off the mask. I want to see you." He had said.

"A little mystery never hurt anyone, did it?" she replied.

She slipped out before dawn, telling herself she would never see him again.

Then she rang her best friend, Jade's doorbell and he answered the door.

Liam Harrington was Jade's new stepbrother, who she hated, the transfer quarterback every girl on campus was already talking about, and the boy sitting three seats away from her in every Business Management lecture.

He was also the only person in the world who knew what Avery felt like without her armour on. He just did not know her real face.

Now Avery was living three lives at once. The captain, the stripper, and the girl quietly falling for the one man she was absolutely forbidden to want.

And the secret that started as one reckless birthday night was growing into something big enough to burn everything she had built.

001: Happy Birthday to me

Avery's POV

"If you drop her one more time, Brianna, I will pull you from the lineup myself."

The whole gym froze.

The music was still playing but nobody was moving. It suddenly became just twelve girls staring at me like I had said something in a foreign language, which I guess I had, because nobody on this squad ever talked to Brianna Holloway like that. At least not to her face. Not out loud.

Brianna turned around slowly. She had that smile she always wore, the pretty one that made coaches think she was sweet. But I had been watching her for two years. I knew exactly what that smile meant.

"Excuse me?" she said.

"You heard me." I walked toward her, keeping my voice steady. "That's the second time today you came off that stunt before Priya was set. If I hadn't stepped in just now, she would have landed on her wrist."

"I called the count," Brianna said, with a small shrug. "That's not my fault."

"You called it fast on purpose and you know it."

"Avery." She tilted her head like I was being difficult. "I'm just trying to make us better. Some people need to be pushed."

"And some people need to be checked," Jade said, stepping up beside me. "You've 'accidentally' botched three catches this week. All three of them Priya. Should we talk about the odds on that?"

Brianna looked between us. I could see her deciding something behind those pretty eyes.

"I'm just a team player doing my best," she said sweetly. "But okay. Whatever you say, Captain."

She said the last word the way people say it when they want you to know it bothers them that it's true. Brianna had run for squad captain at the start of the year. She had lost to me by nine votes. She had smiled through the announcement, hugged me in front of everyone, and then spent the next eight months making my life and the lives of anyone close to me as difficult as she possibly could.

"From the top," I said, turning to face the rest of the squad. "Full routine. Sharp and clean."

Practice ran for another forty minutes after that. Brianna was perfect. Of course she was. She always performed like an angel when she wanted to prove a point, and right now her point was that I had no good reason to come at her. Every move was on time. Every smile hit its mark. She even helped Priya reset after one of the jumps and patted her on the shoulder like they were best friends.

I hated how good she was at this.

After cool-down, Coach Vega dismissed us and the girls broke into their usual groups, grabbing bags and water bottles and picking up where their conversations had left off. Brianna left without looking at me, which told me more than any look could have.

"She's going to make you pay for that," Jade said, falling into step beside me as we headed for the bleachers where our bags were.

"Let her try."

"Avery. I'm serious."

"So am I." I picked up my bag and checked my phone. One new message. I smiled before I even finished reading it.

*Can't stop thinking about tonight. Pick you up at seven. Wear something nice, birthday girl.*

"Colton?" Jade asked.

"Yes."

"Still doing dinner?"

"Seven o'clock." I dropped the phone into my bag. "But I want to see him before that. He said he's been in his room all afternoon. I'm going to stop at the bakery on Fifth and grab him those lemon cookies he likes, then head over and surprise him."

Jade stared at me. "It's your birthday."

"I know."

"He should be surprising you."

"I know that too." I laughed. "But I want to see him. Is that a crime?"

"It's deeply unfair to the rest of us who have no one to be that happy about," she said. Then she pulled me into a hug. "Go. Have fun. Call me the second you get home tonight."

"Every single detail," I promised.

The bakery line was longer than I expected, so it was almost four by the time I crossed the east side of campus toward Colton's building. I had the cookies in a small paper bag and my hair still pulled back from practice and I did not care even a little, because it was my birthday and I was going to see my boyfriend and the evening was going to be perfect.

Colton Reeves had been mine for seven months. He was the captain of the football team, and the kind of guy who remembered small things without being asked. He knew how I took my coffee. He remembered my mom's name and asked about her. He texted good morning without needing a reason. After a year of Crestwood feeling like too much noise and not enough warmth, he had been exactly what I needed.

He gave me a key to his room two months ago.

I used it now without knocking.

The afternoon sun was coming straight through his window when I pushed the door open, bright enough that I saw everything clearly, all at once, with no shadows to make it softer or give me even a second to look away.

Colton was on the bed.

He was not alone.

"Oh my God." I heard my own voice like it was coming from somewhere outside my body.

Colton scrambled back so fast he nearly fell off the mattress. "Avery — wait — this is not —"

"Not what?" I couldn't move. My feet had stopped working. "Not what it looks like? Is that what you're about to say to me right now?"

"Just let me explain —"

The girl sat up slowly and pushed her hair back from her face, and my stomach dropped straight through the floor.

Brianna Holloway looked right at me.

And smiled.

002: Scarlett

Avery's POV

For a few seconds I just stood there in the doorway.

My brain kept trying to make it make sense, like if I stared long enough the picture would rearrange itself into something I could live with. But there was no rearranging this. There was Colton, scrambling to pull the sheets up, and there was Brianna, not even bothering to.

"Avery." Colton's voice was shaking. "Just wait. Please. Let me explain."

"Explain what?" My voice came out quieter than I expected. "I have eyes, Colton."

"It's not — this isn't something that's been going on for long, it just —"

"How long?"

He went quiet.

"How long?" I asked again.

"Two months," Brianna said.

I looked at her. She was sitting up against his headboard with the sheet barely covering her, and she looked completely relaxed. Like she was watching something mildly interesting on TV.

"Two months," I repeated.

"Give or take." She tilted her head. "Though honestly it started before that. We were talking for a while first."

"Brianna." Colton looked at her. "Stop."

"Why?" She shrugged one shoulder. "She's going to find out anyway. She already found out."

I looked back at Colton. "You've been with her since September?"

He didn't answer. He was staring at the floor, and I realised that whatever I had come here expecting him to say, it wasn't going to be the right thing. He didn't have the right thing. Some people, when they get caught, fall apart and beg and make promises they almost mean. Colton just looked small. Smaller than I had ever seen him.

"You gave me a key," I said. My voice was starting to crack and I hated it. "You gave me a key to this room."

"Avery —"

"Why would you give me a key?"

"I don't know." He pressed his hands over his face. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"Don't." Brianna swung her legs off the bed and reached for her shirt on the floor. She pulled it over her head without hurrying. "Don't do the whole sorry speech, Colton. It's boring."

I stared at her. "You're really going to sit there."

"I'm going to sit wherever I want," she said, meeting my eyes. "This is not my fault, Avery."

"You're in my boyfriend's bed."

"Your boyfriend came to me." She stood up and smoothed her shirt down. "I didn't drag him anywhere. Men don't need to be dragged. They go where they want to go." She picked up her bag from the floor. "And honestly? You should have seen this coming."

"Get out," Colton said, looking up at her.

"I'm leaving." She moved toward the door and stopped right in front of me. We were the same height, which meant she could look me directly in the eyes when she said what she said next.

"You took the captain spot from me." Her voice was low and perfectly level. "Nine little votes. I smiled through it and I showed up every single day and I watched you stand up there with your little whistle and I said nothing." She paused. "So I took something from you too. That's all this is. Now we're even."

The room was dead quiet.

"Get out," I said.

She walked out.

The door clicked shut behind her and I stood there for a second, breathing. Just breathing. In through the nose, out through the mouth, the way Coach Vega taught us to reset before a hard routine.

"Avery." Colton stood up. "Please say something."

"I brought you cookies," I said.

He blinked.

I looked down at the paper bag that was somehow still in my hand. I didn't even remember holding onto it. I put it very carefully on his desk.

"Lemon ones," I said. "From the bakery on Fifth."

"Avery, I —"

"Don't call me tonight." I picked up my bag from where I had dropped it in the doorway. "Don't text me. Don't come to practice and try to talk to me on the field. Don't send Jade to explain things to me on your behalf." I looked at him one last time. "Happy birthday to me."

I walked out.

I made it all the way across campus and to my car in the parking lot before my hands started shaking badly enough that I had to stop walking. I sat down on the low wall by the parking lot entrance and pressed my palms flat against my thighs and told myself the same thing three times.

‘You are not going to cry in this parking lot.’

I didn't.

By eight o'clock I was behind the curtain at Velvet Underground, pulling my wig on in front of the cracked dressing room mirror.

The wig was long, black, and nothing like my real hair. On nights when I needed to disappear, I was always glad for that.

"I thought you had birthday plans," said Raven, the girl at the station beside mine. She was drawing her liner on with the steady hand of someone who had done it a thousand times.

"Plans changed."

She looked at me in the mirror. "You okay?"

"I'll be fine when I'm out there."

"That's not what I asked."

I set the wig straight and reached for my lip colour. Deep red, darker than anything I wore in daylight. "I just need to work tonight, Raven. That's all I need."

She nodded and let it go. That was one of the things I liked about her.

I had been working at Velvet Underground as an exotic dancer for six months now. Three shifts a week, enough to cover the things my scholarship didn't, including rent and utilities for my mum and I. Nobody from campus came here, or at least nobody who would recognize me under the wig and the stage makeup and the name I had chosen for myself. Up here I wasn't Avery Nash, cheerleading captain, reliable friend, good student, recently humiliated girlfriend.

Up here I was Scarlett.

Scarlett was not naive. Scarlett did not bring boys lemon cookies on her birthday. Scarlett did not stand in doorways with her mouth open while her boyfriend's side piece told her they were even.

The music started, and I stepped into the lights.

003: Meeting him

Avery's POV

The first hour was easy. The Friday crowd was the best kind. Loud enough to disappear into, generous with the tips, and mostly interested in their own conversations. I moved through my set on autopilot, which was not always a good thing but tonight it was exactly what I needed.

I was heading to the bar for water after my second song when I saw him.

He was sitting at the end of the bar away from the stage, not facing the performance at all. He had a glass of something dark in front of him and he was staring at it like it had said something he was still deciding how to answer. He had dark hair, a strong jaw and broad shoulders wearing a plain grey shirt.

He looked like someone having a genuinely bad night.

I knew the feeling.

I took my water from the barman and made my way over. Not because it was my job, exactly. Because something about the way he was sitting made me want to.

"You look like you're trying to drown something," I said, sliding onto the stool beside him.

He looked up. His eyes were dark brown and very direct.

"Is it that obvious?" he said.

"Little bit." I put my water glass down. "Rough night?"

"Rough week." He looked back at his drink. "Rough everything, honestly."

"New in town?"

"That obvious too?"

"You've got that look. Like you're not sure yet what the rules are." I held out my hand. "Scarlett."

He looked at my hand, then shook it. His grip was firm but not trying to prove anything. "Liam."

"Just Liam?"

"For now." The corner of his mouth moved slightly. "You always introduce yourself to strangers at bars?"

"Only the ones who look like they need someone to talk to." I rested my elbow on the bar. "So. What brought you to Crestwood?"

"Family situation." He turned his glass slowly with both hands. "My dad remarried. We moved. Very exciting story."

"That sounds complicated."

"Yeah." He glanced at me. "You from here?"

"Born and raised. Lucky me." I said it lightly but he caught the edge in it, I could tell by the way his eyes stayed on my face a second longer.

"Bad night for you too?" he said.

"Oh, terrible." I smiled. "It's my birthday, actually."

His eyebrows went up. "You're spending your birthday here? Working?" He gestured to my outfit.

"Change of plans." I picked up my water. "Original plans fell through in the most spectacular way possible."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I'm better off here." I meant it more than I expected to.

He was quiet for a moment, and then he said, "Happy birthday, Scarlett."

He said it simply. No performance to it. Like it actually mattered to him that I had one.

Something small and stupid happened in my chest.

"Thank you, Liam," I said.

We talked for another twenty minutes. He didn't ask about what I did here. He didn't make any of the usual comments. He asked about the town, the campus, whether the coffee anywhere near Crestwood was actually good or just survivable. He was easy to talk to in a way that felt unfair, like he had been specifically designed to be the wrong person to meet on a night like this.

When the stage manager caught my eye from across the room, I knew I had to get back to work.

"I've got to go," I said, standing.

"Yeah." He picked up his glass. "Thanks for the company, Scarlett."

I was halfway off the stool when I turned back.

"The private room is open," I said. "Last one on the left. If you want." I kept my voice professional. It was always a choice. Never a push.

He looked at me for a moment.

"Yeah," he said quietly. "Okay."

The private room was small and dim, with low music coming through a speaker in the ceiling. I did this part of the job the same way I did everything else, on my own terms, in control, with a clear line I did not cross.

But somewhere between the first song and the second, something changed.

Maybe it was because he wasn't watching me the way the others did. He was watching my face.

"You said your plans fell through tonight," he said. His voice was low, almost careful. "What happened?"

I stopped moving. Just for a second.

"You're not supposed to ask me things like that in here," I said.

"I know." He held my gaze. "What happened, Scarlett?"

I looked at him. This stranger with the dark eyes who had sat alone at the bar staring at his drink and wished me a happy birthday like he meant it.

"I walked in on my boyfriend," I said. "With someone I know."

His jaw tightened. "Tonight."

"About six hours ago."

"I'm sorry," he said. And again, no performance. Just the words.

"What about you?" I said. "What's the rough week actually about?"

"I fought with my dad all week about why I didn't need to move with him to live with his new wife. Then I came in today into a new city, a new school, and a new family situation I didn't ask for." He exhaled slowly. "I'm trying to figure out where I fit."

"And do you? Fit?"

"Not yet."

We looked at each other in the low light. The music kept playing and neither of us moved.

"You know this is the strangest conversation I've ever had in this room," I said.

"Is that bad?"

"No," I said. "That's the problem." I was kneeling on the platform right in front of him now.

I don't know which one of us moved first.

But when his hand came up and touched my jaw, very gently, like a question, I didn't pull back.

And when his lips met mine, I kissed him back.

004: One night

Avery's POV

The kiss started soft.

Then his hand slid into my hair and pulled me closer, and it stopped being soft entirely.

I pressed into him and he pulled me in tighter and the music from the ceiling speaker faded out completely because all I could hear was my own heartbeat hammering in my ears. When we finally pulled apart, both of us were breathing differently.

He looked at me. His eyes dropped to my mouth, then came back up.

I leaned in again and he met me halfway, this time hungrier, his hands sliding down my waist and pulling me full against him until there was no space left between us. I felt the low sound he made more than I heard it, and it went straight through me.

When I finally pulled back, my lips were feeling swollen and my heart was going absolutely insane.

"Come with me," he said. His voice had dropped to something rough and low.

It was not a question. Not quite.

Then I reached for my bag.

We got in his car and managed to keep our hands to ourselves until we got to our destination.

The front door to the motel room had barely swung shut before his hands were on me.

"God, you're incredible," he breathed against my neck, his lips finding a spot just below my ear that made my knees buckle. "I've been thinking about this since the moment I sat down with you at that bar."

My back found the wall and I gasped at the contact.

His shirt gave way under my fingers, as I pulled it over his head, and I ran my palms across his chest and felt the solid muscle beneath and thought, ‘this is real, this is actually happening.’

"Take off your mask," he murmured against my jaw. "I want to see your face."

I tilted my head and smiled. "A little mystery never hurt anyone, did it?"

He groaned into my neck. "You're going to be the death of me."

He lifted me like I weighed nothing and I wrapped my legs around his waist and he carried me to the bed and laid me down, and then he stood back and looked at me, his chest bare and heaving, his eyes completely dark. I could see the real colour now and they were a greenish blue.

"You are so beautiful," he said. Rough. Like it cost him something to hold it together. "You have no idea what you've been doing to me all night."

He reached for me slowly, giving me time, and I let him. His hands moved over me with a patience I hadn't expected, learning me, taking his time, and I felt myself melting into the mattress.

"I have to tell you something," I said breathlessly, as his lips moved down my throat.

He lifted his head and looked at me. "What?"

"I've never—" I stopped. His eyes were on my face and I suddenly felt every inch of how young and foolish and underprepared I was. "I've never done this before."

He went completely still.

"Are you a virgin?" he said.

I held his gaze and nodded.

Something shifted in his expression. The urgency softened into something more careful and more deliberate. He looked at me the way you look at something you suddenly understand the weight of.

"We don't have to," he said.

"I know," I said. "I want to."

He searched my face for a long moment. Then he brought his forehead down to rest against mine.

"I'll take care of you," he said quietly. "I promise."

He was as good as his word.

He was slow, and patient, and paid attention to every sound I made. His hands and his mouth moved over me like he had all night and nothing else mattered, and I stopped holding back. I said his name when I needed to. I told him when something felt good and he listened every single time, his voice low and warm against my skin.

"You're perfect," he murmured. "Absolutely perfect."

When I finally reached my orgasm, I held onto his shoulders and gasped and he stayed still and looked at me.

"Still okay?" he said, his voice strained.

"Don't stop," I said. "Please don't stop."

He moved and everything went bright.

"I want to hear you," he said against my ear. "Tell me how you feel."

And I did. I let myself get completely lost in him. I said his name over and over like I was afraid of forgetting it. I told him how good he made me feel, how he was making me feel things I had never come close to imagining.

"That's it," he said, his voice breaking at the edges. "Let go for me."

I let go.

The wave crashed through me so hard my eyes rolled back and my whole body shook from the inside out and I cried his name into the night.

"I've got you," he said, his own voice completely wrecked. "I've got you."

A moment later he followed me over the edge with a low, broken sound that I felt everywhere.

Afterward we lay tangled together, both of us breathing hard, the room perfectly quiet around us.

Something had changed inside me. Something had opened up that I didn't have a name for yet.

"That was..." I started, and completely ran out of words.

"I know," he said quietly. "It really was."

He pulled me closer and I curled into his chest, warm and heavy and more content than I had any right to be. His hand moved slowly up and down my back and I closed my eyes and let myself have it. Just for now. Just for tonight.

"Happy birthday, Scarlett," he said softly into my hair.

The warmth in his voice hit me somewhere deep and tender.

"Thank you, Liam," I whispered.

His arms tightened around me and I listened to his heartbeat slow down, and my eyes grew heavy, and somewhere between one breath and the next I stopped fighting the feeling.

‘Whoever you are,’ I thought, ‘I am never going to see you again.’

005: Back to reality

Avery's POV

The first thing I noticed when I opened my eyes was the dim light.

It was creeping in through the gap in the curtain, pale and grey, the kind of light that meant it was not quite morning yet but getting close. The kind that meant I had stayed way too long.

The second thing I noticed was Liam's arm across my waist.

I lay still for a moment and looked at him. He was on his side facing me, eyes closed, breathing slow and easy. In sleep he looked younger somehow. Less guarded. His dark hair was a complete mess and his jaw was soft and I had absolutely no business noticing any of it.

I slid carefully out from under his arm.

He shifted slightly but didn't wake. I held my breath until he settled, then gathered my things from the floor as quietly as I could. The wig was still on. The mask was still in place. I was still Scarlett, technically, and Scarlett did not stand around in motel rooms watching strangers sleep.

I found a small notepad on the nightstand and a pen beside it.

I wrote: ‘Thanks for last night. — S.’

Then I let myself out.

The street outside was empty and cold and the sky was the deep blue of almost-dawn. I stood on the pavement for a second with my bag over my shoulder and the night air on my face, and then I pulled out my phone and called a cab.

While I waited I sat on the curb by the motel entrance and started the transformation in reverse. The mask came off first and went into the bottom of my bag. Then the wig, folded and tucked away. I shook my real hair loose and ran my fingers through it. I pulled my hoodie and jeans out from the bottom of my bag, changed right there on the curb without caring who saw. Good thing nobody was passing by. I stuffed the costume in, and by the time the cab pulled up I was just Avery Nash again.

Tired. Achy. Oddly at peace.

I climbed in and pulled out a makeup wipe.

"Where to?" the driver said, not looking up from his phone.

I gave him my address.

My phone buzzed in my hand as I cleaned off the stage makeup. I looked at the screen and felt the peace evaporate immediately.

I had twelve missed calls and a good number of voicemails. Four from Jade. Eight from Colton.

I stared at Colton's name for a long second.

Then I pressed play on his first voicemail.

"Avery, where are you? I've been calling for hours. I know what you saw looked bad but if you would just let me explain—"

I stopped it.

Looked bad? I pressed play on the next one.

"I know you're upset. I get it. But you can't just disappear. It's your birthday and I had reservations. They were very expensive. Please just call me back."

I stared out the window at the dark empty streets sliding past.

He had reservations.

He had been in bed with Brianna Holloway three hours before my birthday dinner and he was more upset that I missed the reservations.

I deleted every single one of his messages without listening to the rest.

Then I pressed play on Jade's first voicemail.

"Hey, it's me. I know you're probably having the most amazing dinner right now and I feel terrible for calling, so ignore this if you're busy. I just…something happened today and I didn't want to dump it on you on your birthday but I also really need to talk to you, so call me when you get home. Doesn't matter what time. I mean it. Love you."

I listened to it twice, then I pressed play on her second one.

"Okay it's midnight and you haven't called and I'm not going to pretend I'm not a little worried. Call me. Please. Happy birthday again by the way, I hope the dinner was perfect. Call me."

I typed her a message.

‘I'm fine. I'm sorry for not calling since last night. I'll come to you this morning. Don't go anywhere.’

I put the phone away and looked out the window and thought about Liam sleeping with his arm across the empty space where I had been, and I pressed my lips together and didn't think about it again.

I pushed open the front door as quietly as I could.

The kitchen light was on.

My mum was at the table. She was still in yesterday's clothes, which meant she hadn't slept, which meant she had been thinking. A mug of coffee sat in front of her that she clearly hadn't touched.

"Mum." I dropped my bag by the door. "You didn't sleep."

"I was waiting for you." She looked up and her eyes moved over my face, checking. She had been doing that for years, checking, like she could see through whatever version of me walked through the door. "How was work? The bar kept you late again."

006: Recognise him

Avery's POV

My mum thought I was waitressing at a bar somewhere downtown. It was a perfect alibi for my late nights and the decent tips I brought home on work nights. There was absolutely nothing to worry about. I had kept that story clean for months and I had no plans to change it.

"Busy night," I said, sitting down across from her. "I made good tips though." I reached into my bag and pulled out the envelope. Thise were tips from the floor during my sets plus the private room. I put it on the table in front of her.

Her eyes went wide. "Avery—"

"Take it. It's for the house."

She reached for it with both hands and I watched her start to uncrumple some of the bills and the exhaustion in her face slowly gave way to something like relief and my chest did that tight thing it always did.

"This is so much, sweetheart. This will cover the—"

"Well, well."

The voice came from the hallway and both of us froze.

Dean leaned in the kitchen doorway with a terribly worn shirt on and his hair going everywhere and a look on his face that I had learned over two years meant he had already been to the liquor cabinet even though it wasn't even seven in the morning. My mum's boyfriend. Emphasis on the boy.

"Look at that." He pushed off the doorframe and walked to the table and picked up the envelope before my mum could do a single thing to stop him. "Somebody had a good night."

"Dean." I kept my voice flat. "That's for the bills."

"And I've got bills of my own." He was flicking through the notes already, counting. "You've been sitting on this kind of money and I've been eating rice for two weeks. That's not very loving, is it?"

"Put it down."

"Relax." He pocketed the envelope and had the nerve to smile at me. "Think of it as rent. You live here, don't you?"

"She pays rent," my mum said quietly. "Dean, please—"

"It's my mum's house and you are the one who needs to pay rent," I said. "I pay for the food and the electricity and the phone bill. You pay for absolutely nothing and you drink everything we have, including what's meant for the bills, so don't stand in this kitchen and talk to me about rent."

His smile vanished and his eyes went cold. "Watch your mouth."

"Or what?"

"Avery." My mum's voice had that please-don't quality that I hated because it worked, it always worked, because I could never put her in the middle of something that went bad.

I looked at her. Her hands were flat on the table. She was watching me with that careful look I had seen a hundred times.

I looked back at him.

"Give it back," I said.

"Not today." He straightened his shirt like he had somewhere important to be. "You can make more tonight, can't you?" He gave me a look up and down that made my skin crawl. "Clearly you're good at it."

I stood up so fast my chair scraped loud against the tiles.

"Mum." I looked at her. "Why? After everything he does, after every single time. Why do you still put up with this?"

"He's going through a hard time," she said softly.

"He's always going through a hard time. Every month there's a new hard time." I pressed my hands flat on the table. "He has been going through a hard time for two years and we are the ones paying for it. When does our hard time count?"

"He loves me, Avery."

"That is not what love looks like."

She looked away.

Dean was already heading down the hallway like the conversation was over. A moment later I heard the bedroom door close.

I stood there in the kitchen looking at my mum and feeling every hour of the night I had, going down the drain.

"I'm going to Jade's," I said.

"Avery—"

"I need some air, Mum." I walked towards the door. "I'll come back later."

She nodded and didn't look up from the table and I hated Dean for that. I properly hated him, for turning my mum into a ghost of herself.

My bestfriend Jade lived next door. I could cross the gap between our front doors in less than thirty seconds. I had been doing it since we were eight years old.

A car was parked in front of her driveway that hadn't been there when the cab dropped me off less than twenty minutes ago.

I slowed down.

Something about it nagged at me. I had seen a car like that recently. I just couldn't place where.

I pushed the thought away and walked up to the front door and rang the bell.

I heard some voices and the door swung open.

And every single part of me stopped working.

He was in the same plain grey shirt and his hair was still a bit messy and he was looking at me the way you look at a complete stranger.

Because to him, I was.

He did not see my face last night. My wig, mask and makeup that made me Scarlett made sure of that. He was looking at me right now and seeing absolutely nobody he recognised.

But I recognised him.

Every single inch of him.

007: Stranger from last night

Avery's POV

I couldn't move.

I just stood there on the front step staring at him like an absolute idiot, and he stared back at me with no recognition whatsoever on his face, which made sense, because the last time he saw me I had a full face of stage makeup, a black wig down to my shoulders and a red satin mask covering half my face.

Right now I was standing in a hoodie with yesterday's mascara faintly under my eyes and my real hair pulled into a messy bun.

To him I was nobody.

To me he was the guy I had spent last night with and given my virginity to. No wonder the car was familiar. I went in it last night with him to the motel.

"Hey." He leaned one arm against the door frame, easy and relaxed. "Can I help you?"

His voice. The same voice. Low and warm and completely unbothered.

I opened my mouth and absolutely nothing came out.

"She's with me!"

Jade appeared from somewhere behind him, grabbed him by the shoulder and physically moved him out of the doorway like he was a piece of furniture.

"Avery, oh my God, get in here." She seized my wrist and pulled me inside before I had even fully processed that my legs were working again. "I have been waiting all morning. Why didn't you text me back sooner? Never mind, come upstairs, we need to talk."

She dragged me past the hallway, past the kitchen where I caught the sound of unfamiliar voices and the smell of coffee, and up the stairs to her bedroom without stopping once.

The door clicked shut behind us.

I sat down on the edge of her bed.

She sat cross-legged on her chair and looked at me with the expression of someone who had been holding something in for too long and was about to let all of it out at once.

"Before you say anything," I said, keeping my voice completely casual. "Who was that?"

"At the door?"

"Yes."

Jade made a face that covered a lot of ground in a short amount of time. "That," she said, "is my new stepbrother."

I kept my expression perfectly still. "Oh."

"My mum's new husband moved in yesterday." She pulled her knees up to her chest. "That's what I was trying to tell you. That's why I called. I didn't want to ruin your birthday dinner but I also couldn't just sit here with this on my own, and then you didn't pick up and I didn't hear from you until this morning, and by then the son had already showed up."

"When did he get here?"

"About ten minutes before you rang the doorbell." She glanced toward the door like she could see through it. "He came in with two bags and barely said a word to anyone. Just nodded at his dad and looked around the house like he was calculating how much he hated it."

"Maybe he's just tired," I said. "Moving is stressful."

"Maybe." Jade didn't sound convinced. "He hates being here. I could tell the moment I saw him. Which honestly is the first thing we have in common, because I hate them being here too."

"Jade."

"I know, I know." She pressed her palms against her eyes. "I'm trying. I really am trying. But Avery, you should see the way Carter walks around this house like he already owns it. He rearranged the mugs in the kitchen cabinet. Who does that on their second day?"

"Someone who's trying to settle in."

"Someone who's taking over," Jade corrected. "He's marrying her for the money. I know he is. My mum has the house and my dad's life insurance and Carter walked in here with his nice shoes and his nice car and his nice smile and now everything is his."

I thought about Dean pocketing my envelope less than twenty minutes ago without blinking. The way he had smiled while he did it.

"Men like that exist," I said. "I'm not going to tell you they don't."

"Exactly." Jade pointed at me. "Exactly. He's going to be exactly like what's-his-face across the road. Your mum's boyfriend."

"Dean."

"Dean." She said the name like it tasted bad. "He's going to suck us dry and leave nothing behind and by the time my mum figures it out it'll be too late."

"Or," I said carefully, because I genuinely didn't know which way this was going to go, "he might be completely different and you might be wrong."

Jade gave me the look she reserved for statements she found deeply unhelpful.

"You're supposed to be on my side," she said.

"I am on your side. That's why I'm not letting you decide you hate someone you met twelve hours ago." I paused. "How's your mum?"

Jade's expression softened, just slightly. "Happy," she said, and it came out complicated. "She's really happy, Avery. Which is the worst part of all of it."

I reached over and squeezed her knee and she let out a long breath.

"Okay," she said. "Enough about my disaster. Tell me about dinner. Tell me everything. I want to hear every detail about the most perfect birthday dinner and I want to be jealous about it."

I looked at her.

I had been practising how to say this in the cab on the way home. I had tried three different versions and none of them were good.

"There was no dinner," I said.

Jade's face went very still. "What?"

"I went to surprise Colton before he picked me up." I said it the way you pull off a plaster. Fast and flat. "I used the key he gave me and I opened the door. What a surprise it was to see that he wasn't alone."

The silence that followed was the specific kind that happens when your best friend is trying very hard not to react before she has the full picture.

"Who?" she said.

"Brianna."

Jade's mouth fell open.

"Brianna Holloway," I said. "In his bed. She looked right at me and smiled, Jade. She actually smiled."

"I will kill her." Jade said it quietly and completely calmly. "I will end her."

"She said—" I stopped and laughed, because even now it was so absurd. "She said we were even. Because I took the captain spot from her, she took my boyfriend from me."

"She said that to your face."

"To my face."

"In his room."

"While sitting in his bed."

Jade stared at me. Then she stood up, sat back down, and stood up again. "I cannot believe—I don't even—Avery, are you okay? How are you okay right now? Why do you look this calm?"

"I'm not calm," I said. "I'm very tired and I've had a very long night and calm is all I have left."

"What did you do after? Where did you go? You didn't go home and just sit with this on your own all night, did you?"

Before I could answer, my phone buzzed in my pocket.

I pulled it out and looked at the screen.

Colton.

Of course.

"Is that him?" Jade asked.

I looked at her. Then I looked at the phone. Then I turned the screen so she could see for herself.

Against my better judgement, I picked up.

"I was wondering when you were going to pick up," he said.

008: The audacity

Avery's POV

"I was wondering when you were going to pick up," Colton said.

His voice was calm, without any ounce of guilt present there. He didn't even sound particularly apologetic. Just smooth and measured and rehearsed, the voice of someone who had spent the last several hours deciding exactly how he wanted to open this conversation and had landed on calm as his best option.

"What do you want, Colton?" I said.

"I want to talk. Last night turned into something it did not have to be and I think we both deserve a proper conversation instead of just silence."

Jade was watching me from her chair with both eyebrows raised so high they had nearly disappeared. I held up one finger and she pressed her lips together and sat back.

"A proper conversation," I said.

"Yes. You didn't come to dinner, Avery. Do you know how long the waiting list is at Rossini's on a Friday night? I have been on it for three weeks. Three weeks of planning that birthday dinner and you just vanished without a call or a text. I was sitting at that table by myself for forty minutes."

I sat down on the edge of Jade's bed very carefully and gave myself one breath.

"Let me make sure I understand you," I said. "You are calling me the morning after I walked into your dorm room and found you in bed with another person and what you are opening with, the very first thing you want me to hear, is that you had a reservation and I missed it."

There was silence on the other end.

"I am trying to have a real conversation—"

"You had a reservation," I said. "You planned a birthday dinner. And several hours before that dinner, in the room you gave me a key to, I found you in bed with someone I know. She sat there and looked me in the face and smiled and you are calling me the next morning to talk about the table, like I was supposed to show up regardless of the situation." I paused. "Don't call me again."

Before he could say another word, I hung up.

I sat quietly for a moment. Then I looked at Jade, who had been reading my expression like a book for the past two minutes.

"I'm going to kill that bitch Brianna," she said. "How dare she?"

“Jade.”

"Colton too! The audacity he has to even call you right now!"

"Let it go Jade."

"You must be kidding right now. How dare he take you for a fool for eight months!?"

I let out a sigh, rolled my eyes and shook my head.

"I am going to at least say something to her at practice today," she said, and her voice had gone to that particular quiet that meant she was genuinely, seriously furious rather than just annoyed. When Jade was annoyed she was loud and immediate. When she went quiet like this she was deciding things. "I'm gonna confront that thieving bitch in front of the whole squad. Every single person there. She is not going to smile her way through it."

"Jade."

"She deserves it."

"She absolutely deserves it," I said. "But think about what happens the moment it becomes a scene. Coach Vega has one rule about personal business on her floor and you know exactly what it is. She pulls you from the lineup and Brianna gets to stand there and watch you get benched without doing a single visible thing to make it happen."

Jade's jaw locked.

“How are you even calm right now? You should be crazy with anger, at least at Colton for being so foolish.”

"Brianna has always been like this for two years," I said. "You already know it. Every single move she makes is designed to get a reaction. The moment you give her a scene she wins the whole thing and you handed it to her."

"So we just walk in there like nothing happened. No way!"

"We walk in there," I said, "and we run the practice sharper than we ever have and we don't give her the satisfaction of watching me go crazy. We give her absoynothing to work with. Not today. I bet that will drive her more crazy than a reaction would."

Jade stared at the ceiling. Her hands were in tight fists at her sides.

"Fine," she said at last. "Just for today. But I am not done."

"Good," I said. "Neither am I."

She exhaled slowly and the rigid set of her shoulders came down slightly. She looked at me then in the way she did when she was done being furious and was checking in properly.

"Are you okay?" she said.

It was harder to answer than it should have been. I had been holding myself together so carefully since yesterday afternoon that I had not actually stopped to ask myself that question honestly.

"I will be," I said. And I meant it, which was different from being okay right now, and Jade knew the difference without me explaining it.

She picked up her bag. "Come on. Let's go to the mall or something before I change my mind to pound Brianna."

I followed her out of the room and down the stairs.

We reached the kitchen doorway and I saw him again.

Liam had his back to us.

He was at the counter still in the same grey shirt, spreading butter across a piece of toast with the unhurried ease of someone who had been waking up in this house every morning for years and not someone who had arrived less than an hour ago.

I stopped walking and stared at his frame.

Everything in me went very quiet and very focused all at once, because standing a few feet away with his back to me was the person I had spent one of the most memorable nights of my life with.

My whole body remembered before my brain had a chance to do anything useful about it.

I pressed my feet flat to the floor and tried to fix my face so it wouldn't show exactly what I was thinking about at that moment.

Jade walked past me and her footsteps made him turn around. He looked at Jade first and nodded. Then his eyes moved past her to the doorway and found me.

His expression was easy and open and still completely without recognition of who I was.

"Hi. I'm sorry about the door. I just moved in this morning," he said to me. The same voice. That deep kind-of-sexy boy voice that makes a girl's knees buckle.

"Liam, this is Avery," Jade said, reaching for her jacket from the chair. "She lives next door. She's been my best friend since we were eight." She said it with the weight of something that mattered. "Avery, this is Liam. Carter's son."

He looked at me.

And then he held out his hand.

I looked at it for one long second. The same hand that had been in my hair. That had held my face in the low light and traced slow lines along my sides and held me close afterward while his heartbeat hammered against my own chest.

That was barely twelve hours ago.

Now it was being held out to me in a kitchen as an introduction to a stranger.

I placed my hand in his and shook it.