Page 36 of Falling For My Ex's Older Brother

I think about Paul saying “make sure you know what you're doing’. I think about what she just told me and what it means. I go home with all of it and don't sleep well for an entirely different reason than the night before.

***

The next evening at the office, the floor clears by 8:00pm. I know she's still at her desk — I can hear the quiet movements of someone finishing something they intend to complete before they leave. I'm at my desk with my jacket on, going through tomorrow's calendar. Icouldleave. Ishouldleave.

I hear her footsteps cross the corridor, and then—a knock at my open door. She's holding a folder — the board prep summary I asked for earlier in the week, completed a day ahead of schedule. She steps inside and sets it on the desk in front of me. When she straightens she finds me already looking at her, which is not something I manage to conceal in time.

"Board summary," she says.

"Ahead of your Friday deadline."

"I see that." I take the folder. I don't open it.

"Close the door."

Something moves across her face. She turns and closes the door. When she faces me again her chin is slightly lifted — watchful, composed, giving me nothing for free. I stand up come around the desk and stop a few feet from her. The office is quiet around us. Whatever gets said next gets said in here.

"I owe you something," I say.

She waits.

"An apology." The word doesn't come naturally and she can probably hear that.

"For how things happened. Last week." I hold her gaze.

"That's not — it shouldn't have happened the way it did."

She looks at me for a moment.

"I don't expect an apology."

"I know you don't. That's not why I'm giving it."

A beat. "Then why are you?"

"Because you deserved better than that." I pause.

"Better than me losing my grip in my own office and not giving you the choice of—"

"I had a choice," she says. Her voice is level but there's something underneath it.

"I made it."

The room shifts slightly.

"Did you," I say.

"Yes." She holds her ground.

"Don't rewrite it into something that happened to me. It didn't."

I look at her. She looks back. The folder in my hand is irrelevant. The desk behind me is irrelevant. There is only the six feet of office between us and the thing neither of us has said out loud and the fact that Paul's voice is somewhere in the back of my head sayingmake sure you know what you're doing.

"You told me something at the bar," I say.

"About Caleb."

Her jaw tightens slightly. "I did."