Page 40 of Falling For My Ex's Older Brother

"Or is it his agreement that you've adopted because it felt easier than asking for something different?"

I open my mouth and close it again.

"I'm not judging you," she says quickly.

"I'm really not. But I know you, and I know that you don't actually do well with undefined. You think you do. You're very good at convincing yourself you do. But you crave things, Sutton. Real things."

"It's complicated."

"Everything worth anything is complicated." She tucks her feet under her on the couch.

"Has he taken you to his place?"

I look at her.

"Two months," she says.

"Has he invited you over?"

"No," I say.

"But I know his address — professionally. It's in the system."

"That's not the same thing and you know it." She says it gently but she says it.

"You know where he lives the way his accountant knows where he lives. That's different from him wanting you in his space."

The observation lands somewhere tender. I pick up my wine glass and don't answer right away.

"Maybe he's private," I say eventually.

"Maybe," Maggie says.

"Or maybe the hotel rooms are easier because they have checkout times. Because they don't require him to let you into anythingpermanent."

I sit with that for longer than I want to.

"You think I'm a secret?”

"I think you're both keeping each other as secrets," she says.

"And I think there's a difference between that being a choice and that being a situation you've just — slid into because neither of you wants to be the one to say what this actually is."

I stare at my wine glass. Outside the window Pacific Heights is doing its nighttime thing — quiet, fog, the particular stillness of a neighborhood that goes to bed at a reasonable hour.

"What do you want?" Maggie asks.

"Not what works. Not what's manageable. What do you actually want?"

I don't answer her. Not because I don't know. Because saying it out loud makes it real, and real things can be lost in ways that manageable things can't.

Maggie doesn't push. She refills my glass and changes the subject with the grace of someone who knows when to let a question breathe, and I love her for it. But the question stays with me when I go to bed.

***

It's still there Thursday morning when I pack my bag for Boston…

Logan is already at the gate when I arrive. Dark suit, no tie yet, coffee in hand, his attention on hisphone with the focused efficiency of a man who doesn't waste transit time. He glances up when I approach. His eyes move over me once — the way they always do now, unhurried and direct — and then he looks back at his phone.