Page 6 of Falling For My Ex's Older Brother

Sutton: Definitely. Wine sounds like the right answer.

Jenna: Great. Let’s meet at 6:30. That place by The Grove.

Sutton: Perfect. See you then.

Seated at a corner table in the Jenna listens the way she always listens — fully, without interrupting, with the occasional expression that tells me she's already ten steps ahead in her thinking. When I finish she takes a long sip ofher wine and looks at me with the directness that is one of her defining qualities.

"You seem fine," she says, with the tone of someone who finds this suspicious.

"I am fine." I tear off a piece of bread.

"I'm better than fine, honestly. The job was good experience but I wasn't growing. If the acquisition hadn't happened I probably would have started looking in another six months anyway."

"Sooo…you'renotdevastated," she says.

"No," I agree.

"That's your answer, then." She says it simply, like it's obvious, because to Jenna most things that people spend a lot of time complicating are actually quite obvious.

"If losing the job doesn't break your heart, then the job wasn't..it. So what's..it?"

I tell her about tech. About San Francisco. About Caleb's mention of his brother's company and the resume I'm planning to send.

She raises an eyebrow. "You'd actually move?"

"I'm thinking about it."

She's quiet for a moment, swirling her wine glass.

"I think you've been thinking about it for longer than today."

She's not wrong. I don't tell her that — I just finish my wine and let her refill it.

Jenna watches me across the table with the particular expression she reserves for moments when she thinks I am being more pragmatic than the situation warrants.

"And back to Caleb…how's that going? He’s really OK with you talking about San Francisco?"

I consider how to answer this accurately.

"Yes. He’s the one that offered the referral for the hiring manager." I say.

She reaches for her wine and says nothing, which from Jenna is a very specific kind of response.

I change the subject. She lets me, because she is a good friend, and because some things do not require being said aloud to be understood by both parties in a conversation. We spend the next two hours talking about everything and nothing.

When I leave the dinner, I feel lighter than I have in months.

Two weeks pass.

I’ve begun to quietly conclude that the Drake Industries contact was always going to be what most contacts in hiring pipelines are — a courtesy with a shelf life of about ten days before it expires into the category ofdidn't pan out.I’m not bitter about it. I’ve rerouted my search accordingly and have two promising conversations in progress with firms that are making the right noises about the kind of role I am actually looking for.

It’s Thursday afternoon when my phone rings..

I’m at my kitchen island with a market research report open on one screen and a cover letter draft on the other, and when the call comes through — unknown number, San Francisco area code — I feel something shift in my chest that I can't immediately name. Not excitement exactly, but something quieter andmore electric, the specific sensation of a door swinging open in a hallway you had stopped walking down.

I take a deep breath as I answer before the third ring…

"Sutton Kane," I say.