Page 63 of Falling For My Ex's Older Brother

"Your parents were there," I say. Not a question. Not a denial.

"Yeah. Mom called after. She said Logan brought someone. Said she was impressive." A beat.

"Didn't realize it was you until she described her a little."

"We were at the same event," I say.

"Logan needed someone to attend with him. It was a professional arrangement."

"Sure." He says it with the specific flatness of a man who has decided what he thinks and is waiting to see what I do with that.

The silence between us stretches. Outside my window San Francisco does its afternoon thing — the light, the fog beginning to move off the bay, the city going about its business entirely indifferent to this phone call.

"Caleb," I say. "Was there something you wanted to talk about?"

"No." He exhales. "Just checking in. It's been a while." Another pause.

"We should catch up properly at some point."

"Sure," I say. "We should."

"Okay." His voice shifts — lighter again, wrapping up.

"Take care of yourself, Sutton."

"You too," I say.

The line goes quiet. I set my phone face down on my desk. I sit for a moment without moving. Throughthe open door of Logan's office I can hear the low cadence of his voice on a call — steady, focused, entirely unaware of what just happened twenty feet away.

Caleb knows.

Not everything — not the affair, not the months between the end of us and whateverthisis now. But he knows enough. His mother described someone and the description fit and now Caleb is doing what Caleb does when something lands on his radar that he hasn't decided how to handle yet — gathering information, staying casual, keeping his options open.

I know him well enough to know that the easy tone of this call wasn't the whole conversation. It was the first one. The second one will be different. I pick up the expansion framework document. I find my place on the page. I read the same paragraph three times before I retain it.

The quiet is ending. I don't know what shape the ending takes or when it arrives. But the call was a tremor and I felt the ground move underneath it and I know with the clarity of someone paying close attention that something is coming. I don't know exactly what, but I know it's coming.

Logan's call ends. I hear his chair. A moment later he appears in the doorway — jacket on, already moving into the next part of the day.

"The 2:00 is in the main conference room," he says.

"Bring the expansion brief."

"Alreadyhave it," I say.

He looks at me for a half-second longer than the exchange requires.

"You alright?"

"Fine," I say. "Ready when you are."

He holds my gaze for one more beat. Then he nods and moves toward the conference room and I pick up the brief and follow him and I carry the weight of the phone call somewhere he can't see it.

For now that's enough. The afternoon moves forward.

Chapter Seventeen

Logan