Page 66 of Falling For My Ex's Older Brother

"I'm not going to answer that the way you want me to," I say.

"I'm not asking you to." He takes a drink.

"I'm asking you what you're doing. Because from where I'm standing — and I've been standing close enough to watch this develop for months — you are not a man who brings someone to a Hargrove gala, introducesher to his parents, and declines invitations so he can go home earlier." He pauses.

"That's not you. That was never you."

"People change," I say.

"Not you. Not like this. Not in seven months." He looks at me.

"What does she know?"

"She knows enough."

"Does she know what you just told me?"

"I didn't tell you anything."

"Logan." Charlie sets his glass down on the window ledge.

"You just told me everything. The fact that you're standing here defending it instead of shutting it down the way you shut everything down is the whole answer." He shakes his head slowly.

"I've known you for twenty-two years. I've watched you walk away from things most men would have held onto with both hands because they complicated your life. And here you are — seven months in, declining dinner invitations, your mother calling Paul — and you're looking at me like I'm the one with the problem."

I don't say anything.

"I'm not judging you," Charlie says. His voice is quieter now.

"I'm the last person who would judge you for this. I just need you to know that whatever you've been telling yourself about what this is — the people around you stopped believing it a long time ago." He picks up his glassagain.

"She deserves to know that."

The room is quiet.

I look out at the city for a long moment. The lights. The bay in the distance. San Francisco doing what it does regardless of what happens in this apartment.

"I know," I say.

Charlie nods once. He finishes his drink. He sets the glass down and picks up his jacket.

"That's all I've got," he says.

"The rest is yours."

He lets himself out. I stand at the window after he's gone and finish my drink. I hold what he said in the specific way I hold things that are true and inconvenient — directly, without flinching.

***

My mother calls Saturday morning. I'm reviewing the week's correspondence when her name appears on my screen. I answer it the way I always answer her calls — immediately and with the understanding that the conversation will take however long it takes.

"Good morning," she says.

"Morning, Mom."

"I spoke to Paul." She says it without preamble, which means she's already decided how this conversation is going to go.

"I heard."