Page 68 of Falling For My Ex's Older Brother

Caleb: Noon works. Sightglass Cafe.

I think about it for a moment. Somewhere public. Neutral. Not my neighborhood, not anywhere near the office.

Sutton: That’s fine.

Caleb: See you then.

I put the phone in my bag and I go back to the foundation brief. This time I read it all the way through.

The rest of Monday moves the way Mondays move when there is something sitting underneath everything — present, low-grade, impossible to fully ignore.

Logan has a full day scheduled. A 9:00 call with the AI division team runs long, which means the 10:30 donor brief I've prepared gets pushed to 11:15, which means the afternoon restructures itself accordingly. I manage the cascade without breaking stride — rescheduling two calls, flagging a conflict in the client relations calendar, pulling the revised expansion timeline Keith needs before his 2:00. By noon I've handled six separate tasks that weren't on this morning's agenda.

This is the job. I'm good at it. On most days I find genuine satisfaction in the machineryof it — the way a complicated day can be untangled and reassembled into something functional if you move quickly and think ahead. Today I'm grateful for it. The work keeps my hands busy and my mind occupied and every time the thought of tomorrow's lunch starts to surface I redirect it back to whatever is in front of me.

At 1:00 Logan calls me into his office to review the revised infrastructure grant documentation. I sit across from his desk with my notepad and we go through it section by section — his questions precise, my answers prepared, the familiar back and forth of two people who have learned each other's professional rhythms down to the sentence level. He marks two items for revision and approves the rest.

"The Caldwell follow-up," he says, closing the folder.

"Where does that stand?"

"Draft sent this morning," I say.

"I'm expecting a response by Wednesday."

He nods. He looks at me for a moment — not the lingering look, just the brief assessment he does when he's deciding if there's anything else.

"The Clara Reeves meeting," he says.

"How did the call go?"

"Well." I keep my voice even.

"She wants to meet in person. We're looking at next week."

Something moves in his expression — brief, contained.

"Good," he says.

That's all. I take that as the end of the meeting and go back to my desk.

The afternoon fills up fast. A vendor dispute that needs mediating. A presentation deck for Thursday's board prep that requires three rounds of revision before it's where it needs to be. A last-minute request from the foundation's legal team that I handle in forty minutes flat. By 4:00 I have covered more ground than most people manage in a full day and the clock is still moving.

At 5:15 I'm finishing the final deck revision when Logan appears in my doorway. Jacket on. The end-of-day version of him — not softer exactly, but the slight unwinding that happens when the floor has cleared and the performance of the day is closing down.

He looks at me. "You were quiet today," he says.

"Long day." I save the document.

"Everything's handled."

He holds my gaze for a beat longer than the exchange requires. He doesn't push. He nods once and moves toward the elevator and I watch him go and I think about how well I know this man — the set of his shoulders, the economy of his movements, the way he carries everything without appearing to feel the weight of it.

I think about what Caleb is going to say tomorrow. The thought gives me a slight wave of anxiety as I lock my desk and I go home.

Maggie is on the couch when I get in. I drop my bag at the door and sit beside her without taking my coat off and she looks at me and immediately mutes the television.

"Caleb's in San Francisco," I say.