Page 83 of Falling For My Ex's Older Brother

I set my bag down. I follow him. There's something on the stove —steak, potatoes, a couple different vegetables being sauteed, from the smell of it, something with an amazing marinade or sauce. He turns the searing pan with the focused attention he gives everything, his back to me, and I lean against the counter and watch him and I feel something move through my chest that I don't bother analyzing.

"Sit down," he says. "It's almost ready."

I sit at the kitchen island. He plates everything with the same precision he brings to a board presentation. He brings both plates to the table. He pours wine. He sits across from me and he looks at me with the evening version of his attention — unhurried, completely present.

"How was the rest of your day?" he asks.

It's such an ordinary question. The most ordinary question. I have never in all of these months heard himask it and mean it the way he means it right now — as a genuine inquiry into my afternoon, into what happened after he last saw me, into the texture of my day as a thing worth knowing about.

"Clara Reeves will be sending a formal offer," I say.

He sets his fork down. He looks at me.

"Tell me."

So I tell him. All of it — the position, the scope, the timeline, what it would mean professionally, what it would require personally. I tell him about the friction I've been sitting with all afternoon — the ambition and the complication of it and the fact that I've been trying to work out how to think about it independently of us before bringing it to him.

He listens. He doesn't interrupt. He doesn't redirect to solutions or immediate analysis. He listens the way he listened in Dallas when I told him something true — completely, with his full attention, letting it land before he responds. When I finish he's quiet for a moment.

"What do you want?" he asks.

"I want both," I say.

"The role…and...this. I want to know they can coexist."

"They can," he says without hesitation.

I look at him.

"You're not going to tell me what you think I should do?"

"No."

"Or whether it's a good opportunity?"

"You already know it's a good opportunity," he says.

"You don't need me to confirm that."

"Logan—"

"What I think," he says, leaning forward slightly, "is that you've been building toward something like this since before you walked into my office. And I think you already know what you want to do. You're here because you wanted to say it out loud to someone who has the full picture." He holds my gaze.

"So say it."

I look at him across the table — this man who for months communicated exclusively in corrections and directives and is now sitting in his own kitchen asking me what I want and actually waiting for the answer.

"I want to take it," I say.

"Then take it."

"It means leaving the EA role."

"I know what it means." His voice is steady.

"Your career isn't a threat to me. It's not a threat to us. If you stay in that role because of what we are, I'll know it. And so will you." He picks up his fork.

"Take the offer. See where it goes. We'll figure out the rest."