Page 1 of The Player Next Door

Chapter One

The lives of millions of people hung in the balance. They were moments away from complete destruction, and the fate of the entire continent of Sulzuris depended entirely on what Clare did next.

But first, she needed Kiki to pee, and she needed her to peenow.“Come on, just get on with it,” Clare said and tapped her foot, impatient with the little fuzzball’s pickiness. “Everyone is going to kill me if I’m late.” Normally she left herself plenty of time for Kiki’s walk before a Quest—especially when they were about to pick back up on a cliff-hanger like Devi left them on last week—but she lived on the fifth floor and the elevator was out. Again.

Kiki sniffed the tree and circled it for the third time. Clare sighed. “It’s the exact same spot you always pee in, you don’t need to make this a whole production.”

“Does that work?”

Clare spun on her heel and found herself face to face with none other than Mr. 6B himself, he of the unfairly handsome face and habit of eating out his lady friends on his living room couch. (Okay, it was just theonelady friend, and it wasone time. It wasn’t like she was a perv. It was just that his living room was straight out her kitchen window, and she justhappenedto see it. It wasn’t like shewatched.Much.) “Does what work?” she asked and tugged at her sweatshirt, wishing she was wearing something—anything—a little more flattering than a hoodie withZutara Foreverwritten across the front.

Not that she was ashamed of her hoodie—Zuko and Katara should have ended up together, as anyone who had seenAvatar: The Last Airbenderwould agree—but when faced with a man who looked like he stepped out of a cologne ad, she wished she was wearing just about anything more sophisticated.

“Berating your dog into peeing.”

Kiki finally got down to business. It was the exact same spot as when Clare brought her down earlier, the bark on the base of the tree still damp, and Clare had to stifle her sigh. “She’s not my dog,” Clare said stupidly, because, well, why was he talking to her? And how did people talk to him when looking at the handsomeness full-on was like staring directly into the sun?

He shifted his Smorgasbord tote into the other hand. She had heard a woman in the elevator call him Logan once, which fit.Logans were insouciant, laid-back, and cocky, and 6B fit the bill all too well. His eyes were icy blue, a fact that was utterly irrelevant to literally everything, and wow, she needed to stop gawking at him. “You just go around, stealing other people’s dogs, and then badger them into peeing faster?” he asked.

“I was notbadgering,” she protested, reminding herself at the last second not to use his name. She had no reason to know it and appearing to know it would make her seem like a stalker. Oblivious to her mental panic, Logan grinned. Clare had never actually been in the direct path of one of his smiles before and she really hoped he had a permit or something because that shit was deadly. “I was just getting her to hurry up, because Kiki is fussy.”

“Still wondering how a dog that isn’t yours ended up being your responsibility.” He rested his shoulder against the young birch tree planted in the boulevard.

“Oh well, it’s simple. I steal dogs, and take them on walks, and then ransom them back to their owners.”

“Wouldn’t opening a dog-walking business be easier? And less illegal?”

“But then where’s the rush? No high to be had in following the law.”

“Oh, I get it, you’re an adrenaline junkie,” he said with a soft laugh.

Part of Clare felt like she was floating above herself, and another part wondered if she was hallucinating. Was she really flirting with him? He was so far out of her league it wasn’t even funny, but maybe that was it. He was so hot he barely counted as a person to her brain, more like a very sexy mirage who could talk. “That’s definitely me. I’m an adrenaline junkie and criminal, definitely not a dork who lives for Quest for Sulzuris and dog-sits for her aunt.”

“Okay, intrigued about whatever that quest thing is, but I see we’re finally solving the mystery of the dog’s ownership.”

“It wasn’t really a mystery, you just never asked who she belonged to,” Clare volleyed back. This was almost as much fun as fighting off a pack of orcs, a reference Sir Hotness obviously wouldn’t get, because guys with faces like that unfortunately did not play fantasy tabletop role-playing games. And Clare would know, because she didn’t just play Quest for Sulzuris, she worked for it, too. An awful lot of the players, not to mention her coworkers, were the exact stereotype people first thought of when you said “fantasy tabletop role-playing game.” She mostly worked with white dudes who had poorly maintained facial hair and assumed everyone in the world had an encyclopedic knowledge ofLord of the RingsandGame of Thrones, and yes, they could be exactly as annoying as it sounded. Quest Gaming was working on broadening their demographic—that was the reason she had wanted to work there in the first place—and there were a lot more people who played these sorts of games than most people assumed, but some stereotypes are hard to shake. Particularly when there’s just enough truth to them to make them plausible.

“And is this dog-sitting business of yours free? Or do you charge your elderly aunt an arm and a leg for it?”

“I’m pretty sure she’d protest thatelderlydescriptor, but yes, it’s free. It’s a tale as old as time: girl loves dogs, girl doesn’t have time for a dog of her own, girl agrees to dog-sit for beloved aunt and pretty much anyone else who asks.”

“So if I got a dog, you’d walk him for free too? In the service of being a good neighbor?”

A flush started creeping up her neck, because it hadn’t really occurred to her that he knew they were neighbors. It was obvious why she’d notice him, of course, but it never once crossed her mind that he might have noticed her too.

Clare made herself shrug lazily. “I’d probably charge you. No reason; I just want your money.”

“You’re a shark, aren’t you?” he laughed and honestly, she’d pay him money to smile at her like that all the time. He straightened up off the tree and tipped his chin at Kiki, who was now straining at her leash toward the lobby. “Looks like your friend wants to go back inside. See you around, neighbor,” he said, striding away like this was a totally normal interaction and not incredibly surreal.

“Come on, Kiki,” Clare muttered to the dog, and watched Logan walk into the building out of the corner of her eye. “Let’s get you home so I can get back to saving Sulzuris.”

Chapter Two

Logan ran his hand down Amber’s back, fingers gliding through the light sheen of sweat.

“Mmmm,” she sighed happily as she rolled over. She swung her long legs off the edge of his bed.

“Where are you going?” he asked. Amber never spent the night, but usually she waited a little longer before leaving.