Page 14 of The Player Next Door
Logan gave her a mock salute and headed for her bedroom. He moved with an easy, unconscious grace; as she watched his backside, Clare wondered idly if he’d ever taken dance classes.
Blinking herself out of yet another reverie, Clare checked the muffins and pulled them out to cool. Logan took his time in her room, and she wondered if maybe he was hiding from Aunt Peggy. That wouldn’t be the worst thing, but Aunt Peggy tended to be very perceptive and would probably notice his shoes at the door. She’d put two and two together fast enough.
But Logan proved her wrong yet again as he strode out of her bedroom in the long-sleeved, button-down shirt he’d been wearing yesterday. It was considerably more crumpled than it had been in the elevator, but there was no helping that. He picked up a muffin, juggling it from hand to hand because they were still hot, and grinned mischievously at her just as Aunt Peg’s key turned in the lock.
Kiki’s nails pattered against the hardwood floor as the dog trotted in happily, her owner close on her heels. “Sorry I’m so early, but I thought I’d get a start on—” Aunt Peggy stopped, a curious expression crossing her face.
“A start on what? And Aunt Peggy, this is my, um, neighbor Logan,” Clare said, glancing over at Logan.
He looked like he’d seen a ghost.
Chapter Nine
There wasn’t anything Logan could do except stare, because this wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be. This was a nightmare, and at some point he would wake up in his own bed, relieved to discover it was all a dream and that his boss hadn’t just walked into the apartment of his latest hookup.
Logan blinked. Peggy Roth fixed him with a stern look and no, this wasn’t a nightmare or a hallucination. This was real, and this was hell.
“Good morning, Mr. Walsh,” she said coolly.
“Morning, uh, ma’am,” he said. Logan rarely ever used her name in the office, never quite sure if Ms. Roth, or Peggy, or Madame Vice President was more appropriate. “Ma’am” seemed sufficiently deferential though, and Logan was prepared to do his best impression of a private greeting a general if necessary.
Why the fuck didn’t I leave last night?he thought, annoyed with himself for being so sappy. Clare had been so cute he hadn’t wanted to, even though he almost never bothered to stay the night with anyone. And now the universe was making him pay for that moment of sentimentality.
Clare looked between them, clearly bewildered. “Wait, you know each other?”
“He works for me,” Peggy said. “I take it you didn’t know that,” she added, with a look askance at Logan.
He was completely fucked.
“Definitely not,” he said as quickly as possible, just as Clare shook her headnoto her aunt’s question. “We’re, uh, neighbors. Like she said.”Please don’t ask why I’m here at nine in the morning in the clothes I was wearing at the office yesterday, please don’t ask why I’m here at nine in the—
“I see,” Peggy said in a tone that indicated she knewexactlywhy Logan was there at nine in the morning in the clothes he’d been wearing at the office yesterday.
You like the chase, Mr. Walsh.Perhaps Peggy had a point, and not just about his work.
Clare’s smile wavered. “So, you’re off to Duluth?” she said to Peggy, clearly struggling to sound casual. Logan was no help, because his mind was just a steady stream offuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuuuuuuuuuck.
“Little farther this time; going up to Bayfield. There’s some good camping around there in the National Forest,” Peggy said with yet another side-eye toward him.
“Aunt Pegs likes camping,” Clare said, and then furrowed her brow. “Or I guess . . . you’d know that?”
The barest glimmer of a smile flitted across Peggy Roth’s face. “I don’t really talk about my hobbies at work, so he probably doesn’t.”
“That sounds, uh, fun,” Logan said unconvincingly. He briefly wondered why she wouldn’t take her dog camping—as far as he knew, dogs loved that shit—but as always, Peggy Roth was one step ahead of him.
“Kiki gets carsick on long trips,” she explained. “And Clare loves her, so she stays here.”
Logan made an understanding noise and for two painful hours—or maybe just ten seconds—the three of them looked at each other. “Well,” Peggy said, clapping her hands together. “I guess I’m off then.”
Clare moved over to kiss her aunt on the cheek, walking her to the door and closing it behind her. She bent to absently scratch Kiki’s head on her way back, while Logan’s heartbeat tried and failed to return to normal.
“Well, that was awkward as hell, sorry about that,” Clare said with a grin that Logan desperately wanted to return. But the easy banter of just a few minutes ago had evaporated, because all Logan could think about was the conversation he’d had with Peggy the other day. About how immature he was, how he needed to stop playing the field and settle down.
And now he’d gone and fucked her niece.
Logan headed off the court to the bench where they stored their water bottles. Once a week he played a pick-up basketball game with some of his coworkers at an outdoor court just across the river from downtown. To be perfectly honest they weren’t the best group of guys, but they were probably the closest thing to a group of friends Logan had outside of Sam. Well, Vince was decent, but he only played occasionally, thanks to having a brand-new baby at home.
Being in his late twenties was strange, sometimes. It was perfectly normal and acceptable to have friends with wives and babies and mortgages, like Vince, and friends who still lived in slightly shitty bachelor pads, like the Aidens. Logan felt like he was somewhere in the middle, since he had a decent apartment that didn’t reek of cologne like the Aidens’, but he and the Aidens did share the same hobby of sleeping around. But sometimes he didn’t like having that in common with them, as there was a mercenary bent to the way the Aidens approached it that made him vaguely uncomfortable sometimes.