Page 21 of The Player Next Door
“I wanted to know what’s bugging you, but now I do.” She pulled her long dark ponytail over her shoulder, her smile poisonously sweet. “You’ve got a cruuuush.”
He shook his head, because that wasn’t it. He was annoyed with Brooks because he had a plan, and Brooks was deliberately fucking it up. Plus, Clare deserved better than Brooks, who was, at best, a bit of a dick. “Like I said, it’s complicated.”
Sam frowned. “I really don’t think it is, but sure, if that’s what you need to tell yourself.”
Logan downed half his drink in one gulp, earning him yet another eyebrow raise, this time from Sam. He decided to try and redirect the situation. He stepped over to Clare and Brooks, letting his slightly broader shoulders nudge his so-called friend to the side. Behind him, Sam rolled her eyes and headed toward the restroom. “How’s it going, Clare?” he asked, ignoring Brooks entirely. He was going to get a truckload of shit from the Aidens at work on Monday, but he’d deal with that later.
It was hard to interpret Clare’s expression. He was usually better at reading people. There was something different about her; something that made him second-guess himself.
Brooks answered instead. “I’m trying to get your girl here to agree to play me at Monopoly,” he said with a leer over Clare’s head at Logan.
Logan could not believe they were still talking about fucking Monopoly, but then again, it was Brooks. He didn’t have a lot of conversational options. “Don’t. He’ll cheat,” Logan warned her with a grin that he knew from experience made her ears go red. Right on cue, the tips of Clare’s ears pinked up and suddenly, Logan felt a bit better. Her smile warmed his belly, and he was feeling pretty damn pleased with himself when Brooks spoke again. “Logan’s just a pussy who can’t take losing.”
Clare grimaced at his phrasing, and for the hundredth time Logan kicked himself for thinking this was a good idea. Maybe if he could get Clare to talk to Sam more, it might give off a better impression. At this rate, Clare was going to think his friends were creeps and tell her aunt to fire them all.
“Logan’s a poor sport, you mean?” she said sweetly.
“One time I crushed his ass in one-on-one and he was mad at me for days,” Brooks bragged.
Logan had been mad because Brooks blatantly fouled him and denied it, but sure, he could tell it that way if he wanted. Logan shrugged like he didn’t give a shit. “Like I said, he cheats.”
Brooks looked annoyed. “I did not,” he argued.
Logan downed the rest of his drink, belatedly remembering it was his third and his dinner had just been a frozen dinner from Smorgasbord when his stomach gave an unpleasant lurch. “Agree to disagree,” Logan said tightly, acutely aware Clare was watching them closely.
Brooks rolled his eyes and turned back to Clare. “So how about it?” he asked.
She looked confused. “How about what?”
“That game of Monopoly. Logan’s got his panties in a twist, so we could get out of here. Go some place quiet.”
Logan’s jaw fell open, because even by the Aidens’ standards, that was low. Sure, Clare had specified she didn’t want it to be a date, a fact Logan was still trying to find a way around, but he had brought her with him. For Brooks to offer to take her home was a betrayal.
Clare looked at Brooks for a long moment, almost like she was considering it, and then shook her head. Her blonde hair swished back and forth with the movement. “I think I need to get going, unfortunately. Thanks for all your, um, thoughts on board games.” She turned to Logan, examining him critically. “And I think you need to get home, too. You look kind of . . . green.”
Hefeltgreen. Chartreuse, to be specific. Anger and too much alcohol and not enough food was a bad combination, and Logan realized belatedly he had driven Clare there. Normally he just took a RideShare, but he’d wanted this to feel as much like a date as a not-date could. Except now he was too drunk to drive, making him look like he hadn’t thought about getting her home.
But Clare was, as usual, a step ahead of him. “Why don’t you give me the keys,” she said when Brooks was distracted by the return of his friend. “I just had the one gin and tonic, and it was weak as hell.”
Logan frowned. “I’ll talk to Kay about that,” he said.
“Sorry?”
“Kay. The bartender. She’s, uh, a friend of mine.” He knew he probably shouldn’t sayI fucked her too, but Logan was very out of practice at this andfriendwas the best he could come up with on the spot.
“Mmm. A friend. A friend you made the same way you met Sam?”
Leave it to Sam to tell my date that we fucked.“Yep.”
“And me.”
Logan wanted to protest, but she was right. She was right and his brain was too muddled to muster a coherent argument, so he just followed her to where Sam was talking to a journalist friend Logan vaguely recognized. She was a lesbian though, so at least he hadn’t fucked her, too. He was not making the best impression on Clare, but he was also now too drunk to fix it.
He dimly heard Sam offer to drive him home, but Clare brushed her off by explaining she lived in the same building. Sam looked far too interested in that detail, but Logan would also deal with that later.
Future Logan was going to have a lot of problems, the poor bastard.
Logan leaned on Clare a little as they weaved through the crowd. She was the perfect height for that, all short and cute and shit. She didn’t seem to mind, and they had made it down the narrow staircase and through most of the downstairs bar before she stopped short.