Page 25 of The Player Next Door

“You could do that, or you could live dangerously and go hang out on the roof with me.”

“So you can throw me over the edge? Not a chance,” he said, grinning.

“You realize I would have to lift you up like, four feet in order to get you over the edge, and that’s not even considering that I can at best lift one-third your body weight?”

“Don’t sell yourself short. You’re little, but I bet you’re strong.”

“You’d still have to want to go over the edge is all I’m saying.”

“I’ll bring the knife, just in case.”

“Good plan.” She flashed him a smile and lifted the tote bag draped over her arm. “I brought some rolls I baked and some fancy cheese. I figured you would want to supply the wine.”

“You figured right,” he said, already heading to his wine fridge. It was one of the handful of amenities that made his apartment an extra $300 a month, but he felt it was worth it. “Red or white?”

“Don’t care,” she shrugged, and he shook his head.

“I get not caring what type of grapes. Theoretically. Only a monster doesn’t care that Riesling and Sauvignon Blanc are entirely different tastes that go with drastically different foods, but not even caring if it’s red or white? That’s appalling,” he grumbled. She shrugged again, and Logan sighed. “It’s warm outside, so we’ll go with a Chardonnay,” he said, pulling one out.

“I thought wine snobs looked down on Chardonnay.”

“There’s a season for every type of wine, and sharp cheese on a warm day is definitely Chardonnay season.”

“If you say so,” she said, jerking her chin toward the door. “Ready?”

Logan grabbed two glasses and a corkscrew and followed her out.

It was surprisingly empty on the rooftop patio, considering how nice the evening was. There was an older couple sitting at the high top table with their own bottle of wine, and two women in their late twenties snuggling on the outdoor sectional, but it was otherwise deserted. He led them to his favorite corner; two loungers with big, thick orange cushions surrounding a small table with a view of the river.

The sunset was still in full glory, the towering clouds scudding across the sky toward the darkening east. A breeze brought a faint whiff of river mixed with the gasoline and baking asphalt of downtown in the summer, and he watched Clare settle into her chair and close her eyes, strain in her neck and shoulders suddenly melting away.

“Rough day at work?” he asked.

She opened her eyes to accept the glass of wine he poured. “Just long. We’re working on a new one-shot campaign, and we have to present it to Leadership in about a month. It’s a lot of work, and higher stakes than you’d think.”

A boyfriend would ask questions here, he thought. He was alarmingly out of practice at this—with Sam and the guys they mostly just made fun of each other. He couldn’t remember the last time he asked one of them about their feelings.

“What’s a one-shot?”

“Most of our stories are open-ended. It’s more about the set-up and the world, and then the players take it from there. But a one-shot is a contained story, or in my case, a world with more specific, directed world-building for players and Game Masters to use, with established characters to help guide new players. Or at least, that’s what I’m pitching, although my team wasn’t that pumped about it.”

“Did you want to talk about it?”

Her silence was contemplative. “I don’t always feel like I fit in with my team.”

He could tell this wasn’t something she would say to just anyone, but he still wanted to tread carefully. “I should have been more of a dick to Noah, you’re saying.”

She chuckled. “No, it’s not that. More just that I’m . . . not quite overlooked, but always half a step behind, you know?”

“Like you’re not good enough?” He knew how that felt, although thinking about Peggy and the Schneider account made his stomach twist uncomfortably.

He wasn’t using Clare. Notreally. He was just using the fact that they got along well to solve an unrelated problem he was having. That was all.

“Kind of. Our boss is this really larger-than-life guy, and the rest of the guys on the team just seem to be more what he’s looking for. I’m just playing catch-up all the time. And there’s this job that might be available, and I want it so badly, you know? But I need to stand out more, I think. I’m easily overlooked.”

That felt hard for him to believe, because how could anyone not pay attention to Clare? She was funny, and clever, and seemed to know that Quest game back to front.

“Maybe that isn’t the real problem,” he said, thinking out loud. “Maybe they just aren’t hearing you.”