Page 28 of The Player Next Door
It would have been easier to just throw it away. Logan always felt jittery when people looked at his art, like they were seeing something about him he was desperately trying to hide. He had learned to stop babbling at his art professors whenever they checked in on his progress in college, and at least half the reason he never pursued a formal minor in art was because it would involve more people seeing his work.
“It’s not much,” he said, unable to help himself as he pushed the notebook back. “I haven’t drawn in a while, and I wasn’t taking my time, and hands are really hard, and—”
Clare reached for the notebook, shaking her head. “I can’t draw anything, so you’re way ahead of me.” She stopped, studying his sketch, and a tiny smile crept across her face. “My hand?”
“It was the nearest thing,” he mumbled. The smile stayed and her cheeks turned pink, her teeth sinking into her lower lip. “It’s nothing,” he said, regretting everything and leaning forward to try and snatch it back. “Like I said, hands are hard and—”
Clare yanked it out of his reach. “Hey, I’m not done looking at this,” she scolded. “No one’s ever drawn me before.” She peered at it closely. “You’re very talented, you know.”
“I’m okay,” Logan said, with uncharacteristic modesty. But he’d always been like that with his art, which was maybe why he’d stopped it in the first place. He liked things that were easier, less personal.
“I work with artists, though, so I know a thing or two. You’re really good.”
Logan’s face felt hot. “You think so?”
“I do,” she said, and did that head tilt thing. “And for the record, the fact that you’re blushing right now? Super cute.” The sky had gone the vivid electric blue of late twilight in the city, her hair shining out against it.
“Cute? That almost feels like an insult.”
“I feel like your ego gets fed enough, quite frankly,” she said, and he laughed. He couldn’t help it—he liked it when she teased him. Usually his flirtations were more charged, layered with innuendo as he danced around theDo you want to fuck?question. With Clare, it was more like hanging out with Sam—teasing mixed with genuine friendship. It was easy with her, but challenging, too.
Logan should have thought things through better. He frequently had stupid ideas, as Sam was fond of saying, and he needed to run them by a competent adult before carrying out his plan. But he had dug himself a hole and was just going to have to keep digging until Schneider came back and Clare got bored with him.
Because women always, always did. Logan knew what he was good for, and he also knew what women thought of him: insubstantial and ultimately inconsequential. It didn’t hurt, not really, but sometimes it would be made so clear he couldn’t avoid it, like with Amber, and that wasn’t the most fun. He figured it was inevitable with Clare, so all he had to do was wait.
But the moment he saw her in that dumb unicorn onesie, he should have known it wouldn’t be quite so easy. He’d never met anyone as secure as Clare, as sure of herself and uninterested in living up to societal expectations. Sam came close, except he had never once—not even the night they slept together—looked at Sam’s face the way he’d been looking at Clare’s, like he wanted to memorize it to draw later.
“Besides,” Clare continued, still laughing, “as someone who has been calledcutemore times than I can count, often in the context of letting me down ‘gently,’” she put air quotes aroundgently, “well, yeah, it can be an insult, but you know when it’s meant that way.” A pang of guilt skittered through his ribcage. But he reminded himself he actually liked spending time with her, so needing to convince her to show up to a meal with Schneider wasn’t the worst thing in the world. It had occurred to him he could justaskher to go to the dinner, but with Peggy being both his boss and her aunt, he didn’t want her to feel caught in the middle.
No, this route was better. Riskier, maybe, but better in the long run.
Besides, there was absolutely no way a woman like her—smart and put-together and confident—wanted him for anything long term or remotely serious. Getting her to dinner with Schneider was the best he could do.
“Obviously, I didn’t mean it that way for you. It’s more—endearing, is all,” Clare clarified.
“Endearing,” he repeated. No one had ever described him that way, he realized.
He liked it.
Chapter Fifteen
Clare still couldn’t get over it. Logan, a man with more than a little streak of exhibitionism in him, was blushing. Because he’d drawn a picture of her. Well, her hand. But still. She had been second-guessing herself when she knocked on his door, because what she wassupposedto be doing was finding more one-night stands and getting more of that specific kind of experience Craig apparently felt she needed. She had tried telling herself this was just a test, making sure that shecouldhave a one-night stand and not try and date the guy. If Craig thought she was only capable of being a girlfriend-girl, she would prove him wrong. That was what she had told herself when she left her apartment to ask Logan up to the roof, anyway.
But Logan was . . . irresistible. She suspected he knew that and used it to his full advantage, but she was also powerless against it. And now, with him blushing because of her compliment, she found herself making excuses. She could just fudge it for Craig, maybe learn some more about Logan’s life and use those elements in her writing; anything that would let her keep talking to him instead of downloading a dating app and wading through theHey, cutiemessages until she found someone she liked even one-tenth as much as she liked spending time with Logan.
“What about you?” he asked. “I need to even the scales. What’s something embarrassing about you?”
“You already know all of it,” she pointed out. “Also, I refuse to be embarrassed by anything. I like what I like, and you should too. There’s nothing embarrassing about drawing, either.”
“Come on,” he wheedled. “There must be something. I just showed you something I never show anyone.”
She thought for a minute. “Okay, it’s not a hobby or anything, but it is . . . silly. My friends know about it already, though.”
“Silly is good.”
“You’ll laugh.”
“Even better.”