Page 33 of The Player Next Door
It was Saturday morning, which meant Clare should be baking soon. Logan sat down in the armchair that looked straight out his side window and into Clare’s apartment, peering into her kitchen. He felt weird—jittery, almost—and had since the other night on the rooftop. She had fallen asleep before him, hands pillowed under her cheek, and Logan had drifted off while watching her. The next morning, safe in his apartment, he had quickly sketched out what her face looked like while she was sleeping, and then immediately tore it up and threw it away. He still couldn’t decide if he’d done so because the sketch looked wrong, or if he’d thrown it away because it was just a little too right.
But right now, he couldn’t see her, and it was her usual baking time. He also had to make his lie real for Schneider, although he detested thinking of it that way. They were friends now, sure, but she still kept making jokes about how he wasn’t her boyfriend and he needed to change that. He pulled out his phone, determined not to think about the fact that he felt almost nervous.
Logan
Don’t you have baking to do this morning?
Clare
Stalker.
Logan
Want an assistant?
There was a slight pause before she replied.
Clare
If you’re offering.
Logan bit back a smile and looked up to find Clare standing at her kitchen window with her arms crossed. She made an exaggerated glance at her wrist, like she was checking the time, and then tapped it.
Logan
Be right there.
Clare had the ingredients spread out on the counter by the time he got to her place, and she jumped right in without preamble. “Have you ever baked before?” She was wearing a bright yellow T-shirt and jeans, looking for all the world like a ray of sunshine.
God, he was getting cheesy.
“No,” he admitted, washing his hands and coming to stand next to her.
“Have you at least watched someone bake before?”
“My dad made me cakes from box mixes for my birthday, yeah.”
“Okay, that’s a start. But we’re doing this from scratch, so keep up,” she said playfully. She started giving him instructions, showing him how to melt the chocolate in the microwave without burning it and explaining in far more detail than he personally thought was necessary why it was important to add the eggs last to the cheesecake batter.
“You’d think because it all gets mixed together you could just dump it all in at once,” he observed, stirring the sticky mixture under her careful observation.
“You’d think, but you’d be wrong. Baking chemistry isn’t just about combining things, it’s about combining them in the right order.”
“Like sex,” Logan said without thinking.
Clare’s eyebrows lifted. “Oh?”
His ears burned—it was a stupid analogy, and she would think he was stupid for making it. But he couldn’t just say something like that and not explain. “You know, order matters. Chemistry matters.”
Clare motioned for him to pour the batter into the dish on top of the crust. “I’m listening,” she prompted.
Logan watched as she slid the dish into the oven, momentarily distracted by the shape of her ass. He caught himself just in time and leaned back against the sink as she turned. “Well, like with us and the elevator the other day. You never go straight from, ‘Hello, nice to meet you,’ to full-on fucking. Even if it’s just a hookup, there are other steps.”
“Such as?” she asked, glimmers of a smirk playing across her lips.
“Well, you start with hello, obviously,” he replied. “Even if it’s just casual, there’s a prelude. Flirtation, either verbal or physical.”
“Can’t say I’ve everphysicallyflirted with someone without at least some verbal flirtation first,” Clare said.