Page 40 of The Player Next Door
He paused. “A friend, yeah.”
“Logan—”
“No, I get it,” he said. “You’ve been pretty clear I’mjust a friend.”
The hint of bitterness in his voice took her aback. She had thought it was just banter; that when he teased her about wanting to date she never thought hemeantit. That was just how Logan was, flirtatious and charming and always trying to win. Clare hadn’t ever thought a guy like Logan would want to date her, simply because he didn’t really date.
She still couldn’t picture a world where Logan really did want to be her boyfriend. He was him, and she was her. But maybe it wasn’t that; maybe it was that she’d wounded his ego. It probably had been embarrassing to listen to her insist to anyone who would listen that he wasn’t her boyfriend, even if it was the truth. Clare bit her lip, considering her words carefully. “Friend is a good word, though,” she said, her eyes on the top of his head as he pulled the brush down the nail on her middle toe. “I care about my friends.” When he didn’t look up, she kept going. “I’m sorry if I hurt you.”
“You didn’t hurt me,” he said flatly, moving to the next toe. “I get it.” Clare didn’t think he did get it, actually, but his tone was final. Logan looked up, his face clearing. “Let me finish your other foot, then I can run back and get your stuff. I assume you need your glasses?”
“How did you know I wear glasses?” she asked, deciding to follow his lead and act like the previous two minutes hadn’t happened.
Logan feigned an exaggerated squint. “How did you know?” he mimicked. He ducked the light kick she sent his way and clicked his tongue in disappointment. “Don’t go messing up my hard work,” he scolded. He caught her ankle firmly, giving her a brief, hooded look. “Behave,” he said sternly.
Clare stilled and a frisson went down her spine. She licked her lips, nodding. “Proceed,” she said, and he returned to his work, heedless of the storm he had started in her veins.
Chapter Twenty
“Easy there,” Logan said, hovering a few steps behind Clare. She insisted on walking into her apartment—they risked the elevator this time—but she was still too slow and shaky for his comfort. She kept telling him she was fine, but Logan would have preferred she stay in the hospital another night. Jamie had flatly told him there was no need, but Logan personally felt it was better to be safe than sorry.
Besides, once she was out of mortal danger, hanging out in the hospital room with Clare was kind of . . . fun. He had grabbed her e-reader from her bedside when he came back to get her things, and she spent most of the next day reading while he watched highlights of the game he’d missed. She napped on and off, and Logan was surprised by how much his chest ached to watch her sleep. She had regained most of her color by then, but the memory of her, grey-faced and shaky on the hallway floor, would not easily leave him. He had never been good with illness, but something about Clare overrode his usual run-far-away instincts, replacing them with a need to be by her side at every moment.
Clare sat down heavily on her couch and looked at her phone. She squinted through her glasses—they must have been dirty—and leaned her head back. “Devi’ll be here soon. You can head home.”
“I’d rather not leave you alone,” Logan said, taking a seat in her cozy armchair. “You seem to be prone to exploding organs and I’d rather not risk it.”
“As the only organ that would explode has now been removed, I think I’m safe. And like I said, Devi will be here any minute now.”
“Then it’s not much trouble for me to wait. Unless you don’t want me here?” He was kidding, but only sort of. After that moment in the hospital when he’d snapped about beingfriendshe knew he needed to tread carefully. He wanted her friends to like him and if they didn’t, well, that would really suck. And if Clare straight up didn’t want him to meet them at all? Well, that would suck the most.
No, he was not going to examine that any further.
“Yes, I want to keep your hideous visage from scaring her,” Clare deadpanned. “No, I just meant—you already spent all last night and today with me. You don’t have to hang around if you don’t want to.”
What if I want to?Logan couldn’t bring himself to ask that. It felt too real, too vulnerable, and anyway, Clare clearly didn’t want anything like a relationship with him. If he wanted to be able to pull this off with Schneider, he needed her to be more comfortable with the idea of them dating. There was a part of him that wanted to prove to himself, not just Schneider, that he could do this—he could be a good boyfriend, that he could find a woman who liked him and wanted to stick around. It was stupid, but Logan had never pretended to be smart.
And then there was the part of him that wanted it to be real, but he didn’t know how to handle that.
Devi chose that moment to push in through the door in a whirlwind of energy and disapproving looks. “What the fuck, Clare,” she said the moment she arrived. “Seriously, what the fuck.”
Clare had her head back with her eyes closed, and she didn’t even bother to open them. “Hey, Devi.”
“You were in thehospitaland you didn’t call me untilnow?”
“I was fine; Logan was there.” Clare accompanied this with a vague wave of her hand in his general direction.
She seemed to notice him for the first time, whipping her head to him so fast her hair swung into her face. “You must be Logan. Devi,” she said, holding out her hand for a firm, business-like shake. “Thanks for taking care of her.”
“Not a problem,” Logan said, surprised to find he meant it. He hadn’t showered in two days and would be smelling that hospital antiseptic scent for at least another week, but he would do it all again in a heartbeat.
Probably best not to examine that either.
Devi was looking curiously between them, and Logan decided it was probably time for him to leave, before Clare announced once more that he was not, in any way, shape, or form, her boyfriend. His ego could only take so much. He pushed up to standing and tucked his hands in his pockets. “Now that you’re in good hands, I’ll be on my way,” he said.
He had turned to go when Devi spoke up. “We should thank you properly,” she said in a voice that told him he would do best to immediately agree to whatever she offered. “Would you want to join us on a Quest for Sulzuris campaign? I could pull a special one-shot together for us next weekend.”
Logan looked at Clare to make sure this was a welcome suggestion, and was surprised to find her eyes lit up. “Oh my god, would you want to?” she said enthusiastically. “That would be fun.”