Page 42 of The Player Next Door

“You’re sure of that?”

“Positive.”

“But do you want more?”

“I—don’t know,” he admitted. If he told Sam about Schneider and his original plan, she would punch him in the face.

“Okay, first of all, I fucking called it. Second of all, close your eyes.”

“I don’t trust you enough to do that. You’re going to writeloseron my forehead with permanent marker again.”

Sam rolled her eyes. “That was one time, and you deserved it. Close them and trust me, okay?”

With one last suspicious look at her, Logan closed his eyes. “Fine, now what?”

“Think about the future.”

“Like flying cars and shit?”

“How are you this handsome and yet this dumb?”

“Practice,” he said, and cracked one eye open. “I’m still waiting.”

Sam made an annoyed noise in the back of her throat. “Think about the future. Your future, specifically. Not tomorrow, but like, a year from now. Picture a perfect day.”

At first, Logan couldn’t think of anything. His life would probably be exactly the same as it was now; but then something shifted into focus. Lazy Saturday mornings in bed, followed by pancakes and laughter. There was a dog, jumping on the bed with them and demanding walks even before they had their coffee. Everything was bathed in a warm, yellow light that reminded him of Clare, who was with him for all of it.

Logan’s eyes flew open and he stared at Sam in horror, everything sinking in. The pieces had all been there before, but he hadn’t quite managed to put it all together. He was terrified the whole time Clare was sick, and liked spending time with her with no plan or agenda or even reason. He had been trying all damn day not to think about what that meant. And now—now he couldn’tnotthink about it.

Oh.

Fuck.

Sam scrunched up her nose. “You doing okay there, buddy?”

Logan tipped his head back against the couch, groaning. “No.”

“You like her, don’t you?”

“I do.”

“Awww, Logan’s first feelings. This is so cute, like watching a baby goat walk for the first time.”

“Fuck you, I’m way more coordinated than that,” Logan said, even as his heart was racing.

“If that’s what you need to tell yourself,” Sam said, pushing herself up on her knees and patting the top of his head. “Cheer up, feelings are rarely fatal.”

He was so, so fucked.

Chapter Twenty-one

“Hey, Clare, got a minute?” Noah called across the office. She deleted the sentence she’d just written—Captain Ellis should have seduced the prince, not the king, she decided—and hit save.

“Yeah?” she said, standing and walking over to where Craig and the rest of the team were huddled. She had been thinking about Logan’s advice from the roof: she needed to be more assertive, more determined. And not in the roundabout way she’d been doing it before. She needed to be bold and blunt. Unforgettable.

“Settle something for us,” Noah said, sharing a conspiratorial grin with Craig. “If you and your party were stuck in a barren wasteland with thousands of reanimated orcling corpses between you and your destination, would you rather they retain the ability to fight with a limited number of ranged weapons, or have their teeth and claws be instantly fatal?”

“Zombie orclings with limited bow and arrow range, but you survive their bite; or zombie orclings that operate under the usual zombie rules, you’re asking?” She leaned her hip against one of the tables while Craig watched her closely. She could feel that this was some sort of test, but she wasn’t sure how to pass it. She would just have to go with her gut. “Ranged weapons,” she decided. “It’s different from other zombie universes and would set it apart.”