Page 45 of The Player Next Door
It took him a little while to get into the swing of things—he kept asking everyone’s opinion on each of his turns, which was clearly annoying Annie—but Clare was right, Quest for Sulzuris was a lot of fun.
“Okay, Keith. You approach the dragon in front of the treasure chest, and he gives you a choice: a fight, or answer a riddle. Beat him or answer the riddle correctly, and the treasure is yours.”
Logan knew what they expected him to choose. Keith’s character strengths were all in the fighting category, and Devi was probably trying to make it an easy choice. Keith had already gotten into—and won—three separate brawls during the two-hour adventure, including one where he’d rolled an unbelievably exciting natural twenty, which was just “rolling a twenty on a twenty-sided die” but felt as momentous as making a half-court shot. Obviously, he was supposed to pickfight the dragon. But Logan was feeling adventurous. “The riddle.”
Devi subtly arched a brow but didn’t comment on his choice. “The dragon stretches her wings, settling down in front of the chest more comfortably. ‘What has one eye, but can’t see?’ ”
Logan wrinkled his brow. “One eye, but can’t see?”Fuck.He shouldn’t have picked this, because there was clearly an obvious answer, but he was stumped.
Next to him, Clare made a motion for Devi’s attention. “The rest of us are just outside of the cave, right? Can we help him answer?”
Devi thought for a moment. “The dragon will let you show him things, but not speak.”
“Oh, I’ve got this,” Toni said confidently. She stood up and started wiggling her hand up and down.
“. . . Swimming?” Logan guessed.
“No,” she replied, trying again, this time bugging out her eyes like that might be helpful.
“Oh my god, you are so bad at this,” Annie grumbled, proceeding to make more or less the same hand motion at him.
“Still swimming,” he said, grinning and wondering how in the hell playing a game of fake charades could be this fun. Chase was miming something that looked like throwing darts, which was not at all helpful either.
Clare poked him in the shoulder, holding up one finger and stabbing it against her palm, then making a tugging motion like she was pulling on a thread. “Sewing?” he guessed, and she nodded and then shook her head, holding her finger up and shaking it. “A . . . needle?” Clare grinned, nodding, and a pack of butterflies exploded in his stomach.
He turned back to Devi, who was beaming. “A needle,” he said confidently.
“The dragon spreads her wings and flies away, leaving the treasure chest behind. Do you want to share the spoils with the group, or—”
“I share them,” he said, and the rest of the group started cheering.
“Drinks on Keith!” Annie cheered, and Toni and Chase high-fived each other. But Logan only had eyes for Clare, who was glowing with pride.
He still had to broach the subject of dinner with Schneider with Clare, and he needed to untangle this mess of feelings that had caught him completely off guard. Knowing that he was having this much fun with all of them should have sent him into a tailspin.
But instead, it just felt right.
Chapter Twenty-three
Clare’s phone buzzed with a text and she picked it up, her pulse spiking when she saw it was from Logan. Their interactions had felt charged since game day, like things had shifted ever so slightly in a particular direction.
Logan
I know this is weird, but I have to take some stuff down to my dad in Northfield.
Would you want to come? Just for the afternoon.
Idk I feel like you’d get along well with Burt.
He was asking her tomeet his dad? They were, at best, a one-night-stand-turned-friends-turned-maybe-something-more, but the maybe-something-more part was still largely unsaid and against her better judgment. Meeting his dad felt like a huge, momentous step, considering they hadn’t so much as kissed since the night they slept together. There was a now familiar twist in her stomach whenever she thought about how it all started, but she wasn’t sure how to explain it without making Logan sound like a research project, and she was learning that even his adamantium ego had limits. Part of her felt like she should push to talk to him about it, clarify where they stood a bit more, but whatever. Clare had always found she’d had a tenuous relationship with her dignity anyway. More often than not, pride seemed like an excuse people used to keep themselves from doing what they really wanted to do but were embarrassed to admit it.
Clare
Sure. When are we leaving?
An hour later, Clare was waiting just outside the underground parking garage for Logan’s car to pull up. He seemed a little strained as she climbed into the passenger seat, giving tight, one-word answers until they were out of the city, flying down the interstate. There was a storm brewing to the west, clouds stacking up across the farm fields like ominous soldiers, but for the moment, the sun was still shining. “So, Northfield?” she said, more to break the tense silence than anything else. “You grew up there?”
Logan rested his elbow on the ledge near the window and rubbed his hand back and forth through his hair. “I did, yeah. My dad grew up there, so we had family around after—well, after.”