Page 54 of The Player Next Door

Logan swallowed back an unfamiliar surge of anger. “Not that,” he said as evenly as he could. “It was work shit. Too much churn. Schneider being a dick, that sort of thing.”

“But you fucked Roth’s niece, right?”

Did they always talk like that?He shrugged, not really wanting to answer. Even though he’d originally brought Clare out with them he was now regretting it. He wanted to keep her separate from them if he could, and that was the first time he’d ever had that instinct. That was going to take some getting used to.

Brooks approached with a water bottle. “Her niece was that chick you brought out the other night, right? Cara?”

“Clare,” Logan said tightly. “Yeah.”

“She was cute,” Brooks said, and Logan really didn’t like the gleam in his eye. “You ever get sick of her, let me know.”

Logan would rather let Sam shout at him for two straight hours on the topic of her choice than let Brooks within five feet of Clare ever again, but he did have to work with the guy and they were technically friends, so he just shrugged.

Brooks rolled his eyes and then crushed his water bottle in one hand. “Ready for me to kick your ass again?” he asked, catching the ball from Aiden.

“Bring it,” Logan replied.

Logan turned on ESPN for a distraction, but after thirty seconds he was off the couch and pacing, eyes drawn to the warm yellow square of light that was Clare’s kitchen.

He had been trying to take it slow, he really had. But tonight he had stopped by Clare’s place to say hi; a thin excuse but she hadn’t cared.Hellohad quickly turned into making out on her couch, which was something Logan hadn’t done since high school. Pulling himself away from her with another excuse about needing to go to bed had been maybe the most difficult thing he’d ever done, and that included the time Burt gave him an extraordinarily thorough sex talk at age sixteen, only for Logan to admit he was about six months too late.

He pulled out his phone, debating. Texting her and asking if she wanted to come over was against his better judgment, not to mention completely contradictory to what he’d just done, but Logan had never been a very good judge anyway. He was still arguing with himself and the voice in his head that sounded like Sam when his phone rang, startling him.

It was Clare. “Is everything okay?” he said upon answering, instead ofHellolike a normal person.

Her laugh sounded oddly strangled. “No. You got me all worked up and then justleftlike that? What the hell is wrong with you?”

The sudden burst of anxiety faded, and he laughed. “I was trying to be a gentleman, okay? I thought you’d be into knights and chivalry and all that.”

“Well, that’s not actually what the code of chivalry is about, but that is seriously beside the point. The point is—you know, I don’t know what the point is, I just know I’m extremely annoyed with you right now.”

Logan leaned his shoulder against the window frame, peering down into her apartment. Resisting her was pointless, but Logan was determined to exercise his long-unused willpower at least a little bit. He let his voice drop lower. “That would be extremely un-chivalric of me, wouldn’t it, to leave you in an undesirable position?”

“You mean chivalrous, and that’s not—”

“Do you want me to get you off, or not?” he snapped, smirking a little at the sharp intake of breath that followed. He’d seen the way her pupils dilated when he’d gotten stern with her on the court, and he was pleased to find his hunch was correct.

“Uh, um, yes please,” she said with a breathy, awkward laugh.

“Where are you?” Logan asked. He could usually see her if she was moving around, but her apartment seemed still.

“Wait, are we—over the phone?”

“Trust me,” he said cockily. “It’ll be good. You in?”

“Yes,” she said after a beat. “I’m in.”

“Good. Then I’ll ask again, where are you?”

“My—my bedroom.”

He clicked his tongue. “I can’t see you there, and we can’t have that, can we?”

There was a long pause, and Logan’s apology for going too far was on the tip of his tongue, but then she spoke. “You want me in my kitchen.”

“I want you everywhere, Clare,” he said, and there was a softness in his voice he hadn’t quite intended. He cleared his throat. “But yes, your kitchen.”

There was rustling as she got up and left her bedroom, padding across the darkened living room and toward her small dining table. He watched her sit down first in one chair, then hesitate and seem to change her mind before sitting back down. “Can you, um, see me?”