There was no feasible way to say no, at least not without opening a whole can of suspicious worms, so I nodded and stepped back, letting him inside.
It took all of two seconds for him to step in, see Logan in the living room, and stop dead. "What are you doing here?" he asked, frowning and glancing between us.
“I’m giving Elise a ride,” Logan replied, and I was impressed at how calm and collected he managed to sound.
"A ride where?" Dan wanted to know, his brow still furrowed. "What's going on, Elise?"
With a flash of inspiration, I finally caught on to what Logan was trying to do. "To my car," I said quickly, trying to sound as casual as Logan was. "It broke down last night, and Logan was nice enough to give me a ride."
"Logan was nice enough?" he echoed, still looking skeptical. "What happened?"
"I was on a date with the guy I was telling you all about at dinner the other day. And when I got back to my car, it wouldn't start. So I called Logan and he offered to give me a ride home and then a ride back to my car this morning."
"And presumably a ride to the auto parts store so she can pick up a battery and then pester me with a million questions about how to change it," Logan added, sounding like his usual put out self.
Dan was still frowning, but some of the tension had eased. "Well, that is nice of you," he said and then looked back to me. "Why did you call him? You know I would have come to get you, Elise."
"I know," I assured him. "But it was kind of late, and I didn't want to bother you. I don't have any issue with bothering Logan. And he owes me for being such a dick sometimes. You're the one who's always saying we need to get along better."
"I am always saying that," Dan replied. "Thanks for being there for her then, Logan."
Logan just shrugged. "It's fine. I wasn't doing anything anyway, and she offered to buy me lunch as a thank you. Not going to turn down free food."
I rolled my eyes, but I supposed I had offered to get him a meal. Granted, I had also let him fuck me the night before, but I wasn't going to bring that up with Dan standing right there, already suspicious.
"I'll let you two get going then," he said. "Here are your apple fritters. Call me if you need anything."
"I will," I promised, only slightly crossing my fingers behind my back in my mind. "Thanks for breakfast."
"No problem." He gave me a hug, and then with one last suspicious look between Logan and myself, he let himself out.
I waited a bit, until it seemed like he was gone for good, to sigh with relief and sag, still holding the bag of pastries.
"Jesus, that was close."
"You're welcome," Logan said, sounding infuriatingly smug.
"Fuck off," I muttered. "If you would've just clued me in to what you were planning, we could have both misled my brother."
"There was no time. And anyway, if it seemed too put together, he wouldn't have believed it. You needed to seem slightly flustered about accepting help from me."
I rolled my eyes again. It was impossible not to when I was in his presence. "You're a real piece of work, you know that?"
"I know you think that. But considering I'm about to drive you around for the rest of the morning and probably part of the afternoon, I don't think you have much room to complain."
Rummaging in the bag of still warm apple fritters, I frowned at him. "You were serious about that?"
Logan shrugged. "If you want. I'm already here, and you do need to get back to your car."
"Don't you have to work?"
"Not until tonight."
I blinked at him for a second, caught off guard. I had no idea why he would want to spend one of his few mornings off ferrying me around. Last time I checked, he didn't even like me, just the sex.
"I'm not sleeping with you afterwards," I warned him. "If that's what your motivation is to be nice to me."
"You know," he said flatly. "Maybe one of the reasons I'm not nice more often is because when I am, people assume I have an ulterior motive. That gets kind of old."
