"Oh my god," Andy gasped. She'd never even known what it was to live with one woman, so she could hardly imagine a house so filled with estrogen. "Your life must have been a living hell."
He laughed. "It's fine, really. I don't know what my life would be like if I didn't have a small news team of women pestering me about my love life every day."
"I wish I could say brothers were any better. Derrick and Matt are relentless. They wouldn't let a guy get within ten feet of me all through school."
Logan grinned. "I did the same with my sisters. And, as your brother's best friend, I guess it's my role to make sure nobody tries to take advantage of you tonight, either."
She sipped her beer, careful not to let him read her expression. Was he saying he saw her as a little sister?
"You saying you're going to fight off other guys?" she tried, doing her very best devil-may-care laugh.
"Something like that," was his relentlessly frustrating answer, though the deep rumble of his voice gave her the slightest twinge of hope.
She opened her mouth, her mind whirring with ways to draw him closer, to hunt out his exact meaning, when the sliding glass door behind her whooshed open and faux-Christina stumbled onto the porch with them.
"Looogan," she slurred. "You're missing the game."
"That's okay." He shrugged. "It's a series. Besides, I'm—" He gestured toward Andy, but Christina cut him off.
"Not that game. Some of us made this a real 90s party. Seven minutes in heaven, spin the bottle..." She waggled her eyebrows, and then started for the keg, but Logan blocked her way.
"Why don't you go join them?" he asked.
"I'm under sus-sific instructions to get you to join us." She grinned, accentuating her now uneven lipstick. "Rebecca wants to play with you."
Logan's impassive amusement shifted to something that looked a heck of a lot more like active intrigue. His eyebrows ticked up, and his full mouth tilted to the side, one corner curled up. "Is that so?"
This time, there was no mistaking the deep, dark interest in his voice. Andy's heart plummeted through the floor.
"Andy, you don't mind if I—?"
She shook her head a little too quickly, and then raised her trembling cup to her lips. "No, no, of course not. Have fun. I'll, um, be here." She gulped some amber liquid.
"Okay, I'll check back with you later, okay? And don't forget, if I let you get into trouble tonight, your brother will never forgive me," he called over his shoulder as Christina grabbed his hand and pulled him back into the house with her.
"No worries. I'll behave," she mumbled, then chugged her beer again as the sliding door thudded closed behind them.
She tried to pour herself another drink, but when nothing but foam came out, she leaned against the porch railings and sighed.
This was it. Her big, important frat party with the guy she'd been crushing on since she'd met him at Matt's spring training.
And all of it had been for nothing. A pity invite for Matt's geeky little sister.
Even in her second-skin costume, Logan Grant didn't see her as anything but a little kid.
And what was worse?
She'd never, ever felt more like a little girl in her life.
After a few more half-hearted sips on her cup of foam, she trudged back into the party and watched the rest of the baseball game. Or, at least, gleaned what she could about the game from the reactions of the people around her.
When her roommate, Shay, showed up dressed to the nines in her Friends-Era Jennifer Anniston costume, Andy led her onto the back porch and recounted the whole story with as little emotion as she could muster.
"So," Shay repeated. "He said he was going to stop other guys from getting near you."
"Yeah, but like, in a big brother-type way."
"Honey, in that outfit, nobody is looking at you in a big brother type way tonight."