The Girl Next Door.
Pairing: John Logan x nextdoorneighboor!reader
Word Count: 3482
Series Master List
・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.・゜
Briar University had a way of making everything look more romantic than it was.
The old brick buildings were softened by ivy, their windows glowing gold in the evenings like they held secrets worth keeping. The pathways curved beneath towering maples, and in autumn, the ground became a stained-glass mosaic of amber and red beneath students’ shoes. Snow came early here, too—powdering the rooftops and settling in the hollows of the campus lawns until everything looked untouched.
It was beautiful.
It was also cold, expensive, exhausting, and full of people who seemed to have arrived already knowing exactly who they were.
You had not.
You were twenty years old, a junior in the journalism program, and most days you felt as though everyone else had received a map at orientation while you had been handed a blank page and a pen that barely worked.
So you wrote.
You wrote because words made more sense than people did. They could be edited. Rearranged. Cut away when they became too heavy. You could take a mess of facts and make them mean something, could turn a moment into a story with a beginning, middle, and end.
People, unfortunately, refused to follow any kind of structure.
Especially the boys next door.
The hockey house had been loud since the first day you moved into your townhouse.
Not regular loud.
Not the occasional party-loud that came with living off campus, where someone played music too late on a Friday and woke up embarrassed the next morning. No, the hockey house was a living thing. It breathed through its speakers, shook through its walls, and laughed with too many male voices at impossible hours.
It had a porch that looked permanently injured. Red plastic cups appeared in its garden like wildflowers. Someone had once left a traffic cone on the roof for three days. Another time, you had found a hockey stick wedged into the branches of the small tree outside your bedroom window.
You had no idea how it got there.
You had not asked.
Your roommate, Olivia, found the whole thing hilarious.
“They’re harmless,” she said one Saturday morning, stepping around a half-deflated football on the front path. She wore one of your oversized sweaters and held a mug of coffee in both hands. “Mostly.”
“Mostly is not a comforting word.”
“You’re just grumpy because they woke you up.”
“They woke me up at two-thirty in the morning by singing ‘Livin’ on a Prayer’ like they were being held hostage.”
Olivia grinned. “I heard harmonies.”
“You heard a crime.”
She laughed and leaned against the doorframe. “You know they’re the hockey guys, right?”
“Yes, Liv. I have eyes. And ears. Unfortunately.”
“You could go over there.”
You stared at her.
“Why?”
“To make friends.”
“I would rather eat the hockey stick in our tree.”
Olivia took a slow sip of her coffee, her smile widening over the rim. “You say that now.”
You did say it now.
You said it again later that afternoon, when your editor at The Briar Beacon assigned you to cover the men’s hockey team for the season.
“No,” you said.
Your editor, Paige, did not even look up from the stack of articles in front of her. “Yes.”
“I cover student life.”
“You covered student life last year.”
“Exactly. I’m good at it.”
“You are good at it.” Paige finally looked at you, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “You’re also good at interviews, and you don’t let people give you empty answers. Hockey needs that.”
“Hockey has a sports desk.”
“Hockey has three writers who are all trying to get internships with ESPN and would sell their grandmother for a quote from Garrett Graham.”
You leaned back in the battered chair across from her desk. The Beacon office had once been a storage room, judging by the exposed pipes and the fact that the heating system seemed to be powered by a dying animal. “I don’t know anything about hockey.”
“You know how to ask questions.”
“I know enough to know they hit each other and skate fast.”
“Perfect. That puts you ahead of half the audience.”
“Paige.”
“Y/N.”
You narrowed your eyes.
She smiled in the way editors smiled when they had already decided your fate.
“The first home game is Friday,” she said. “I need eight hundred words by Sunday. Game recap, player quotes, season expectations. Make it readable. Make it interesting. And please, for the love of everything holy, do not write that they ‘gave one hundred and ten percent.’”
You opened your mouth.
Paige lifted a hand. “You’re assigned.”
That was how, on Friday evening, you found yourself standing near the edge of Briar’s ice rink with a press pass around your neck and a notebook tucked beneath your arm.
The arena was already filling up.
Students packed into the stands in Briar blue and white, their voices rising in waves as the players skated out for warmups. The ice reflected the overhead lights in long, trembling strips. It looked almost delicate from where you stood—like glass, like a frozen lake, like something that would shatter if anyone moved too suddenly.
Then the players slammed into one another along the boards, and you remembered that nothing about hockey was delicate.
Your phone buzzed.
OLIVIA: Are you at the game??
You glanced at the message and typed back.
YOU: Unfortunately.
Three dots appeared immediately.
OLIVIA: Look for the blond one. He’s cute.
You frowned.
YOU: That narrows it down how?
OLIVIA: The REALLY cute blond one.
You looked toward the ice.
There were several blond players.
Then one of them turned, laughing at something his teammate said, and you understood.
He was tall, broad-shouldered, and moved with an ease that made the rest of the rink look slower by comparison. His helmet hid most of his hair, but loose golden strands curled at the nape of his neck. He had the kind of face people probably trusted too easily: open, bright, made for crooked smiles and apologies that worked when they should not.
Logan.
You knew his name because Briar knew his name.
Logan was one of the team’s stars. Logan was a junior. Logan had a reputation for being charming, reckless, and apparently incapable of attending a party without becoming the centre of it. Logan lived next door.
Logan, you thought, was probably responsible for at least forty percent of your sleep deprivation.
As though he could feel your annoyance from across the rink, he glanced toward the press area.
His gaze landed on you.
It held for a second.
Maybe two.
Then he smiled.
Not a polite smile. Not the distant kind athletes gave reporters before answering questions they had heard a thousand times. This one was quick and warm and entirely too knowing, as if he had recognized you.
You looked away first.
Your phone buzzed again.
OLIVIA: Did you see him???
You did not reply.
The game began with the sharp crack of sticks against ice and the roar of the crowd. You took notes mechanically at first, writing down names, penalties, shots on goal. But slowly, despite yourself, the game pulled you in.
There was a rhythm to it.
Not graceful, exactly. More like a storm. Players surged forward in bursts of speed, then collided in sudden violence. The puck disappeared and reappeared. The crowd rose and fell around every near miss. The ice became a battlefield painted in white, and every player seemed to carry some private hunger beneath his jersey.
Logan scored in the second period.
The goal happened so quickly that you barely understood it until the arena erupted. One second he was near the boards, boxed in by two defenders. The next, he had slipped between them, his body angling low, his stick moving with a precision that made the shot look effortless.
The puck hit the net.
The crowd screamed.
Logan threw one fist into the air before his teammates crashed into him, helmets knocking together, gloves gripping shoulders.
You wrote in your notebook:
“John Logan plays like he is trying to outrun something.”
Then you crossed it out.
Too dramatic.
You wrote:
“Logan scored Briar’s second goal midway through the second period, shifting momentum in a game that had remained close through the opening half.”
You stared at it.
Boring.
You sighed and kept writing.
Briar won 4–2.
By the time the final buzzer sounded, the arena was buzzing with the aftermath of victory. Students poured toward the exits, still loud with adrenaline. The players disappeared down the tunnel toward the locker rooms, and you stood near the media area with two other reporters, waiting.
You had interviewed student council presidents, professors, local business owners, and once, a visiting poet who had spent twenty minutes explaining why questions were a form of violence.
You could handle hockey players.
Probably.
The first few came through quickly, damp-haired and flushed from the game. They answered questions in the clipped, practiced language of athletes everywhere.
“Good team effort.”
“Focused on the next game.”
“Credit to the guys.”
You wrote down what you could use and ignored the rest.
Then Garrett Graham walked past, surrounded by reporters who had clearly been waiting for him. He looked tired but composed, his expression carefully neutral. You watched him answer questions about his performance, his father, the season ahead.
He was good at this.
Not because he enjoyed it, you thought. Because he had been trained for it.
There was a difference.
You were still considering whether to approach him when someone stopped beside you.
“You’re new.”
The voice was close enough that you startled.
You turned.
Logan stood there in a grey Briar hockey T-shirt, his hair damp and messy, his cheeks still pink from the cold. Up close, he was even more unfairly attractive than he had been on the ice.
You hated that your brain supplied that observation without permission.
“I’m not new,” you said. “I’m a junior.”
He tilted his head. “New to hockey, then.”
“What gave it away?”
“The notebook.”
You looked down at the pages in your hand. “Reporters use notebooks.”
“Yeah, but you’re writing like you’re translating a foreign language.”
Your eyes narrowed. “Maybe hockey is a foreign language.”
“Not really. It’s mostly swearing and skating.”
“I gathered.”
His smile appeared again.
You had seen it from across the rink. It was worse up close.
“You’re with the Beacon?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Are you writing about me?”
“Maybe.”
“Should I be worried?”
“Depends. Are you secretly terrible?”
He laughed, a real laugh this time—low and surprised. “That’s a pretty aggressive first question.”
“You asked.”
“I did.” He held out his hand. “Logan.”
You looked at it for a beat before shaking it.
“Y/N.”
His hand was warm, his grip firm but brief.
Then his expression shifted slightly.
“Wait,” he said. “You live next door.”
You let go of his hand. “Unfortunately.”
His eyebrows lifted. “You’re the girl in the townhouse.”
“I’m not sure whether to be offended that I’m known as ‘the girl in the townhouse’ or relieved that you don’t know my name.”
“I know your name now.”
“That is not necessarily an improvement.”
He laughed again, and something about the sound made irritation rise in you—not because it was unpleasant, but because it was too easy. Because he seemed too comfortable. Because boys like Logan always looked at the world as though it existed to entertain them.
You had known boys like that.
They were fun until they were not.
“You’re loud,” you said.
Logan blinked. “What?”
“Your house. It’s loud.”
His mouth twitched. “Oh.”
“At two-thirty in the morning.”
“Was that Tuesday?”
“Wednesday.”
“Right.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “That was probably Dean.”
“You say that like it helps.”
“It doesn’t?”
“No.”
“Okay.” His smile softened, just slightly. “I’m sorry.”
The apology caught you off guard.
You had expected him to laugh it off. To tell you that you should get used to it. To say something charming and useless.
Instead, he looked genuinely apologetic.
You hated that, too.
“You should be,” you said, because you had already committed to the bit.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I’m not—”
“Sorry. You just have a very serious reporter face.”
“I have a normal face.”
“No,” he said, studying you with entirely too much amusement. “You have a face that says you’re about to expose corruption in local government.”
“You’re avoiding my questions.”
“I haven’t been asked any yet.”
You flipped open your notebook.
“Fine,” you said. “How did you feel about tonight’s game?”
Logan groaned softly. “That’s the first question?”
“It’s standard.”
“It’s boring.”
“Then give me an interesting answer.”
He looked at you for a moment.
The hallway around you was loud with voices, equipment bags, and the metallic clatter of someone dropping a water bottle. But for one strange second, it felt quiet.
“We needed it,” he said finally. “The win.”
His tone had changed. Less playful. More careful.
“Why?” you asked.
“Because everyone keeps talking about what this season is supposed to be. What we’re supposed to prove. It gets in your head.” He shrugged one shoulder. “Tonight felt good because we just played. No expectations. No future. Just the game.”
You wrote it down.
That was better than you expected.
You asked him about the second-period goal. He answered with a joke first, then gave you something useful. You asked about team chemistry, and he spoke about Garrett’s leadership, about how much work the team had put in over the summer.
Then you asked, “What do you think Briar gets wrong about hockey players?”
Logan looked at you.
Not flirtatiously this time.
Thoughtfully.
“That we’re all the same,” he said.
You paused.
“And are you?”
“No.” He glanced down the hallway, where one of his teammates was yelling something incomprehensible. “Some guys are idiots. Some guys are worse than idiots. Some guys are actually decent, but nobody believes it because they’re wearing the same jersey as everyone else.”
You looked at him for a moment longer than necessary.
Then you wrote that down too.
When the interview ended, Logan stepped backward.
“So,” he said. “See you around, Y/N.”
“You mean next door?”
“Yeah.” His grin returned. “Try not to write anything too mean about me.”
“I make no promises.”
“I like that about you.”
You watched him walk away before you could think of a response.
Your phone buzzed.
OLIVIA: Well?
You typed:
YOU: He is annoying.
Her reply came almost instantly.
OLIVIA: That means you think he’s hot.
You shoved your phone into your coat pocket and left the arena without answering.
By midnight, you had written six hundred and eighty-three words.
Your article was open on your laptop, the cursor blinking at the end of a paragraph that refused to work.
Outside, the wind scraped bare branches against the windows. Your bedroom was small, but it was yours: thrifted desk, uneven bookshelf, string lights pinned above the bed. A stack of unread novels leaned dangerously near your lamp. Your favourite mug sat empty beside your keyboard.
Across the narrow space between your townhouse and the hockey house, lights glowed in several windows.
You could hear music.
Of course you could.
You pressed your fingers to your temples.
Then your phone lit up with a notification.
Instagram — @briarhockey
@briarhockey Home opener W. See you next week, Briar.
The comments were already flooding in.
@briargirl94: LOGANNNNN
@hockeyfanatic: what a game!!
@emilyharrison: 4–2 BABY
@oliviajames: @yourusername your new beat is looking very educational 👀
・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.・゜
You stared at Olivia’s comment.
Then you locked your phone and went back to your article.
You did not look at Logan’s face again.
Not for the rest of the night.
Not until three days later, when you found him sitting on your front steps.
It was raining.
Not heavily. Just enough to turn the pavement dark and make the streetlights blur at the edges. You had stayed late at the Beacon office, arguing with Paige about a headline and finishing a piece on campus housing shortages. Your backpack was heavy on one shoulder, and your umbrella had given up halfway home.
By the time you reached your townhouse, you were damp, tired, and in no mood for surprises.
Logan was sitting beneath the shallow cover of your porch roof, elbows resting on his knees.
He looked up when he heard you approach.
“Hey,” he said.
You stopped at the bottom of the steps.
“What are you doing here?”
“Waiting for you.”
Your entire body went still.
It was not fear, exactly.
More like caution. The kind that lived beneath your skin, sharp and alert.
Logan seemed to notice.
His expression changed immediately.
“Not in a creepy way,” he said quickly. “I mean—I saw you leave campus earlier. I was going to ask you something, but you were with your editor. Then I had practice, and I thought I’d catch you when you got home.”
You stared at him.
“You saw me leave campus?”
“Okay, that sounds worse when you say it back.”
“It should.”
He exhaled through his nose, looking embarrassed. “I live next door. I wasn’t tracking you. I just saw you.”
The rain tapped softly against the porch roof.
You considered him.
He was wearing a dark hoodie, jeans, and sneakers. No hockey gear. No crowd around him. No easy, public version of himself. He looked tired, actually. Shadows sat beneath his eyes.
“What did you want?” you asked.
He stood.
“I wanted to ask if you’d come to the game on Saturday.”
You blinked.
“For work?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
He hesitated.
It was only a second, but you saw it.
“I liked your article,” he said.
You had not expected that.
“You read it?”
“Yeah.”
“You read the Beacon?”
“Sometimes.”
“You read my article?”
“Okay, you don’t have to sound so shocked.”
“I am shocked.”
He smiled faintly. “It was good.”
The compliment landed strangely. Not because it was extraordinary, but because he had paid attention. Because he had read something you wrote and remembered it.
You looked away first, fumbling with the strap of your bag.
“Thanks,” you said.
“So,” he said. “Saturday?”
“I have plans.”
“That’s a lie.”
You looked back at him.
He lifted both hands. “Sorry. That sounded rude. But you have the face you make when you’re trying to think of a reason to say no.”
“You know my face?”
“I’m observant.”
“You’re annoying.”
“Also true.”
You should have gone inside.
You should have told him you were busy, that you did not need to attend hockey games for fun, that you did not want to become the kind of person who let a pretty smile and a few sincere words rearrange her better judgment.
Instead, you said, “Why do you want me there?”
The question seemed to surprise him.
He looked out at the rain, toward the street, toward anywhere but directly at you.
Then he shrugged.
“Maybe I want someone there who doesn’t think I’m just a hockey player.”
The words were quiet.
Not dramatic. Not polished.
Just honest.
And that was worse.
Because you understood that feeling.
You understood being reduced to one thing. The scholarship student. The girl who worked too much. The person who always had a notebook in her hand. People saw the version of you that made sense to them and rarely bothered to look further.
You looked at Logan again.
The rain had dampened the shoulders of his hoodie. His hair curled slightly at his forehead. He looked less like the golden boy everyone talked about and more like a person standing on your porch, hoping you would say yes.
“I’ll think about it,” you said.
His smile was small this time.
“I’ll take it.”
He stepped off the porch and moved toward the hockey house.
At the edge of your yard, he turned back.
“Hey, Y/N?”
“What?”
“Your serious reporter face is kind of terrifying.”
You folded your arms. “Good.”
He laughed, then disappeared into the rain.
You stood there for another moment, keys cold in your hand.
Across the yard, the hockey house glowed warm behind its windows.
And for the first time since you moved in, it did not feel like an enemy.
It felt like a question.
One you were not sure you wanted to answer.
・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.・゜
@yourusername: Some nights feel like unfinished sentences.
Comments:
@oliviajames: this is why you need to date someone messy and emotionally complicated
↳ @yourusername: I need you to stop commenting on my posts
↳ @oliviajames: no ❤️
@briarhockey: poetic
↳ @yourusername: who gave the hockey team access to Instagram
↳ @johnlogan: Probably Dean.
↳ @yourusername: That explains everything.
↳ @johnlogan: See you Saturday?
You stared at the comment for a long time.
Then, against every instinct you had carefully built over the years, you typed back.
@yourusername: Maybe.
・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.・゜
Tag list:
@jissellegw @rhi-blogging @esposa-do-harry @violaernt @aishwarisingh @ralilda @harrysnovia @pearldaisy @crying2hs