
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/359629.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Rape/Non-Con, Underage
  Category:
      F/M
  Fandom:
      Veronica_Mars_(TV)
  Relationship:
      Logan_Echolls/Veronica_Mars
  Character:
      Logan_Echolls, Veronica_Mars, Lilly_Kane, Duncan_Kane, Dick_Casablancas,
      Keith_Mars
  Additional Tags:
      Love/Hate, Secret_Relationship, Pre-Canon, Missing_Scene, Season/Series
      01
  Stats:
      Published: 2012-03-10 Chapters: 4/4 Words: 25950
****** The Best (and Only) Kept Secret in Neptune ******
by lit_chick08
Summary
     Even when they hated each other, Logan and Veronica just couldn't
     stay away from each other.
***** Chapter 1 *****
Alice Cooper was pounding out of the humungous speakers that someone had in the
trunk of their car, the bass pounding so hard that it seemed to make the sand
beneath Veronica Mars’s feet vibrate. If they weren’t careful, the Sheriff was
going to come to break up the End of School Celebration, and, if the Sheriff
showed up, then his daughter was going to feel his wrath. After all, he had
made her promise that she was not going to end up at one of the parties, that
she was going to stay at Lilly’s and do nothing wilder than watch “Cruel
Intentions” for the thousandth time just to catch Ryan Phillippe naked.
Veronica had known even as she made the promise that she would break it. There
was no way in hell that Lilly Kane, the unequivocal queen of the Neptune High
social scene, was going to stay in her mansion on the night when a thousand
different parties were happening. It was scandalous to even think that she
wouldn’t show up. And if Lilly Kane was showing up, then her sidekick Veronica
Mars would show up.
The party at Dog Beach was the latest and probably the last that they were
going to hit. Duncan and Logan had been there all night, preferring not to
party hop as they did, and everyone knew that Dog Beach was going to be the
place to go for the hardest liquor. Lilly hadn’t drank all night, actually
sticking to her promise of being a designated driver, but the moment they had
arrived on the scene and Dick Casablancas had shoved a bottle of Grey Goose
into her hands, Lilly had started downing it with the vigor of Tommy Lee.
Veronica had easily picked her pocket of the keys to her father’s Range Rover,
and she knew that Duncan or she, though they didn’t even have a permit, were
probably going to have to drive her home.
Veronica was trying to relax, but she couldn’t quite do it. Every time she
began to, she ended up searching the horizon for flashing lights that would
signal her father’s arrival and her imminent death. She was doing this as she
half-listened to something that Shelley Pomeroy was telling her, already
formulating excuses to attempt to feed her father, when she heard the
distinctive sound of her best friend chewing someone out.
“What do you mean, I’ve had enough?!” Lilly bellowed, swinging her nearly empty
bottle of Grey Goose wide, nearly catching Dick in the face.
Logan, much more sober than she, ordered, “Keep your voice down.”
“Why? Am I embarrassing you? Gee, I wouldn’t want to embarrass Logan Echolls of
the Hollywood Echolls!”
“Shut up! You’re drunk!”
Her laughter was anything but mirthful, and Veronica felt unease coil in her
stomach as she saw Lilly adopt her fighting stance, the same one she used when
she was about to battle with Celeste. With her feet planted wide, her shoulders
drawn back, Veronica knew that the most watched couple at Neptune High was
about to throw down. Duncan, who had been throwing a football around with Casey
and John, immediately started towards the bonfire which was casting the feuding
couple in its glow.
“Says the future resident of the Betty Ford Center! Tell me, Logan: how was
your mother’s last stay there?”
A low murmur went through the crowd, and Veronica gasped in shock at the cruel
words. There were certain things in Neptune that were no secret-Big Dick
Casablancas’s affairs, the SEC investigation of John Enbom’s father, and, yes,
Lynn Echolls’s alcoholism-but they were never spoken of in public. Like all
good gossip, it was meant for whispers and private conversation, not public
consumption.
Logan’s eyes glazed over in fury, and Veronica could see the muscles in his
face jumping as he clenched his jaw. After a moment, he spat, “I don’t know,
Lil. But, hey, maybe you can answer me a question. Do you charge full price for
your talents when you’re drunk or just hand them out for free?” As Lilly’s face
flushed red with anger, he added, “Or maybe I should ask your pool boy.”
Duncan was rushing to grab Lilly even as her arm swung, her hand connecting
solidly enough with Logan’s face to send him stumbling backwards, just barely
keeping his balance. As Duncan wrapped his arms around his big sister, who was
screaming like a banshee and fighting as if her life depended on it, Veronica
went to Logan to see if he was alright.
“Let me go!” Lilly screamed, her voice raspy from her shouts.
Logan shook off Veronica’s comforting hand, spitting, “You’re pathetic. We’re
over!”
“Fucking fabulous! Maybe now I can actually sleep with someone who knows what
they’re doing!”
He didn’t say anything, just grabbing a bottle of beer from a cooler and
marching down the beach, so livid that no one dared approach him for fear of
what he would do to them. Veronica wished that she could go and comfort him,
but she knew better than anyone what it felt like to be dressed down by Lilly.
Lilly had this unmistakable way of tearing you down to build you back up in the
image that she wanted; she had done it to tomboy Veronica, shaping her into her
innocent doppelganger, a Pep Squad girl rather than a soccer star.
But just as quickly as Lilly could build you up, she’d strip you back down
until you remembered that you were not your own person; you were exactly who
Lilly told you to be, and you never questioned that. Logan had forgotten the
rules and Lilly reminded him.
The moment that Logan began to march away, Lilly started to sway on her feet
before closing her eyes, 120 pounds of dead weight now in Duncan’s arms.
Veronica moved towards her best friend and boyfriend, taking hold of her feet
as she and Duncan slowly hauled her up to the Kane Range Rover. When they
finally reached the car and Veronica unlocked it, Duncan carefully laid his
unconscious sister across the backseat before gently closing the doors.
“What a mess,” he sighed, leaning back against the doors, the perfect picture
of martyrdom. Everyone had their cross to bear, and Duncan Kane’s is, was and
always would be his older sister. As the only son and practically infallible in
every way, the burden had fallen on his shoulders, and he tried to handle it
the best he could.
Veronica studied him in that moment, trying to evaluate the situation in that
analytical way that her father often teased her about. There she was, standing
on a beach that she shouldn’t be at, her best friend passed out in the backseat
of a car after purposely hurting her boyfriend who adored her, her own
boyfriend seemingly weak in his inability to handle a situation before it
turned bad, and Veronica couldn’t help but wonder, Why is this my life?
She and Lilly had been best friends since she was 6 and Lilly was 7; they had
belonged to the same Brownie troop and had become inseparable. Duncan had been
their tagalong, too shy to make his own friends without his sister pimping him
out; his status as a Kane was the only thing that really made guys like Dick
hang out with him. Veronica had never taken Duncan very seriously until Lilly
had begun to push him so hard upon her.
She had been trying very hard to be the perfect girlfriend, to summon up real
love for Duncan, who treated her so well, but it was hard, especially on nights
like these when he hadn’t even tried to stop his sister from lashing out at his
best friend.
“She needs to get home,” Veronica said. “Do you think you can get her there
without my dad picking you up?”
Duncan sighed, obviously nervous, before nodding. “Someone should check on
Logan.”
“I can do it,” she volunteered, much preferring an angry Logan over a drunk and
eventually puking Lilly.
“How are you going to get back to the house?”
“Didn’t you guys drive?”
“Well, yeah, but Logan took that yellow Xterra his dad never drives. It’s not
exactly a stealth car.”
“As long as he’s not too far gone, we’ll be okay. Just get Lil home.”
Duncan nodded, leaning forward to brush a light kiss across her lips. “You’re a
good friend.”
“You’re a good brother,” she countered, folding her arms across her chest as a
cool breeze blew off the Pacific Ocean.
“I’ll see you later.”
Veronica waited until she saw the taillights disappear before she started down
the beach in the direction that Logan had headed. She prayed that he wasn’t
going to make this difficult for her; Logan had an uncanny ability for being a
jackass to anyone who tried to help him. And Veronica knew that the sting of
Lilly’s words had hurt him more than he’d ever admit, even to her.
Logan had been her friend before he had ever been Lilly’s boyfriend. When he
had moved to Neptune in the sixth grade, he had been in her first period math
class, and their teacher had asked Veronica to help him get caught up. She had
known that he was Aaron Echolls’s son, and she couldn’t help but be a little
star struck when she had gone over to his house to help him with his homework;
she had never met a movie star before, and there were Aaron and Lynn Echolls
sitting in the living room. Logan had all but rolled his eyes at her stammers,
telling her later that they were just parents like anybody else’s, and Veronica
had learned firsthand that fame and fortune meant very little to Logan contrary
to everything he said.
He was the new god of the 09ers, the action star’s son with the quick wit and
endless confidence, and everyone had been surprised when he had become friends
with Duncan Kane, who was so shy and quiet that he rarely even spoke in
classes. They were a lot like Lilly and Veronica, Logan the yang to Duncan’s
yin; they balanced each other out. Veronica, who had introduced the two boys,
was now a constant fixture at the 09er lunch table, suddenly one of the most
popular girls in 6th grade, not because Lilly was her older best friend, but
because Logan thought she was cool.
She had started to spend less time playing sycophant to Lilly and more time
with the boys, often spending hours just kicking around a soccer ball and
talking. Lilly, of course, had gotten irritated, especially the following year
when the big 8th grade dance rolled around and Logan had turned down her
invitation to go in favor of going to Veronica’s first game in the summer
league at the park. By the end of 7th grade, everyone thought that Logan
Echolls and Veronica Mars were going to end up a couple.
And then the summer had come, and Lilly had pulled every trick out of her
arsenal to make sure that didn’t happen. Suddenly, Duncan was calling her and
wanting to spend more one-on-one time with her, and Logan wasn’t calling at
all. When she had finally become confused as to why Logan had started to avoid
her, she had gone over to his house only to have him be cold to her. As she
tried to coax his reasons out of him, Lilly had appeared behind him in her tiny
bikini of the moment, her ample curves making Veronica appear little more than
a boy beside her.
Veronica had been crushed, and she had sworn that she would never forgive her
best friend. Of course she had; after all, it wasn’t in Veronica’s sweet nature
to hold a grudge, especially against someone she cared about. No, she suffered
in silence, slowly getting used to the sight of Lilly draped around Logan’s
frame, and Veronica stated to accept Duncan’s date invitations. Soon, they were
the Fab Four, always together, and all of them began to happily live with their
precarious happiness.
The sand was cool against the soles of her feet, and the music was fading as
she walked further and further from the party. It was dark in the shadows of
the seaside cliffs, the rocks jutting out into the water and towering above her
head, and Veronica shivered again, this time rubbing her hands over her exposed
arms, wishing she had brought a sweater.
“Come to counsel me?” Logan’s voice drawled from the darkness, making Veronica
jump.
Squinting, she followed the sound of his voice to find him leaning against the
rock cliff behind him, a bottle of beer clutching in his right hand, a beach
blanket beneath him that looked like the one that Carrie Bishop had been
bitching about losing earlier. Of course, Carrie had been so drunk that chances
are she had forgotten where she even put it, which made it their gain.
Taking a seat beside him, Veronica just shook her head, reaching over to take
the bottle. After taking a sip, she handed it back to him, struggling not to
make a face as the fowl tasting liquid touched her tongue.
“I’m fine,” he volunteered, his eyes focused on the crashing surf before them.
“Okay.”
“What, you’re not going to accuse me of lying, tell me that I need to be honest
with my feelings?”
“Nope.”
“That’d be a change. Usually when you’re trying to clean up her messes, that’s
the first thing you do.”
Veronica winced a bit as he hit a particularly sore spot. She knew that she had
a reputation as being Lilly’s sidekick, the one that smoothed over bad
situations, that made excuses for her bad behavior at the expense of people
liking her. And Logan wasn’t wrong; whenever Lilly and he brawled, it was
usually Veronica that had to make the apologies that Lilly would never dare
lower herself to utter.
“I just wanted to make sure you don’t get wasted and try to bodysurf without a
board again.”
Logan’s lips quirked upwards as he remembered when he had attempted to do so
during spring break. “This is only my second drink all night. I need to be
sober if I’m gonna get the Xterra back to my dad unscratched.”
“Good plan.”
They sat in companionable silence for a moment before Logan turned his head to
look at her. Softly, he mused, “Why am I with her?”
“What?”
“Why do I even want to be with her? She’s such a bitch. Not just to me but to
everyone, even you. She cheats on me with anything that moves, and everyone
knows it. Why the fuck am I wasting my time with her?”
Veronica wanted to tell him that he was wrong, that Lilly loved him and would
never philander, but she didn’t want to insult him further by lying. Instead,
she lamely managed, “You love her.”
“No, I don’t. I try to love her, but I can’t even do that cuz she pulls shit
like this.” Lifting the beer bottle, he drawled, “To Lilly Kane, the girl that
loves nothing more than to screw with me and everyone else.”
“Logan,” she began, unsure of what she was going to say but knowing she had to
say something. She had never heard him this bitter, this harsh of Lilly; if she
didn’t know better, she would’ve thought he was actually serious about staying
away from her.
“She screwed us both over, you know,” he said, his voice amazingly blasé and
conversational. “She knew everything about both of us and exploited it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I liked you. She knew that I liked you because I asked her to put in a good
word for me, and you know what she did instead? She set you up with Duncan, and
then she told me that you had been crushing on him all along. I was so
heartbroken that I decided I’d get back at you with her, and now, here we are,
2 years later, and I’m still with her.”
Unable to focus on any of his other words, she simply asked, “You liked me?”
Setting down his bottle, Logan turned completely to face her, his face
completely serious. “You really didn’t know?”
She shook her head, her waist length hair whipping around her face as the wind
picked up. “I thought…I thought that when you got with Lilly, you were only
being my friend to get with her.”
“Nah, I…I just wanted you.”
As Logan tentatively reached his hand out towards her cheek, she just sighed,
“Oh.”
He leaned forward, and Veronica met him halfway, their lips passionately
meeting in the middle. It was the kiss of two people that simultaneously
should’ve been together and should never have been together, the sort of kiss
that screamed out its rightness and wrongness, and Veronica could hardly
believe that she was doing this. Until two minutes ago, she had never thought
she’d ever kiss Logan; he was Lilly’s.
Except right now, at this very moment, he was hers.
As they slowly began to learn the other’s mouth, Veronica moved into his
embrace, Logan wrapping one arm tightly around her middle, his right hand
against the side of her face, fingers playing in the silken locks that he loved
so much. Veronica entwined her arms around his neck, offering more of herself
to him, and, as Logan playfully traced the seam of her lips, Veronica opened
her mouth, her tongue battling his for dominance.
Logan pulled back a bit, resting his forehead against hers, his breath coming
in pants. Veronica immediately felt dread settle in her stomach, and she
blurted out, “I’m sorry.”
Confused, Logan asked, “Why?”
“Well, because…because we shouldn’t be doing this. I mean, Duncan’s your best
friend, and Lilly’s mine. We probably shouldn’t be making out on the beach.”
“Probably not,” he acknowledged before brushing his lips against the soft skin
of her neck, prompting her to sharply inhale as pleasure shot through her. “But
we should’ve been doing this years ago.”
Even as she craned her neck so that he could more thoroughly kiss it, she
wavered, “I don’t know.”
“I do, and we should definitely be doing this.”
There was something in the definiteness of his words, in the way that he never
even paused to consider that maybe she was right and they should stop that
tugged at Veronica. She had always hated passivity; no matter how obedient she
was of Lilly, she had never just stood idly by. Taking action was the one thing
that Veronica did that Lilly could never change about her, and she had always
hated the way that Duncan always seemed to wait for instructions before
proceeding.
Logan needed no instructions. In fact, if you gave any to him, he would
blatantly disregard them.
He lowered her gently back onto the blanket, his body easily dwarfing hers as
he stretched out against her, his weight braced on his hands. As his tongue
traced the delicacy of her collarbone, Veronica’s hands ventured to the front
of his shirt, her fingers clumsily unbuttoning it. With every button, a new
patch of smooth skin was revealed, and she felt heat streak through her as she
stroked the planes of his chest. He purred his approval against her skin, going
to his knees, his hands stopping at the bottom of the thin, sleeveless shirt
she wore.
“Okay?”
Veronica nodded, lifting so that he could slide the shirt from her body. It
wasn’t until it was beside them on the blanket that she realized she had now
gone further with him than she had even considered going with Duncan. With
Duncan, anything sexual filled her with anxiety that she had always attributed
to being 15 and sexually inexperienced; but with Logan, she didn’t feel
anything but desire.
His smile was bright as he teased, “How did I know your bra would be pink with
a bow?”
She blushed a bit, smacking him on the chest. “Don’t make fun.”
“I think it’s adorable,” he assured her, kissing her soundly for a few moments.
“You’re adorable.”
“Yeah, me and the Care Bears.”
Pulling back, he gazed so intently into her eyes that Veronica felt more
exposed than she did sitting there in her bra. “Don’t doubt you’re beautiful,
Veronica. You’re perfect.”
Tears inexplicably blurred her vision, and she turned away, afraid he would
think that he had upset her. Instead, he began to pepper kisses down her back,
making sure to press his lips against every vertebrae as he sighed, “All of
Neptune should be jealous of you, Veronica Mars, because they’re all sheep, but
you? You’re one of a kind.”
She spun suddenly, surprising him as she threw a leg over his lap, straddling
him. As his shock wore off, Veronica kissed his forehead, his cheeks, his
eyelids. When she reached his mouth, she murmured, “You had better not be drunk
or I’ll kill you.”
He chuckled, running his fingers lightly up and down her back. “I believe it.”
Their kisses were deep as their hands explored, trying to find sensitive spots,
whether their touch should be soft or hard, and Veronica shifted, attempting to
get closer. As she sat, she felt something hard pressed against her heat, and
both of them moaned at the sensation.
Carefully, tentatively, Veronica’s hands drifted downward, smoothly sliding
beneath the waistband of Logan’s board shorts, finding him throbbing and erect,
his skin astounding warm. His breath exploded against her bare shoulder, and he
hissed her name through his teeth. Veronica couldn’t help but softly moan at
how desperate he sounded, how needy a single touch had made him. It made her
feel incredibly powerful to literally be holding Logan in the palm of her hand
and having him desire her so badly.
She had never touched a guy like this before, and her movements were tentative
and a bit rough as she tried to stroke him. After a moment, Logan gently pushed
her hand away and embarrassment cut through her.
“I’m sorry. I did it wrong-“
“No, no,” he quickly assured her. “You just need more room to maneuver.”
When he began to tug his shorts off, Veronica’s eyes bulged. She had never seen
a guy naked before, and, even if she had been touching this part of him only a
moment ago, actually seeing Logan sitting there with his dick pointing skywards
was a completely different thing. It was intimidating, confusing, and exciting
all wrapped up together, and with every passing second, the feeling changed.
He gently led her hand back to him, and Veronica let him guide her movements
for a few moments, showing her how he liked to be touched, what rhythm and
pressure was best, and soon his breathing had quickened as he lifted his hips
to her rhythm, trying to get as much contact as possible.
Instinctively Veronica knew to quicken her strokes, and soon Logan let out a
loud groan as he came, exploding in her hand, his pleasure outweighing any that
he had previously experienced. It was as if he was the virgin, and it was a
feeling that he liked. This was as it should’ve been all along; he was certain
of it.
Veronica was certain her cheeks were flaming as she used the corner of the
blanket to wipe his cum off of her hand and his stomach, but she refused to
feel bad, not when Logan was staring up at her as if she had hung the moon.
Their kiss was long and sweet, and Logan sat up, unashamed of his nudity as he
requested, “Can I touch you?”
Though nervousness coursed through her, Veronica nodded. She had no idea what
was about to happen, but she didn’t care. If kissing Logan could make her turn
inside out, then she couldn’t wait to see what actually being touched by him
did.
With practiced hands, he unhooked her bra, removing the article with ease. His
hands were almost reverent as he took her breasts in his hands, his thumbs
delicately brushing against her hardened nipples. Her moan was caught by his
mouth, but she arched her back, pushing herself into his hands, hungry for the
pleasure that one single touch had evoked.
As his lips closed over her nipple, Veronica allowed him to lay her back down,
her fingers sliding into his sandy hair, holding him to her chest as his tongue
did sinfully delicious things to her breasts. She was convinced that there was
nothing that could feel better than this until his hand pressed against her
through her cutoffs.
“God,” she blurted out, unable to stop herself.
Smug smile on his face, he quipped, “Definitely one of the better things I’ve
been called.”
A quick retort died on her lips as he undid the button and zipper and eased his
hand inside of her underwear, his middle finger brushing over her clit. Her cry
was loud in the darkness, her hips pitching up to gain more contact and Logan
inwardly chuckled at the way the perfectly composed Veronica Mars was acting.
There was something undeniably fulfilling about his ability to make her
unravel, to have her clinging to him as she breathlessly pleaded for him to not
stop.
Carefully, he eased one finger inside of her depths, his thumb stroking her
clit. When she only moaned, he added another finger, wetness easily coating
them. She was scorching to the touch, hips restlessly twitching, her nails
digging into his shoulders.
“Please, Logan, please,” she panted, unsure what she was begging for but
needing the tension coiled inside of her to be released before she went insane.
He didn’t disappoint. Kissing her with more passion than he had ever felt for
anyone else, he firmly massaged her clit, the fingers inside of her speeding
up, and Veronica exploded.
Bliss tore through her as she experienced her first orgasm, sobbing her
pleasure into his mouth. There could not have been a more perfect feeling than
this, and the fact that it was with Logan only made it that much sweeter.
As she came down and Logan eased his hand out of her shorts, they stared at
each other for a long beat. Logan’s eyes had always given him away; there was
no way that he could hide anything when someone really looked at him, and right
now, Veronica was glad for that. Because, right now, she had never seen anyone
look at her with so much love before, and she was sure that the emotion was
reflected back in her own eyes.
“Logan! Yo, Logan, you out here?!” Dick shouted, his voice scarily close.
No words spoken, Veronica and Logan began to draw their clothes back, Veronica
furiously trying to flatten her hair so that it didn’t look like Logan had
spent the better part of an hour running his fingers through it, Logan wiping
at the telltale signs of lip gloss she had left on his cheeks. Quickly
evaluating the other for any obvious signs, Logan brushed one last kiss against
her mouth before shouting, “We’re over here, Dick!”
The peroxide blond stepped into view, and he drunkenly stumbled over to them,
plopping down between them. “Dude, party’s over. Deputy Sheep gave us fifteen
minutes to haul ass. Can you take me home?”
“Deputy Sheep?” Logan echoed.
“Lamb,” Veronica translated. “If he’s here, that means my dad might come next.
We gotta go.”
Logan nodded, forcing Dick to wrap an around his shoulders as the trio made
their way to the Xterra, Dick gracelessly falling across the backseat as
Veronica climbed into the passenger’s seat. As Logan illegally guided the SUV
through the streets towards Dick’s house, he glanced at Veronica out of the
corner of his eye. She was staring out the window at the passing scenery, and
feared clutched him. Maybe she thought that everything had been a mistake and
didn’t want to even look at him. Maybe she really did love Duncan and didn’t
want him at all. Maybe…
Dick was only half done stumbling up to his house when Logan asked, “Do you
regret it?”
Veronica’s head snapped around as if he had just said something offensive.
“Why, do you?”
“No.”
Returning her gaze to the darkness surrounding them, she assured him, “Me
either.”
“Then what’s wrong?”
“I have to go to Lilly’s; I told Dad I was spending the night.”
“Oh.”
Only five minutes from the Kane mansion, Veronica said, “No matter what, we did
cheat. Even if we don’t regret it, we still shouldn’t have done it.”
“Are you going to tell Duncan?”
“I have to breakup with him. I mean, if we’re going to…do that again, I can’t
still be with him.”
“And Lilly?”
Veronica looked at him in incredulity. “Am I going to tell Lilly Kane that I
got to second base with her boyfriend? Why don’t I just take a baseball bat to
a PCHer’s bike?”
“Well-“
“You guys broke up tonight. So really, you didn’t cheat. Once I break up with
Duncan, we’ll just have to wait for a little bit and then we can be together.”
Pausing, realizing something, she added, “If you want to be together as a
couple.”
Pulling up in front of the mansion, Logan replied, “I do, but I think we should
wait. Maybe you should even wait a couple of days before you break up with
Duncan. It might look suspicious if you break up with him the day after you
spend time alone with me.”
Veronica nodded, seeing the logic. “Well, I should go in.”
Smiling, he divulged, “I wish I could kiss you goodbye.”
She beamed. “You can kiss me hello next time you see me.”
Logan watched as she flounced down the walkway, Duncan opening the front door
so that she didn’t have to ring the bell and risk waking Jake and Celeste. It
wasn’t until Duncan raised his hand in a wave, clearly thanking him for
bringing his girlfriend home, that guilt actually hit Logan as he realized he
had betrayed his best friend.
* * *
Veronica woke up to someone poking her. Flopping over onto her side, she saw
Lilly sitting there, an ice pack clutched to her head, as she groaned, “What
did I do last night?”
“Insulted Logan, mentioned his mom’s alcoholism, broke up with him, and then
passed out,” she replied.
“Oh god!” Flopping back onto the bed that Veronica was sleeping in, she rested
her head against her best friend’s shoulder. “I can’t believe I did that. I’ll
hafta call him and apologize.”
“Apologize?” Veronica parroted, eyebrows almost arching off of her forehead.
“I can’t keep doing this if I want to keep him around. Breaking up will not be
good for me at all.” Turning her big blue eyes on Veronica, she asked, “Would
you help me out, best friend of mine? You always know the right thing to say,
and I really don’t want to lose him.”
Shame flooded her so suddenly and acutely that Veronica wanted to cry. How
could she tell Lilly that she couldn’t help her win Logan back because she
wanted him for herself? How could she ruin their friendship over a guy, even if
it was the guy that Lilly had taken first?
Veronica barely made it to the bathroom before she began to cry at the
unfairness of it all. How could she have fallen in love with her best friend’s
boyfriend, with her boyfriend’s best friend? Where was the fairness in that?
Of course, if life was fair, it wouldn’t be Neptune and she wouldn’t be
Veronica Mars.
No, this was going to have to stay their dirty little secret. No one could ever
find out what had happened last night and no one ever would.
* * *
Logan had known the moment he had seen her outside of his house that she was
coming to tell him that they couldn't do what they wanted. He knew Veronica
better than just about anyone, and he knew that she cherished her friends too
much to ever let a relationship get in the way.
And it wasn't like he could blame her. He wasn't willing to lose Duncan as a
friend either. So when she opened her mouth to tell him everything he didn't
want to hear, he had just held up his hand and said, "I know."
Tears had shimmered in her soft blue eyes as she whispered, "I'm sorry, Logan."
"Me, too." Trying so very hard to be a bigger person than the one he actually
was, he offered his hand as if they were completing a business deal. "Friends?"
The brush of her skin against his felt like an electric current as she agreed,
"Friends."
Neither of them knew that in a little more than 3 months, Lilly Kane would be
dead, and the friendship that they had both cherished would be nothing more
than a memory.
***** Chapter 2 *****
As the flashing lights of the ambulance and police cars slowly disappeared in
the distance, Veronica shivered, the cool December air causing goosebumps to
rise along her skin. Keith wrapped an arm around her shoulders, giving her a
protective squeeze while watching the previously merry guests all flee before
Lamb could take their statements. It wasn’t like the case was going to be hard
to make; everyone had seen the carver stab Aaron, and she had been taken into
custody. Of course, it was going to be one of the most bizarre celebrity
assaults in history; after all, how many action heroes and former sexiest men
alive had been skewered by a pumpkin carver that they had had fired to hide a
marital indiscretion?
“What do you say we head home, make some popcorn, and mock It’s a Wonderful
Life?” Keith suggested.
Veronica smiled. “As much as I love making fun of George Bailey, I think I
might stick around and see how Logan’s holding up.”
“Logan? Are you two friends again?”
“If by friends, you mean people who generally avoid each other and have
conversations that are full of scathing animosity, then yes, Logan and I are
friends.” Seeing his confused look, she admitted, “I feel bad for him, and all
of his friends left. He shouldn’t have to be alone after his dad was nearly
killed.”
Keith nodded. “You’re a good person.”
“Yeah, well, it’s this annoying trait I picked up from my father.” Pressing a
kiss to his cheek, she added, “Besides, I have my car to make a getaway if I
end up drowning him in the pool.”
“Don’t stay out too late.”
Veronica nodded, waving as he climbed into his car and drove away.
The police had taped off the house for now, labeling it a crime scene, so she
knew that Logan couldn’t be inside. Besides, he had always hated the house,
preferring to spend his time in the pool house where they had been playing
poker earlier. It wasn’t as if Veronica didn’t understand why; she had learned
the hard way why it was that Logan not only hated the house but hated his
father.
She would never forget that night. It had been a few days after Lilly had been
killed, before her father had declared Jake Kane to be the prime suspect,
before the name Veronica Mars became synonymous with social leper. On that
Saturday, Logan was still her friend.
Her mother had been drinking all night, and she and Keith had been involved in
a nasty argument when Veronica ducked out of the house. Unsure where else to
go, she went to see Logan. They had been fighting for the last week over
Veronica telling Lilly about him kissing Yolanda, but Lilly’s death had ended
the fight and begun their mourning. Veronica knew that Logan would let her sit
and they would remember Lilly, romanticizing her behavior and conveniently
forgetting the bad.
She had been about to knock on the door when she heard Lynn screaming, “Stop
it! You’re going to kill him!”
Veronica had been terrified, but she quickly moved around the house to the open
French doors. With Lilly’s death, she was petrified at the idea of losing yet
another friend. No matter what she was about to see, she knew that she couldn’t
stand idly by as something was happening.
Bile stung her throat at the sight that was unfolding before her. Logan was on
the ground on his hands and knees, obviously trying to rise but lacking the
strength to as Aaron Echolls, Hollywood icon and Oscar winner, brought a thick,
leather belt down upon his son’s bare back. Lynn was standing behind Aaron, a
tumbler of Scotch in her hand, tears streaming down her face, but in no way
trying to intervene. The belt was coming down with so much force that Veronica
could hear it connecting with every blow, and, unable to stop herself, she
cried out.
Aaron stopped, looking up at the blonde on the patio. As his breathing began to
regulate, he brushed a piece of dark hair away from his forehead and said,
“Hello, Veronica. How are you?”
Her mouth and brain were disconnected in that moment as she starred at Logan,
his back a bright red, a few lines of blood dribbling down his skin, and then
at his father. Finally, she managed, “I wanna talk to Logan.”
Aaron nodded, swallowing hard. “Well, he’s been misbehaving a lot today. Don’t
stay too long, okay?”
“Yes, Mr. Echolls.”
“Oh, call me Aaron,” he said as if his son wasn’t slowly crawling towards her,
humiliation written all over his features.
The moment Aaron disappeared out the door, Lynn on his heels, Veronica rushed
over the threshold, carefully helping Logan to his feet. Despite his usual
reluctance to let anyone help him, he was too weak to stand on his own. With
some careful maneuvering, Veronica got him up to sit on the back of the couch,
and only then did she see the truly mangled mess of his back.
“Oh, Logan,” she sighed.
“It’s nothing,” he tried to dismiss.
Softly, as if he were little and had only skinned his knee, she blew against
his damaged flesh, hoping to take some of the sting away. As she laid a gentle
hand against his shoulder, she began, “Logan-“
“Please don’t tell anyone,” he begged, sounding so fragile that it broke
Veronica’s heart. “No one can know. Promise.”
“I promise,” she assured him. “C’mon, let me patch you up.”
No, Veronica Mars would not have been sad if the carver had succeeded tonight
in killing Aaron Echolls. Even if she and Logan were no longer friends, even if
she hated him most of the time, she would never wish what Aaron did to him on
anyone. No matter how many horrible things she had seen in the past year,
watching Aaron beat his son had topped the list. And she knew that, as
conflicted as she was about Aaron’s…incident tonight, Logan’s feelings would be
tenfold.
As she suspected, the lights in the pool house were on. Stepping inside, she
saw that Logan was heavily chugging from a bottle of Captain Morgan, the liquor
sliding down his throat as easily as water slid down hers. It wasn’t until she
cleared her throat that he even realized she was there, and, when he did, he
snickered.
“Come to kick the wounded?”
“What?”
“Oh, let’s not play dumb, Ronnie. I’ve been bagging on your lush mother for
months, and you’re not gonna take this opportunity to get yours? I thought you
were a quicker wit than that.”
“Logan-“
Stumbling over towards the card table, he continued, “I can imagine what
everyone else is saying, but they won’t say it to my face. But you…you’re
Veronica Mars, badass motherfucker. Gimme your best shot.”
“I’m not going to fight with you, Logan.”
“Why not?!” he screamed, throwing the box that held the poker chips, the box
that Veronica had bought him for his sixteenth birthday. She had to jump out of
the way to avoid head trauma, and she stared at Logan in shock that he would be
so out of control.
“Fight with me! This is your chance! Just do it!”
Moving cautiously, she repeated, “I’m not going to fight with you.”
“C’mon, I’ll get you started!” Throwing his voice, he intoned, “Nice dad you
got there, Echolls! I wish my dad was a fucking asshole that cheats on my mom
with whores at parties, that humiliates my mom in front of the whole goddamn
town, that…that beats his kids with…with belts…like they’re animals…!”
Veronica wrapped her arms around his shoulders as Logan slid to his knees, sobs
wracking his body. Brushing her fingers through his hair, she shushed him,
rocking back and forth as he had done to her after one of her mother’s first
drinking binges, wishing that she could spare him this pain. Jackass or not, no
one deserved this.
For ten minutes, Logan cried against her shoulder, his tears burning against
her skin, fingers grasping tightly at the back of her red shirt, so grateful
for someone to be there that he didn’t even care that it was Veronica, the girl
he had devoted so much hatred towards.
When Lilly had died, Logan needed someone to blame. Abel Koontz might’ve done
it, but that wasn’t the type of scapegoat he wanted. No, Logan needed someone
to assuage his guilt for not being with her, and Veronica was the easiest
target. He had thought that they were friends, regardless of whether or not she
was with Duncan or he was with Lilly; he had thought that her first loyalty
lied with him just as his was with her. Instead, one drunken kiss with Yolanda
Hamilton ruined his relationship with Lilly, the most notorious cheater in
Neptune. He blamed Veronica with a ferocity that she did not deserve, but he
also knew that if he stopped to evaluate why he was really angry, his guilt
would increase exponentially.
If he had been Veronica, there was no way in hell that he would’ve stuck around
to comfort him.
Thank god he wasn’t Veronica.
Finally pulling away, wiping embarrassedly at his face, he asked, “Why are you
here? I mean, I know that it’s Christmas and all, but even charity has its
limits.”
Getting to her feet, Veronica sighed, “I thought that you might need a friend.”
Beginning to gather the poker chips, he quipped, “I thought someone as smart as
you knew the definition of friend.”
“God, Logan, can you be decent for 2.5 seconds or is that beyond you? I just
thought you might not want to be alone tonight. As satisfying as drinking
yourself into alcohol poisoning might be, it’s probably not what you need.”
Climbing to his feet, dumping the plastic disks onto the table, he retorted,
“And you’re what I need? That’s a little pathetic.”
Stung, she snapped, “Fine! Drink yourself into a coma! It’s not like anyone
would miss you!”
“Like you don’t miss Lilly?”
“Which step of the grieving process is climbing on top of Caitlin Ford before
Lilly’s body was even cold?” she countered, taking a step closer to him,
getting directly in his face, refusing to let him push her away. She knew Logan
too well; he would say whatever he had to in order to make her leave so that
she wouldn’t see how hurt he was.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“Neither do you!”
“I loved Lilly!”
“You think I didn’t? I would’ve done anything for Lilly; she was my best
friend! I did anything to keep her happy! I joined Pep Squad, I hung out with
Dick, who had the IQ of yogurt on a good day, I gave up any shot I had with
you-“ Catching herself, not wanting to reveal the open sore that was her
heartache, she just shrugged. “I guess I thought that for tonight we could just
have a ceasefire, that we could be friends and tomorrow we could go back to
hating each other with a fiery passion. I should’ve known better.”
As she turned to go, Logan queried, “Ceasefire?”
Moving to face him, she said, “Yeah, you know, like in World War Two. On
Christmas, the Allies and the Germans called a ceasefire for the day. They
stopped fighting, even sang carols together, and the next day they were right
back to killing each other. Now, I think if a bunch of men with machine guns
could manage to get along for 24 hours, I thought you and I could do it for
12.”
After a long moment, Logan declared, “I’m gonna build a fire, get something to
eat. You want to stay?”
“Will you play nice?”
“As nice as I can be.”
“That’s not saying much,” Veronica muttered, tossing her bag onto the bed.
* * *
They sat in relative quiet for a long time, each eating the mountains of food
that Logan had procured from the main house after charming Deputy Sacks to let
him in, when Logan suddenly looked at her and said, “Do you remember when we
were thirteen and Lilly decided we should all go trick or treating?”
Veronica immediately began to laugh at the memory. “Which part of it? When she
made you and Duncan dress up as Shaggy and Fred or when the Great Dane that she
forced Jake to rent for the night ended up chasing after that ambulance and she
tripped over her boots and scraped up her leg?”
“And we then had to carry her ten blocks because she said it hurt too bad to
walk,” he added, a smile spreading across his face. “Celeste was so pissed that
she destroyed those $500 boots that she bought with the credit card she swiped
from her.”
“I don’t think we ever got yelled at more than that night. Not even when you
and Duncan set Celeste’s antique French couch on fire using that box of matches
as a football tee.”
“That’s because the sun rises and sets on Duncan Kane, and Mama Celeste would
never dare scream at her baby boy.” Taking a swallow from his bottle of
Captain, he chuckled. “I used to be so jealous of him. He had the perfect
life.”
“I was jealous of Lilly,” Veronica admitted, poking at her food.
“What a sad pair are we, the hangers-on of the Kane clan.” Raising his bottle
of alcohol, he toasted, “To Duncan, my best friend who ran like hell when my
father’s fling attempted to gut him. And to Lilly, my girlfriend and your best
friend, who cheated on me with every available body and had no shame in dicking
you over. Salud.”
“Logan,” she ventured, tentatively reaching a hand out to take the bottle from
him.
Handing it over without a fight, he sighed, “I am sorry, you know.”
“For?”
“Hurting you.” Rolling onto his back, he admitted, “I know I’m an asshole; it’s
kind of my trademark. But I shouldn’t have…I never should’ve started calling
you Ronnie when I knew that that’s what your mom called you when she’s drunk.
And I’m sorry that I did it and that Dick keeps doing it.”
Veronica just stared at him in that moment, so broken and contrite, and she
wasn’t staring at Logan Echolls, psychotic jackass, anymore. No, she was seeing
the Logan who she had considered to be her best friend, the one that had died
the day that Lilly Kane’s skull had been crushed.
He turned his head to look at her, his dark eyes unfathomable and inscrutable,
and he whispered, “Do you hate me?”
Only half-lying, she answered, “No.”
“I hate me.” Slowly rising to a sitting position, he offered, “It’s okay if you
hate me.”
There was something about his permission that struck her as incredibly sad. “I
don’t hate you, Logan.”
“You hate yourself; that’s why you chopped off all your hair.”
His insight was unnerving enough to make her fold her body up as she had when
she was younger as an instinctive way to try to ward off things she didn’t want
to hurt her. In his tenure as Supreme Asshole of Neptune, she had forgotten
that he wasn’t nearly as blind as he liked to pretend.
“I like it better short.”
“You called me Rosie O’Donnell for months,” she pointed out, feeling the
familiar anger of the past 18 months start to lick at her. “You and Dick put
lesbian porn on my locker.”
Minutely moving closer to her, he ignored her words. “With your hair like that,
you don’t look so much like her. You look like you.”
Now truly convinced that he was smashed, Veronica rolled her eyes. “Logan-“
Suddenly his hand was cupping her cheek and his lips were on hers. For a moment
she sat there stunned until she felt his tongue slide against her lower lip.
With all of her strength, she shoved him away.
“What the hell are you doing?!”
True confusion crossing his features, he dumbly offered, “We called a
ceasefire.”
“Yeah, a ceasefire! I didn’t suddenly get amnesia! You’ve been a total bastard
to me ever since Lilly died! Why would I kiss you? I don’t even like you!”
That hated smirk on his face again, he quipped, “I don’t know what you know,
but you don’t have to like someone to do this.”
Keeping her hand firmly on his chest so that he would maintain his distance,
she stressed, “I do.”
It was almost as if he had a chameleon face, the way it easily slid from
arrogant asshole to remembered friend. Even the tone of his voice changed as he
inched closer, saying, “You used to like me though. Remember that night on the
beach?”
No. Say no, Veronica. Do not let the guy who has made your life a waking hell
ever since Lilly’s death know how much you remember about that night, how you
have spent many a night using the detachable showerhead for reasons that were
not listed on the box because of those memories. No matter what, do not let
Logan Echolls know that he can still cause your stomach to do an Olympic
quality tumbling pass while Duncan was only ever able to make you feel slightly
excited.
But did Veronica’s mouth listen to her mouth? Of course not. All she was able
to manage was an, “Uh-huh” that was entirely too breathy to even be considered
coherent.
“I think about that night a lot. Do you?”
What was it about Logan’s hand against her skin that always made her feel like
she had just taken enough drugs to make Corny seem like Einstein? It was as if
she lost all capacity to think the moment they touched. She had hoped that
would’ve changed, but if anything, the lack of contact for such a long time had
made her twice as susceptible to it.
Shake it off, Veronica. Focus. She moved her head away from his hand as she
lied, “It was a long time ago, another life. We’re not those people anymore.”
“Why can’t we be them again?”
“Because too much has happened to just erase it! This is the real world, Logan,
and in the real world, when you spend a year calling someone a dirty whore,
they don’t want to make out with you and pretend that everything’s okay!”
Anger flashed in his dark eyes. “Then why the hell are you still here,
Veronica?”
Why was she still here? That was a good question, a question that she didn’t
want to answer because it would make her evaluate herself a little too hard.
Veronica was an accomplished liar, but she had no use for self-deception. When
it seemed like everyone around her did nothing but lie, she wanted to, at
least, be honest to herself. And she knew that if she really asked herself why
she had wanted to stay at the Echolls Mansion tonight, she wouldn’t like the
truth.
Firmer, he repeated, “Why are you still here, Veronica?”
Voice thick with frustration and an emotion that she couldn’t quite verbalize,
she just replied, “I don’t know.”
He moved with purpose and skill, and, before Veronica was even aware that it
was happening, she was tilted back, precariously balanced by Logan’s hand at
the center of her back, his surprisingly soft lips against her own. Her center
of gravity was gone, and, as she curled her fingers around his shirt, prepared
to push him away and possibly give him a right cross for Christmas, she heard
him sigh against her mouth, “God, I’ve missed you.”
All thoughts of causing him physical damage ceased as she realized that she had
wanted him to say that. In that masochistic part of her soul, she still
wondered what it would have been like to be with Logan for real, to have more
than just a late night groping session with him on Carrie Bishop’s beach
blanket. In that tiny piece of her heart that still belonged to the innocent
girl she had been before Lilly’s murder, she wished to be someone special to
Logan Echolls.
Though she had gone to Lilly under the guise of friendship, the real reason
that she had told her best friend about Logan’s kiss with Yolanda had been
jealousy, pure and simple. Because he had sworn that he had never cheated on
Lilly with anyone except Veronica, that Veronica was not just a fling, she had
been heartbroken to see him entwined with Yolanda on the couch. She had been
horrorstruck to think that he had just used her, fed her a line, and she had
bought it. The idea that she had betrayed Lilly simply because of Logan’s
practiced Lothario tactics made her want to vomit, and she had wanted him to
hurt so bad in that moment that she would’ve torn him limb from limb. Instead,
she did the next best thing: she went to Lilly and Lilly had ended their
relationship. After all, in the hypocritical world of Lilly Kane, cheating was
only acceptable if she was the one doing it.
But tonight, to hear that he had missed her, she wondered if she had been wrong
in her anger about Yolanda. Maybe, just maybe, Logan really did care about her
as much as she had cared about him.
The carpet was rough against the small of her back, a striking contrast to the
softness of his fingertips, skimming the skin of her stomach. His touch was a
strange combination of innocent and erotic, and Veronica was torn between
wanting his hand to venture upward or to pull away.
His lips moved to the hollow beneath her ear, feather light kisses that caused
her to squirm, and he whispered, “Did you miss me, Veronica?”
She couldn’t deny the shame that filled her as she whispered back, “Yes.”
In the past year, Veronica had felt as if she had been tightrope walking. On
the one hand, she detested what he had become, the casual way with which he
treated girls and the asinine way he treated everyone else. However, on the
other hand, she was also always ready to do battle with him, knowing that no
one could possibly challenge her like he did. She was often disgusted by the
fact that she couldn’t seem to walk away from him, that she thrived on
interaction with him.
And even though she knew that she was going to probably hate herself tomorrow,
she couldn’t deny that she wanted this just as much as he did.
In the light of day, it would be easy for her to claim seduction, that she was
lured into this by his sweet talking, but she wanted this. She wanted to feel
Logan against her and know that, even if it was only temporary, he was hers.
With Duncan, she had never felt possessive; it wasn’t her way. That little
detail was another thing she wasn’t going to dwell upon.
The firelight flickered, casting them in an orange glow while also shadowing
them. She hadn’t realized until he pulled away that she was desperate for his
kisses, for the taste of him, and she mewled in discontent when he was out of
reach.
His smile was pure self-satisfaction as he drawled, “Am I getting a rise out of
you, Veronica?”
Acting bolder than she felt, she raised herself slightly, her hand brushing
over the noticeable bulge in his jeans. When he thrust his hips to gain more
contact, she retorted, “I think I got the rise out of you.”
He pulled his shirt off as if it were an enemy, flinging it across the pool
house. As his hands began to unfasten his pants, Veronica took a deep breath,
preparing herself for what was about to happen. She cautiously slid out of her
shirt, moving far slower than Logan, who appeared to be desperate to rid
himself of his clothes. By the time she was unbuttoning her pants, Logan had
stripped down to his severely tented boxers, which were humorously enough
covered in pictures of the Grinch.
His hands were sure yet careful, as if he was afraid of spooking her. She was
grateful for him doing this because she was afraid that he would see how bad
her hands were shaking. Before Shelley Pomeroy’s party, she had never been
afraid of sex; while the idea was somewhat intimidating, it was still something
that she looked forward to. But since the party and the night she did not
remember, the very mention of sex made her uncomfortable. She prayed with
everything she had that what happened that night would not ruin this for her.
After stripping her of her pants, he sat back on his heels to look at her as he
had not gotten the chance to do that night two years before. He had always
thought that Veronica was beautiful, but, compared to the flashiness of the
other 09er girls, she was usually written off as nothing more than a brain
buried beneath a waterfall of blonde hair. During one of her bitch fests, Lilly
had once called Veronica “pretty but unremarkable.”
As usual, Lilly had no fucking idea what she was talking about.
Veronica gasped when he pressed his lips against the curve of her stomach
rather than her neck or breasts. His breath was hot as it misted over her skin,
his kisses moist and hungry, as if he was trying to devour her. He never lifted
his mouth as his hands expertly unhooked her decidedly unsexy white, cotton
bra. Rather than immediately pull it off, Logan slid the straps down her arms,
leaving her shoulders bare but her breasts covered. When his tongue traced the
delicacy of her collarbone, Veronica wanted to cry at his gentleness. This was
Logan Echolls.
Her hands were tentative at first, gently coasting along the length of his back
while he seemed to explore every square inch of her neck, shoulders, and
stomach. When his kisses began to get closer and closer to her breasts, his
fingers teasingly stroking the top of her pale blue panties, any tentativeness
went out the window. Her nails lightly scratched at his back, urging him on,
and, when he finally removed her bra, sipping a hardened nipple into his mouth,
one of her hands slid around his stomach and slid down his boxers.
His moan was long and rough, the sound vibrating against her breast, causing
her to pitch her hips upward in pleasure. He pressed back, grinding his
hardness into the warmth between her thighs, pleasantly noticing that they were
damp with her arousal. Part of him wanted to do nothing more than tear away the
scrap of fabric covering her mound and thrust into her, taking his pleasure and
securing her as his. The other part, the part that recognized that this was not
Lilly, that this was Veronica and she deserved much more, wanted to savor every
moment and make her first time something memorable and beautiful.
“Logan,” she panted, wishing that she could tell him everything, wishing that
there was nothing to tell and that this was the first time.
“Veronica,” he gasped right back, moving his hips to simulate how he wanted to
move inside her. God, he was ready to cum in his pants like he was thirteen
again and things had barely begun.
Any thoughts of discussion immediately flew out of her mind when, with every
roll of his hips, his dick hit her clit, prompting her to moan. She was so
close, so close, so close…
“Oh God!” she screamed as her orgasm tore through her, her nails digging half-
crescents into his shoulders as she pushed her hips more aggressively into his,
wanting more, not even knowing what more entailed.
Logan couldn’t wait anymore. His boxers were off and her underwear was at her
knees before Veronica even became conscious of the fact that he had moved. And
the moment she was aware, everything came rushing back to her.
Tiny lights in a row, like giant Christmas bulbs. Bad music blasting. The
ordinary taste of her Rum and Coke.
He dug through the pockets of his long forgotten pants, finding his wallet and
removing the foil packet that was always there. As he tore it open and slid it
on, he looked down at Veronica, her skin still flush from orgasm, her eyes
closed, and he knew that he couldn’t give this up again. He couldn’t give her
up again.
As he positioned himself over her, he whispered, “You’re so soft,” a light
tease in the words, hoping to get a smile.
Her head hurts, feels heavy. The bed’s soft. It isn’t her bed. Her stomach
churns when she sits up. The pain is sharp between her legs. She hisses as she
tries to remember.
“Veronica, look at me,” he gently requests, guiding her chin until he can look
into the blue eyes which she has opened. There’s a tear glimmering into the
corner of one, and he bends to kiss the very edge of it, catching the saltwater
on his tongue. “Don’t cry, baby. I’m right here.”
Her underwear are on the floor, and she knows. The tears start. The bathroom’s
down the hall. She pukes once, twice. Every time she thinks she’s done, it
starts again. Afraid, she reaches down to where it hurts and immediately cries
out. She lifts up her new dress, ruined now, and sees dried blood on her thighs
mixed with someone’s semen. She pukes again, misses the toilet.
As slow as he can, Logan begins to enter her, wanting to feel as close to her
as possible. He was only in an inch when she began to scream, “Stop! Please
stop! Stop!”
Logan immediately reversed, terrified. “Veronica, what is it? Did I hurt you?”
They slashed her tires, so she has to walk. She carries her shoes, winces the
entire 5 miles to the police station because of the burning at her core. Lamb
tells her to see the Wizard. No one cares. She sits in the shower for hours,
sometimes scrubbing, sometimes crying. After, she finds the biggest pair of
scissors in the house. She’s numb as she shears her hair, killing the last of
the innocent Veronica Mars. It’s a mess at the end, but it doesn’t matter. No
one will ever hurt this girl. This Veronica can’t be hurt.
She hasn’t really cried since her rape, mostly because she’s unwilling to
confront it. Knowing who did it and actually accepting it happened are two very
different things, but until tonight, Veronica hadn’t realized the distinction.
Logan was confused. One minute she had been right there, enjoying what they
were doing, an equal participant. Now…now she was a different person, someone
he didn’t recognize. Veronica Mars didn’t cry, and she certainly didn’t
breakdown bawling while completely naked on the floor of his pool house.
All arousal was forgotten as Logan drew back, removing the condom and pulling
his boxers back on. Afraid he had done something wrong, terrified that he had
caused her pain, he reached for her, intending comfort. To his shock, she
skittered backwards out of his reach, curling her body up in a manner that
Logan recognized; it was the same position that Logan assumed when Aaron would
beat him.
“Veronica. Veronica. Veronica!”
She was unresponsive, just shook her head and rocked, tears pouring down her
cheeks so fast that it seemed as if there was a dam inside of her that had
broken free. Trying to think of something he could do for her, he ventured,
“Veronica, I’m going to get you some Kleenex, okay? I’ll be right back.”
At the sound of his voice, she looked up and watched as he moved towards the
bathroom in the back of the house. Feeling incredibly stupid and exposed in a
way that had nothing to do with her nudity, she quickly drew on her clothes,
forgoing the underwear she could not find. Carrying her boots in her arm, she
hurried out of the house, vision blurred.
When Logan emerged from the bathroom to find the room missing, he quickly
hurried towards the door only to see the taillights of her Le Baron
disappearing into the darkness.
 
* * *
Logan did not see Veronica for two weeks, not until Christmas break was over.
By the time he did, his father was home from the hospital and being hounded by
everything from The Enquirer to 20/20, his mother was so doped up on vodka and
Valium that she could barely form sentences, and Logan himself was so lost that
he had no idea whether he was coming or going.
He found Veronica at her locker with Wallace, indulgently smiling at something
he said, before he bounced off, leaving her alone. As she closed her locker
door, she spun and crashed directly into his chest. She was halfway through a
sharp remark when she saw who it was, and then she froze.
“Veronica, can we-“
Knowing what he was going to ask, she cut in, “No.”
“Veronica-“
Keeping her voice low, her eyes flicking from side to side to make sure no one
could hear, she hissed, “I don’t want to talk about what happened, Logan. I
don’t even want to think about it. It was stupid to even think about doing it.
The ceasefire is over, so stay out of my way!”
Logan was torn between anger and heartache as he watched her stomp away,
pushing through the linked arms of Dick and Madison, who were evidently on-
again this week.
“What is her problem?” Madison cried, adjusting her top to its previously
unwrinkled status.
“Guess tricks were bad over break,” Dick chortled, finding his own comment
hilarious.
Jaw clenched, heart far more broken that he wanted to admit, Logan tried to
play it off, gritting out, “Fuck her, man. Who gives a shit about Veronica
Mars?”
***** Chapter 3 *****
For as much as Veronica absolutely adored her father, she couldn’t deny that
she enjoyed alone time in their apartment. Despite the fact that most of the
town detested her and rarely did anyone actually speak to her, she still needed
quiet time, especially after being falsely arrested for forging IDs, being
locked into the trunk of her own car, and hearing everyone’s deep dark secrets
when it came to Lilly.
Secrets seemed to be the only constant in Neptune. Everyone had them, everyone
kept them, and rarely did any one reveal them, but when they did, it was always
explosive. Some days it seemed like the only reason that some were coming out
was because of Lilly’s murder. After all, if it hadn’t been for her death,
Veronica never would’ve gone to see Abel Koontz, who had dropped the biggest
bomb of her life. Did Lilly know that Jake might also be Veronica’s father? Had
she laughed when she found out, knowing the kisses and touches that her best
friend and brother had exchanged? Had she reveled in the idea of the fall-out
that it could cause, the humiliation that would fill Celeste, the pain that it
would cause Keith Mars?
Lilly had always loved drama, loved causing it even more.
But Veronica didn’t want to think about Lilly tonight. In fact, tonight she
wanted to pretend that the Kane family didn’t even exist. She had spent the
better part of 2 years trying to figure out the siblings Kane, to figure out
why it was that Duncan had so casually discarded her and continued to play hot
and cold, to try to understand why it was that Lilly managed to be her best
friend and worst enemy all at the same time. Veronica was sick of headaches and
tears and constant analysis that never seemed to get her anywhere. No, tonight,
all Veronica Mars wanted was to cuddle up on her couch with her faithful
pitbull, eat massive amounts of Rocky Road ice cream and trying to find
something to watch that was not a reality show.
She had just settled into an episode of Alias, happily drooling over Michael
Vartan’s abs, when the program cut out and went to the local Neptune
newscaster. Ignoring him, she was half off of the couch, prepared to locate the
tube of Pringles she had spotted in the cupboard when she heard, “In late
breaking news, it has been confirmed that the abandoned car on the Coronado
Bridge, did, in fact, belong to Lynn Echolls, wife of Oscar winner Aaron
Echolls. Sheriff Don Lamb has released a statement that a suicide note was
found within the Dodge Viper, along with an empty bottle of Valium. No body has
been recovered, but rescue workers believe that there is no way that Echolls
could have survived the fall. Lynn Echolls was the star of several teen flicks
in the 1980s-“
Lynn Echolls was dead.
Logan’s mom was dead.
She had seen Lynn earlier today at school. There was something about Lynn that
made it impossible to miss her. Maybe it was the fact that she always wore
expensive, tailored clothing even to soccer games; it could’ve been the insane
amount of collagen that she had pumped into her lips in the past few years in a
desperate attempt to look like the starlet she had once been; perhaps it was
even the way she always seemed to be unsteady on her feet and had a bad habit
of tripping. No matter what it was, she was still the only adult woman in the
09er neighborhood that took the time to acknowledge that Veronica existed.
Just this morning, when she was headed towards the office with Logan at her
side, she had seen Veronica at her locker digging for her history book and had
stopped to ask Veronica how she was doing. Logan had pointedly ignored her,
pretending that she didn’t exist, but Lynn talked to her as if Veronica had
never stopped coming to their house, as if she had just come home from the club
and found Veronica in the living room with Lilly, Duncan, and Logan, laughing
and being blissfully ignorant to the troubles that were about to descend upon
them.
It wasn’t until she felt Backup’s rough tongue against her cheek that she
realized she was crying. She had never been close to Lynn Echolls, had found
the way she let Aaron abuse their son disgraceful, but she had never wanted her
to die. It seemed as if in Neptune that people always left the world abruptly
with no fair warning.
They were flashing pictures of Lynn’s Viper on the bridge, a wedding picture of
Aaron and Lynn that had run in People magazine over 20 years ago, a cheap
headshot of Trina, looking overly made up, and finally one of Logan that
Veronica recognized from his dresser.
It had been taken at the fundraiser his parents had sponsored for the Pediatric
AIDS foundation, the one that he had insisted she, Duncan, and Lilly be allowed
to attend. Jake and Celeste had sent a contribution but were unable to attend
because they were skiing in Aspen with their children; Veronica had felt
horribly uncomfortable all night in the gown she had borrowed from her best
friend and had self-consciously sipped champagne with Logan, who had told her
she was beautiful and brushed a kiss against her mouth before she left. It had
been after that night on the beach, and she had wondered if she had made a
mistake by never telling Lilly.
Logan.
He had been so close to his mother. With Aaron being the abusive asshole that
he was and Trina being desperately in love with herself, Lynn had been the only
one in that family that even bothered to care about him. He was going to need
someone tonight, and she knew that there was no chance that an 09er would
traverse to the Echolls mansion tonight. Even Duncan would avoid going.
Veronica knew that Duncan was not good with emotion, especially grief, and he
would only go to Logan when he was sure that he was healing so as not to have
to deal with the mess.
If Veronica could appreciate irony tonight, she would have laughed at the way
she forever seemed to be cleaning up the messes that the Kane siblings had no
problem walking away from.
Of course, bathing in acid was a more appealing option than going to Logan
right now. Ever since that disastrous night in the Echolls pool house when she
had melted down and fled, she and Logan had tried to limit all interaction. It
had been so humiliating for her on so many levels. She really had wanted to
make love with Logan that night; if there was anything she didn’t doubt about
that night, it was that. Sure, her judgment wasn’t the greatest when it came to
him, but she had known that, underneath everything, he cared about her.
But if she had known that she’d flash back like that, if she had known that the
bastard who had raped her at Shelley’s party would ruin what should’ve been a
beautiful moment between her and Logan, making her seem like a psychotic tease,
she never would’ve let it go that far.
As desperately as she wanted to find out who had violated her last year, she
didn’t want anyone to know her secret shame.
Shoving her feet back into the boots that her father often teased her about,
she knew that what she felt didn’t much matter tonight. Logan’s mother had died
today and that far outweighed any discomfort going might cause her. God knew
that she had wished someone had extended her the same courtesy when her mother
had left, and, while Logan had mocked her mother’s departure, Veronica was not
Logan.
No, she was going to be a friend to him even if it killed her.
And, in Neptune, it just might.
* * *
Every media outlet on the West Coast was parked outside the gates of the
Echolls mansion, cameras pointed at the house, excited reporters trying to
squawk louder than their counterparts when Aaron Echolls stepped into the pool
of brightness that was cast by the floodlights positioned atop the pillars at
the end of the driveway. For a grieving husband he looked remarkably well, not
even a hint of red to his eyes, his skin glowing with vitality, hair perfectly
coiffed. When he began to speak, the words sounding practiced, Veronica
couldn’t help but be sucked in for a moment. If there was one thing that the
child abusing has-been was good at, it was putting on a show.
Knowing that there was no way she was going to be able to get the Le Baron into
the driveway, she parked it on the side of the road, making her way through the
throng of reporters, hoping that Aaron would let her through the iron gates.
After being rudely elbowed by Mary Hart and a hand squeezing her butt-she was
sure that was Pat O’Brien-she managed to reach the front of the pack of
leeches. The moment that Aaron saw her, he moved forward, shocking her when he
pulled her into a tight hug that caused the flashbulbs to explode in a frenzy.
Voice choked up with emotion, sounding as if he was delivering one of those
cheesy monologues from a straight-to-video movie he had done, he announced,
“This is Veronica Mars, a good friend of my son Logan. I’m so glad that you
could be here in our family’s time of need.”
Her hatred of paparazzi had gone into full bloom after Lilly’s murder, and that
hadn’t changed at all. When they began to yell questions about her father and
Abel Koontz, she asked Aaron, “Can I go up to the house?”
Clasping a strong hand on her shoulder, he nodded. “Of course. Logan’s in his
room. He’s taking this…pretty hard.”
Grateful to be free of his grasp, Veronica hurried up the driveway that was
longer than some streets in Neptune. Once upon a time the vastness of this
place, the sheer gaudiness of it and the glamour of the people that lived here
had fascinated her. Now, Veronica saw it for what it was: a house built with
money that had never done anyone any good, a family that was contingent upon
keeping their secrets and no one ever finding out that their heroes were
alcoholics and abusers.
This was where Logan had grown-up and it wasn’t hard to see why he had ended up
the way he did.
The house was eerily quiet, only a single light on in the living room, but
Veronica could find her way upstairs even if she was blind. She had been here
almost as much as she had been at the Kane mansion, and she had spent many
hours in junior high kicking Logan’s ass at Play Station. With her eyes closed
she knew that once she hit the top of the stairs that she’d turn left, and it
was the second door on the right.
Her knock was light but seemed to echo in the cavernous silence. After several
knocks, she touched the doorknob and found the room to be locked, undoubtedly
to keep Aaron from dragging him out to publicize his grief. Trying to force her
mind away from the lock pick that she had within her bag, she took a deep
breath and called, “Logan, it’s Veronica. I want…I’m just gonna stay out here
in case you need to talk. I’ll be right here.”
Keeping her back to the smooth wood of his door, she slid to the floor, her
knees bent before her, eyes closed. She wasn’t a patient person, didn’t like
waiting in tense situations; Veronica was a woman of action and inaction was
painful.
Veronica heard the tumble of the lock only a moment before she spilled
backwards at Logan’s feet, staring up at him from the expensive, plush
carpeting that covered his floor. He seemed like a giant as he stood over her
clad only in a pair of worn drawstring pants, his chest bare, eyes so bloodshot
with tears that it made her want to cry.
As she hurried to her feet, he gruffly asked, “Why are you here?”
Suddenly feeling as if she was intruding, she fumbled for a moment, the way she
had done when she was fourteen and Lilly had pinned her with that same gaze.
Finally, she managed, “I thought you might need a friend.”
“Then I repeat: why are you here?”
On any other day, Veronica would’ve replied with a biting comment of her own,
but even she had a higher tolerance for bastardry when a parent died. “I didn’t
think you should be alone.”
Turning his back to her, revealing the light dribbles of scar tissue left over
from one of Aaron’s beatings, the ones he lied about and said were from a bike
accident, he snapped, “Well, I don’t really feel like a case of blue balls
tonight, but when I do, I’ll give you a call.”
Oh, that hurt. Even with her new thick skin she couldn’t help but flinch,
grateful that he couldn’t see how the blow had landed and done its damage. She
knew he was hurting right now, but she didn’t want to be mocked for Christmas,
not when she still cried for being unable to follow through that night.
“Look, Logan, I know that you’re upset and I understand-“
“You understand?” he echoed, sarcasm dripping from every syllable. “What do you
understand, Veronica?! My mother is dead! How can you understand that?!”
“My mom-“
“Your mom took off! She didn’t die; she bailed! It’s not the same thing!”
God, he was batting a thousand tonight, hitting every open wound her heart had.
“Maybe not,” she acknowledged, her own voice getting thick, “but I know what
it’s like to just have someone be gone without saying goodbye, without ever
knowing why it happened or what you could’ve done to fix it. I know what it’s
like to…to wonder if it was your fault, that you might’ve contributed to her
leaving.” Slowly moving towards him, she softly added, “I know what it’s like
to wish that you’d gone too.”
Turning towards her, his dark eyes glistening with tears, he hissed, “I don’t
want to talk about this with you.”
“Then who are you going to talk about it with? Somehow I don’t think Dick is
going to be the most empathetic person.”
“Why should it be you?” he countered. “I trusted you last time, I opened up,
and you just took off and wouldn’t even talk to me afterward! Give me one
reason why I should trust you again, Veronica!”
“You can trust me,” she insisted.
“Why? You made it perfectly clear you don’t trust me.” The pain in his eyes
became more acute, anger flickering beneath the surface, mixed in with the pain
of losing his mother and the rejection he had felt. “I actually thought you
felt something for me; I thought that things would be different after that. But
you…you played me even better than Lilly ever did. You should be proud of
yourself.”
“I didn’t play you and I’m not like Lilly! You don’t understand-“
“No, I understand perfectly.” Flopping back onto his unmade bed, the mauve
comforter so out of place in this room, he declared, “You think that you’re
different from the rest of us, above us, that you understand everything better,
but when push comes to shove, you go right back to being Lilly Kane’s shadow.”
Taking a long swallow from the bottle of Jack Daniels on his nightstand, he
gave her a dismissive wave. “I don’t have time for another mind fucker.”
The tears that had been simmering under the surface suddenly broke free, fat
saltwater drops cascading down her face. She felt as if he had just stripped
her bare, leaving her for the whole world to see, and even if she knew he was
just doing it because he was hurt, it didn’t make it better or easier.
“I’m not like that,” she swore, voice raspy with emotion. “You know I’m not
like that. If I was, why would I be here?”
Tiredly, he lowered his head to the pillow, closing his eyes. “I don’t know why
you’re here, but I know that you shouldn’t be. Unless you want to tell me why
you bailed last time, we have nothing to talk about.”
Quid pro quo, Veronica thought humorlessly as she moved to sit beside him on
the bed. A confession for a confession, my feelings for his.
Making sure to keep a careful distance from him, afraid that if she was
touching him she would never get the words out, unable to look at him, her
whispered words went off like an explosion within the room.
“I was raped.”
It was the first time she had ever spoken it aloud, ever given what had
happened a name. When she had tried to report it to Lamb, she had said
“assault,” as if that would make the act any less heinous. Afterward, when Lamb
had so cruelly ignored her, Veronica had been incapable of saying it. She had
been so ashamed, felt so violated that she didn’t even want to acknowledge it.
One part of her wanted to know who did it, but the other part of her wanted to
deny it had even happened, that someone could have abused her like that and not
felt anything wrong with it.
She didn’t want to be damaged goods, and she knew that was how people looked at
rape victims.
Logan’s eyes instantly snapped open, his body jerking to an upright position,
convinced he had heard her wrong. There was no way he had heard what he thought
he did. He didn’t want to have heard what he did.
“What did you say?”
She wished it was easier to say it the second time but it wasn’t. “I was
raped.”
“When?”
Studiously avoiding his gaze, she supplied, “Shelley Pomeroy’s party last year.
Someone…spiked my drink. I don’t really remember what happened, but when I woke
up…I was in bed alone without my underwear and my dress strap was broken.”
Anger burned through his veins then, so sharp and burning that he would’ve
killed the perpetrator with his bare hands. “Who?”
The tears were coming quicker now; tears always came easy when she thought
about this. “I don’t know. I tried to tell Lamb, but…”
She couldn’t finish her sentence, the agony of Lamb’s humiliation so much worse
on top of the violence she had experienced.
Tentatively, Logan reached out a hand, laying it on her shoulder, but she
jerked away, too exposed to stand being touched right now. She was shaking
harder than she ever had before, and she wished that she had just left and not
started down this path. Everything she had read said that rape victims felt
lighter after revealing their attacks, but Veronica did not feel relieved; she
felt like she had been stripped naked and left in the middle of town for all to
judge.
“I left because…because I got scared. I knew you weren’t going to hurt me, but
I couldn’t…I kept thinking about…” Angrily wiping at her face, she bit out, “I
wasn’t trying to mind fuck you. I didn’t want to hurt you at all. And when you
came to me after, I just…panicked.”
Logan wasn’t often left speechless, but there was no other word for this. Only
half an hour ago he had been mourning his mother, but right now he couldn’t
think of her at all, not when Veronica Mars was crying on his bed, confessing
her deepest secret to him because she had wanted to help him in his pain. He
had never felt like a bigger jackass in his life, but, at the same time, he
felt honored that she had confided in him rather than just walk away.
“Veronica.” He moved towards her slowly, his hand on her shoulder blade feather
light, and, in a voice that was barely a whisper, he assured her, “What
happened wasn’t your fault. There was nothing you could’ve done to stop it.
Whoever did that to you…you were a victim and you didn’t deserve that.”
It was as if a dam had broken inside her as she flung herself into Logan’s
shocked embrace, burying her face in his neck as she sobbed. She had wanted-
needed-to hear those words so badly in the past year to try to assuage her
shame because she had blamed herself. How many times had her father told her to
never drink from a cup that she hadn’t poured herself, to never accept a glass
of anything from someone she didn’t know? She had been terrified that maybe,
because she had been so careless, she had deserved what had happened to her. To
hear Logan tell her that it wasn’t was like being absolved of her sins.
Logan had been so drunk at Shelley’s party that he could barely stand, but he
remembered Veronica with perfect clarity. She had never been able to handle her
alcohol, and, when they had partied together, he had always kept an eye on her,
monitoring her intake. It had always been second nature to protect Veronica
Mars, and he had thought it would always be like that. But Lilly’s death had
changed everything, and that night, when he had seen her at the party, he was
irrationally angry at her for being there, for agreeing with her father that it
wasn’t Abel Koontz who had killed Lilly, for looking indescribably beautiful in
that virginal white dress.
He had been overtaken with jealousy when he had seen her kissing Dick on the
couch, Dick’s hands freely wandering over the body that Logan remembered all
too well from their night on the beach, and he had written her off then and
there. When they had turned her into the salt lick near the pool, he had
started to feel uneasy, his conscience tugging at him through the haze of
alcohol. Someone had pushed him towards her, and, when he had bent to lick at
the salt on her neck, she had stared up at him with those big blue eyes of hers
and she had whispered his name, one of her hands reaching up to stroke the side
of his face. It was the innocence of the gesture that had struck him, the way
she had mistook him for her white knight, and he had felt sick to his stomach
that this was what he had become.
And then Duncan had swept her off of the lounge and he hadn’t seen her again.
The next time he saw her, she had butchered her long hair, Lilly’s hair, a
child’s hair, and she was someone else entirely.
Her tears burned like fire against his neck, and a memory fought its way to the
forefront of his brain. It had been his 14th birthday party and Lianne was
supposed to pick her up from his house. Everyone had left, and Lynn had offered
to take her home, but she insisted that her mom was just late, that she’d wait.
She and Logan ended up watching an episode of Saturday Night Live, Veronica
unable to even crack a smile, and Logan had kept a protective arm around her
shoulders. When Lianne had showed up, she was so drunk that she fell out of the
car and passed out in the driveway. Lynn had called Keith at the station and
Veronica had just sobbed in Logan’s arms, pressing her face into his collar,
wanting him to save her. He had just stood there, no words coming, until Keith
arrived, scooping her up, thanking Lynn, and wishing Logan a happy birthday.
Logan Echolls had never been anyone’s hero, and whenever he had the
opportunity, he had always fucked it up.
He moved against his headboard, Veronica curled up in his lap, gently rocking
her, soothing her. Seeing how this was tearing her apart, all he could think
about was Duncan pulling her away from them that night, the perennial Boy Scout
who had never wavered in his morals, who never would’ve even considered using
Veronica as a salt lick, he declared into her hair, “It should’ve been me that
night.”
Tears finally stopping, she confessed, “I wish it had been. I wanted…I wanted
my first time to be this romantic, bed of roses thing with someone that I
loved, that loved me. Whenever I pictured that person’s face, it was always
you. I used to cry because it wasn’t.”
It was the worst sort of misinterpretation. He hadn’t wanted her to reveal
another part of her heart, hadn’t wanted another secret. How was it that even
when he tried to tell her one of his regrets that she still seemed to make him
have a whole batch of new ones?
“No, Veronica,” he stammered, almost helplessly, that famous Echolls mouth
failing him. “I meant that I should’ve saved you that night, that I should’ve
protected you.”
Embarrassment burnt bright enough on her face that it lit up the room.
Immediately she pulled away, feeling so mortified that she couldn’t even manage
to draw breath. She was scrambling to get away, muttering, “I’m sorry, I didn’t
mean to put you on the spot. You were right. I should go. I don’t belong here.”
Logan sprung forward, cutting her wrist and pulling her back, unthinking that
the movement might scare her. He certainly didn’t want to upset her, but he
couldn’t let her leave like this, thinking that he didn’t want what she had
said.
Veronica’s heart skipped a beat as Logan tugged her back to him, sliding a
gentle hand against her cheek, slipping in to tangle in her loose blonde locks.
Resting his forehead against hers, he softly requested, “Don’t apologize. You
don’t ever have to apologize for that. I wish I had been your first too. I
would’ve showed you…It’s not a bad thing to wish it would’ve been good for
you.”
She wasn’t sure how comforting him had turned into comforting her, but she had
forgotten how sweet Logan could be, how he had an uncanny ability for
insightfulness that rivaled her own. And what he was saying was like a balm to
her poor, battered soul.
“Logan…”
When no other words came, Logan said, “No matter what bullshit we put each
other through, you’re still the best friend I have, Veronica. I just want to
keep you safe.”
“You don’t have to-“
Pressing a finger against her lips, stilling her words, he asked, “Why won’t
you let me?”
“I’m afraid,” she admitted.
Startled, Logan pressed, “Of me?”
Veronica minutely shook her head. “Of me.”
“Why?”
“Because what if you can’t? What if I’m too… ruined-“
He silenced her with a kiss, long, sweet, and surprisingly chaste. Logan had
always had a way of devouring her mouth, but tonight his kiss was as tentative
as could be, his hands not embarking on a quest for her curves, his tongue
staying inside his mouth. This was a kiss of comfort, a reassurance wrapped in
a promise and Veronica could’ve wept at the sincerity behind it.
Cupping her face in his hands, he ordered against her lips, “Don’t ever say
that. You’re perfect just like this.”
After what had happened at his parents’ Christmas party, Veronica had swore to
herself that she would never kiss Logan Echolls again, that she would erase
that part of her life, that it had been a well-intentioned but badly executed
attempt at solace. She had promised herself that she would never again agree to
anything sexual with Logan no matter how sweet he was to her just because she
was in love with the man he had once been. The Logan she had loved and the
Logan who now existed were two different people, and Veronica had needed to
learn to make that distinction.
She had made that distinction tonight, and she knew that she had made a promise
to herself that she had no intention of keeping.
Her kiss was not tentative; it was hungry and desperate and consumed Logan with
its passion. She had never taken charge like this before. Duncan had liked her
submissive, his bubble gum princess with the unspoiled purity, and her previous
couplings with Logan had always made her feel unsure of herself and her
sexuality.
He tasted like whiskey and sorrow; she tasted of chocolate ice cream and tears.
As he allowed her to push him onto his back, her tiny body resting atop his
bare chest, he stared up at her in fascination. He thought that he had seen
every side of Veronica Mars, but this one was new. This wasn’t the girl he had
had a crush on, the innocent he had fooled around with on the beach, the angry
girl that had planted a bong in his locker, or even the victim that he had seen
only moments before. This Veronica was no shrinking violet but she wasn’t the
sex kitten that Lilly had been. No, this Veronica was a woman who was taking
back something that had been stolen from her, that was claiming what she
wanted.
His skin was scalding hot beneath her palms as she trailed them over his torso.
She had never gotten the chance to explore him like this before, to take her
time, and even though she knew that most of the free press and his father were
outside, she didn’t care.
For the first time since they had begun their illicit interludes, Veronica
didn’t feel shamed for desiring him, for wanting to touch and be touched by
him.
She kissed his cheeks, his chin, down his neck, lightly sucked on his
collarbone. Logan purred in enjoyment, moving his head in an attempt to direct
her to where he wanted her mouth. He was fighting to not roll her over, to
resist the powerful urge to thrust his burgeoning erection into the softness
hidden between her thighs. The last thing he wanted to do was cause her to
panic again, to ruin something that should be beautiful and convince her that
it would never be good.
“I don’t understand you,” she confessed against his chest, planting tiny kisses
around his nipple before taking it between her teeth, startling him at her
forwardness.
“Ah!” he cried out before panting, “What’s to understand?”
“Sometimes you’re this total bastard that I can’t even stand to be in the same
room with. But then there are times when…when I never want to leave you.”
Pressing a trail of kisses down the meridian of his body, she stated, “I never
know how I’m gonna feel about you, if I’m gonna kiss you or kill you.”
Trembling at the feel of her breath misting across his lower abdomen, he
shakily replied, “Feeling’s mutual.”
Playfully, as if to alleviate the cloud of pain that hung over both of them,
she darted her tongue into his bellybutton, prompting him to jerk up, his
erection now standing tall and poking her between her breasts. He urged her up,
forcing her away from the part of his body that wanted so desperately to be
buried within hers, and kissed her with every ounce of passion he felt for her.
Confused, Veronica pulled away, doubt flooding her eyes, and she asked, “What’s
wrong?”
His hands played gently with the hem of her T-shirt, not pushing but asking.
Veronica silently raised her arms, and he removed it with ease. He didn’t go to
her bra as she had expected, but instead began to kiss ever inch of her skin,
startling with her neck and working his way down to the cup of her bra. When he
reached it, his tongue traced the edge of the purple lace, his hands stroking
the length of her back. Her nipples were painfully erect, tight and demanding
attention, and she was prepared to beg him to touch them, to take off her bra
and do whatever he wanted, when he surprised her by taking one into his mouth,
rubbing his tongue against it through the lace. The sensation was unfamiliar
but incredibly exciting, and she moaned, her hands flying to his head to hold
him more firmly against her.
He moved to her left breast, lapping at the peak before lightly worrying it
with his teeth, and Veronica squealed, panting out, “Logan, please!”
With a smile that was pure self-satisfaction, his hands moved to the front
clasp of her bra, and he slowly unhooked it, acutely aware of Veronica’s eyes
watching him. When it sprung open and her breasts seemed to pour forth into his
hands, he lightly squeezed them, announcing, “These are world class breasts.”
Veronica wanted to contradict him, to tell him they were too small, not perky
enough, not firm the way they were supposed to be, but she couldn’t, not when
he was looking at her like she was an angel come to earth, nothing but desire
and admiration in his eyes.
She laid back, her head at the foot of the bed, splayed out before him, her
hair framing her face in a way that was simultaneously innocent and erotic. Her
skin was tinted pink with arousal, her nipples damp from his mouth, her hips
minutely bucking up to meet an imaginary lover’s thrusts, and Logan had never
wanted anyone more in that moment.
He moved over her slowly, giving her time to prepare, and when he was, he spent
several long minutes just kissing her, acquainting her with their position.
When he felt her short nails skim down his back, he knew she was ready and
slowly he began to slide down her body much in the same way she had done. He
stopped at her breasts, making sure not to leave one inch un-kissed or touched
before pressing wet, open mouthed kisses to her stomach. She made a noise that
was somewhere between a mewl and a cry, and she sighed, “God, Logan, I need-“
“What do you need? I’ll give you anything.”
He felt her blush, the heat causing her skin to warm even further. As his
fingers casually slid along the inside of her waistband, not venturing
downward, just playing with the sensitive skin there, Veronica panted, “You
know!”
Logan knew that he probably shouldn’t play with her like this, not when she had
revealed something so personal before, but there was something endearing in her
purity. He would never leave her unfulfilled, but he was still a 17-year-old
boy, and he wanted to hear her say the words.
As if to give her the inspiration to verbalize her needs, he popped open the
button of her jeans but did not lower the zipper. “What do I know?”
Tears of frustration burning in her eyes, the tension between her legs becoming
unbearable, she blushingly informed him, “I need…I need…I need to come, Logan.”
If his control were worse, he would’ve come right then and there, her words
enough to tip him over the edge. But there was no way he was going to become
the premature ejaculation sensation before he even got her pants off. If he had
to embarrass himself, he wanted one of them to, at least, be naked.
She lifted her hips to assists him in freeing her of her jeans, leaving her
clad only in a pair of string bikini panties with stars decorating them. He sat
back on his heels to really look at her, to bask in her beauty, and he stilled
her hands when she moved to cover herself.
Gently moving her arms away from her body, he assured her, “You’re beautiful,
Veronica. You don’t need to hide.”
“You’re just staring,” she said, a touch of defensiveness creeping into her
tone.
“I won’t stare anymore,” he vowed, moving back to her stomach, drawing designs
with the tip of his tongue. “I’ll be too busy.”
It was the subtext rather than the words that made Veronica quiver, and she
pushed everything out of her mind but him. There was no rape, no Lynn, no year
of bad blood. Right now, all there was, was Logan, who was currently moving
aside the strings of her underwear to nip at her hipbones.
“Logan, please!”
Taking pity on her, Logan carefully slid the underwear down her legs, tossing
them over his shoulder. He idly wonders if she remembers leaving that pair from
Christmas; he’ll never tell her that he kept them.
Veronica gasped as he began to kiss his way up her right leg, the kisses
becoming deeper and wetter at the inside of her thigh. She’s torn between
embarrassment and arousal; no one has ever done this to her before. Duncan had
heavily hinted at wanting to receive oral sex but never mentioned giving it;
she and Troy had only gone as far as some over the bra action; she and Logan
had gone from touching to attempting sex that she hadn’t even thought about it.
Now, as Logan urged her to bend her legs, seemingly framing his body, Veronica
wasn’t sure whether to let him do this or to run away and check into a convent.
Grandma Mars had always wanted her to be a nun, to serve the Catholic Church.
Maybe she had missed her calling; maybe she wasn’t supposed to be a PI at all
but was supposed to serve-
“Jesus Christ!” she screeched at the first touch of Logan’s tongue against her
core, sensation whipping through her so fast and hard that she felt as if she
had been sucker punched.
Logan immediately lifted his head in shock. Veronica had never been incredibly
vocal, and Lilly rarely made noise during sex unless it was to mock him. To
hear her shout like that immediately made him think that he’d hurt her.
“Are you okay?”
“Don’t stop!” she cried, an undertone of panic threading through her voice.
“You sure?”
She nodded jerkily, pitching her hips up in encouragement. “I’m sure. I won’t
yell again. I promise.”
Resituating himself, he smiled. “Be as loud as you want.”
She moaned long in satisfaction as his tongue went back to lapping at her
flesh, his hand gently stroking her folds before slipping one finger inside of
her. Her inner muscles clenched upon it, massaging it, and Logan could only
imagine what it would feel like to be inside her, to feel that tightness
grasping around his dick.
“You’re so wet, baby,” he informed her, a bit of awe filling his voice. “I
think you like this.”
“Uh-huh,” she grunted, moaning louder as he slid another finger inside her,
stretching her sheath a little more. She was unbearably tight; he had forgotten
that. It had been so long since he had touched her like this, that he had felt
the way her muscles hungrily clamped down upon him.
When he withdrew his fingers, Veronica began to protest but her voice faltered
as she felt his tongue slip inside her, lapping at the wetness that was
accumulating there. It was something startlingly new, something that felt so
good that she didn’t even have time to think about whether it was right or
wrong, whether they should be doing this or not.
Logan had imagined doing this to Veronica a few times before, but the actual
experience was far more gratifying than his imagination. As he tasted her in
the most intimate way that he could, as he felt her fingers twist in his hair,
he wanted her to come apart, to feel better than she ever had in her life.
Replacing his fingers, he worked his way up to her previously ignored clit,
darting his tongue out to gauge her reaction. He knew that some women were more
sensitive than others here, and he did not want this to be painful. She mewled,
begging him to continue, and, as his fingers curled inside her, searching for
that illusive place inside her, he sipped her swollen clit between his lips and
began to suck, his tongue sliding against it.
Veronica screamed in bliss, jerking her hips almost violently, hands keeping
Logan firmly against her. She had never felt anything like this before; this
made every orgasm she had ever had before feel like pleasant twinges. Logan
couldn’t be human; nothing human could invoke this much pleasure in another
person.
She had barely recovered her from her first orgasm when his questing fingers
found what they were looking for. The moment he touched her g-spot, she cried
out again, coming even harder than before, wetness gushing out of her as she
sobbed in pleasure. Logan withdrew his hand, and he slid back up her body,
cradling her against him as she shivered intermittently with aftershocks. When
her breathing finally regulated, she just looked at Logan in disbelief before
blurting out, “Thank you.”
Logan grinned, wiping his mouth with the edge of his sheet before brushing his
lips against hers. “Thank you.”
With a sleepy smile, she reached down, trying to grasp his straining erection,
but he caught her hand, pressed a kiss to her palm.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, self-consciousness filling her face.
“I don’t want anything.”
“But it’s ok. I want to.” Brushing a piece of his hair back from his forehead,
she said, “I want to make love to you.”
Logan shook his head. “Not tonight. Tonight, I just want to hold you.”
“But you didn’t come,” she said before blushing brightly.
“This wasn’t about me.” His eyes pleaded with her to understand, to see that
this had been his way of apologizing for Shelley’s party, to try to make up for
the pain that he could’ve spared her if he had been the type of man she
deserved.
Veronica reached for her discarded T-shirt, pulling it over her body before
obediently slipping into his arms. He positioned them carefully, so that he was
spooning her, and he kissed her hair.
They laid there for several minutes before Logan offered up his confession, the
secret he owed her. “He beat her, too, you know. That’s one of my first
memories. They had gone to a party, the People’s Choice Awards, and Mom had
talked to some director. Aaron thought she was flirting, and the moment they
got inside, he backhanded her so hard that she fell over a coffee table. Trina
and I were watching some movie, I can’t even remember what, but he didn’t even
care. He pulled her up by her hair, called her a whore, and broke her nose.”
“God,” Veronica gasped.
“She started the plastic surgery after that. There was the nose job to fix what
he did, the cheek implants after he crushed a cheekbone, the Botox and the lipo
and the boob jobs. Collagen was the latest. He has a thing for Angelina Jolie,
and Mom thought that if she had bigger lips he’d quit fucking anything in a
skirt. When she’d get drunk, she’d tell me that if she could just be what he
needed, if she did what she was supposed to do, he wouldn’t be like this. It
was always her fault, never his. I used to hate her when she wouldn’t stop him
from hitting me, from beating me, but he just would’ve done it anyway and then
did her.”
Veronica can hear the trembling in his voice, the tears that have managed to
escape as he accuses, “It’s his fault. She might’ve jumped but he’s the one who
drove her to it. And I can’t believe…I can’t believe she’d leave me like that.
How could she just fucking quit when she knew that he’d keep doing it to me,
that he’d probably kill me without her here? How could she be so selfish?”
“Maybe she was just in too much pain,” Veronica lamely offered, stroking the
arm that was wrapped around her torso. “Maybe this was the only way she could
be free of him.”
“Free of him,” he echoed, the words nagging at his brain as if they meant
something significant. “Who wouldn’t want to be free of him?”
“I know that I’m not her, but…I’m here. I won’t let him hurt you anymore.”
He knows the promise is empty, that there’s no way she can promise that, but he
appreciates the sentiment. As he buries his face in her hair, they fall asleep,
their breath synchronizing as they drift off.
* * *
Light filtered through the windows accompanied by birds singing, and Veronica
awoke in a panic. Her father was due back in Neptune at 8 AM, and it’s 7:30. If
she didn’t do some serious hauling ass, she was going to be in trouble like she
could not comprehend.
Gently moving out of Logan’s grasp, she began to dress in her forgotten
clothes, keeping one eye on the clock. Her pants are barely fastened before she
hears Logan drowsily query, “Where are you going?”
“Home. My dad’s gonna shit a brick if I’m not there.”
Logan moved out of bed, handing her the bag she had left beside his bed.
Carefully, unsure how she’ll react, he kisses her briefly. “I’ll walk you out.”
“You don’t have to-“
“I’m walking you out,” he rephrased, leading her silently through the house.
Her car is where she left it, the news vans blissfully gone after scoring the
Aaron interview, likely to surface again at Lynn’s funeral. As Veronica
unlocked her car, Logan sighed, “Thank you for last night.”
She looks so young in the morning light, face free of make-up, hair
delightfully tousled. “What are friends for?”
The door was open, and she was prepared to climb in when Logan requested,
“Please stop running from me.”
Sadness in her voice, she countered, “Please stop making me.”
Pressing a kiss to her forehead, he swore, “Things are going to be different
now.”
She wanted to believe him, to listen to his promises. There’s a part of her
that prays with everything she has that he will be different and that when they
see each other the next time that things won’t be awkward and filled with
tension. But Veronica has learned not to expect miracles, so she just kisses
him again before going home, beating her father by mere minutes.
* * *
Lynn’s funeral at the Methodist church is packed, and Veronica sits in the
back, away from the Hollywood types and 09ers that make up 99.9% of the
mourners. Logan and Aaron are in the front pew, the Kanes behind them, and
Logan seems more lost than ever.
He and Aaron stand in the receiving line, the only family that Lynn has left,
and, when Logan sees her standing there in the same black dress she wore to
Lilly’s funeral, something shifts in his eyes. Despite her hatred of him, she
offers Aaron her condolences and shakes his hand.
Logan clasped her hand for a moment too long, his grip slightly too tight, as
if he were clinging to a life preserver, and he pulls her in, hugging her as
he’s done to several other attendees.
“I’m glad you came,” he breathed into her ear. “I needed you today.”
Surprise is not a strong enough word to describe what fills her chest in that
moment, but Veronica knows that he was right: everything has changed now. And
she knows exactly what has happened, knows it the minute she sees the looks she
gets from Logan’s 09er pals, once her friends.
Their relationship, once the best kept secret in Neptune, is starting to not be
a secret at all.
***** Chapter 4 *****
“Wang Chung or I’ll kick your ass!”
There had been a time, however brief, when Veronica had actually thought that
tonight could just be about normalcy, about going to a dance decked out as pre-
Erotica Madonna and enjoying the company of the Neptune Deputy that she had
used and screwed over but actually did like underneath it all. She had thought
that the worst event of the night was seeing that Meg’s secret admirer was
Duncan, whom, Veronica couldn’t deny, she still saved a piece of her heart for,
that portion that was always reserved for a first love.
Of course she had been wrong. After all, she’s Veronica-fucking-Mars, and
whenever she thinks that nothing worse can happen... it always does.
It doesn’t surprise her that Logan is not wearing pants, having chosen to
emulate Tom Cruise à lá “Risky Business.” It doesn’t even surprise her that
he’s loaded, not after finding Trina in the hotel using Lynn’s credit cards.
No, what surprises her is that, while she certainly feels pity for his
situation and anger at the fact he’s being such a supreme jackass rather than
actually dealing with his feelings, she feels so protective of him.
Of all the things that she has felt for Logan Echolls in the past year,
protective was never one of them. Logan made it perfectly clear that he didn’t
need anyone to protect him, least of all her, but that didn’t stop her from
wanting to shield him from this pain. Wallace had been right when he had pegged
her as a marshmallow, and right now, she was harboring a particular soft spot
for Logan, especially after the tenderness he had shown her the night of his
mother’s suicide. She knew that there was a person underneath those retro
sunglasses and white shirt that needed comfort in a way she wasn’t even sure
she could provide, and that both bothered her and assuaged her guilt at the way
she had handled him in the hotel yesterday.
His breakdown had been gut-wrenching to watch. In all of the time Veronica knew
him, his tears had always been short and usually quiet. To hear great, heaving
sobs come from his chest, to feel his fingers curl into her back in a desperate
attempt to hold her close…She had been overwhelmed and had basically rushed him
to his home, telling him that he needed some time alone. He had stared at her
with those dark eyes, silently pleading for her to stay, and she had bailed
like a coward. She couldn't handle another night of revealing her secrets to
Logan, only to have to turn around and pretend it hadn't happened. She was
still recovering from the last one.
And because she wouldn't stay with him while he fell apart in private, behind
closed doors where they could rock one another to comfort, she had to watch it
happen publicly, at a time when everyone was watching.
Veronica pulled out of Leo’s arms, an apologetic look on her face, before she
approached Logan, who was trying to grind with Carrie Bishop and was only
really succeeding in dry humping her leg like a dog. When he saw her, he
conspicuously pulled away from Carrie, a penitent look on his face, before
slurring, “She doesn’t mean anything to me.”
Veronica had heard the line before; it was one of Lilly’s, always brought out
when she had cheated on him and needed to convince Logan that only he was her
true love.
“You’re drunk.”
“Apparently so.” Flinging two heavy arms around her neck, pressing his forehead
against hers so that he could be eye to eye with her, he teasingly drawled,
“But you still love me anyway, right?”
The stench of whiskey hit her hard in the face, filling her pores and offering
her a vicarious taste of the beverage she hated, and suddenly she’s hit with a
memory of her mother, stumbling down the stairs at the old house, missing the
last two and crashing at the bottom. Veronica, barely fifteen, had bent down to
help her and her mother had begun her apologies, reeking of alcohol so badly
that it had made Veronica’s eyes water.
With strength fueled by anger, she pushed him away, breaking his hold, causing
him to nearly lose his balance as she spat, “What are you doing, Logan?”
Before he could answer, hurt shining in his eyes, Duncan and Meg came towards
them, Leo trailing slowly behind, unsure if he wanted to step into the hornet’s
nest that was developing on the floor of the Neptune High Gym. Veronica
couldn’t blame him; if she had a choice, she wouldn’t be doing this
either…except, she did have a choice. And, as usual, her choice seemed to
involve Logan, whether or not it was a detriment to other things around her.
“Hey, man,” Duncan started, one hand lifting to scratch at his Eddie Munster
wig, “you okay?”
“When did you get here, Lil?” he mumbled, a clumsy hand reaching to touch Meg’s
hair as if to affirm that she was really standing before him.
Veronica’s spine straightened, every muscle in her body now tense. He thought
Meg was Lilly? After everything he had said, everything they had done together
in the past few weeks, he still wanted Lilly? Was it that obviously that
Veronica was just another replacement for a dead girl? Was blonde hair and a
tight body all it took for him to imagine that it was Lilly Kane beside him?
Meg, completely oblivious to Veronica’s change in body language, was the
perfect image of sympathy as she moved his hand away, saying, “It’s Meg, Logan,
Meg Manning.”
“Been so long since I saw you, Lil,” he continued, oblivious, before turning
suddenly to Veronica. “Guess we’d better tell her then, huh?”
Any feelings of jealousy immediately flew out the window as panic exploded in
her stomach. Now was definitely not the time to out their
relationship…friendship with benefits…frequent loathing paired with naughty
touching…whatever the hell they were. And she definitely didn’t want to have to
deal with the fall-out with her ex-boyfriend and potential boyfriend standing
side by side.
Grasping Logan’s shoulders, she ordered, “We’re going out into the hall until
we can get you a ride home.”
“But I’m here to party!” he retorted, raising his voice enough that it looked
like Mrs. Hauser was about to actually venture from her spot holding the wall
up and do some actual chaperoning duties, which would undoubtedly lead to a
call to the Sheriff, if not Aaron Echolls.
Leo, seeing the teacher make the same movement, firmly took hold of Logan’s
forearm and intoned, “Logan, you could be picked up for public drunkenness.
Come on out into the hall so you don’t get into trouble.”
Veronica was so grateful to Leo at that moment that she would have written an
entire musical about his good qualities. And—she couldn’t lie—it was also kinda
hot seeing him take charge like that. That was the one flaw in Leo D’Amato; he
was almost as passive as Duncan.
As Leo escorted her stumbling friend into the hall, Veronica sighed, digging
into her purse for her cell phone. She didn’t want to talk to Trina, but if it
came down to Trina or Aaron, Veronica would have to settle for the lesser of
two evils.
* * *
The body of the Le Baron was cool against the skin of her back as Veronica
leaned against it, Leo standing before her, bidding her goodnight. Most of the
students were gone now, a few left vomiting in the bushes from Dick spiking the
punch, but it was almost quiet in the Neptune High lot.
“You ever just have normal nights?” Leo quipped, a smile tugging at his lips.
“Normal?” she echoed, lifting her hand to stroke her imaginary beard as she
pondered the question. “I have heard of that before.”
“Yeah, you know, where you don’t get arrested for making fake IDs or
investigate cheaters or con your friends into distracting deputies so you can
steal from the property room.”
“How do you know about the IDs?...Which I was totally framed for, by the way.”
His smile became flirtatiously enigmatic. “People talk.”
“People lie.”
“Which part was the lie?”
“Well…none of that was, but a lot of what you hear about me won’t be true.”
“Such as?”
“I was never a dancer at the Seventh Veil; they wouldn’t give me my own
dressing room, so I refused. I never serviced the water polo team, though there
were many offers. And I’ve never slashed Lamb’s tires, but should the
opportunity present itself…”
Leo laughed, and Veronica noticed that it was not burdened with the sadness
that hers had, that Logan’s had, that Duncan’s had. Leo had been untouched by
the murder of Lilly Kane and the shit storm that followed; he got to stay
normal, to be normal.
“All I need to know about you, I already do,” he assured her.
“Like what?”
“You’re completely loyal to your dad, which means you’re big on family. You eat
more pizza than someone your size should ever be able to consume, so you have
to be Italian, which means that my mother would worship and adore you. ...And,
you have a soft spot for Logan Echolls, and that tells me that you’re a good
person.”
“I don’t have a soft spot for Logan,” she began to argue.
“Yeah, I’m sure you would’ve done the same for anyone, right?” He shrugged.
“It’s okay to want to help him. I mean, he was your best friend’s boyfriend,
right? She’d want you to watch over him, wouldn’t she?”
You obviously did not know Lilly, was all Veronica could think. Instead, she
just nodded before declaring, “I should head home. Backup’s gotta be dying to
go outside right now, and Dad’s after a jumper in Colorado, so...”
“So you gotta go. Can I see you again?”
There he was, the pinnacle of normal, the average Joe, the type of young man
that her father must’ve been. He was a stand-up guy, not prone to alcoholic
binges that resulted in public embarrassment and biting comments, not the kind
to just walk away with no explanation, the sort that ran drugs and then skipped
town. Leo D’Amato was the type of guy that she should’ve wanted, the type that
wouldn’t hurt her.
So she simply said, “Sure,” and tried not to be too obvious when she jerked as
he kissed her, a nagging voice in her head accused her of betraying the drunk
man she had handed off to his sister earlier in the night.
* * *
Veronica was half way home when she realized that she still had Logan’s car
keys in her purse. His mansion on the hill was on the opposite side of town, a
good 20 minutes from her shoebox apartment, and she wasn’t sure if she wanted
to deal with either Echolls child again, but she also knew that if she didn’t
take him his keys, he would call her when he woke up the following morning,
undoubtedly waking her up too.
For all of his drunken antics, Logan was strange in the fact that he always got
up an ungodly hour after one of his binges, almost as if his drunkenness
prevented him from rest. She could remember Lilly’s Sweet 16 and how he had
been the most inebriated she had ever seen him, but he had woken them up at 6
AM the next day, ready to go and insisting that Veronica make him pancakes.
Weighing her options, she groaned in disgust before performing an illegal U-
turn and making the drive to the Echolls' Mansion. The last time she had been
here was the night of Lynn Echolls’s suicide, the night that Logan had learned
of her rape, the night that everything had changed for them. She wouldn’t call
them friends, exactly, which was odd considering that only a few weeks ago he
had been performing oral sex on her. It was just subtle changes, like asking
her to investigate the possibility of Lynn being alive, like breaking down in
front of her, like kissing her cheek at Lynn’s funeral.
For so long now, things had been black and white between them, and Veronica was
definitely not digging this new Technicolor.
As she pulled into the driveway, she noticed Trina talking on the phone through
the window, decked out in the gaudiest gold bathrobe she had ever seen, a glass
of champagne in one hand, handset in the other. Veronica was mentally preparing
herself for dealing with Trina when she noticed a light coming from the pool
house. Knowing that was where Logan had to be, she slipped around the bushes,
her black skirt catching on a rosebush. As she swore at the bush and her
outfit, she saw that Logan was dipping a hand into the warm water of the pool,
wearing nothing but the white briefs and socks from the dance, still swaying
uneasily on his feet. It was simultaneously hysterical and infuriating to see
him like this.
“You can’t go swimming drunk,” she stated, arms crossed over her chest in her
usual protective stance.
Logan turned his head slowly, almost as if he was trying to assess whether she
was a hallucination or not, before finally declaring, his speech a bit clearer,
“Whatever, Veronica. I'm not your yo-yo.”
“What?”
“What do you care if I go swimming while I’m wasted?” He continued bitterly.
“You couldn’t get rid of me fast enough earlier.”
Ignoring his sniping tone, she held up his keys before tossing them onto one of
the lounges. “Here are your keys. Try not to kill yourself again.”
“Would you even care?”
“Would I even care if what?” Veronica sighed, tired of talking around in
circles of accusation and denial with him.
“If I died,” Logan answered quietly.
“Don’t even joke about that!” Veronica snapped, a tendril of fear tugging at
her heart.
“Nah, you probably wouldn’t,” he decided in that same defeated tone, acting as
if she hadn’t spoken at all. “After all, you’ve got Officer Good Body to take
care of you now.”
“Hey, if it wasn’t for Officer Good Body...” Catching herself, she amended,
“Leo, you’d be in a cell right now waiting for Aaron to bail your ass out!”
“Well then I guess I’d better thank my lucky stars that Veronica’s boyfriend
covered my ass. However would I get on without you?”
“Not that I owe you any explanations…but Leo is not my boyfriend.”
“You think you don’t owe me an explanation?”
“I don’t!”
“Yeah, you made that clear when you practically shoved me out of the gym so I
wouldn’t tell Duncan about us.”
“I shoved you out because you were a blathering moron who was calling Meg
'Lilly' and making everyone uncomfortable!”
“Bullshit! You thought I’d tell Duncan what we do, who you are, and you
couldn’t handle it! Face it: you like me being your dirty little secret, the
one you keep around when you have an itch that needs scratching but otherwise
want to stay the fuck away from you!”
“You’re drunk and have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, no, I know exactly what I’m talking about! You never did shit with Duncan;
you want him to still think you’re pure as the driven snow, and he wants to
think that you’d never lower yourself to be with someone like me! I’m okay when
no one’s looking, when you can pretend that it’s not real!”
“Says the guy who won’t even talk to me when his friends around! No, can’t be
seen with Veronica, the Benedict Arnold of the 09ers. I might not get invited
to the cool parties where they use drugged girls as salt licks!”
Logan seemed to be sobering up with every poison-tipped barb, and he was
shaking with anger at her last statement. It was not his proudest moment, but
for her to use that against him now…
“Gee, why wouldn’t someone want to just bring you around, as sweet as you are?”
Invading her personal space, he drawled, “Face it, V: you’d prefer if I dropped
off the face of the earth and made your fake little life better because God
forbid Duncan or your dad or Wallace finds out that you come to me for what you
need.”
It was horrible, and what made it horrible was that it was true. How many times
had she prayed that Logan would just go away? She didn’t want Keith or Wallace
to know that she kept going back to the guy who had smashed her headlights,
told Troy her name was Trampy McBitch, and laughed as Dick scribbled her phone
number on every stall at Neptune High with the words Call if you like anal
beneath it.
She didn’t want them to know that when she went to sleep, she wished Logan had
his arms around her.
“Go to hell,” Veronica growled, spinning on her uncomfortable heels and
marching off of the property, tears stinging her eyes.
* * *
Veronica was not sure which was worse to wake up to: Backup barking at maximum
volume or someone banging so hard on the front door that it sounded like they
were trying to break in. When she rolled over and spotted her alarm clock,
which told her that it was 5 minutes until 5 AM, she was ready to kill whoever
was on the other side of the door.
Staring at her through eyes that were more than a little bloodshot was Logan,
his fist poised to begin another round of door banging.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” she hissed, keeping her voice down so that
her neighbors didn’t call Lamb. “It is 5 in the morning!”
“We need to talk.”
“I think we talked enough. I have nothing left to say to you.” She swung the
door, prepared to slam it in his face when his hand easily caught it, his
reflexes surprising for the amount of alcohol he had consumed not twelve hours
earlier.
“Logan-“
“Please, Veronica.”
“No! I’m done with this, Logan. I make an effort to be nice to you and you’re
cruel. I try to help you and you’re cruel. And then you think you can just
swoop in and say something sweet and that makes it okay? I don’t need this. I
don’t need you.”
Voice sounding shockingly unlike Logan, he softly countered, “But I need you.”
It wasn’t what Veronica had expected to hear and it threw her. That second of
hesitation gave Logan just the in that he needed to move through the door,
giving Backup a light head scratch before invading Veronica’s personal space,
gently cupping her face between his hands. Keeping a light pressure to insure
that she would continue to meet his gaze, he sighed, “I know that I’m an
asshole, okay? I get it. But I’ve always been an asshole, and you know that no
matter what horrible shit I say, I care about you.”
“Please tell me that your selling point isn’t that you’ve always been an
asshole.”
“I know I’m not…I know I fuck up…a lot. But I do care about you, Veronica. I
mean, I can’t think of anyone else in this world that I…that I need like you.”
“You don’t need me, Logan,” she argued, breaking his hold on her, needing to
put some distance between them. “You did just fine without me for over a year.
In fact, you made it clear you didn’t give a shit about me one way or another.”
“You know that wasn't me.”
“No, what I know is that you have twenty different personalities and all of
them end up hurting you and everyone around you! I can’t do this, Logan! I
can’t take it! I can’t keep…I can’t keep trusting you and thinking that you’re
going to change this time only to have you be the same drunk son of a bitch
that you’ve been since Lilly died!”
“This has nothing to do with Lilly,” he argued mildly.
“Yeah, she’s so far from your mind that you were pawing Meg, calling her
'Lilly',” Veronica bit back, hating the pathetic jealousy that was sneaking,
unbidden, into her tone.
A bit of realization dawning on him, he moved a fraction of an inch closer to
her. “I didn’t want Meg to be her.”
Veronica just snorted in derision.
Rephrasing, he stressed, “I don’t want you to be her. Meg was just standing
there, with Duncan, and it was like it was the four of us again, only you were
with me, the way it should have been. I wanted Lilly to see what should have
been.”
Turning her back, unsure whether or not her battered emotions would be able to
withstand any more of this talk without tears appearing, Veronica sighed, “You
loved her since we were thirteen, and now you’re telling me that you don’t
still want her? I’m not stupid.”
“And neither am I.” Taking a deep breath, Logan confessed the biggest secret he
had, the secret that he had never even dared to speak out loud for fear that he
would be forever scorned.
“I don’t miss Lilly.”
Veronica whipped around so quickly that she nearly tumbled backwards into the
coffee table. “Excuse me?”
Folding his arms across his chest in a patented Veronica move, he admitted, “I
don’t really miss her. I mean, there are days when I wonder where she is just
because she was there for so long, and sometimes, when I’m editing my memories,
I wish that she was here because she was fun once. But towards the end…before
she died…I don’t miss that; I don’t miss her. Sometimes I think I just loved
her, that I missed her because it was…”
“Habit,” Veronica finished in a whisper, thinking of her own feelings towards
Duncan.
“Habit,” he confirmed. Cautiously taking her hand in his, a tenuous connection
that seemed to imbue him with courage, he continued, “But you? I missed you
every second. I used to wake up and think that I had something funny to tell
you and then I’d remember…I know that what I did was wrong. I was just really
fucked up.”
“Was?”
Rolling his eyes, he admitted, “Still am.” Closing the gap between them, he
added, “I want to start over with you, Veronica. Let me show you that…that I’m
more than that.”
“Logan, you can’t just sweep in here and expect everything to change.”
“I don’t. I just want a chance, that’s all. I don’t care if the whole world
knows or you want to keep it a secret. I’d rather be with you when no one can
see than not be with you at all.”
Veronica wasn’t sure whether to be grateful that he was actually being so
flexible or ashamed that she wanted him to agree to keep it a secret. Somehow
the tables had turned, and now it was she that didn’t want the world to know
she associated with Logan Echolls on something other than a strictly
professional basis. But what she did know was that she felt the same as Logan
did at least on one thing: she wanted him back in her life.
So she didn't stop him when he pressed his forehead to hers, or when he leaned
in a second later and kissed her open mouth, and she didn't stop him when he
eased back onto her couch and brought her down to straddle his lap. When she
felt the bulge in his jeans nestled into the apex of her thighs, she had no
doubt where this was headed.
Logan was kissing her like he would never get enough of the slick, heated
motion of their mouths meeting. He had one arm wrapped around her back,
anchoring her to him, and the other was trailing up her bare leg to the hem of
her shorts.
“You are so soft,” Logan murmured as he deftly flipped her onto her back on the
couch, immediately covering her with his body. “And you smell so good, God,” he
buried his face in the crook of her neck, sucking the tender skin with all the
subtlety of a vampire. He was arching his hips, rubbing his clothed erection
between her legs very pointedly.
“Logan,” she gasped, fisting a clump of his hair.
“No, Veronica, shhh,” he soothed, kissing her cheeks, her nose. He drew back to
stare at her with an adoration that equally scared and exhilarated her. “We
don't have to do anything.” He went back to kissing a path down her neck
towards her breasts. “I just want you to know that I can't stop thinking about
you, ever. I can’t get you out of my head no matter how hard I try.” Taking her
hand in his, he pressed it against his chest, his heart beating wildly beneath
his breastbone. “You’re my heart.”
It was cheesy and sappy and exactly like a bad line out of one of those insipid
romantic comedies, but Veronica couldn’t help the hitch in her breathing as the
words hit home. All she could do was tug impatiently at his shirt with the hand
pressed to him, urging him down to her mouth before she whispered against his
lips, “Make love to me.”
There was something fabulously dangerous about the idea of letting Logan take
her on the couch, something that was wild and hopelessly teenaged about it. But
even through the haze of sexual tension that was engulfing her, she knew she
respected her father far too much to ever rut on the couch that he sat on as he
watched America’s Most Wanted and cheered when they caught the bad guy.
As Logan’s hands began to wander beneath the tank top she had worn to bed, she
managed to rasp out, “Logan…not here…my room.”
As if she weighed nothing, Logan scooped her up, her legs automatically
encircling his waist, her heat pressing almost painfully against his erection.
She wrapped her arms around his neck, the tip of her tongue tracing the shell
of his ear, patient in his arms before he awkwardly asked, “Um, V…which one’s
yours?”
The question almost surprised her until she realized that Logan had never been
inside the apartment before. No, the last time he had been in her room had been
at the house on Bay Ridge, the one with the white bed with ruffled pink canopy,
the one with the stuffed animals happily arranged on her wicker bookcase, the
one where Veronica had sobbed after she had lost everything.
She felt an irrational stab of embarrassment at the messy condition of her
bedroom. It didn’t matter that Logan’s room was in danger of being condemned;
there was just something about the boy-man-she was about to have sex with
seeing her dirty clothes scattered on the floor from where she was sorting
laundry that just screamed unsexy.
Logan wouldn’t have noticed if the floor was covered in toxic waste; he was so
caught up in Veronica in that moment that the world could’ve ended and he
wouldn’t have even flinched. As he laid her back on her firm mattress, Veronica
saw the adoration in his eyes and it simultaneously warmed her and terrified
her. She didn’t want to be the center of someone’s world and yet…yet she also
felt like they had always been like this. Even when they hated each other, they
couldn’t look away, turn away, separate themselves.
As she raised herself enough on her elbows to begin removing her shirt, she was
almost grateful for the unfortunate granola bar/scissors incident that had
killed her beloved water bed. Somehow, the idea of having her first (invited)
time on a water bed was a little too 70’s porno for her.
He caught her hands loosely, an almost pleading look on his face as he
requested, “Let me do it?”
Logan had seen her naked several times, but there was something about the
expression on his face that made it seem as if every time was the first time.
It made her feel beautiful and sexy and just so damn feminine that she wished
that she could bottle that feeling for when her self-esteem started to flag.
But right now she couldn’t think about that because she was topless and quickly
becoming bottomless with Logan Echolls touching her as if she were crafted of
the most fragile crystal.
As Logan shed his own clothing, his boxers humorously tented over his straining
erection before he finally tossed them away, Veronica felt that familiar
anxiety begin to bloom in her stomach. She did want this; she knew that with
everything she had. And she knew that if she couldn’t do this with Logan-who,
despite everything else, she knew would never hurt her when they were like
this-then who could she do it with?
Logan, as if sensing her sudden unease, gently laid the condom he had fished
out of his wallet onto her night stand and cupped her cheek. Careful to keep
his weight off of her, he whispered, “We don’t have to do this, Veronica. I can
wait. I’ll wait for as long as you need.”
“I want to,” she assured him, stretching to reach the condom, her nipples
brushing against the wall of his chest in such a way that she had to stifle a
moan. As she tore the package open, she noticed that Logan, who had apparently
gotten bored during the whole 10 seconds it had taken her to reach for the
rubber, had decided that it was time to try to see if he could drive her
positively crazy by worshiping her breasts.
She gasped, her teeth sinking into her lip briefly as Logan sucked heavily upon
one swollen nipple before laving it with his tongue. As her eyes drifted shut,
pleasantly losing herself in his ministrations, Logan cautiously eased one
finger inside of her body, her muscles automatically tightening around the
questing digit. This time, it was Logan who had to bite back a moan, because,
if she felt this fucking good around his finger, then actually being inside of
her was going to be absolutely exquisite.
“I just need to loosen you up, babe,” he panted in a whisper, almost as if he
was afraid a regular tone would frighten her. “I don't want to hurt you.”
Veronica hastily nodded, ready to agree to anything if he would keep going, and
she took several deep breaths, trying to calm herself down enough that she
wasn’t going to turn into a babbling mass. She was doing a very good job until
she felt Logan’s lips brush across her lower abdomen and then every feeling she
had was obliterated by the sensations happening below her waist.
“Logan!” she cried out, her fingers clutching at his shoulders just as his
tongue had made one lazy swipe against her clit.
“Something wrong, love?”
“I need you now. Please, I can’t wait.”
Under normal circumstances, Logan would’ve been amused by Veronica’s
impatience, but tonight was not the time to tease her about her temperament. He
considered ignoring her pleas and licking at her until she screamed his name,
but knowing she had already been rendered powerless in bed once before, he
couldn't let her first real time be anything less than exactly what she wanted.
Extracting the somewhat smushed condom from Veronica’s hand, Logan slid it on
with the precision of someone with considerable practice. As he positioned
himself between her splayed thighs, he braced himself on his hands, gently
lowering himself to brush his lips against hers.
“If you get uncomfortable…if you want to stop, just say so.”
Her arms made their way around his back, her hands resting on his shoulder
blades. Her fingers lightly stroking the skin there, she murmured, “I won't
want to stop. It feels so good...Logan, please.”
In movies, when the two characters finally succumbed to their feelings and made
love, it was always perfect, beautiful, and there was never any type of
hesitation and no one ever faltered.
But this was real life, and it was nowhere near that easy for the lovers
entangled on this bed.
For all of his big talk, Logan was terrified of hurting her, and he moved
achingly slowly. She was painfully tight, and, with every sharp breath and
facial twinge, he wanted to reverse course. If it hadn’t been for Veronica
clinging to him so desperately, he would’ve pulled away completely, horrified
at the mere idea of causing her more pain. Of course, it was probably better
that he was going so slow because he had been right; she felt incredible inside
and he could quite easily make a fool of himself with this beautiful girl.
When he was finally seated inside of her, as close to her as any person could
be, Veronica released a shaky breath that, when coupled with the wetness he
felt on his neck, Logan realized was a sob. He jerked his head off of its
resting place on her shoulder, staring into her tear filled blue eyes, and he
immediately tried to pull out, away, hating himself already for this.
Veronica’s grip became vice-like as she panted, “Don’t! Don’t go!”
“I’m sorry...”
“No, it’s…it’s good, Logan, I swear!” Wiping at her eyes, she said, “I don’t
know why I’m crying. I really don’t.”
“Do you want to stop?”
She shook her head, her blonde hair falling over her face. “No.”
A cocky smile full of bravado graced his lips as he brushed away a piece of
hair from her eyes, inclining their foreheads to meet. “Then smile, beautiful.
It’s just us now.”
Their hips slowly began to move together, trying to find the right rhythm as
their mouths sought each other out. Despite Logan’s experience, neither could
deny that it was not as natural as they had built it up to be, but Veronica
didn’t care. In the past two years, she had never felt as safe or as complete
as right now, skin to skin with Logan so deep inside of her that she couldn’t
tell where he ended and she began.
“Can we try something?” he rasped, never stopping the steady motion of his
hips.
“A little early to get kinky, isn’t it?” she quipped, her voice amazingly
breathy, even to her own ears.
He grinned, mischief sparkling alongside the lust in his eyes. “Trust me?”
“Yeah.”
His hand skimmed its way down her body, stopping when it reached her knee,
gently bent to cradle his body. Slipping his hand beneath her leg, he smoothly
lifted it, her leg now high against his chest, deepening the angle of
penetration, causing to Veronica to cry out in pleasure, her nails biting
sharply into his skin.
“Fuck!” she cried as he hit that spot inside of her that never failed to make
her tremble.
Veronica began to buck her hips as fast as she could, needing more friction,
needing more of Logan, and he was only too happy to oblige. As they strove
towards their peaks together, sweat beading on their skin, Logan leaned down,
their tongues tangling intimately.
Logan reached down to touch her clit and Veronica jerked her head back and
gasped, meeting his dark, bottomless gaze.
“Fuck, Veronica...” he gasped as he thrust harder, deeper.
“Fuck...love....need...”
Suddenly Veronica felt the pressure inside of her begin to crest and with a
sultry cry, she came, her orgasm exploding. As she cried out to God, Logan, and
Jesus, Logan groaned out his own joy into her hair, never feeling so satisfied
in his entire life. Careful to keep his weight from crushing her, Logan did not
immediately move away, and, when he felt Veronica’s small hands cup his face,
he opened his eyes to see that she was grinning in a way he hadn’t seen in
years.
“Hey.”
He smiled. “Hey.”
“Spend the night?”
Logan nodded towards the window. “It’s morning now.”
Irritation tore through her. “My dad will be back by noon.”
“Then I have a few hours,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “I'll
be right back.” Logan withdrew, eliciting matching moans of disappointment. He
padded to the bathroom to dispose of the condom, and when he turned back
towards the bed, he saw that Veronica had wrapped herself up in her sheets, the
blue a striking contrast to her satisfied complexion. He snuggled up behind
her, kissing the back of her neck.
“It's never been like that before,” he confessed in a low murmur.
“Like what?” Veronica replied, her voice thick and dreamy.
“That deep,” Logan replied simply, squeezing her tightly once before letting
his arms relax into a looser, more comfortable hold. “Things are gonna be
different now,” he swore right before he drifted into sleep.
Veronica sighed, unsure. As wonderful as that had been, she wasn’t sure if she
was ready for the whole world to know yet. She could lie and say she wanted
Logan all to herself for a little longer... but that's all it would be. A lie.
As hollow and unfulfilling as dreams. Instead, she cuddled further into his
embrace, content to be sheltered in his arms for as long as possible.
When she woke up, he was gone, but there was a note on the pillow behind her
with two words that made it all okay. “Call me.”
* * *
She didn’t know why she called Logan to rescue her from suspected bomber Ben.
She could’ve called her dad or Wallace or Weevil; Weevil was definitely more
threatening than Logan in his 09er khakis and green sweaters complete with puka
shells. But she called him because, of everyone, she trusted that he would
come, no questions asked, ready to kick some ass and take some names.
She was scared when she didn’t see the Xterra at the Camelot and she was
genuinely terrified that she going to end up as the latest decoration on the
shabby walls, but when a fist connected with Ben’s face and Veronica saw that
it was Logan, her heart rejoiced.
As they stood there on the balcony, staring at each other, Veronica wasn’t sure
how to express her gratitude or the love that she had for him in that moment.
She always seemed to fuck it up when she tried to explain so she did the only
thing she could think of to show him that she cared for him: she kissed him,
right then and there, before God and anyone at the Camelot for some afternoon
delight. Sure, it wasn’t the Neptune High parking lot or her father’s office,
but it was the first time that they had ever kissed without being behind closed
doors.
It was the first time that Veronica was not ashamed of the way she felt for
Logan.
When she pulled back and he did and said nothing, she felt like an asshole of
the most amazing degree, especially since they had barely talked since the
night they had made love. But when he pulled her back into his embrace,
Veronica knew that she had been right to call Logan because he had been and
always would be there when she needed him. So she clung to him more fiercely
and got lost in his kiss.
* * *
When the lights switched on and Veronica saw every 09er jammed into the
Echolls’ mansion, her heart dropped and she prepared for Logan to toss away the
hand clutching her own. She expected him to push her away, to play it off as a
joke, to make her feel insignificant and keep his status with the 09ers, but he
didn’t. And when he tore into Dick for his comments, her quiet heart glowed
with something much deeper than she'd ever be able to explain.
It didn’t matter that Duncan looked destroyed to see them standing there
together.
It didn’t matter that Aaron Echolls was smiling at her as if she was the next
skirt he would be chasing around his office.
It didn’t even matter that Madison Sinclair was there, the girl that had
contributed to the hell of her forgotten night at Shelley Pomeroy’s party.
No, all that mattered in that moment was that Logan was hers and she was his
and no one could take that away from them.
The secret was out.
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