Fic: For the Sake of a Friend, (Logan/Veronica, Meg/Weevil), PG-13, 18/?
Title: For the Sake of a Friend, (Logan/Veronica, Meg/Weevil), PG-13, 18/?
Author: jacedesbff
Pairing/Character: Logan/Veronica, Meg/Weevil, ensemble
Word Count: 4600+
Rating: PG-13 for mild language and sexual situations
Summary: AU from the Pilot; this chapter takes place during Christmas vacation in-between “An Echolls Family Christmas” and “Silence of the Lamb”
Spoilers: Familiarity with Season 1 required.
Disclaimer: Rob Thomas owns all.
All previous chapters may be found at my LJ.
A/N: I just drove from Georgia to Idaho, so this has taken a little longer than normal. *smiles tiredly* Thanks for your patience and I hope you like it! Hugs and kisses to my beta candlewaxdreams. I am SO grateful for her help and support.
X-posted. Thank you to everyone for your ongoing feedback. I love, love, love it!
As Duncan watched his pill dissolve in the pool of water lying in the bottom of the sink, he thought about the only two things that were important to him: how he wanted to feel and how in order to do that, things needed to not change.
After Lilly died, Duncan had lived in a sea of white noise made up of indistinct sounds and people-until he had learned about Logan and Veronica, that is. When he found out that his best friend and the love of his life had become a couple, Duncan experienced a virtual explosion of emotion-hatred, loathing, anger, betrayal, bitterness, jealousy. Sensations that most people took for granted had flooded through Duncan, and for the first time in so long, he had felt. From that time through to the present, Logan and Veronica had become the only source of feeling and emotion available to the troubled young man.
As he now had only the one well available from which to draw normal human emotions, Duncan had quickly learned to do whatever he could to wring every drop of feeling possible out of that well. He manipulated, he lied, he cajoled, he spied, and everything that he did was designed to create and encourage events and situations that would generate more sensations within himself. This worked quite well for him, if not so well for Logan and Veronica.
Equally important was maintaining the status quo. Duncan had learned how to handle the current state of affairs and he didn’t like to so much as contemplate changing things. He liked that Veronica and Logan were sneaking around trying to hide their relationship from him. It was amusing. It was in fact the only source of amusement in his life; therefore, he didn’t want it to go away. He liked watching them sneak around at school. He enjoyed pushing Logan and Veronica’s buttons and watching them jump around as a result-it was for that reason that he had staged his “fight” with Logan about the poker money. He knew perfectly well that Logan didn’t do it, but he knew that if Logan thought that Duncan was mad at him, lots of interesting conversations would result and Duncan liked listening to those.
Pursuant to this, Duncan had become extremely adept at identifying when Logan and Veronica were on the verge of “coming clean”. He could tell when circumstances were aligning in such a way that his friends began to believe that they could make that change (in no small part because he listened to most of their conversations using his rifle mike.) This was why he was now watching his pill dissolve in the sink.
The entrance of Meg and Weevil into the picture had again triggered discussion of Logan and Veronica taking their relationship public, which Duncan simply wasn’t having.
Everything was going to be fine, though. He had a plan.
*
As Meg sat in the lounger next to Logan’s pool applying sunscreen lotion she fretted over how to broach the subject that was weighing on her mind. She and Veronica had been spending more time together lately, mainly because they suddenly had so much in common. As far as Meg knew, no one besides herself and Veronica was hiding a secret boyfriend and there was a definite liberation in hanging out with someone who not only knew your secret, but who understood it.
With the start of Christmas vacation, she and Veronica had found themselves doing more things together than they normally would have. And while it had taken considerable maneuvering, they had even managed to organize today-two days after Christmas all four of them had made excuses to their friends that would allow them to spend the day together at Logan’s pool. Let’s hear it for year-round sun, thought Meg.
In preparation for the big day, she and Veronica had gone swimsuit shopping at Old Navy, which was still selling swimwear in December because, hey, it was southern California. Meg liked the one that she had chosen-a pink bikini that was surprisingly modest considering that it was a bikini. Meg knew that if you asked just about anyone at Neptune High, they would describe her as naïve, and she was willing to acknowledge that as being true. It irritated her, though, when people confused being naïve with being stupid, which Meg was not.
Meg had been well aware that Veronica was steering her away from anything that could be described with the words “string” or “thong”. Meg knew Veronica well enough to know that her friend wasn’t worried about Logan’s eyes straying. That thought almost made Meg laugh out loud-while she wasn’t embarrassed by her body, she considered Veronica to be better-proportioned; hence, Logan didn’t need to go looking elsewhere in the first place. In addition to that, Meg was fairly certain that Veronica would destroy Logan’s life. Since there was no reason for Veronica to think that Meg needed to hide her figure from Eli, that left-who? While Meg would undoubtedly wear her new bikini out in public eventually, the thought behind the shopping trip in question had been this get-together on this day. Who else was going to be there?
Back to that whole not-being-stupid thing. That left Aaron Echolls as the person whom Veronica did not want to ogle Meg in a revealing swimsuit. Meg wasn’t quite sure what to make of that. She knew Aaron for his movies and for being Logan’s dad and because she tended to get a little tongue-tied around him, but that was about it. So Meg filed the information away in her mind as she truly had no idea what to do with it.
Meg was procrastinating and she knew it.
“Veronica, would you mind putting sunblock on my back?”
“Sure,” said her friend, turning to sit on the side of her own lounge chair.
As Veronica poured the lotion into her hand and Meg was able to turn the other way, she finally got up the courage to ask her question.
“Veronica, you and Logan are having sex, right?”
-
Veronica was out of practice being friends with other girls. Her circle of loved ones, small though it was, consisted solely of males-her dad, Wallace and Logan. She had a feeling that Mac could be a friend, but she was reluctant to add someone else into her life to whom she would have to lie all the time. She already felt bad enough about Wallace.
The addition of Meg and Weevil into their lives had been a surprisingly welcome one. Veronica not only liked them both individually and as a couple, she loved watching Logan get to be himself in a social situation. Around the other 09ers he had to keep up his jerkwad leader-of-the-pack act while his girlfriend watched from afar. With Meg and Weevil, though, Logan was entertaining, relaxed, fun to be around. Veronica loved watching Logan up close around their new favorite couple-so much so that she was even willing to get used to having a female friend again.
She hadn’t hated going shopping with Meg, it was just weird hanging out with a girl. And she was completely taken aback by Meg’s question. Wallace didn’t ask that kind of thing.
“What?” Veronica was so surprised that she squirted almost half the bottle of sunblock into her hand.
“I’m sorry,” said Meg, half turning her head around to Veronica. “I know that’s a personal question, and I didn’t mean to shock you or anything. I just…I need to talk to somebody and I don’t have anyone else.”
Veronica tensed. “Has Weevil been pressuring you?”
“No!” Meg’s quick answer reassured Veronica and the shorter girl took a moment to scrape some of the lotion back into the bottle before she started putting it on her friend’s back.
“Eli would never! It’s just…I…” Meg took a deep breath and looked down at her feet as Veronica applied the sunscreen. “When I was going out with Cole, we talked about sleeping together, but it never seemed like the right time.” Her voice drifted off.
“And now?” Veronica prompted.
Meg moved her head so that she could see Veronica fully for the first time since she had brought up the subject.
“I want to rip his clothes off, Veronica. I mean, have you ever seen his pecs? I never really thought about “pecs” before, but come on! His chest-I mean, I don’t ever want him to wear a shirt! He came in from working on his bike a few weeks ago and he wasn’t wearing a shirt and I’ve spilled things on him twice since then on purpose just so that I could watch him take his shirt off.” Meg jerked back around, embarrassed by her admission.
“What am I supposed to do? I don’t know if I’m really ready to sleep with him or if it’s just my hormones taking over.”
“Give me your hand,” said Veronica.
Meg turned around confused and Veronica wiped the rest of the sunscreen onto her friend’s hand. “Cover me.” She paused. “All Logan has to do is walk into a room and I’m ready to go at him,” Veronica said as Meg started applying the sunblock. “It wasn’t always like that, but it got that way pretty fast.” She paused. “You know about Shelley Pomeroy’s party, right?”
Glad that Veronica couldn’t see her blush, Meg answered. “Yeah, I left early, but I, um, heard about it.” As had the rest of Neptune High.
“That was the first time Logan and I ever slept together.” Veronica had never told that to anyone. The only ones who knew were her and Logan.
“Wow.” Meg’s comment covered a lot of territory.
“Yeah.”
“And now?”
Veronica laughed. “Anytime, anywhere, as often as possible.”
Meg joined in the laughter.
“Listen, Meg,” Veronica turned around, “even though it became world news afterwards, it was still the right time. You’ll know when it’s right. And just so you know, Logan’s arms beat Weevil’s pecs any day.”
“You wish!” insisted Meg.
-
Weevil couldn’t believe that he was going to spend the day with 09ers. Willingly. Okay, technically Veronica wasn’t an 09er, but the line was pretty thin. Despite himself, he had had a good time when the four of them hung out last time. The bottom line, if he was being honest with himself, is that he was irritated on principle and not because he wasn’t looking forward to hanging out with Logan and Veronica. Stronger than his irritation, though, was his desire to spend time with Meg outside of his house.
Unlike their friends, Meg and Weevil couldn’t hang out at Meg’s or in a pimped-out van or go on stakeouts together. He and his girlfriend were in effect housebound. Weevil had no intention of staying hidden forever, but even if Meg’s parents didn’t try to have him killed, he knew for certain that they would make his and Meg’s lives hell when they found out their daughter was dating a Latino gang member. He wasn’t worried about himself. He didn’t want to bring that down on Meg.
Damn, he was gone on that girl. She was nothing like anyone that he had ever dated before. She was kind, compassionate, sensitive and a whole bunch of other things that didn’t usually run in Weevil’s circles. He loved being with her. He liked getting to know her. That was a new experience for him.
He remembered what it had been like with Lilly-every moment stolen and intense, crackling with a sexual tension that was always relieved as quickly as possible. It wasn’t like that with Meg. It wasn’t that he wasn’t attracted to Meg, quite the opposite. It’s just that there was more to it than attraction. He was having a good time getting to know her. He and Lilly hadn’t exactly spent a lot of time talking. Even so, he had fallen hard for the vibrant young girl. Lilly had been gone for over a year when he met Meg, but Weevil had just begun moving on, helped along in large part by Logan’s reaction to his tattoo.
Meg had worked her way into his heart much faster than Weevil had expected. While he would like nothing more than to sleep with her, he didn’t want to push things. He wanted it to be when Meg was ready. He wasn’t used to waiting like this, but he would do more than that for Meg.
As he drove his motorcycle up the Echolls’ service entrance, he thought about how he hadn’t told his fellow gang members about Meg yet. He knew that if he did it carefully, they would be fine, but he had to do it in just the right way at just the right time. As that set of circumstances had yet to present itself, he continued to enjoy Meg’s company by himself.
Weevil parked his bike and entered the house through the kitchen door. His grandmother had the day off, so the kitchen was deserted. As he came in the back way, Logan entered through the front.
“You could have used the front door, you know,” commented the 09er king.
“What, and use the back door tomorrow when I pick up my grandmother? Wouldn’t wanna get confused.”
“Come on, man,” invited Logan, choosing not to comment on Weevil’s observation.
When they reached the glass French doors that led out to the pool, both young men stopped at the sight that greeted them. Veronica was slathering sunblock on Meg’s back. Both Logan and Weevil stared in silence as Veronica finished and Meg swiveled around to return the favor.
Weevil made a choking sound, forcing Logan to tear his attention away from the show on the other side of the pool.
Ah. Right.
“Bathroom’s second door on the left,” Logan said in an understanding voice. They had all been there.
Grunting in acknowledgement, Weevil turned away from the doors.
-
Every minute that Logan spent with Dick and Beaver was a minute he wanted to be somewhere else, but he couldn’t abandon them completely without good reason. Duncan had spent almost the entire vacation with his parents in Napa, leaving Logan with no excuse to avoid his other friends. In order to free up this afternoon, he had to tell them that he was helping his parents pack up and leave for Aspen where his father would finish out his recovery, never mind the fact that they had actually left a day early.
Logan rolled his eyes. Christmas day had been nothing more than a photo op at his house: pictures of the wounded action hero convalescing, surrounded by his loving family. The hypocrisy of it was like ants crawling through Logan’s bloodstream-watching his mother smile for the cameras mere days after her husband’s indiscretions had been publicly aired. It was more than he could handle. He had stayed for the shortest amount of time that he could possibly get away with and then he had left for Veronica’s apartment, where he had spent the rest of the holiday with Veronica and Keith. It had ended up being the best Christmas that he could remember. It was certainly the first one in many years that didn’t end up with him drunk and passed out.
He walked into his house to find Weevil coming in through the kitchen. Seeing the sense in Weevil’s comment about which door to use, but unable to come up with a suitable reply, he simply pointed out that it was time to join their better halves. He wasn’t prepared to find their girlfriends slathering each other in lotion, though, and the sight stopped him in his tracks.
After sending Weevil off to deal with his, um, problem, Logan headed outside.
“Hey, Veronica! Meg,” he said as he crossed to the other side of the pool. “Veronica, can I talk to you in the pool house for a minute? Excuse us, Meg.” It wasn’t that he didn’t have Weevil’s issue; he just didn’t have to fix it on his own.
Meg smiled as Logan and Veronica disappeared into the pool house. Even she wasn’t that naïve.
She sat enjoying the sun, opening her eyes only when she heard the French doors open. She watched as Eli came around the pool and sat down on Veronica’s recently vacated lounge chair.
“Where are El and Vee?” he asked.
Meg laughed as she answered. “They’re-“ she coughed, “-talking in the pool house.”
Weevil smiled and moved to sit next to her.
“Well, isn’t that thoughtful of them?”
“Oh, yeah, it was very thoughtful.”
Weevil leaned over and pulled Meg into a kiss.
“See?” he asked as he sat back. “Thoughtful.”
Meg smiled as she reached her lips back up to his.
After a moment she asked him a question, her lips still touching his. “Do you want to sleep with me?”
“What?!” Weevil shot back in surprise.
Meg flushed up to her hairline. “I’m sorry, I didn’t…“ she took in a shuddering breath. “I just-we’ve never talked about it and I wondered-I mean, do you want me?”
Weevil ran his hand through Meg’s long hair. He closed his eyes briefly before answering her. “Meg, I promise you that you do not ever have to worry about me wanting you.” Meg turned an even deeper shade of red. “I just didn’t want to push you to do anything you’re not ready for.”
Catching his hand in hers, Meg tried to explain. “I know that I…want…you. I’m just not sure if I’m ready or not yet. Doesn’t that mean that I’m not?”
The eyes that Meg turned to the young man at her side were so trusting that Weevil felt his heart constrict. He would do anything to keep this girl safe and whole.
“We’ll know, baby. We’ll know.”
Logan and Veronica chose that moment to exit the pool house.
“That was quick,” Weevil observed as he sat up.
Logan gave him a dirty look and Veronica just smiled.
“Logan was admiring my new swimsuit. It’s his favorite color,” she indicated her predominately orange outfit embellished with brown and pink.
“I think it would look better wet, though.” With that, Logan scooped up his girlfriend and unceremoniously tossed her into the pool. Veronica, though-being Veronica-clung to him so tightly that Logan went in with her.
As Weevil laughed at the sputtering couple, Meg stood up and threw herself onto her boyfriend, landing both of them in the pool, too.
A few minutes later, Veronica was up on Logan’s shoulders and Meg was up on Weevil’s. While Logan had a few inches on Weevil, Meg’s additional height evened the couples out, so the game of chicken that ensued was fairly evenly matched. After five drawn-out matches, resulting in two wins for each couple, one tie in which all four of them toppled together and two thoroughly pleased young men, the four of them played Marco Polo and had an impromptu diving contest that consisted of whose cannonball could make the biggest splash, which Weevil won.
Tired after all of the water frolicking, Logan ordered pizza and got beers for himself and Weevil, Skist and Diet Coke for Veronica and Meg, respectively, and the four of them sat around one of the deck tables talking. Having put some light clothing over their swimsuits to ward off the light breeze that came in as the sun set, the four of them settled in as the pizza arrived and they sat down to eat.
Neither Logan nor Veronica had missed the similarities between the current situation and previous occasions back when Lilly was alive and Duncan wasn’t suicidal. That connection was both good and bad. Good because those had been good times; bad because those memories were now forever tainted.
In an effort to stave off what would be a truly painful association, Veronica proposed a game of Two Truths and a Lie, pre-empting a suggestion of Truth or Dare.
“Okay, sugar plum, but you have to go first,” said Logan with a quick kiss.
“Bring it on,” Veronica smiled. “But you don’t get to vote,” she pointed to Logan, who rolled his eyes. “Oh, and everything we say here stays here.” Everyone nodded their heads with varying degrees of “duh” on their faces. “First, when I was ten I saw a man cut his finger off in a meat slicer. Second, I once destroyed thousands of dollars worth of ceramic figurines during a rage blackout. And third, I once walked in on two teachers-who shall remain nameless-having sex in the teachers’ lounge.” She smiled as her three listeners sat in stunned silence. “So which one’s the lie?”
“Why can’t I vote?” asked Logan. “I only know about one of those. I want to vote.”
“Fine,” said Veronica with a sigh. “But you vote last.”
Logan sat back looking pleased.
“I repeat. Which one’s the lie?”
Ultimately Veronica fooled both Meg and Weevil, but not Logan. As Logan put it, there was no way that Veronica would not have told him about teachers doing the rumpy-pumpy in the teachers’ lounge.
“The rumpy-pumpy?” asked Meg with a raised eyebrow.
“That’s what Roger Ebert calls it,” explained Veronica. “He has this thing about Roger Ebert.”
“What? The man won a Pulitzer,” defended her boyfriend.
“Uh-huh.” Veronica smiled. “Suggestion, though,” and she looked at Meg and Weevil, “read his online reviews and skip the TV show. All he does is repeat what he already wrote. And he writes it better.”
“So who’s the guy with nine fingers?” asked Weevil, who had thought that was the lie.
“This guy in the meat section at the grocery store. I haven’t been able to eat red meat since.”
“Hence the veggie pizza,” added Logan.
“And you really destroyed all of those figurines?” asked Meg in a sad voice.
“Her entire room was covered in dust,” answered Logan. “That was the one I knew about.”
It turned out that Logan had been kissed by a very drunk Drew Barrymore when he was nine and hit on by a supposedly straight member of a boy band when he was 14, but that he had not gone joyriding in a golf cart on the Universal Studios backlot.
Meg had once worn nothing under her spanky pants at a football game and had accidentally set fire to her family’s cat, but had not gone streaking with the rest of the cheerleaders at cheer camp the summer before 8th grade (much to the boys’ disappointment).
And finally, Weevil had been stabbed (in a fight) and poisoned (with antifreeze by his sister), but had never been shot.
When all was said and done, Logan was the clear winner, as no one guessed his lie to be a lie. Meg, on the other hand, fooled no one, in spite of how inviting her lie was.
“I can’t believe that you were hit on by a member of Boy Zone but you didn’t toodle around in a golf cart. I mean, come on, which one is more likely?” pouted Veronica.
“And that’s how they play the game.”
“Okay,” interrupted Meg. “If you became a stripper, what would your name be?”
“Thinking of going into the trade?” asked her boyfriend, one eyebrow raised.
“I like to be prepared,” she said with a laugh. “Your first name is the name of your first pet and your last name is the street you grew up on. My stage name would be Cookie Diamond, thank you very much. See? Now I’m prepared.”
Through the laughter, Meg was able to prompt Veronica to go next.
“Twinkles Belmar.” At Logan’s choked guffaw, Veronica shrugged innocently. “What? When I was four, my dad brought home a stray dog-it was this weird little poodle mix that was so ugly it was cute. I had just learned Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star and I insisted that’s what we had to name her. We had her for two years before she ran out into the street and got hit by a car.”
“Awwww,” said Meg, genuinely sad for the long-gone Twinkles.
“But now you have Back-up,” said Logan in a cute little boy voice, and he kissed Veronica on the head.
“Always take Back-up,” affirmed Veronica.
“Logan?” asked Meg.
At Logan’s hesitation, Weevil got involved.
“Come on, man, how bad can it be?”
“What’s yours?” insisted Logan to the other boy.
Weevil sighed. “Otis Norkey,” he admitted, which answer sent the rest of the table into peals of laughter.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. My grandmother loved that dog,” Weevil brushed off the response. “You’re up, Echolls.”
“Fine.” Logan gave a dramatic sigh. “Mr. McFrogs-a-Lot Twilight.”
The resultant laughter was a sight to behold. Veronica laughed so hard that she started to hyperventilate. Weevil choked on his drink and Meg had to pound his back while snickering so hard herself that she had to grab a napkin to blow her nose.
“What?!” demanded Logan. “My parents wouldn’t let me get a cat or a dog so when I found a frog in our garden, I brought him inside and kept him as a pet!”
Veronica tried to comment, but she was laughing so hard that she couldn’t. Tears were streaming down her face.
“I was seven,” grumped Logan.
“And what happened to Mr. McFrogs-a-Lot?” asked Meg, sending everyone into fresh fits of laughter.
“He died in his sleep a few months later and was given a quiet burial at sea.” As Logan finished, he put his hand to his heart.
When the laughter finally died down, Veronica pointed out how late it was getting. All of them had made the appropriate excuses to family and friends and weren’t expected home that night. As they cleaned up, Logan told Meg and Weevil that the pool house was all theirs and after saying their good nights, he and Veronica went up to his room.
-
Duncan had expended so much anger throughout the course of the day that most of the grass around his lookout post had been pulled up, leaving him surrounded by bare earth. He stoked the flames of envy and anger, letting them shoot through every one of his pores.
He couldn’t wait to make every one of their lives miserable.
*
“That was fun,” said Veronica as she got undressed to get into the shower. Her hair was stiff and tacky from a day spent in the pool.
“Yeah, it was,” agreed Logan as he joined his girlfriend under the water. They were both too tired to do anything besides wash each other, but that was still a very pleasant end to their day.
As the two of them got under the covers and drifted off to sleep, Veronica’s back pressed against Logan’s front, Veronica reflected on how it shouldn’t have to seem like a luxury to enjoy her boyfriend’s company in the presence of other people. She pulled Logan’s arms tighter around herself and smiled. Everyone deserved to get to know him like this.
*
The two couples were only able to get together one more time during the holiday, a lunch at a diner about an hour and a half north of Neptune, but their time together had been quality over quantity for everyone concerned.
Meg got to see Weevil in a mode other than uncle or gang leader. Weevil learned that he could enjoy spending time with Meg’s “people”. Logan reveled in being able to love Veronica in front of other people. And Veronica loved watching up close as other people got to know the real Logan.
None of them knew that they were enjoying the calm before the storm, not that they would have changed anything even if they had.
To be continued.
Author: jacedesbff
Pairing/Character: Logan/Veronica, Meg/Weevil, ensemble
Word Count: 4600+
Rating: PG-13 for mild language and sexual situations
Summary: AU from the Pilot; this chapter takes place during Christmas vacation in-between “An Echolls Family Christmas” and “Silence of the Lamb”
Spoilers: Familiarity with Season 1 required.
Disclaimer: Rob Thomas owns all.
All previous chapters may be found at my LJ.
A/N: I just drove from Georgia to Idaho, so this has taken a little longer than normal. *smiles tiredly* Thanks for your patience and I hope you like it! Hugs and kisses to my beta candlewaxdreams. I am SO grateful for her help and support.
X-posted. Thank you to everyone for your ongoing feedback. I love, love, love it!
As Duncan watched his pill dissolve in the pool of water lying in the bottom of the sink, he thought about the only two things that were important to him: how he wanted to feel and how in order to do that, things needed to not change.
After Lilly died, Duncan had lived in a sea of white noise made up of indistinct sounds and people-until he had learned about Logan and Veronica, that is. When he found out that his best friend and the love of his life had become a couple, Duncan experienced a virtual explosion of emotion-hatred, loathing, anger, betrayal, bitterness, jealousy. Sensations that most people took for granted had flooded through Duncan, and for the first time in so long, he had felt. From that time through to the present, Logan and Veronica had become the only source of feeling and emotion available to the troubled young man.
As he now had only the one well available from which to draw normal human emotions, Duncan had quickly learned to do whatever he could to wring every drop of feeling possible out of that well. He manipulated, he lied, he cajoled, he spied, and everything that he did was designed to create and encourage events and situations that would generate more sensations within himself. This worked quite well for him, if not so well for Logan and Veronica.
Equally important was maintaining the status quo. Duncan had learned how to handle the current state of affairs and he didn’t like to so much as contemplate changing things. He liked that Veronica and Logan were sneaking around trying to hide their relationship from him. It was amusing. It was in fact the only source of amusement in his life; therefore, he didn’t want it to go away. He liked watching them sneak around at school. He enjoyed pushing Logan and Veronica’s buttons and watching them jump around as a result-it was for that reason that he had staged his “fight” with Logan about the poker money. He knew perfectly well that Logan didn’t do it, but he knew that if Logan thought that Duncan was mad at him, lots of interesting conversations would result and Duncan liked listening to those.
Pursuant to this, Duncan had become extremely adept at identifying when Logan and Veronica were on the verge of “coming clean”. He could tell when circumstances were aligning in such a way that his friends began to believe that they could make that change (in no small part because he listened to most of their conversations using his rifle mike.) This was why he was now watching his pill dissolve in the sink.
The entrance of Meg and Weevil into the picture had again triggered discussion of Logan and Veronica taking their relationship public, which Duncan simply wasn’t having.
Everything was going to be fine, though. He had a plan.
*
As Meg sat in the lounger next to Logan’s pool applying sunscreen lotion she fretted over how to broach the subject that was weighing on her mind. She and Veronica had been spending more time together lately, mainly because they suddenly had so much in common. As far as Meg knew, no one besides herself and Veronica was hiding a secret boyfriend and there was a definite liberation in hanging out with someone who not only knew your secret, but who understood it.
With the start of Christmas vacation, she and Veronica had found themselves doing more things together than they normally would have. And while it had taken considerable maneuvering, they had even managed to organize today-two days after Christmas all four of them had made excuses to their friends that would allow them to spend the day together at Logan’s pool. Let’s hear it for year-round sun, thought Meg.
In preparation for the big day, she and Veronica had gone swimsuit shopping at Old Navy, which was still selling swimwear in December because, hey, it was southern California. Meg liked the one that she had chosen-a pink bikini that was surprisingly modest considering that it was a bikini. Meg knew that if you asked just about anyone at Neptune High, they would describe her as naïve, and she was willing to acknowledge that as being true. It irritated her, though, when people confused being naïve with being stupid, which Meg was not.
Meg had been well aware that Veronica was steering her away from anything that could be described with the words “string” or “thong”. Meg knew Veronica well enough to know that her friend wasn’t worried about Logan’s eyes straying. That thought almost made Meg laugh out loud-while she wasn’t embarrassed by her body, she considered Veronica to be better-proportioned; hence, Logan didn’t need to go looking elsewhere in the first place. In addition to that, Meg was fairly certain that Veronica would destroy Logan’s life. Since there was no reason for Veronica to think that Meg needed to hide her figure from Eli, that left-who? While Meg would undoubtedly wear her new bikini out in public eventually, the thought behind the shopping trip in question had been this get-together on this day. Who else was going to be there?
Back to that whole not-being-stupid thing. That left Aaron Echolls as the person whom Veronica did not want to ogle Meg in a revealing swimsuit. Meg wasn’t quite sure what to make of that. She knew Aaron for his movies and for being Logan’s dad and because she tended to get a little tongue-tied around him, but that was about it. So Meg filed the information away in her mind as she truly had no idea what to do with it.
Meg was procrastinating and she knew it.
“Veronica, would you mind putting sunblock on my back?”
“Sure,” said her friend, turning to sit on the side of her own lounge chair.
As Veronica poured the lotion into her hand and Meg was able to turn the other way, she finally got up the courage to ask her question.
“Veronica, you and Logan are having sex, right?”
-
Veronica was out of practice being friends with other girls. Her circle of loved ones, small though it was, consisted solely of males-her dad, Wallace and Logan. She had a feeling that Mac could be a friend, but she was reluctant to add someone else into her life to whom she would have to lie all the time. She already felt bad enough about Wallace.
The addition of Meg and Weevil into their lives had been a surprisingly welcome one. Veronica not only liked them both individually and as a couple, she loved watching Logan get to be himself in a social situation. Around the other 09ers he had to keep up his jerkwad leader-of-the-pack act while his girlfriend watched from afar. With Meg and Weevil, though, Logan was entertaining, relaxed, fun to be around. Veronica loved watching Logan up close around their new favorite couple-so much so that she was even willing to get used to having a female friend again.
She hadn’t hated going shopping with Meg, it was just weird hanging out with a girl. And she was completely taken aback by Meg’s question. Wallace didn’t ask that kind of thing.
“What?” Veronica was so surprised that she squirted almost half the bottle of sunblock into her hand.
“I’m sorry,” said Meg, half turning her head around to Veronica. “I know that’s a personal question, and I didn’t mean to shock you or anything. I just…I need to talk to somebody and I don’t have anyone else.”
Veronica tensed. “Has Weevil been pressuring you?”
“No!” Meg’s quick answer reassured Veronica and the shorter girl took a moment to scrape some of the lotion back into the bottle before she started putting it on her friend’s back.
“Eli would never! It’s just…I…” Meg took a deep breath and looked down at her feet as Veronica applied the sunscreen. “When I was going out with Cole, we talked about sleeping together, but it never seemed like the right time.” Her voice drifted off.
“And now?” Veronica prompted.
Meg moved her head so that she could see Veronica fully for the first time since she had brought up the subject.
“I want to rip his clothes off, Veronica. I mean, have you ever seen his pecs? I never really thought about “pecs” before, but come on! His chest-I mean, I don’t ever want him to wear a shirt! He came in from working on his bike a few weeks ago and he wasn’t wearing a shirt and I’ve spilled things on him twice since then on purpose just so that I could watch him take his shirt off.” Meg jerked back around, embarrassed by her admission.
“What am I supposed to do? I don’t know if I’m really ready to sleep with him or if it’s just my hormones taking over.”
“Give me your hand,” said Veronica.
Meg turned around confused and Veronica wiped the rest of the sunscreen onto her friend’s hand. “Cover me.” She paused. “All Logan has to do is walk into a room and I’m ready to go at him,” Veronica said as Meg started applying the sunblock. “It wasn’t always like that, but it got that way pretty fast.” She paused. “You know about Shelley Pomeroy’s party, right?”
Glad that Veronica couldn’t see her blush, Meg answered. “Yeah, I left early, but I, um, heard about it.” As had the rest of Neptune High.
“That was the first time Logan and I ever slept together.” Veronica had never told that to anyone. The only ones who knew were her and Logan.
“Wow.” Meg’s comment covered a lot of territory.
“Yeah.”
“And now?”
Veronica laughed. “Anytime, anywhere, as often as possible.”
Meg joined in the laughter.
“Listen, Meg,” Veronica turned around, “even though it became world news afterwards, it was still the right time. You’ll know when it’s right. And just so you know, Logan’s arms beat Weevil’s pecs any day.”
“You wish!” insisted Meg.
-
Weevil couldn’t believe that he was going to spend the day with 09ers. Willingly. Okay, technically Veronica wasn’t an 09er, but the line was pretty thin. Despite himself, he had had a good time when the four of them hung out last time. The bottom line, if he was being honest with himself, is that he was irritated on principle and not because he wasn’t looking forward to hanging out with Logan and Veronica. Stronger than his irritation, though, was his desire to spend time with Meg outside of his house.
Unlike their friends, Meg and Weevil couldn’t hang out at Meg’s or in a pimped-out van or go on stakeouts together. He and his girlfriend were in effect housebound. Weevil had no intention of staying hidden forever, but even if Meg’s parents didn’t try to have him killed, he knew for certain that they would make his and Meg’s lives hell when they found out their daughter was dating a Latino gang member. He wasn’t worried about himself. He didn’t want to bring that down on Meg.
Damn, he was gone on that girl. She was nothing like anyone that he had ever dated before. She was kind, compassionate, sensitive and a whole bunch of other things that didn’t usually run in Weevil’s circles. He loved being with her. He liked getting to know her. That was a new experience for him.
He remembered what it had been like with Lilly-every moment stolen and intense, crackling with a sexual tension that was always relieved as quickly as possible. It wasn’t like that with Meg. It wasn’t that he wasn’t attracted to Meg, quite the opposite. It’s just that there was more to it than attraction. He was having a good time getting to know her. He and Lilly hadn’t exactly spent a lot of time talking. Even so, he had fallen hard for the vibrant young girl. Lilly had been gone for over a year when he met Meg, but Weevil had just begun moving on, helped along in large part by Logan’s reaction to his tattoo.
Meg had worked her way into his heart much faster than Weevil had expected. While he would like nothing more than to sleep with her, he didn’t want to push things. He wanted it to be when Meg was ready. He wasn’t used to waiting like this, but he would do more than that for Meg.
As he drove his motorcycle up the Echolls’ service entrance, he thought about how he hadn’t told his fellow gang members about Meg yet. He knew that if he did it carefully, they would be fine, but he had to do it in just the right way at just the right time. As that set of circumstances had yet to present itself, he continued to enjoy Meg’s company by himself.
Weevil parked his bike and entered the house through the kitchen door. His grandmother had the day off, so the kitchen was deserted. As he came in the back way, Logan entered through the front.
“You could have used the front door, you know,” commented the 09er king.
“What, and use the back door tomorrow when I pick up my grandmother? Wouldn’t wanna get confused.”
“Come on, man,” invited Logan, choosing not to comment on Weevil’s observation.
When they reached the glass French doors that led out to the pool, both young men stopped at the sight that greeted them. Veronica was slathering sunblock on Meg’s back. Both Logan and Weevil stared in silence as Veronica finished and Meg swiveled around to return the favor.
Weevil made a choking sound, forcing Logan to tear his attention away from the show on the other side of the pool.
Ah. Right.
“Bathroom’s second door on the left,” Logan said in an understanding voice. They had all been there.
Grunting in acknowledgement, Weevil turned away from the doors.
-
Every minute that Logan spent with Dick and Beaver was a minute he wanted to be somewhere else, but he couldn’t abandon them completely without good reason. Duncan had spent almost the entire vacation with his parents in Napa, leaving Logan with no excuse to avoid his other friends. In order to free up this afternoon, he had to tell them that he was helping his parents pack up and leave for Aspen where his father would finish out his recovery, never mind the fact that they had actually left a day early.
Logan rolled his eyes. Christmas day had been nothing more than a photo op at his house: pictures of the wounded action hero convalescing, surrounded by his loving family. The hypocrisy of it was like ants crawling through Logan’s bloodstream-watching his mother smile for the cameras mere days after her husband’s indiscretions had been publicly aired. It was more than he could handle. He had stayed for the shortest amount of time that he could possibly get away with and then he had left for Veronica’s apartment, where he had spent the rest of the holiday with Veronica and Keith. It had ended up being the best Christmas that he could remember. It was certainly the first one in many years that didn’t end up with him drunk and passed out.
He walked into his house to find Weevil coming in through the kitchen. Seeing the sense in Weevil’s comment about which door to use, but unable to come up with a suitable reply, he simply pointed out that it was time to join their better halves. He wasn’t prepared to find their girlfriends slathering each other in lotion, though, and the sight stopped him in his tracks.
After sending Weevil off to deal with his, um, problem, Logan headed outside.
“Hey, Veronica! Meg,” he said as he crossed to the other side of the pool. “Veronica, can I talk to you in the pool house for a minute? Excuse us, Meg.” It wasn’t that he didn’t have Weevil’s issue; he just didn’t have to fix it on his own.
Meg smiled as Logan and Veronica disappeared into the pool house. Even she wasn’t that naïve.
She sat enjoying the sun, opening her eyes only when she heard the French doors open. She watched as Eli came around the pool and sat down on Veronica’s recently vacated lounge chair.
“Where are El and Vee?” he asked.
Meg laughed as she answered. “They’re-“ she coughed, “-talking in the pool house.”
Weevil smiled and moved to sit next to her.
“Well, isn’t that thoughtful of them?”
“Oh, yeah, it was very thoughtful.”
Weevil leaned over and pulled Meg into a kiss.
“See?” he asked as he sat back. “Thoughtful.”
Meg smiled as she reached her lips back up to his.
After a moment she asked him a question, her lips still touching his. “Do you want to sleep with me?”
“What?!” Weevil shot back in surprise.
Meg flushed up to her hairline. “I’m sorry, I didn’t…“ she took in a shuddering breath. “I just-we’ve never talked about it and I wondered-I mean, do you want me?”
Weevil ran his hand through Meg’s long hair. He closed his eyes briefly before answering her. “Meg, I promise you that you do not ever have to worry about me wanting you.” Meg turned an even deeper shade of red. “I just didn’t want to push you to do anything you’re not ready for.”
Catching his hand in hers, Meg tried to explain. “I know that I…want…you. I’m just not sure if I’m ready or not yet. Doesn’t that mean that I’m not?”
The eyes that Meg turned to the young man at her side were so trusting that Weevil felt his heart constrict. He would do anything to keep this girl safe and whole.
“We’ll know, baby. We’ll know.”
Logan and Veronica chose that moment to exit the pool house.
“That was quick,” Weevil observed as he sat up.
Logan gave him a dirty look and Veronica just smiled.
“Logan was admiring my new swimsuit. It’s his favorite color,” she indicated her predominately orange outfit embellished with brown and pink.
“I think it would look better wet, though.” With that, Logan scooped up his girlfriend and unceremoniously tossed her into the pool. Veronica, though-being Veronica-clung to him so tightly that Logan went in with her.
As Weevil laughed at the sputtering couple, Meg stood up and threw herself onto her boyfriend, landing both of them in the pool, too.
A few minutes later, Veronica was up on Logan’s shoulders and Meg was up on Weevil’s. While Logan had a few inches on Weevil, Meg’s additional height evened the couples out, so the game of chicken that ensued was fairly evenly matched. After five drawn-out matches, resulting in two wins for each couple, one tie in which all four of them toppled together and two thoroughly pleased young men, the four of them played Marco Polo and had an impromptu diving contest that consisted of whose cannonball could make the biggest splash, which Weevil won.
Tired after all of the water frolicking, Logan ordered pizza and got beers for himself and Weevil, Skist and Diet Coke for Veronica and Meg, respectively, and the four of them sat around one of the deck tables talking. Having put some light clothing over their swimsuits to ward off the light breeze that came in as the sun set, the four of them settled in as the pizza arrived and they sat down to eat.
Neither Logan nor Veronica had missed the similarities between the current situation and previous occasions back when Lilly was alive and Duncan wasn’t suicidal. That connection was both good and bad. Good because those had been good times; bad because those memories were now forever tainted.
In an effort to stave off what would be a truly painful association, Veronica proposed a game of Two Truths and a Lie, pre-empting a suggestion of Truth or Dare.
“Okay, sugar plum, but you have to go first,” said Logan with a quick kiss.
“Bring it on,” Veronica smiled. “But you don’t get to vote,” she pointed to Logan, who rolled his eyes. “Oh, and everything we say here stays here.” Everyone nodded their heads with varying degrees of “duh” on their faces. “First, when I was ten I saw a man cut his finger off in a meat slicer. Second, I once destroyed thousands of dollars worth of ceramic figurines during a rage blackout. And third, I once walked in on two teachers-who shall remain nameless-having sex in the teachers’ lounge.” She smiled as her three listeners sat in stunned silence. “So which one’s the lie?”
“Why can’t I vote?” asked Logan. “I only know about one of those. I want to vote.”
“Fine,” said Veronica with a sigh. “But you vote last.”
Logan sat back looking pleased.
“I repeat. Which one’s the lie?”
Ultimately Veronica fooled both Meg and Weevil, but not Logan. As Logan put it, there was no way that Veronica would not have told him about teachers doing the rumpy-pumpy in the teachers’ lounge.
“The rumpy-pumpy?” asked Meg with a raised eyebrow.
“That’s what Roger Ebert calls it,” explained Veronica. “He has this thing about Roger Ebert.”
“What? The man won a Pulitzer,” defended her boyfriend.
“Uh-huh.” Veronica smiled. “Suggestion, though,” and she looked at Meg and Weevil, “read his online reviews and skip the TV show. All he does is repeat what he already wrote. And he writes it better.”
“So who’s the guy with nine fingers?” asked Weevil, who had thought that was the lie.
“This guy in the meat section at the grocery store. I haven’t been able to eat red meat since.”
“Hence the veggie pizza,” added Logan.
“And you really destroyed all of those figurines?” asked Meg in a sad voice.
“Her entire room was covered in dust,” answered Logan. “That was the one I knew about.”
It turned out that Logan had been kissed by a very drunk Drew Barrymore when he was nine and hit on by a supposedly straight member of a boy band when he was 14, but that he had not gone joyriding in a golf cart on the Universal Studios backlot.
Meg had once worn nothing under her spanky pants at a football game and had accidentally set fire to her family’s cat, but had not gone streaking with the rest of the cheerleaders at cheer camp the summer before 8th grade (much to the boys’ disappointment).
And finally, Weevil had been stabbed (in a fight) and poisoned (with antifreeze by his sister), but had never been shot.
When all was said and done, Logan was the clear winner, as no one guessed his lie to be a lie. Meg, on the other hand, fooled no one, in spite of how inviting her lie was.
“I can’t believe that you were hit on by a member of Boy Zone but you didn’t toodle around in a golf cart. I mean, come on, which one is more likely?” pouted Veronica.
“And that’s how they play the game.”
“Okay,” interrupted Meg. “If you became a stripper, what would your name be?”
“Thinking of going into the trade?” asked her boyfriend, one eyebrow raised.
“I like to be prepared,” she said with a laugh. “Your first name is the name of your first pet and your last name is the street you grew up on. My stage name would be Cookie Diamond, thank you very much. See? Now I’m prepared.”
Through the laughter, Meg was able to prompt Veronica to go next.
“Twinkles Belmar.” At Logan’s choked guffaw, Veronica shrugged innocently. “What? When I was four, my dad brought home a stray dog-it was this weird little poodle mix that was so ugly it was cute. I had just learned Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star and I insisted that’s what we had to name her. We had her for two years before she ran out into the street and got hit by a car.”
“Awwww,” said Meg, genuinely sad for the long-gone Twinkles.
“But now you have Back-up,” said Logan in a cute little boy voice, and he kissed Veronica on the head.
“Always take Back-up,” affirmed Veronica.
“Logan?” asked Meg.
At Logan’s hesitation, Weevil got involved.
“Come on, man, how bad can it be?”
“What’s yours?” insisted Logan to the other boy.
Weevil sighed. “Otis Norkey,” he admitted, which answer sent the rest of the table into peals of laughter.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. My grandmother loved that dog,” Weevil brushed off the response. “You’re up, Echolls.”
“Fine.” Logan gave a dramatic sigh. “Mr. McFrogs-a-Lot Twilight.”
The resultant laughter was a sight to behold. Veronica laughed so hard that she started to hyperventilate. Weevil choked on his drink and Meg had to pound his back while snickering so hard herself that she had to grab a napkin to blow her nose.
“What?!” demanded Logan. “My parents wouldn’t let me get a cat or a dog so when I found a frog in our garden, I brought him inside and kept him as a pet!”
Veronica tried to comment, but she was laughing so hard that she couldn’t. Tears were streaming down her face.
“I was seven,” grumped Logan.
“And what happened to Mr. McFrogs-a-Lot?” asked Meg, sending everyone into fresh fits of laughter.
“He died in his sleep a few months later and was given a quiet burial at sea.” As Logan finished, he put his hand to his heart.
When the laughter finally died down, Veronica pointed out how late it was getting. All of them had made the appropriate excuses to family and friends and weren’t expected home that night. As they cleaned up, Logan told Meg and Weevil that the pool house was all theirs and after saying their good nights, he and Veronica went up to his room.
-
Duncan had expended so much anger throughout the course of the day that most of the grass around his lookout post had been pulled up, leaving him surrounded by bare earth. He stoked the flames of envy and anger, letting them shoot through every one of his pores.
He couldn’t wait to make every one of their lives miserable.
*
“That was fun,” said Veronica as she got undressed to get into the shower. Her hair was stiff and tacky from a day spent in the pool.
“Yeah, it was,” agreed Logan as he joined his girlfriend under the water. They were both too tired to do anything besides wash each other, but that was still a very pleasant end to their day.
As the two of them got under the covers and drifted off to sleep, Veronica’s back pressed against Logan’s front, Veronica reflected on how it shouldn’t have to seem like a luxury to enjoy her boyfriend’s company in the presence of other people. She pulled Logan’s arms tighter around herself and smiled. Everyone deserved to get to know him like this.
*
The two couples were only able to get together one more time during the holiday, a lunch at a diner about an hour and a half north of Neptune, but their time together had been quality over quantity for everyone concerned.
Meg got to see Weevil in a mode other than uncle or gang leader. Weevil learned that he could enjoy spending time with Meg’s “people”. Logan reveled in being able to love Veronica in front of other people. And Veronica loved watching up close as other people got to know the real Logan.
None of them knew that they were enjoying the calm before the storm, not that they would have changed anything even if they had.
To be continued.