VM: The Hard Day's Night (LoMeg, NC17, One Shot)
Nobody die of shock, I kept my word. So it's a week late (and the rest) but that's hardly surprising given when I wrote the schedule. I still think it worked because I didn't stop writing all week, feeling guiltier every day it was later. I think the schedule thing is definitely a keeper. Thanks ladygloria.
Title: A Hard Day’s Night
Ship: Meg/Logan (Kendall/Logan, Veronica/Duncan but only in mention)
Summary: A long time ago I asked my dear friend Lazeema for a smut prompt that I could write quickly (hahahahaha, *wipes tear*, hahahahaha). The conversation went a bit like this:
Me: I don't want a plot. But I don't want to just write prose smut. So yeah, situations, ships, something to prompt me. Something sparky.
WhipCracker: Logan/Meg. Rain sex
Helpless Victim: Rain sex?
Merciless Tyrant: Yeah. Sex in rain
Merciless Tyrant: It could start outside…
Stooge: I've only written one scene in the rain and it wasn't sex so the prompt does intrigue…
Get your umbrellas out VM fans, it’s raining clichés out here!
Rating: R-NC17 (Smutty stuff and Logan's potty mouth)
Words: 19,567 (43 Pages)
Dedication: For Lazeema, of course! You know this didn't turn out the way I wanted but I hope you like it and that it encourages you to finish up Equilateral so I can have my sob and move on to the next one with you ;) Oh, and I need a better title because this one sucks but I really couldn't think of anything else that wasn't equally lame.
Disclaimer: The characters in this fanfic are not mine but they are most grateful for their rescue even if no profit will be made from the vast improvement in their stories. Hey, I don't care how arrogant that sounds, when Logan gets laid without having to feel guilty about it, it's an improvement damn it.
The Hard Day's Night
She was leaning against his car: an auto-etiquette no-no unless she planned on unbuttoning that blouse and making a lingerie edition out of her intrusion. Her silver stilettos were looped together, dangling from two fingers as she pressed her face against the driver side window, shading her eyes from the glare of the service station lights with the other.
Logan paused, perusing the curves cupped tightly by a hot pink, pleated mini skirt without discretion. A low whistle wheezed distractedly from between his lips - those legs went on forever - and he slowed to a swagger as he approached her from behind.
Her long blonde hair was mussed and she was rocking impatiently from foot to bleeding foot, raw welts already appearing around her slender ankles. His eyes were captivated by the delicate anklet rubbing over her red skin, a tiny quartz heart rocking along her heel as her foot twisted with discomfort. She’d clearly been walking alone, or partying hard, for some time. Since by Logan’s watch it was only half past seven, he assumed it was the former.
She smacked her hand tiredly into his unresponsive door-about to give up-and he would have said something then, if he hadn’t been trying to observe her without interruption for as long as he could.
She’d recognized his SUV; Logan hoped like hell he could fake his way through remembering her until he could chivalrously let her jump in to save her poor, abused feet (unless she wanted to get straight to jumping him, in which case, they wouldn’t be driving far anyway).
“Don’t tell me,” his voice lilted, watching her jump when he breathed the words across her head. “Oooh ahh, you lost your bra, you want to get it from my car?”
She whipped around and Logan stepped back in shock. The face alone was enough to give that sexy little outfit an illusion of modesty, not to mention the high collar on her blouse. He had imagined the cut of said blouse dangling low between her breasts, not so high above them that it may as well have been a turtleneck. Like all things Meg Manning, her sexy skirt was nothing but a tease.
“Thank God!” She smiled at him so widely he assumed she hadn’t processed his greeting. “Could you give me a ride back to Neptune, please?”
“You look like you’ve been ridden several times already. You’re not tired?”
Oh, she definitely heard that one; her mouth tightened and her eyes darted down to a grease mark on the ground to restrain her anger.
“Don’t be a jerk, Logan,” she said tiredly.
“Sure and tomorrow I’ll stop breathing.”
“Please…” she drew out the word, meeting his eyes with a soft, desperate expression in her own.
Logan looked away; they were at a rest stop service station halfway between Los Angeles and San Diego. She was standing there alone, dressed up like she was ready to party and he could only assume she hadn’t dropped from the sky, so-
“Where’s your car?”
She flushed red. “It’s a long story.”
“Well, if you don’t have the time to tell it….” He stepped around her and pulled his keys from his pocket, jingling them in her face for a moment before pivoting to unlock his door.
She hovered behind his shoulder, pressing close to his elbow like she expected him to jump in and take off immediately. He tried to ignore the feeling of her breasts brushing his arm but it was hard when the alternative was visions of her hopping on his lap to prevent him from abandoning her (the last thing he’d ever do with Meg Manning in that unlikely position was drive).
“There was a guy lying down in the middle of the road; he looked hurt…” She stopped because Logan was already chuckling in amusement, no explanation necessary.
“Rule number fifty four in the Enlightened Insensitive Asshole Manual: only Good Samaritans give their cars away to thieves who can’t even think up an original scam. Oh and, for future reference, when I say Good Samaritan, I mean gullible twit.”
“I didn’t know it was a scam.”
“The fact the vic was brown, leathered up and tattooed didn’t give it away?”
“Sometimes you can be a racist pig, you know that? How do you know he wasn’t white, middle aged and wearing corduroy?”
Logan’s face distorted with faux seriousness. “You’re right. I’ll have to re-evaluate my antisocial habit of judging minorities through a spectrum of negative stereotypes.” The penitence in his voice had Meg Manning almost smiling despite her disdain for his elitism. “Well . . .?”
“What?”
“Was he a middle aged, corduroy-attired, caucasion car thief?”
Her lips twisted to hold back a wry grin. “My answer would only validate your generalizations so I’ll refrain from saying anything that might further diminish whatever reserves of impartiality you have stored somewhere in that narrow mind of yours.”
Logan grinned. “He was a PCHer.”
“You’re a jerk.”
“No, I’m a driver. And you’re walking.” With noting more to say he jumped into the driver’s seat, playfully slamming the door when she tried to stop him, hands pressed against the tinted glass.
He wound the window down, too entertained to drive away even if Meg was too scared to notice. Her hands were shaking slightly as they shifted to wrap over the glass, pushing lightly down as if it to prevent him shutting her out again. He could tell that teasing her had not made her spine stiffen with indignation but rather been the first slip on a slippery slope; now she was on the verge of freaking out to the nth degree.
“I’m desperate-,” like it wasn’t obvious, “-my purse was in the car so I can’t call a cab.”
“Okay…” He met her eyes for a long moment before deliberately letting them slide down, tracing the pink, embroidered patterns along the collar of her white blouse until it stretched nicely over her breasts. When she exhaled fiercely, he snapped his eyes up to hers, smiling boyishly before her unimpressed glare. “How much will it cost you to follow that yellow brick road back to Neptune, Dorothy?” He clicked his tongue along the roof of his mouth before continuing, “And what will you do for it?”
Her eyebrows lowered, mouth opened as if she was imagining biting down on his nose and tearing it clean off his face. He focused on the tongue he could barely see, enjoying how her face was flushing red with suppressed fury. He couldn’t resist teasing an already aggravated itch-
“Being the virginal prude you are, you’re bound to have a steep surcharge for the pain of your sacrifice and I’m not carrying much cash. But we can just swing by the bank once you name your price.”
Meg looked at the cruel grin twisted up in amusement, distorting his face into the perfect mask for a practised tormentor. He could see the capitulation in her eyes, how her desperation dulled into resentment.
She stepped back, her feet seeming to hurt her more, as she reluctantly removed her hands from his window. She’d clearly stopped believing him capable of the mercy that would have spared her fingers if he’d decided to leave with her still clinging to his door.
It was true. He wasn’t a merciful person, she’d always known that and she’d rather martyr her feet then willingly put up with him for the hour it would take to drive back to Neptune. Knowing that, seeing that side of her, made Logan interested but when her lips started to shake with frustrated emotion his interest dulled.
Irritation sliced through him; the last thing he needed on the way to his destination was a weepy woman; it was guaranteed to destroy any urges she’d been helping enflame with that tiny skirt.
He pulled his wallet out of his jacket and whipped out a few notes, placing them in the rubber seal of his window, standing up and partially dangling toward her. He clicked his fingers to grab her attention and then pointed. She looked at him like she’d told him she was hungry and he offered her a Tic Tac.
Ungrateful bitch.
He went to pull the notes out when she stepped forward, taking the money and smiling with as much gratitude as she could force.
“Thanks . . . that’s generous of you.”
She turned and hobbled over to the service station payphone, grunting in frustration when she picked up the handset and the line dangled down, disconnected from the phone. With a grunt she threw the handset and stomped her foot, forgetting for a moment she was shoeless. A high pitched squeal escaped her and she hopped around in a circle causing Logan to chuckle.
“Hey, Meg-Hey!” He called, leaning out the door. “Get in the car before you impale yourself on something!”
If he had expected Meg to grin mid-hobble with gratitude, he was disappointed. It’s a good thing he’d stopped expecting anything from feisty blondes a long time ago.
In fact, Meg was having the opposite reaction. She was certain Logan expected her to politely allow him to abandon her - he had plans in L.A. after all - rather than force him to backtrack out of whatever goodness was left in his shrivelled, black heart.
On any ordinary day she may have proven herself as predictable as the glint in his eyes was labelling her; she would have said, ‘no no, you had other plans and I’d hate for you to break them.’ She would have been grateful for his cash clearing conscience enough to send him off on his booty call without even a passive aggressive insinuation that if she was stabbed by a corduroy-attired caucasion male in his fifties while waiting for a cab it was his fault. The fact Meg could see every expectation on his snide face made her smile widely with sharp gratitude.
“Thank you so much, Logan, you’re saving my feet and right now that’s like saving my life!” She ran around the side of the SUV and jumped in, beaming at him. “You’re such a stand up guy; I hope I’m not interrupting anything important.”
Logan frowned: Only his plans to fuck until he couldn’t stand. She wouldn’t be recompensing him in that regard.
The asshole had the nerve to drop his mouth open like he was surprised at her selfishness, then his eyes narrowed on her beneficent grin and she thought-for a second-that he was about to smile before his lips twisted over the gesture and he pressed down on the accelerator, spinning his wheel until they were on their way.
**
They hadn’t been driving long when she noticed he was acting antsy, eyes flicking to the cellular that was resting in his cup holder.
“Missing a hot date?” She asked with feigned guilt.
“Not if you count yourself.”
“I don’t. I’m sorry I spoiled your plans.”
“You are not,” he chuckled though he didn’t sound amused.
“Tell you what, I’d be more than willing to call your lovely escort-in-waiting and let her know why you’ll be tardy. I’m sure she’ll understand.”
“Oh, sure. There’s nothing more understandable than a syrup-voiced girl calling to let her know her date is otherwise occupied.”
“What would she assume you were doing while I was calling her?” Meg frowned as if the innocence of her gesture would be obvious to anyone with a mildly cognitive brain.
Logan tilted his head to the side. “Now that depends . . . will you be out of breath during this conversation?”
For a moment she stared at him in confusion and then the moment passed. She made a tutting sound of disgust and turned back to the window without responding, pressing her face against the glass to ignore the smug smile she could feel behind her.
Logan was grinning when he finally snatched up his cell and hit one of his speed dials, still churning with patronising amusement while he waited for her to pick up his call.
“You mustn’t mean that much to each other if she could assume something so revolting about you,” Meg whispered.
“Revolting?” He laughed, placing the phone on his shoulder and holding it in place as he drove. “You are a virgin. You’re almost Pleasantville. Are there toilets in the stalls where you come from?”
“Even you must have behavioural limits when you actually give a damn about a girl.”
“Not every relationship is cookies, fairy bread and Pete Yorn concerts,” Logan snapped, throwing the phone back down when it was clear his girl wasn’t going to answer.
Meg flinched at the sharp snap and he ignored the obvious stiffening of her figure in his peripheral vision. She didn’t jump for his bait but shifted closer to the window, pressing her head against the glass.
Perhaps he shouldn’t have shown that card so early; he could have played with her all night, pretending he didn’t know why she was dressed up to the nines and completely alone, caused her the embarrassment of lying about who was meant to be with her at that concert before stinging her with the knowledge that he’d been there when Duncan bought the tickets for their three month anniversary. When they’d still been speaking, before-
“I wouldn’t expect you to understand my concept of fun. You’re the girl who’s only just realized she’s been riding around in a pumpkin shell all year.” He could feel the rage building inside Meg but, like all things where she was concerned, her rage was soft, simmering and weak, diluted by her innate kindness. He ignored her bristling with the ease he ignored an insect buzzing around his room.
She ignored him right back until his phone started mechanically reciting Mrs Robinson. She slowly turned and watched the smirk ticking at his lips as he swiped the phone up.
“Hey there…getting impatient?”
Meg sunk down in her chair, squirming at the discomfort caused by the sudden deepening of his voice.
“You could always play with dick,” he retorted in some private joke Meg didn’t want to know about. He snorted. “That was my plan too but I unfortunately have some babysitting duties to attend to before I get there . . . Don’t you know? Responsible kids get day jobs now; I’m trying to blend. . . Babe, you are neither of those things and I wouldn’t want you half as much if you were.”
Meg’s face was flushed so red by this point she thought she’d burst into flames; she settled for chiding his manners. “You shouldn’t talk on the phone and drive simultaneously, Logan; you’ll get us both killed.”
“Sorry, Kendall, my babysitter is laying down the law of her nursery . . . I don’t speak Pollyanna, perhaps you could translate?” After a pause in which Meg could just make out the low tones of a teasing female voice, Logan laughed, then turned his mischievously glinting eyes to Meg’s scowl. “She doesn’t think she’ll understand you either, sorry.”
Logan’s eyes glittered as Meg watched him, wondering how he could handle amusing himself this much day in, day out. She was exhausted just watching him.
After a long pause, Logan sighed. “I wouldn’t have answered the phone if that were the case. . . Okay, maybe I would, but trust me, I’m not interested and, if I was, I’d invite you to come along.”
The wheel slipped in Logan’s hand and Meg clutched the glove compartment as the XTerra swerved. Horns blared obnoxious warnings behind them before Logan righted their path and then Meg snatched the phone from him, hanging up before he could so much as splutter.
“Meg Manning, how rude! Did they teach that in your etiquette classes?”
She smiled sweetly at him, “Right after we were taught to prioritize our manners. Preventing someone from causing grievous bodily harm cancels out a lot of the P’s and Q’s of etiquette. Shocking, huh?”
“Who says you can’t do both?”
“Kendall.”
“She’d never say that. She’s great at multitasking.”
Meg flicked an impatient hand at him and then turned to watch his surprisingly blank face. “No. I don’t know a Kendall…”
“Shocking. You have such an exciting social life: going to a concert stag and heading home before the sun freakin’ sets. I thought you knew everyone who’s anyone.”
Meg ignored the insult, she didn’t owe him an explanation about why she chose to go out by herself rather than invite a friend. She certainly didn’t want to entertain him with a story he’d only find amusing. “The last time I wimped out on going stag I ended up making the biggest mistake of my life. I'll stick with stag."
It was at that moment Logan chose to alleviate a bit of the awkwardness in the car by finally turning his stereo back on. A soft ballad soothed the tense atmosphere for only a moment before he let her know he understood her implication.
"If it makes you feel any better . . . she likes dating people as long as it takes to stab them in the back. There's a high probability Duncan could lose a kidney in the future."
“Oh, please,” she turned in a sudden embarrassed rage. “You’re just bitter because she didn’t take you back even after she found out you were innocent.”
“Who said I didn’t have the opportunity?”
She doesn’t believe it and shakes her head, focusing her gaze out of the window again. She knew them both and she knew Veronica Mars; she’d seen them at Logan’s party, both boys wanting her and losing each other over her. He might have been too proud to admit it but Meg knew the truth. Logan was all posturing and she’d worry about anyone who had that much cause for self defence mechanisms if said mechanisms didn’t make him act like such an asshole.
She focused her mind in on the rises and falls of tempo in the ballad filling the silence between them. Later, she wouldn’t be able to recall what song was playing, just that it helped to ignore the imposing presence gently guiding his SUV around the bends of I-5.
It was difficult to converse with Logan because they had nothing in common. Okay, they had one thing in common but there was no way in the nine circles of hell that she was bringing that topic up again.
“Cassidy said you were going to their party tonight,” she finally settled on.
“Oh, I see. There was no concert, you’re just stalking me.”
“No,” she intoned slowly, “I just remembered who Kendall is.”
When he turned to meet her gaze, she was looking back like she had just witnessed a patrol unit scrape him off the side of the road. He smiled at her, proud of his accomplishment even if she was disgusted. He wouldn’t flinch in the face of her puritanical moralizing.
As easy as Kendall was he still knew he was the first younger man she’d looked twice at. It might be shallow as hell but considering the state of his self esteem when she first sent that smile his way, he couldn’t help but take the ego boost with a smirk and a smug swell of pride. He didn’t care how fucking wrong it was or that she was technically the step mother of one of his only loyal friends. He didn’t really give a fuck about a lot of things nowadays; he’d entered a hedonistic kind of apathy in which he indulged all his whims with the selfish determination of someone who’d lost all concern for the people who displayed a similar disinterest in his own state.
“You of all people,” Meg scoffed. It needn’t be said he should know better, having been on the receiving end of that kind of betrayal recently.
Logan didn’t bother to defend himself. They came from different worlds and different perspectives even if they’d lived two blocks apart since he was twelve years old. Discussing the morality of sexuality with Meg Manning was like discussing the pros and cons of religion with the pope.
“You should know how Dick would feel,” she clearly couldn’t resist.
“Wanna know why I don’t care what your opinion is? I’m doing you a favour instead of doing who I’d really like to be doing right now. Climb down off your high horse before this noble steed dumps you at the next rest stop.”
She shook her head. “No wonder she never went back to you, if you weren’t such a-then maybe-” but she cut herself off, bit down on her lip and sent him a remorseful look instead, ashamed she’d gone so low in her own frustration. Just because Duncan was still infesting her mind didn’t mean Veronica was still infesting Logan’s. If his behaviour was any indication, she was a tick he’d dug out from beneath his skin as soon as he’d felt her bite.
When she raised those guilt-ridden eyes to his again, he was looking right back at her, eyes alight with eager viciousness as if he actually wanted her to spit more words in his face so he could retort with the venom welling up in the centre of his tongue. She could tell by the look in his eyes that it would be deadly so she looked away, noticing his body shaking with laughter in her peripheral vision: a slash of white teeth like the blade of a knife in his face.
His phone rang and Meg snatched it up, taking a moment to note that ‘nightcap’ was calling before her face twisted with disgust. “I’m guessing they aren’t calling to ask if you’d like vodka or tequila shooters when you arrive at your destination?”
He pulled one hand off the wheel, silently asking her to give his phone back. Instead, she did him a favour, turned to her door and pressed the automatic window down. Logan reacted quickly, hitting the central locking on his own door so her window stalled only a few inches down.
It was far enough.
Without thinking (because thinking would have stopped her), she pushed his phone out through the gap and then crossed her arms over her chest while he ran his phone over with his back tires.
He looked at her in disbelief for only a second before slamming on the brakes.
“Don’t!” She called. A second later, tires screeched behind them, Meg’s eyes widened and the whole car jerked forward with the force of the collision.
To their collective relief, the air bags didn’t explode in their faces but Meg supposed that would have made this moment funny in retrospect. When she noted Logan’s hands gripping the wheel so tight his fists had become bloodless, she swallowed nervously: perhaps good humour wasn’t something she should expect from Logan any time soon.
“Damn it!” Logan wrestled with the seatbelt that had locked itself tight across his chest. “GOD DAMN IT!” He jerked and finally freed himself. “You’re such a -” But the word was lost behind a slammed door; Meg winced when she read the fierce syllable clearly on his lips through the window.
He didn’t spare a moment to glower at her as he walked up to the woman exiting the vehicle behind them. She had a Mediterranean glow to her cheeks, thick black hair tumbling over wide, frightened eyes as she rushed to meet Logan, apologizing profusely even though it clearly hadn’t been her fault.
Meg could tell Logan didn’t bother to correct her and accept the blame himself; instead, he flapped his arms indignantly, spewing vitriolic rubbish that would-but no, she wasn’t getting indignant in return. The woman was staring curiously behind him at the XTerra-and Meg- shaking her head ruefully and-what?!! Touching Logan’s shoulder in a consoling manner like he was-like he was stuck in his XTerra with a crazy person who had caused him to jump on his damn brakes!
He wiped his hands over his head wearily, muttering something that Meg didn’t have a problem interpreting through her indignant silence: “Blahblah psychotic prude in front seat, blahblah, random vandalism, blahblah had to stop car or never get cradle robbing booty call again, blahblah but it’s not my fault!” Wasn’t that always his way?
Meg’s fingers tightened on the centre console as she watched Logan’s relaxed body language and the woman’s increasingly soft, understanding expression.
“Good Samaritans are gullible twits,” she barely heard herself because Logan had slipped the woman a card with his details on it and then walked off in the opposite direction of the XTerra. “What…?” She reached for the handle of the door to follow him when he suddenly appeared in the rear view mirror again, striding toward his door.
Meg flushed and turned away, pretending she’d been staring out the front window the entire time. Logan didn’t spare her a glance as he tossed his trashed cellular into the glove box and Meg bit down on her lip to trap the slightly hysterical laugh in her mouth. She couldn’t believe she had just-
Logan started the engine and waved curtly at his new friend as she bipped her horn in passing, then he pressed down on the accelerator, jerking them into a much faster drive toward Neptune. Meg guessed his speed matched his desire to be rid of her and she wondered exactly what it would take for him to push her out of the car, make her walk, or decide to go a step further and drag her to Neptune tied to his massive off-road bumper bar.
Several long minutes passed before Meg apologized.
“I don’t know what came over me.”
“It’s not you. Apparently being around me makes women fucking crazy,” he was talking more to himself than her, something she realized when he finished his cutting comment with a mumbled: “In all the wrong ways.”
“I don’t know . . . that lady back there seemed pretty crazy for you. Did you give her your number? I think she’s your type.”
“She was forty years old!”
“What’s your point?”
Logan rolled his eyes.
“Give her your number?” She repeated.
Meg felt a smile quirking at the side of her mouth when she saw Logan struggling to restrain his own amusement, a flush rising steadily on his cheeks from the effort.
“She gave me hers,” he finally enthused, drawling the words in his most unctuous manner.
“Oooooo,” Meg laughed and Logan finally returned her smile, relaxing slightly in his seat. She felt the strange anxiousness that had been between them ease and apologized again. His smile dimmed and he turned back to the road, easing off the accelerator smoothly. “We could probably catch her, you know.” She teased.
“Might as well. You murdered my phone, Kendall’s probably ditching me, I’ve got at least half a grand’s worth of damage on my car and-why am I helping your ungrateful ass again?”
“Because you’re a chivalrous, kind-hearted gentleman.”
Logan snorted then sent her a look that made tension shoot along her spine until it twisted up her thighs; she shifted her legs to try and get comfortable in her own skin again. He took note of her squirming and slid his eyes down over her legs -mostly exposed beneath her flimsy skirt-before turning them up to the road again as if nothing had happened.
“I disagree. It was the skirt. I’m a sucker for a miniskirt in need.”
Meg’s hand automatically pulled the hot pink material down, grunting in annoyance when the stretchy material just climbed up her thighs toward her waistline again. Logan smirked, amused that the more he mentioned the skirt, the more self conscious she became even though she was the one that had made the decision to flaunt her perfect ass in said perfect skirt in the first place. He found that contradiction fascinating if rather hypocritical.
Meg felt ridiculous, exposed and uncomfortable so she turned to the window and said nothing, counting the trees outside until they gradually disappeared - swallowed by the night.
“Stop leering at me.”
“What?”
“I can feel it.”
“JuJu Butter, if you can feel it across the distance between us, I’m even better than I thought I was.”
“It’s making me uncomfortable.”
Logan laughed and slapped the wheel. “I never realized it before but you are so vain, you probably think this sentence is about you. Sweetheart, if I was interested, I would have pretended to run out of gas a long time ago.”
Meg released the skirt she’d still been tugging uselessly as anger rushed to her head. The elasticised skirt bounced high up her thigh and Logan swallowed, straining to stop himself from looking. He could see that soft white skin high up on her inner thigh now-soft with a buttery texture like it had never been tarnished by sunlight. Shadows concealed what his eyes were magnetically being drawn in toward-
He snapped out of it when her hand slapped his thigh. Hard.
“Quit it unless you want to be rear ended!”
There was a distinct pause before Logan cracked up laughing, sending an impish smile Meg’s way to share the joke. She didn’t return the look though her flushed face indicated she’d understood his twisted interpretation perfectly.
“Oh, come on! That wasn’t even intentional.”
“It’s not a good thing that you can drop so low without even trying, Logan.”
“If I recall, that was your wording, not mine.” His humour faded, twisting his mouth. He was sick and tired of this kind of judgement, especially from someone he was helping out.
“It didn’t need to be. I can’t have an innocent conversation with you without you perverting it.”
Through the front window he could see a vacant rest stop as Meg continued to simmer in her own self righteousness next to him. Logan didn’t spare her a glance, indicating with his blinkers and then pulling the XTerra to a slow stop in the rest zone. Only then did she look up at him, wide eyed in surprise.
“Wh-what are you doing?” She shifted away from him, panting slightly with a panicked look in her eyes.
Logan scowled. “Don’t flatter yourself. Get out.”
He could see that Meg was relieved for a moment and that cemented his own anger. Blinded by that feeling, he didn’t notice true panic come over her; when she leaned closer, he saw it as a mendacious tease that her previous body language had denied he’d ever get from her. When she touched his arm he jerked his own away from her, indicating the door handle with his hard eyes.
Meg didn’t need to be told twice, nor did she put up much protest. It was hard to glower when she was self aware enough to know she had been daring him to throw her out since the moment she got into the vehicle. She quietly opened the door, slid out and watched - still in a surreal daze - as the XTerra rolled slowly in an arc before turning onto the opposite side of I-5 and driving away from her. She stood watching his red tail lights, not believing that he actually intended to leave her there in the darkness, with only her broken silver stilettos, no jacket, no money, nothing.
After five minutes of gaping at a steady line of unfamiliar headlights, casting spotlights over her deer-like wide gaze, she turned and hobbled through the rest stop looking for an emergency phone.
Nothing.
She still didn’t understand what happened. He was the one in the wrong: harassing her, making her squirm with anxiety beside him. She was positive he’d heard worse insults; normally Logan laughed off the insinuation that he was lascivious, she had thought him rather proud of it actually. Her confusion made her unsure if she’d really hurt his feelings or perhaps just overreacted.
Of course she had!
Logan hadn’t been serious-running his eyes so deliberately over her legs and chuckling every time she moved-he’d merely been stirring her, teasing his new kitten with a piece of string, teasing to the point of a reaction but never relinquishing his prize. He wasn’t coming on to her at all and she’d reacted like he’d groped her and threatened to deflower her by the side of the road unless she put up a convincing resistance.
Meg sighed, wondering where her own self esteem and resolve had gone if she’d acted so skittish under the weight of such a passive flirtation. She’d easily fended off every insinuation that there was something wrong with her for not giving in to Cole, or Trace or any of her other boyfriends. She wasn’t oblivious to the whispers behind her back, the patronising way they ridiculed her faith and her principles like she hadn’t thought long and hard about her decision before choosing chastity.
She’d been labelled asexual, prudish, frigid and every other synonym for the Neptune High Madonna one could think of. There had to be something wrong with her in their minds because no one would actively choose to stay celibate. She’d even been labelled a whore when Cole had thought someone else had won the spoils of the war he’d been fighting with her will for a year. Spoils. That’s how she felt now: spoiled. Because, in truth, just being herself was like being a cliff face: holding back the relentless tide. She’d eroded, dissolved - those constant tests eventually breaking something even though she had appeared so strong and sturdy.
Inevitably, she wondered if something was wrong with her, because it was only natural to want to feel bone against bone, flesh against flesh, that intimate press that reflected the inner coil of their hearts around each other. She had fallen in love and believed, for that ephemeral moment, that it was right. She’d laid her principles to rest, she’d crumbled before the peer pressure that had never made her flinch before. She’d always thought herself so strong, but those blue eyes were crystalline perfect and she trusted the touch connected with that gaze so implicitly. It had been only natural and she hadn’t regretted it until she’d discovered it wasn’t as natural for him; for him it was a mechanical motion, a desperate action to force a love she felt.
That realization changed everything.
If her eyes, and heart and everything about her physical self could lie to her, then how could she trust that natural impulse?
Whenever she felt it again, she was scared.
Fifteen minutes later, the rain started to pelt down and Meg wasn’t feeling philosophical so much as homicidal. She didn’t care if Logan got his panties in a twist because she’d rejected something that wasn’t even happening. She didn’t care about him at all. There wasn’t a cab in sight, her blouse was glued to her chest, quickly approaching transparency and her skirt was clinging against her water-lubricated thighs, chafing with every step. No one wanted to stop for the crazy girl walking down the road with hardly any clothing, clutching a pair of broken shoes. Shivers wracked her body, tensing her hands up and causing her lips to dull blue beneath the pink gloss that had been washed away with the rain and her dignity and all her good will.
She was cold but the fury churning like dry ice in her stomach kept her numb to the inclement weather after a while. She focused on hobbling, one step at a time, avoiding the occasional pile of amber and red glass from car accidents past. Every time she saw a red light splintered beneath her feet, she pictured the XTerra’s tail lights and thought uncharitable thoughts that the bastard deserved. Every hundred feet or so she had to stop, brushing gravel or glass from her feet, before gritting her teeth and starting her painfully slow journey again.
She was so lost in her own world that she didn’t realize someone was following her until she felt the heat of the engine on her legs, then she became aware of the sound of it purring as it tried to match her pace. Meg stiffened with new fear, wondering if she was about to become the next victim that Veronica would ignore until some burning bush told her she had to solve the case, ease her conscience and achieve her next level of self actualization. Meg glared, knowing in that instant she’d rather kill herself then face that fate; it was only then she turned to take in the sight of the yellow beast that had left her on the side of the road.
It felt like at least thirty minutes had passed and when she looked back to see how far she’d come, she was ashamed to see the rest stop was still in her line of vision. She might have been here for days had he not returned but she was not fucking grateful.
When she continued to stand there, not approaching his car, Logan slid the passenger side window down and leant across to talk to her. He didn’t look sorry either, in fact, he was biting his smirking lips to hold back whatever he really wanted to say. Meg glared before he even started speaking.
“If you think I’m opening the door for you, you haven’t absorbed the point of this exercise.” The implication remained that she was ‘welcome’ to invite herself in as long as she was conceding a loss.
Meg thought she had a few points of her own she’d like to make but she was too tired to do much of anything but toss one of her broken shoes at him through the window. He easily batted it onto the back seat and she gritted her teeth, pivoted and kept on hobbling; pride goeth before what again?
Logan made no further comment but he knew what her feet looked like, having ogled them openly as she twisted and rubbed her feet together while he made her squirm. He knew it was only a matter of time before her pride broke and she conceded that she needed him. He followed her, without comment, until she paused and he eased on the brakes in reaction.
Meg opened the door and sat down with a squelch. Logan winced as his upholstery absorbed the moisture in her rain sodden clothing and he could have sworn she wiggled deeper into the seat just to spite him.
“One day you’ll think back on this and laugh,” he said with all the reassurance of an ice pick in the eye. Ten minutes later he ran out of gas. While he punched his steering wheel, muttering disbelieving curses, she laughed and laughed and laughed.
**
“I hope your point was worth the gas you used driving backwards and forwards up the PCH.”
“Shut up.”
“One day you’ll look back on this and laugh, laugh, laugh.”
“That’s because I won’t care how long I get; strangling you will still be worth it.”
“Why didn’t you get gas when you stopped at the service station?”
“Because I only needed provisions.”
She raised an amused eyebrow.
“At the time!”
“And by provisions you mean those rubber things that help perverted old ladies molest younger men without passing on their fungal infections?”
“Prophylactic. Condom. See how I just said the exact same thing in far less words.”
“Succinct of you,” Meg drawled, tapping her fingers against the line of her damp elbow.
Logan glowered, clenched his hand around his keys to stop the jingling his agitated hand was causing, then left them dangling stationary in the ignition. He hit his steering wheel half heartedly, watching as his wipers continued to push wave after wave of water back and forth across his fogged up windshield.
Meg opened the door to start walking again when Logan grabbed her shoulder. “Oh, no, no, no. In case of an emergency you stay with your vehicle and wait for assistance. We’ll just call for a tow.”
“With what?”
“Since you went Russel Crowe on my phone, we’ll use yours.”
“You mean the one that was in my purse on the front seat of my stolen car?”
“It can’t be statistically possible to have this many things go wrong in one night.”
“Welcome to my day from hell.”
He jerked open his door (rather abruptly considering his last protestation).
“Where are you going? I thought you said we should stay put in case of an emergency.”
“You are the emergency. If I stay in that car with you, the likelihood of a landslide sweeping us both away is very high.” He slammed the door, just looking to get some air before he strangled her.
She narrowed her dark gaze, bristling with irritation before she reached over and locked his door. So there!
Outside, he paced, obviously cursing colourfully as he walked two steps that way, then turned one step the other and then-fell like a tonne of bricks, twisting his ankle viciously underneath him.
“FUCK!”
She heard that one loud and clear.
She darted out of the car, automatically locking her door, as she strode through the rain to help him. But he was already standing, mud smeared down the left sleeve of his brown suede jacket. Meg bit her lip, watching Logan staring at his favourite jacket in disbelief.
“It was already ruined by the rain, so…” Meg trailed off when he glared viciously at her.
“I should have known you had to be close by.”
She huffed and ceased her concerned journey, pivoting back toward the car as the chill in the rain once again permeated her awareness.
She was ignorant to the interested perusal eyeing the sexy twist her anger had added to her stride. Because it was only as she turned from him that Logan noticed the extent of what the rain had done to her clothing: sucking them in like a vacuum sealed bag to accentuate the curves he had believed were already hugged to splitting point. He had been wrong and as he watched her reach out for the door, he realized the blanks his imagination could have filled were quickly being occupied by the luscious reality that Meg Manning had been hiding a truly, fucking gorgeous body beneath her modesty. Before he could drift off in the lust starting to take over his senses, Meg reached a door that refused to open.
She tugged again, preparing to dramatically slam the door behind her, but it didn’t budge. Her eyes widened and she looked back at him, over her shoulder. His body has frozen mid sway, eyes just as wide and stunned with disbelief. A red blush suffused her face as she turned back and continued to tug impotently at the handle. She couldn’t bear to look at him even though she heard his heavy footsteps trudging through the mud by the side of the road to tug at his own door.
“Did you-” But it was obvious so he didn’t bother to finish the question with anything but a glare. She struggled to meet his gaze but she did it, even as he slapped his hand on the roof sending raindrops jumping up to escape his ungainly touch. “Tell me you’re studying to be a comedian and failing every class!”
He didn’t wait for her response, instead he walked around the side of the car to test her own door, like he didn’t believe she was competent enough to learn the simple squeeze and pull method.
She didn’t move from the door and he didn’t ask her to, simply wrapped an arm roughly under her own and tugged back. He pulled so hard she had to retreat to avoid being shoved aside and fell back against his chest, gasping. He jerked away from her as soon as they collided, scalded by her warmth after being chilled by the rain. She stumbled two steps further down the ditch and glared as Logan kicked the front wheel, ignoring her.
“Why the fuck would you lock us out?”
“I was just being cautious, it was an impulse! The last time I left my car for a second without locking it a couple of PCHers jumped behind the wheel and drove off laughing.”
“Does it look like I’m laughing?”
“You have your keys with you, right?”
“Why would I take my keys when you were still inside the car and there’s no gas?”
They both turned to see his keys still dangling where he’d left them in the ignition. She flushed so red she thought the water running down her face would surely vaporize from the heat. In the glare he cut across her face she could see breaking glass: the desire to use her head to smash his way inside the car.
She kept staring at him, unflinching despite the fact he looked truly unstable. “I’m sorry,” she said and his eyes darkened precipitously as if the acknowledgement of her guilt made him despise her more. Frustrated and anxious and freezing she snapped: “Well, you didn’t have to get out of the car and it’s not my fault you can’t pace without twisting yourself up into knots! I thought you’d hurt yourself!”
“I was trying to walk off the urge to twist you into knots. I should be having the time off my life right now not stuck on the side of the road with Little Miss Perfectly Boring.”
She glared for a long while, the silence between them festered until she finally shivered and he looked across at her, trying not to imagine what he’d see if she uncrossed her arms for just a second, what it would be like to twist her legs into clenching, tight knots around his waist as he offered her all the body warmth that would cure her infliction of shivers.
She finally turned to meet his intent gaze and redundantly whispered, “I’m cold,” only tempting him further.
“I’d give you my jacket but I’m cold and it’s your fucking fault so you can grit your teeth down on that and suck it up.” He smirked and slid onto the hood of his car, staring at the traffic rolling unknowingly by in the darkness. She pulled her blouse close to her chest like it would offer more warmth that way, but the chill just clasped her skin tighter and she walked off to hide the shakes starting to overcome her.
“Just when I was about to start throwing money…” She heard him muttering and walked faster to put distance between them so she could breathe something other than smoke.
She no longer cared about mud or dirt or anything else ruining an already ruined outfit. She didn’t even care that she was showing off a long stretch of pearlescent white leg as she leaned down-making sure to keep her backside facing away from Logan-to see how her battered feet were faring. They weren’t bleeding any more she noted, wiggling to maintain her balance as she pulled her anklet up to inspect the damage. It probably would have been easier to check sitting down but she was worried she wouldn’t stand up again and she wasn’t going to slide on to the bonnet of Logan’s SUV and leave herself open to all the magazine spread jokes she was sure he was bursting with at this point of their night.
“Hey, I think-HEY!!!”
Her head snapped up with a glare but Logan wasn’t even paying any attention to her, he was running to the front of his car, standing in the bright beam of his headlights and jumping up and down. She followed Logan’s gaze, squinting her eyes in an attempt to recognize the single car speeding along the opposite side of the road. As it got closer, passing headlights lit the vivid red colour up and she recognized what Logan had: the zippy, little, phallic sports car made to match the nature - and name - of its owner.
She breathed in sharply, relieved and anxious simultaneously, because Dick was the last person she wanted to be rescued by (one step down from Logan himself). It’s not as if she could complain, they were lucky Dick was fashionably late for whatever party the Casablancas family had planned up in L.A.
“Dick!” Logan waved his arms and jumped around.
Just when she thought he’d drive by without seeing his best friend’s silhouette, a car horn let out a sharp series of intermittent bursts and Logan laughed, whistling with his fingers: Dick had spotted them. But Dick was Dick and Dick kept driving, beeping his horn the whole time while someone else mooned them from the passenger side window.
“WHOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! NICE ASS-” Dick yelled from behind him, laughter bursting from inside the car as the rest of his words were drowned out in the stream of his speed.
Meg blushed bright red, gripping her backside as if to make it disappear as she jerked to a rigid stance, glaring after them. At least she was facing in the opposite direction and they may not have recognized her.
Logan didn’t care about her embarrassment and took off after them, jogging parallel to the road and screaming for Dick to use whatever brain cells he had because clearly they needed a little help here (but much less politely).
Logan finally gave up and put his hands on his hips, irritatingly aware of the rain dribbling down the side of his nose and flattening his recently highlighted hair against his forehead. He couldn’t comprehend that Dick-even if he was a walking penis with minimal cognitive function-would actually believe he’d willingly pulled off to the side of the road with Meg Manning of all people. He knew Dick was in many ways his own personal boy-love-groupie but surely not even Dick could think he was smooth enough to slide his way between Meg’s somewhat delectable thighs.
“What a-”
“Dick?” Meg said shortly, suddenly appearing at his side.
Logan looked furious for a moment and then he made a sound that could have been a snort, a laugh or the beginning of a pathetic cry. She couldn’t blame the guy if the latter was the case. Meg knew she should be as furious as Logan but she was surprised by the relief she was feeling the more she thought about being stuck in a car with Logan, Dick and whoever’s ass that was. There was no way Dick would have dropped Meg back at Neptune and she would have found herself in a private wet T-shirt concert with three horny teenagers looking to booze up an 09er soiree. Enjoyable it wouldn’t have been; she’d stick with pneumonia and dying on the side of the road before enduring that after the day she’d had.
Plus, the last thing she needed was the reputation Dick would give her for pulling over on the side of the road with Logan. Dick wasn’t one for logic and it wouldn’t matter how many times they told him they’d run out of gas, he’d still think it was some kind of euphemism for getting bus-ay.
“I can’t believe he just left me here.”
“Logan, you’re screwing around with his mother. It seems about right to me.”
“It’s not his mother, she’s-”
“Semantics.”
“It’s not semantics! She’s twenty-five and he met her two months ago!”
“That Laker girl? If she’s twenty-five, I’m eleven.”
“The way you act, I wouldn’t be surprised.”
Meg stopped mid retort, offended.
It was pathetic to think she’d changed her whole perspective on sex because she kept losing the men she cared about. Cole became so frustrated with her that he was easily convinced all her convictions were just a lie, that she was just a tease, straddling the Madonna/Whore complex whenever each feminine mask suited her best. It was better for the ego that way, in the end: to believe she was a whore rather than to think she just didn’t want him that way. But now her fears manifested in entirely different ways, that maybe she wasn’t good enough, that maybe she didn’t have that strange power some did-
“You don’t know anything about me,” she tried to stab the air with her finger, laying out her point, but her hands were shaking and the point seemed to fizzle out before it left her mouth.
“I know that Duncan used to laugh about what a prude you were.”
“You’re a liar!”
“Imagine what I think if you were a joke to him.”
“I don’t care what you think!” Her face blanked, her jaw lifted and he knew it meant he must have hit one hell of a nerve. He did then what it was in his nature to do: clamped down on that nerve and twisted to see what would happen when he snapped it in twain.
“You have no clue when it comes to stuff like this. You dress up in big girl clothes,” he flicked his hand to encompass the shambles that had become of her outfit, “and you don’t have the stamina to even stand up straight in your heels. You wiggle your ass on the side of the road and aren’t even aware of who you’re teasing-” He pointed behind her at the headlights coming their way-her audience-lighting up their fight on the side of the road before hiding her indignation and his scorn in the shadows again. “No wonder Dick didn’t stop! He thought I was getting lucky not having the unluckiest day of my life! If he’d seen who you were rather than just your ass, he would have cut across traffic to save my balls from being frozen off.”
“Or to run you over for screwing around with his mother!”
Logan ignored her standard retort: “Duncan was invented for asexual women who like to lie back and ponder the ceiling tiles while he struggles through the concept of inserting Tab A into Slot B. And he laughed at you.”
“Don’t twist reality just because you’re bitter that he won!”
“He didn’t say it when you were dating,” Logan went on like she hadn’t even spoken: “Does that make you feel better? That you were only a joke to him when he was working up the courage to send you flowers and indulge that fairy tale romance you seem to need before you feign interest in a guy? Has anyone ever managed to freeze your ice caps and get you hot?”
“Does it make you feel better - big lothario, serial seducer, mother fucker that you are- that she left you for that asexual little boy?” Meg all but screamed the words at him, cutting her hand through the air, red in the face and breathing heavily as she charged closer to him, wanting for the first time in her life to tear someone to pieces just so she didn’t have to look at them any more and all their honesty.
The silence after her explosion pulsated.
She heaved in a breath, pulling her arm back from its slashing tableaux to slump against her stomach.
Logan’s expression was stunned but not insulted. He looked like he couldn’t wrap his mind around the fact that Meg Manning’s lips just wrapped themselves around those four biting syllables. He stared at her mouth for a moment-her lips were slightly violet and he imagined they’d been poisoned by the venom she wasn’t accustomed to spitting-it was the first time in his life he could recall wanting to suck that mouth until she was panting for a different reason.
He breathed in, out, then finally said the only thing that was bouncing around his mind: “I never said he was a little boy but your creative license is interesting.”
Part Two
Title: A Hard Day’s Night
Ship: Meg/Logan (Kendall/Logan, Veronica/Duncan but only in mention)
Summary: A long time ago I asked my dear friend Lazeema for a smut prompt that I could write quickly (hahahahaha, *wipes tear*, hahahahaha). The conversation went a bit like this:
Me: I don't want a plot. But I don't want to just write prose smut. So yeah, situations, ships, something to prompt me. Something sparky.
WhipCracker: Logan/Meg. Rain sex
Helpless Victim: Rain sex?
Merciless Tyrant: Yeah. Sex in rain
Merciless Tyrant: It could start outside…
Stooge: I've only written one scene in the rain and it wasn't sex so the prompt does intrigue…
Get your umbrellas out VM fans, it’s raining clichés out here!
Rating: R-NC17 (Smutty stuff and Logan's potty mouth)
Words: 19,567 (43 Pages)
Dedication: For Lazeema, of course! You know this didn't turn out the way I wanted but I hope you like it and that it encourages you to finish up Equilateral so I can have my sob and move on to the next one with you ;) Oh, and I need a better title because this one sucks but I really couldn't think of anything else that wasn't equally lame.
Disclaimer: The characters in this fanfic are not mine but they are most grateful for their rescue even if no profit will be made from the vast improvement in their stories. Hey, I don't care how arrogant that sounds, when Logan gets laid without having to feel guilty about it, it's an improvement damn it.
The Hard Day's Night
She was leaning against his car: an auto-etiquette no-no unless she planned on unbuttoning that blouse and making a lingerie edition out of her intrusion. Her silver stilettos were looped together, dangling from two fingers as she pressed her face against the driver side window, shading her eyes from the glare of the service station lights with the other.
Logan paused, perusing the curves cupped tightly by a hot pink, pleated mini skirt without discretion. A low whistle wheezed distractedly from between his lips - those legs went on forever - and he slowed to a swagger as he approached her from behind.
Her long blonde hair was mussed and she was rocking impatiently from foot to bleeding foot, raw welts already appearing around her slender ankles. His eyes were captivated by the delicate anklet rubbing over her red skin, a tiny quartz heart rocking along her heel as her foot twisted with discomfort. She’d clearly been walking alone, or partying hard, for some time. Since by Logan’s watch it was only half past seven, he assumed it was the former.
She smacked her hand tiredly into his unresponsive door-about to give up-and he would have said something then, if he hadn’t been trying to observe her without interruption for as long as he could.
She’d recognized his SUV; Logan hoped like hell he could fake his way through remembering her until he could chivalrously let her jump in to save her poor, abused feet (unless she wanted to get straight to jumping him, in which case, they wouldn’t be driving far anyway).
“Don’t tell me,” his voice lilted, watching her jump when he breathed the words across her head. “Oooh ahh, you lost your bra, you want to get it from my car?”
She whipped around and Logan stepped back in shock. The face alone was enough to give that sexy little outfit an illusion of modesty, not to mention the high collar on her blouse. He had imagined the cut of said blouse dangling low between her breasts, not so high above them that it may as well have been a turtleneck. Like all things Meg Manning, her sexy skirt was nothing but a tease.
“Thank God!” She smiled at him so widely he assumed she hadn’t processed his greeting. “Could you give me a ride back to Neptune, please?”
“You look like you’ve been ridden several times already. You’re not tired?”
Oh, she definitely heard that one; her mouth tightened and her eyes darted down to a grease mark on the ground to restrain her anger.
“Don’t be a jerk, Logan,” she said tiredly.
“Sure and tomorrow I’ll stop breathing.”
“Please…” she drew out the word, meeting his eyes with a soft, desperate expression in her own.
Logan looked away; they were at a rest stop service station halfway between Los Angeles and San Diego. She was standing there alone, dressed up like she was ready to party and he could only assume she hadn’t dropped from the sky, so-
“Where’s your car?”
She flushed red. “It’s a long story.”
“Well, if you don’t have the time to tell it….” He stepped around her and pulled his keys from his pocket, jingling them in her face for a moment before pivoting to unlock his door.
She hovered behind his shoulder, pressing close to his elbow like she expected him to jump in and take off immediately. He tried to ignore the feeling of her breasts brushing his arm but it was hard when the alternative was visions of her hopping on his lap to prevent him from abandoning her (the last thing he’d ever do with Meg Manning in that unlikely position was drive).
“There was a guy lying down in the middle of the road; he looked hurt…” She stopped because Logan was already chuckling in amusement, no explanation necessary.
“Rule number fifty four in the Enlightened Insensitive Asshole Manual: only Good Samaritans give their cars away to thieves who can’t even think up an original scam. Oh and, for future reference, when I say Good Samaritan, I mean gullible twit.”
“I didn’t know it was a scam.”
“The fact the vic was brown, leathered up and tattooed didn’t give it away?”
“Sometimes you can be a racist pig, you know that? How do you know he wasn’t white, middle aged and wearing corduroy?”
Logan’s face distorted with faux seriousness. “You’re right. I’ll have to re-evaluate my antisocial habit of judging minorities through a spectrum of negative stereotypes.” The penitence in his voice had Meg Manning almost smiling despite her disdain for his elitism. “Well . . .?”
“What?”
“Was he a middle aged, corduroy-attired, caucasion car thief?”
Her lips twisted to hold back a wry grin. “My answer would only validate your generalizations so I’ll refrain from saying anything that might further diminish whatever reserves of impartiality you have stored somewhere in that narrow mind of yours.”
Logan grinned. “He was a PCHer.”
“You’re a jerk.”
“No, I’m a driver. And you’re walking.” With noting more to say he jumped into the driver’s seat, playfully slamming the door when she tried to stop him, hands pressed against the tinted glass.
He wound the window down, too entertained to drive away even if Meg was too scared to notice. Her hands were shaking slightly as they shifted to wrap over the glass, pushing lightly down as if it to prevent him shutting her out again. He could tell that teasing her had not made her spine stiffen with indignation but rather been the first slip on a slippery slope; now she was on the verge of freaking out to the nth degree.
“I’m desperate-,” like it wasn’t obvious, “-my purse was in the car so I can’t call a cab.”
“Okay…” He met her eyes for a long moment before deliberately letting them slide down, tracing the pink, embroidered patterns along the collar of her white blouse until it stretched nicely over her breasts. When she exhaled fiercely, he snapped his eyes up to hers, smiling boyishly before her unimpressed glare. “How much will it cost you to follow that yellow brick road back to Neptune, Dorothy?” He clicked his tongue along the roof of his mouth before continuing, “And what will you do for it?”
Her eyebrows lowered, mouth opened as if she was imagining biting down on his nose and tearing it clean off his face. He focused on the tongue he could barely see, enjoying how her face was flushing red with suppressed fury. He couldn’t resist teasing an already aggravated itch-
“Being the virginal prude you are, you’re bound to have a steep surcharge for the pain of your sacrifice and I’m not carrying much cash. But we can just swing by the bank once you name your price.”
Meg looked at the cruel grin twisted up in amusement, distorting his face into the perfect mask for a practised tormentor. He could see the capitulation in her eyes, how her desperation dulled into resentment.
She stepped back, her feet seeming to hurt her more, as she reluctantly removed her hands from his window. She’d clearly stopped believing him capable of the mercy that would have spared her fingers if he’d decided to leave with her still clinging to his door.
It was true. He wasn’t a merciful person, she’d always known that and she’d rather martyr her feet then willingly put up with him for the hour it would take to drive back to Neptune. Knowing that, seeing that side of her, made Logan interested but when her lips started to shake with frustrated emotion his interest dulled.
Irritation sliced through him; the last thing he needed on the way to his destination was a weepy woman; it was guaranteed to destroy any urges she’d been helping enflame with that tiny skirt.
He pulled his wallet out of his jacket and whipped out a few notes, placing them in the rubber seal of his window, standing up and partially dangling toward her. He clicked his fingers to grab her attention and then pointed. She looked at him like she’d told him she was hungry and he offered her a Tic Tac.
Ungrateful bitch.
He went to pull the notes out when she stepped forward, taking the money and smiling with as much gratitude as she could force.
“Thanks . . . that’s generous of you.”
She turned and hobbled over to the service station payphone, grunting in frustration when she picked up the handset and the line dangled down, disconnected from the phone. With a grunt she threw the handset and stomped her foot, forgetting for a moment she was shoeless. A high pitched squeal escaped her and she hopped around in a circle causing Logan to chuckle.
“Hey, Meg-Hey!” He called, leaning out the door. “Get in the car before you impale yourself on something!”
If he had expected Meg to grin mid-hobble with gratitude, he was disappointed. It’s a good thing he’d stopped expecting anything from feisty blondes a long time ago.
In fact, Meg was having the opposite reaction. She was certain Logan expected her to politely allow him to abandon her - he had plans in L.A. after all - rather than force him to backtrack out of whatever goodness was left in his shrivelled, black heart.
On any ordinary day she may have proven herself as predictable as the glint in his eyes was labelling her; she would have said, ‘no no, you had other plans and I’d hate for you to break them.’ She would have been grateful for his cash clearing conscience enough to send him off on his booty call without even a passive aggressive insinuation that if she was stabbed by a corduroy-attired caucasion male in his fifties while waiting for a cab it was his fault. The fact Meg could see every expectation on his snide face made her smile widely with sharp gratitude.
“Thank you so much, Logan, you’re saving my feet and right now that’s like saving my life!” She ran around the side of the SUV and jumped in, beaming at him. “You’re such a stand up guy; I hope I’m not interrupting anything important.”
Logan frowned: Only his plans to fuck until he couldn’t stand. She wouldn’t be recompensing him in that regard.
The asshole had the nerve to drop his mouth open like he was surprised at her selfishness, then his eyes narrowed on her beneficent grin and she thought-for a second-that he was about to smile before his lips twisted over the gesture and he pressed down on the accelerator, spinning his wheel until they were on their way.
**
They hadn’t been driving long when she noticed he was acting antsy, eyes flicking to the cellular that was resting in his cup holder.
“Missing a hot date?” She asked with feigned guilt.
“Not if you count yourself.”
“I don’t. I’m sorry I spoiled your plans.”
“You are not,” he chuckled though he didn’t sound amused.
“Tell you what, I’d be more than willing to call your lovely escort-in-waiting and let her know why you’ll be tardy. I’m sure she’ll understand.”
“Oh, sure. There’s nothing more understandable than a syrup-voiced girl calling to let her know her date is otherwise occupied.”
“What would she assume you were doing while I was calling her?” Meg frowned as if the innocence of her gesture would be obvious to anyone with a mildly cognitive brain.
Logan tilted his head to the side. “Now that depends . . . will you be out of breath during this conversation?”
For a moment she stared at him in confusion and then the moment passed. She made a tutting sound of disgust and turned back to the window without responding, pressing her face against the glass to ignore the smug smile she could feel behind her.
Logan was grinning when he finally snatched up his cell and hit one of his speed dials, still churning with patronising amusement while he waited for her to pick up his call.
“You mustn’t mean that much to each other if she could assume something so revolting about you,” Meg whispered.
“Revolting?” He laughed, placing the phone on his shoulder and holding it in place as he drove. “You are a virgin. You’re almost Pleasantville. Are there toilets in the stalls where you come from?”
“Even you must have behavioural limits when you actually give a damn about a girl.”
“Not every relationship is cookies, fairy bread and Pete Yorn concerts,” Logan snapped, throwing the phone back down when it was clear his girl wasn’t going to answer.
Meg flinched at the sharp snap and he ignored the obvious stiffening of her figure in his peripheral vision. She didn’t jump for his bait but shifted closer to the window, pressing her head against the glass.
Perhaps he shouldn’t have shown that card so early; he could have played with her all night, pretending he didn’t know why she was dressed up to the nines and completely alone, caused her the embarrassment of lying about who was meant to be with her at that concert before stinging her with the knowledge that he’d been there when Duncan bought the tickets for their three month anniversary. When they’d still been speaking, before-
“I wouldn’t expect you to understand my concept of fun. You’re the girl who’s only just realized she’s been riding around in a pumpkin shell all year.” He could feel the rage building inside Meg but, like all things where she was concerned, her rage was soft, simmering and weak, diluted by her innate kindness. He ignored her bristling with the ease he ignored an insect buzzing around his room.
She ignored him right back until his phone started mechanically reciting Mrs Robinson. She slowly turned and watched the smirk ticking at his lips as he swiped the phone up.
“Hey there…getting impatient?”
Meg sunk down in her chair, squirming at the discomfort caused by the sudden deepening of his voice.
“You could always play with dick,” he retorted in some private joke Meg didn’t want to know about. He snorted. “That was my plan too but I unfortunately have some babysitting duties to attend to before I get there . . . Don’t you know? Responsible kids get day jobs now; I’m trying to blend. . . Babe, you are neither of those things and I wouldn’t want you half as much if you were.”
Meg’s face was flushed so red by this point she thought she’d burst into flames; she settled for chiding his manners. “You shouldn’t talk on the phone and drive simultaneously, Logan; you’ll get us both killed.”
“Sorry, Kendall, my babysitter is laying down the law of her nursery . . . I don’t speak Pollyanna, perhaps you could translate?” After a pause in which Meg could just make out the low tones of a teasing female voice, Logan laughed, then turned his mischievously glinting eyes to Meg’s scowl. “She doesn’t think she’ll understand you either, sorry.”
Logan’s eyes glittered as Meg watched him, wondering how he could handle amusing himself this much day in, day out. She was exhausted just watching him.
After a long pause, Logan sighed. “I wouldn’t have answered the phone if that were the case. . . Okay, maybe I would, but trust me, I’m not interested and, if I was, I’d invite you to come along.”
The wheel slipped in Logan’s hand and Meg clutched the glove compartment as the XTerra swerved. Horns blared obnoxious warnings behind them before Logan righted their path and then Meg snatched the phone from him, hanging up before he could so much as splutter.
“Meg Manning, how rude! Did they teach that in your etiquette classes?”
She smiled sweetly at him, “Right after we were taught to prioritize our manners. Preventing someone from causing grievous bodily harm cancels out a lot of the P’s and Q’s of etiquette. Shocking, huh?”
“Who says you can’t do both?”
“Kendall.”
“She’d never say that. She’s great at multitasking.”
Meg flicked an impatient hand at him and then turned to watch his surprisingly blank face. “No. I don’t know a Kendall…”
“Shocking. You have such an exciting social life: going to a concert stag and heading home before the sun freakin’ sets. I thought you knew everyone who’s anyone.”
Meg ignored the insult, she didn’t owe him an explanation about why she chose to go out by herself rather than invite a friend. She certainly didn’t want to entertain him with a story he’d only find amusing. “The last time I wimped out on going stag I ended up making the biggest mistake of my life. I'll stick with stag."
It was at that moment Logan chose to alleviate a bit of the awkwardness in the car by finally turning his stereo back on. A soft ballad soothed the tense atmosphere for only a moment before he let her know he understood her implication.
"If it makes you feel any better . . . she likes dating people as long as it takes to stab them in the back. There's a high probability Duncan could lose a kidney in the future."
“Oh, please,” she turned in a sudden embarrassed rage. “You’re just bitter because she didn’t take you back even after she found out you were innocent.”
“Who said I didn’t have the opportunity?”
She doesn’t believe it and shakes her head, focusing her gaze out of the window again. She knew them both and she knew Veronica Mars; she’d seen them at Logan’s party, both boys wanting her and losing each other over her. He might have been too proud to admit it but Meg knew the truth. Logan was all posturing and she’d worry about anyone who had that much cause for self defence mechanisms if said mechanisms didn’t make him act like such an asshole.
She focused her mind in on the rises and falls of tempo in the ballad filling the silence between them. Later, she wouldn’t be able to recall what song was playing, just that it helped to ignore the imposing presence gently guiding his SUV around the bends of I-5.
It was difficult to converse with Logan because they had nothing in common. Okay, they had one thing in common but there was no way in the nine circles of hell that she was bringing that topic up again.
“Cassidy said you were going to their party tonight,” she finally settled on.
“Oh, I see. There was no concert, you’re just stalking me.”
“No,” she intoned slowly, “I just remembered who Kendall is.”
When he turned to meet her gaze, she was looking back like she had just witnessed a patrol unit scrape him off the side of the road. He smiled at her, proud of his accomplishment even if she was disgusted. He wouldn’t flinch in the face of her puritanical moralizing.
As easy as Kendall was he still knew he was the first younger man she’d looked twice at. It might be shallow as hell but considering the state of his self esteem when she first sent that smile his way, he couldn’t help but take the ego boost with a smirk and a smug swell of pride. He didn’t care how fucking wrong it was or that she was technically the step mother of one of his only loyal friends. He didn’t really give a fuck about a lot of things nowadays; he’d entered a hedonistic kind of apathy in which he indulged all his whims with the selfish determination of someone who’d lost all concern for the people who displayed a similar disinterest in his own state.
“You of all people,” Meg scoffed. It needn’t be said he should know better, having been on the receiving end of that kind of betrayal recently.
Logan didn’t bother to defend himself. They came from different worlds and different perspectives even if they’d lived two blocks apart since he was twelve years old. Discussing the morality of sexuality with Meg Manning was like discussing the pros and cons of religion with the pope.
“You should know how Dick would feel,” she clearly couldn’t resist.
“Wanna know why I don’t care what your opinion is? I’m doing you a favour instead of doing who I’d really like to be doing right now. Climb down off your high horse before this noble steed dumps you at the next rest stop.”
She shook her head. “No wonder she never went back to you, if you weren’t such a-then maybe-” but she cut herself off, bit down on her lip and sent him a remorseful look instead, ashamed she’d gone so low in her own frustration. Just because Duncan was still infesting her mind didn’t mean Veronica was still infesting Logan’s. If his behaviour was any indication, she was a tick he’d dug out from beneath his skin as soon as he’d felt her bite.
When she raised those guilt-ridden eyes to his again, he was looking right back at her, eyes alight with eager viciousness as if he actually wanted her to spit more words in his face so he could retort with the venom welling up in the centre of his tongue. She could tell by the look in his eyes that it would be deadly so she looked away, noticing his body shaking with laughter in her peripheral vision: a slash of white teeth like the blade of a knife in his face.
His phone rang and Meg snatched it up, taking a moment to note that ‘nightcap’ was calling before her face twisted with disgust. “I’m guessing they aren’t calling to ask if you’d like vodka or tequila shooters when you arrive at your destination?”
He pulled one hand off the wheel, silently asking her to give his phone back. Instead, she did him a favour, turned to her door and pressed the automatic window down. Logan reacted quickly, hitting the central locking on his own door so her window stalled only a few inches down.
It was far enough.
Without thinking (because thinking would have stopped her), she pushed his phone out through the gap and then crossed her arms over her chest while he ran his phone over with his back tires.
He looked at her in disbelief for only a second before slamming on the brakes.
“Don’t!” She called. A second later, tires screeched behind them, Meg’s eyes widened and the whole car jerked forward with the force of the collision.
To their collective relief, the air bags didn’t explode in their faces but Meg supposed that would have made this moment funny in retrospect. When she noted Logan’s hands gripping the wheel so tight his fists had become bloodless, she swallowed nervously: perhaps good humour wasn’t something she should expect from Logan any time soon.
“Damn it!” Logan wrestled with the seatbelt that had locked itself tight across his chest. “GOD DAMN IT!” He jerked and finally freed himself. “You’re such a -” But the word was lost behind a slammed door; Meg winced when she read the fierce syllable clearly on his lips through the window.
He didn’t spare a moment to glower at her as he walked up to the woman exiting the vehicle behind them. She had a Mediterranean glow to her cheeks, thick black hair tumbling over wide, frightened eyes as she rushed to meet Logan, apologizing profusely even though it clearly hadn’t been her fault.
Meg could tell Logan didn’t bother to correct her and accept the blame himself; instead, he flapped his arms indignantly, spewing vitriolic rubbish that would-but no, she wasn’t getting indignant in return. The woman was staring curiously behind him at the XTerra-and Meg- shaking her head ruefully and-what?!! Touching Logan’s shoulder in a consoling manner like he was-like he was stuck in his XTerra with a crazy person who had caused him to jump on his damn brakes!
He wiped his hands over his head wearily, muttering something that Meg didn’t have a problem interpreting through her indignant silence: “Blahblah psychotic prude in front seat, blahblah, random vandalism, blahblah had to stop car or never get cradle robbing booty call again, blahblah but it’s not my fault!” Wasn’t that always his way?
Meg’s fingers tightened on the centre console as she watched Logan’s relaxed body language and the woman’s increasingly soft, understanding expression.
“Good Samaritans are gullible twits,” she barely heard herself because Logan had slipped the woman a card with his details on it and then walked off in the opposite direction of the XTerra. “What…?” She reached for the handle of the door to follow him when he suddenly appeared in the rear view mirror again, striding toward his door.
Meg flushed and turned away, pretending she’d been staring out the front window the entire time. Logan didn’t spare her a glance as he tossed his trashed cellular into the glove box and Meg bit down on her lip to trap the slightly hysterical laugh in her mouth. She couldn’t believe she had just-
Logan started the engine and waved curtly at his new friend as she bipped her horn in passing, then he pressed down on the accelerator, jerking them into a much faster drive toward Neptune. Meg guessed his speed matched his desire to be rid of her and she wondered exactly what it would take for him to push her out of the car, make her walk, or decide to go a step further and drag her to Neptune tied to his massive off-road bumper bar.
Several long minutes passed before Meg apologized.
“I don’t know what came over me.”
“It’s not you. Apparently being around me makes women fucking crazy,” he was talking more to himself than her, something she realized when he finished his cutting comment with a mumbled: “In all the wrong ways.”
“I don’t know . . . that lady back there seemed pretty crazy for you. Did you give her your number? I think she’s your type.”
“She was forty years old!”
“What’s your point?”
Logan rolled his eyes.
“Give her your number?” She repeated.
Meg felt a smile quirking at the side of her mouth when she saw Logan struggling to restrain his own amusement, a flush rising steadily on his cheeks from the effort.
“She gave me hers,” he finally enthused, drawling the words in his most unctuous manner.
“Oooooo,” Meg laughed and Logan finally returned her smile, relaxing slightly in his seat. She felt the strange anxiousness that had been between them ease and apologized again. His smile dimmed and he turned back to the road, easing off the accelerator smoothly. “We could probably catch her, you know.” She teased.
“Might as well. You murdered my phone, Kendall’s probably ditching me, I’ve got at least half a grand’s worth of damage on my car and-why am I helping your ungrateful ass again?”
“Because you’re a chivalrous, kind-hearted gentleman.”
Logan snorted then sent her a look that made tension shoot along her spine until it twisted up her thighs; she shifted her legs to try and get comfortable in her own skin again. He took note of her squirming and slid his eyes down over her legs -mostly exposed beneath her flimsy skirt-before turning them up to the road again as if nothing had happened.
“I disagree. It was the skirt. I’m a sucker for a miniskirt in need.”
Meg’s hand automatically pulled the hot pink material down, grunting in annoyance when the stretchy material just climbed up her thighs toward her waistline again. Logan smirked, amused that the more he mentioned the skirt, the more self conscious she became even though she was the one that had made the decision to flaunt her perfect ass in said perfect skirt in the first place. He found that contradiction fascinating if rather hypocritical.
Meg felt ridiculous, exposed and uncomfortable so she turned to the window and said nothing, counting the trees outside until they gradually disappeared - swallowed by the night.
“Stop leering at me.”
“What?”
“I can feel it.”
“JuJu Butter, if you can feel it across the distance between us, I’m even better than I thought I was.”
“It’s making me uncomfortable.”
Logan laughed and slapped the wheel. “I never realized it before but you are so vain, you probably think this sentence is about you. Sweetheart, if I was interested, I would have pretended to run out of gas a long time ago.”
Meg released the skirt she’d still been tugging uselessly as anger rushed to her head. The elasticised skirt bounced high up her thigh and Logan swallowed, straining to stop himself from looking. He could see that soft white skin high up on her inner thigh now-soft with a buttery texture like it had never been tarnished by sunlight. Shadows concealed what his eyes were magnetically being drawn in toward-
He snapped out of it when her hand slapped his thigh. Hard.
“Quit it unless you want to be rear ended!”
There was a distinct pause before Logan cracked up laughing, sending an impish smile Meg’s way to share the joke. She didn’t return the look though her flushed face indicated she’d understood his twisted interpretation perfectly.
“Oh, come on! That wasn’t even intentional.”
“It’s not a good thing that you can drop so low without even trying, Logan.”
“If I recall, that was your wording, not mine.” His humour faded, twisting his mouth. He was sick and tired of this kind of judgement, especially from someone he was helping out.
“It didn’t need to be. I can’t have an innocent conversation with you without you perverting it.”
Through the front window he could see a vacant rest stop as Meg continued to simmer in her own self righteousness next to him. Logan didn’t spare her a glance, indicating with his blinkers and then pulling the XTerra to a slow stop in the rest zone. Only then did she look up at him, wide eyed in surprise.
“Wh-what are you doing?” She shifted away from him, panting slightly with a panicked look in her eyes.
Logan scowled. “Don’t flatter yourself. Get out.”
He could see that Meg was relieved for a moment and that cemented his own anger. Blinded by that feeling, he didn’t notice true panic come over her; when she leaned closer, he saw it as a mendacious tease that her previous body language had denied he’d ever get from her. When she touched his arm he jerked his own away from her, indicating the door handle with his hard eyes.
Meg didn’t need to be told twice, nor did she put up much protest. It was hard to glower when she was self aware enough to know she had been daring him to throw her out since the moment she got into the vehicle. She quietly opened the door, slid out and watched - still in a surreal daze - as the XTerra rolled slowly in an arc before turning onto the opposite side of I-5 and driving away from her. She stood watching his red tail lights, not believing that he actually intended to leave her there in the darkness, with only her broken silver stilettos, no jacket, no money, nothing.
After five minutes of gaping at a steady line of unfamiliar headlights, casting spotlights over her deer-like wide gaze, she turned and hobbled through the rest stop looking for an emergency phone.
Nothing.
She still didn’t understand what happened. He was the one in the wrong: harassing her, making her squirm with anxiety beside him. She was positive he’d heard worse insults; normally Logan laughed off the insinuation that he was lascivious, she had thought him rather proud of it actually. Her confusion made her unsure if she’d really hurt his feelings or perhaps just overreacted.
Of course she had!
Logan hadn’t been serious-running his eyes so deliberately over her legs and chuckling every time she moved-he’d merely been stirring her, teasing his new kitten with a piece of string, teasing to the point of a reaction but never relinquishing his prize. He wasn’t coming on to her at all and she’d reacted like he’d groped her and threatened to deflower her by the side of the road unless she put up a convincing resistance.
Meg sighed, wondering where her own self esteem and resolve had gone if she’d acted so skittish under the weight of such a passive flirtation. She’d easily fended off every insinuation that there was something wrong with her for not giving in to Cole, or Trace or any of her other boyfriends. She wasn’t oblivious to the whispers behind her back, the patronising way they ridiculed her faith and her principles like she hadn’t thought long and hard about her decision before choosing chastity.
She’d been labelled asexual, prudish, frigid and every other synonym for the Neptune High Madonna one could think of. There had to be something wrong with her in their minds because no one would actively choose to stay celibate. She’d even been labelled a whore when Cole had thought someone else had won the spoils of the war he’d been fighting with her will for a year. Spoils. That’s how she felt now: spoiled. Because, in truth, just being herself was like being a cliff face: holding back the relentless tide. She’d eroded, dissolved - those constant tests eventually breaking something even though she had appeared so strong and sturdy.
Inevitably, she wondered if something was wrong with her, because it was only natural to want to feel bone against bone, flesh against flesh, that intimate press that reflected the inner coil of their hearts around each other. She had fallen in love and believed, for that ephemeral moment, that it was right. She’d laid her principles to rest, she’d crumbled before the peer pressure that had never made her flinch before. She’d always thought herself so strong, but those blue eyes were crystalline perfect and she trusted the touch connected with that gaze so implicitly. It had been only natural and she hadn’t regretted it until she’d discovered it wasn’t as natural for him; for him it was a mechanical motion, a desperate action to force a love she felt.
That realization changed everything.
If her eyes, and heart and everything about her physical self could lie to her, then how could she trust that natural impulse?
Whenever she felt it again, she was scared.
Fifteen minutes later, the rain started to pelt down and Meg wasn’t feeling philosophical so much as homicidal. She didn’t care if Logan got his panties in a twist because she’d rejected something that wasn’t even happening. She didn’t care about him at all. There wasn’t a cab in sight, her blouse was glued to her chest, quickly approaching transparency and her skirt was clinging against her water-lubricated thighs, chafing with every step. No one wanted to stop for the crazy girl walking down the road with hardly any clothing, clutching a pair of broken shoes. Shivers wracked her body, tensing her hands up and causing her lips to dull blue beneath the pink gloss that had been washed away with the rain and her dignity and all her good will.
She was cold but the fury churning like dry ice in her stomach kept her numb to the inclement weather after a while. She focused on hobbling, one step at a time, avoiding the occasional pile of amber and red glass from car accidents past. Every time she saw a red light splintered beneath her feet, she pictured the XTerra’s tail lights and thought uncharitable thoughts that the bastard deserved. Every hundred feet or so she had to stop, brushing gravel or glass from her feet, before gritting her teeth and starting her painfully slow journey again.
She was so lost in her own world that she didn’t realize someone was following her until she felt the heat of the engine on her legs, then she became aware of the sound of it purring as it tried to match her pace. Meg stiffened with new fear, wondering if she was about to become the next victim that Veronica would ignore until some burning bush told her she had to solve the case, ease her conscience and achieve her next level of self actualization. Meg glared, knowing in that instant she’d rather kill herself then face that fate; it was only then she turned to take in the sight of the yellow beast that had left her on the side of the road.
It felt like at least thirty minutes had passed and when she looked back to see how far she’d come, she was ashamed to see the rest stop was still in her line of vision. She might have been here for days had he not returned but she was not fucking grateful.
When she continued to stand there, not approaching his car, Logan slid the passenger side window down and leant across to talk to her. He didn’t look sorry either, in fact, he was biting his smirking lips to hold back whatever he really wanted to say. Meg glared before he even started speaking.
“If you think I’m opening the door for you, you haven’t absorbed the point of this exercise.” The implication remained that she was ‘welcome’ to invite herself in as long as she was conceding a loss.
Meg thought she had a few points of her own she’d like to make but she was too tired to do much of anything but toss one of her broken shoes at him through the window. He easily batted it onto the back seat and she gritted her teeth, pivoted and kept on hobbling; pride goeth before what again?
Logan made no further comment but he knew what her feet looked like, having ogled them openly as she twisted and rubbed her feet together while he made her squirm. He knew it was only a matter of time before her pride broke and she conceded that she needed him. He followed her, without comment, until she paused and he eased on the brakes in reaction.
Meg opened the door and sat down with a squelch. Logan winced as his upholstery absorbed the moisture in her rain sodden clothing and he could have sworn she wiggled deeper into the seat just to spite him.
“One day you’ll think back on this and laugh,” he said with all the reassurance of an ice pick in the eye. Ten minutes later he ran out of gas. While he punched his steering wheel, muttering disbelieving curses, she laughed and laughed and laughed.
**
“I hope your point was worth the gas you used driving backwards and forwards up the PCH.”
“Shut up.”
“One day you’ll look back on this and laugh, laugh, laugh.”
“That’s because I won’t care how long I get; strangling you will still be worth it.”
“Why didn’t you get gas when you stopped at the service station?”
“Because I only needed provisions.”
She raised an amused eyebrow.
“At the time!”
“And by provisions you mean those rubber things that help perverted old ladies molest younger men without passing on their fungal infections?”
“Prophylactic. Condom. See how I just said the exact same thing in far less words.”
“Succinct of you,” Meg drawled, tapping her fingers against the line of her damp elbow.
Logan glowered, clenched his hand around his keys to stop the jingling his agitated hand was causing, then left them dangling stationary in the ignition. He hit his steering wheel half heartedly, watching as his wipers continued to push wave after wave of water back and forth across his fogged up windshield.
Meg opened the door to start walking again when Logan grabbed her shoulder. “Oh, no, no, no. In case of an emergency you stay with your vehicle and wait for assistance. We’ll just call for a tow.”
“With what?”
“Since you went Russel Crowe on my phone, we’ll use yours.”
“You mean the one that was in my purse on the front seat of my stolen car?”
“It can’t be statistically possible to have this many things go wrong in one night.”
“Welcome to my day from hell.”
He jerked open his door (rather abruptly considering his last protestation).
“Where are you going? I thought you said we should stay put in case of an emergency.”
“You are the emergency. If I stay in that car with you, the likelihood of a landslide sweeping us both away is very high.” He slammed the door, just looking to get some air before he strangled her.
She narrowed her dark gaze, bristling with irritation before she reached over and locked his door. So there!
Outside, he paced, obviously cursing colourfully as he walked two steps that way, then turned one step the other and then-fell like a tonne of bricks, twisting his ankle viciously underneath him.
“FUCK!”
She heard that one loud and clear.
She darted out of the car, automatically locking her door, as she strode through the rain to help him. But he was already standing, mud smeared down the left sleeve of his brown suede jacket. Meg bit her lip, watching Logan staring at his favourite jacket in disbelief.
“It was already ruined by the rain, so…” Meg trailed off when he glared viciously at her.
“I should have known you had to be close by.”
She huffed and ceased her concerned journey, pivoting back toward the car as the chill in the rain once again permeated her awareness.
She was ignorant to the interested perusal eyeing the sexy twist her anger had added to her stride. Because it was only as she turned from him that Logan noticed the extent of what the rain had done to her clothing: sucking them in like a vacuum sealed bag to accentuate the curves he had believed were already hugged to splitting point. He had been wrong and as he watched her reach out for the door, he realized the blanks his imagination could have filled were quickly being occupied by the luscious reality that Meg Manning had been hiding a truly, fucking gorgeous body beneath her modesty. Before he could drift off in the lust starting to take over his senses, Meg reached a door that refused to open.
She tugged again, preparing to dramatically slam the door behind her, but it didn’t budge. Her eyes widened and she looked back at him, over her shoulder. His body has frozen mid sway, eyes just as wide and stunned with disbelief. A red blush suffused her face as she turned back and continued to tug impotently at the handle. She couldn’t bear to look at him even though she heard his heavy footsteps trudging through the mud by the side of the road to tug at his own door.
“Did you-” But it was obvious so he didn’t bother to finish the question with anything but a glare. She struggled to meet his gaze but she did it, even as he slapped his hand on the roof sending raindrops jumping up to escape his ungainly touch. “Tell me you’re studying to be a comedian and failing every class!”
He didn’t wait for her response, instead he walked around the side of the car to test her own door, like he didn’t believe she was competent enough to learn the simple squeeze and pull method.
She didn’t move from the door and he didn’t ask her to, simply wrapped an arm roughly under her own and tugged back. He pulled so hard she had to retreat to avoid being shoved aside and fell back against his chest, gasping. He jerked away from her as soon as they collided, scalded by her warmth after being chilled by the rain. She stumbled two steps further down the ditch and glared as Logan kicked the front wheel, ignoring her.
“Why the fuck would you lock us out?”
“I was just being cautious, it was an impulse! The last time I left my car for a second without locking it a couple of PCHers jumped behind the wheel and drove off laughing.”
“Does it look like I’m laughing?”
“You have your keys with you, right?”
“Why would I take my keys when you were still inside the car and there’s no gas?”
They both turned to see his keys still dangling where he’d left them in the ignition. She flushed so red she thought the water running down her face would surely vaporize from the heat. In the glare he cut across her face she could see breaking glass: the desire to use her head to smash his way inside the car.
She kept staring at him, unflinching despite the fact he looked truly unstable. “I’m sorry,” she said and his eyes darkened precipitously as if the acknowledgement of her guilt made him despise her more. Frustrated and anxious and freezing she snapped: “Well, you didn’t have to get out of the car and it’s not my fault you can’t pace without twisting yourself up into knots! I thought you’d hurt yourself!”
“I was trying to walk off the urge to twist you into knots. I should be having the time off my life right now not stuck on the side of the road with Little Miss Perfectly Boring.”
She glared for a long while, the silence between them festered until she finally shivered and he looked across at her, trying not to imagine what he’d see if she uncrossed her arms for just a second, what it would be like to twist her legs into clenching, tight knots around his waist as he offered her all the body warmth that would cure her infliction of shivers.
She finally turned to meet his intent gaze and redundantly whispered, “I’m cold,” only tempting him further.
“I’d give you my jacket but I’m cold and it’s your fucking fault so you can grit your teeth down on that and suck it up.” He smirked and slid onto the hood of his car, staring at the traffic rolling unknowingly by in the darkness. She pulled her blouse close to her chest like it would offer more warmth that way, but the chill just clasped her skin tighter and she walked off to hide the shakes starting to overcome her.
“Just when I was about to start throwing money…” She heard him muttering and walked faster to put distance between them so she could breathe something other than smoke.
She no longer cared about mud or dirt or anything else ruining an already ruined outfit. She didn’t even care that she was showing off a long stretch of pearlescent white leg as she leaned down-making sure to keep her backside facing away from Logan-to see how her battered feet were faring. They weren’t bleeding any more she noted, wiggling to maintain her balance as she pulled her anklet up to inspect the damage. It probably would have been easier to check sitting down but she was worried she wouldn’t stand up again and she wasn’t going to slide on to the bonnet of Logan’s SUV and leave herself open to all the magazine spread jokes she was sure he was bursting with at this point of their night.
“Hey, I think-HEY!!!”
Her head snapped up with a glare but Logan wasn’t even paying any attention to her, he was running to the front of his car, standing in the bright beam of his headlights and jumping up and down. She followed Logan’s gaze, squinting her eyes in an attempt to recognize the single car speeding along the opposite side of the road. As it got closer, passing headlights lit the vivid red colour up and she recognized what Logan had: the zippy, little, phallic sports car made to match the nature - and name - of its owner.
She breathed in sharply, relieved and anxious simultaneously, because Dick was the last person she wanted to be rescued by (one step down from Logan himself). It’s not as if she could complain, they were lucky Dick was fashionably late for whatever party the Casablancas family had planned up in L.A.
“Dick!” Logan waved his arms and jumped around.
Just when she thought he’d drive by without seeing his best friend’s silhouette, a car horn let out a sharp series of intermittent bursts and Logan laughed, whistling with his fingers: Dick had spotted them. But Dick was Dick and Dick kept driving, beeping his horn the whole time while someone else mooned them from the passenger side window.
“WHOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! NICE ASS-” Dick yelled from behind him, laughter bursting from inside the car as the rest of his words were drowned out in the stream of his speed.
Meg blushed bright red, gripping her backside as if to make it disappear as she jerked to a rigid stance, glaring after them. At least she was facing in the opposite direction and they may not have recognized her.
Logan didn’t care about her embarrassment and took off after them, jogging parallel to the road and screaming for Dick to use whatever brain cells he had because clearly they needed a little help here (but much less politely).
Logan finally gave up and put his hands on his hips, irritatingly aware of the rain dribbling down the side of his nose and flattening his recently highlighted hair against his forehead. He couldn’t comprehend that Dick-even if he was a walking penis with minimal cognitive function-would actually believe he’d willingly pulled off to the side of the road with Meg Manning of all people. He knew Dick was in many ways his own personal boy-love-groupie but surely not even Dick could think he was smooth enough to slide his way between Meg’s somewhat delectable thighs.
“What a-”
“Dick?” Meg said shortly, suddenly appearing at his side.
Logan looked furious for a moment and then he made a sound that could have been a snort, a laugh or the beginning of a pathetic cry. She couldn’t blame the guy if the latter was the case. Meg knew she should be as furious as Logan but she was surprised by the relief she was feeling the more she thought about being stuck in a car with Logan, Dick and whoever’s ass that was. There was no way Dick would have dropped Meg back at Neptune and she would have found herself in a private wet T-shirt concert with three horny teenagers looking to booze up an 09er soiree. Enjoyable it wouldn’t have been; she’d stick with pneumonia and dying on the side of the road before enduring that after the day she’d had.
Plus, the last thing she needed was the reputation Dick would give her for pulling over on the side of the road with Logan. Dick wasn’t one for logic and it wouldn’t matter how many times they told him they’d run out of gas, he’d still think it was some kind of euphemism for getting bus-ay.
“I can’t believe he just left me here.”
“Logan, you’re screwing around with his mother. It seems about right to me.”
“It’s not his mother, she’s-”
“Semantics.”
“It’s not semantics! She’s twenty-five and he met her two months ago!”
“That Laker girl? If she’s twenty-five, I’m eleven.”
“The way you act, I wouldn’t be surprised.”
Meg stopped mid retort, offended.
It was pathetic to think she’d changed her whole perspective on sex because she kept losing the men she cared about. Cole became so frustrated with her that he was easily convinced all her convictions were just a lie, that she was just a tease, straddling the Madonna/Whore complex whenever each feminine mask suited her best. It was better for the ego that way, in the end: to believe she was a whore rather than to think she just didn’t want him that way. But now her fears manifested in entirely different ways, that maybe she wasn’t good enough, that maybe she didn’t have that strange power some did-
“You don’t know anything about me,” she tried to stab the air with her finger, laying out her point, but her hands were shaking and the point seemed to fizzle out before it left her mouth.
“I know that Duncan used to laugh about what a prude you were.”
“You’re a liar!”
“Imagine what I think if you were a joke to him.”
“I don’t care what you think!” Her face blanked, her jaw lifted and he knew it meant he must have hit one hell of a nerve. He did then what it was in his nature to do: clamped down on that nerve and twisted to see what would happen when he snapped it in twain.
“You have no clue when it comes to stuff like this. You dress up in big girl clothes,” he flicked his hand to encompass the shambles that had become of her outfit, “and you don’t have the stamina to even stand up straight in your heels. You wiggle your ass on the side of the road and aren’t even aware of who you’re teasing-” He pointed behind her at the headlights coming their way-her audience-lighting up their fight on the side of the road before hiding her indignation and his scorn in the shadows again. “No wonder Dick didn’t stop! He thought I was getting lucky not having the unluckiest day of my life! If he’d seen who you were rather than just your ass, he would have cut across traffic to save my balls from being frozen off.”
“Or to run you over for screwing around with his mother!”
Logan ignored her standard retort: “Duncan was invented for asexual women who like to lie back and ponder the ceiling tiles while he struggles through the concept of inserting Tab A into Slot B. And he laughed at you.”
“Don’t twist reality just because you’re bitter that he won!”
“He didn’t say it when you were dating,” Logan went on like she hadn’t even spoken: “Does that make you feel better? That you were only a joke to him when he was working up the courage to send you flowers and indulge that fairy tale romance you seem to need before you feign interest in a guy? Has anyone ever managed to freeze your ice caps and get you hot?”
“Does it make you feel better - big lothario, serial seducer, mother fucker that you are- that she left you for that asexual little boy?” Meg all but screamed the words at him, cutting her hand through the air, red in the face and breathing heavily as she charged closer to him, wanting for the first time in her life to tear someone to pieces just so she didn’t have to look at them any more and all their honesty.
The silence after her explosion pulsated.
She heaved in a breath, pulling her arm back from its slashing tableaux to slump against her stomach.
Logan’s expression was stunned but not insulted. He looked like he couldn’t wrap his mind around the fact that Meg Manning’s lips just wrapped themselves around those four biting syllables. He stared at her mouth for a moment-her lips were slightly violet and he imagined they’d been poisoned by the venom she wasn’t accustomed to spitting-it was the first time in his life he could recall wanting to suck that mouth until she was panting for a different reason.
He breathed in, out, then finally said the only thing that was bouncing around his mind: “I never said he was a little boy but your creative license is interesting.”
Part Two