She didn't notice him at first; he was just another body to avoid. Veronica Mars was on a mission and she wasn't going to let people—herself—stand in her way anymore. He cleared his throat less than subtly, one eyebrow raised in a knowing quirk. Veronica felt the breath in her lungs still as she turned around to see him quietly watching her from across the hall.
"What's a girl like you doing in a place like this?" he managed to twist the old pickup line into an insult and Veronica's fingers gripped at her arm more forcefully.
She refused to look Logan in the eye. He moved closer when she didn't respond, instead switching her gaze to the wall behind his shoulder. Veronica found a flash of disappointment in his dark eyes as they hardened in defense. She looked tense, nervous. Logan seemed much more relaxed although out of their differing situations his was more likely to be the most controversial. After all, Veronica was just visiting her boyfriend in his temporary home—there was only one reason Logan could have for visiting a suite at the Neptune Grand.
Watching her carefully for a moment more Logan pressed his lips into a self-deprecating smile, "Have fun with DK, then."
He backed himself out of Veronica's personal space and—to her surprise—slipped into the room next door.
Her resolve shot, Veronica moved back to Duncan's door with some hesitance and knocked lightly. He answered brightly, a warm smile in place for her, and Veronica started to feel more at ease. She pushed up on her tip toes, pressing a soft kiss to his lips.
A loud noise echoed through the room, the sound like a woman's shoe hitting the other side of the adjoining wall. Veronica gasped slightly and snapped back into focus. Her small hands pressed into Duncan's chest, gripping at his shirt desperately—her mouth moved harder, faster, better on his—trying to transfer her meaning without having to vocalize it.
As Duncan lowered her down onto the bed a low female moan vibrated through the wall. Duncan quirked an amused eyebrow at Veronica and pointed towards the sound, coming from the other side of the headboard, but she ignored him, squelching down the feelings fighting through her chest. If this was Logan's revenge then he was going to have to try harder than making her jealous with a cheap, one-night hook up at a hotel. Not that a lasting relationship would have worked any better, she had Duncan now—who was smiling down at her, slowly peeling off her shirt with hesitant hands.
Veronica closed her eyes tight and gritted her teeth as she heard a long masculine groan from the next room.
"You okay?" Duncan looked concerned, his hands stilled on her third button down, barely revealing her bra.
Veronica nodded, urging him to continue. She tried to focus on the physical feelings, to block out the muffled sounds from next door. Tried to pretend that her ex wasn't in the next room doing exactly what she was doing with someone else, but then, maybe not exactly, if the sounds were anything to judge by. The well air conditioned room blew a chill across her breasts as Duncan pulled apart her shirt and divested Veronica of her bra, his fingers fumbling slightly on the clasp—digging into her back.
Falling back into the mattress as the scrap of fabric was removed from her chest, Veronica let her eyes sink closed. She could feel Duncan moving over her, on her, but she couldn't shut out Logan's little vocal show.
When a pounding began to thump through the wall she could feel it course through her body roughly, shaking her already quivering skin. Pushing her closer to Duncan, ruining the focus she was trying so hard to maintain. The headboard of a bed was hitting the wall—and she knew whose bed it was, whose headboard, whose body was slamming it against the tastefully decorated plaster. It had only been a few months since Veronica had been close to becoming the recipient.
She could have been the random girl—the one whose bed was practically moving along the ground, the one who could be heard. But Duncan was careful and heavy and unsure, almost second-guessing all his movements. Veronica didn't really want a fairytale from him; she wasn't losing her virginity so much as she was getting it back.
And she could hear Logan and she could feel Duncan and the whole thing was a lot like catharsis.
**
She padded softly out of Duncan's room, into the corridor to pull on her shoes and try to straighten out her crumpled shirt. Finishing off her left shoe she looked up at the sound of a door rasping along its frame, only to see Logan step through the threshold, jacket off, shoes untied.
He didn't look surprised, just bemused at the situation. The two of them seemed destined to dance in circles around each other. Once he finished dressing himself, Logan stepped in next to Veronica—taunting lightly about a magically changed appearance. There could be no changed appearance—she consoled herself—there was no change except for choice.
Veronica stepped away from Logan hastily as she heard the door click quietly open behind her. Turning, she saw Duncan standing in the doorway—wearing only his boxers—a sleepy daze slopped over his face that vanished into sharp focus as he noticed Logan.
Logan just smiled mockingly, refusing to move away from where he was standing—much too close to Veronica—as he congratulated his former best friend.
"Hey, Duncan—nice work, she looks positively glowing."
Despite being the one who had started the coldness between them, Duncan looked visibly stung. Maybe it was because he had just woken up and his defenses weren't properly in place yet. Logan had been his friend—his best friend—for a long time, it seemed wrong that something as inevitable as Veronica would force the wedge between them.
She took a comforting step towards Duncan, not touching him but leaving Logan's space further as she picked a side. "Logan—" Veronica warned.
He turned his gaze on her, intense, focused, the dark kind of persistence that almost smoldered off of skin. Veronica was visibly unnerved as he spoke, low and hard with all the right inflections, "You were pretty quiet though. Not having fun, Veronica? But you look all rumpled."
He watched her in vain for a response that he never got. Logan was surprised when finally—finally—Veronica took the bait, reclaimed her spine as well as her virginity and stepped up to the mark, tilting her head as she suggested harshly, just nonchalant enough, "Maybe you couldn't hear me over your latest conquest's porn star imitation."
There was a long, weighted pause in the hallway. Finally Logan broke the silence thoughtfully, quietly inquiring, "Good reference for me, don't you think?"
"Get the hell out!" Duncan barked at him, stepping forwards to block him from Veronica, trying to look as intimidating as it was possible to do while only clad in boxers.
"Of a hotel?" Logan smirked. "You kids play safe now."
Duncan wrapped an arm around Veronica as Logan pushed past them, edging once again into her personal space. He made it half-way down the hallway before he threw a heavy glance back to the girl who left him, her eyes catching on carpet rather than his own. Veronica watched while Logan nodded to himself, as if cataloguing an event he had already known would take place—he moved on leisurely towards the elevators and this fracturing seemed inevitable.