The next time I see her is in that damned compulsory Lit class. She's sitting with Mac and Wallace, in the seat next to my usual one. Damn, I can't sit somewhere else without making all of my friends suspicious, which means that I'm stuck sitting next to the walking orgasm-inducer. Crap.
Steve, who is walking with me, notices my change in manner.
"What's wrong, dude?" He asks, but doesn't even wait for a reply before exclaiming, "Who is that smoking babe in the seat next to yours?"
"That would be the reason for my uncomfortableness." I say. He opens his mouth to correct me. "I know that 'uncomfortableness' isn't a word, Mr English-student, it just happens to describe what I'm feeling right now." He looks at me quizically. Steve is a man of few words, but he always gets his point across. "That, my friend, is Veronica Mars. My several times over ex. And Wallace and Mac's best friend. And my first girlfriend's best friend. And my best friend's ex girlfriend."
"Holy crap that's a brainteaser. How do you get your head around all the labels?" He laughs, before we sit down in our usual seats. Me next to Veronica. "Hi, I hear you're a friend of Logan, Mac and Wallace's." He smiles his 'I'm so charming don't you just love me' smile at her, and extends a hand over me. She smiles and shakes his hand, but doesn't give him the once-over that I've learnt to recognise as an indicator of whether or not she thinks a guy is attractive. At least Steve can't get off with her either. "I'm Steve. The cool new guy."
"Veronica. The cool old guy." She replies, as Mac whispers something in her ear. "Shut up Mac, it's very witty actually."
"I'll second that." Oh God, Steve is in full on flirt mode. I feel kinda bad, because he really doesn't know that Veronica isn't flirting back, just being herself, but I can't help but find it somewhat amusing. This will be the first girl to turn down Steve and his dashing good looks. "So, where have you been hiding since I got here?"
"Virginia. Which reminds me, there's some stuff that I brought back with me that I really can't let my dad see. Can I leave at with one of you?" Her question apparently ecompasses me too, as she shoots me an expectant glance. Great. She's everywhere – even at my laundrette – and now she wants to invade my home too. But I can't say no to her – that's always been my problem.
"Dick and I probably have space." I volunteer, when it seems that no one else will.
"Ah he speaks!" She laughs. "And in full sentences, too. It's just a couple of boxes – some paperwork, and, uh, some non-work stuff that I don't want him to get his hands on." She tells me.
"That's cool, we have the space. Neither of us are big on the family mementos." I reply, astounded at my ability to talk to her rationally.
"Unsurprisingly." She comments, before turning to Wallace to take a look at his notes from last lecture.
The lecturer enters – late as usual – and I settle down to what will hopefully be an hour of sleep and rest while he talks about Jane Austen and her contributions to literature. Unfortunately, Veronica isn't planning on sleeping, she's planning on paying attention, and her movements keep catching my eye.
She brushes her hair behind her ears. My pants tighten slightly. She crosses one leg over the other. My pants tighten lots. She smiles at one of the lecturer's witticisms. My heart jolts. Shit. This isn't just about sex deprivation anymore, this is about real feelings. I can't believe that I have feelings for her! This is about the worst thing that could possibly happen. Now I not only have to battle being turned on all the time – not just from Ronnie, from any girl wearing a short skirt and a suggestive smile – I now have to battle my returning (or maybe they never left) feelings for Veronica. How annoying.
I see her again later. This is getting ridiculous. We're not even on the same course and yet I see her everywhere. It probably has something to do with the fact that I effectively borrowed her friends while she was away. I'm coming out of the shower at Wallace's dorm and I spot her lounging on his bed.
"So anyway, I just decided that enough was enough. Virginia's community colleges really aren't that awesome." She's telling him. "And the weather sucks." She spots me and winks. "Great outfit, Logan." I'm wearing a towel, looking for my razor. "Oh, yeah, and the FBI pays crap."
"That's a really interesting tidbit." I tell her, sarcastically. She just smirks. "That all you've got, Mars? I'm disappointed. I was expecting at least a retort about how I ought to fill my brain with something, even if it is a useless fact about FBI wages. Then I'd reply with something sarcastic like, why would I want to worry myself about wages when I don't need to work? And so on, and so forth."
To my great surprise she bursts out laughing. We chat for a few minutes, while I shave, and then I come back into the room for a real conversation.
"So why'd you come back?" I ask her the question that's been weighing on my mind since I heard her talking about Virginia.
"I got bored, basically. Every case is the same out there; there's an obvious bad guy – we track him, we get solid evidence on him and then we arrest him. The Feds do everything by the book and its just so dull! So I came back here, where I can break rules and be with my friends and have fun. Oh, and here no one expects me to get them coffee." She tells me, grinning as she speaks.
We're pretty much sharing a moment, I've certainly stopped thinking about the fact that Wallace is sitting in the room at his laptop. But then Piz struts in. I take it from the sudden tension in the room that he and Veronica haven't run into eachother till now. Wow. Awkward.
"Hello, Veronica." He says, shortly.
"Hey, Piz." She replies, softly. "How are you?" Oh crap, does she still care about him? I heard she was the one who did the dumping, but she dumped me and still loved me several times. I don't know what I'll do if it turns out she has a thing for him and they get back together.
"Well, I was doing great, but now I think I'll just go find somewhere else to hang out, since my room has apparently become a breeding ground for people I dislike." He snaps. Dude, that was really harsh. Veronica flinches slightly at his tone, but doesn't attempt to say anything more and scowls at him as he leaves. Thank God, she doesn't love him.
"Well, that was…less than comfortable." I murmur into the tense silence. Veronica cracks a smile, and I'm practically glowing with the achievement of dissipating the tension.
"Being friends with you guys is like living in a soap opera." Wallace mutters, causing Veronica to burst out laughing. "I said it once, and I'll say it again; far more trouble than it's worth."
"Aaw, come off it, Fennel, you love us really." I whine, giving him my famed puppy dog eyes. The very same eyes that got tonnes of women to sleep with me. Crap. I'd managed to go a whole five minutes without thinking of sex, and here it is – back in my mind again. Three days, and only five minutes let up. Thirtysix left and by God it's gonna be impossible.
"So can I come by a bit later to drop off my contraband?" She asks. Oh God, just watching those lips, this is fucking impossible. "Uh, Logan? Hello?" I zone back into reality to find her waving a hand in front of my face, looking amused.
"Sorry, just drifted off a bit there." I glance down at my pants to check that I'm not being too obvious, and hear Wallace stifle a laugh behind me.
Veronica looks at us each in turn then shakes her head, muttering, "You guys are weird." She walks out of the dorm without a second look.
She must have got my address off Wallace, because she comes by later without any warning. I'm learning to hate these surprise visits from the small blonde, because I can't prepare myself for her unbearable hotness. I think that if I at least had some kind of time to stop my body from reacting so much everytime I see her, these confrontations would be way easier.
But she always bloody sneaks up on me. Like now, on my doorstep. Okay, so I was obviously expecting to see someone standing outside my door when I went to answer the doorbell, but not her. She's smirking at me, and I realise that I've once again allowed several minutes to pass in silence.
"Shall I take one of those for you?" There are three boxes at her feet, and one in her hands.
"Strong guy like you could handle two at once, I reckon." She tells me, walking past me and into the apartment. "Nice place you got here, how'd you and Dick find it?" She calls as I pick up a stack of two boxes in one hand and the last one in the other and follow her in, kicking the door shut behind me. Pretty smooth if I say so myself.
"I managed three, actually." I tell her, finding her in the living room, inspecting my photos.
"Well I'm very proud of you. Do you want a cookie as a reward for being such a big boy?" She asks, sarcastically, picking up a photo.
It's of me, Dick and Duncan on Dog Beach. Taken during the summer after junior year, I'm pretty sure Veronica was the photographer. I could probably tell you everything about that day – the surfing, the guy bonding, the way Veronica showed up unexpectedly with food and beer and a camera. We took like three hundred shots, the four of us actually behaving like friends, and this is one of my favourites. Dick likes it too, which is surprising, since he normally rejects anything to do in anyway with Veronica. She's grinning as she looks at the picture, probably remembering that day, too.
"We had fun back then, huh." She states, something like regret flashing across her eyes, before she grins again. "Do I get the tour?"
I nod quickly, there's no point in pressing her about something that I might have imagined. I show her our crappy little kitchen – wooden countertop and stools, no table, gas hob, microwave and broken toaster are really our only useful items in there. She laughs at our lack of kettle, asking how on earth we can be patient enough to heat water on the stove for our morning coffee.
We go along the corridor and I show her Dick's room (covered in posters of surfers and hot women) and our disgusting bathroom. She wrinkles her nose in horror.
"You guys are gross. Seriously horrible." She says, flatly, closing the door on the zit cream, shaving gel, razors and general filth. We finally make it to my room, the last one in the apartment. "Where the magic happens, I imagine?" She asks, wryly.
"Well, I was gonna say this is where I sleep, but we can say it your way." I laugh, showing her in.
My room is pretty awesome, if I say so myself. The kingsize bed and desk are the only pieces of furniture, but there are cushions all over the place, to make movie nights and poker games more comfortable. My more personal photos are in here, along with all of my clothes and any keepsakes and mementos that survived the torching of my house. She spots the photo album she made me for my birthday last year, as well as the crappy mug she painted me when we went to some art café, and smiles slightly. I happen to also have a pair of her panties hidden deep in my own underwear drawer, but if I told her she'd probably think I was a stalker. Shit. I shouldn't have thought of them, now I'm horny again. I turn towards my bed in the hope that she won't notice, but I needn't have bothered, she's found my collection of photos and is engrossed in them.
"When did you take this?" She asks, quietly, holding out possibly my favourite picture of all time. In saying that, I've realised that I probably never fell out of love with Veronica – considering the picture has been my favourite since it was taken, and it's of her and me as a couple. We're messing around in the sea, and she's trying to dunk me, and it's just so very…us. Us last year, anyway, when we thought we were completely trusting and honest. Guess we were wrong though.
"I didn't take it." I tell her. "Wallace did. Didn't he show you? This is just a copy I got made." She looks surprised, and confused as to why Wallace never told her. I've gotta say, I'm curious about that, too. "So…like the place?" I ask, trying to fill in the awkward silence that has descended upon us.
"Well, aside from the fact that it is in everyway a guys' apartment, it's very nice." She tells me, as we make our way back to the living room, where we've both dumped her boxes of 'contraband' all labelled 'Virginia Crap'. "I was a bit surprised when Wallace gave me an 02 address."
"Yeah, well, we felt like roughing it." I joke, and she smiles. God, I love making her smile. Shit. Stay focussed, Echolls, you're in the middle of a conversation. "Plus, the best waves for miles are right outside our back door."
"I can see the appeal of that. I missed the sea when I was in Virginia." She tells me, before gesturing at the boxes. "So, where can I leave this stuff?"
"We've got a closet right down here." I take her to the tiny room where me and Dick have left everything that we don't want to unpack. She notices the box marked 'Logan's Playboys' straight away, and laughs. Weird, I kind of expected her to slap me for being objective to women. "Am I allowed to at least see what kind of forbidden goods you're storing at my place?"
"Feel free to rifle through the boxes at leisure, just don't judge." She tells me, before glancing at her watch. "Shit, I've gotta get to class. See you later, Logan, and thanks!" She calls as she sprints out of the front door and hops into the familiar LeBaron of my teens.
Day 6I've been resisting the urge to go through Veronica's stuff for two whole days, and I can't take it any longer. The idea of the boxes just sitting tantalisingly in my closet is too much for my curiousity, and so after lunch I take a couple of them out and start going through them.
"Yo, dude, are you, like, going through the Ronster's stuff?" Dick asks me, coming in from the kitchen with a slice of cold pizza in his hand.
"Basically, yeah." I tell him, as I look through some old case files. "She told me I could, and I just couldn't hold it back any more, man."
"I know what you're doing." Dick looks at me knowingly. That's new – I'm meant to be the knowing friend, he's meant to be the dumb one. "You're using your curiousity about Ronnie's life in the past few months as a channel for your pent up sexual frustration."
Wow. I don't think I've ever heard Dick use that many big words. "Wow, I don't think I've ever heard you use so many big words."
"Hidden depths, man. Hidden depths." He tells me, before sitting down and sifting through a different box. "Oh, jackpot, baby."
He hands me a folder marked 'Photos of everyone' and I tear into it, eagerly. It's a bit sad, thinking about it, that I can't bring myself to ask Veronica how Virginia was, that I'm resorting to covertly sneaking through boxes to gain insight into her summer and winter. There's a shitload of snapshots in the folder, of people in FBI headquarters – with badges and ID – of bikers, mechanics, some kids…just loads of people. For six months in that place, Veronica had obviously made a lot of friends. That's weird. I don't associate her with being a social, friendly person. She always made enemies a lot easier than she made friends.
There are names written on the backs of the photos; Gary, Lucia, Mark. I realise that some of the FBI people are present in less noticeable situations too, like with the bikers. I'm rifling through aimlessly when I come across a picture I really don't want to see. Veronica kissing some guy. It's like all my worst nightmares are coming true. Sure, I assumed that Veronica was over me (even though I'm not, nor was I ever really over her) and I guessed that maybe she might meet a guy she liked, but I didn't realise that she would do it so soon, and while I wasn't there to look after her. I mean, what if that guy had been some kind of serial killer, or even just a jerk? Who am I kidding? Veronica likes jerks – I'm living proof of that. I guess I just didn't want to admit that she may have moved on, and this picture makes it look like she was thoroughly enjoying moving on.
Maybe that's why she said I could take a look at the boxes! What if she wanted to drum in the message that she is totally over me. Oh God, what if she realised that I'm still not over her? Shit. Shit. Fuck.
"Dude, are you okay?" Dick asks, breaking me from my reverie.
"Yeah, yeah. I'm fine." I manage to choke out, not wanting my surprisingly perceptive buddy to start analysing me again. "I think I'm gonna make some coffee, want any?"
"Nah, I'm cool. I can't believe Ronnie just has random photos of her making out with dudes! That is totally hot." He calls, as I hurry away into the kitchen. "I have a new found resect for her."
"Dude, can you just drop this?" I yell, "I think I'm just gonna put away those boxes."
"Can't handle seeing the Ronster with another guy? I thought you'd got over that particular pet peeve when she dated the Piz guy." Dick asks, coming into the kitchen and sitting on our countertop.
"I don't think I'll ever get used to it." I admit. This is slightly weird, I'm not used to having real conversations with Dick – not ones that don't revolve around sluts and Nintendo anyway. The last time we had a deep conversation was after I saved him from himself when Cassidy Casablancas killed himself. I shiver slightly. I've never really got over that night, and I'd bet any kind of money that neither has Veronica. "But I really don't want to keep going throughh those boxes. I feel like I'm violating her privacy."
"Even though she said you could?" Dick looks at me knowingly. I have absolutely nothing to say to that. "Whatever, dude." He mutters, picking up his mug of coffee and returning to the living room to clear up and turn on the Nintendo.
I see her later that day when I go back to campus for a class. She smiles from across the quad, and waves at me. But my mind is still on the guy she was with in Virginia and I can't bring myself to wave back. I see her looking slightly hurt as she turns back to the conversation she is having with a guy who I vaguely recognise. I don't know why this is bothering me so much! We were broken up. Broken up for a while too, and we still are. Its not my business who she does or doesn't date. But for some reason this is really getting to me. I guess this is how she felt after that whole Madison fiasco.
On the bright side, I haven't thought of sex for nearly a whole day.