Chapter 13 Good Things

Veronica sighed sleepily and opened her eyes. Once again, the room was filled with sunlight despite the wild and noisy storm during the night. Once again, she and Logan were wrapped around each other on about two feet of space in the middle of their enormous bed. She could feel the warmth of his sleeping form pressed against her back, her head tucked under his chin and his arms wrapped around her like he was afraid she would try to escape.

As though there were anywhere else on earth she'd rather be.

She could feel the rise and fall of his chest, his breathing still the deep, slow rhythm of sleep. She sighed happily and closed her eyes, perfectly content to fall back asleep and spend the whole day in bed with him.

"Oh." Her eyes flew open and she started. Marla!

"What?" he groaned, pulling her tightly against him.

"What time is it?" she murmured, straining to see the alarm clock far away on the dresser across the room.

"Saturday." He mumbled, kissing her ear. "Dun matter; y'good."

"I have plans." She said, struggling to sit up. He tightened his hold on her.

"Mmmmm….me too." He ran his hands up and down her body.

"It's after 8:00." She sighed. "I'm sorry. I don't have time; Marla's coming at nine."

"Oh." He rolled to the edge of the bed. Reaching to the floor, he pressed the button on a small, simple remote control unit. Then he rolled back in time to catch Veronica before she could get out of bed. "JR will handle it. C'mere."

"What do you mean?" she asked, allowing him to pull her back down into the covers. "What did you just do?"

"I buzzed JR. He'll have coffee ready for us when we go down. He'll let her in. C'mere."

"I…"

"Come here." He smiled sleepily at her.

She melted.

Marla parked her car in front of the house and walked up the front path. The storm during the night had knocked the edge off the humidity but it was already warm out and it promised to be another blistering hot day. She was dressed in a pair of white Capri pants and a pale blue sleeveless knit top. She had a pair of heels, a professional looking jacket and her makeup kit on the back seat of the car for later, when she joined Elliot at their open house but for now, a clean face and flip flops on her feet were far more comfortable. She rang the bell and looked back at the lake, glittering in the morning sun.

Hearing the door open behind her, she turned around to find herself face to face with a total stranger.

"OH. Hello." She smiled at the young man. "I'm here to see Veronica, I believe she's expecting me."

"O f course." He inclined his head politely. "If you'll come in, Mrs. Mars will be down shortly."

"I'm Marla Banks," she explained, coming inside. "I sold the Mars this house."

"Oh, this a great house. I'm JR. I work for Mr. Mars. Well, Mrs. Mars now too, I guess." He led Marla through the kitchen to the patio out back where a pot of hot coffee, a basket of warm muffins and a bowl of fruit sat on the table along with mugs, small plates and the morning paper. "Make yourself at home and I'll tell Mrs. Mars you're here."

"Thank you." Marla sat and poured herself a cup of coffee, looking around the beautiful back yard. She noticed the two new basketball hoops facing each other across the wide expanse of the concrete drive way. She opened the newspaper. Taking out the metro section, she turned to the ads and quickly found the sales they were planning to hit. She scanned the column and made a mental note of one or two others that hadn't been in Thursday's paper that they might want to check out. She was reading a story on the front of the section when JR returned.

"Mrs. Mars will be down soon." He said. "She apologizes for running late and hoped you would understand."

"It's quite all right." Marla smiled. I've met her husband. "How long have you worked for Mr. Mars?"

"Oh. A couple of years. He needed someone to run errands for him and I needed someone to throw ridiculous sums of money at me. It's worked out pretty well."

"So, you're not the butler but more of a... personal assistant?"

"Yes."

"Quit flirting with our guest, JR." Logan said, coming out to the patio from the kitchen dressed only in a pair of sweat pants cut off just above the knee. "Go do something menial. Hey, Marla, nice to see you again." He dropped into another chair at the table. JR poured him a cup of coffee and set it in front of him, then withdrew to the kitchen.

"It's good to see you, Logan." Marla said. "Do you ever wear a shirt?"

Logan sipped his coffee, brow furrowed as though thinking hard. "Yes." He finally answered.

"Did Veronica tell you what we're doing today?"

"Um…shopping?"

"We're going to Estate Sales."

"Shopping for estates? We've already got one."

"One 'shops' for shoes. When one goes Estate Saling, one never knows what one might find."

"That actually sounds dangerous."

"LOGAN." Veronica came out on to the patio and stopped. "Go put some clothes on!"

"VERONICA." He sipped his coffee. "Go take some clothes off."

She already did that, it's why she's running late! Marla thought but she said "Good morning, Veronica. Have some coffee; there's no rush."

Veronica poured herself a cup and sat down, blushing brightly, confirming Marla's suspicion.

"Won't all the good stuff be gone?" she asked, striving for nonchalance. Logan watched her, appreciatively.

"That's garage sale thinking." Marla shook her head and lifted a finger, giving her tutorial. "With estate sales, whatever is gone is not meant for you and there's always the next one. I never go on the first day and I never stand in line. Some items do go right away, like book shelves. But since you've got an entire library with built-ins, I didn't think that was one of the things you'd be looking for."

"A couple of book cases for the bedrooms upstairs would be nice." Veronica said, thoughtfully.

"And here I thought a couple of beds would be nice." Logan offered. "But if you think 'shelves', go for it."

After the ladies left, Logan finished his coffee and went back into the house. JR was in the kitchen, cleaning up.

"Jeez, Moneybags," he said. "You never mentioned that your realtor was smokin' hot."

"Dude, she's like…pushing forty."

"And Demi Moore is pushing fifty, what's your point?"

"Like 'em old, do you?"

"Ancient and desperate is a hot combination, as you well know."

"Veronica is only a few months older than I am."

"Like that's who I meant." JR snorted.

"That wasn't so much a case of desperation as it was utter depravity. And Kendall was maybe thirty." Logan defended his long ago liaison with an older woman.

"And you were definitely seventeen."

"If you say that had anything to do with me missing my Mom, I'm gonna beat the shit out of you."

"What? No! I'm just saying; older women. I get it."

"I may beat the shit out of you just on principle."

"What is wrong with appreciating the beauty of a fully mature woman?"

"Strike out with the hottie at the lake?"

"NO. In fact, I was wondering what your plans are for tonight?"

"I'm taking V out. You can go… do whatever it is you little people do."

"GREAT. I hear there's a barn raisin' and a ho-down out on the back forty."

"Swell. I'll be in my office." Taking his coffee with him, he headed out of the kitchen.

"Aren't you gonna get dressed?"JR called after him.

"Why?" Logan asked rhetorically as he crossed the living room.

"The kick boxing coach will be here at 10:30."

Without a word, Logan turned on his heel and headed up the stairs.

"Okay, tell me the address of the first sale I've circled." Marla said. Veronica dutifully read off the directions.

"This should be fun." Marla said. "Edina is far and away the ritziest of the first ring suburbs and Indian Hills is the most exclusive part of Edina. Most of our local celebrities live there."

"Like who?"

"Oh…Kirby Puckett. But he's dead. I don't know. Who cares?"

"What's a 'kirby puckett'?"

"Wha-I.." Marla sputtered, incredulous. "You don't know who KIRBY PUCKETT is?"

"I don't even know what a Kirby Puckett is." Veronica shrugged.

"Only the greatest Minnesota Twin since Harmon Killebrew! The Hero of the '87 series? He practically won it single handed!"

"'Kirby Puckett' and 'Harmon Killebrew'. Must one be named like a cartoon character to play for the Twins?"

"I will throw you right out of this car." Marla deadpanned.

"I don't follow sports. My dad lives and dies with the Padres and I used to like baseball but now I couldn't name a single player. And I was only two months old when the '87 series happened."

"Well, he did it again in '91." Marla said, as though that should make a difference.

"I was four."

"You whippersnappers are completely ignorant of history." Marla sighed, melodramatically.

"Is it Shelby Cupid's house we're going to?"

"Kirby Puckett! No. Sadly, he died very young. But he lived in Indian Hills. As I said, it's one of our most exclusive suburban neighborhoods. Wayzata has always had more money but it's not so full of itself. It's across Lake Minnetonka from where you were the other night. These days, tons of the big money is out in Plymouth, which I just don't understand. Some developers built a bunch of McMansions on celebrity designed golf courses and whoosh! The money flew west. I'm with you; if I could afford whatever I wanted, I'd buy a house on a lake in town. I have a couple of friends who live in one of those fancy pants 'Estates' out in Plymouth and one swears all her neighbors are swingers 'cause there's nothing else to do. They move out there so they can have two acre lawns for their kids to play on and they built an enormous, ridiculously fancy high school, which was apparently a big fat waste of money since one of our crumbling city high schools was just named the number one school in the state. Out in Plymouth, they tell themselves everything they do is 'for the children' and the kids repay them by getting into drugs and sex as soon as possible because they're so bored."

"Wow. When you sugarcoat it like that, it sounds just like the place where I grew up."

"Where was that?"

"A little unincorporated township just North of San Diego."

"Lots of swingers and drug abuse in your town?"

"Lots of folks with enough money to believe that they get to write their own rules of conduct, as long as they can afford to clean up the mess afterward. "

"Is that why you became interested in law enforcement? Fairness, justice, balance; that sort of thing?"

"Well, partly. I was raised to it; my Dad was the Sheriff when I was a kid. He's a P.I. now."

"Really? A private investigator? I've never known anyone who did that. Not in real life, anyway."

"You know a lot of imaginary P.I.'s?"

"No," Marla laughed. "You know what I mean. People only do that for a living in books by Elmore Leonard and tv shows starring Pierce Brosnan or Tom Selleck."

"I've been licensed in the state of California since I was nineteen. I worked for and then with my Dad."

"Get out! Before you joined the bureau you were a…a gumshoe?"

"Gumshoe, flatfoot, private dick. Yes ma'am."

"Did you do…stake outs?"

"Stake outs, tails, shadows, electronic surveillance, skip traces, …I'm quite an accomplished stalker. I used to love photography but I seem to have lost my passion for the art somewhere around my thousandth money shot."

"Are they as gross as the name implies?"

"Not necessarily but yes. Usually. Yes. Yuck."

"So you actually spied on people, taking pictures of them behaving badly?"

"It sounds so tawdry when you say it like that." Veronica sighed.

"How does it sound when you say it?"

"I only did it if there was an injured party willing to pay me. Oh," Veronica laughed, "that doesn't sound much better, does it?"

"It sounds like a lot more fun than real estate. If I had been a little less naïve, I would have hired someone like you way back when. I could have found out about Bruce and escaped years of anxiety, self doubt and rage. I'm just surprised that a young girl would be drawn to the field. Celebrity photography seems like a more likely career choice. You certainly had the skill set."

"I would live on road kill for the rest of my life before I'd join the paparazzi. Calling them vultures is an insult to scavengers."

"Tell me about it." Marla nodded, sympathetically. "You're way too young to have been a fan of Princess Diana's. I cried for a week. What's the worst thing you ever caught on film?"

"Oh…" the town benefactor leaving an assignation at a seedy hotel with a woman who turned out to be my own mother? My future husband having sex with his best friend's step mom? "Oh, God…" None of that was as bad as seeing my best friend in bed with her murderer. "Let's just say that by the time I was seventeen, I swore I'd never get married."

"And yet here you are at the ripe old age of twenty…two? All married up."

"Hey, I'm almost twenty three."

"What happened to change your mind?"

"Um…" the whole world turned inside out, upside down, backwards, forwards and upright again? "I kissed Logan."

"Really? Just like that?"

"Well, it was a little more …" be honest, Veronica. "Yeah; just like that."

"You're lucky. That hardly ever happens. Not in real life, anyway." Marla sighed and turned down a wide tree lined street in a neighborhood of stately homes and beautiful landscapes. "We're almost there. Now we just follow the signs."

Sure enough, on the corner was a sign reading 'Vintage Estate Sales' with an arrow, directing traffic.

"Ooh, this one's gonna be good!" Marla said as they drove past the front of the house. The street was lined with cars and there was a steady stream of people walking across the yard, a few coming out with their purchases. Marla found a parking spot about a half block from the enormous house.

"Now, I usually check out the garage, attics and basements." Marla said as they walked toward the house. "But we don't have to today if you don't want to. You want nice, ready to use furniture so we'll stick to the main floors. Heck, we don't even have to look in the kitchen if you don't feel like it."

"I think I want to explore this place from top to bottom!" Veronica said as they entered the two story foyer.

Ten minutes later, they were back in the foyer.

"See anything you liked?" Marla asked, giving Veronica a look that made her bite her lip to keep from laughing out loud.

"I think," Veronica said under her breath, "that this is the ugliest house I've ever set foot in."

"We're done here." Marla nodded.

They were half way to the car when Marla lost it. She couldn't contain herself one more minute and she laughed so hard she doubled over.

"Come on," Veronica laughed, tugging at her companion. "Let's get out of here! I don't even want to be on the same block as that house."

"Did you see that room in the basement?" Marla gasped, tears streaming down her face. "Pink shag carpeting on the walls? Why, why, why?"

"I don't want to know! The only thing missing were shackles! I could hardly breathe in the living room; red flocked wall paper! Did the Chicken Ranch have a decorating seminar?"

"Gold Cherub wall sconces!" Marla shrieked.

"I felt like I was trapped in an episode of Trading Spaces In Hell."

"That was the work of an Interior Desecrator. Admit it; that place made you wish you had your camera on you!" Marla wiped her eyes and got behind the wheel.

"That whole house was a crime against humanity and every room was a money shot."

"A purple satin tufted headboard for $1700.00? Who would buy that? My God, if the seventies ever come back, I'm joining a cloistered convent. Either that or have my eyeballs surgically removed."

"The seventies couldn't have been that ugly."

"They were."

"Oh come on," Veronica scoffed. "That's like me saying I remember that the eighties rocked."

"Hardly! You were a toddler when the eighties ended. I was in high school during the seventies."

"You were not!"

"Was too. I didn't graduate til '82 but I started in '78." Marla laughed. Seeing the astonished look on Veronica's face, she said in her best Samantha Jones, "I'm forty fucking five!"

"YOU ARE NOT."

"I was in love with John Travolta when he was a sweat hog."

"No Way."

"Vinnie Barbarino was my first crush."

"I thought you were maybe thirty five!"

"Nope. I'm old enough to have discoed, unironically. And I know what that word actually means."

"You could totally get away with lying about your age."

"To the FBI?" Marla gasped. "I wouldn't dare. Besides, I never understood that. I like getting credit for looking good. Think of how impressed people would be if I started claiming I was fifty!"

"Now I don't know whether to believe you're even forty five."

"Veronica, I don't lie to my friends."

Down in the gym, Logan and JR were listening to Mr. Joe Tucker, a former kick boxing champion turned martial arts instructor. He was middle aged but still powerfully built, with a demeanor that brooked no nonsense and the voice of a drill instructor.

"I used to own a karate studio in St. Louis Park," He barked while inspecting the gym. "I really enjoyed teaching the kids but the GOD DAM parents were getting worse by the year. Can't tell you how many Mom's just couldn't handle me yelling at PRECIOUS. The concept that you have to SHUT UP TO LISTEN was too tough for them to get their brains around. I was doing them a favor; teaching their kids some DISCIPLINE but they were too wrapped up in their fuckin' feelings to get it. So I sold the business to one of my pupils and now I just teach a few classes a week, to the more advanced kids. My time is flexible but my fees aren't. Thirty bucks an hour per student. Saturday mornings are good for me. I've got a standing 6:00 tee time but it's at Theodore Wirth so I can be here by 10:00."

"You can get in a round and be here in four hours?" Logan asked, impressed.

"Son, if you take longer than three and a half to shoot eighteen at 6 a.m., YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG."

"Let's book Saturday mornings." JR said. "But I have to warn you; there will be times when we have to leave town on short notice. I may not be in a position to let you know if we're here or not."

Joe glared at him for a moment before answering. "I can work with that. I'll call or text you when I come in off the course."

JR and Logan looked at each other.

"That's fine." JR nodded. "If I don't answer, don't come over."

"Got it." Joe nodded. "Text first; if it's answered, we're on, if not, go home. GOT IT. Once a week all you need?"

"I'd really like it if you came ever day." JR said.

"Every day?" Logan's eyebrows shot up.

"I'm serious about this." JR said. "You should be, too."

"Every day is too much to start out." Joe said. "You want to start slow to avoid injury. Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday."

"Okay." JR nodded. He looked at Logan.

"An hour, three days a week? I can do that." Logan nodded. "Is it okay if my wife joins us, sometimes?"

"Yeah, she really should." JR looked at Joe.

"Every woman in America should take self defense courses." Joe agreed. "BE YOUR OWN BODY GUARD. That's one of my mottoes. I'd be more than happy to include her. I can use another $30.00 an hour."

"No problem." JR said. "Do we have all the equipment we need to get started?"

"Yeah, this looks like a pretty good set up." Joe nodded his approval of the gym. "This is one of the better home gyms I've seen. Most of 'em just have some pussy mats on the floor and a couple of machines no one ever uses and mirrors so they look like a fuckin' AEROBICS STUDIO. This space has good light. You've got a ring. I like that."

An hour later, Logan and JR were up on the patio, exhausted, sweaty and sore. JR sprawled in a chair, chugging a large glass of ice water. Logan was spread eagle on the cool stone, a wet towel over his head.

"That was GREAT." he said.

"That man is a sadist." JR groaned.

"That was AWESOME."

"He tried to kill us. He's insane."

"He's the BEST." Logan pulled the towel off his face and looked at JR. "You really need to get in shape, dude."

"I had no idea."

"And you wanted to go through that every day!" Logan laughed, sitting up. "You'd be dead by Thursday. But it's good. You're right; we need this."

"I don't know... next week you get your carry permit..."

"No, this is going to be good. Just imagine how much fun it'll be getting in the ring with Veronica."

"She'll kick my ass."

"I meant how much fun it'll be for me."

"She'll kick your ass too."

"Yeah, she will!"

"I don't want to hear about your kinky proclivities..."

Just then, the front door bell rang. They looked at each other and JR hoisted himself out of the chair. He went to answer the door and Logan got up and sat at the table, taking a long pull off his ice water. A moment later, JR was back, his eyes huge.

"Look who's here." He said.

Following him out to the patio was Candy.

Candy 2.0.

"Oh my God. What did you do?" Logan asked.

"I cut my hair, just like you told me." Candy said, running a hand over his newly shorn scalp. He wasn't bald but not a hair on his head was longer than a quarter inch.

"I told you to go to a barber, not a shepherd!"

"Well, it occurred to me that if I was gonna go short, I'd have to get it cut like, all the time. I'm unemployed; I can't even afford Great Clips every two weeks. Clippers at Target are about the same as a hair cut so I bought some and did it myself."

"You look like a convict."

"Good!"

"Chicks will not dig it." Logan shook his head. "They like hair."

"Oh." Candy looked momentarily crestfallen. "I could grow a mustache?" he perked up.

"NO." Logan and JR said simultaneously.

"How about a goatee? Those are cool."

"If you want to look like a serial killer." Logan shook his head.

"Oh." Candy's shoulders slumped again. "What about my clothes? I did like you said; ill fitting jeans and plaid."

"Where the fuck did you get a plaid t-shirt?"

"Well, it's an improvement, isn't it? Although, it's too fucking hot for this." Candy peeled his shirt off to reveal a white wife beater over a pale, wiry torso. "Do you think a tattoo would help?"

"No." Logan winced.

"Really? I though maybe barbed wire around my bicep..."

"Would emphasize how pathetically wimpy your arms are. Get some sun, you look like a fuckin' vampire."

"Tans aren't healthy." Candy objected. "Melanoma, wrinkles..."

"Find something in between 'I sleep in a coffin' and 'I sleep in an easy bake oven'. Don't make this harder than it is."

"But it's so bad for your skin..." Candy's voice died away at the look on Logan's face. "Okay. I've started season one of Rescue Me."

"Well, that's good." JR said.

"The first episode made me cry."

Marla and Veronica had much better luck at the next few sales they hit. In a prairie style house in Linden Hills, Marla found two picture frames and a brass floor lamp. Veronica found an antique radio table that would be perfect for Logan's video game components. In a Victorian era Mansion on Mount Curve Veronica found a beautiful polished walnut dining room table with three leaves and six chairs that were wide, clean lined and comfortable and a bedroom set; full sized carved wooden bed frame, a marble topped dresser with an oval mirror and brass tear drop drawer pulls and two matching marble topped bed side tables. All the furniture together cost a fraction of what they had spent on the partner's desk.

"I told you; Estate Sales!" Marla said as they headed for the car.

"I can't believe it!" Veronica bounced with excitement. "I can hardly wait for JR to get this stuff home, it's BEAUTIFUL. And it was so cheap!"

Marla just laughed. She had thoroughly enjoyed watching Veronica's face as the younger woman had spotted the dining room set. Veronica had practically licked it to mark it as her own once she'd seen the price tag. After the sale worker had written a slip for her, and marked the set as 'sold', Veronica had clutched it to her chest as though she were afraid someone else would try to take it from her.

"You know, it'll be even less tomorrow, if you're willing to gamble..." Marla had said.

"NO way." Veronica shook her head. "I'm more than happy to pay this pittance for the perfect table." She was more than happy to pay for the bedroom set in one of the smaller rooms upstairs, as well.

It was almost noon when she wrote the check and made arrangements for JR to pick up the furniture later in the day. To celebrate her good fortune, she offered to make Marla lunch when they got back to the house.

"You're on. Can you make a decent sandwich?" Marla asked.

"I can, if you're willing to settle for decent. But JR makes a fabulous turkey club."

"What"s JR's story?"

"Oh...he started as a bell hop at the hotel where Logan lived. They got along so Logan eventually hired him full time."

"That's nice."

"Yes. JR's educational background is the same as mine; criminology and psychology, so he's actually well trained for taking care of Logan."

Marla frowned and looked at the girl beside her. Veronica looked happy and relaxed; completely unaware that she had said anything strange.

Okay. "What sort of photography did you enjoy?" Marla asked.

"Oh...All sorts." Veronica said. "Landscapes, sea scapes. People. I liked photos that evoked a mood, or told a story. That was my forte; photos that told the whole story."

"That's what they paid you for." Marla shrugged. "You should take it up again. A talent for art shouldn't be suppressed. It'll help you stay sane."

"I know! I've actually felt the old desire flare up a bit since we got here. You know, part of it was just that while I was in school, I was so busy and all my photos were work related and it just wasn't fun anymore. But last night, we were walking around Lake of the Isles as the sun set and it was so beautiful, I wished for the first time in years that I had a camera with me and for the first time in years, I didn't. Altogether weird."

"You've chosen a profession that will bring you in contact with a lot of ugliness. You need something to remind you that the world and its people are full of beauty, too."

"That seems a lot easier to remember here than it was back in Neptune." Veronica said. "But I know you're right."

Ten minutes later they were back at the house; Mount Curve wasn't that far from Cedar Lake.

"Logan!" Veronica called, swinging in through the front door. "I bought us some cool stuff! Where's JR? Oh." Heading toward the kitchen, she could see through the door to the back yard. "They're out on the patio. Come on."

She and Marla went out onto the patio and stopped short.

"Candy!" Marla exclaimed. "Your hair!"

"Wow." Veronica said.

"This is not my fault." Logan said.

"Yes it is." JR contradicted.

"Whatever." Candy scowled at them. "It's just hair. It'll grow back."

"I like it." Veronica said. All three men stared at her.

"You do?" Candy smiled. "Really?"

"God, yes!" Marla agreed. "It looks great!"

"Don't humor him." Logan said disgustedly. "He's practically bald."

"What's wrong with that?" Marla asked. "Bald is hot."

"It is?" Logan looked at Veronica, who was still staring at Candy.

"Hell yes." she said, snapping out of it. "Bald men are smokin' hot."

"Really?" Logan asked, looking confused. He put a hand to his own thick head of hair.

"Name one." JR demanded.

"Michael Jordan, Peter Gabriel, Bruce Willis, Yul Brynner, Tony Soprano, Vin Diesel, Jean Luc Picard, Michael Chiklis, Skinner, Jason Statham..." Marla rattled off.

"Smith Jared." Veronica said, dreamily.

"YES." Marla turned to her with a grin. "When he said 'Shit happens' and took that razor to his hair..."

"He wound up twice as hot as before!" Veronica nodded.

"Omigod, I LOVE that show! Didn't you just cheer when Samantha threw her wig?" Candy said, happily. He looked at Logan. "I'm keepin' it." He said, running his hand over his scalp.

"I don't get it." Logan said. "You like bald?"

"Yes." both women said.

"Don't worry, Doll Face." Veronica reached up and ruffled his hair. "I love your hair. It's just that bald guys are...are..."

"Virile." Marla said. "Women don't go bald, so we find it manly. It's not like an ugly guy can just shave his head for instant sex appeal or anything, although it couldn't hurt, but an attractive man isn't less attractive for losing his hair."

"Why not?" JR asked.

"Well...it's..." Marla tried to explain. "It's like breasts." All three men looked skeptical. "You all like big ones but you find plenty of flat chested girls hot, don't you?"

Three pairs of eyes immediately turned towards Veronica, nodding.

"Thanks, guys." she said. "Thanks a lot."

"So..." said JR, as though he were working out a puzzle "if you were designing the perfect man, you'd give him a head of hair but on actual guys, it's a non factor."

"Pretty much." Veronica nodded.

"Not me." Marla said. "I mentally shave guys' heads."

"You do?" all four of them looked at her.

"Hey, I was married to a guy who primped more than I did and I was a pageant girl! I'll take a baldie every time."

"He's bald now." Candy reminded her.

"He's gay now." Marla reminded him.

"Is it a Dad thing?" Logan asked Veronica.

"Probably." she smiled and shrugged. "Lucky for you, you're shagginess not that big a deal. In all the ways that matter, you're just like him."

"You're grossing me out, Sugarpuss." he said, but slid an arm around her waist.

"No I'm not." she grinned and put her arms around him.

"You're both grossing me out." JR said. "Who wants lunch?"

Candy left feeling confident that his manliness factor was improving. JR made lunch inside and Veronica told Logan about the sales. As they ate, she gave JR instructions on how to find the house where the new furniture awaited pick up. Marla's description of the first sale had all of them rolling.

"I can't believe you didn't buy us a leopard print fainting couch," Logan said. "That sounds cool."

"No, no; the wall paper was leopard print!" Veronica said. "The fainting couch was orange vinyl!"

"And not as cool as it sounds." Marla assured him.

When they were finished eating, Marla thanked them for the lovely morning and went off to help Elliot with the Open House. Veronica told JR that she was more than happy to clean up lunch if he would get a move on and go pick up her new furniture.

"I'll come with you." she said, after giving him the reciepts and detailed instructions.

"Don't worry about it, Mars." JR said. "This is what I'm here for. Hang out with Moneybags for a while."

"I think you'll like it," she said to Logan as they brought in the dishes after JR left. "The bed and dresser can go in one of the other rooms but I want the bed side tables for us. Just think; I'll be able to hit the snooze button without getting out of bed and your handy dandy buzzer will be at arms reach."

"Sounds like you two had a lot of fun." he said.

"I did. We laughed. A lot."

"Good. I gotta go take a shower. Think you'll be up for a bike ride later on?"

"Of course. First, I'm gonna find my camera."

to be continued...