"Hey can I talk to you for a minute, man?" Wallace asked walking up to where Eli was parked into the parking lot.
"Uh, yeah." Eli said confused. Wallace was acting shifty, and he wasn't sure how to respond to that. "What's up man?"
Wallace looked around, "Can I like meet you at your house. I don't want to talk about it here." What had the scrawny black kid gotten himself into now?
"Yeah, I'm heading there now." He told him.
"Alright, I'll meet you there." He went towards wherever he had parked before turning back to him, "Oh and Weevil?" Eli raised an eyebrow, "Don't tell V about this, okay?" Oh god what did he do.
Eli beat Wallace to his house, so he walked inside to let his abuela and Anna, the care taker knows he was stopping buy. Soon after, there was a knock on the door and Eli opened to see the guilty looking teen. He led him back towards his room without a word, closing the door behind him.
Eli's room had more turned into a storage area of all the family portraits Logan had yet to deliver. Wallace was eyeing the ones propped up on the spare bed. "You running an art theft ring or something?" He asked jokingly, but confusion obvious on his face.
"Or something," He grunted, not really feeling like explaining the business operation Logan and him had seemed to open up. "So why not you tell me what's up?" And he did. And the story he weaved was not anything he had been expecting, "Didn't you learn anything from when I taped you to the flag pole?" Eli scoffed.
"What does this even have to do-"
"You're about to snitch on the Rashard kid, ain't you?" Eli asked.
"He hit a homeless man." Wallace argued, clearly getting upset at the statement.
"Yeah and from what you've told me he's rolling in dough." Eli said simply, "Let me guess the other two in the car are rich too?" Wallace nodded hesitantly, "And what's your zipcode? 03? 04, maybe?"
"So what?"
"So you got two options, you got plan V," he smirked, "Where this little blonde angel on your shoulder tells you to do the right thing, and tell your story. Probably in some grand public way, newspaper? "He shrugged, thinking of how Veronica would handle the situation, "Meanwhile Daddy Warbucks hears your story, writes a few checks and they come out with a different tale. One where Rashard is the innocent rich boy and the kid from the wrong side of the middle class was driving. Then the mission turns into keeping your ass out of jail." Wallace looked like he was about to say something but Eli continued, "Or we can go with plan E. A lot simpler. A lot quicker. And-"
Before he could finish Logan burst through the door, "Hey, Weevs, let me get the Pomroy's and—Ronnie's Houdini friend, uh, hey." Logan said in greeting as he caught the look of shock etched on Wallace's face, but then turned back to Eli, "I need to get the Pomroy's and the Bishop's, I'll drop them off on my way home." Eli nodded getting up and walking over to the finished portraits, leafing through them and pulling out the two Logan requested, which had been temporarily framed. Logan had gotten him set up with all the supplies and customer base, Eli had protested at first, but Logan shot him down, "It's not charity, it's business, legal business."Logan let out a whistle when he saw the finished project. "You're getting even better man. Soon you won't even need classes."
Both boys looked towards the door, to Wallace's disbelief and amusement, while Eli said, "Don't let Abuela hear you say that, this is to pay for classes remember." It was gonna pay for more than classes Eli was soon beginning to realize.
"You got time for another by Tuesday?" Logan asked.
Eli groaned it was Friday, "This Tuesday? I still got to finish Enbom's and the Casablanca's Laker Girl." And he had to help Wallace. "What of?" Logan held out a photo of some smiling rich white girl. "No chance of them wanting an 8x11?" Logan laughed, everyone wanted the big portraits. The 09ers always bought big.
"They'll pay extra if you can have it done by Tuesday."
"How much?"
"8 total." That was 200 extra dollars, Eli agreed putting the photo on his desk.
"You drew all these." Wallace said impressed, "Veronica said you could draw, man, but holy shit."
"Yeah not as profitable as an art theft ring, but it pays." Eli laughed as Wallace looked slightly abashed at his previous statements, and Logan looked highly amused at the whole situation.
"So what brings you here anyway?" Logan asked, and at the guilty look that spread across Wallace's face. Logan's grin spread. "Are we conspiring, gentlemen?" He made a motion at his face as if he was curling a mustache evilly. Eli rolled his eyes at his antics, putting the two portraits in a canvas bag to keep them safe.
"What brings you here?" Wallace retorted, "When I left you were still hating each other. Actually you were accusing him of murder." He said pointedly to Eli, but both just shrugged. "I came back to the twilight zone." He muttered and shaking his head.
Then Eli had an idea, "Hey, Logan you ever been to Chicago?" Wallace gave him a deer in headlights look and Logan gave him a confused one before shaking his head no.
"I thought we were keeping this between us." Wallace interrupted, hesitant to tell anyone else about the hit and run.
"You said don't tell, V." Eli said pointedly.
Logan looked like the cat that ate the canary as he made himself comfortable on Eli's bed. "What'd Wally do?" He asked. Eli filled him in on the cliff notes version, and as he began to fill them both in on his Plan E. "Are you saying what I think you're saying?" Logan grinned.
Eli smirked, "We got to go to White Castle."
Eli was in the passenger seat of Logan's X-Terra, Wallace in the back. "So what did you tell V?"
"Boys night." Eli shrugged, and Logan gave him an incredulous look.
"And she didn't ask?"
"Said something like 'Don't tell me, that way I can't testify against you'." He chuckled.
Wallace groaned, "So much for her not being suspicious."
"Oh like she doesn't already know everything." Logan scoffed, "Girl's too nosy for her own good." Eli gave a little snort while nodding and Wallace downright laughed in agreement. "You wanna know something funny?"
"What?" Wallace asked, and Eli simply raised an eyebrow.
"Ronnie." Logan said, "She used to hate mysteries. I mean, despised them. No Nancy Drew books, or movies. Hell getting her to play Clue was a hassle. She was always the romantic. Now she can't get her fill of this 'whodunit' game." He shrugged as no one said anything, "Just never really understood it."
"Cuz she's art, man." Eli muttered, and instantly he wanted to kick himself for saying what he always thought.
"Que?" Logan questioned, "What do you mean by that?"
"You know," Eli shrugged, "Art imitates life. She was a romantic when her life was romantic. She was a detective when her world became a murder mystery."
"Good theory, but she solved Lily's murder and she's in love with you, so why doesn't she go back to being a romantic." Logan pointed out.
"Maybe she would have." Elli shrugged, "If Hector hadn't been killed. If the bus hadn't crashed. There's a lot of what ifs in this world man."
"What if Lily hadn't died." Logan said softly.
"What if I never went to Chicago." Wallace added on.
"What if I hadn't met V outside the Sheriff's station." Eli shrugged, it was something he thought about a lot. What his life would be like without her by his side.
"In a world of what ifs," Logan mused, "What do you think that Neptune looks like."
Eli frowned, "I'd be on my way to jail or worse. V's kinda my saving grace if you hadn't noticed." Logan and Wallace both nodded in agreement and Eli thought the conversation would finally be done.
"Where do you think I'd be?" Logan asked, and Eli laughed out right, "What?"
"Really, you don't think I don't know exactly where you'd be if I wasn't in the picture." Eli snorted and even Wallace gave a chuckle.
"What?" Logan said confused.
"You'd be with Veronica." Eli said pointedly, but the smile on his face left Logan know that it was okay. "Which is why I'm happy with this world, and you can keep your what ifs, man."
"This world's better." Logan finally said after a long bout of silence. "Veronica and I would have been a train wreck."
