Chapter 5

Veronica was woken up by the sound of the waves crashing against the beach. She opened her eyes and it took her a while to realize where she was. She looked around in panic and yes, she was still on the beach, wrapped up in Logan's arms.

"Oh my God." she thought immediately rising from the sand. That sudden movement woke up Logan, who opened his eyes and looked around, also not being sure what happened. But it only took him a while to realize that he and Veronica must have fallen asleep after their intene conversation during the night.

"Did we..." he started, but Veronica didn't let him finish.

"Yes! We fell asleep on the freakin' beach. If my dad noticed that I'm gone, there're probably already FBI agents looking for me." she smiled weakly, but was starting to panic a little bit. She panicked even more when paid more attention to Logan's face. It was all reddish and a little bit swallen. She hadn't noticed that before, but no wonder, after all it was almost pitch dark when they met during the night.

"Oh my God, what happened to you?" she touched his right cheek.

"This? I just had a little chat with my dad yesterday."

"A chat? Well then they must have updated the definition of the word." she looked at him concerned. "Or maybe it's me who's been using the word wrong my entire life?" she started pretending that she was thinking hard, but after a second she realized that she needed to get home. "What time is it?"

Logan looked at his watch. "It's not even 5." he tried to calm her down.

"Good, good." Veronica hurriedly reached for her cellphone and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that there were no messages from Keith. "No messages, that's good. He probably went to sleep soon after I left. Now I need to sneak back into the house before he wakes up." she said, but she suddenly laughed to herself she realized she was talking about Keith Mars. "Man this is going to be fun!"

"Do you want me to go with you?"

"I don't think that's such a good idea. I just have to figure something out so that I don't get grounded for the rest of my life." and with those words she was gone. The need to hurry was actually a good excuse to avoid any serious conversation with Logan, saying goodbye to him or trying to figure out where to go from here. She knew they needed to do that eventually, but she wasn't sure she was ready to deal with that right now.

It took her about 15 minutes to get back home. All the time she kept wondering whether Keith was already awake or whether she might get a chance to avoid explaining herself to him.

When she finally got to the apartment, she opened the door as quietly as she could. She looked around and there was no sign of Keith. It looked like he was indeed still asleep. She tiptoed towards her room and pressed the handle. She was almost inside when she heard a familiar voice.

"Please tell you went out to get fresh bread for breakfast."

"Dad, I can explain." she started and looked at Keith who was less than pleased about her spending the night out.

"Please do."

"I... I spent the night with Logan." she said, but suddenly realized how unbelievably wrong that must have sounded and tried to offer further explanation. "I mean not WITH Logan, you know, I didn't... You know..." she continued, but Keith's look wasn't promising anything good for her. "I went for a walk, ran into Logan on the beach, we talked and the we fell asleep, end of story." she said on one breath. "Nothing happened. We just had to talk about Lilly, that's all."

The angry expression on Keith's face slowly began to fade and got replaced by a deep concern for his daughter. "Are you sure you're OK?"

"I'm fine, dad." she smiled. "Really." she assured him.

"You are so lucky I didn't wake up earlier and saw you gone."

"I know and I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do it. We just really fell asleep. With everything that happened yesterday, I just..." she started to explain more, but Keith just put his arm around her and hugged her.

"It's OK honey. I'm just glad you're OK." he kissed her forehead and asked the question that Veronica knew he was gonna ask sooner or later. "So what's the deal with you and Logan?"

"I don't know."

"Hasn't he hurt you enough already?" images of angry Logan ran through his head. He wasn't sure he wanted that for his daughter.

She wasn't sure she wanted that either, but it was her decision and hers only. "It's complicated, dad. Logan is not this bad guy that you picture him to be. You don't know him."

"Well I do know that I caught him yelling at you and smashing things in your room, that's enough for me."

"Everyone has their moments, you know."

"Oh Veronica, what am I supposed to do with you?" he sighed and kissed her forehead again.

"For starters you can let me take a shower." she smiled and dug up her pyjamas from underneath the sheets. "Can I?"

"By all means." he laughed and headed towards his room. "Just don't disappear on me again, OK?"

"I won't." she promised as she watched him go into his room.