"I don't want to get into this right now.." Wallace warned as he sat at the lunch table while Veronica approached slowly with her tray. She knew from his text messages last night that he knew she wasn't staying with Mac.. that she had been spending the night with Logan Echolls, her boyfriend.
Boyfriend… did that word even cover the magnitude of what was going on between the two of them?
Wallace looked at her very Un-Veronica attire and shook his head, guiltily she blushed. "I know you don't even own a dress like that… and there's no way Mac had one to let you borrow." Wallace accused her.
"Wallace.." she pleaded. She really didn't want to be fighting with him about this again, she was stressing out this morning, especially after how upset Logan had been when she had told him about David Curly Moran and Kendall's real identity.
"You said you were at Mac's last night… I hate lying for you" he complained, his brown eyes bore into hers while he picked up his pudding cup and she slid into the seat next to him.
"Aaron Echolls is in the holding cell at the Sheriff's Office right now… Logan was arrested last night, they put them into the same cell together" Veronica declared, her blue eyes hardened. Surely even Wallace could sympathise with Logan for having to be thrown into a 6x9 cell with the man who had murdered his girlfriend and abused him for years?
"Logan was arrested? Again?" Wallace repeated. "And now… Aaron Echolls is already back in the picture? Veronica… do you not hear yourself? It's been a day… you have only been back together with him a single day"
"And none of this is Logan's fault Wallace.." She argued. How could he be so stubborn about this? He usually had her back about everything, he was her best friend.
"I'm not excited about you saddling up with someone who is in the cross-hairs of the PCHers" Wallace scolded. He remembered all too well how intimidating they could be, the first day he had ever met Veronica, the PCHers had taped him butt naked to the school flag pole because the Sheriff had taken the security tape at his work when they had robbed the place. He was still wary when he saw those leather jackets and bikers. "This is serious Veronica… I hear things; they want to get back at Logan really bad for stabbing Felix Toomes to death"
"Logan didn't kill Felix" she corrected indignantly, recalling the night Logan had shown up with broken ribs, beaten with a concussion on her doorstep after they had caught up with him on that bridge. Eli Navarro the leader of the PCH biker gang at Neptune High School, was 100% convinced that Logan was guilty and he had refused to listen to reason. She knew Wallace was right about the rumours, you could feel the tension like battle lines being drawn around the campus between the 09ers and the PCHers and everyone else was just caught in the middle.
"They still think he did!" Wallace told her simply. "And while they do, you are jumping back into the shotgun through the car window firing line, and I care about you Mars, you are practically my family now… I am worried"
"Was my dad at yours or ours last night?" Veronica asked quietly, picking up her apple. Their parents were in a pretty serious relationship, and often Keith Mars wasn't home when Veronica woke up these days, at 18, she could pretty much take care of herself, but Keith Mars was still pretty protective, and Veronica hated disappointing him. They both had very high expectations of each other, in a town where most of the parents would rather throw cash at their kids than spend time with them, her relationship with her father, her business partner and best friend was very special.
"Ours… didn't seem to have any doubts about your story. But Veronica… seriously, what can you possibly like in this guy?" Wallace quizzed as he emptied the pudding cup with his spoon and took the piece of chocolate cake she offered. He was genuinely bewildered, he had only even seen the worst of him. Wallace didn't know the Logan from before Lilly's murder. He didn't know him from before Veronica and Logan had been enemies, he didn't know him beyond that confrontation they had on the beach and the videos of Logan howling in chaotic laughter when he had organised the series of bum fights last year.
"Lots of stuff…" She retorted defensively. His body.. his hands… his eyes and their ability to make her melt… his heart.. the way he loved her.
"Enough to risk ruining your relationship with your dad?" he asked… her relationship with her dad was something Wallace envied; he had lost his father a few years before and as a young man.. she supposed the lose of a male role model like that, that guidance was all the more potent. Loving Logan was enough to risk her soul…
"We don't decide who we like… it happens" she told him. Veronica had certainly never planned falling in love with her dead friends' boyfriend, of being involved in something so complicated, so dangerous, so inescapably hardwired deep in her bones.
"So what do we do now?" Wallace asked, propping his head up on his hands.
"You back on Team V?" she smiled.
"I am always Team V… it's this new expansion pack I've got issues with… but I'll let it slide, because you are Veronica Mars, my best friend" he declared as he bit into the cake she had given him.
"You just show up for the cake" she accused him, grinning.
Their little fights never lasted too long.
"I do just show up for the cake" he grinned right back.
"Well… I guess it's time I told you everything…" she told him finally.
"Details? Girl.. this isn't Sex and the City, I am not one of your Gossip Girls" he protested screwing his face up and reaching for his grape soda.
"Not THOSE details" she frowned as she pulled up her laptop. "These details.." she said as she showed him the file she had started on David Curly Moran and the Fitzpatrick's. Wallace's face darkened and he stared at her seriously as he flicked through the information.
She had erased all of the photos she had taken of Logan and Kendall, last thing she wanted was a copy of those somehow ending up back in the hands of Richard Casablanca's, Cassidy and Dicks father. Colour her paranoid, but some things should never be left to chance. She had searched for Cassidy and Dick this morning at school but they weren't around, apparently half of the senior class had decided to skip today due to the Bus Crash Memorial happening later this evening.
"The bus crash?" Wallace asked as his eyes widened in understanding.
"When I was still with Duncan… so it doesn't matter what relationship I am in… the danger is out there anyway" Veronica said gravely.
"I can't leave the house" Logan's text message said as her phone chirped.
"How do you feel about going to a Strip Club?" Veronica asked as she looked at the message again.
"Java the Hut really not working out for you?" Wallace said raising an eyebrow. "There are easier ways to make college money girl… you don't need to put up that red light" he joked.
"I don't know.. I kind of think the name Roxanne would suit you… Roxy if you were into that kind of thing" Weevil said as he approached their table.
"Weevil…" Veronica gasped as she closed down the laptop screen.
"Hey V, word is.. you and Duncan called it quits" he said as he gave her his usual calculating stare.
"You know me, Weev's, I love to keep them guessing" she smiled wryly.
"You just love leading these rich boys on, huh?" he commented as he raised his eyebrow at her.
"Well you know you are always my Stand by guy.." she flirted. They usually had this dry innuendo humour with one another, but she was being careful not to give too much away. Now more than ever, she really had to get Weevil on her side. She needed to get him to listen to her.
"Well I'd never lead a girl on unless I was planning to catch her… get her to ride my big old hog" he smiled sarcastically.
"So yea, me and Duncan are over" she confirmed.
"You finally get tired of that 09er life style? Not dangerous enough for you? If you want some real excitement… you should come hang with me and my boys" he suggested. "We know how to really heat things up" he encouraged, flashing his eyebrows at his companions who laughed like it was some kind of private joke.
"You familiar with the Road Hog?" Veronica asked suddenly, as she looked at Weevil's ears… that shiny piece of metal Sheriff Lamb had shown her yesterday.. now she knew where she had seen it before. David Curly Moran was connected to Weevil somehow.
"Biker bar off the PCH… my cousin Mateo's brothers ex-girlfriend works there" he nodded, eyeing her suspiciously. "Why?"
"Just seems like the kind of place to go if you really wanted to go over the edge…" she hinted. Something flickered through his eyes, she had been right.
"Stick to your beaches… place like that is bad news for a girl like you" he warned her.
"So I have been told" she replied provocatively.
"You should listen" he retorted and just like that, the wall came down and he eyed her up, giving his guys the nod to head away from the table and back to their usual side of the campus near the Auto shop.
"This just keeps getting more and more complicated" she muttered to Wallace as Thumper and Hector glared at her as they walked away.
"No… this Dead serious" Wallace said as he pulled up the crime scene picture of Curly again.