A/N 1: Thank you all for supporting this story! I have loved reading every single review and each notice that someone followed and/or favorited the story was a little bright spot in my day. Thanks for working through the angst, rather than being repelled by it! I hope the conclusion to this story is satisfying for ya'll.
33rd Birthday Party
He's only been standing in the lobby of the Neptune Grand for ten minutes, but he's already contemplated leaving half a dozen times. As soon as Wallace arrives, Logan intends to share with him how much he fails to appreciate having to return to the place he and Veronica reconnected, a mere two months after the original event.
The gesture of throwing him a thirty-third birthday party is nice, if completely misguided. Wallace intended it to be a surprise but, when he invited Logan to a party in a suite of the Grand and Logan refused to attend even before Wallace finished speaking, the secret was revealed. Logan was told to get off his sorry ass and attend because Wallace and Jenny worked hard to put it together.
It's 7:10 PM and Wallace and Jenny still haven't shown up. It would just be a cosmic cherry of inevitable disappointment if no one actually showed up to his birthday party. The suite was rented for the night, so the option of curling up on the couch with a bottle of tequila is available to him. He can say goodbye to his thirty-second year by drinking enough to forget it ever happened.
After another minute of pacing in the lobby, he hears his phone ring and answers it, seeing it's Wallace. Logan can feel it coming; the casual brush off. Something about Sammy being sick, and Jenny not feeling up for it given that she's five-months pregnant. And he'll grin and bear it, because that's what the well-adjusted version of his self does. Sometimes he wishes he could regress for the sake of catharsis.
"Logan, where the hell are you?"
Logan takes the phone away from his ear and looks at it, frowning, just to confirm that it is in fact Wallace on the other end of the line.
"In the lobby. Like we agreed."
"No, I told you to go to the lobby to get a key, and then you were supposed to come up to the suite." There's annoyance present in Wallace's voice – there almost always is when they talk – but there's a hint of something else, too, which Logan can't quite read.
He's shaking his head in response even as he makes his way over to the front desk. "I don't think so, Wallace."
"See this is why it's so hard to be friends with you. Sometimes I think I should just drop your ass." He means the words to be friendly, a natural way of ribbing on each other like they do, but they freeze Logan to the spot.
It's only two months later and he's not okay with being reminded that he's a hard person to stick around for.
When he answers, his tone is bitter. There's no empathy, no understanding that Wallace didn't mean it the way it came out. "Well, then go ahead. There are some that make it look remarkably easy."
He hears Wallace suck in a breath through his teeth. "Logan, man, I'm sorry. You know – you know I didn't mean it the way it came out."
He's only five feet away from the front desk, easy grabbing distance of the key, but he couldn't be less interested in going upstairs. Wiping a hand over his face, he starts to back up in the lobby, intent on making a quick getaway. "I'm not going, Wallace. Not really in a party mood all of a sudden."
It's nice getting to make a decision without Wallace in front of him, trying to convince him to do otherwise. He makes a note that, from now on, all conversations with Wallace that are of a semi-weighty nature should be accomplished this way.
"If you come up to the party, I'll tell you everything I know about why V bailed on you."
It shouldn't be possible for one's blood to run both hot and cold at the same time, but it happens to Logan in that moment. He wants to be angry that Wallace thinks it's okay to use that as a bargaining chip, but he can't be too mad. If he had thought of it first, he would have asked for the same thing.
"Fighting dirty, Fennel. Impressive." He disconnects the call without officially signing off. While he's pleased that his birthday present from Wallace will include answers, he's also okay with Wallace not really knowing if he's going to show up or not.
In only a few long strides he's back at the front desk and asks for the key that's been left for him. On the elevator ride up to the suite he decides the first thing he will do, after pretending to be surprised by the party, is trap Wallace in a corner and find out what he knows.
While not typical 'party conversation,' Logan is okay with defying conventions. It's his party and he'll pick at emotional wounds that have yet to completely heal, if he wants to.
Logan gives Veronica the rest of her Sunday to think she's shaken him. He'll lull her into a false sense of security, and then go for it.
He intended to do the same thing during their last big break up in college. He was going to give her a few days of time and space, and then set out to win her back. But, not knowing if he could handle losing her again, he went for a simpler path. An easier option. On his most honest days, he admitted that he was using Parker.
Even when he was at his most illogical, he understood it didn't make cognitive sense for him to feel betrayed by Veronica dating Piz. Except, after how much time he and Veronica had spent together that summer and fall, shouldn't she have been able to read between the lines of his actions? Shouldn't she have known that Parker was about stopping himself from going after her, not moving on?
He's experienced taking the path of least resistance, and it's led nowhere worth visiting again. This time he'll run headlong into resistance, certain that's exactly what he's going to find. But along with bramble bushes and ill lit paths, the path of most resistance might actually get him to Veronica.
On Monday he calls her three times. He leaves one message.
On Tuesday he calls her three times. He leaves two messages, both short.
On Wednesday he only manages to call her twice. He doesn't leave a message.
On Thursday he's back to three calls. Once when he wakes up, once after going for a run and seeing someone walking a pit bull puppy, and once before he goes to bed. He leaves one message.
On Friday, his first call is to his assistant to let her know that he won't be into work that day. He figures he'll let traffic die down, be on the road by 10:00 AM, and arrive in LA by lunchtime.
As he packs he calls Veronica again, not actually believing she'll answer. She hasn't any of the other times. He does find it unusual that his calls ring all the way through to voicemail. They don't ring a couple of times before going to voicemail like they would if she rejected his call, which means that it's likely she's actually watched the phone ring as he's calling her.
He finds this strangely encouraging.
It usually takes her phone seven rings to go to voicemail. On ring number four he starts planning out the message he's going to leave, uncertain if he'll mention his travel plans for the whole weekend.
"Logan, you have to stop calling me."
He's not expecting her to answer so when he hears her voice, edged by a hint of exhaustion, it takes him a second to recover.
He tosses the button-down shirt he's holding in the general direction of his duffel bag. "Well, if you would stop ignoring my calls, I wouldn't have to call as much."
She sighs but doesn't say anything, and he wonders why she even bothered to answer if she wasn't going to talk. He doesn't really care about her reasons, as long as she doesn't hang up. Scrambling for a topic she'll be forced to engage with, he settles on the one which he told himself he would avoid.
"I'm leaving for LA in an hour."
She groans this time and, when she speaks, she sounds almost hysterical. "Don't do that, Logan. If you come to LA you won't be able to find me. I'll go to a hotel. Hell, I might even pass your car going the opposite direction on the freeway."
"Just tell me what I did, Veronica."
"I already told you, this doesn't have anything to do with you."
"I asked you if we were making a mistake, twice, and you told me we weren't."
"And I meant it. But, after it happened -"
He feels this like a jab to his solar plexus and actually reels back from her words, stumbling a little as he steps back to sit down at the edge of his bed. "You had your very own coyote ugly moment. I get it."
He hates that he believed her when she told him it wasn't a mistake, because that's affected what reasons he's come up with to explain why she left. He thought maybe the pull that was always there between them scared her. Or that she was afraid that their history was going to make a relationship too complicated.
He didn't anticipate that she might regret it ever happened in the first place.
The sound of her stifling a sob is loud through the phone line and he considers going to LA anyway, despite her protests. He doesn't actually believe that she'll leave town just to avoid him, and he wants to know what it is about this whole messed up situation that's causing her to sound like that.
But this is the part that romantic comedies leave out. Sometimes you chase down the person in the airport, meet them at the gate, and they say 'no thank you' and board the plane anyway.
"Logan, I'm so -"
"Let me stop you there. Especially if you're just going to repeat what you wrote on my grocery receipt." The silence between the phone lines stretches out for an uncomfortable amount of time, and he acknowledges to himself that he's waiting for her to change her mind.
When it's clear she has no intention of doing so, he puts an end to it. "I guess you said it best, Veronica. If someone wants to leave you, you can't make them stay. I'll see you at the next reunion." Hanging up the phone, he tosses it on his bed and then paces the length of his room, taking deep breaths to calm his erratic heartbeat.
Work thinks he's not coming in for the day, and he doesn't have much of a desire to call his assistant to tell her otherwise, so he settles for calling Dick. They still don't hang out all that often, and when they do it's an unspoken rule that Veronica as a topic is off-limits. Which suits his mood just fine.
There's a rock climbing gym in San Diego he wants to go to and he thinks that Dick will be easily persuaded to take a day off as well to go with him. Maybe, after several hours of climbing, the tight pain he feels in his chest will be replaced by the dull ache of physical exertion.
That night he returns home, exhausted. Dick is such an odd combination of eternal frat boy and grownup that Logan doesn't quite know what to make of him. After the rock climbing gym they grabbed a late lunch and then, because he still wasn't tired enough to stop the incessant stream of 'what ifs' running through his mind, went surfing for a few hours.
It's past eight o'clock when he returns home, flopping onto his couch with little ceremony. He sits with a beer in one hand and the remote in the other, flipping through channels, only stopping for minutes at a time.
He's sitting in that position when he hears his front door unlock, and he swears under his breath. This should be expected, but it still manages to catch him off-guard.
Wallace walks in and Logan doesn't bother to acknowledge him. He intends to "Jurassic Park" himself out of this situation: just sit still and hope the predator leaves him alone. But when he hears Wallace sigh, he knows that isn't going to happen.
"When's the last time you showered?"
Logan hears the note of disappointment, and his defenses rise to the surface immediately. "This morning, actually, I just haven't shaved." His eyes are still focused on the TV screen, turned to a movie with Bill Murray. He doesn't even bother to put the pieces of dialogue together to figure out which one.
"And how long have you been sitting here?" The second question doesn't have as sharp an edge as Wallace's first one, and Logan acknowledges that Wallace is probably just as uncertain as to how to handle this as he is.
He doesn't doubt for a second that Wallace is already aware of what's going on. His best guess is that Wallace's arrival was prompted by a panicked phone call from one Veronica Mars.
"About an hour."
"How many beers have you had?"
Logan sighs and rolls his neck, trying to dispel the tension that's been present all day but increased in intensity the moment he heard Wallace open his door. Turning off the TV, he throws the remote on the couch.
"This is my first, actually. Is the interrogation over now?" He stands up to walk out of the room, feeling like he's in a prone position sitting down, and notices Wallace's distressed expression for the first time.
It becomes clear to Logan that despite the series of questions, Wallace is worried about him. He's standing with his hands in his pockets, and looks like he'd rather be anywhere but in Logan's living room, about to have the conversation they're gearing up for. But that's the kind of guy Wallace is. He's willing to have the tough conversations.
Walking past him and into the kitchen, Logan takes a deep breath, and reminds himself that Wallace is his friend, too. Except the last time Wallace had his loyalties divided, he chose Veronica.
"I take it she told you then?" He tosses his beer bottle in the recycling and pours himself a glass of water. He's uncertain as to whether or not he's done drinking for the night, but he doesn't want to hear Wallace's cluck of disapproval. For reasons he has yet to completely figure out, he cares a great deal what Wallace thinks of him.
Wallace stands in the doorway of the kitchen, nodding before the words follow. "Yeah, she did."
Logan expects the answer, but grabs the counter anyway, uncomfortable with the idea that he's been talked about. And by two of the people he cares most for. "Did she tell you why she did it?"
Wallace's answering expression is grim and Logan knows, even before he nods, what the answer is.
Pursing his lips, Logan nods as well, trying to receive this information like it's just an interesting fact he heard on NPR during his commute to work. "You have any intention of telling me?"
Wallace doesn't speak, move, or blink for a good couple of seconds. Logan thinks the stress of being caught in the middle of all this has finally broken him, caused him to malfunction. But then Wallace takes in a deep breath, shakes his head, and in that moment Logan finds he's having difficulty breathing.
Logan's face feels hot, and he's actually nauseous. The reassuring pat on the shoulder he receives from Wallace tells him he must look just as terrible as he feels. Things don't usually get heady like this between them. There's bullshitting, and jesting, and the occasional deep conversation, but Logan has never let Wallace see him broken.
And given that they are both well aware of the reason for his current break, he'd really like to avoid it now.
"Goodbye, Wallace." He does his best to keep his tone light and jaunty, as he saunters past Wallace, intentionally bumping his shoulder as he passes.
The sound of Wallace's groan hits him, and Logan wheels around to face him. Where does he get off groaning like he's the one being injured?
"Logan, it's not my story to tell."
Logan sneers at him, folding his arms across his chest. "Well, it is mine to hear, and yet I'm the only one who doesn't know what's going on."
"I get that this is a shit thing to do, Logan, but she's going through something –"
Logan rolls his eyes, shaking his head and interrupting Wallace's attempt to defend her. "You know what, fuck you."
"Excuse me?" Wallace's eyes narrow, and he crosses his arms as he stares at Logan.
"You heard me. And fuck her too, actually."
He takes a step towards Logan and holds up a finger in warning, which just makes Logan roll his eyes again, a glib chuckle escaping his lips. He doesn't really mean it, and he's almost certain Wallace knows that. But acting flip is his lifeline right now, and he's going to hold onto it until something more substantial is handed to him.
"You should watch what you say, Logan."
Logan takes a step towards him and pushes his chest, not hard enough to hurt him in any way, but enough to get Wallace to take a step back. He's tired of being made to feel like an asshole. "And you should watch before you come into my house and talk to me like I'm the one who screwed up." It's not his intention to shout, or to let his voice crack on the last few words, but both things happen. "She left me, Wallace. She did this."
Just as quickly as his ire crests, it falls, and he just feels tired. After seeing her at their ten-year reunion, it took him close to a year before he worked himself up to date someone seriously again. He can't imagine how fucked he is now.
He ambles over to his couch and sits, rubbing a hand over his face, to purposefully obscure Wallace from his view. He throws his head back, leaning it on the couch, and just waits for Wallace to turn around and leave. In the absence of receiving answers, Logan just wants to be left alone.
Instead of leaving, Wallace walks timidly towards the armchair and sits down, keeping his posture straight. "I don't know what to do, Logan. I know what she did to you just sucks, but she's been my best-friend for half my life. I don't –"
Taking pity on him, Logan holds a hand up to keep him from continuing to explain. "I get it."
"I came over here to see how you were doing, not make you feel worse."
Logan chuckles again, but this time it is more genuine and he's relieved that he still has the capability to find things funny. "Well crackerjack job there, Wally."
Wallace is still tense, and Logan hopes they're done with the conversation.
"We cool, man?"
Logan nods, but then gestures to the door with his head. "Yeah, we're fine, but you should go." At Wallace's frown, he continues. "You're not telling me what's going on with Veronica, and I have no interest in pretending that doesn't piss me off."
Giving him a tight-lipped smile and a nod, Wallace leaves. Once he's gone, Logan sinks down into the cushions of the couch, his head actually throbbing as he tries to get his breathing under control.
He's never really understood what it is about Veronica that makes everyone in her life so damn loyal to her. As he lays down, a migraine either forming or receding as a result of the day, he admits to himself that if she called him the next day and apologized, he'd call it bygones and truly mean it. But he knows her, and that's just not going to happen.
It takes Logan another ten minutes to convince himself to actually use the key, and he ignores two more calls from Wallace in the process.
Veronica sometimes called him a morose son of a bitch, but she always did so with a smile on her face and a glint in her eye, making it sound more like a compliment than anything else. He wonders how he can be anything but morose when he has friends who actually think it's a good idea to throw him a birthday party at the place where he and Veronica spent a good portion of a summer, and most of a fall, playing at being happy.
They haven't rented the penthouse, so there's that, but it doesn't make it much better.
Pressing an ear up to the door, he hears quiet inside. He feels a tiny pinprick of joy that his radio silence has made it so that there are fifteen people waiting for him, uncertain as to when he's actually going to show up.
He inserts the key into the door and braces himself for the chorus of 'SURPRISE' that will make him stumble back with its volume, but there's only silence. Closing the door behind him, he pulls out his cell phone and reads the newest text from Wallace.
From Wallace Fennell – 7:26
Get your ass up here. I'm serious.
Which means his fleeting hope that people got tired of waiting on him and left isn't plausible. He's not exactly certain what cover story Wallace told people he used to get Logan into the suite. Maybe he set up a fake business meeting with a new author? Or pretended that he and Jenny were at the hotel and got wasted, so needed a ride home and called Logan?
The lights in the suite are dim and he still hasn't heard a sound, which tells him everyone is probably hiding in one of the bedrooms and ready to jump out the moment he calls, "Hello?"
When he turns the corner of the hallway and walks into the living room area, he's met by the sight of a solitary blonde sitting on the couch, worrying a cloth napkin. It's then he realizes that the party was the cover to get him up to the suite.
Wallace isn't here, and he's not going to be. Based on the number of calls Logan has received from him, his guess is that Veronica has been sending panicked text messages every few minutes asking him to check where Logan is.
Shoving the key card in his pocket, he fists the plastic and stands stock-still, contemplating the benefits of turning around and not dealing with any of this. It's been two months; he hasn't heard from her once, and he's a little pissed that she's sitting there looking beautiful, thinking this is going to fix everything.
Tossing the napkin on the table she stands up and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. "Happy Birthday."
It hurts. It actually fucking hurts to see her play with her hair because it's so familiar. He'd also bet good money that she's biting the inside of her cheek, a gesture she often did to keep herself from saying the first thing that came to mind. Or to keep herself from screaming too loud during sex.
He can't do this again but, holy shit, he wants to. If he stays in the room for one second longer he may throw her over his shoulder, kidnap her to a deserted island, and pray that she develops a strong case of Stockholm syndrome.
With a shake of his head, he backs up out of the living room. He should probably move out of Neptune. Go somewhere Veronica Mars can never find him, maybe even outside of the United States, because he's doomed to be forever in love with her if he doesn't.
Her whole body tenses for a second, and then she's rushing towards him. "Logan, please don't go. I'm sorry I ambushed you, but I -" Her eyes go up to the ceiling and she clenches her fists. Shaking her head, he hears her say "fuck" under her breath. When she looks at him again, her gaze is calm, less erratic, and her whole body relaxes.
He'd give anything to feel as relaxed as she seems to be in that moment.
"Just give me five minutes. If you still want to go after that, I'll hold the door open for you and wish you well."
"You're about two months late, Veronica."
She smirks, and holds her hands out palms up, moving them up and down to mimic the movement of a scale. "Two months. Five years. Which amount of time is greater?"
She's already flustered him, probably without even trying. Running his hand through his hair, he laughs, because fuck if she doesn't have a point. There's no way she'll buy the "I tried to call you-" line of defense. It's half-assed at best.
Despite his legs feeling a little wobbly and his pulse throbbing in his own ears, he can acknowledge the significance of her coming to see him. That she orchestrated this with Wallace. The last time she made a gesture of this magnitude was also at the Grand, but then she was standing on the other side of the hotel suite door.
He just nods and then waves a hand at her, as if he is the one doing her a favor, when really a very large part of him feels like he's the winner in this whole thing.
There's no way she'll be able to deny that he is the sole reason she is currently in Neptune. He looks around the room, noticing the room service cart tucked away in the corner, as well as a bottle of wine and two wineglasses on the table.
For some reason it's seeing the bottle of wine that calms him and, what's more, convinces him that this is the best thing that's ever happened to him.
When she notices where his eyes are resting she blushes, and gives him a half-smile. Vulnerable has never been her favorite way to feel and he's impressed that she's allowing it now. She could have hid the wine and food away until she was certain she was going to get a positive response.
It's enough to make him want to pick her up and head straight for the bedroom, food be damned. But the last time they were together like that, she left before he woke up. The thing he still doesn't understand about that time is that they did everything right: they talked, forgave one another, and left a whole host of things locked away in the past where they belonged. When he kissed her it had felt natural; the way it was supposed to be.
He doesn't honestly expect an apology from her. They're not great with apologies. He just wants an explanation and to have a little assurance that, before he gets pulled into this again, she won't bail on him without warning.
She looks over her shoulder, and then gives him a half smile. His eyes follow her as she walks over to the table the lamp is sitting on and picks up a red, gift-wrapped rectangle. She fiddles with the bow as she walks towards him, and then holds it out for him to take.
"This is for you." Her eyes screw shut, and he has to chuckle at how uncomfortable she seems to be. "Obviously."
"Can I open it now?" He holds the package up to his ear and shakes it as he waits for her answer. The dimensions and the weight tell him it's a book, but this was always a part of their game whenever they gave each other gifts. They poked and prodded until the gift giver would usually get frustrated enough to take the present away from the gift givee, making it so the gift givee had to beg for the gift to be given back to them.
But that's not what's happening. She's nervous, for some reason, and just nods as an answer. He unwraps the gift, dropping the paper and the bow to the ground without looking, and finds that he guessed correctly – it's a hardcover book. Flipping it over, he reads the back of dust jacket and furrows his brow.
It's a young adult novel about a high school student whose parents die in a car accident Christmas Eve, leaving him and his younger sister without any immediate family willing to take them in. Rather than be put into the foster care system, the two teens run away and travel across the country, searching for a new place to call home. Flipping it over to again view the front, he reads the name Brendan Roth and smiles.
"We tried to buy this book, I think. We got outbid." He doesn't see that she's moved closer to him until her hand enters his line of sight, opening the book to the front cover.
"I got it autographed for you."
He reads the words out loud, trying to make sense of the inscription. "Logan, I hope to be just like you when I grow up. – Brendan." Running his fingers over the words, he looks up at her. "Huh?"
"The main character is pretty much you. I told Brendan that, and asked him to sign a copy for you." Shaking her head, she gestures to the book. "If it's not your thing, it's fine. You don't have to read it."
He reaches out and takes her hand, holding her fingers tightly in his own. It is unacceptable for her to think, even for a second, that he isn't in awe of everything she's doing this evening. Besides, Veronica has impeccable taste. If she thinks it's a good read, it's bound to be.
"How do you know the author?"
Wordlessly, she takes the book from his hands and flips to the back of the dust flap, and then hands the book back to him pointing at the author's photo. "I took that."
It isn't hard from him to act impressed, because he is. Letting go of her hand, he shuts the book and tosses it on the couch. He takes a step closer to her, intentionally invading her personal space, and is rewarded when she takes a deep breath to steady herself. The need to be close to her feels like a biological imperative; something he not only wants, but needs.
"Thank you for my present. Despite it being a reminder of a professional failure, I'm excited to read it." As he speaks he purposefully breathes out puffs of air, tickling her skin.
"You're welcome." She swallows, and he smiles when she starts leaning her upper body back to try and put a little distance between them.
He's not even certain if she's aware that he's going to kiss her, but she must realize he's about to do something because she shakes her head at him and pushes him back with two hands to his chest.
"We can't."
Growling, he takes a step towards her, reaching out to grasp her shoulders as he does. "You bought me a present. Planned a fake surprise party. Are hopefully wearing exciting underwear. The situation actually demands it."
Her elbows lock, preventing him from pulling her in for a hug. She looks down at her feet, and bites her lip before raising her head and locking eyes with him.
The look on her face tells him that she is in the midst of some sort of internal debate. Not certain if she should trust her instincts and force a conversation, or let Logan's idea of working through the details by making out take root. He'd prefer the impending serious conversation to take the form of pillow talk, but has a feeling she's going to give him the explanation he's been waiting for.
And damn Wallace for knowing that she was going to be there and hiding it from him. The little sneak used his insider knowledge to trick him into coming upstairs, and now Logan has to think of a complicated, and likely expensive, way to thank him. Probably an all-expenses paid vacation before Jenny has the baby.
Nodding more to herself than to him, it seems, she takes one last deep breath and scrunches up her face. "I was seeing someone."
He frowns at her, wrinkling his brow, not entirely certain when this 'seeing someone' happened. He hopes it's just in the two months since they've seen each other, but her expression of guilt tells him otherwise. "When?"
She sighs and looks over his left shoulder, and then his right, as if the explanation she needs is written somewhere on the wall behind him. "When you and I – at the reunion, when you and I slept together, I was dating someone."
In his more self-destructive days he's been 'the other man', but he never thought Veronica would make him that. He swallows down the lump in his throat, and tries not to sound too injured when he responds. "Is it serious?" He's not going to brandish judgment at her, but he feels a weight pressing against his chest as he waits for her answer.
Taking a step towards him, she seems to have found her confidence again, because her voice is strong. "Was. And not really, but that's not the point."
It's odd to hear this confession of hers, mainly because he didn't ever think that cheating on someone was something she'd allow herself to do, but the past two months make sense now. Her leaving in the middle of the night. Her reticence to talk to him. The note of shame and panic he heard in her voice when she finally picked up the phone.
He knows he needs to take this seriously, because it's obvious that even saying these words is causing her pain, but he can't help but smile at her. "Let me guess. His name was something a little off-beat, like 'Humphrey' or 'Waldo.'" At her stricken look, his small smile grows into a full grin. "Am I right?"
The sound of her answer comes from her throat and is more grumble than actual words. "Griffith."
"And the word that most aptly describes him is 'nice.' Maybe 'sweet'?"
At her deep frown, he knows he's gotten this part right as well. "What makes you say that?"
He doesn't want this to sound accusatory. Or, worse yet, dismiss the apparent stress she's been under, but it is amusing she doesn't see the thread of similarity that has run throughout her dating history. "It's your go-to type of guy. Except me, of course."
She smiles at him, her eyes softer than they were when they first started talking. He'd like to think it's her recognition of just how well he knows her.
"And Zach," she says, "he wasn't like that either."
Being compared to the letch of an ex of hers is not something he relishes, but before he can protest that he never cheated on her, she shrugs and interrupts his thought process.
"Did you know I had to talk myself into going out with him? Zach? At first I thought it was because I still wasn't over what had happened between," she chooses to wave a hand between the two of them rather than explain. This is a memory that they've dealt with, but clearly not one she'd like to discuss ad nauseam, and he can't say he feels different. "I never had to do that with you. Whenever you and I got together, it just felt normal. Like it was how it was supposed to be."
Her echo of the exact thought he had upon seeing her again makes him want to weep with joy.
In the past two months he's learned more about what Veronica felt for him during their fucked up teenage years than he ever did when they were dating. And this just can't keep happening. He doesn't care if it requires couples therapy, spiritual retreats on deserted islands, or tying her down until she talks about her feelings, they can't keep doing the same self-preservation-hide-their-feelings-bullshit. They've apparently both learned that lesson and applied it to their relationships, but now they get the chance to do that with one another.
Despite her pushing him away earlier, they are still standing relatively close to one another, so he easily reaches up and brushes his fingers across her cheek, causing her eyes to close at the contact.
"I'm sorry, Logan."
He doesn't kiss her, still wanting to hear whatever she has to say, but rather bushes his lips across her forehead. "Veronica, your attitude towards sex was never casual."
She grimaces, and he's concerned she's going to push him away again but, while her eyes turn downward, her feet stay planted. "It's still not."
"So, what happened that night?"
Gesturing at him, she scrunches up her face, clearly embarrassed by what she's about to confess. "You did." Those words don't have time to register before she continues. "And a bit of alcohol, too."
The words 'you did' are so simple in their meaning, but they tell him everything he needs to know. The alcohol helped, but it was mostly him.
Resting his hand on her shoulder, he gives it a little squeeze. "You could have stayed and told me all this."
She's shaking her head, dismissing what he's saying, before he's even finished speaking. "No, I couldn't." Taking a shuddering breath, she looks down at her feet and then back up at him. "I woke up that morning and I was so -" she trails off and then pauses, seemingly trying to find the right word.
Hoping it won't be anything that injures him too much, (remorseful, angry, sexually unsatisfied, are all terrible options), he runs his hand up and down her arm, loving both the feeling of her smooth skin under his fingertips and seeing the goose bumps come to the surface.
"—relieved. God, I was so happy to be there, Logan. You have to know that."
A wide, beatific grin breaks out on his face, and he pulls her closer. "And then what happened?"
It's a shrug and a half-smile as an answer, but he doesn't believe the uncertainty the gesture is supposed to communicate. She knows exactly what happened, and he just needs to give her a little time to say it.
A puff of air escapes her lips, and she nods almost imperceptibly, probably giving herself an internal pep talk to say the hard words. "I watched you sleep for a while, and then got up to go make coffee and breakfast. When I checked the time on my phone I saw I had a couple of texts from -"
She trails off again and starts worrying her lower lip. "—him. I realized then exactly what I had done." Closing her eyes for a second she takes another breath before finishing. "I was vaguely aware of it the entire night before, but kept pushing it aside; told myself that I'd never cross that line. The next morning it hit me just how bad I messed up and I just had to get out of there."
Her confession shouldn't make him feel joyful, there's a melancholy edge to it, but what she's said is so 'Veronica' that it makes him smile. She's not apologizing, not really. His guess is that if she had that moment to do again, she'd make the exact same choice. But, she is being honest with him about what brought her to that decision in the first place.
Placing a light kiss on her nose, he takes a moment to breathe in the scent of her shampoo, and then pulls back. Bending at the knees slightly so he can look at her directly in the eye, he repeats what he's already told her. "You could have told me."
Again, she's shaking her head, not really believing him. For whatever reason, she's convinced that was non-negotiable. He starts to ask why, but she cuts him off.
"Logan, I couldn't. Don't you get it? I did to Griff what Zach did to me. What my mom did to my dad. If I had stayed, you would have told me that it was okay, because Griff and I had only dated for three months, and because it was you and me. And I would have believed you." He wipes away a tear that's formed in the corner of her eye, and when she speaks again, her voice is lower than before. "I'm just as bad as they were."
He hates hearing she's lost faith in herself. Whether it is a good or bad thing, Veronica has always occupied enough of the moral high ground for both of them.
He knows it's not being with him that's causing her distress. There's a room service cart and a bottle of wine that tells him being in a room with him is exactly where she wants to be. It's having to admit how badly she messed up. Acknowledging it to one's self and saying it out loud are two very different things.
Cupping both sides of her face with his hands, he kisses his way down the side of her face. "Yes, you are." She groans, and tries to push him away but, the attempt is half-hearted. With a chuckle (completely at her expense), he tilts her chin up so she's looking him in the eye.
"You fucked up Veronica. You really did. But you're human, so it's bound to happen." He runs a finger down the bridge of her nose and then over her top lip. "It's not the exact same thing, though. You weren't married. And you didn't try to hide it. You told him the second you got back to LA, didn't you?"
Nodding, she reaches up a hand to take hold of his wrist, fixing him with a hard stare. Her eyes are pleading with him, and he's not entirely certain what she's asking for. "In the past, when I've made big mistakes, people get hurt. I can't give myself permission to do that."
They stay locked like that until the true meaning behind her words register. She's giving him even more insight as to why she shut him out in the weeks following their reunion. "That's why you didn't talk to me? You thought you hurt me too bad to be forgiven?"
The gratitude she feels that he understands is palpable, and she smiles, rotating her face ever so slightly to kiss his palm. "I needed to sort myself out without you distracting me."
Which just makes him grin, because he knows that's exactly what he would have done. If he had gone to LA like he wanted to, he would have convinced her they were meant to be together, she would have conceded, six months later something would have happened to bring up her residual guilt, and they would have broken up.
"You know Wallace wouldn't talk to me for weeks after I walked out on you?"
He drops his hand from her face, the surprise of the revelation causing him to take a step back. The look on his face must communicate that he doesn't really believe her, because she laughs.
"I swear." She bites her lip, and shrugs. "He told me I was being unfair to you – that I owed you an explanation. I called him a couple weeks ago and told him I needed his help."
This provides him with further evidence that Wallace is the best kind of human. Not only did he stick up for Logan, Wallace kept the fact that he and Veronica were in a standoff to himself. He chose to keep that between the two of them (and probably Jenny). It occurs to Logan that that's what being a grownup looks like.
"He never told me. I didn't know."
She smiles and moves closer to him again, cautiously resting her hands on his shoulders before moving them to loop her arms around his neck. "He wouldn't. It's not his style." Tilting her head to the side, she smiles. "Or as he might say, 'it's not how he rolls.'"
Looking down at her scrupulously, Logan shakes his head and kisses her on the forehead, not certain if it's okay yet for him to take it further. "You shouldn't say that ever again." Wrapping his arms around her waist, he pulls her snugly up against his body. It'd be so easy to kiss her now.
They haven't talked about all their issues, and he knows they probably aren't going to. Between the conversation tonight and the time they spent together last reunion, they both know enough to know they want the other person. And for this evening at least, that's a sufficient starting point.
"So what's with the whole 'fake surprise party' hoopla? It would have been just as effective for you to pop out of a fake birthday cake, nude." He waggles his eyebrows, and she gives him a disapproving stare, but its affect is minimized by the twitch of her lips.
"You needed to know I meant business. That this wasn't a one-off. So I planned, and got Wallace on my payroll." Her eyes flick to a couple points throughout the room. "Put this all together."
"Are you trying to tell me that you came to woo me, Veronica Mars?"
She nods and begins playing with the hair at the nape of his neck. Something that, while it feels incredible, makes it more than a little difficult to think straight. "Yeah, I did. What do you think?"
He smirks and looks up and away from her face, as if to truly ponder the question. "I was actually looking forward to receiving a stack of mid-range designer colognes, neckties, and picture frames. No party, no presents." Hanging his head down, he looks up at her from under his eyelashes, his lip stuck out in a pout. "The disappointment of that is crushing my spirit."
Opening her eyes in mock distress, she runs a hand down the line of buttons on his shirt. "Oh, but I already gave you one present. And I have another one for you later."
His eyes rake her body, from her hair curled in loose waves, down her emerald green blouse and grey pencil skirt, and then back up again. "Is my present under your clothes?"
Rolling her eyes she shakes her head. "No. But you never answered my question. What do you think?"
"About your plan to woo me?" She nods and he smiles at the slight bit of hesitation he sees in her eyes. Like there was ever a doubt? "Well, you did say you loved me once. Past tense."
She scrunches up her face, a look of guilt that she's trying to cover by being adorable. Oh god, he's a sucker for that look.
"Well," she says, stretching out the word so it is much longer than four letters long. "I may have misled you there. Just a little bit." He feels his heart actually stop beating as she holds up her thumb and index finger. "I kind of discovered the past two months that the whole 'love' thing is a little more present tense than I thought."
He's grinning like he doesn't know how to stop, she's mirroring him with a grin of her own, supremely proud of herself for leading him into that revelation without him knowing it. He's afraid if he keeps looking at her he might do something insensible, like burst into tears, so he ducks his head to kiss her. Before he does, he flashes her a smirk (because otherwise she might not recognize him). "Well, that makes this whole thing a lot more interesting.
Finally, he does the thing he's wanted to do almost every day since he last saw her, and dips his head down to meet her lips.
When he pulls back, gently tugging her lower lip between his teeth for good measure, her face is flushed and one of her hands is clutching at his shirt, the other tangled in his hair. She takes a few steadying breaths and then looks up at him. He's more than a little emotional, so he might be imagining it, but he thinks he sees adoration in her eyes.
"Based on the evidence I just gathered, you seem amenable to my proposal." She smiles up at him and, if he wasn't already, he'd be a total goner.
"I think I might be, but I want to see my other present before making a final decision."
The look of faux annoyance on her face turns him on more than it should. She looks around the room and then frowns, slapping a hand to her forehead with a groan. "Shit."
Brushing a strand of hair out of her eyes, he rests his hand on the curve of her neck. He trails his fingers along her collarbone, pretending to ignore the shiver she gives in response. "What's wrong?"
"I'm so dumb." She sighs and drops her eyes to the floor. "I think I left your present in the bedroom." Looking up at him, she gestures to the bedroom door with her head. "On the bed."
He grins again, sparing a second to note that he doesn't know if he's ever smiled more in one night, and kisses her hard and fast. His hands move to her waist and he starts walking her backwards to the bedroom door. "We should go get it then."
Running a hand up and down his chest, she tilts her head to the side, and looks almost bored. "Probably. You seemed to think it was pretty important."
"It is. It really is." He kisses her again, bringing her flush against his chest. "I may hide your purse and shoes when you fall asleep." She frowns at him and he laughs directly in her ear. He can feel the way the vibrations from his laugh cause her to shudder, and now he's the one who is supremely proud. "Just in case you get the urge to run out on me again."
It must take a concentrated effort to not respond with a quip of any kind. She just smiles and nods, walking back towards the room with his hands still on her waist. "Okay."
Epilogue: Twenty Year Reunion
After the fourth loud rap on the door, the blonde laying on top of Logan's chest groans, burrowing her face into the neckline of his shirt. "He's not going to go away is he?"
"I don't think so, doodlebug."
She groans again and gives a half-hearted slap to his chest. "Your nicknames are the worst."
"All of my nicknames?"
"No, I like babe. And Kit."
Laughing, he places a series of kisses at the juncture of her neck and shoulder. Of course she likes Kit. Kit short for kitten. Kitten short for sex kitten.
This reminder makes him keenly aware of the fact that he has yet to take advantage of the fact that they're alone. When the pounding on the front door resumes he sighs. He tilts his head back and calls out, "Wallace, use your damn key."
Logan wraps his arms around Veronica's waist and purposefully squeezes her a little too tight, just because it makes him chuckle to hear her let out a strangled groan. He loosens his grip and traces the zig-zag pattern of the shirt she's wearing with his index finger.
Her eyelashes tickle his neck as they flutter a few times and then close. If it wasn't for the way she was running one hand up and down his side, occasionally dipping into the waistband of his pants, he might actually think she wanted to take a nap.
Close to five years together and the feeling of contentment he has with her in quiet moments has yet to wane. He remembers what it felt like to come into his house their first Christmas back together to find her wrapping presents. She was sitting on the living room floor, wearing nothing but a t-shirt and boy short underwear, and her face was scrunched up in concentration. He almost proposed on the spot.
The vast majority of his life experiences have told him that good things, no matter how good they are, never last. It's taken a while to cast off their shared cynicism, but for the most part, they are able to accept contentment as their new status quo.
He hears Wallace's key in the lock, and a few seconds later he and Jenny are walking into the living room. Both are dressed up for the evening, and Wallace scowls at Logan and Veronica when he takes in the fact that they are both wearing sweatpants.
"You can't go dressed like that."
Veronica mumbles her answer into Logan's neck, and the way the words are almost indistinguishable makes him smile. Most of what she does makes him smile. "Since our telling you half a dozen times that we're not going fell on deaf ears, we thought we'd try a more visual approach."
Logan sees Jenny roll her eyes behind Wallace's back, and he's not certain which person in the room the gesture is directed at. The way she walks past Wallace and curls herself up into an armchair, pulling a blanket over her, tells him it's probably Wallace.
"Come on, you guys! The food is better, the music is louder -"
Logan cuts him off, ignoring the animated hand gestures Wallace uses as he tries to communicate a series of selling points. "And yet we remain unmoved."
Veronica nods in agreement, and Logan just laughs at the way she's able to be so contrary with so little effort on her part.
"Where's Olivia?" Wallace asks, doing his best to ignore the way that Logan's fingers are swirling on Veronica's back, moving under her shirt.
Kissing her shoulder, Logan raises his head up to make looking at Wallace a little easier. "She's at Keith's."
Behind Wallace, Jenny beams. Regardless of what the four of them do this evening, the idea of being one night sans children is clearly what Jenny needs.
"You two sitting on the couch and watching a movie is a complete waste of a babysitter," Wallace answers, earning himself a light kick from Jenny.
"And yet, here we lay. On this couch." Veronica's breath is warm against Logan's chest as she answers, and it's enough to make him wish they were completely alone. But they're not picking up Olivia until the following evening, and they've already planned to spend the vast majority of the following day in bed.
Scowling at them both, Wallace sits down on the arm of the chair Jenny is occupying. "You guys have more than enough furniture. Why are you sharing one couch?"
Logan provides an answering shrug, and runs his fingers through Veronica's hair, splayed out across his chest. "We wanted to watch a movie, but we both wanted to lie down."
Lifting her head up slightly, Veronica turns to look at Wallace. "Really, we didn't have another option."
"Actually," Logan says, calling her attention to his face. "I can think of another place where we could both lie down. And there's a lot more room." He waggles his eyebrows at her and moves one of his hands to her butt, giving it a squeeze.
She shoots him a warning glare but he ignores it, knowing she doesn't mind all that much. Since she has yet to dump his ass for his other far more annoying habits, he doubts this will even be listed in her 'con' column of behavior.
She folds her arms on Logan's chest and rests there again, looking up at him even as she speaks to Wallace. "We're not going Wallace. Just accept it. 'No high school reunions' was even in our marriage vows."
"And those aren't something either one of us are willing to break." He means it as a joke and looks at her with a smirk on his lips, inviting her to join in on the banter. But then they lock eyes and he can feel the way the moment has unexpectedly become serious.
Shaking her head an almost imperceptible amount she whispers, "Right," in a voice meant just for him, and then dips her head to kiss him.
"I was there. I don't remember that," Wallace says.
Logan smiles in response, but he's still focused on Veronica. It amuses him that Wallace actually thinks he'll be able to persuade them with his persistence. They're stubborn enough on their own, but when they're in agreement on something, they're a force. "It was implied."
"But." Wallace's almost petulant tone brings their attention back to him, and Logan notices that Jenny may have actually dozed off in the armchair. With three kids under the age of seven, he doesn't blame her. "Give me one good reason."
"I'll give you two reasons. Reason number one is our ten-year reunion where I was a total ass to Ronnie and she left, almost in tears. Reason number two is our fifteen-year reunion where she did a fuck and run."
Slapping his chest in half irritation, half-principled-indignation, she looks up at him with a cocked eyebrow.
"Tell me, I'm wrong." He counters with an eyebrow of his own. She's gotten better, but he's still the master of communicating thoughts through eyebrow waggles. What he says isn't an accusation, he just figures that pretending their past is anything but checkered is silly.
"Fine," she says with a huff, and presses her face back into his neck.
It's a heady sensation getting the last word with Veronica Mars. One he doesn't often experience, but relishes when it comes his way.
Apparently Wallace hasn't yet given up, because he resumes his argument. "But, I'm wearing my fancy duds. And my lady friend-" He trails off when he looks down and sees Jenny cuddled into the oversized chair. "—is about to fall asleep."
Jenny mumbles into the cushion, keeping her eyes closed. "Wallace, sweetie, can you go get the bag I put in the backseat of the car? It has my sweatpants in it."
Veronica is the first to laugh at the realization that Jenny knew exactly what was going to happen this evening, and she just burrows further into Logan's chest. Jenny's request of Wallace is all the confirmation Logan needs to know the argument is over.
Leaving the two Fennels to sort this out themselves, Logan throws his head back and rests it on the arm of the couch, committing to memory every detail of what it's like to hold Veronica Mars in his arms. He still has a hard time understanding how he gets to do this every night, but he's stopped wondering when it will slip away.
"You guys staying for a movie?" Veronica asks, her voice muffled by Logan's shirt and skin.
Wallace shrugs and stands up, most likely to head out to the car and get the bag Jenny packed. If Logan were to guess, Jenny has probably also packed a pair of sweatpants and a hoodie for Wallace, because that's just the kind of woman she is. Even if he and Veronica had never reconciled, Jenny and Wallace would be all the proof he'd need to know that some marriages were meant to last.
"Might as well. We got a babysitter and everything."
As Wallace heads out to his car, Logan gently tugs on Veronica's hair to get her to look back up at him.
"What?"
He grins at her whiny tone and kisses her temple, then trails his lips down the side of her face to whisper in her ear. "I love you."
With two hands pressed to his chest so she can lift up and look down at him, she nods. "Me too. Present tense. Always." Starting with his jawline, she places kisses all over his face, and then down his throat.
It occurs to him that this could get out of hand. It's been at least two weeks since they've had sex in the living room, so they're overdue. His hands start to move for Veronica's butt again when the sound of a throat clearing reminds him they're not alone.
Clearly it's a reminder for Veronica, too, because she groans and collapses onto Logan's chest.
"You guys are so fucking cute."
Jenny's sleepy voice swearing is enough to make Veronica giggle and then raise an eyebrow at Logan. "That's one word for it."
Smiling back at her, he pulls the blanket down from the back of the couch and covers them both up with it. As a sigh escapes her lips, Logan moves his hand under the blankets to dip into her sweatpants and rest on her butt.
"Logan," her warning makes him smile. He loves her fake annoyance at his never-ending reign of lechery.
"What, babe?"
"If you're going to grope me, you need to feed me. Pizza and gelato, please."
He doesn't even hesitate as he reaches behind him and grabs his cell phone, dialing their favorite pizza place from memory. "That can be arranged."
When he slides the hand on her butt up to rest on her lower back, she grabs it and slides it back down to where it was. She always could match him action for action.
He doesn't care if Wallace's sales pitch was based in reality; if the food really will be better or the music really will be louder. The way he sees it, people only attend high school reunions to rub their former classmate's noses in their personal success or to hook up with old flames.
There's no one from Neptune High that he really cares enough to impress and he's already hooked up with his former flame, the ring on her finger reminding him that he did so in a pretty permanent way.
After ordering enough food for all four of them, Logan drops his cell phone to the ground and reaches behind him for the remote, searching for a movie to order.
It's not possible the Neptune High School alumni committee could plan an event that tops what it feels like to have Veronica press her face into his chest as the movie starts. Or duplicate the feeling of peace that overwhelms him when he tucks his daughter into bed at night. Or eclipse the deep joy he experiences when the woman he's currently holding mouths the words 'I love you' to him across a crowded room.
"I bet that reunion is going to suck." Her words are getting softer, but he's not too worried about her falling asleep. She'll get a second wind when food is delivered.
"I bet you're right."
"I'm always right."
"Sure, Kit. Whatever you need to tell yourself to sleep at night."
She pinches his side. He kisses her forehead, and then silently decides that the next time they receive a high school reunion invitation, he's going to recycle it without even opening the envelope.
Fuck reunions. He doesn't need any more.
A/N 2: That's it! All over now. Love it, hate it, would love to hear what you think :)
A/N 3: Hey! I have a beta. Her name is scandalpants. And this story wouldn't have happened without her. So, thanks lady! I apologize for my frequent, misuse, of, commas. I, promise, I am, trying, to get, better.
A/N 4: I have a tumblr! So go ahead and follow me (link in my profile) if you want to read me make a bunch of jokes that I think are hilarious and write way too many thoughts about Logan and Veronica.