By the time Dick and Logan arrived the girls had polished off the bottle of wine, and were in fairly good spirits. Mac sobered a bit when she saw Dick, and was thankful he wasn't enough of a gentleman to offer Veronica his shotgun position. Luckily Veronica and Logan filled the air with conversation while generic pop music hummed in the background.

Mac made the mistake of glancing at the rearview mirror, where she found Dick looking back at her. She quickly looked away wondering why every shitty pop song had to be about broken hearts and stolen looks. Staring out the window for the remainder of the ride, she barely noticed they had arrived until Logan opened her door, looking at her expectantly.

The four were quickly ushered into the bar, the benefits of being with Logan and Dick including no lines and quick service. "You see the birthday boy, Mac? I wanna see his surprised face!" Veronica led them around the corner to the dance floor and the girls both looked around.

It wasn't clear who saw it first. Mac came to a dead stop, causing Dick to bump into her. "Dude, what are you doing?"

Veronica had also stopped, and slowly looked at Mac in horror. "Oh Mac," she whispered.

It took Logan and Dick a moment to see what was going on, not that it was hidden. Josh, easy to spot by his stature, dancing very closely with a redhead, her pink tongue dashing in and out of his mouth.

Logan's body stiffened, he looked over at Mac as though asking what to do. Preparing to march over and have a few words with the guy before having him kicked out of the club, he looked over to see that Dick was long gone. Moving towards Josh he saw Dick pull him away from the girl, and then heard a collective gasp from the surrounding patrons as Dick punched Josh square in the face, grabbing his collar and not letting up until they were both on the ground in what could only be described as an all out brawl.

"Dick!" Logan ran over and helped pull his friend off Josh, although part of him wanted to join in. He could see security making their way over and he looked down to assess the damage. Josh was holding his bleeding nose and was hunched in pain in the middle, but as far as Logan could tell he looked like he would live. He looked up to see that security had arrived with a ton of questions on their lips, but Dick was nowhere to be found.

Mac had seen enough and had requested a cab on her phone app before she was even halfway out the door. As though having her best friend and entourage witness her supposed boyfriend cheating in public wasn't humiliating enough, she got to add Dick stepping in like he was some kind of goddamn romantic movie hero to her memory. She didn't condone violence, but as far as she was concerned they could both get kicked out or arrested or whatever because she didn't want to see either of them again anytime soon. He had some fucking nerve, abandoning her like she was just some random piece of ass not even worthy of a fucking goodbye, we should not do this again some time, and then acting like he was so much better than her shitty, cheating boyfriend. Maybe they would get stuck in lockup together, that might make her feel a little better.

She didn't get her wish though. As soon as Logan had pulled Dick off Josh he had scanned the room for Mac, imagining her broken and in tears, in need of his comforting embrace. Truthfully he hadn't been trying to impress her or anything, he had just been overcome with rage that this idiot would have treated Mac like that. Still, when he saw her exiting the building he knew it was more important to be by her side than to worry about this asshat.

"Mac! Hey, wait up. Mac!" Dick shouted to her retreating form in the parking lot but she didn't slow down. His long legs rushed to meet up with hers, and he took her by the arm and spun her so they were face to face. "Hey, are you ok?"

"What the hell is wrong with you Dick," Mac yelled while trying to hold back tears. Her whole body was shaking, but her angry stance made it clear she didn't want any comfort from him.

"What? What are you talking about? That guy's an asshole Mac, I wasn't going to just stand there and let some dude hurt you like that!" Dick didn't understand how he was the bad guy here, Josh definitely had it coming.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize hurting me was an exclusive club just for Casablancas men," she struggled to hold back tears. "Well don't worry Dick, your membership is still clean because he didn't hurt me, he was about to get dumped and probably knew it and I don't give a shit about him anyway. Lucky me, you got to hurt me bad enough Josh doesn't even rank." Her attempts to control her voice and her tears were failing. "I thought you… I thought we were at least friends. I never thought another guy would just abandon me like that… alone... naked..." her voice wavered and weakened. "Especially not… How could you do that?" It was now just a whisper, and the tears came freely.

Dick stood in shock. Sure, he knew he had fucked up, but he had never really compared the situation to what happened with Cassidy. He had never considered that she would think about it that way. He had no defense, an apology for something so huge just seemed absurd.

Mac's cab showed up and she climbed in wordlessly, firmly looking in the opposite direction of Dick once she got settled. Dick knocked on the driver's window and handed him a fifty. "Make sure she gets in ok." The driver nodded and pulled off, leaving Dick standing alone in the street.

As soon as they arrived home Veronica said she was exhausted and headed to bed. Dick looked at Logan, "Hey man, wanna hit the xbox?" Of course, what Logan really wanted to do was crawl in bed with his girlfriend and see if he could convince her to stay up a bit longer for some one on one action, but something about Dick's tone told him this wasn't just a request for late night gaming.

"Yeah, sounds good. I'll grab some beers."

Dick was into beer number two and his character had died five times before he spoke. "I slept with Mac," he said, his voice low and monotone, almost as though he hoped Logan wouldn't realize what he was saying.

Logan was glad his mouth wasn't full of beer as he quickly turned to Dick, eyes wide. "Jesus Dick." He wasn't an idiot, he knew something had been up with the two of them but he just figured Dick had a little crush, or maybe some weird Beaver related thing had happened. Definitely not this.

"Yeah, I know." Dick gave up on the game and settled into the couch with a long sigh.

"When?" Dick didn't look at him; instead he focused intently on his beer.

"I don't know, about six months ago? We were out celebrating something Ronnie did, and you guys left and we were just having a good time together. She let me crash at her place and…" he trailed off while raising his eyebrows, assuming Logan could figure out the rest.

"Damn." Logan's brain was still trying to catch up. "So, how was it?" Dick finally looked up.

"Awesome. Some of my best work if I do say so myself." He gave Logan his usual leer but quickly looked back down, his face dropping.

"And how did you guys leave it?" Logan tried a leading question, sensing that Dick wanted to talk about it but was reluctant to get to the troubling stuff.

And there it was, the part Dick was dreading. The main reason he hadn't told Logan sooner. "Well, uh, I sort of left."

Logan rolled his eyes, "Yeah but did you guys talk at all first?" Dick looked down, embarrassed.

"Well I said I was going to get coffee, and then I got to the coffee place and, I don't know, I just freaked out. Like I started thinking about you and Ronnie and what a fucking whiny little bitch you turn into every time she dumps you, and I just was like, damn I don't want to be like that. And let's face it, we both know Mac wouldn't put up with me for very long. And if I'm all watching Grey's Anatomy and sniveling all over the couch who's gonna braid your hair and mop up your tears when Ronnie dumps you again, huh? Anyway, I just came here and passed out."

Logan swallowed hard to hold his tongue during Dick's trash talking, seeing as the guy was clearly going through some shit. "Dude, that's really…. really bad," he said quietly.

"Don't you think I know that?" Dick's voice cracked a little when he responded. "I'm not exactly proud or anything." He bent over and rubbed his eyes.

"Did you apologize? Did you guys talk about it after at all?" Logan was shocked they had managed to get along these past few months if what Dick said was true, although he could definitely remember some times when Mac was not pleased to be in the same room as him.

"Yeah well I texted her that I was sorry that night, but she didn't seem very happy about that."

"You TEXTED her?"

"Well what was I gonna say? Thanks for letting me crash at your place. Sorry I fucked you and ditched you like a two dollar hooker." Dick chugged his beer and got up to get a new one.

"Does Veronica know?" Logan asked as Dick returned with a fresh bottle.

"I assume not, seeing as how she hasn't tazed me in the nut sack yet. Whatever, Mac said she wanted to pretend it never happened, and that's what I was trying to do until she went off on me tonight."

"What'd she say? Was she pissed you punched Josh? At least now I get why you went so crazy over it." Dick rolled his eyes. What was crazy was that the asshole was able to walk away, if Logan hadn't stopped him…

"I don't know, she was saying that like he didn't hurt her, that I'm the one that hurt her and basically she totally hates me." Dick closed his eyes with a long sigh. There it was.

Logan was quiet for a while. "So, how do you feel about her?" Dick looked at him in disbelief.

"Like that fucking matters. Did you hear the part where she totally hates me?"

"Yeah, I heard you Dick, and in my experience it's the people we care about that can hurt us the most. If she really wanted to forget what happened she wouldn't be so pissed you took off. But if she's still that upset 6 months and a boyfriend later then it probably means she has some feelings for you." Logan explained it as simply as he could.

"Yeah," Dick snorted. "Feelings of hate."

"Listen man," Logan looked at Dick seriously. "First off, you have got to apologize. In person. To her face. And tell her what you're sorry for, don't just be like sorry, see you later. Then, you should just man up and tell her how you feel, figure out some way to get her to forgive you."

Dick was shaking his head. "She's not gonna dude. She super hates me."

"Do you wanna be with her?"

"It's not really up to me. I could do all this shit, try to make her forgive me and what if she still hates me? What if I keep trying and it doesn't even matter?" Logan couldn't remember ever hearing Dick sound so beat up over a girl.

"You have to apologize, Dick. And as for the rest, well it just comes down to whether or not she's worth it." Dick sat silent for a few minutes, finishing his beer. Logan couldn't really tell if he was thinking, or had just run out of words to say about it. Suddenly, Dick put down his beer and jumped up, looking around the room until he found his shoes which he began to put on. "What are you doing man?"

Dick looked up. "Going to apologize. Duh."

Logan got up from the couch and walked toward him "Dick, it's almost 1 in the morning. Wait until tomorrow." Dick looked like he might protest, so Logan stood in front of him until he took his shoes off.

"Whatever." Dick lumbered off to his room while Logan stayed behind, wondering how the hell he was going to keep this from Veronica.