A.N About the calling thing. I wrote that they couldn't call because their batteries had died. I'm sorry. I should have clarified that their cell phone batteries had died. I have edited that line so thank you irma66 and nikatsu for mentioning that.
Thank you for the reviews, I also hate it when things get in the way of LoVe but doesn't angst make fluff sweeter?
When Monday came, Veronica was determined to act normal. That didn't mean her heart agreed with her. It ached when she spotted Logan or Yolanda in the crowd, she just needed some time away from them.
Unfortunately that plan hadn't exactly panned out as well as she'd hoped. And she had gotten confronted in the form of a note. Why didn't the stupid teachers care that students were sending notes in the class? Where were their hawk eyes when she needed them?
Veronica sighed, opened the note and read, Did I do something wrong? Why is Lilly giving me the cold shoulder?
She bit her lip and dismissed the claim, She's probably just busy.
Busy giving me the cold shoulder.
The blonde looked at the clock and willed for the bell to ring so she wouldn't have to answer, alas, her wishes were not granted. She swallowed and scribbled, Yolanda, really, it's not you.
Is this the breaking up speech? Veronica, please, just tell me.
She took in a deep breath. She couldn't keep giving Yolanda flimsy excuses like Lilly had intended. When Veronica had told her to leave it be, her best friend clearly couldn't. Instead Lilly said that she was okay with Yolanda just thinking that she was a bitch. With a sigh, she wrote, Can we talk at lunch? I really need to concentrate, Ms Murphy is famous for her spot tests.
Okay but Veronica, I really don't want to screw it up here.
When lunch came, Veronica had gave Yolanda a helpless look and said that she needed to get to the pep squad meeting because they were hosting a car wash after school. Yolanda sighed, and pleaded with Veronica to call her when she was done.
Veronica felt guilty for brushing of the girl but she really didn't want to get into it. She sighed. After the car wash, she'd tell Yolanda why and maybe then Lilly could understand that Yolanda hadn't broke the bonds of friendship.
Of all the things that Veronica had prepared herself to face today, Norris Clayton waiting for her at the car wash after school was not one of them.
"Hey, Veronica," he greeted with a nervous smile.
She politely smiled back, a look of curiosity filling her features. "Hey, Norris."
"So," he drawled out and rubbed the back of his head. "I just wanted to ask you if you have a date to the spring formal."
Her eyebrows shot up in surprise at the question. "No, no one's asked but I'm pining away by the phone waiting for that special someone to call," she joked trying to ease the awkward atmosphere they'd somehow seemed to have created.
"I was wondering," he took in a breath. "Would you wanna maybe go with me?"
Her eyes widened slightly and her mouth opened in surprise. She should have suspected that he wanted to ask her with his leading question but lately everyone seemed to be asking her about that stupid dance. It was this Friday and she didn't have a date. A part of her hadn't been freaking out because she let herself believe that maybe Logan would ask her (Thanks to her two blondes friends) but obviously Logan would go with Yolanda.
"Really?" She asked, somewhat doubtful that he really wanted to go with her.
"Yeah," his lips curved into a smile.
"Oh. Um." She bit her lip and then smiled at him. "Sure."
"Really?" He blinked surprised at her acceptance of his offer.
Veronica chuckled, surprised at his reaction. "Uhm, yeah." It wasn't like anyone else asked her out and Norris was generally nice to her.
The squad leader called for all the girls attention and Veronica politely waved him off. Minutes later, after Veronica had been assigned her car, Lilly pranced in with a grin.
Lilly grabbed a washcloth and smacked Veronica's butt, the petite blonde laughed and teasingly remarked, "God Lilly, I see the Prozac's working."
Lilly's grin widened, she rounded in front of Veronica and happily chirped, "High on life, Veronica Mars. I've got a secret, a good one." Veronica smiled at Lilly's brighter attitude and she couldn't help but respond with equal enthusiasm. "And I totally saw you talking with tall, dark and handsome," Lilly waggled her eyebrows. "Spill, Veronica Mars."
The petite blonde continued to scrub the windshield, shrugged and said, "His name is Norris. He asked me to the dance."
"Girls, less talk and more scrub," the squad leader announced.
Lilly rolled her eyes at the older girl and smiled at her best friend. "You're coming over after, right?"
"Yeah," Veronica nodded.
Lilly beamed and said, "Later."
Duncan was relaxing on the sofa with ten-pin bowling playing on TV. Lilly scrunched her nose. "Yo, bro. How can you watch this crap? It could be not be more boring."
She snatched the remote from him and switched the channel. Duncan groaned, "I was watching that."
"I don't care," she shrugged and continued to flip through the channels.
"Where's Veronica?" Duncan asked. If Veronica was here, then at least Lilly would leave him be. Logan was seated on the one-seater and his ears perked up at the name.
Lilly's eyes narrowed on Logan. And then she grinned. "She had prior engagements, if you know what I mean," she waggled her eyebrows.
Logan's frowned at her tone and Duncan quizzed, "What do you mean?"
"Let's just say Stella isn't the only one that got her groove back." At their unamused looks, she rolled her eyes and gave them the scoop, "So this guy, Norris, asked her to the dance. Finally, right? 'Cause my girl is just too hot to fly solo." Lilly bounced off, satisfied with Logan's upset look.
Logan's frown deepened, he turned to Duncan and asked, "Who the fuck is Norris?" Duncan let out a heavy sigh and threw his hands up.
"Hey Yolanda," Veronica greeted her with a small smile when the door opened.
Yolanda's eyes widened in surprise and then a smile appeared on her lips and let the blonde in. "Veronica, I wasn't sure you'd come."
"We're friends, Yolanda," she gave her a half smile as she walked in.
The brunette sighed. "Then why was Lilly acting like I'm invisible woman?"
Veronica bit her lip but decided on honesty was the best policy. "Lilly lives by her own weird rules. It's really not your fault. She's just being my best friend."
Yolanda's brows furrowed, she couldn't recall doing anything wrong. "What do you mean?"
"It's stupid, really." Veronica offered an attempted smile. "At Logan's party-"
"The party you and Lilly ditched," Yolanda continued with a quirked eyebrow.
She sighed and shook her head. "We didn't ditch. We just arrived later than expected." She took in a breath. "And I walked in on you and Logan kissing."
Confusion settled under Yolanda's brown eyes. "Yeah? So?"
"Like I said, it's not your fault," the blonde assured her and wrecked her brain to find a way to explain the situation. She sighed once again and sort Yolanda's eyes out. "But I liked Logan," she admitted.
Yolanda's mouth opened but Veronica stopped her and continued her monologue, "And I'm not saying this because I want you to back off or anything. I just wanted you to understand that Lilly's acting this way because it's her way of standing by me. She's my best friend and she just makes impulse decisions without any perspective. She's just doing this because she loves me. And that's why I know she'll come around because I don't blame you. And this was about me and not about her." Veronica stopped to take a breath. "I'm sorry that you got caught up in this. My friends tend to blow things way out of proportion."
"You told me that you weren't dating, Veronica, if you'd just told me, I wouldn't have done anything," Yolanda softly said. She let out a sigh and offered Veronica an explanation, "It's not like I'm into Logan. I was just blowing off some steam and he was there. And we were drunk. I was drunk. Logan was really drunk."
"So you and Logan aren't-"
"No," she hurriedly interrupted. "I thought that maybe you weren't into him," she gave the blonde a pointed look as a reminder of the notes. "But he's totally into you. You're all he talked about."
A heavy sigh escaped Veronica and she shook her head in confusion. "I don't understand, though. Why'd he kiss you if he likes me?"
"I'm not going to pretend to understand boys because I really don't but from what I gathered he thinks you don't like him because you didn't come to his party."
Veronica's brow's creased, she didn't entirely believe Yolanda's words because it made no sense. To clear the air between them, Veronica jokingly said, "If that's the reason, he's an idiot. A melodramatic idiot."
Yolanda let out a breath and smiled, "I'm just glad we're okay, Veronica."
Veronica returned her smile and nodded.
When Veronica arrived at the Kane Estate, she'd sighed at the yellow monstrosity that Logan adored. She bit her lip and almost wanted to call her father back. But Lilly had been eager to spill her secret. So she sucked in a breath and entered the lion's den.
She'd hoped that she didn't run into Logan. She didn't know what to say to him. It's not like he was obliged to give her any explanation for kissing Yolanda. They weren't anything other than friends. He probably didn't know that she even liked him. She shook here head. She really did not want to think about this.
As she made a turn for the staircase and bumped right into Logan. "Whoa," he steadied her.
She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to compose herself. Logan stared at her. He'd been so mad that she'd ditched him last night. Everything had been so perfect. He'd been so excited to show her his surprise and confess that he's crazy about her and she just didn't show up.
At the time, he'd convinced himself it was because she didn't like him and was out with some other guy with Lilly. And he'd drunk himself into a giant mess. And he couldn't for the life of him remember anything other than the fact that Veronica wasn't there.
It was only after Duncan pointed out to him that he'd never told Veronica the significance of showing up that Logan had re-evaluated his thought process. He'd asked her to come, wasn't that significant enough? If she liked him as much as he liked her, shouldn't she want to spend time with him? So shouldn't she have been there? And shouldn't she have said no to whatever loser asked her to the dance?
"So," he swallowed. "Heard you were going to the dance with some guy named Borris."
She took in a breath, nodded and corrected him, "Norris. Yes."
His eyes bore into hers and she shifted uncomfortable under his gaze. "So he asked you to the dance and you just said yes?"
"That's how it generally works," she remarked. And in that moment she annoyed at Logan. Why was he talking to her like that? Like she wronged him? If anyone wronged anyone, it'd be him. "And in case you didn't noticed no one else has asked me," she grimly replied.
He resisted the urge to yell out that he was going to ask her. "So you just said yes to the first person that asked you?"
She clenched her jaw and said, "It's Friday. How long was I supposed to wait? And he's actually nice to me and he actually seemed excited to go with me."
"I bet," he gritted through his teeth.
Exhausted and frustrated, she snapped, "What is your problem?"
"Nothing," he stoically claimed. "Have fun at the dance with Borris."
"Norris," she corrected him. "You're not coming to the dance?" Her eyes watched him curiously
"Nope," he briskly remarked and headed up the stairs to Duncan's room.
When Lilly reached Veronica at the bottom of the stairs, she gestured to Logan and asked, "What's his problem?"
Veronica had officially exhausted all her thoughts on the subject of her and Logan so she shrugged. She took the baking book from Lilly's hand as they walked to the kitchen, she flipped through the pages and pointed to the cookies. "So what's your poison, Kane? Chocolate or Vanilla?"
Her green eyes lit up and she dreamily said, "You know how much I love chocolate Ronica."
She smiled at her best friend and quizzed, "So what's this about a secret?"
Lilly grinned and began to tell her best friend about her latest exploits. Veronica's gawked at her friend, "You're seeing Weevil?"
When Veronica had left, Lilly walked into the lounge and saw Logan on the couch. She arched an eyebrow and smirked. From behind, she smacked his head and let out, "Whoops."
Logan's head moved forward and he growled, "What is wrong with you?"
"Me?" She arched an eyebrow. "The only thing wrong with me is that there's an idiot breathing in my air."
His eyes narrowed on her and he told her, "If you have something to say to me, say it."
"Okay," she said. Her eyes grew hard as she stared at him. "You're an obligatory self-sabotaging jackass who needs to wake up and see that you're hurting the best thing that ever happened to you. Now if you were anyone else I'd throw you out and tell you to stay away from my best friend but you're not just anyone else. You're Logan Echolls. You're in the limited pile of people that I care about. And more importantly you're the guy that Veronica cares about."
When he opened his mouth to make a remark, Lilly immediately stopped him and continued, "Contrary to what your dipshit brain thinks, we didn't ditch your stupid party. We were stuck in stupid traffic and even though we could have totally blown of your party, Veronica didn't want to. Veronica, the girl that's always, always been there for you. And even if we had missed your party you can't make stupid judgments based on one stupid freaking event. Because that's just stupid. Okay? Now at the risk of your dumb boy words killing any more of my brain cells you're going to tell me why you kissed Yolanda. "
Logan's eyes widened with shock and he denied, "What? I didn't kiss Yolanda."
Her green eyes pierced him with a deathly glare. "I'm gonna smack you on your head again, Echolls. Veronica saw you kiss Yolanda."
"What?" He swallowed. He wrecked his brain but he couldn't remember a thing. "That night's kinda fuzzy. I know you guys didn't show up and then..."
Lilly let out a heavy sigh of exasperation. "Well, congratulations, you're the world's biggest douche and you hurt the best person in the world because you're an idiot. And you wanna know something else? She didn't want you to know any of this because she didn't want you to get hurt. She didn't want you to have to deal with the fact that you hurt her."
Veronica fell onto her bed and sighed. She was so tired and she just wanted to sleep. But does the world let her have what she wants? No. She looked up when the door opened and her mother looked at her cheerily. Veronica gave her a smile but her smile soon faded when her mother chirped, "So did you get asked to the dance?"
She really hated that topic. Anything else and she'd be fine. With a sigh and gave her mother a nod. She should feel happy that she'd gotten asked but she didn't.
"Was it Logan?" Her mother guessed.
She felt like crying out in frustration at the sound of his name. Stupid, Logan. Why'd he have to complicate everything? She swallowed and said, "Mom, is this the face of a girl that's going to the dance with a boy that she has feelings for?"
Lianne pouted, thoroughly confused. "Why would you say yes to someone you didn't want to go with, honey? That doesn't make any sense."
"Beats going alone," she shrugged. What was she supposed to do anyway? It's not like she was asked by the boy that she wanted to be asked by. Maybe it would have been better if she'd made up some excuse and not attended the dance at all.
"I thought Logan was going to ask you," the blonde woman patted her daughter's head soothingly.
Veronica blew out a breath and stared at the ceiling. "Apparently, he's not going."
"How come?" Lianne curiously asked.
She sighed and turned her head in the direction of her mother. "I don't know. But I do know that I would have known if there wasn't this weird shift in the universe in which I have feelings for one of my best friends."
Her mother frowned and quizzed, "Did you ask him?"
Exhausted with her life and the conversation, she huffed out, "No! He's acting weird."
Lianne quirked an eyebrow, somewhat amused at her usually calm, cool and collected daughter act otherwise. "Well, maybe that's because the girl he likes is going to the dance with some other boy. Who is this other boy, by the way?"
She bit her lip, she knew that her mother's assessment wasn't at all correct. If it was, why did he kiss Yolanda Hamilton? She squeezed her eyes shut. "Norris."
A crease line appeared on Lianne's forehead as she tried to place a face to the name, failing to, she asked, "Who's that?"
Veronica pealed her eyes opened and informed her, "He's a boy from my class."
She nodded and said, "Your father will want to meet with him."
"Yeah," the petite blonde blew out a breath. "I know." She buried her face in her pillow
Lianne gave her a sympathetic smile and empathetically asked, "Would lasagna for dinner make you feel any better?"
Veronica peeked at her mother. "Maybe."
The blonde woman smiled and added, "And a sundae for dessert?"
A smile crossed Veronica's face and she claimed, "I will love you forever."
Lianne chuckled at her daughter and pulled her into a comforting hug.
A.N Sorry, Magnifly, I already had Norris written in. Because, well, Logan might have all the 09ers wrapped around his finger but Norris isn't an 09er. And I kinda mentioned that Casey's going with Darcy. I love Casey too though. Maybe in another story?
