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“Oh my god, you guys, it’s been too long!” Parker Lee squeals as she enthusiastically elbows her way through the last group of late-afternoon bar-hopping college-age girls blocking her way back to the high-top table, and happily deposits the tray of multicolored shots, she’d procured for the assembled ladies.
This was a journey Parker had made several times already that afternoon, and the atmosphere at the table was loosening up, rapidly coming in line with the overall feel of the beachfront bar Mac had chosen for the unofficial reunion, taking place due to Parker's presence in Neptune for a kindergarten teachers' convention.
Comrade Quack's, the ‘young-beach-going-crowds’ current party place of choice, was Viby but not insane on this Saturday afternoon, making conversation challenging, but not impossible.
While Parker enthusiastically distributed the latest round, Veronica Mars found herself distracted, eyeing the four-piece band setting up in the back corner with askance.
The carefully curated grungy look of the group was giving the woman mild PSTD flashbacks to the earnest conversations Piz would try and have with her about whatever band he’d been obsessing about at the time.
All it was going to take was one floppy haired wanna be rock god yelling out, ‘Neptune are you ready to Rock!” and she was outta there! She decided.
In fact, her ‘outta there’ was already in place; she remembers with relief.
As much as she liked Parker, there was only so much overt optimism that Veronica could deal with in one day. So, in true Veronica Mars style, she’d pre-arranged an out, dragging Alecia along with her as her get-out-of-jail-free card and extracting a promise from Logan, and failing him, Wallace, to pick them up no later than five or face the consequences!
Although, if Veronica was honest, her stepmom looked like she was holding her own in the drinks department and, if left to her own devices, seemed inclined to throw down party-wise, possibly showing the young ins’ up in the process!
Shae, while not a Hearst alum, being a Vegas girl at heart, had leapt at the chance to let down her hair and get her day drink on, and had readily attached herself to the group outing, quickly acclimatising to Parker’s brand of perky and tossing back shots with impressive efficiency.
To Veronica’s practised eye, it looked like her BFF’s wife was enjoying herself, perhaps preparing for a day when getting away for a fun afternoon at a bar might be a thing of the past… in fact, Veronica knew she was, Wallace recently oversharing excitedly that they were starting to try for a baby.
“So, Veronica! How is married life?” Parker's voice penetrates the former PI’s mental calculations, meaning it’s finally her turn to be interrogated by the Mistress of Perkiness.
“I mean, Logan! I never thought that boy would settle down!” Parker exclaims teasingly, “Mac hinted at some big mystery about you two getting hitched!”
“What can I say, I made him a proposal he couldn’t refuse.” Veroncia chimes back in her mock godfather voice, forcing a smile on her face, wondering what Mac had shared, and surmising probably not much.
She knows Parker is just having fun, but she really isn’t in the mood for explaining the whole Gory – FIB - unexpected pregnancy – Castle -Kane skullduggery bit to anyone these days. As far as she’s concerned, that’s in the rearview mirror.
“And Logan, as a dad! Oh my god, I just about died when Mac told me!” Parker says happily. “He’d be so great! Is he? He is, isn’t he? I know it, he’s a great dad!” The bubbly blonde says, answering her own question without input from Veronica.
Looking over the tall woman’s shoulder, Veronica spots her rescue – six feet of rich, handsome and timely, just walked through the door.
“You can ask him yourself,” Veronica tells Parker with a smile, watching as Logan saunters casually through the younger crowd towards them, collecting interested glances of the female persuasion along the way.
“Good afternoon, ladies,” Logan says smoothly as he comes in earshot.
“Oh my God! Logan Echolls! Get over here and give me a hug!” Parker demands, pulling Veronica’s husband into an enthusiastic, non-sexual, bear hug.
“Parker Lee, always lovely to see you.” Logan charms, lightly returning the woman’s embrace.
“Oh, you flatterer you,” Parker says, giving his chest a playful slap and turning to Veronica, saying, “You’re one lucky lady!”
“Oh, I know it,” Veronica replies, a hint of sarcasm hiding her mild irritation at the other woman’s greeting.
Logan shoots her the ghost of a knowing smile. No one else might have picked up on his wife’s tone, but it’s not lost on him.
“Actually, I’m the lucky one,” Logan says, sliding his arm around the petite blonde, dropping a gentle kiss on her cheek.
“And don’t you forget it!” Veronica tells him, her faux stern tone at odds with the soft smile playing on her lips.
“Never,” Logan promises sweetly.
“Aww, you guys, you are so totally adorable! Aren’t they?” Parker squeals happily, punctuating her request for confirmation with an airy flick of manicured fingertips on Mac’s bicep.
“Disgustingly so,” Mac agrees. “You need Dick here to expound on the theory; he’s got all sorts of entertaining thoughts on the subject.”
“O. M. G, Dick Casablancas, the blonde dopy one? He’s still around, tell me more!” Parker insists, instantly diverted into continuing her deep dive into what had happened to the various Hearst students that had inhabited her orbit during her short sojourn at the college.
While Mac and Logan fill in some blanks for the interested woman, Mac coming to the table with practical information, while Logan adds colour to the stories with the more salacious details Parker so thrives on, Veronica allows her mind to wander, first over dinner plans, which she quickly dismisses; Logan would have that covered – he’s a good man, this one, she thinks with an internal smile - then onto the logistics for the following day's trip to the children’s museum with Rosie and Lily.
Veronica’s barely conscious of Logan’s flamboyant arm gestures next to her, as he entertains the table with another hilarious, and possibly libellous anecdote about Chip Diller, former Pi Sig, and an unfortunate incident with a circus clown, when the jarring sounds from the stage alerted her to the horrifying fact that the quad of douche bags on the stage were about to attempt their set with a rendition of NOFX’s ‘The Decline’.
Visions of the 18-minute-long sociopolitical critique of American society, and Piz’s enthusiastic analysis of said ‘work of art’, seared in her brain, Veronica swings decisively on her heel and heads purposefully to the rear of the room, with the sole purpose of saving everyone in the bar from suffering as she had.
Really, it’s a public service I’m doing, she tells herself, fixing the lead singer with a Jedi-like stare that the pimply guy couldn’t break, the concern in his eyes growing as a force of nature stormed closer, projecting her displeasure like a shield before her.
Noticing his missing bride a beat too late to question where she was off to, Logan might be a spy, but he still often feels that he’s a step behind Veronica. He tracks the determined blonde's passage across the bar, assessing the possible level of threat to life and limb - the band's life and limb, that is, if they fail to do Veronica’s bidding!
Deciding that it was too early in the day to be thrown out of a bar - the owner of Comrade Quacks looks like she is just as big a bad ass as Veronica - Logan excuses himself to the group and swiftly makes his way across the sticky wooden floor in a bid to prevent musical bloodshed.
The ladies watch as the brunette smoothly catches his wife’s arm, just before she reaches her quarry, spins her around to face him and then, as is their want, proceed to have a quiet but animated debate on the merits and potential unintended consequences that Veronica’s well-intentioned intervention could have.
“Wow, Veronica does not look happy!” Alacia chuckles quietly at Logan’s adroit thwarting of his wife’s mission.
“I’m stunned Veronica ever stops smiling!” Parker says, tipping back a shot of something red, adding, “With Logan’s big dick and those talented fingers, she's one lucky, and I’m betting, satisfied, girl!”
Unsurprisingly, this bold statement effectively stopped conversation at the table dead.
Leaning into the centre of the bar table and motioning the other three closer, Parker whispers conspiratorially. “Do you ever wonder how it works with those two?” She says, keeping her eyes firmly fixed on the couple across the room.
“They love each other, isn’t that how it works?” Shae asks tentatively, unsure of the etiquette when another woman casually brings up a friend’s husband’s penis in general conversation.
“No, silly, I mean, works, works. Like physically works,” Parker says with a pointed look. “I mean, Veronica’s tiny and Logan… well, Logan is NOT.” She says with meaning.
In the shocked silence following that unexpected announcement, Mac manages to stutter, “You slept with Logan?”
“God yes!” Is the unashamed reply.
“Why?” Mac strangles out, stunned; she’d never considered that Parker had actually gone all the way with Logan.
“Why? Because he was my boyfriend and because he was making me feel things over my clothes that other guys hadn’t when I was naked!” Parker shares candidly.
“The things that boy talked me into doing! Not to mention the things he taught me… Logan is flexible AND inventive, if you know what I mean!” Parker says with a cheeky giggle.
“No, seriously,” Parker says, completely misinterpreting the stunned looks turned on her. “There are no limits with Logan. Nothing’s taboo! That boy is up for anything and EVERYTHING,” she says confidentially.
“Ladies, you’ve not lived until a guy’s gone down on you on a sun lounger in broad daylight on a hotel balcony, all because you mentioned there was nothing good on TV! Woof, makes me hot just thinking it,” The tall blonde reminisces huskily, faux fanning herself.
“Actually, Logan was the best sex I had until Jason. And that’s only AFTER I trained Jason up,” Parker says frankly.
“Um…,” is the best Mac can offer in response. Shae and Alacia decide that, not knowing Parker, they weren’t qualified to weigh in.
“Shh, they’re coming back, act normal!” Parker says, “Don’t tell them what we’ve been talking about!” She shares unnecessarily.
“Oh, I think we can all agree on that”, Alecia says diplomatically.
“So, what did we miss?” Logan asks casually.
“Nothing interesting.”
“Really, coz Mac looks slightly nauseous,” Logan observes.
“Nope, all good here, buddy, just one shot too many,” Mac assures him, wishing with all her heart that she wasn’t now in firsthand possession of confirmation of those Neptune High girls' locker room rumours!
“Well, we’re heading off before my darling wife commits a musical homicide,” Logan says smoothly.
“I was only going to talk to them!” Veroncia defends crankily.
“Sure, you were Sugar Puss,” Logan says soothingly, keeping an arm casually draped around her shoulders.
“I was!”
“I believe you.” Logan grins at the affronted woman, who scowls back at him.
Ignoring his wife’s ire with an air of practised ease, Logan surveys the table.
“Would anyone like a lift home?” He poses.
A chorus of various versions of no comes from the collective who seem happy to settle in for the night, or at least until appetisers are required to soak up the booze.
“Have fun you two, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!” Parker says cheekily, giving them both one of her customary hugs goodbye.
“Try not to,” Logan says with a small grin and a quizzical look that’s based mainly on a quiet choking sound from Shae.
“Working with a wide scope and no net there, Parker,” Veronica quips back with a knowing smile.
The observant PI can always tell when a woman has been talking about fucking her husband (and why wouldn’t they!) – they get a horny, glazed glint in their eye – Parker is no exception.
Once it would have had Veronica reaching for piano wire, but now, she knows that while she might not have been Logan’s first, she’s sure as hell his last.
So, Veronica’s content to let sleeping exes lie, while she remains smug in the knowledge that not only has she been there, done that and got the T-shirt, she got the boy and his heart.
Strolling off, Logan whispers out of the corner of his mouth, “What was that about?”
“No idea.” Shrugs his bride, the ghost of a smile tugging at her lips, as the couple leave the funky bar vibes of Comrade Quacks and head out into another perfect SoCal evening.