Veronica smiled into the mirror. Two weeks until graduation. Two weeks until she could never again be cornered in the ladies’ of Neptune High with that old familiar refrain. She sighed and turned, sizing up the girl that stood before her. Amazing, she’d always though she was the shortest girl at Neptune, but nope, this chick seriously had her beat. Talk about tiny, she was like a bird.
“I was about to close up shop, but hey, what’s one more for old times sake? What’s your name, kid?”
“Manda. Manda Jimeson. I’m a freshman, so you probably don’t know me, but I heard you helped people. And I can pay you.” Her face was open and earnest as she spoke.
Veronica cocked her head to the side and snapped her fingers. “Hey, wait, the Navigator did a story on you last month, didn’t they? You’re the ice skater.”
Manda nodded and flushed slightly. “That was when I won the junior regionals.”
“Well, congratulations to you. But I have to warn you, if you’re looking for tips, my triple toe loop’s pretty much non-existent,” Veronica said.
“Oh no, it’s not about skating. Well, it is,” Manda shifted her large athletic duffle bag nervously to her other shoulder. “But not like that. I think that someone’s trying to sabotage me.”
Veronica raised an eyebrow. “Sabotage you? How?”
Manda pulled the zipper of her duffel open and pulled out a white figure skate, handing it to Veronica. “See the blade? Someone loosened it. If I’d been skating with that on . . .” she trailed off with a shudder. “Well, let’s just say I could kiss any shot at nationals goodbye.”
Veronica took the skate and felt the wobble in the blade. “So what makes you think you don’t just need a new pair of skates? Why suspect someone’s trying to sabotage you?”
Manda took the skate back and stuffed it in her bag. “It’s the third pair I’ve found with a loose blade in the last two weeks. And I always discover it after I practice at the Neptune Ice House.”
“Are you the only one who practices there?”
Manda shook her head. “It’s the only ice in Neptune, so unless you want to drive into San Diego, all the competitive ice skaters practice there every day.”
“There are other ice skaters in Neptune?” Veronica asked.
“Well, lots of people skate at the Ice House, they have like a Friday night couple skate and little kids classes during the week, but the rinks reserved for training in the early morning and late at night. Besides myself, Crissie Enbom and Jenny Truman train there.”
“So you think it might be one of them trying to Tonya Harding you?”
Manda shrugged. “I don’t know. I didn’t think Crissie and Jenny would do anything like that. We’ve been training together for years and we’re all friends. But, I did beat Crissie at regionals, and she’s been quiet about it ever since.”
“Okay. Well, I’ll see what I can do, Manda. When do you practice again?”
Manda smiled. “5:00 am. Tomorrow morning.”
Veronica grimaced at the thought of rising at that hour. She’d take a late-night stake out at the Camelot any day. She forced a smile. “Okay, then. 5:00 am. I’ll do some checking around.”
“Thank you, Veronica.”
As the bathroom door swung closed behind Manda, the door to one of the stalls swung open.
“I just love ice skating, don’t you, Veronica?” Logan batted his eyes at her as he crossed to the bathroom door and slid the wooden stopper in place. “The smell of the ice, the—“
“Logan, you do know you’re in the girls’ bathroom? Again?” Veronica asked.
He mock gasped. “A boy in the girl’s bathroom? Why, that’s so wrong. So wrong it’s right, hmmm, sugarpuss?”
She frowned at him. “What do you need, Logan?”
“Well, my needs can certainly wait when a future champion ice skater is in danger.” He grinned. “Guess who had a key to the girls’ locker room at the Neptune Ice House?”
“Perv much, Logan?” she asked as she washed her hands and finished drying them, avoiding his gaze.
He shook his head. “Your high opinion is one of the few things that keeps me going when the days are darkest. But no, Trina went through an ice princess phase after one too many repeat viewings of The Cutting Edge, and insisted she wanted to be a skater. The lessons with the private instructor didn’t last all that long, after she figured out cute hockey players didn’t really come with the package.” He laughed, “Also, Trina has no athletic ability, whatsoever. She had a bruised ass for weeks.”
“And?”
He smiled. “And, she never turned back in her keys. Which just happened to be in the fire proof safe where we kept all the spare keys. Hence, my non-perverted possession.”
Veronica nodded. “Very well, Logan. Can I borrow them?”
Logan raised an eyebrow. “Did I offer to lend you the keys? Hmmm, let me think. No, I don’t think I did.”
“Fine,” Veronica smiled sweetly as she knocked the stopper from beneath the door. “You can come with. I’ll pick you up at 4:00. Tomorrow morning. Bye, Logan.”
_______________________________
Veronica stifled another yawn as she pulled into the lot of the Neptune Grande. Why had she agreed to let Logan help again? She could probably pick the locks at the rink, it would just take a while longer.
Maybe it had something to do with his persistence. He’d been popping up lately on a regular basis, unusually friendly and well, nice, almost like a pod Logan. Ever since he’d had the manslaughter charges dropped and Hannah’s father had sent her to boarding school in Vermont, he’d been different. Like he was trying to turn over a new leaf.
And it was seriously freaking her out.
She wasn’t sure what to make of it all. And worst of all, she’d realized she was spending way too much time thinking about it. And him. And them.
And then there were the dreams. She blushed slightly. She’d awoken in a sweat this morning with a particularly vivid image of Logan putting his tongue to good use stuck in her head. Definite NC-17 territory, but then charming Logan was a hell of a lot harder to resist than jackass Logan, and a girl had needs.
She took a sip of coffee, sighing as the caffeine seeped into her system, and watched Logan exit the front of the hotel. She’d made her peace with Duncan and their past, so why couldn’t she do the same with Logan?
“Morning.” She handed him the second cup as he slid blearily into the passenger seat. “And no, we are not taking your car.”
He took a grateful sip. “Good morning to you too, sunshine.”
_______________________________
“So this is it?”
He nodded. “You’ve never been ice-skating here?”
Veronica turned the ignition off as she pulled behind the building. “Once. Lilly had that skating birthday party in seventh grade, remember? But I’ve totally blocked it from my memory. Too traumatic.” She gave a little shiver.
“Oh, that’s the one where you tripped and fell on top of Duncan.” Logan chuckled. “He already had a crush on you then, you know.”
“I didn’t actually.” She chuckled. “I just thought I’d proven my klutziness and he’d never look at me again.”
“You should have known better than that. You’re hard to forget, Veronica Mars.” His voice was low in the quiet of the car, the world still dark around them and she felt something warm start to unfurl inside her at his words. She started to respond when Logan opened the car door and broke the moment. “Guess we’d better get in there.”
She followed as Logan made his way to a side door and fumbled with a key ring. “This was the entrance Trina always used. It leads into the hallway where the practice rooms are.” He flipped through the keys until he found a brass one with IH engraved on it. “This should be it.” He slid the key inside and the lock tumbled open.
“Damn, that was easy.” Veronica grinned. “You were totally worth that cup of coffee, Echolls. Let’s go.”
The pair eased into the darkened hallway as Veronica shone her thin flashlight until they found the doorway marked Women and pushed inside. Lockers lined the walls of the green tiled room divided by wooden benches. She scanned the room, before settling on a framed poster from the 2002 Salt Lake City Games. “This should work. Here, hold the light.”
“What are we doing?”
“Manda thinks someone’s sabotaging her skates during practice. There’s nowhere to hide in here, so we’ll let this little beauty be our eyes.”
She pulled out a tiny camera transmitter from her bag and carefully attached it in the corner of the frame, where it blended into the poster’s kaleidoscope of colors.
She spotted a door to the side and found that the handle turned easily in her hand. “Excellent. Now we hide and wait.” She pulled open the door, expecting a closet of cleaning supplies and gasped.
Behind her, she heard Logan give an excited whistle as he hurried past her. “A Zamboni! I’ve always wanted to drive one of these.”
Veronica rubbed her head as she watched Logan dash into the shadows of what was clearly the bay off the ice where the Ice House stored their Zamboni and hissed after him, “Logan, we have to be quiet, remember, undercover here?”
He peered down from atop the Zamboni and whispered loudly. “Come up here, it’s so fucking cool.”
She shivered at the chill of the ice that drifted through the plastic strips which blocked the ice rink from review and hid the huge ice resurfacer. “Fucking cool, alright. More like freezing.” She hadn’t planned on being on the rink, and her tank top and shorts, appropriate for the May heat outside, weren’t offering much warmth.
She circled the huge machine and took Logan’s hand as he pulled her up onto the seat beside him, trying to suppress another shiver.
“Are you cold, Veronica?” Logan asked.
“A little. It’s fine. I’ll be fine,” she repeated as she rubbed her arms to quell the goosebumps that had sprung up.
He stared at her intently as he rested his arms on the steering wheel. “I could get you hot.”
She froze mid-rub. That was what dream Logan had said last night, right before he’d slid his hand up her thigh. She swallowed hard. “What?”
Logan looked at her oddly. “I said, I could warm you up? Huddle together, conserve body heat, purely for humanitarian reasons, of course.”
“Oh.” Veronica laughed a little. “I thought you said . . . something else.”
“What was that?” Logan asked.
Veronica laughed. “Oh, nothing.”
He slung his arm around her and pulled her closer on the seat, and she allowed herself to relax against him. She did feel warmer, and, she glanced at her watch, they still had a while before anyone showed up to practice.
Logan seemed to be as drowsy as she was, because the silence between them continued as she felt her eyes start to drift shut.
“Veronica?”
“Mhhmm,” she muttered.
“What did you think I said?”
“That you’d get me hot, like you did last night,” she replied sleepily. And then jolted upright as she realized what had just slipped out.
She turned to find a very amused Logan grinning at her from the seat. “Have you been dreaming about me, Mars?”
She scowled as she turned red. “Don’t be ridiculous, Logan, I--”
She was cut off as Logan rose from the seat and captured her mouth in a kiss that made her toes curl. Her fingers curled in his shirt as his arms slid down her back and lifted her to sit on the top of the Zamboni.
She really should stop him, stop them, but his lips were dancing their way down her throat and she could feel her body completely melting as he found the spot beneath her left ear that always made her whimper when he kissed it.
“Logan . . .”
“Tell me you don’t want this, Veronica,” He pressed his lips back to hers, before pulling back. “Tell me I don’t get you hot, and I’ll stop right now.”
Veronica opened her mouth and found nothing coming out. “Fuck it,” she muttered as she pulled him back to her.
His fingers were quick to press their advantage as he slid up her tank top and replaced the rush of cool air against her skin with his warm mouth. She slid her fingers in his hair as he switched from one barely covered breast to the other, teasing her nipples into hard points.
She laid back at his urging and shuddered as his fingers traced down her stomach and dipped slowly beneath the waistband of her shorts, before he unfastened the button and pulled the zipper down. He had her shorts and panties halfway down her legs before she even registered what he was doing and she had to bite her lip to muffle the moan that threatened to escape as she felt his tongue slowly tracing up her thigh.
Her dreams didn’t do his justice she realized, as he reached his destination and began to lick and suck her towards ecstasy. She could feel her body tensing as he sank a finger inside, timing his thrusts to the swirl of his tongue. She scrambled for purchase, finally finding something to rest her foot against as she grabbed his hand, holding on tightly as her body began to shake. It felt as though his hands were everywhere as once as she closed her eyes and threw her head back, muffling her mouth with her free hand as she came hard around his fingers.
She’d heard people describe sex in terms of the earth moving before, but she’d never felt it until now she realized, as she slumped, entirely blissed out and eyes still closed, on the top of the Zamboni. She heard Logan start to laugh and she slowly raised her head to find them in the middle of the Neptune Ice Rink, the early morning light filtering though the high windows.
She pulled her shirt down frantically as she sat up, looking around. “What happened?”
Logan was still laughing. “I think you kicked the brake off and we rolled out of the bay.”
Veronica looked at him, and then started snorting with laughter herself. “And here I was about to chalk the earth moving up to your prowess,” she giggled as she struggled to right her shorts.
Logan stopped her straightening and gave her that look, that one that always made her stomach free fall with possibilities. “Are you willing to give me a second chance to prove that I can do that for you? No Zambonis needed?”
She looked at him for a long moment and gave a little shrug as she smiled. “I suppose everyone deserves a second chance. Now, let's go catch the bad guy.”
Logan dropped a quick kiss on her lips as he started the Zamboni and Veronica settled next to him. Maybe ice rinks weren't so bad after all.