Warmth From You

Veronica lifted her bare feet off the couch, where they'd been safely placed upon Duncan's thigh. She always had to be touching some part of him with some part of her. That was the nature of young love, not being able to move apart without one body part touching the other.

There is a longing that makes you believe your loved one would evaporate the moment you stood to leave to him or her.

Duncan reached forward, squeezing her hand, looking up from the movie for only a brief second of time to smile at her. She smiled back of course, teeth shining behind juicy, plump lips. Their fingers fell apart as she stepped further away from him and already mere feet from him she felt her heartstrings tugging, noisily inside her.

Veronica uttered a small, tempered goodbye as if she wouldn't be back minutes later. Lilly flashed her a disconcerting, annoyed look that caused her to go hurriedly on her way, following Logan into the Kane's kitchen.

Logan smelled like aftershave, and Lilly. Veronica knew both scents clearly and Logan wore them well.

They were rarely alone the two of them. Most of the their time together was filled up with Duncan and Lilly by their sides. They had English class together and sometimes when Logan bothered to show up, he sat next to her. They would give each other sidelong glances whenever Mrs. White would go on about Shakespeare. She would lose a good percentage of the class in the process.

Logan drew in his notebook. Whenever she'd hand him a new pencil, she would notice it was mostly filled with images of Lilly drawn in black and white shadings but she could've sworn she caught a glimpse of her own image along white lined paper once or twice. Veronica never asked him about it, although curiosity often grabbled at her insides. She wondered if in fact she'd imagined the face that resembled her own so greatly.

Veronica's feet were cold on the marble tiles and she lifted herself up on the tip of her toes.

Logan glanced at her, seeing the top of her head out of the corner of his eye. He then looked down at her, while holding the refrigerator door open. "What are you doing?" he asked, staring at her obviously manicured red toenails, planted on the tiles while the pink of her heels rose in the air.

Veronica dropped her heels to the ground, slightly embarrassed, and then put them back up again, feeling the cold rush throughout her entire body. "Cold," she motioned her head to the floor, blonde, angelic hair swinging across her shoulders.

Logan couldn't help but smile, letting the door close. He walked to the paper towel rack near the back of the counter and unrolled a few sheets. He bent over, placing them onto the floor, overlapping some. "Here," he said, standing back up. "Stand on that."

She looked up at him curiously, feeling a rush of warm air penetrate through her. The coldness that had escalated from her feet quickly faded away as she placed the tip of her toes on the towels dropping her heels.

"Thanks," Veronica whispered, tugging at her bottom lip with her upper teeth. Logan shrugged his shoulders opening the refrigerator door again. He looked at the contents on each shelf. She stared at the back of his head, pushing the paper towels against the tiles to get a better look inside, as she stood next to him.

He attempted not to breathe in her scent; the smell of coconuts in her hair and some elaborate lotion from bath and body works on her skin. Logan remembered Lilly telling him they'd gone shopping the other day.

There was the distinct smell of Duncan's cologne wafting past all the other scents that emanated from her body. He let the scent of coconuts drop from his nostrils. He reached inside the frosty shelves, opening the drawers that held the cheese and bologna.

"Hold that," Logan said handing her the bags of American cheese and bologna.

She grasped the bags with her fingertips, holding onto them with clenched fingers. Sounds of the television from the other room trickled past their ears. Lilly was screaming and laughing over something. Duncan told her to shut up, causing Logan and Veronica to glimpse at one another and smirk, knowingly.

"You can bring that to the counter," Logan threw his hand in the air, signaling for her to move.

She obliged, used to taking orders from others. Lilly was always saying, 'do this Veronica and this'. Veronica glided her feet along the towels, scraping them against the marble as she walked, knees bent slightly to keep her feet warm. She situated herself near the island in the middle of the large kitchen. She placed the bags down on the surface and opened their elastic edges.

The black, wooden edged door closed behind Logan as he slipped up beside her. The fabric of his polo shirt scratched against her tank top. She tried not to notice but goose bumps materialized on her skin and she quickly wrapped her arms to her chest, rubbing them away.

Logan placed a bottle of pickles and mayonnaise down, softly, and then walked away for a minute. He opened cabinets looking for the bread.

Veronica turned around to tell him which cupboard it was in, when she saw a reddened, bruised line on his back when his shirt lifted up. She stepped forward, leaving the paper towels behind, forgetting the cold and reached her hand to his back. "Logan," she whispered tracing the line with her fingertips.

Logan stirred, pushing her hand away while his shirt dropped back to his waist. She could feel the distinct change in the air as his eyes filled with pain and mistrust. Veronica stumbled backwards, still feeing the outline of the scar on her skin.

"I'm sorry," she murmured looking away from his piercing dark eyes.

He turned back around, away from her childlike eyes that were searching him for answers. She looked down at her feet, walking back over to the paper towels and took a piece of cheese out from it's deli packaging and bit into it, savoring the taste as it rippled on her tongue.

A few minutes passed before Logan finally found the bread and when he came back to the island he stood farther away from her than before. Logan took the bread from its bag. Veronica turned to him, watching the curve of his jaw as he clenched his teeth together. The way his long fingers dabbled over the white bread. There was a certain sadness about him she'd never realized before. It overwhelmed her, leaving her wanting to comfort him.

Without much thought, she placed her hand on his arm, gently, as to not disturb him, and squeezed. Logan shifted his eyes downwards at her, catching a glimpse of her long eyelashes and heart shaped lips that twisted into a grin, just for him. He smiled back at her, watching her eyes light up and it made him for a brief second feel less fucked up by his life at home.

Lilly knew things about him, about the bruises and scars, but he wanted to stay untainted to Veronica, unstained. The mere idea that she caught that much of him in their moments alone made him more than uncomfortable. It made him angry that he had to hide at all.

Veronica wasn't his but yet he still felt an attachment to her, a desperate need to protect her. She was the most innocent out of the four of them although Duncan came in a very close second, which explained why they had ended up together and not Veronica and Logan.

He thought about that drawing he'd done of her, after her hand left his arm and dangled on the islands counter. She was ethereal in his mind, in that drawing, a goddess on the brink of certain madness. There was a darkness that exuded her personality; one that he thought he only caught during their time in English class or now when he was alone with her. Logan had ripped up the drawing, scattering its remains into the waist basket in his bedroom. He didn't want Lilly to find it. He could not suffer those consequences and remain standing.

"Use this," Veronica said, breaking him out of his thoughts and she slid a large cutting knife his way. "I'll get the plates," and she turned around, balancing herself on the paper towels as she walked. If she had been his, he would've grabbed her arm, swung her around and kissed her cherry lips and dove into her but he loved Lilly even though he was positive she didn't love him. Logan listened as Veronica opened the glass cupboards lifting out four plates.

When he glanced at her again she was standing next to him, two inches away from his own skin. She placed the plates down causing a loud noise as they met the surface. Her hair brushed along his arm as she moved, reaching over towards the bread and pickles. The hair on the back of his neck to stood up. Soon she would smell like all the things they were about to eat and it would be Duncan who later got to taste her. Logan would dip his tongue into Lilly's mouth and pretend only for a second she was Veronica before he inhabited Lilly and only Lilly.

"Duncan likes lots of pickles," Veronica whispered placing pieces of cheese and bologna on to the white, soft bread and picking the pickles out of the jar with her fingertips. The juice dripped down onto the bread. She licked her fingertips when she finished and he handed her the knife, after he already cut his own sandwich.

"So does Lilly," he replied, into the open air, the inches between them. Veronica peeked up at him, smiling and pushed the pickle jar towards him. Then she took the handlebar of the knife into her hand and cut down sharply into the sandwich she'd created for the boy she loved.

Logan couldn't help but notice how precise Veronica was about the way she angled the knife and where she cut down, as if she were trying to mimic every move the Kane's maid would've made if she had been making the sandwich herself for Duncan. Veronica noticed the same thing about Logan when he made Lilly's sandwich. Each of them was less careful with their own sandwiches, both adding no pickles.

"I'm hungry," Lilly squealed from the living room where 'Gladiator' played loudly and quite righteously. There was no noise from Duncan who was too engrossed in a battle scene to really care about his growling stomach.

Logan turned to Veronica and rolled his eyes as he placed the knife in the sink and she closed the refrigerator door after putting everything back in it's place, only half empty of what had been there before.

"Coming dear," Logan called in a high voice, swinging his body towards the island, grabbing both plates of sandwiches as he passed. He winked at Veronica as he walked along. She raised her eyebrows at him, and then watched his back as he disappeared behind the doorway.

Veronica bent over, moving her feet off the paper towels and scrunched her fingers around them. She could feel the softness and kindness that had been invested in them, keeping her from the cold floor. She frowned, opening a drawer that held the garbage can and tossed the warmth away, standing on the tip of her toes once again.

The End