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As Wallace strolls down the stretch of doors to the apartments before Veronica’s, he imagines what it is she’ll be doing once he gets there.
The girl rarely ever has free time, her life being the adventure that is— not that he’s usually very in the know as to everything that such entails.
He’s all too aware of how relatively little she shares with him. He tries not to care. Especially when he knows he gets more out of her than most, and it’s not like that doesn’t make him happy and, really, honored. But, still, he always finds himself wondering and wishing for more.
Not because he’s some nosy gossip or anything. It’s not like he cares about the details of other people’s drama. Rather, he just likes to know what she’s up to. And what she thinks about what she’s up to. How she’s feeling about what she’s up to. Whatever. Stuff like that.
That’s stupid, right? He thinks it’s stupid. Not like that stops him from feeling that way, though.
When he nears the door belonging to her residence, he sees that it’s already wide open. It is a nice day, after all. He turns to enter, and his heart feels lighter at the sight of his best friend.
She’s got headphones in. That’s not the part that surprises him, though. What does is her activity of choice: baking cookies. It feels out of character. Maybe they’re for her dad. Or maybe for someone she’s investigating, and one of them has, like, some kind of tracking chip.
He quickly picks up on how much concentration she has right now, and he comfortably leans against the door frame and waits for her to lose it just enough to spot him.
He watches her move with intent, focusing mostly on the look on her face. She was never exactly relaxed, but something about her seemed more gentle, more sensitive even, without the knowledge that someone else was around.
Eventually, she turns around and bends over to put a tray in the oven, and even though he makes it a point to keep the placement of his gaze respectful, it starts to feel creepy that she has no idea he’s here and watching her.
So when she turns back around, a second and finished tray in hand as she sets it down, he finally makes his presence known.
“That must be some good music,” he quips, with an easy smile at the sight of her head snapping toward him and finally realizing his presence in tandem with a somewhat surprised expression. Though, he’s certain she’s not listening to music. It’s more likely some audio file she dug up, or something of the sort, for one of the cases she’s working right now.
She pulls the headset down as she smiles at him in greeting.
“Could’ve painted the living room and you wouldn’t have noticed,” he jokes, ever so slightly hoping that the jive might segue into an explanation of what exactly it was that had her so distracted.
Of course, it doesn’t, and she stays silent while continuing to work the remaining cookie dough in front of her. She only keeps smiling in acknowledgment. Not that he’s complaining about that part.
“I left my algebra book over here,” he explains, feeling just the slightest bit timid as he does, before crossing the room to grab it. He leaves out that he left it there on purpose. It was an impulsive decision— she’s been just a little bit more distant lately and they’ve been hanging out less, so he thought it would be a good excuse to pop in and see her sometime.
Even though they see plenty of each other at school. It was stupid. He knew it was stupid. Not like that stopped him from doing it, though.
She still says nothing, even though he’s awaiting the soft sound of her voice, and he wonders what she’s thinking about. Her smile has now faded back to her resting look.
He says something else to try to initiate a conversation as he slides into the seat across the counter from her. It doesn’t lead anywhere either, though, and he tries to ignore the pang of neglect he feels.
With nothing to think about now but slight nerves and the tasty smell of cookies in the air, he lets his stomach make his next decision for him as he reaches out and grabs one of the right-out-of-the-oven sweets.
A little stupidly, he doesn’t think about just how hot they’ll be, so he takes a bite as quickly as he can before tossing the thing back with the others. He breathes in and out heavily as he chews it to try to cool it off.
Once he swallows it, and the intensity of the high-risk, high-reward scorching bite wears off, he quickly realizes what it was he just tasted.
“Wait a minute…”
He looks down at the batch again before looking back up at the girl keenly.
“These are snickerdoodles.”
She just smiles, captivatingly, and shakes her head slightly in response.
A wide smile forms on his face as his stomach flips in a way that was not caused by the cookie he ate.
“You’re the one who’s been making my spirit boxes?” he asks almost incredulously, aghast as the realization fully settles in.
She continues to smile as he does, and it works to increase the tender feeling that coated the words of his question.
“I used to be on pep squad, remember?” she asks back in confirmation.
His own smile grows at her retort and the undertone of an endearing ‘duh.’ Although, there was nothing obvious about the situation to him— in fact, he was more than a little caught off guard by the fact.
He laughs sweetly and a little nervously.
“But you think all this stuff is stupid,” he remarks, trying to spark more of an actual explanation out of her. Because his chest feels oddly tight in anticipation without one.
Luckily, she doesn’t hesitate to provide it.
“You don’t,” she says simply, breaking eye contact while she does before reinitiating it after the words have left her lips.
He doesn’t know what he was expecting. But it wasn’t quite that— the simplicity of those two words and their accompanying loving tone.
His heart flutters.
The coils in his chest unwind and disperse, leaving him to focus on the growing warmth he feels throughout him.
It’s a kind he doesn’t feel very often, and one that he wouldn’t trade for the world.
It spreads further and deeper into him as he processes it.
She’s been baking him cookies.
She’s been crafting and decorating a box to put the cookies in.
She’s been letting him go on without a clue that it was her doing so, just letting him be happy and get an ego boost and not making it about herself at all.
He’s touched that she cares enough to do all this for him.
He doesn’t know what to say, if he should or shouldn’t try to show his gratitude. Really, all he can do is smile.
Excitedly, he reaches forward to pick back up the cookie he took a bite of to have another.
As he does, Veronica harshly slaps his hand away. A tingling sensation lingers where she touched him, and he knows that that would be the case even if it were just a gentle touch.
“Hey, you wanna open your locker tomorrow and find an empty box?” she rhetorically asks.
He bashfully holds up one finger in plea.
She continues to stare before her smile grows with a breathy laugh, and she motions toward the snack in acceptance.
He happily picks it back up and takes another satisfying bite.
“Mm mm mmm,” he almost aggressively hums in a delighted manner at the familiarly delicious treat. In fact, they’re even better than usual by the fact that they’re fresh and warm. And, of course, more so by the freshly gained warming knowledge that she’s been the one making them the whole time. He honestly can’t wrap his head all the way around it.
“The girl can bake!” he exclaims in praise after swallowing his second bite.
That’s really no surprise, though. What couldn’t this girl do? He swears she gets more perfect by the day. There is no end to his admiration of her skill and prowess and success in everything he sees her do. Truly, he doesn’t believe there’s anyone else like her in the world. Sure as hell no one in Neptune comes even close to her level of, for lack of a better word, awesomeness.
“That she can,” she casually agrees, and he’s glad to hear it.
She never appears to be lacking in self-confidence, but Wallace is also acutely aware of how little she shares most any aspects of her non-positive emotions. So he can only hope she genuinely knows, to at least some degree, just how special she is.
In general, of course. But he also hopes she knows how special she is to him. Even if he doesn’t want her knowing just how much.
“Hey, are you picking your mom up from work today?” she asks suddenly.
His face drops slightly out of disappointment.
He hopes she doesn’t notice, but he can’t say he’s all that sorry if she does. It had been about two minutes since he arrived at her place, and about two seconds since they had a rather heartfelt moment of which they have few and far between, and now it was already right back to business as usual. He shouldn’t be surprised, but his elated thoughts and emotions caused him to be a little anyway.
“Yeah,” he answers easily, despite the gnawing feelings in his chest.
“Can you do me a weird favor without asking any questions?” she asks casually as she dusts off her hands and makes her way toward the living room area.
“Isn’t that the bedrock upon which our friendship was founded?” he half-jokes in lieu of a simple agreement, and a selfish part of him hopes that she’ll pick up the slight hurt behind it.
She doesn’t, instead going on to describe said favor.
Which, as always, he doesn’t at all mind doing. He could never have a true problem with doing anything for her. Because no matter what, she’s still her. His best friend. Veronica Mars. The girl who saved his ass before she even really knew him. The girl who’s only sentimental in her own weird ways and times. The girl who he will happily take what he can from: She is who she is, and he would never dare to try to change her.
So, he takes the massive house plant out of her arms and into his own, and turns toward the door she’s just motioned him towards.
He starts to walk out, but stops in his tracks. He half-turns back around, eyes momentarily fixing on the messy kitchen before reaching back to her.
“Hey,” he starts, making her eyebrows crease curiously, and already he’s mentally slapping himself for opening his trap.
But he can’t just let their previous moment and his uncovering of the truth go unacknowledged.
“You know you’re the best, right, V?” he asks vaguely as a way of saying thank you.
His heart skips a beat as he says it, but she smiles that smile that just lights him up entirely, and it starts beating faster now.
“Yeah, yeah. I know.”
He smiles back at her, his beating heart wildly going on as he takes in her expression, hoping a little pathetically that somewhere in it and in her words was the hint that she returns the sentiment.
Ugh, he’s being stupid. He knows damn well he’s being stupid. That didn’t stop him from saying what he felt, though.
And it’s not like he can really say he regrets it— she is, and always will be, the best.