Chapter 2: Conflict
"So let me get this straight," Simon said as they walked toward the main building. "They taped you to a flagpole because you hit the alarm button when Weevil's guys were robbing the place you work?"
Wallace spread his hands. "That's it. That's the whole story. I still don't know what I did wrong."
Simon clapped him on the shoulder. "You didn't do anything wrong. That's just Neptune for you. The sooner you understand that, the easier it gets."
He paused at the corridor junction and glanced back at Wallace. "Try not to let it wreck your first day. Find your locker, scope out your classes. It gets normal eventually." He shrugged. "Or a different kind of weird. Either way."
Wallace looked like he wasn't sure whether that was comforting or not.
Simon left him to figure it out.
He found Meg and her friends a little further down the hallway — a loose cluster of girls leaning against the lockers, deep in whatever conversation had been carrying them since homeroom. Simon came up behind Meg Manning, slid an arm around her waist, and kissed her.
She laughed against his mouth and pushed him back an inch. "You could say hi first."
"Hi," Simon said. "What are you guys talking about?"
Meg Manning — sunshine-bright, genuinely kind in a school that didn't reward it, and somehow managing to look like a young Joanna Cassidy in the best possible way. She was Veronica's best friend, which had made the beginning of Simon and Meg's relationship a little complicated. It wasn't complicated anymore. Mostly.
"The flagpole thing," one of the other girls said.
Meg's expression shifted, slipping into concern. "Simon, are you worried? About Weevil coming after you?"
"Not really." Simon leaned against the locker beside her. "Weevil's not going to touch me. Not with Dom two houses down. He's not that stupid."
Eli "Weevil" Navarro — head of the PCH bike club, the dominant gang in Neptune's lower zip codes, and a guy who had a surprisingly sophisticated understanding of which lines not to cross. Robbing the Sac-N-Pac where Wallace worked, apparently, had not been one of those lines. Cutting the new kid down from a flagpole, in Weevil's logic, apparently was.
"It's Veronica I'm thinking about," Simon added, quieter.
When Keith Mars had been sheriff, the Mars name carried weight. Even Weevil understood that some targets came with consequences. But Keith wasn't sheriff anymore. He'd lost the election, lost his reputation, and now ran a one-man PI shop out of a downtown office. The armor was gone.
Weevil knew it. Everyone in Neptune knew it.
Meg looked at him, reading the subtext the way she always did. "You'll figure something out for her. I know you will."
"Yeah." He nodded slowly. "I will."
She kissed him on the cheek. "I knew it." Then, brightening: "What were you about to say before? You looked like you had news."
The bell rang.
Simon pointed toward the classrooms. "Lunch."
Meg rolled her eyes, smiling. "Lunch."
The Neptune High cafeteria had an outdoor section — picnic tables under a California sun that somehow felt judgmental — and by noon it was mostly claimed. Simon carried a tray with a steak wrap and a water bottle, Meg beside him with a Caesar salad, and they were halfway across the courtyard when she grabbed his arm.
"There — Veronica." Meg nodded toward a corner table. "And the flagpole guy."
Wallace and Veronica were sitting across from each other, which Simon found quietly funny. Two people who'd had a rough morning, ending up at the same lunch table. Neptune had a way of doing that.
Before Simon could weigh in on whether to join them, Meg was already walking over. He followed.
"Hey." Meg dropped into the seat next to Veronica and immediately put a hand on her arm. "You okay? You looked kind of out of it earlier."
Veronica smiled — the small, controlled one that meant she was fine and preferred you to believe it. "I'm good, Meg. Really."
"You had this whole faraway look," Simon said, settling in across from her. "Like someone had just told you something you were still processing."
"I'm fine, Simon."
"Okay."
A beat passed.
"So you guys are friends?" Wallace looked between Simon and Veronica, cautious, like he was trying to map the social geography of a foreign country.
Simon glanced at Veronica, then back at Wallace. "We were. Good ones, for a long time."
Wallace accepted that with a nod and didn't push it. Smart kid.
"Anyway," Wallace said, "I didn't get a chance to really say it this morning — thank you. Both of you. That was..." He exhaled. "Yeah. Thank you."
"It was nothing," Veronica started.
"Hey."
The word landed like a dropped textbook. Flat, deliberate, carrying the specific energy of someone who was used to that being enough.
Weevil stepped up to the table, two of his crew flanking him at a distance, and looked straight at Wallace.
"Weren't you supposed to wait by the flagpole?" Weevil said. His voice was almost conversational. Almost. "I feel like I was pretty clear about that."
Wallace blinked. "I — yeah, I thought — I mean—" He was flustered, his sentences coming apart at the seams. "I'm not sure I follow what's—"
"What's to follow?" Weevil cut him off. "You're a prop, man. You get that? You don't get to just leave."
"Hey." Simon stood up. "Enough. He left because I cut him down. You got a problem, take it up with me."
Meg tensed beside him. Simon gave her shoulder a light press — I've got it — and kept his eyes on Weevil.
"Weevil." Simon kept his voice even. "Your guys hit the Sac-N-Pac. That's outside your usual territory. Lamb doesn't care, fine — that doesn't make it right, and it doesn't make this kid's problem your business."
Weevil looked at him for a long moment. Something moved behind his eyes — calculation, mostly.
"You representing Toretto now?" he asked. "Is that what this is?"
"I'm representing common sense." Simon held his ground. "Which, for the record, you usually have more of."
Weevil's jaw shifted. "You think this is funny, homes?"
"I think," Simon said, "that you'd make a better politician than a gang leader. You've got a real gift for framing situations."
A flicker — not quite amusement, but in the neighborhood.
Then one of Weevil's crew, a guy who looked like he'd been waiting all day for an excuse, stepped forward. "Let me handle this, Weevil—"
Weevil's arm shot out and stopped him without even looking.
"Is there a problem here?"
Vice Principal Clemmons materialized from the direction of the vending machines, moving with the exhausted authority of a man who had been defusing these exact situations for fifteen years and had stopped pretending he liked it.
He looked at Weevil and the crew. "Gentlemen. I think it's time to move along."
Weevil held Simon's gaze for one more beat — making sure everyone understood it was his choice to leave — then turned and walked. His crew followed.
Clemmons watched them go, then turned and looked at the table. His expression landed somewhere between disappointment and resignation.
"Simon. Veronica." He shook his head. "Why is it always one of your tables?"
He walked away before either of them could answer.
The table was quiet for a second.
"You shouldn't have done that," Veronica said. No heat in it. Just a statement.
"If you were sitting here alone," Simon said, "you would've done the same thing."
Veronica looked at him. Didn't deny it.
"So why can't I?"
She was quiet for a moment. Then: "Because I can actually fix it. I can get Weevil to back off Wallace for good, not just today." Her voice stayed level. "You standing up to him in the middle of the cafeteria doesn't solve anything. It just makes you feel better. And eventually, Dom's not going to be close enough to matter."
She picked up her fork and looked away.
"All you did today was borrow time."
She didn't say it cruelly. That was almost worse.
Simon watched her for a second, then sat back down. Meg's hand found his under the table.
Across from them, Wallace looked like he was deeply reconsidering his decision to move to Neptune.
Simon didn't blame him.
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