“Once upon a time there was a pony that ate nothing but rainbows and farted out Lucky Charms,” he begins, and I poke him in the side.
“Happy, Damon, not gross.”
“Mmm,” he grumbles. “I’m a darkly dangerous vampire. I don’t know so many happy stories.”
“You knew poetry,” I tease, recalling his drunken phone call when I was at Whitmore.
So many of the nights I was up there, I fell asleep to the velvet murmur of his voice over the phone. It makes me sad suddenly, thinking that he must have had to go to sleep alone, with only the sound of my breathing over the line to keep him company.
“Hey, you never told me your favorite day from this summer,” I remember.
“Well, there was red panty day and black panty day…” he debates. “And no panty day. Always a fan favorite.” He pats my bottom and smiles.
I pull my head back, eyeing him suspiciously. He’s deflecting. Why wouldn’t he want to tell me his favorite memory?
I prop my chin on his chest and try to look as sad as I was feeling a moment ago. “Please?” I say softly, and he blinks.
“Damn it, Elena, that’s cheating,” he grouches and I try to hold back a giggle.
“I showed you mine…”
“Yours wasn’t embarrassing,” he says, and now I’m even more interested.
“Unless you count you and Jeremy’s infantile behavior as embarrassing,” I say, “which I obviously do.”
Instead of rising to the bait, he closes his eyes and traces the waistband of my shorts with his middle finger. “Tick tock, Elena. We don’t get much time to sleep today.”
I prop my chin on the back of my hand and watch him. There’s no way I can sleep now, wondering what on earth we did this summer that Damon Salvatore would find embarrassing.
“I don’t want to go to sleep worrying about the Augustines,” I whisper. It’s true, even if it is the teensiest bit self-serving.
He opens one eye. Narrowly.
I wait.
“Promise not to laugh,” he says.
I roll my eyes. “Damon, I love you. Why would I laugh at something that makes you happy?”
He looks down his nose at me. “Promise.”
I kiss his chest, hiding a smile. “Just tell me, you tease.”
“It was the night after we got wasted watching Zombieland, remember?”
I smile. “I do remember. You were disappointed there weren’t any real chainsaw scenes.”
“And you cried when he killed the clown,” he reminds me wryly.
“He was saving the girl and facing his greatest fear!” I exclaim. “It was adorable!”
“He killed a clown with a sledgehammer and you thought it was adorable,” he says, and then ducks his head to kiss the top of my head. “No wonder I love you.”
“Your favorite day was getting drunk to Zombieland?” I ask cautiously, because I promised not to laugh.
“No, the next morning. We slept in, because we were both pretty hung over.”
I bite the inside of my lips so I won’t make a joke. “Uh-huh,” I say encouragingly.
He’s quiet for a long moment and the laughter ebbs from my chest as I wait. I drop my head down onto his chest and wrap an arm over his waist. I don’t remember a thing about the morning after we watched Zombieland, and I’m feeling a little guilty because it was obviously really important to Damon.
“You got up and went into the bathroom, and your hair was all messed up,” he says quietly. “There was like, this big loop of it sticking up on the left side.”
I prop my head up again so I can see him because it sounds like he’s making fun of me, but his voice is totally serious. He’s staring at the ceiling, his features sharp and perfect in the grey shades of light in the dim room.
“But when you went in there, you saw that we were out of toilet paper so you staggered across the room to the drawer where I keep more, and opened it, but it was empty, too.” A smile touches his lips. “I could tell by the way you were moving that you were a little nauseous and I was feeling like a jerk for not making you drink some water before we went to bed. But without even asking me where to look, you went out to the hall closet, since you knew that’s where I keep the big packs of toilet paper, and you brought more in and restocked the drawer and took a roll into the bathroom, where you actually put it on the spinner instead of propping it on top like Stefan always does.”
My chest actually hurts I love him so much right now, and I am utterly confused. “You were happy because I remembered how OCD you are about putting the toilet paper on the roll?”
“It was the first time I felt like you were really with me,” he says simply. “That it wasn’t a joke, or a fluke, or a dream. It was the day I started to believe you would stay.”
I can’t breathe or I will start to cry.
“I rolled over and went back to sleep before you came back to bed.” Even in the dark I can see his Adam’s apple bob as he swallows. “Because I knew you’d be there when I woke up.”
I press my cheek to the little hollow in the very center of his chest and hug him, blinking so rapidly that my eyelashes are probably tickling his skin. He strokes a hand down my back, light and casual, but the other cups the back of my head and he doesn’t move for a long time.
I don’t know what I did to deserve the loyalty of a man like this: incredibly complicated, fiercely private, ruthlessly clear-sighted. I should be a better person: more patient, kinder to him. Quicker to catch on when he’s acting callous because he’s trying to protect himself, or us.
I need to be good enough to deserve him because God help me, I won’t let anyone else close enough to try.
“Go to sleep, my love,” I murmur, so softly. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”
Chapter 8: The Marks We Choose
JEREMY
I have to concentrate to park, because the nose of the Camaro is longer than anything I’ve driven in a while. I put in the clutch but then I’m coasting too slowly to make it all the way into the parking space. Holding my breath, I let out the clutch, trying to catch just little bit of first gear without making it jump and bashing the tires into the curb.
I slam the brakes at the last second before tires kiss concrete and let out a long, heavy breath, setting the parking brake and listening to the engine for a minute because I love the sound. But the anxiety of driving this thing isn’t worth the trouble. Why would anybody want a car you can’t replace? It’s bound to get messed up sometime.
I glance over through the side window as I turn off the key and freeze when I see a dark shape on the stairs that I can’t quite identify. Even with taking the car, I didn’t make it back until after the sun went over the horizon because it took me forever to choose the right guitar for Cali. It’s getting dark fast and we’ll be leaving within the next hour, before the Augustines have a chance to get up and moving.
Squinting closer, I realize the shape is a body, someone lying on the stairs.
I wrench the door open, but even before my shoe hits the pavement, I see movement. An arm, lazily lifted, and the flick of a lighter, the amber-crimson glow of a cigarette. My fingers clench on the door handle as I try to slow my breathing.
Not a corpse. It’s not a corpse.
Even in silhouette, there’s something familiar about how the hands move. Frowning, I get out of the car without retrieving the guitar from the backseat. I didn’t know Cali smoked.
The door closes quietly behind me and I drop the keys into my pocket as I approach the stairs. Cali’s stretched out full-length on the unforgiving concrete steps, her elbow propped up next to her as she tugs idly at the metal stud in her ear.
“He returns,” she says, tipping her chin down just enough so she can see me.
I don’t know if it’s the way she’s lying there, or something about her voice, but instead of being excited about the guitar, I feel a clenching weight in my stomach, like I’m about to fall.
I drop down onto the steps next to her. “She
smokes.”
Her rings gleam as she moves her hand through the bars of the stairs, and turns her head to blow the smoke away from me. Her shoulders are hunched beneath her dark blue sweater.
“I’ll be inside in a minute,” she says, her voice rough and her eyes not meeting mine. “If the smoke bothers you, you don’t have to sit out here with me.”
I stretch my hand out, first and second finger parted. She glances up, surprised, before she hands the cigarette over. I take a drag and hold it in my lungs for a second, getting used to the harsh taste of the tobacco. When I blow it out, it tickles my throat and I cough, just a little, and then lean back on my elbows and take another drag.
It doesn’t taste as good to me as pot, but I had almost forgotten how much I liked the feeling of expelling smoke, seeing it billow out of my body like a stain. Sometimes, it just feels right.
For a while, we pass the cigarette back and forth, watching the light bleed out of the sky.
“Do you believe in God?” she asks me.
I tip my head a little her way. I’m still excited to give her the guitar, but for now, I sort of like just feeling…quiet with her.
“No,” I say, and scratch the back of my neck. There was nothing like God on the Other Side. It feels hollow over there, even with as crowded as it is.
She snorts lightly at the bluntness of my answer, and I amend it, squinting out at the parking lot.
“Well, maybe for humans.”
She gives me an odd look for that, and I remember she doesn’t know I’m a hunter.
“What do you think death is like, then?” she asks and my muscles twitch.
I reach for the cigarette, and with the smoke in my mouth, it feels like I can still breathe through the chill of remembering. I don’t want to talk about this, but I also don’t think she’s asking just to be philosophical, so I try to man up for her.
They’re just words. They won’t make death any more or less real than it already is.
I take another breath, of air this time. “I think there’s a moment when you know it’s coming, and you’re either scared or you’re not. And then it’s over.”
I don’t tell her about the Other Side, about the weightlessness that sits in your belly all the time, like something’s missing, or something’s about to happen, though it never does. She’s a human and she will never have to know that. I hope whatever they get, it’s something better.
“No light at the end of the tunnel, huh?” she says lightly, but there’s a hitch in her voice.
When I sneak a glance over at her, her head is tipped back against the stairs, a tear glittering at the corner of her eye. I watch it slip down her cheek and into her ear and I say nothing.
“I told you I can’t have a boyfriend right now because of my grandma,” she says, and my jaw tightens.
I nod, even though she’s not looking at me, and I wonder if that’s why she asked about God. If she’s worried about her grandmother dying while she’s gone.
“Gram had her second stroke while the caregiver was busy with her boyfriend,” she says with a single, sharp gesture. “And she had a caregiver because when she had her first stroke, I chose my own life over being there for my family.”
She sits up, stubbing out her cigarette on the railing almost viciously. I sit up with her, moving cautiously as I wonder what I’m supposed to say.
She smiles tightly at me, her piercing twisting against her lip. “When you had a chance to run and save yourself, you were going to save your sister. You didn’t even think about doing anything else.” Her hands twist together, propped against her knees. “I’m trying to be better,” she says, her voice strained. “But even if it weren’t for Gram, I couldn’t— I shouldn’t—” She looks at me. “Not yet. Not with where I’m at. Especially not with somebody like you.”
A low laugh bursts out of my lips, breathless and almost hysterical. “Seriously? All I was thinking about was how scared I was that I was going to die, and you and Elena right along with me. You don’t understand—” I cut myself off, because there’s no point.
She can’t possibly know how terrified I am of being dead because it sounds cliché to her and it’s the farthest thing from that. I know what it’s like, and I know that I’m going to have to do it again someday and I can’t even start to think of how I’ll endure it.
I scrub my hands through my hair, thinking about how fast the time’s passed since Bonnie brought me back to life. How little I’ve managed to change.
“You think you’re the only one who isn’t who they want to be yet?” I burst out. “Because no offense, Cali, but that’s really fucking stupid.”
She recoils from the vehemence of my words, but then, abruptly, she starts to laugh. “Wow. Okay then. Tell me what you really think, why don’t you?”
She shoves the heel of her hand against her cheek, swiping away the marks of her tears resolutely.
“Sorry,” I mumble, staring down at my hands.
“Don’t be.” She bumps her shoulder against mine. “It’s kind of nice to meet somebody who says what they mean for once.”
I don’t answer, rubbing my thumb across the back of my hand. I can still remember what the Hunter’s Mark looked like, where every line and symbol belonged. I wonder where the tattoos went when the spell took them away. It looked like they evaporated into the air, but it feels like they sunk into me, deeper than the layers of skin you can see.
“You have any ink?” I ask Cali, my thumb tracing invisible marks across my knuckles.
Her eyes twinkle as she nudges me with her shoulder again. “Did you see any?”
I smile, happy that she’s not trying to ignore what happened between us earlier. “I was sort of distracted.”
“Yeah, I’ve got a little,” she admits. “How come?”
“I used to have some. I didn’t pick them out, but at least they meant something. I kinda…I think I’d like to get one that I chose myself,” I decide suddenly. “Something new.”
Cali blinks at me. “I don’t understand half of what you just said, unless there was laser surgery involved, but if you want a tattoo, I know a good artist.”
She turns away from me and shrugs out of the soft wrap-around sweater she’s wearing, leaving her in a tight black tee shirt.
She pulls her hair forward over her shoulder. “Pull up my shirt.”
I glance around, but even though the motel should be getting busy this time of night, the only sign of life is the light coming from the office at the front of the property. I hook my thumbs under the hem of her tee shirt and tug it up a little bit, so intent on the feel of her skin that for a second, I forget to look for tattoos.
“Higher,” she says, hugging the front of her shirt down so it still covers her breasts as I move her tee shirt up past the line of her bra. It seems strangely personal for me to see that, even though I’ve seen much more of her, technically. I shift to a higher step so if somebody comes out of the hotel rooms above, they won’t be able to see past the spread of my shoulders.
The ink is dark against her unblemished skin.
The letters are graceful, foreign, and something about their shapes seems light and nearly weightless as they sweep down the line of her spine, from where her collar begins to just before the clasp of her bra.
“What does it mean?” I ask her, one finger tracing the first symbol.
She shivers slightly.
“Sorry,” I tell her, taking my hand away.
“No, it feels nice,” she tells me, and a smile tugs at the corners of my mouth. “It’s music. The names of the chords are written in Arabic, because I wanted it to look as beautiful as it sounds, if I am going to wear it on my skin for the rest of my life.”
I touch the second symbol, slowly, watching for a reaction. “What does it sound like? Is it from a song I might know?”
“I haven’t written it into a song yet,” she says, and swallows. “I will. Someday."
I frown, because if it isn't a song, then
what is it?
She peeks over her shoulder and sees my expression. "So, you know when you meet somebody, and they have a certain feel to them? Or places, sometimes, too?”
“Uh-huh,” I agree easily.
“For me, those impressions come as sounds. And this one…” She nods her head back toward the tattoo. “Is me.”
I know I shouldn’t, that it’s dumb and sappy and I’ll be embarrassed about it later, but I don’t care. I dip my head and touch my lips to the third symbol, as gently as I’ve ever kissed anyone in my life. Her back is warm and it rises as she sucks in a breath. I want to lay my cheek between her shoulder blades, like I could feel the sound inside my head if I just stayed close enough to her, but instead I pull back and smooth her shirt back into place. I pick up her sweater and hold it so she can shrug it back on.
The Vampire Diaries: Trust In Betrayal (Kindle Worlds) (In Time We Trust Trilogy Book 3) Page 10