"Bonnie, why aren't you dressed for work?" Abby asked her daughter when she saw her still wearing her nightgown.
"I just got off the phone with Liz, Damon's father died last night so we won't be working today."
Bonnie went to sit down at the kitchen table, her phone still clutched in the palm of her right hand.
All she could think about was Damon and wanting to call him, but it felt like she'd be overstepping her bounds.
The two of them had been circling around each other for months now with each one waiting for the other to make the first move and therefore nothing was happening.
And they each had their reasons for not taking the plunge and getting things moving along.
For his part, Damon didn't want Bonnie to feel like she owed him anything.
It was a tricky situation that they were in and now that he was her boss it further complicated things, so it was easy for the lines to get blurred and he didn't want that to happen.
And as for Bonnie, it was more simple.
She'd never been in this type of situation before and just didn't know how to go about making things happen between them without coming off like some slut.
She'd only been in one relation her whole life and it was in high school.
Her and Jody were just kids, but this thing with Damon was on a different level. The intensity of it all was something she hadn't experience before, so she was waiting for him to take the lead and push things forward between them.
The problem was Damon wasn't doing so.
In fact, he wasn't doing anything at all and Bonnie didn't know why.
It was confusing.
Bonnie dropped Tristan off at school and drove back home in the silence of her car, praying for Damon and his family knowing things probably weren't too good at the Salvatore home this morning.
Parking her little 2003 black Jetta in front of their apartment, she just sat inside of the vehicle trying to decide what to do.
Making up her mind to call him, she reached inside of her purse for her phone.
Bonnie ended up getting his voicemail.
Clearing her throat, she waited for the beep to leave a message.
"Liz called and told me about your father passing away last night...I'm so sorry for your loss Damon. If there's anything I can do...or if you just want to talk I'll be home all day."
And not knowing what else to say she ended the call.
With the apartment already clean the only thing that Bonnie really had to do was some laundry, so she spent the morning washing clothes. They didn't have a dryer so she had to hang them outside on the clothesline in the backyard. But that was fine with her because she liked how fresh the clothes smelled after being dried in the sunshine.
Around noon, Bonnie and Abby were sitting in the living room watching the news when someone knocked on the front door.
Bonnie got up from off the sofa and looking out the window as she walked by, she spotted the black Porsche parked next to her car.
"Oh my god, it's Damon."
So many thoughts ran through her mind in those few seconds it took for her to reach the door and open it.
And then there he was silently standing there and all thoughts ceased as she pushed the screen door open, stepping outside onto porch and not saying anything just wrapped her arms around his neck.
Damon closed his eyes.
The warmth of her small body enveloped him, taking away some of the chill that had settled into his bones.
She was the first to pull away, taking his hand. "Come inside."
Damon and Abby's eyes met as Bonnie led him into the apartment and he acknowledged her with the nod of his head.
"I'm sorry to hear about your father." She said.
"Thank you."
Bonnie squeezed his hand comfortingly. "Mama, we're gonna go to my room." She said, wanting some privacy thinking the reason why he came there was to talk.
With her hand still in his, she led Damon to her bedroom, closing the door once they were inside.
She watched him taking everything in as he looked around, wondering what he was thinking, but then he turned and she suddenly became the focus of his attention.
It made Bonnie's heart beat faster the way he was looking at her.
His eyes lowered to her chest.
Bonnie was no longer wearing a bra, having taken it off earlier to be washed. So there was a good chance that he could probably see her titties through the tank top she wore.
She tried to distract him by getting him to talk. "I'm glad you came. I've been thinking about you all morning."
Damon didn't say a word, instead bending his head to kiss her. He grabbed a handful of Bonnie's right breast, squeezing it a little to hard as he forced his tongue between her lips.
His kiss was overpowering and sloppy, his mouth tasting of alcohol.
Bonnie pushed at his chest, breaking away and she wiped her mouth in disgust.
Damon licked his lips, his eyes remaining glued to her luscious lips which were now even more plump because of his kiss.
Bonnie didn't understand where all of this was coming from. This wasn't him. "I thought you came here to talk."
"You thought wrong." Lowering his head, he kissed her once more but this time with his hand cupping the back of her neck so she couldn't move.
When he finally released her to breathe, Bonnie reached out to gently touch his face. This was not how it was supposed to be between them.
"No Damon...not like this. I know you didn't come here for that. I know you're hurting right now, so please just talk to me. " Her eyes pleading with him.
Damon pulled away from her touch, his blue eye glinting with what looked to be anger, but then he laughed and it threw Bonnie off at his sudden mood change.
"Right, I forgot who I was dealing with. Let's see how fast your no turns into a yes." He reached for his wallet.
Bonnie frowned in confusion for a split second and then she realized what he was about to do.
Her spine stiffened.
He pulled out some money.
"How much?"
Bonnie closed her eyes because it hurt too much to look at him. Never in her life had anyone made her feel as low as she did in that moment.
How was it possible for him to make her feel so cheap?
Hugging her body in a self protective manner, she opened her eyes and they were shining with tears.
"I see you're a mean drunk just like your mother." She uttered, swallowing hard.
Pointing an angry finger at her, Damon lashed out. "Hey, lay off that Bonnie, I mean it...don't talk about my fucking mother like that!"
"Oh, so let me get this straight. I can't disrespect your mother, but you can disrespect mine by trying to fuck me while she's literally sitting down the hall watching TV?"
Damon knew Bonnie was right and therefore he didn't say another word.
He sniffed instead.
And Bonnie wouldn't have thought anything of it had his hand not moved over his nose in a certain way that sent alarm bells going off inside of her head.
Bonnie froze.
No it couldn't be, was her first thought. She kept telling herself no, that it was impossible. Not Damon.
Bonnie suddenly moved from where she was standing by the door, closing the space between them, and she grabbed a hold of Damon's face, staring into his eyes.
They were bloodshot.
It could have been from crying all night, but Bonnie's gut was telling her otherwise.
She refused to believe it.
But she needed to know.
"Please tell me that you don't sniff coke."
Damon pulled away from her with a guilty look on his face and Bonnie saw it before he turned away, and still she didn't want to believe it.
"I'm not a fucking junkie like your sister if that's what you're thinking...I only do it occasionally."
With her worst fear confirmed, Bonnie felt like she'd just been punched in the gut.
"Oh my god." She whispered.
Damon couldn't take the disappointment in Bonnie's voice. Her reaction to his confession stifling him. He wanted to leave.
"You know what, I don't have time for this shit right now." And he made a move to go, causing Bonnie to snap out of it. She boldly grabbed his arm.
"You're not going anywhere...you've been drinking and your high off of coke! It's a miracle that you didn't kill yourself or anyone else for that matter driving behind the wheel fucked up!"
Damon easily snatched his arm from her grasp. He got in her face, his mouth curled up in a hateful sneer. "Oh yeah and how do you plan to stop me?"
Bonnie said the first thing that entered her mind.
"I'll call 911 and report you for driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol. I'll give them the make and model of your car...even your license plate number which is BAM1455...now give me your keys."
Bonnie withstood Damon's harsh glare until he was the one to give in, holding up his keys.
She took them.
"Fucking bitch." He hissed nastily into her ear.
Bonnie lifted her chin, keeping Damon's stare. "Maybe, but at least I'm not a fucking junkie like you."
"I'm not a junkie!" Damon yelled.
"Well, I don't care what you are. Just sleep it off, so you can get the hell out of my apartment."
Damon watched as Bonnie's eyes filled up with tears and the guilt seized him.
She left the room, closing the door behind her before allowing them to fall.
Why did everything in her life have to be so fucking hard?
Damon slept the entire day away, not waking up until almost nine that night.
Coming out of Bonnie's bedroom, he walked down the hallway and passed the bathroom were he saw Abby giving Tristan a bath. He continued down the narrow pathway until he heard running water and realized Bonnie must be in the kitchen. He found her there standing over the sink washing dishes.
Other than a few dirty pots and pans from dinner sitting on top of the counter to be washed by Bonnie, the apartment was spotless otherwise.
Bonnie looked up a few seconds later and saw him standing there. She could see that he was sober.
"My mother made you a plate. It's in the microwave."
"Thank you, but I'm not hungry." He said, swallowing hard.
"Don't thank me, she was the one to cook tonight and you'll hurt her feelings if you don't eat it...and I think it's the least you can do considering everything that's happened today."
Damon nodded his head, knowing he deserved every bit of her aloofness towards him. And a lot more.
Coming into the kitchen, he went to the microwave and took out the plate which was filled with mash potatoes, green beans and a slice of meat loaf. He walked over to where Bonnie was standing washing dishes and leaned over her to get a clean fork from the dish-rack.
"Excuse me." He said softly when he did so.
Taking his plate, he went and sat down at the kitchen table and began to eat.
The food was really good and he ended up devouring everything within five minutes.
Bonnie placed his keys on the table and went back to washing dishes.
"Thank you." He said.
"There's no need to thank me, just go."
Damon didn't move from his spot at the small table.
Looking up at the clock mounted on the kitchen wall he realized it literally was twenty-four hours since his father breathed his last breath. They all knew it wasn't looking to good for Giuseppe because his health was deteriorating fast and the doctors said that he wouldn't make it through the month.
They were right.
Damon didn't go to sleep at all last night when he got home from the hospital, and when morning came he made the funeral arrangements while his mother drowned her sorrows in a bottle of gin.
Stefan didn't even bother to come home, preferring to stay at a friend's house.
And maybe that was a good thing because Damon and his mother ended up getting into a huge fight when she discovered he made all of the funeral arrangements without her and it just pushed him over the edge and he grabbed for the bourbon but it wasn't working its magic over him this time.
So giving into his old self-destructive ways, Damon turned back to an old habit he'd indulged briefly in while in college.
He told Bonnie the truth. He wasn't a junkie. He hadn't spiraled that far out of control even when he was younger.
Before that morning, it had been four years since he last had a hit of cocaine.
"There are a lot of things that you don't know about me Bonnie and I'm sure there are things that I don't know about you...I don't have a drug problem, I'm not a junkie. And I know that you can't understand this, but I just wanted to not feel anything for a while. It was a stupid thing for me to do because I know better. But please don't hold this one indiscretion against me. I was only trying to ease the hurt. That's all."
Bonnie turned angry eyes on him. "So you eased your hurt, good for you. But the problem is that you then came into my home and hurt me. And I'm finding it very difficult to forgive you Damon because I know your father just died."
Damon stood to his feet, but when he made a move towards her, Bonnie back away. "No. Don't. I think you should leave now. Goodbye."
Their eyes held, but it only lasted a moment because Bonnie turned her back on him.
Not liking the finality of her words, Damon corrected her. "Not goodbye Bonnie...but goodnight. My father's funeral will be in two days, so I'll see you at work on Monday and we'll start fresh." He said meaningfully.
She didn't respond.
It was only when the front door closed shut that Bonnie was able to breathe again.
When Monday morning finally came, Bonnie wasn't at the office. She called out sick.
It was her first time missing work since being hired.
Damon sat at his desk knowing the reason why she wasn't there was because she didn't want to see him.
Around ten, he stopped pretending like he was doing anything productive because he wasn't.
Grabbing his keys, he left the office telling Liz he was gone for the day.
Taking the expressway, within fifteen minutes he was driving into Bonnie's apartment complex. He parked his Porsche next to her car, knocking at her door seconds later.
It took a minute for Bonnie to answer, but when she did it was from behind the door. "Are you sober... because I'm still reeling from the last time you were here." She said not joking.
"I know that which is why I'm here... to make things right between us again."
Bonnie closed her eyes, leaning her head against the door. "I can't seem to get over how mean you were to me...I didn't know you could be like that."
"I'm not Bonnie...I swear I'm not!"
"What you did, the things you said...it really hurt me."
"I know that and I'm sorry. I didn't mean any of it Bonnie. You have to believe that."
She shook her head. "But it had to have come from somewhere otherwise it never would have come out of your mouth. Just admit it, deep down inside you think I'm a whore and you don't respect me."
"No, you know that's not true!" He denied.
Damon began to panic because things were starting to turn left. He could feel it.
"Bonnie, open the door...I want to see you."
"No, I don't think that's a good idea...no one's here and I'm still dressed in my nightgown."
Damon realized that Bonnie didn't trust him anymore and it crushed him.
It wasn't until then that he realized the magnitude of his actions.
He really fucked things up with her and he didn't know how to fix it.
Damon leaned his head against the door, not knowing that he was mirroring Bonnie's pose on the other side.
"I would never hurt you in that way. You've been the only thing keeping me going these last few months Bonnie. With everything that was happening knowing that I would see you made things bearable. Fridays used to be my favorite day of the week, but not after we started working together because it meant that I would have to go a whole two days without seeing you. You're the only bright spot in my life and I don't want to lose you. We've spent months circling around each other, but I'm ready to see where this can go. I know I fucked things up and now you don't trust me, but I'm asking you...no I'm begging you to give us a chance."
Tears spilled from Bonnie's eyes, and she wiped them away. She'd waited so long for him to say these words to her, but now it was too late for them.
"I want to Damon, I really do, but I can't now knowing you do drugs. I just can't put myself in that type of situation. I saw what happened to Felicia and how Dino dragged her down. And I can't allow myself to get caught up that way. My mother and Tristan are depending on me to do the right thing."
"Bonnie, I swear on my father's grave that I'm not an addict. Until that day, I hadn't snorted coke in four years. It was a stupid phase that I went through back in college and the only reason I did it was because everyone else around me was doing it and the crazy thing is is that I didn't even like the way it made me feel. All it did was make me become even more of an asshole. I swear to god that I will never touch that shit again if it means you'll stay in my life."
Silence.
"Baby please don't do this. Don't walk away from me before we've even had a chance to start. Bonnie I don't think I can take another major blow so soon... I need you."
Bonnie had listened intently to Damon's every word and none of them felt like lies to her. She could feel it in her gut.
Damon could hear the door unlocking from the inside and then she opened it. Her face was wet with tears, but she still looked beautiful to him.
"Will you give us a chance Bonnie?"
She nodded her head yes.
Damon picked her up into his arms and she wrapped hers around his neck, holding him tightly.
It had begun.
