Thank you for all of the kind reviews and mentions, ya'll are simply the best! I have to apologize that this update took so long, I had the draft nearly perfect and then my computer was stolen. I had to start the whole story over from scratch so please bear with me :)
It's Friday, the Friday. I have a date.
I was excited until about two hours ago, now I'm just a live wire of anxiety and deep personality flaws. I've already FaceTimed Caroline twice to get apparel approval and called my Mom once. It's not like I don't date, I do. I just don't date for longevity. Usually, to me, a date is an event meant to fill some time. I haven't been out with someone that I really cared about seeing again in… ever. So starting out, this thing with Damon is already different. A. We work together. Sure, if things so way south I could fire him but he's so good and he's already done so much for the company. And B. I think I might genuinely like him. Insane thought, I know.
I'm just about to succumb to my insecurities and make up some exotic illness that precludes me from going out with him when a knock shears through the thick silence in my flat.
"Hi," I smile widely as I open the door, I'm already drowning in his blue eyes. He looks so much different than he does around the office, his smile is broad and light. He's eschewed the usual tailored suits, he's wearing Adidas warm up pants and a grey Yale hoodie. Wait… what?
I look down at the burgundy satin Yves St. Laurent sheath dress I absconded from Cosmo's sample closet with last month and feel a little more than slightly out-of-place. The dress is just this side of body con and I know exactly what it does for my figure, if Damon's darkening eyes and exaggerated swallow are any indications, he does too. I'm confident and powerful in this dress, two things I need to be tonight. However, my sky-high nude Louboutins really clash with his… whatever those trainer-things he's wearing are.
"Yeah, so I decided to go unconventional," he says with a chuckle once he meets my eyes again. "You're not a San Remo kind of woman so I figured you wouldn't be the wine and dine kind of woman either."
"What do you have in mind?" I ask, trying to hide my disappointment that I spent the last three and a half hours getting ready for a "wine and dine" kind of date, right down to coordinated panty-pedi color scheme. He does have a point though, I've never enjoyed nights out like that before.
"Rock climbing," he grins happily.
"You're serious?" I can't help but smile a little at his enthusiasm.
"Yep," he answers popping the last letter with a smile. "Not that you don't look delicious in that dress, but you're going to have to change. I'll wait."
"Rock climbing?" I ask again just to make sure. I'm not looking forward to peeling myself out of this dress and I'm especially not looking forward to getting out of the lingerie underneath. I'm only taking this off once. I'd hoped he'd be taking it off later, but we can't get everything we want.
"Not if you take much longer to change," he smiles again. Absolutely gorgeous. I turn to go scrounge some workout clothes from my closet when he grabs my hand and spins me back towards him and looks me up and down. "Just one more look."
"Time's a-tickin'" I playfully admonish and toss my curled hair over my shoulder.
"How attached to the idea of going out are you?" he asks in a low, gravelly tone that threatens to weaken my resolve. An hour ago, I wouldn't have been too attached at all. I would have thrown my bedroom door open and welcomed his focus and attention all night long. However, now that my hand is in his and he's getting excited about sharing something he enjoys with me I realize that this might be too big to throw away on a one-night stand. This could be more than sex, this could even be more than really, really great sex. I want to go out with him and learn more about him. I want the awkward twenty questions over dinner and dessert. I really want to go on this date.
"You've piqued my interest with this rock climbing thing and you can't back out now," I tease and wiggle my hand free from his. "This old thing will be around for another night."
"I certainly hope so."
"Make yourself comfortable, I won't take too long," I gesture to my sofa and I'm grateful I swiped off all of my paperwork before he arrived. As weird as it sounds, it is a little different for me for someone to pick me up for a date. I usually meet the guy at the restaurant or they send a driver to come pick me up. It's making me all sorts of teenage-giddy that Damon is here in my apartment waiting on me.
As soon as I get back to my bedroom I tear through my closet. I haven't had time to send my laundry out for a while so I'm down to bare necessities at the moment. Luckily I find a pair of clean grey yoga pants and a Lululemon tank that is just low-cut enough to be cute for a date. I dig my Nike trainers out of the back of my show rack and I hope Damon won't make fun of the Tiffany blue color. It's a weird feeling to be self-conscious, I feel like Damon is way out of my league and despite Caroline's assurance that that's not the case, it's still in the back of my mind. He's well-educated, well-connected, and at the top of his field, just his presence commands respect. Then there's me: the girl from the sticks who draws pictures for a living—Elena the Mighty.
I shake the negativity out of my bones and tie my hair in a flirty pony. I'm good enough for him, damnit, and I'm good enough to be happy. You've got this Elena, you Queen you.
When I strut back out into the living room he's looking comfortable and at home on the sofa flipping through last month's Vanity Fair. I like that he's comfortable.
"You're kind of a big deal, huh?" he smiles and holds the magazine open to the page featuring a half-page color photo of Caroline and I with Michele Obama at the White House Correspondent's dinner earlier this year. It's not unusual for artists, media figures, and fashion designers to be invited to the event but it still kicked ass. Caroline is still holding out hope that the First Lady will wear one of our designs someday.
"Me no, I'm just the 'big deal's' business partner." I'm not affected by false modesty, I'm just honest.
He just smirks and shakes his head before he stands up. I realize that I've never been around him without the assistance of four-inch heels before. He towers over me.
"Ready to head out," he asks and tries to inconspicuously wipe his hands against his pants. There's no way I could possibly make him nervous.
The ride to the gym is short but the ever-present Manhattan traffic gives us a few minutes to chat. I learn a lot about him from those few minutes. I learn that he really loves rock climbing and all things out of doors. He and Stefan road trip out to Utah once a year to spend a week climbing and mountain biking in Bryce Canyon. I don't really have much to contribute since my last bike still had training wheels but I have been to Bryce. We shot one of our first lines there. All I remember was the fine coat of red clay dust that accumulated on everything, including our floor-length ivory raw-silk gowns.
"That stuff is hellish, Stef and I got caught in a rainstorm and if you think that shit is annoying when it's dry… it basically turns into Crisco when it's wet. We tried to get up the dirt road to our campsite and wrecked the rental car. Lesson learned: always pay the $4.99 a day for damage coverage. We're still paying that car off," he laughs. He's so different than at work. I like the stories he tells when he's not trying to impress the girls in the office and all is attention is on me (and not freaking Rebekah). I like how he talks about his brother. He'd like my brother and Jeremy would love him. If we ever get to the "meet the family" stage, I mean.
We get to the gym in a few mercifully-short minutes. I'm not forced to roll out any awkward conversation starters, the kind I'm really good at, you know, like "so you like food, huh?" Damon already knows how inelegant I can be when I get nervous, but I'm not in a hurry to reinforce the idea that I'm a bumbling ball of neuroses.
Rock climbing is actually a pretty genius design on his part. It's a good excuse for him to help me slip into a safety harness and to show off exactly how he's earned his physique.
"Alright, your arms are mostly for balance, all of your power is going to come from your legs," he explains with his hands on my waist and his chest brushing against my back as he double and triple checks all of the buckles and knots on my harness. "Are you afraid of heights?"
"No." Yes. The better questions would be what kind of rational person isn't afraid of heights? Heights are for birds, jets, and penthouses, not humans dangling from skinny ropes.
"Alright then, show me what you've got, Gilbert. Follow the red lines up, I'll belay you so don't worry about falling."
"I have no idea what that means, but ok." I take a deep breath and approach the wall with all the determination of a woman with her mind made up. I'm going to do this and I'm going to kick ass at it. I'm going to show Damon that I'm the kind of girl who can keep up with him and maybe even impress him. I'm Elena Gilbert, no little wall is going to stand in the way of me and my super hot date. Rawr.
I actually even impress myself when I realize I'm about halfway up the wall. I took Damon's advice and used my legs to push myself up but my arms are already tingling a little. The key to this, I am finding, is not to look down or to look up. Just look at the wall directly in front of you. That way you have no idea that you're perilously hanging from a wall at an altitude that won't exactly kill you on impact but will definitely hurt… a lot.
When I finally make it to the top I am elated. I feel accomplished and strong and… terrified. I'm about forty feet off the ground, clinging to a handhold the size of my iPhone. I start to panic in earnest, my arms are too tired to get back down but they are the only thing standing between me and certain morbidity at the moment.
"Just let go, Elena," Damon calls from somewhere far, far below me.
"Sure, let go and die!"
"You're not going to die, I've got you." Easy for him to say, he's on solid ground and not dangling fifty feet in the air. I don't move a muscle but I can feel the harness around my waist tighten slightly. Sorcery. "The rope is tight, just let go."
I make the ill-timed mistake of looking over my shoulder and realizing that I'm more like a dizzying sixty feet off the ground. My hands are sweating too much to keep holding on so I just take a deep breath and let go. To my surprise, I don't plummet to the ground but rather start to descend very slowly and surprisingly safely. My the time I hit the way my legs are numb and Damon catches me.
"Not afraid of heights, huh?"
"Yeah," I manage breathily. His proximity is making me dizzy for a whole other reason. We haven't been this close before. His arms are securely around me and I realize that my hips are pressed against his. "No, it's fine."
He chuckles and moves away slowly, making certain that I can stand before letting me go completely.
"Nice job, that was a hard one. Not many first-timers can do the twenty-five footer."
"Twenty-five feet!" I exclaim and throw my hands in the air. "That was only twenty-five freaking feet?"
"I mean, I don't want to make you feel bad but that's Hannah's favorite route."
"I'm hearing a lot of talk, Salvatore, but all I've seen you do is hold the rope."
"Smart ass."
"Don't act like you haven't been staring at it all night."
"You're something else," he chuckles and shakes his head.
"I'm awesome." Oh yeah, side note, when I'm nervous I get obnoxious. I'm apparently very nervous, ergo, I'm very obnoxious. It's one of those teenage habits I never grew out of unfortunately.
Damon rescues me from myself by suggesting a few more climbs and by the end of the third route I'm shaking the life back into my dead arms and stretching out my legs that will certainly be cramped up tomorrow. Still, it's the most fun I've ever had on a date. This sure beats meeting a guy in a dimly-lit steakhouse for awkward conversation over tiny food on big plates.
"Hungry?" he asks casually slinging his arm over my shoulder as we leave the gym and head back to his car. It's so natural I almost follow it by hugging my arm around his waist but I don't. I'm not sure why.
"Starving," I smile and blush. This was all really easy back inside the gym where there were plenty of distractions but with every step those distractions are falling away and soon it's just going to be the two of us back in the quiet of his car. I ran out of things to saw about seven minutes after he picked me up. I guess I could always revert to my usual tactics of co-opting Jeremy's travel tales as my own, but I think Damon would catch on.
He opens the door for me and I slide in like nothing is wrong, but inside I'm panicking again.
"I know you think Bravo's has the best burger in town but that's only because you haven't been to The Brindle Room," he says and I feel like he has to realize that my psyche is collapsing on on itself right now. "How are your arms?"
"I don't think I'll be able to move them tomorrow," I smile. Just one question at a time and I can do this without blowing it. "That was fun though."
"I'm glad you liked it," he's about to say something else but his cell phone rings. He takes a quick look at the caller ID. "Do you mind for a second?"
I shake my head because I'm impressed he even thought to ask. Most people have their phones latched to their person twenty four/seven and don't think twice about hitting that 'accept' button anytime the ringtone chimes. It makes me feel pretty special that he asked.
"Hi sweetie," he answers and I assume it's Hannah based on how happy he sounds to be talking to her. "Are you having fun with grandma and grandpa?…. oh yeah?… grandma's teaching you how to make muffins?… they'll be the best best muffins in the whole world… ok, have fun… I love you, Little One… hey, Mom," this is too much, he's making me want to meet his mom and take him to Virginia to meet my mom. "Did she eat dinner?… good, I don't know what I'm doing wrong… she eats for freaking Stefan, Ma… whatever… we're going to get dinner right now… ok, bye now Ma… nope, bye… good bye, Mother."
"Sorry," he sighs and drops his phone in the cupholder.
"Don't be," I smile. "I talk to my parents pretty much every day."
"Are they in the city?" he asks as he parallel parks. Out of everything, that may impress me the most. I've lived here for so long I can barely drive anymore, let alone get my tiny Honda in a curbside spot.
"Oh god no, my Mom hates the city. They live in Virginia, a couple of hours outside Richmond. My dad is an entomology professor at Whitmore College, he comes up every couple of months to work on research at the Museum of Natural History. My Mom came once and couldn't sleep for the entire week because of the traffic noise."
"Hannah would love that, she's in a major bug phase right now. Last month was dinosaurs."
"You say 'phase' like you're not going to wake up with seventeen hundred hissing cockroaches in your basement one day." I must be talking louder than I thought because two pretty blonde girls waiting in line outside the Brindle House turn their heads and stare. Could be the roaches, could be Damon's laugh, could be Damon. Who knows?
"Seventeen hundred?"
"Oh yeah, my Dad is studying their ability to navigate electromagnetic fields. My Mom thought he was just being lofty and talking theory until UPS asked her to sign for twelve boxes marked 'Live Insects, Keep Out Of Direct Sunlight.'"
"She can keep the bugs in her room at Stefan's."
"Mister Salvatore, welcome back," the host smiles widely and is leading us past a line of people to a table. He leaves us at the table with two menus and I realize how crowded it is. This is the kind of place that probably takes weeks to get a reservation but Damon didn't ask me out until a couple of days ago. It kind of makes me wonder exactly what he does at work when he's not working with me.
"So is Stefan a lawyer, too?"
"Nope, Stef's a kept man."
"Like a house husband?"
"Pretty much, his wife is a hotshot cardiothoracic surgeon at Mt. Sinai. Lex travels a lot to conferences and lectures and crap so Stef has pretty much made a career out of traveling with her. He books her schedule and organizes her travel, blah, blah."
"So why aren't you working for Greenpeace or something?"
"I used to work for Earth Justice."
"Did you like it?"
"Loved it."
"Why'd you quit?"
"I loved my Hannah more," Heavens to Betsy! Can he just stop right now? Every time he opens his stupidly perfect mouth something comes out that makes me want to punch him. Not because I don't like it, it just frustrates me. He's so damn perfect. What do I have to offer in return: neuroses, an eighty-hour work week, riveting tales of online shopping for a new castle for Jaws? "I became a Dad and suddenly making thirty thousand dollars a year and sharing an apartment with three other guys didn't seem like such a great life. I was getting arrested regularly for unlawful protests and disturbing the peace and my roommates were growing pot in the linen closet. Not such a great life for a kid. I wanted Hannah to have all of the advantages I did growing up and it just wasn't possible with that job. So I moved to the city, sold out, and here I am. I still do a lot of pro bono stuff, the partners hate it but fuck 'em. It's the only way I can hold on to the last few shreds of sanity I have."
"What are you working on now?"
"You know that big resort Lockwood and Donovan Trust are trying to build on Fire Island?"
"Oh yeah, with the ocean-front cabanas and the infinity pool? That place is going to be swanky."
"No it won't, they're not going to build it."
"What? Why not?"
"Fire Island is one of the most productive ecosystems in the Northeast, not to mention that waterfront development would decimate the horseshoe crab spawning site. Why should a couple of dickheads with some bucks get to pave over it and build a retreat for the rich and tragically disconnected? They can have their asses chauffeured out to Montauk."
"Oh please, Damon, you drive a brand new Audi and wear Armani to work?"
"Would you have hired me if I hadn't?" and with that he stops me. The truth is, I don't know if I would have. In one evening he's already deconstructing me. He's showing me how much I've become part of the high fashion world. I like to think of myself as Mystic Falls Elena and champion apple pie maker, but the truth is I'm not that girl anymore. I'm the woman who would stay at the swanky Fire Island resort because it's thirty minutes closer than Montauk, horseshoe crabs be damned. I wonder if the Miss Mystic runner-up is still there somewhere, and if I'd be able to get her back.
"You hate working on my case, don't you?" I ask, even though I already know the answer. I'm sure that to him I am one of the "rich and tragically disconnected," embroiled in an E!-worthy lawsuit with my baby sister because she's stealing dresses from my BFF and me. From that perspective it seems devastatingly petty and… small.
"Hate is a strong word," he smirks. I knew it.
"But you do."
"I did," he answers with a smile that's not a smirk and doesn't hold any regret or resentment.
That's about as heavy as our night gets, luckily. He shares a few stories about his and Stefan's misadventures and crazy things he did in college. Nothing he says is helping me not want him. But the want I'm feeling is new and big and dangerous. It's the kind of want that wants to keep him in my life. I've never wanted anything other than my job and Fashion Week before and tonight I've completely forgotten about all of the things Caroline and I have to finish before our runway show. I've forgotten that two of our models are getting sniffly and will probably have full blown typhoid but the time the show rolls around. I've forgotten that we still need to finish at least three complete ensembles and confirm the menu with our caterer. Everything I've been stressing about and ulcerating my stomach over for the past six months has evaporated. Damon has managed to, in the course of an evening, eclipse everything I had held so important for so long; and that terrifies me. The magnitude of his power over me terrifies me. The fact that he can laugh at my stupid jokes and make me feel more special than I did the day we got the Fashion Week invitation terrifies me. I don't scare easily but I'm scared now.
I'm scared that I'm falling for Damon.
xoxo