Keeping Secrets
Ch. 14
Katie put on a black dress and matching flats then picked Tyler up and headed to Vicki's funeral. They got to the church early and were sitting outside when Katie decided she could no longer stand the silence. "So, what do you think Vicki would think about you being with me?" Katie asked not knowing what else to talk about.
He just shook his head. "She probably wouldn't care. I treated her like crap." He said as he leaned forward and placed his elbows on his knees. "Kinda feels like I don't even have the right to miss her." he said with a shake of his head as he looked down at his hands.
Katie leaned forward mimicking his position. "Did you care about her?" Katie asked and he looked at her to see that she wasn't jealous or judging, just asking a simple question.
"I did." He admitted. "I just never showed it because I knew my parents didn't like her."
She wanted to point out that his parents didn't like her either, but he was still good to her. Instead of questioning him about it she tried to make him feel better. "Then you have every right to grieve her." Katie assured him.
When the funeral was over Katie drove Tyler home, walked with him to his door and gave him a hug and a kiss. She was walking away from the house when Carol called, "Katie." She stopped and turned back to see Carol walking over to her so she met her half way.
"Yes ma'am?" Kate asked, wondering what she'd done wrong this time.
"I know we got off on the wrong foot, finding you in bed with my son…" she wrinkled her nose and gave her head a slow shake at the memory, "was kind of a shock, but Tyler explained how your grandfather treats you and that he was just giving you a safe place for the night. I realized after I calmed down that you were fully clothed and on top of the blankets." Katie had her hands behind her back, picking at her cuticles. "I want you to understand that it's not going to happen again."
"Yes ma'am. I completely understand." Katie replied taking her hands from behind her back to swing them nervously at her sides. "It won't happen again."
"That being said, I wanted to thank you for being there for Tyler through all this Vicki stuff." She told her with a small smile. "It means a lot."
"It's really no big deal." She told her with an awkward shrug.
"Regardless, I appreciate it." she told her again. "Anyway, don't be a stranger, okay? You're welcome here anytime and if you need to get away from your grandfather on occasion you can use our guest room."
"Wow, really?" Katie asked a little shocked.
"Really." Carol told her with a polite smile.
"Thank you."
"Are you sure about this?" Damon asked as they pulled up to Katie's house.
She took in a deep breath looking at her childhood home through the passenger window of the moving truck that Damon was driving. "We've already packed up my stuff and the queen bed frame that you insisted I take even though I would be fine with my old twin bed. I'm doing this."
"Okay." Damon pushed his door open and they both got out and headed to the house. Her grandpa wasn't home at the moment so Katie grabbed the hide-a-key rock out of the fake plant on the front porch and opened the door for them.
"Actually I change my mind. I want my parent's room." She said as she led him to the room her grand father had made his and opened the door. It was twice the size of her old room and had it's own separate bathroom.
"Okay no problem." He clapped his hands and rubbed them together. "Let's get to work." By the time her grandfather got home from work they had moved his stuff to her father's old office, the smallest room in the house, and moved all of Katie's things into her parent's bedroom.
Her grandfather walked in to see them sitting on his couch, both of them drinking his beer. "What the hell are you doing in my house?" He asked glaring at Katie and Damon.
Damon hopped up and walked over to the old, too buff, too tan man with a snarl of a smile and clapped his hand down on his shoulder. "Katie, wanna go up to your new room while the old man and I have a little chat?"
"Gladly." Katie answered and took her beer upstairs with her, taking a swig of it as she passed her grandpa.
After ten or so minutes Damon came upstairs and plopped down on the bed. "It's done." He tucked his hands behind his head. "He won't bother you and I even told him to let Tyler stay the night if you want him too."
"What?" Katie asked looking at him with big eyes. "Why would you do that? You hate me being with Tyler."
"Yeah, but I like you more than I hate him." He said with a shrug as he got up and headed for the door.
"Hey." Katie called making him stop and look back at her. She walked over and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. "Thank you."
"Anytime Katie Cat." He told her as she let go of him. "Or am I still not allowed to call you that?" He asked with a playful quirk of his brows and a smirk.
"I think you've earned back the rights to the nickname." She told him with a small smile.
"And you better not have changed my name in your phone." He grabbed the door frame as he walked further out, still looking at her.
"I haven't, but if Tyler sees it I'll have no choice." She warned him.
"Yeah, yeah." He rolled his eyes and walked off.
Katie headed down stairs and her grandfather, who had been sitting in his recliner, saw her dressed in a tight, navy blue dress with a lace back that stopped at her waist line and heals and he got up. "Where are you going?"
She stopped at the door and turned to look at him. "The founder's kick off party. I'm hoping to make it onto the Miss Mystic Falls court, so I have to attend all of these stupid parties." She explained, trying with every bone in her body to play nice.
"Oh, well, have a good time and don't get into trouble." He told her as he stumbled back to his chair. Katie tilted her head at him, finding it odd that he had nothing bad to say, then assumed Damon had compelled him to not say bad things to her anymore.
"You used to drag me to all of these events when I was a kid, why don't you go anymore?" she asked out of pure curiosity.
"Big bad Mayor Lockwood decided that he's too good to be friends with me. So I said fuck him." He answered talking with his hands while holding his beer in one.
"Right, well, goodnight." Katie told him finding the whole exchange between them to be off putting.
When she got to the party she found Tyler and his father talking to Matt and Kelly. When Tyler saw her she gave him a smile and a small wave. When he and his father were done talking to the grieving family Tyler walked around to the bar that Katie knew was on the other side of the wall the walked back around with a bottle of alcohol in his hand. "Check it out!" he whisper yelled as he walked over to Katie and Matt.
"Dude, your dad's going to totally beat you down if he catches you." Matt said as the two of them started walking off.
"Yeah, let him try." Tyler said as he took the cap off of the bottle.
"Alright, screw it." Matt took the bottle from Tyler and took a swig.
Tyler looked behind him to see that Katie wasn't following them, but instead stood where she had been since she saw him. "Hey, come on, booze…distracted parents…fun…this way." He told her not moving from where he stood near Matt.
"Yeah, that's…not really my thing." She said with a wrinkled nose and a shake of her head.
He finally walked over to her, "Come on, it's not like I'm asking you to get high with me, it's just alcohol."
Katie couldn't help but notice that he hadn't told her hi, or kissed her or anything and it was really bugging her even though she knew it was a stupid thing to be mad about. "Look, Tyler, I just somehow got your mom to like me. I'm not going to screw that up by getting caught drinking with you at your parent's party."
"God, you really are a goody, goody. Go kiss my moms ass. I'm gonna go have fun." He told her with a hard face and a glare then started walking away.
"Tyler, come on, don't be like that." she called but he kept on walking.
Damon walked by and saw Katie looking down at the floor with a frown on her face. "Hey," Katie's eyes shot up to him and she forced the displeased look off of her face. "You okay?" he walked over looking around for Tyler. "Where's your boyfriend?"
"I'm fine and I don't want to talk about it." she answered as she crossed her arms over her chest. "I'm gonna go home." She tried to walk around him, but he grabbed her upper arm, gently stopping her. "Damon, please let me go."
He moved to stand in front of her and let go of her arm. "You didn't get all dressed up and spend…" he looked over her hair and make up, "and hour in front of the mirror just to leave twenty minutes into the party." She just looked at him blankly. She was hiding the fact that she wanted to cry and Damon felt like finding Tyler and ripping his head off. Instead he held his hand out to her. "Dance with me."
"Damon, I-"
"Just one dance." He cut her off. "Then you can go find your boyfriend and give him a piece of your mind." She couldn't say no to the pleading look in his eyes.
"Fine, one dance." She told him with a small smile and a nod.
1901 by phoenix started playing when they walked over to the bar where Elena stood watching Stefan dancing to the up beat song with Kelly. "Have I entered an alternate universe where Stefan is fun?" Damon asked Elena.
"Is he drunk?" Katie asked with raised brows.
"Yes." Elena and Damon answered at the same time.
"Is he going to be okay?" Elena asked Damon.
"Eventually." Elena just looked at him then back at Stefan. "One way or another." He looked at Katie and jerked his head to the dance floor. "Let's dance."
"No, no, no. I agreed to dance with you when there was slow music playing." Katie argued. "I don't know how to dance to this."
"I'll show you, come on." He grabbed her hand and pulled her onto the dance floor.
She was on the dance floor with Damon when Tyler walked in. All his eyes could see was Damon's hands on her hips as they moved to the music and the way Damon was looking at her ass in the tight dress. He had been looking for her to apologize for treating her the way he had, but she looked just fine without him. So he snuck a glass of vodka from the bar and walked off.
When the song was over Damon excused himself from her and she moved to the bar to people watch. Elena and Matt were dancing when Stefan cut in. Shortly after Katie watched as Elena bumped into a guy then Stefan made the guy apologize twice and shoved him. Stefan was walking away as Damon walked up beside Katie and asked the bartender for bourbon. "I'll totally sneak you a drink if you want it." He offered, holding up his drink to her.
"I said no to Tyler. I'm not going to say yes to you." Katie replied and pushed the drink away.
"Wait he ditched you because you didn't want to drink?" He asked with a disbelieving look.
"With him and Matt and risk getting caught, yeah." Katie added with a nod.
"The kids an idiot." He told her and she couldn't help but love the way his mouth moved when he said the word idiot.
"He's not an idiot. He's a normal teen boy just looking to have fun with his fuddy duddy of a girlfriend." She argued.
"Hey." Damon said dipping his head into her line of view to get her to look him in the eyes, "You're not a fuddy duddy."
"Have you noticed what your brothers been up to?" Elena asked as she walked over to stand on the other side of Damon and took an olive off of the tray on the bar.
"Nope I've been too preoccupied with yours." Damon replied as he turned his head to look at her.
"I'm gonna go find Tyler." Katie said then walked away. She had been looking for him for a while when she ran into Matt. "Hey, have you seen Tyler?"
"No, have you seen my mom?" Matt asked.
"No, wanna join forces?" Katie asked.
"Sure, why not?" He sighed and they started walking the house over. "Have you looked outside?"
Katie shook her head no and they headed out back Katie looked one way and Matt looked the other. Her heart dropped to her feet when her eyes landed on Kelly's hands and lips on Tyler's face. "Tyler?" Katie asked making Matt look at his mom and Tyler making out with each other.
"What the hell are you doin' man?" Matt yelled as he rushed over and pulled Tyler back.
"Dude, calm down." Tyler said with his hands held up in surrender, but Matt punched him in the face, starting a fist fight that knocked Kelly to the ground as Tyler tackled Matt and started wailing on him. "Tyler! Tyler stop it!" Katie yelled at him, but it fell on deaf ears. "Somebody help!" Katie yelled and soon Alaric ran over and pulled Tyler off of Matt. With Tyler out of the way Katie went to Matt and kneeled down next to him. "Matt..." Katie sighed taking in his bloody face as Tyler's dad urged him back inside.
"I'm so sorry." Matt said with a shake of his head.
"You have nothing to apologize for." Katie told him with a sigh as she stood up and held her hand out to him.
She was pulling Matt to his feet when Elena ran out of the house and over to Matt and Katie. "Oh my god, Matt, what happened are you okay?"
Katie pulled Elena back a little as she whispered. "Keep him out if the house and away from Stefan." Elena gave her friend a nod. "I'm going to go get a wet rag or something."
Katie got a wet rag from one of the bathrooms then gave it to Elena and Matt. Since Elena had Matt covered Katie went back inside. She was sitting in an empty office, watching the fire in the fireplace when Tyler found her. "What are you doing in here?" He asked as he came inside and closed the door.
"I needed to get away for a minute and try to figure out what to say to you." She answered turning her hurt eyes on him.
"I'm so sorry. I don't know what came over me." He said as he came over and sat down next to her.
"I know you are. It's written all over your face." She told him as she examined his wide, sad eyes.
"You have all right to break up with me." He told her looking down at her hand on the couch between them.
"Is that why you did it? To get me to break up with you so you don't have to?" She asked.
"I did it because I saw you dancing with Damon." He answered going from ashamed to pissed in the blink of an eye.
"Wow." Katie blinked at him. "Damon is my friend, Tyler, and if you and I are going to make this work," she motioned between the two of them, "then you are going to have to trust me when I tell you that you are the only guy I want to be with."
"How am I supposed to believe that when he constantly looks at you like he wants to eat you?" Tyler asked.
"Because that's him looking at me, not the other way around." She answered. "Besides, I wouldn't have been dancing with him at all if you hadn't ditched me to get wasted with Matt." Tyler just glared at her for a few seconds then looked away. "Look," Katie stood up and looked down at him. "We've both obviously gotten pissed at each other and lashed out like stupid little kids. Why don't we take a break for a few days? Try to figure out if we even still want there to be an us."
"Yeah, sure, whatever." Tyler said with a glare at her as he stood up then left the room.
She walked out of the room to see that people were gathering to hear Mayor Lockwood make his kick off speech. So not wanting to be rude and leave before the speech Katie joined everyone that was gathered around. "Are you okay?" she heard someone asked her quietly while John Gilbert made his speech, and looked over to see Alaric standing to her left.
"I'm fine." She told him with a polite smile.
"You just caught your boyfriend making out with his best friend's mom. You can't be fine." He told her and she looked away from him.
"You know too much about your student's personal lives." She whispered to him.
"Only the ones involved with vampires." He whispered back.
"Look at his right hand." Damon said to Alaric as he moved to stand on his other side.
"Whose?" Alaric asked sounding like he really didn't care.
"The town's favorite son. Look at his ring." Damon said and looked at Alaric then noticed Katie standing beside him with her arms crossed over her chest and a frown on her face.
Katie looked at John's ring as he pulled the rope, ringing the kick off bell. "That looks like mine." Alaric said aloud.
"Yeah, and that would be a big coincidence if he hadn't just come back from the dead five minutes ago." Damon said whispering the last three words.
"You killed him?" Katie asked and Damon hummed a positive answer. "Too bad he didn't stay dead. I hate that guy."
Alaric turned his head to Katie giving her a disapproving look and she just shrugged with a 'what' face. "Where the hell did you get that ring?" Damon asked taking Alaric's attention off of her.
"Isobel, my wife." He answered.
Damon laughed. "Who gave birth to Elena under the medical care of the esteemed Dr. Grayson Gilbert, John's brother." Damon whispered.
"You think John knew Isobel?" Alaric asked.
"I think John knows a lot of things." Damon answered.
"Okay, I'm leaving. See you two later." She said as she gave them both a forced smile and headed out.
When she walked into her front door she saw her grandfather passed out in his recliner. With a scoff she left him there, grabbed a bottle of his Jack Daniels out of the kitchen cabinet and headed up stairs to her room. Feeling tired, hurt and like a hypocrite for being mad at Tyler for kissing someone who wasn't her when she had kissed Damon, she sat down at her desk and uncapped the bottle.
Green eyes stared back at her in the mirror that hung on the wall in front of her and she turned them down to the sparkling pendant that rested on her chest as she tilted her head back and took a drink. Thinking about Damon and what Tyler had said about him, she picked it up and looked down at it. The sapphire star sparkled up at her as if it was judging her for being with Tyler when her heart was so clearly with Damon.
But she didn't want to be with Damon. She wanted to be happy with someone else, with Tyler. Up until tonight he had been so sweet to her, but she couldn't help wondering if he had made up his mind that he couldn't be better to a girl, he couldn't make it up to Vicki by being with Katie. "Thinking about me?" She heard Damon behind her and turned around to see him sitting on her bed with one of her pillows in his lap.
"No, Tyler, actually." She told him as she let go of the pendant, grabbed the bottle and moved to sit on the bed with him.
"Did you two break up?" he asked as he put the pillow behind his head and laid back.
"We're taking a break." She corrected as she put her lips to the bottle and tilted her head back.
"You know that's better on ice right?" he asked with a nod to the bottle.
"It won't stay on the ice long enough to make a difference." She said as she wiped her lips. "Why are you here?"
"I wanted to let you know to stay clear of John Gilbert. He pretty much threatened to hurt you if I step out of line." He said as he sat up and grabbed the bottle from her.
"Hey!" she said as she tried to grab it back, but he dodged her and took a drink. "Give it back."
"There's a reason I prefer bourbon." He said as he handed her the bottle back. "And you know it's not good to drink alone?" he asked as she took another drink.
"Better alone than with you." she said recalling the last time she got drunk.
"Come on, you're on a break. Your allowed." He told her with a seductive look that he knew she wouldn't be able to resist.
"That's not what a break is for." She shook her head.
"Sure it is." He argued as he sat up and took the bottle from her again. This time she didn't protest. "Back to why I came here." He paused to take a drink then handed her the bottle back. "John knows too much."
"How much is too much?" Katie asked before she tilted the bottle back then swallowed and wiped her lips with the back of her hand, driving Damon crazy.
"Everything and more." Damon took the bottle from her and took another drink. "He knows about Katherine, about me opening the tomb to find her that she wasn't in there to begin with he knows…everything."
Katie took the bottle from him and took a bigger drink than usual. "Why don't you just cut his ring off and kill him?" she frowned at the words that just left her mouth. "God you're a bad influence."
Damon rolled his eyes and took the bottle from her knowing that if she didn't stop she was going to be hugging the toilet pretty soon. "Don't blame me." He told her then took a drink. "If I kill him, everything he knows is going to get leaked to the council and he will have you killed. It's bed enough that those tomb vamps are getting too much attention from them and now with Stefan on the fritz…"
"How is he by the way? He disappeared tonight." She asked trying to take the bottle from him but he pulled it away. "Gimme it, Damon."
"Nope." he told her and she made a grab for it and fell into his lap. He smirked down at her head on his legs.
She sighed and pushed herself back into a sitting position with her legs tucked to the side so she wouldn't be indecent in the dress that she still wore. "Fine, keep it."
"He's not coping well at all and if he doesn't get it under control he's going to bring the council down on us with no help from John." He said then took a drink from the bottle.
"He's not going to hurt Elena is he?" she asked looking tired as she stood up, but stumbled in her heels even though they were the thick kind.
"No, but you might hurt yourself if you don't take those shoes off." he said and she sat on the side of the bed and took off her shoes, letting them fall to the floor with a thump.
With them out of the way she walked over to her closet and grabbed a tank top, then a pair of shorts out of the dresser. "Unzip me?" Katie asked, sweeping her waves to the side as she turned her back on him.
"With pleasure." He answered as he stood up and placed his hand on her shoulder as the other one pulled the zipper down her back.
She sighed as his hands slipped the straps from her shoulders and the top fell to gather around her hips, the bottom of the dress too tight to fall off her body. A laugh betrayed her when he grabbed the bottom of the dress and jerked it down. "Hey, easy this stupid thing wasn't exactly cheap."
"If it's stupid why did you buy it?" he asked as she turned around, covering her chest with her arms.
"Because I've worn all my other dresses to public events twice and that's my limit." She explained as she turned from him and grabbed her tank top. "Plus I thought it would get Tyler all hot and bothered." She sighed and grabbed her shorts.
"Oh it got someone all hot and bothered, but it wasn't Tyler." He told her in a deep voice as he grabbed her hips and pulled her against him, the evidence pressed into her rear.
"Damon…" she sighed fighting her desires. "I can't… I'm too drunk and I'm with Tyler." Her body defied her words as she leaned back against him, dropped her shorts and lifted her arm to grab the back of his head.
"Drunk sex is the best." He told her as he started kissing her neck. "And you're on a break, you're allowed."
"Son of a bitch." She growled, coming to her senses as she turned in his arms and pushed him away. "I can't, Damon. Stop trying to get me to be somebody that I'm not!"
"I'm trying to get you to realize that you don't belong with him!" Damon yelled back. "Figure out who you want and stop leading us on."
"I will when you will." She told him with a flared nostril glare.
He whooshed out of her open window without another word.
