Caroline held out her last note, closing her eyes in bliss, and the small crowd exploded in rapturous applause. This was where she belonged, that much was clear. Her skin was tinged a lovely shade of pink from the warm stage lights and her blonde hair glowed as she blew kisses to the people below her. She leaned over to give her band hugs and then got off the stage, immediately making a beeline for the bar. She had been singing at a swanky lounge in New York on a chilly Thursday night after class. They had karaoke nights that didn't start until eight, but she knew the barkeep, so he let her on a little early.

"The usual?" Matt asked, ignoring a gorgeous blonde with a high pony and a diamond choker on the other end of the bar to serve Caroline first, even though aforementioned girl was there before her.

"What would I do without you?" Caroline responded, standing on her stool to lean across the counter and kiss his cheek. He gave her a flattered smile and made his way over to his other customer to take her order. Caroline nursed the cosmo he had prepared for her absentmindedly, her mind drifting off to the workload she had waiting for her back at home. She was a journalism major at NYU with a theatre minor and was in her senior year. She couldn't wait to be done, especially since she had just scored a prestigious internship with the Times.

Klaus strolled into the lounge still a little irked that his sister had dragged him away from his studio on a cold January night to go to some lounge. He was a senior at the School of Visual Arts and was currently working on his last major project before graduation. His sister, Rebekah, used to go to college in New York too, Julliard in fact, because she had always had such a natural talent for ballet, but had deferred in the previous year to fulfill a modeling contract she had secured. He was extremely proud of her for it, unlike their uptight family, because she was actually good at it and was making quite the name for herself while simultaneously earning enough to put any other twenty-year old to shame. Klaus also easily related to her desire to start making her own money so young, having started earning his own income at eighteen. Now he was making almost as much as her, displaying his work at a fancy art gallery in the Upper East Side owned by a woman who reminded him of his grandmother. It was only a couple of blocks down from where he lived, and his work attracted her clientele so much so that he became one of her most featured artists.

Rebekah and Klaus had walked in just as Caroline's performance began, and he was mesmerized by the beautiful singer. She had an ease he was jealous of and an air of bubbly cheeriness that he wanted so very much to get lost in. However, when she descended down the stairs to the stage, she had gone to the bar and had been rather friendly with the bartender, so he assumed that they were together. Shame, he mused, watching her cross her legs and sip her drink idly. Bored because Rebekah had abandoned him to make moon eyes at said bartender, he decided to go talk to the blonde anyway, a little conversation never hurt anybody.

"Lovely voice, love,"

"Thanks."

"Mind if I sit?"

"Free country,"

"So I keep hearing. What's your name, sweetheart?"

"No."

"Pardon me?"

"No, I won't tell you my name, but I'll give you a hint, bucko. It's not 'love' or 'sweetheart', and no, I don't want you to buy me a drink, thanks for the offer. Yes, I am a buzzkill, no I don't want to get out of here and it is none of your damn business if I have a boyfriend or not. Are we done?" She rattled, quirking a brow at him when she finished.

"You New Yorkers are so brittle. And by the way, love, I wasn't going to buy you a drink. How presumptuous of you to assume I would." He joked, smirking at her playfully.

"I'm not a New Yorker."

"Oh?"

"I'm from a tiny little town called Mystic Falls, in Virginia."

"From the South, then? What a scandal it would be if your people back home knew of your utter lack of manners." He teased.

"Shut up," she retorted, finally cracking a smile.

They ended up liking each other well enough. Caroline couldn't get enough of his accent and those darned dimples and Klaus was certain he could spend all night watching her laugh. They sat there almost all night, trading secrets and stories over her drinks. He told her about his siblings, about the art gallery, his mansion back home, everything. She drew the dimples out of his cheeks by telling him about her strict sheriff mom's run-ins with her bad boy high school boyfriend, her best friends, her dad and Stephen, the story behind the star tattoo on her foot and her all-consuming love for Broadway. He found out early on that she was not, in fact, dating Matt but was quite enjoying the life of a single woman in the Big Apple. The pretty blonde with the choker was his sister Rebekah, who she vaguely recognised from a handful of covers of magazines she didn't have the time to read anymore.

They both went home more than a little tipsy, but alone. And when Caroline rolled over in the morning, head pounding to remind her exactly how many cosmos she had consumed, she smiled fondly at the memory of Klaus, the blonde artist with raspberry lips and an accent worth dying for. Klaus woke up significantly later, but with just as bad of a headache. However, he was treated to a text from Caroline, the beautiful singer from the lounge with a journalism major and a theatre minor with a knack for calling him out on his bullshit.

I'm waiving the three-day rule to invite you for a cup of coffee.

Ply me with alcohol and then offer me reprieve. You truly have no shame, sweetheart.

Offer expires in 3...2...1

When and where?

And so they both happily played hooky that day, and spent the day holed up in a coffee shop in Manhattan with dim lighting and jazz music strumming along in the background. They had been there a good few hours, ordering snacks and more coffee so they wouldn't get kicked out for idling. Caroline sat cross-legged in her side of the booth, chewing on bread sticks and Klaus propped his head on his palm, watching her with amusement.

"Where do you see yourself living out your days when you're done with school? Like, where do you want to call home?"

"New Orleans. Definitely." Klaus answered, stealing one of her bread sticks.

"Wow," she muttered, widening her eyes at him as if he had just said he wanted to live on the moon.

"You said no judgment." He complained.

"And I'm not judging. I just... I can't see myself living anywhere but here. I mean the culture, the way the streets pulse beneath your feet, Broadway, 5th Avenue, the hidden little gems, every cheesy thing about New York just makes me fall in love just a little bit more. Now you're judging." Caroline pouted.

"I'm not, I swear it. I just love watching you talk about the things you love. Cheesy though they may be," he teased.

"You're lucky I like you. And that I'm not willing to waste food by throwing it at you." She warned, waving a bread stick at him.

"I like you too." Klaus murmured seriously, blue eyes searching out blue. Caroline held his gaze, smiling softly. Dreams really did come true in New York.