A/N: I'm so glad you guys liked reading from Stefan's POV. This chapter is told from Bonnie's but I'll probably be doing another chapter from Stefan's very shortly. Thank you and enjoy!


||Bonnie||

Hot. It had turned hot and muggy as the day progressed. The kind of hot where ice cubes on skin cooled you down, made your flesh jump. Riding the metro gave a reprieve from the sun but did little to alleviate the heat and humidity. It was stuffy and uncomfortable underground with hardly any fresh air circulating. There were about a billion people crammed on the platform jostling for a good spot to be one of the first on the train. It was a time were civility and chivalry went out the window, and being as small as I am, I had to be extra vigilant to make sure I wasn't shoved over the edge.

But it's quiet. Real quiet. One of the things I had to get used to was how quiet it could be in a hub where hundreds of thousands of people speed walked or ran to transfer to the next train. No time for conversation. Definitely no time to say hello. Barely any time to say excuse me for cutting someone off. It's the bustle and the rush. It's exciting and unfulfilling at the same time.

The connecting train I needed didn't have a lot of people waiting for it. It glided smoothly by, bringing with it a gush of hot air. The brakes squealed loudly, the door stopped right in front of me. Once it opened and those getting off got off, I climbed abroad eyeing a seat next to the door I'd need to exit through when my stop came.

Hard plastic kissed my ass but it beat standing up. Digging in my tote I pulled out the novella I had been reading for the last month. The main character was seriously working my nerves. I didn't begrudge anyone liberating themselves sexually, but whenever she caved to the demands of her boyfriend without addressing their issues, it irked me. And of course she became good at everything she tried after trying it once. Her lone insecurity you might wonder stemmed from developing later than every girl in her grade when she was younger. Wow, what a tragedy.

In a society where the young were impatient to grow up and the grown-ups wanted to hit the restart button, and go back to the womb, there were deeper issues out there the author could have chosen for her heroine to overcome. But I digress. Romance was a struggle enough on its own, meshing two personalities together in between real-life problems and ghosts from the past. We were all nuts and trying to find someone either on the same level of crazy as us, or less crazy than us to balance things out.

I moved my legs out of the way when the next load of passengers entered the train. Someone sat next to me. He smelled pretty good but I didn't look up to acknowledge him.

"Don't tell me you're seriously into those kinds of books."

My body went taut at the sound of a baritone timbre. No fucking way! My eyes lifted from the page and first stared at the stained rust-brown carpet below my feet before inching over to the gentleman seated to my right.

Gray orbs drunk me in, piece by piece without leaving my face which was impressive. His obsidian hair was parted on the left, gelled, tamed. The style didn't make him nerdish, but like he should be starring in a movie opposite a young Marlon Brando. A plain white V-neck T-shirt stretched across his broad chest illustrating this man took exceptional care of his body. Gotdamn his biceps were bulging. Dark denim jeans hugged his legs, and he was wearing a classic pair of black and white Chucks that made him adorably hot.

A bitch was tongue tied. Do you know how many times I've run into someone on the street after meeting them once? Zip, zilch, nada. DC was hella small and most who commuted through the nation's capital lived in northern Virginia and almost every part of Maryland. So unless you worked in the same building even then chances were small you'd have a chance encounter with an acquaintance who was still a virtual stranger.

Jared Malone and I eye-fucked. Let's call a spade a spade. He liked the way my boobs filled out the sweetheart neckline mini dress I wore to the meet and greet, and I sure hell wasn't shy in letting him know I found his crotch enticingly interesting.

I remembered, vaguely, he made a comment that could have come off totally rude, but it was an awesome ice breaker I decided to have a little fun with.

"I do read these kinds of books. Mainly for the prose."

His lips twisted wryly. "Oh really? Let me see," Jared reached for the book and I forked it over. His fingers overlapped mine, we stared at each other.

Jared cleared his throat and started reading aloud. A mistake. His voice was like rough sex that left you sore and contemplating if you needed a wheelchair.

"'I was hot for him and he was hot for me. We were hot together. He made me cry tonight, but I didn't care about my tears. He was everything and I was nothing. He wanted me as I wanted him, and I could tell his dick concurred. Two hours had been too long, and I felt sick and weak but his cum was the antidote and the cure.' Gotdamn," Jared cricked his neck. "'I was helpless to his charisma and he smirked and knew he was let off the hook because his fatal beauty turned me into a mewling whore.' Wow," my train buddy concluded.

"That is Pulitizer Prize stuff right there," I grinned facetiously. Jared reciprocated the gesture and released the book back into my custody.

"At least she's self-aware, I guess." Pause. "You read that kind of stuff in public?"

"In public, private, family reunions, doctor's office, it really makes no difference to me."

"You're bold," he wiped his brow, averted his gaze.

I gave Jared a sidelong glance and noticed a very faint flush to his cheeks, and the tip of his ear was a telltale shade of red.

Smut turns you on, Jared? Was the heat of the train getting to you? Or were you envisioning a specific person saying that stuff about you?

Jared returned to staring at me, composed, perhaps even closed off. Armor in place. "You still have my number?"

"I do."

"Why haven't you used it?"

"It's only Monday."

"So you're into playing the waiting game?"

My eyes narrowed at the implication I was playing a game with him. A game as old as sex was. We've all done it. Held off in contacting someone despite how badly we wanted to talk to them, get to know everything there was to know in the shortest amount of time as possible. Yet we curbed our urges, suppressed them, put them in chains and threw away the key because we didn't want to come off as desperate, clingy peasants with no life.

"That's what you think I'm doing?" I asked.

Jared never wavered or blinked. He leaned forward, his shoulder touching my shoulder, his scent colonizing the cells in my lungs. If he was trying to intimidate me he'd have to try a bit harder to scare someone with balls as big as mine.

"I don't know."

Time to get random. "Do you remember the color of the dress I wore to your art exhibit?"

Jared finally blinked, but didn't lean away. I liked that. A lot. My shoulder was burning and it wasn't due to the pressure his was applying to mine, but for another reason altogether.

He smiled, confidently. His teeth were straight enamel soldiers, gums bubble gum pink, and I smelled a hint of mint and….gin on his breath. Had a quick happy hour drink? It was barely six o'clock.

"It was black with sheer sleeves."

"Give the man a prize."

"Give me a harder question to answer," he countered. "As if anyone could forget a dress like that."

Cheeks don't blush. They were blushing. I swallowed. "Do you remember my full name?"

"Including middle?"

I shook my head. "First and last will do."

Jared appeared to mull it over. He leaned back and my shoulder was cold suddenly. No, bring the heat back because it had been headed to place where he and I could smile if we worked together.

"Your name is…Bonnie Sheila Bennett."

I gaped at him. Jared grinned smugly.

"How?"

Jared leaned to the side again. Every time he exhaled I felt it on my cheek. "You can learn so much about a person if you know who to ask. Plus I read your column."

"You do?" Only I didn't use my full name for my column. So how the hell did he learn my middle name? Amber sure as hell didn't know it, unless Stefan told her, which was the strongest possibility because he didn't know how to hold water.

Jared replied to my query. "I do."

"Why didn't you say anything when we were introduced?"

"Because I know that's not the most interesting thing about you."

Oh. Boy.

And I was pretty sure my ass was in Maryland right about now having missed my stop.

When I forced my gaze away from Jared to gauge where I was, I saw graffiti walls, power lines, and trees. I could still be in the district but spied the marquee which told what stop was coming next. Gotdamnit I was supposed to disembark two stops ago.

"I missed my stop."

"So did I."

Jared and shared a laugh.

"We should get off on the next one and transfer to the other side of the tracks," he suggested.

Sounded like a solid plan so I redirected traffic back to our conversation. "So you think I'm more interesting than the column I write?"

"Yes. You give advice and dating tips and warning signs of when a person should bolt. I can't help but be curious about what's driven you to give the advice you give. That's the Bonnie Sheila Bennett I want to get to know."

Him using my full name equally weirded me out and turned me on. "Seriously how do you know my middle name? You're not a hacker are you? Wanted by FBI, NSA, Scotland Yard, Interpol?"

"I wish," Jared reared his head back and guffawed. "Maybe more people would be into my art if I was."

That statement was made deprecatingly but I heard the undertone of bitterness. Guess the two pieces he sold was all he managed to sell, and maybe the critics slammed him straight into rethinking his passion. I wanted to ask but didn't want to pry.

The train slowed its speed as we approached the stop. Jared was the first to get to his feet, offered me his hand. His palm was toasty and he had calluses. His hand wasn't smooth as butter, but was rough. The hands of a builder, a creator, an artist who handled raw material and shaped it into whatever image bloomed in his mind. How would his hands feel gripping my thighs, scaling down my back? I repressed a shiver, craned my neck to meet his gaze. With us standing and me in my sneakers my head barely came to his shoulder.

It was Friday night all over again with him peering down at me. Jared's free hand touched my hip to steady me from the constant rocking of the train. I tingled where he touched me.

We waited for the doors to part open, stepped out into stifling heat that did not inspire one to take a deep breath.

Silently we headed to the opposite platform.

"You're not going to ask?" he broke our silent plea deal.

"Ask what?"

Jared glowered perfunctorily. "How good or bad I bombed Friday night?"

"I didn't want to pry."

He shrugged and stuffed his hands in his pockets. "Some critics loved me. Others thought my time would have been better spent taking selfies and hanging them up in frames from Walgreens."

"Wow."

"Fuck them is more like it."

I laughed. "That as well. People are going to talk about you whether you do good, bad, or nothing at all."

"You're right."

The headlights of an approaching train grew brighter. Jared fixed me with another one of his probing examinations where I couldn't figure what he was thinking or feeling other than knowing what his scrutiny was doing to me.

"The only thing I really care about is if a beautiful woman I gave my number to is going to use it."

I bit into my bottom lip, watched Jared watch me. He was good at watching. So was my roommate.

I liked Jared. I liked Stefan. The former hadn't brought up Amber once and was definitely feeling me. The latter only saw me as a friend yet at times touched me in ways that sent out massive mixed signals. Fuck, was I screwed.

"I'll call you as soon as you tell me how you know my middle name." That was my final bargain.

The train careened by and I waited.

Jared lowered his eyes to his feet. A sign of embarrassment. "Your date told me."

"Godric?"

"Yeah," Jared lifted his head. "He came back looking for you and I offered to get on the PA system but said I needed your full name in the off chance there was another Bonnie Bennett in attendance."

My hands flew to my mouth as I chuckled. "He believed you?"

"Dude seemed pretty desperate to find you. I don't blame him. I would have done the same."

Something dormant inside of me swelled. Yep. I was fucked.

"You gonna call me?" Jared persisted.

I nodded my head and gave the artist my best saucy smile. "Yeah, I'll call you."


Stefan had the air on Antarctica when I entered the apartment. I didn't smell anything cooking on the stove or baking in the oven. Not trying to say this was the 50's and he had to have my dinner on the table, but our agreement as roommates was: whoever made it home first had to prepare or order dinner so it constantly wouldn't fall on the same person. I came up with that rule since I worked from home seventy percent of the time. However, on the days I had to go see my editor or attend a symposium, or outing coming home and cooking was the last thing on my mind.

As you could guess, on the days we both had to leave out, we tried to make it home at the same time. We could be lazy and petty like that.

Stefan was the better cook having learned family recipes from his maternal grandfather. Recipes he had to memorize. With me he knew whatever would be waiting on the table came straight out of a box.

Kicking off my shoes, and dropping my tote on a chair adjacent to the door, I sauntered into the apartment, frowned. Three empty beer bottles sat atop the coffee table, the flat screen was on but the volume muted.

"Stefan!"

He didn't respond. I surveyed the area seeing signs of him being home, or having been home and possibly stepped out for a jog. Stefan was a fitness junkie and tried to coax me into mounting a treadmill or balancing my ass on one of those inflatable balls. Pass.

His laptop was open to his twitter page; Stefan's work Blackberry sat near one of the beer bottles. His keys were poking out beneath a copy of The Express newspaper.

"Stefan!"

"Why are you yelling?"

I spun in his direction, nearly swallowed my tongue.

Bless me, daddy.

Stefan just had a shower. Evidence? The droplets of water cascading down his chiseled torso and gliding to a place I yearned to see, feel, taste, experience. This fucker had on jeans that rode low, the button undone. His hair was slick with water but combed back from his face. Seriously? Stefan must not care how he was short-circuiting my brain.

He dumped his aloe scented body on the couch, kicked his bare feet up on the table. "Can you hand me the remote?" Stefan rasped.

I studied my roommate carefully. His jaw was tense. He was off. Stefan turned moody whenever he had a bad day at work or woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Scenarios one after another paraded through my head and more than likely wouldn't come close to touching on the real matter. Nevertheless, I searched for the remote and found it on the right end table. All of three feet from him.

I handed Stefan the remote after making a big production out of it and sat next to him. "What's wrong?"

His thumb stabbed a button to change the channel. "Nothing."

"You want to try that answer again?"

"No."

"Have you eaten anything?"

"I'm not hungry."

"Yes because you've drunk the equivalent of a loaf of bread. You need to eat something, Stefan."

"I'm. Not. Hungry. Bonnie," came my roommate's clipped response.

"I don't give a shit. You're eating. You don't want to be hungover in the morning."

Stefan scoffed and blew through channels without pausing long enough to see what was playing. "I don't get hungover from drinking three beers."

"You never drink more than one after work so explain the other two you killed."

"I don't feel like being nagged."

"This isn't me nagging but showing concern. Did you…have a fight with Amber?"

Stefan shook his head. Crap. If they had a fight I could take that thread, pull, unravel things.

"Did someone die?" was my next query.

I heard Stefan's hand tighten on the remote and my heart stopped pounding.

"Someone died?" His mom? Damon? A mutual friend of ours?

His hand relaxed while the other ran up the length of his thigh not quite settling on his crotch. Close enough. "No one died. I did, however, get some bad news."

"Okay. What?"

Stefan finally graced me with an unobstructed view of his face. Eyes half-lidded, stained light red burned marrow deep. Had he been crying? Or were those just run of the mill 'I'm so totally plastered' eyes? Stefan wasn't drunk. He turned randy and incoherent when he was drunk. He was much too mellow for that, but there was an edge about him like a caged animal being released after years of solitary confinement.

To anyone else Stefan was throwing out every signal that warned—stay away, but I wasn't afraid of him snapping at me, therefore, hurting my feelings. I had my days where it wasn't so easy to live with me, either.

"I don't want to talk about it," Stefan resumed flipping channels and settled on the news but didn't unmute the TV.

I spoke on an indrawn breath. "Fine. I'm here when you're ready. In the meantime I can tell you about my day."

Stefan didn't flinch, twitch, sag, or shrug. He remained perfectly stoic. He was telling me 'whatever' without saying a word.

Rising from the couch, I headed to the kitchen that was separated from the living room by the granite top breakfast bar. "The meet and greet was boring as all hell, unsurprisingly. One thing I learned? College professors really like to drink. Yikes, we need food," I remarked as I glossed over the bare contents in the fridge and didn't find much hope for a nutritious meal in the freezer either. "Whose turn is it to go to the store?"

"Yours"

Ugh. "Guess who I ran into?" I waited for Stefan to respond, he didn't. "Jared Malone." I waited some more for a reaction. Nothing. "You know he looks even better riding on the metro than he does standing in the middle of an art studio."

A pale arm that surely didn't belong to me filled up my peripheral, reached into the freezer and extracted a carton of mint chocolate chip ice cream. I hardly noticed since droplets of water were transferred from Stefan's chest to my back.

"You ran into Jared?" that question was spoken directly into my ear, a bottom lip grazed the shell of said ear.

"I…did." I pivoted around. Stefan eyed me and pulled off the top of the carton. He was more alert, animated than he had been forty seconds ago. Did my well-orchestrated candor touch a nerve? "Beer and ice cream for dinner?"

"Who said you need three square meals a day?"

Who indeed?

"Did you two talk?" Stefan snooped. A spoon somehow materialized in his hand and he used it to dig into the ice cream.

"We did. We talked so much the both of us missed our stops. I can say it's the most fun I've had on the metro without taking my clothes off."

A muscle in Stefan's jaw flexed. He slid the spoon in his mouth, withdrew, did it again, pulled out and the scoop of ice cream was gone, melting on his tongue.

I blindly closed the freezer since it was numbing my back while my front was on fire. Back into the ice cream the spoon went. Stefan held it out to me. My mouth opened automatically; mint, chocolate, Stefan was my new favorite flavor.

I closed my eyes and savored the taste, grinding it deep into the membranes of my tongue. One day soon I'll be eating ice cream off Stefan. Until then this would have to do.

"Are you gonna go out with him?"

Slowly, my eyes opened. Stefan was doing his notorious stare down.

"It's looking more promising minute by minute. Maybe you, me, Amber, and Jared can double date."

Stefan didn't agree or disagree. He placed all his concentration on feeding himself more ice cream.

"Are you finally going to tell me what's bothering you?" I touched Stefan's muscled shoulder.

I saw his eyes shift to my hand touching him and ordinarily I would have withdrawn, but kept my appendage right where it was. If he wanted me to stop touching him he could take a few steps backward, or remove it himself. My roommate simply carved another helping of ice cream and offered it to me. I closed my mouth around the spoon, moaned and licked my lips of any creamy residue.

Stefan cleared his throat and put the top back on the carton. His nipples were hard and I was close enough and at the right height to take one in my mouth, but how the hell would I explain that?

"I want you to be careful, Bonnie. You've dated some real assholes in the past."

"I don't need a rundown of my dating history failures. Besides, I think Jared and I are on the same page. We're attracted to each other and that's a good place to start."

"Attraction can fizzle."

"Or it can lead to something beautiful. I get paid to tell people how to manage their personal lives. It's about time I had a personal life of my own. Besides, I'm not worried about how things will or won't go with Jared because I know you'll look out for me."

Stefan grew quiet, reflective. I hungered for his thoughts. "I thought you were going out with your girlfriends for drinks?"

I sighed. "They had plans already, but we're supposed to get together this Thursday. Why don't you round up some of your boys and join us."

"We won't be intruding?"

"Are you expecting my crew to complain there're sexy men offering to buy them drinks? Stefan, I thought you knew us?"

That managed to eek a smile out of Mr. Grumpy Pants.

"I'll see who's available," he gently nudged me out of the way so he could put the ice cream back in the freezer. "Did you want some more?"

I wanted a whole hell of a lot more, but shook my head. "I'm going to order some Thai. You can join me if you want to."

"Get spring rolls."

"Duh," I headed to the drawer where we kept takeout menus.

"I don't mean to keep bringing this up," Stefan distracted me from my task. "Jared reminds me of Damon and on a good day you can't stand Damon."

I laughed. That was very true. I loved Damon because he was Stefan's brother and at times could be a decent person. The rest of the time I fantasized about gouging his eyes out with a spork because he was a rude ass bitch.

"They might physically resemble one another," if you squinted, "but they differ in temperament. Amber doesn't seem the type to befriend someone who is abrasive like your brother. I doubt she'd give Jared the time of day if he had a personality like Damon's."

Then again they had been friends since kids. To remain as tight as they were I'm sure their friendship had to hit a few rough patches, and whatever those rough patches incorporated they were able to work though. I assumed.

Stefan pushed away from the fridge, his hand landing delicately on my stomach, sliding horizontally across my belly. Heat and butterflies shot through me. "He better treat you right or he'll be hearing from these hands."

Those hands were talking to me and I liked what they were saying.

"I'll let him know."

"You do that," Stefan kissed my temple and retook his seat on the couch.

I ordered dinner and did a happy girl dance in the kitchen.


I was awakened from sleep around two in the morning. One eye opened, the other still closed I gawked at the silhouette looming in the threshold.

"Stefan?"

"Wrong Salvatore."

A/N: The divo has arrived. Thanks for reading! Oh and no worries, this won't be turning into a love triangle, square, or octagon. Hopefully. Someone asked who I pictured as Jared and for now I don't have anyone in mind. And I was also asked if I'm from DC. I'm not but I've worked in the district, so places I frequented will appear in the story as we move along. Again, thanks for reading guys. See you shortly.