Chapter Nineteen: Breaking of Bread
"Come on they can't be serious?" Caroline let her head fall onto the table with a loud bang. It was funny to Bonnie that Caroline was the one being bothered about the situation the most.
They had gotten up pretty early today so they could use all the time they had left together before Elena and Caroline would leave for Mystic Falls again. Their plan was to grab some breakfast at some fancy restaurant (Bonnie's mom had been generous these days) and after that check out the new swimming pool in Bonnie's neighborhood. But that was going to get cut short already because from when they arrived at the restaurant and ordered their breakfast to now one hour had already passed and Caroline started to get hangry.
"Alright, that's enough. I'll go ask at the check in." Bonnie got up, equally annoyed by the waiting time and moved to the front of the restaurant to get the waiters to speed the fuck up.
"Go get them girl." Caroline cheered after her, her head still on the table.
She arrived at the check in desk and no one was around. Wow, the service here was worse than in the one diner she once been to with Jeremy. And this restaurant was supposed to be one of the best in town.
Bonnie pressed the little bell on the desk to make herself noticed by anyone working at this place and tapped her fingers at the surface out of annoyance. And she waited, and waited.
She rang the bell a second time and a third but nothing happened. It was like this restaurant wasn't even open and Bonnie would have wondered if that was the case if they hadn't been ushered to their table and already ordered. Plus, the restaurant was full of people. There were only a few in the big room with Elena, Caroline and her but she could hear a lot of voiced coming from the closed door to Bonnie's right that one could rent for private occasions.
Bonnie watched that door and wondered if at least these people got better service because they paid way more than Bonnie and her friends. In that moment the door got opened and Bonnie's eyes widened for a second. She turned around to face the desk again because she didn't want to get caught staring at the people coming out of the room. They were leaving and from the bits and pieces of conversation she could hear she figured out that they weren't too happy about this place either.
Most of them were already out the door but still no waiter was in sight. Bonnie thought about doing the same thing as Caroline and drop her head to the desk but she decided to look around and find someone responsible for this mess instead when she heard a bright voice yell her name.
"BOOOONNIE!"
Bonnie turned around already fully aware who was calling for her. She put on a bright smile to hide her uncertainty because she didn't know what she would be seeing. When she had completely turned she needed to act fast and widen her arms because Briana was already halfway running to her and jumping into her embrace.
Bonnie hugged the little girl tight and looked over her shoulder to see who else of the Parker clan was there and was relieved when only Jo made her way towards her.
"Hey Bonnie!" Jo waved in her direction when she was only a few steps away.
"Hi, Jo." Bonnie gave Jo a quick hug when she reached her and smiled. She was actually really happy to see the two of them. Bonnie took the opportunity and took in their appearances. The two girls were wearing dresses. Briana's was yellow and layers of yellow lace made the skirt look puffy like a dress made for a Disney princess. Bonnie could see that Briana was very proud of her dress. Jo's on the other hand was more modest. She was wearing a dark violet dress that reached over her knees and combined it with a black cardigan. Where Briana's dress was puffy Jo's was slim and velvety. She looked stunning. Their getup made Bonnie wonder what the occasion for such a dress up was.
"Are you here to get some breakfast?" Jo asked and Bonnie heard annoyance in her voice.
"Yeah, that was the plan but it seems like they closed this thing down." Bonnie answered and Jo scoffed in response.
"I have never seen something like this. We have ordered this room weeks in advance and suddenly they are not prepared for us. If I were you I'd see if I could find somewhere else to eat." Jo said.
"I guess that is the only way." Bonnie admitted. "It is just a pity because my friends from Virginia are leaving today and waiting just cost us one hour."
"Wow, I would totally yell at the manager for this." Jo suggested.
Bonnie pointed to the check in desk. "That is what I am here for."
"Where are your friends?" Briana asked curiously.
"Oh, there in there." Bonnie pointed to the big dining room.
"Can I say hello to them?" Briana asked and Bonnie nodded. "If you find them. There sitting somewhere in the back." And with that Briana ran into the dining room leaving Jo and her to themselves.
"So, what's the occasion? Why are you two dressed up like princesses?" Bonnie teased Jo.
Jo groaned. "It's this stupid work thing of my dad's. He holds these kind of things every once in a while and wants everyone of the family to participate. It is more like a show off if you ask me. And we always have to dress up like this. I hate it."
Jo's way of speaking about her father reminded her a little of Kai, even though Jo stayed way more civil with her open criticism on the man. But the information that she had gotten form her made Bonnie wary. That meant Kai must be here somewhere too.
"How did you survive the party on Friday?" Jo smirked in her direction and it was one of those moments when she resembled her brother so much. Bonnie wondered how much he had told her about that night.
"Yeah, had a fun night. I just wished everyone would stop mentioning it."
Jo giggled. "Don't worry, you were not the main attraction that night. At least I heard way juicier stories until now."
"Like what?" Bonnie wanted to know but didn't get an answer because Jo's attention switched from her to the door of the private room she had just stepped out of. It got opened again and Bonnie saw to male figured coming out of it. One was a little smaller than the other but younger and they were both wearing suits. It took Bonnie a moment to realize that she was looking at Kai and his father.
They stepped out of the room and stopped in front of the now closed door. They seemed to be in a deep conversation and Bonnie wondered if that was the first time she had seen Kai and his father interact normally. But with a short glance to Jo she realized nothing about this scene was normal or civil. The two men appeared to be getting along but Jo's gaze was cautious and the wrinkle between her eyebrows made her look worried. About her brother, Bonnie figured.
When Bonnie paid closer attention to the two she could see that Joshua Parker was talking intensely to his son, who was looking to the ground focusing on something other than his father to keep himself calm. Joshua said something and Kai looked up into his father's eyes. He nodded and Joshua placed his right hand on the back of Kai's neck, barely churning him in the process. When Kai mentioned something his father smiled at him and gave him a pat on the cheek before releasing him and heading to the exit leaving Kai behind on his own.
"Hey Kai, look who I ran into!" Jo called for her brother across the room.
Kai turned around and looked into the direction he heard Jo's voice from and his eyes finally found Bonnie. She swallowed hard. This was going to be the first encounter with Kai after they had kissed. When she texted him yesterday she didn't get the feeling that he treated her any differently but she guessed she was going to find out now, because Kai was headed their direction.
Bonnie took in his features. He was wearing a dark blue coat and underneath it a white shirt but no tie like all the other men that had left that room. Bonnie had never seen Kai so fancy but she had to admit it made him look mature and mysterious. And even sexy Bonnie would say if there wouldn't be this expression on his face. He didn't look angry like usually after talking to his father, he looked more… tired. When he reached up to them Bonnie missed the usual spark in his mischievous eyes.
"Wanna get something to eat here? You better look for something else or otherwise you might starve to death." Kai greeted Bonnie and to every other person he might have sounded like every other day but to Bonnie he sounded weirdly empty and not even his choice of words could fool her.
"Yeah, I already figured that out." Bonnie said with a smile to cheer him up a bit.
"What was that about?" Jo turned to her brother and pointed to the stop where he had been standing with his father just moments ago.
"Ah, you know the same old drama. Trying to make me understand how important it is to everyone that I participate on these charades of a work meeting, blablabla." Kai lowered his head and shook it slightly. Jo patted his left arm as a response and gave him a faint smile. Now that Bonnie thought about it, Jo also looked like she could use a little sleep. What was going on with them?
Just when Bonnie wanted to ask her, Briana came running to the three of them with joy on her face. Bonnie saw that she had Caroline and Elena in tow and the three were heading their direction. Okay, so Bonnie had to wait to catch up the with Parker twins at a later point.
"So this lovely young lady just informed us that there is not going to be any food served today." Elena called out when they nearly reached them.
"But she also said that there was a party going on in the foyer so we thought we'd join." Caroline added and smiled her most perfect smile. She turned to Jo and reached out her hand. "Hi, I'm Caroline and this is Elena, Bonnie's friends from Virginia."
Caroline's friendliness and openness made Jo snicker and she took Care's hand and shook it. "Hi, I'm Jo." She shook Elena's hand as well and looked weirdly between Kai and the girls when they waved at each other. "You already know each other?" she asked.
"We met on Friday." Caroline claimed.
"I am surprised you remember that. You were already beyond saving at that point." Kai chuckled.
"Please, that little alcohol doesn't kill my memory." Caroline made a move with her hands to indicate that she wasn't serious and they all had to laugh.
"So what's the plan now, Bonnie? I guess we're not going to get anything to eat here today." Elena asked.
"I guess not. Wanna go somewhere else?" Bonnie turned to Caroline and Elena to get some answers.
"Hell yes! I don't even care where we're going I just need something to eat… like ASAP." Caroline said with intensity and Elena nodded in agreement.
"Alright, then I guess we're just gonna hit the first restaurant we come across." Bonnie suggested.
"Are you guys joining us?" Elena asked Jo and Kai.
"Oh, I don't know. It's your last day together and we have to take care of Briana right now, so." Jo said but Elena and Caroline both instantly assured Jo that neither their nor Briana's presence was going to spoil the day. Briana was already thrilled to bits and Jo turned to Kai. He only shrugged and Elena solemnly declared this settled.
The group started moving when Caroline declared that she was going to write the worst comment into the guestbook lying on the desk and Elena said that she'd help her. Bonnie, Jo and Kai already headed to the parking lot and Bonnie was going to wait for her friends there.
When Jo had reached her car Briana found the playground of the restaurant more interesting than getting into the car and ran towards the big swing.
"I'll better go after her, don't want her to break anything." Jo said and quickly followed her little sister to the playground and so Bonnie was alone with Kai. She thought if she didn't want this whole day to turn awkward she needed to talk to him now. She took all her courage and looked Kai directly in the eyes.
"Hey, ehm, I think we should talk about what happened the other night." Bonnie reluctantly got out.
Kai tilted his head slightly and looked as if he didn't know what she was talking about. Bonnie would have taken his behavior as a tease, his usual way of making fun of her, but the current state he was in made her wonder if he really didn't understand.
Bonnie's eyes narrowed and the intense look on her face made him realize what she was talking about. "Ooooh, you mean the kiss." Kai let out in a volume so loud Bonnie needed to look around to make sure Elena and Caroline wouldn't be approaching already.
"Can you turn it down a little?" Bonnie hissed.
"Relax, Bonnie. There is no one here." Kai laughed a tired laugh.
Bonnie only looked at him for a moment trying to figure out what was wrong with him but then she decided to focus on the other task at hand first. "So do you have anything to say to that matter?" Bonnie asked him.
Kai waited with his answer, looking like he had to think about it first. "No, I guess not."
Bonnie blinked. Suddenly her dream for the other night came back to her mind.
"What? You have something to say on that matter?" Bonnie spit out.
"Nope!"
It was weird how accurate her dream had been to this point. But instead of becoming angry at him she only looked at him with disbelief.
"What?" he asked.
"That's all? The case is closed for you?"
"Pretty much. I mean if you still have something to say about it please feel free to do so. I am very interested to hear it. But maybe you feel the same as me about it, that we were both drunk like hell, you were in an emotional state and it just happened. For me it doesn't change anything. We're still friends and if it doesn't change anything for you than… we're cool, right?"
Bonnie nodded. He had said what she had hoped he would. That nothing was different between them. "Okay, then we leave it behind us." Bonnie stated and turned to see if Care and Elena were already on their way. But she realized she had to clarify one more thing so she turned back to Kai.
"One more thing, I mean this might sound crazy but, you can't tell anyone about it."
"What do think of me, he? That I walk around bragging about it in the streets? Please Bonnie. You should know me better."
"I do know you better, that's why I am mentioning it." Bonnie joked but when Kai didn't smile she quickly added. "I am sorry for bringing this up like this but I just can't help it sometimes." She wanted to turn away from him but he wouldn't let her.
He placed an arm around her shoulders and pressed her into his side. "Oh, BonBon that's the beauty of you, you care about everyone and everything."
Bonnie placed her head onto Kai's shoulder and smiled. She was so relieved and couldn't understand why she had been so worried about this conversation before. She was sure that it wasn't going to be weird between the two of them just from the last 2 minutes of conversation they had.
They stood like this for a while longer and Bonnie enjoyed the warmth flowing through her. But she drew away from him as she saw the same expression on his face as earlier and it reminded her that something was going on with him.
"Are you okay?" Bonnie asked in a sweet and concerned voice.
Kai withstood Bonnie's eye contact for a while, scanning her face, pondering whether to confide in her or to sob her off with some vague statement. She expected the latter but was surprised when he finally answered her. "Not really, but there is nothing to be done about it." He paused and looked to the ground. "I'm just tired, Bonnie." The last part sounded like a plea for help, like he was really dealing with something big, something that actually bothered him.
Bonnie felt the need to get more information about Kai's situation and she felt that they were at a place where he might actually give them to her. But right this moment she saw that Jo and Briana were heading back to them and Bonnie could also hear Caroline's clear laughter from afar. Right now was not the time to get into this, Kai would not open up to her with all these people present.
"Alright guys, we just gave them the worst review of all times but I think this was appropriate." Caroline said when reaching the group. Jo had started to buckle up Briana in the backseat of her car.
"Where are we going actually? So we can find each other again?" she asked the group while closing the back door.
Elena and Caroline turned to look at the three locals for suggestions. Bonnie was just as clueless as them, this part of the town wasn't really her perimeter, it was too expensive and fancy for, but Jo seemed like she had an idea.
"Do you know this new little café near Washington Park? It's not too far from here and it is supposed to be really nice. I haven't been there yet but I always wanted to."
"Sounds really good." Caroline let out, making sure she didn't bother where they were going but that they were going.
"Alright, see you there." Bonnie said and turned around to head to her car parked a few lines behind Jo's, but not before giving Kai a faint but warm smile that he briefly returned.
Elena and Caroline in tow the girls got into her mom's car.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
"How in the world am I supposed to fit all these clothes into my bag?" Caroline cried out loud.
Elena and Bonnie gave each other a look. "Well, you could have thought about that yesterday." Bonnie teased.
"If I would have decided what to take with me and what to leave behind we would still be in there and you guys would still be waiting for me." Caroline laughed and the other two girls joined her.
"You can always try and put some of your stuff in my bag." Elena suggested but with a quick look onto Elena's pile of clothing Bonnie knew that there wouldn't be too much room in her bag either. Caroline would have to find another way or leave some of the clothes behind for Bonnie to bring back to Mystic Falls.
They had been home for an hour now and her friends had tried, and until this point, failed to pack their bags. The three of them had said goodbye to Jo, Kai and Briana after they shared the best Sunday brunch Bonnie ever had, when Briana started to get on everybody's (or at least her siblings') nerves by demanding to go home every two minutes, driving Jo to the point of banging her head onto the table and Kai turning to her and angrily demanding her to be quiet before he picked her up without any warning ready to leave the restaurant. But of course that was not what Briana wanted. She whined and wind in Kai's arm demanding to hug Bonnie goodbye.
When Bonnie opened her arms to embrace her, Kai lowered her to Bonnie's lap and Briana hugged her tight. When she was done she waved goodbye to Elena and Caroline, who endured her interrogation earlier and waved back at her with a smile. After that Briana raised her arms to indicate she wanted to get picked up again. Kai sighed heavily but before Briana was going to make another scene he picked her off Bonnie's lap.
"You're getting too heavy for this." Kai disclosed her but Briana only huddled up to his shoulder and closed her eyes, a smile on her face. That smile spread to Bonnie when she saw the picture of the siblings standing like this. Kai leaned down again to give Bonnie a quick kiss on the cheek to say goodbye because he couldn't hug her right now.
Jo came around and gave all three girls a hug and then the Parker's left for the car.
They only stayed another few minutes before they left the place too, because they had lost so much time in the other restaurant Elena and Caroline had to go back to Bonnie's place to pack their stuff.
And now Bonnie was watching her friends pack their entire luggage with a sad expression her face.
"Hello, earth to Bonnie!" Elena waved a hand in front of Bonnie's face and she only now realized she had been drifting into her thoughts.
"Sorry, I was just in thought." Bonnie explained herself.
"Has to be a brutal thought given your expression." Caroline said while folding a shirt and putting it in her bag.
"I was just thinking about you guys leaving." Bonnie said sadly and both Elena's and Caroline's expression turn darker.
"And we don't want to leave you behind." Elena stated.
"Yeah, we'd rather pack you in our bags and take you with us." Caroline added.
"Thanks guys but I'd prefer a seat next to you in the plane." Bonnie chuckled trying to lighten the mood.
"I guess we could manage that too." Elena joked but they all knew that it would stay a fantasy.
"But I am already seeing you guys in a few weeks, right?" Bonnie asked.
"Hell yeah! I would never ever miss the legendary birthday parties of one Sheila Bennet." Caroline said and Elena nodded heavily in agreement.
"Good, as much as I love my Grams I think I wouldn't be able to get through an evening with all her old friends without you guys present."
"And luckily you won't have to." The girls smiled at one another.
Too quickly for Bonnie's liking their bags were packed and they were sitting at the kitchen table with a huge box of ice cream in front of them. It was nearly time for Bonnie to drive them back to the airport, but they didn't want to cut their goodbye ritual. They had lost too much time today but that wouldn't suffer under their time loss.
When there was no more ice cream left to stall the inadvisable Caroline was the first to rise from her seat, opening the long and probably wet goodbye hugging ceremony. Caroline stood and opened up her arms to embrace her two friends. Reluctantly Bonnie followed her example and Elena did so too. So there they stood, hugging each other tight and making no sound.
They stood like that until Abby came walking in the kitchen to check on them. When she saw the three girls Bonnie witnessed something cross over her mother's face that she only rarely got to see: regret. Abby had always been confident with her choice of moving away from Mystic Falls and taking Bonnie along and Bonnie had stopped blaming her for it after the first few month of settling in, but when Abby Bennett saw her daughter with her childhood friends Bonnie could make out that something in her mother's head regretted separating the three of them, even though they had done a fabulous job of staying in touch, also due to the fact that their parents gave them enough money to occasionally see each other, there was always something getting lost over the distance.
Abby offered to drive the three to the airport. Officially because she wanted to spent a little time with her three daughters but Bonnie knew that her mom just wasn't comfortable letting Bonnie drive when she had been crying.
And so they packed Caroline's and Elena's bags into the car and the three of them all settled down in the back of the car. Abby started the engine and Bonnie felt like her 10 year old self again, leaving Mystic Falls and her best friends for Portland only that it was now the other way around.
Arriving at the airport everything went extremely fast. They had extended their time together as much as possible so when they arrived at the airport, Elena and Caroline had to hurry to get to their gate. Only a minute of hugging, crying and swearing to skype when they got home safe remained and then Bonnie was alone again. She watched her best friends disappear in the crowd and stood there a few more moments when she suddenly felt a hand on her shoulder.
She turned to see her mother looking at her with warmth in her eyes.
"Come on, sweety. I think we should go if we want to be home before dinner is ready."
Bonnie looked at the huge clock in the waiting hall of the airport and then looked at her mother. "It is only 4:30 and we only have a 20 minutes drive back home."
"Yes, but I guess you would like to stop for some ice cream refill, don't you?"
Author's note: I am so so so sorry that I haven't updated in a while but I had been super busy plus I was dealing with a little illness so I couldn't focus on writing as much as I wanted to. I am not as happy with this chapter as I thought I would be but I still put it out there for you to read. I hope the things that will come up will be more interesting. Still, thanks for sticking around. Until next time, LiLaAir.