1 whole chicken (approx. 4 pounds)
1/2 cup fresh lemon juice, plus 3 whole lemons including 1 sliced for garnish.
1 tablespoon kosher or coarse sea salt.
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper.
Fresh herbs for garnish (4 rosemary sprigs, 4 sage sprigs, 8 thyme sprigs, and 1 bunch flat-leaf parsley)
Caroline loved cooking on Sundays.
She had never had the Sunday roast growing up. Her mom had always been at work trying to build a career and her dad had always been on 'business trips'.
Once those business trips had been revealed to be motel meetings with his secret boyfriend, he had moved away and her mom had spent Sundays working to make ends meet.
She had been around to her friend's houses but always felt a bit like an intruder on their family time.
But now, living on her own, she could have a Sunday roast and invite anyone she wanted.
Except for Klaus.
He considered his invitation open and permanent and usually wandered into her house a little after eleven am.
Often tired, sometimes hungover, always splattered with a little bit of paint.
He would perch himself on the couch in her open plan apartment and talk to her while she cooked.
He'd offered to help in the beginning but had given up, holding up his hands and declaring himself not up to the level of perfection she demanded in her meals.
And she did want her meals to be perfect.
But she also didn't want him to see the page she used to roast the chicken.
Because it was a little embarrassing.
It was called 'The Engagement Chicken' from early 2006 and 2007, it was a recipe that had supposedly led to over seventy boyfriends proposing to their girlfriends after they had cooked them this meal.
Caroline hadn't been an ardent believer but after the first few months of knowing Klaus, she'd figured that it couldn't hurt to try. Obviously, it hadn't worked but the chicken was always popular at the meals, so she was going to keep using the recipe until she found a better one.
She hears footsteps by her front door, which she'd left ajar and flicks to another site just as Klaus comes through the door carrying a shopping bag,
"Breadsticks and your favorite lemonade." he offered by way of greeting and she beamed with delight as she helped him set the bag on the bench.
"Marcel, Stefan and Davina are coming today," she tells him, "You've met Davina, right?"
He nods, "Marcel's first little sister in the program, she likes to draw and wants to get into game design."
"Right, well, she's never had a Sunday roast before…her parents were part of the Tremaine cult so of course, I invited her."
He grins and shuffles past her to grab a glass from her cabinet, "Course you did, sweetheart."
He pours the lavender lemonade for her and puts the rest into a pitcher, carrying it to the table before going to her windowsill where she grew pots of herbs. He picks some peppermint, washes it and tosses it in with the lemonade and she loves that he's so at home and at ease in her apartment.
He's taking a look at her tv which had been playing up recently, she could no longer run Netflix through her X-Box when Stefan calls from downstairs.
"Door's jammed again," he tells her as he makes his way out, "I'll go get him."
He's barely gone a minute when his phone starts ringing and Caroline nearly drops the tea towel in surprise.
Klaus Mikaelson was practically famous for his bad luck with cell-phones.
If he didn't break them by sleeping on them, dropping them down stairwells, or once off the roof of their favorite bar he was forever losing them.
At first, it had been kind of fun to try and figure out where they'd ended up- one iphone managed to make it to Florida, but at this point everyone had got used to contacting him through Facebook or Caroline.
So, she is so startled by him not only having a phone but having brought it with him that the call ends and goes to voicemail.
After the third time it rings, and she checks the screen to see an international number, she figures it might be an emergency.
"Klaus Mikaelson's phone," she answers, feeling a bit like an idiot, "He'll just be a few minutes."
There's a pause on the other end before a polite voice speaks with gently accented tones,
"Did my brother get himself a secretary?"
She laughs at the thought, "No, this is Caroline, and I'm guessing you're Elijah?"
He hums an affirmative before speaking, "Caroline?"
The way he says her name makes it clear he doesn't know who she is but she figures that he must have just forgotten.
"Forbes," she prompts, "Klaus' friend?"
His best friend. The one he must surely have mentioned to his family at least once or twice.
"Of course," Elijah answers in a tone that's meant to be polite but is obvious that he's covering.
"Could you please tell my brother to call me back?" he asks, as if she's Klaus' secretary, as if she's nothing more to him than that.
Because apparently, as far as his family knows, she isn't.
He ends the call and she stares at the phone, the plastic and metal that was so small, so thin and yet had managed to give her a smack in the face.
She'd figured that even if she was never going to be Klaus' girlfriend, that at the very least, as his best friend, she would have a relationship with his family.
She wasn't expecting to be adopted by them, or talk with his siblings every week or anything like that, but she had thought that, maybe, she could be friends with them.
Except that Klaus had never even mentioned her to them.
She has his phone back on the counter and is forcing herself to concentrate on making sure the food is perfect when he finally returns to her apartment, Stefan, Marcel and Davina in tow.
Davina is a pretty teenage girl, but she reminds Caroline of a guinea pig, trembling and jumpy, startled every time someone mentions her name.
However, once Caroline gets everyone sitting around the table and eating, she comes to life a little bit, keeping an eye on Marcel and needing his gentle assurance that everything was okay but she begins showing some spunk by the time Caroline is serving the apple pie.
"You should go visit Klaus' studio," she suggests as Davina helps her clear the plates,
"I don't think there's any room now but it might be something you're interested in later."
Davina nods, "Klaus showed me around a few days ago, it's definitely cool, but there's so many people!"
She turns back to him, "Hey, I forgot to ask you, you know that pink haired girl that you were with?"
Klaus blinks, and tilts his head, clearly trying to remember and Caroline laughs,
"You'll have to be a lot more specific," she tells Davina, "Nik here is a bit of a man-slut."
"Right," Davina clears her throat, "Well, did she used to be brunette? I swear she looked really familiar."
"Again," Caroline says, "You're going to have to be lot more specific if you want to jog his memory."
She realizes too late that there's a bit of bite to her words but thankfully, Marcel laughs and claps his friend on the back,
"If the shoe fits." He says as Klaus opens his mouth, closing it again silently and shrugging.
He and Stefan go out onto the fire escape for a cigarette, Caroline closing the window on them so the smoke doesn't get into the apartment. Davina and Marcel leave shortly after and Caroline finds herself killing time by browsing hook-up apps until she comes across a profile she recognizes.
Enzo.
Stefan interrupts her thoughts by tapping politely on the glass, "Can we come in, please?" he asks and she taps her chin with a finger, playing it up dramatically,
"Um…nope."
She jokingly leaves them out there for another five minutes until Klaus bangs on the window, and she raises it, letting them clamber through.
Stefan meanders out the door after another twenty minutes, taking a look at her tv and promising to ask a friend of his to offer a solution.
Leaving just her and Klaus.
Who barely waits until she's closed the door before pushing her against it, catching her hands and holding them beside her head as he steals a kiss.
"Hmmm," she mumbles against his mouth, "Urgh, you taste like smoke."
He smirks, pressing their bodies together and grinding against her slightly, "You taste like sugar," he whispers in her ear, his breath warm on her skin, "Very sweet."
She squirms against him and gasps when he begins kissing her neck, "Very smooth."
"Like you said, sweetheart," he murmurs as he releases her hands so he can grip her hips,
"I'm a man-slut."
She giggles and they kiss again, "I stand by that, you know," she says as his fingers begin playing with the button on her jeans,
"But…I kinda already have a guy coming over."
"Oh," Klaus leans back, his lips parted, "Anyone I know?"
She shrugs, "Maybe, you remember Enzo? From Marcel's?"
He takes his hands off her, "Didn't you say that guy was an asshole?"
"I said he was a jerk," she corrects him, "But doesn't change the fact that he's cute and you don't have to like every aspect of someone to go to bed with them. Otherwise you," she puts a finger to his chest, "Would never get laid."
She realizes he could have misinterpreted that so she follows on with, "Mister Sleeps-with-Bimbos."
He lets her push him back with her finger and grabs his jacket off the hook, "Right, well, don't let me get in the way of true-meaningless sex."
She rolls her eyes, "Get out," she orders playfully, "Oh and ring your older brother, he called earlier."
Klaus frowned as he scooped up his phone, "Lijah?" he asked, "What'd he want?"
She shrugged, running a hand through her hair and checking herself in the mirror, "I don't know, I answered but he obviously had no idea who I was so I think he was a little freaked."
"Right…" he looks down at his screen in confusion, "Must be having trouble with his wife again."
She wants to know what he means by that but he'll probably brush her off, after all, if he doesn't bother telling his family about her, why should he tell her about his family?
She leaves him to make his own way out while ducking into her bedroom to change into sexier lingerie, and when Enzo arrives, her best friend is long gone.
And a part of her is glad about that.
She does love Klaus. Too much for her own good, which was why whenever they fooled around, whenever he got her close to climax, she was worried that she might blurt out this secret.
Besides, as much as she enjoyed it when he touched her, when he used his fingers or mouth to make her come, she was always left a little frustrated that they didn't go all the way.
Hell, maybe she could handle being only his best friend if she could work out her completely work out her lust for him, instead of getting so close to the edge and then stopping.
Instead, she had to settle for being the one girl in the French Quarter that Klaus Mikaelson wouldn't screw.
When Enzo arrives, she's wearing a baby doll nightie and nothing else. She looks absolutely gorgeous, at least according to him as he kisses his way down her body in the living area before carrying her to the bedroom.
She's laughing as he drops her onto the bed and doesn't stop until she's moaning with pleasure, but then Enzo makes a big deal about her no longer laughing at his skills and she has a moment where between giggling and climaxing she loses the ability to breathe.
Thankfully, it's only a short moment and then they get back into the swing of things, Caroline rolling him onto his back so she can straddle him and finish him off.
Afterwards, he doesn't linger, spending only an hour or so with some casual pillow talk, the suggestion that they make a habit of this and kissing her cheek goodbye before telling her that she looks beautiful when she's ruffled.
She smiling as she flops back onto the bed, even though the room is growing dark and she'll need to change the sheets and shower and get ready for work tomorrow. She's relaxed and in a much better place than she would have been after fooling around with Klaus, especially after finding out that his older brother couldn't have placed her in a line-up.