"Let me tell you straight.
I could be your worst mistake,
Or you could get the best of me."
When Kol mentioned having the whole day to learn and explore, I didn't realize what he meant at the time, but he had gotten himself put in all of my classes. There were some with assigned seating where he would have to look at me from across the room, but for the most part, he was able to sit near me all day. He even got assigned as my chemistry partner, since there had been an odd number of students and I was the odd man out.
Everyone partnered up with their friends, and none of mine were in class with me, so no one wanted to partner with the weird looking Gilbert twin.
It had been a bummer before, but not now. As much as I wanted to get away from Kol, he was far too charming for my own good.
What could it hurt? Like he said before, none of my friends recognized him. He even sat with us at lunch, perfectly giving some story about being born in Australia, a place just outside of Sydney. His dad still lived there, but his mom moved back to the States after the divorce, bringing Kol with her. Even in the middle of all the vampire madness, he was so charming that my friends believed it, didn't see past him at all.
Elena had made it a point to taunt me throughout the day, especially in math class. He leaned forward and asked me, rather charmingly, if I had a pen, as he hadn't brought one, so of course I gave him one. Elena noticed the smile on his lips and mouthed, "You should give him a personal tour."
Whether Kol saw it or not, my face was flushed, and I refused to look at her for the rest of the class period. I did get a note from her, one demanding that I get his number and ask him out. It wasn't like she was forcing me to do it, but she actually wrote Take Caroline's advice for a change.
If they only knew.
School let out, and I could feel Kol standing directly behind me almost the whole way out the doors. If the magic in his blood wasn't enough, making eye contact usually got a strange feeling pulsing through me, rushing through every part of my body and getting me rather turned on.
It really didn't help that a smirk would sometimes linger on his lips when eye contact was made, in a similar way to the dreams I had had the night prior.
Caroline was usually the first to get outside, and today, Bonnie and Elena were already outside with her. Despite the wind blowing their hair around in their face pretty wildly, they still stood there, obnoxiously smirking at the two of us as we headed towards them.
"Darcy."
Hearing Kol call my name out, before we could make it over to my friends and sister, stopped me dead in my tracks. Of course I turned around to face him, to see what he wanted, and the smile that hung on his lips surprised me, though it was followed up by a smirk that wasn't surprising at all.
He handed me a folded up piece of paper. "You should call me sometime."
I couldn't help but wonder, as I stared up at his smirk, at the softness in his eyes that didn't match the smirk that he was portraying, if this was just a simple gesture for a phone conversation. Was this a hint at protection? At something more than just two acquaintances talking outside of school?
I was probably looking too much into it, though.
As I turned back away from him, slipping the note into the front pouch on the messenger bag I was carrying, I finished the walk over to my friends, whose smirks had only grown wider after what he had done.
"So, Kol, what do you think about Mystic Falls?" Bonnie asked, and though her question seemed innocent, her smirk was anything but.
"It's definitely different from anything I'm used to. The people here are different."
"You know, you can just say it," Elena informed him, and her eyes were absolutely shining.
I rolled my eyes. "Seriously? Can we not do this?"
A short laugh sounded beside me, a laugh that made my heart flutter, and Kol's eyes only narrowed in amusement, arrogance. The smile was genuine, very real, but he seemed rather proud for a moment.
How would my friends be reacting if they knew who he was? It definitely wouldn't be smiles and jokes about the two of us; Bonnie probably would've incapacitated him by now, warning him about what would happen if he got near me again.
They didn't know, however, so all they saw was a hot new guy flirting with their friend who was usually left alone.
"Darcy is definitely like no one I've met before."
"She's free this weekend," Caroline informed him, and a large smile pulled out onto her lips. "She's free just about every weekend."
"Seriously, Kol, just go," I groaned, and I began pushing him away from me a little bit. Of course he was stronger than me and able to resist, while laughing the entire time, but that didn't mean I stopped trying. "My friends are seriously the worst."
"I like your friends," he disagreed. "They're so helpful."
"See, Darcy, we're helpful," Elena teased.
"So we didn't get to finish interrogating you at lunch," Bonnie pointed out. "Unless we're coming on too strong?"
"No, I love talking about myself," he assured her. "Ask away."
Caroline's eyebrows rose. "Cocky much?"
"Yes, much." Kol gave her a smirk to match the statement. "What would you lovely ladies like to know about me?"
"You're very noticeably into our friend here," Bonnie said. "But for reasons we won't get into right now, we have to protect her. I'm sure you understand that."
"Of course." His eyes moved away from Bonnie and over towards me, where they softened almost immediately. "She's such a bright person. I can imagine seeing her in pain wouldn't be easy."
"It's kinda funny how you ended up in all of her classes," Caroline noted.
"I like to call it fate working out in my favor," Kol said, but he followed it up with a sigh almost immediately. "As much as I would love to stay here and chat with you ladies, I have a lot of unpacking left to do at home." He turned away from my friends so that his body was facing me while he took a few steps back, allowing another one of his charming smiles to come out. "I'll see you tomorrow, Darcy."
"Yeah, sure."
The smile didn't fade from his face, not until he was completely turned away from me and close to the car that I had never seen before.
It definitely had to be his; no one in Mystic Falls could afford whatever it was. The more I studied the sleek black car he got into, with the butterfly doors that seemed to come standard on those kinds of luxury cars, I began to notice that there was a logo on the front that I recognized—BMW.
At least it wasn't a Lamborghini. That would've just been completely over the top.
Then again, from what I had gathered about Kol, over the top was exactly how he liked to do things.
"Seriously, Darcy, if I wasn't just getting over Tyler, I would be all up on that," Caroline moaned from behind me, reminding me that I wasn't alone. "If you don't, I probably will anyways. Everyone needs a hot rebound."
Elena rolled her eyes, but she grinned over at our friend. "He's pretty cocky."
Caroline nodded, but her eyes hadn't moved away from where he had last stood, her eyebrows still raised up. "He's got a lot to be cocky about."
"Did you guys notice that he didn't even seem to notice Elena, except to politely look at her when she talked?" Bonnie asked.
Though I hadn't thought much about it, I kind of knew that he wouldn't have been fazed by Elena. He had seen Petrova doppelgängers before, so seeing one that was almost the same but still slightly different had to be far more intriguing.
"Maybe it's the way they present themselves," Caroline suggested, finally tearing her eyes away from where Kol had been, back over to the three of us near her. "Just because they look alike doesn't mean they are. Maybe he's seeing the Darcy we all know and love."
Jeremy approached us about then, and Bonnie and Caroline both took that as their cue to leave. Things had been pretty awkward between Bonnie and Jeremy since he made out with his dead girlfriend, and it had been kinda tense whenever they were both around Elena and me as well. Bonnie didn't expect us to be upset with him like she and Caroline were, since he was our little brother, but more than that, I could almost see why it happened. He had actually fallen in love with Anna, and just like most people in our lives, he lost her way too soon, without much warning. It had been hard for him to fully move on from that.
That didn't excuse what he did; just because he could see his dead girlfriend didn't mean he should've made out with her. I just understood why.
Elena always told me that was probably my most mature feature, my ability to see both sides of a situation—even if it was a situation I was in, one that very directly affected me and my way of thinking. It made me more capable of forgiving and understanding than a lot of people.
It didn't make me a better person. I just understood a lot more.
Every part of Jeremy regretted the mistake he had made, but there wasn't anything he could really do to take it back. Any time he saw Bonnie, it was painfully obvious to anyone, Bonnie included, that he hated himself for what he had done.
His normally warm eyes were shattered as he watched her walk away, until he couldn't see her anymore. The cold wind didn't even seem to affect him, as his mind wasn't on the world around him.
"You guys ready to head home?" Jeremy finally asked once Bonnie's Prius was gone from the parking lot, but not a moment before.
"Yeah." Elena stood up from the table outside that she had been sitting on, where she had been waiting for Kol and me to come out with Bonnie and Caroline, and a wry smile curled onto her lips, her eyes gleaming with arrogance that wasn't like Elena. "You should invite Kol over to dinner sometime. We could get to know him better."
"You guys are completely blowing this out of proportion," I informed her. "He's just some hot new guy who moved to town and just so happens to be in all of my classes."
It was a nice thought, paired with the reminder of who he was and all the horrible things he must've done, but that's all it was—a thought. It wasn't real, just the thought I kept trying to shove so deep inside that even my heart believed it.
My heart was stronger than I gave it credit for, though.
A/N: The lyrics at the beginning of this chapter are from the song Chewing Gum by Nina Nesbitt.
Now, before I post anymore content, I'd like to make sure there is at least one person out there who wants to read it. So if you like what you've read so far, leave a review and let me know! I'd love any kind of feedback. :) Constructive criticism only, please. Nothing super rude. I try not to let it get to me, but let's face it. Being told you suck and should stop writing hurts. (I was told that years ago, back when I posted one of my first few stories. It still gets to me sometimes.)
Read, review, and enjoy!