Chapter 3

The Kensington Literary Agency was a small, four-person company right in the heart of Washington, D.C. On her first day at the job, Bonnie's alarm went off at 6 AM and she was out of the boarding house by 7. With traffic, a stop for tea and the normal parking struggles, she stepped foot into the building at 8:15 and was the first person there. She took a moment to take in the wonderful smell of paper and books, and then took her time turning on all the lights and finding her work station. It was a hardwood desk with a small MacBook on top. Her name was written in beautiful calligraphy and hung off the front of the desk. There were three pictures facing her: one with her parents, one with Grams and one with Damon.

She eased into the comfortable, worn-in chair and ran her hand over the large stack of papers on the far right side of her desk. A sticky note in her handwriting read, "to do by Friday." She skimmed through the stack and determined that it was a pile of sample manuscripts waiting to be read and critiqued. A slow smile crept across her face and she eagerly dove in, red pen in hand.

Everyone else trickled in slowly, and by 9:00, the entire office was there. Bonnie was pleasantly surprised to see that all her colleagues were Black women, including the owner, Ayana Kensington. Ayana was the agent for several bestselling novelists and had penned a few of her own. She had a reputation for possessing a discerning eye for talent and Bonnie couldn't have landed a better internship. Ayana and the others were congenial, fun and had great taste in books. The working environment was easy but professional and Bonnie hoped she could land a job there.

If, of course, she was still in the alternate world by then.

A text message broke her out of her thoughts and she glimpsed at her phone to see that it was from Damon.

what are u wearing?

Bonnie scoffed and typed a response.

I'm naked, Damon. Naked at my job.

are there other girls there? are u having pillow fights?

Yes. We're pillow fighting and rubbing each other with lotion.

send me a pic

She took a picture of her middle finger and sent it to him, and she couldn't fight the small laugh that bubbled out of her mouth.

classy, bennett.

You taught me well.

how is it for real

I'm drinking tea, reading manuscripts from exciting new authors and listening to neo-soul music. I think you were right. This is Heaven.

It took a minute for him to respond.

sounds like nerd stuff

Yes, it is nerd stuff. And what are you doing with your time, now that you can't drink bourbon, have sex and suck blood for a living?

who says i can't?

Damon...

come see me after work and find out

Damon texted her an address but wouldn't provide any further details. Bonnie was slightly worried about what he might be doing with his time. Damon didn't strike her as the 9-5 type and she honestly had no idea what his skills or talents were, other than being charming and manipulative.

Maybe he was a politician.

She kept him in the back of her mind for the rest of the day and anxiously drove to the address he provided when her work day was finished. The GPS took her back into Mystic Falls, into a familiar neighborhood and a street that she had visited once or twice. She slowed to a stop when she came to a yellow craftsman-style home a couple of streets down from her Grams's house. A few construction trucks were parked in the garage and along the curb, and the front door opened and out stepped Damon.

His black hair was slicked back away from his face. His forehead glistened with sweat and a tight black wife-beater t-shirt clung to his chest. His arms were bare for Bonnie to ogle, and she did. His jeans hung just right around his hips and work boots made him look even more masculine, if that was possible. He squinted his eyes in Bonnie's direction and pulled a towel out of his back pocket and wiped off his hands. He waved her over and she had to put her tongue back in her mouth.

The boy was hot. No doubt about it.

"I was wondering if you were going to make it," he said, leaning against one of the columns on the massive front porch.

"I was driving from D.C. and I had some traffic." She motioned to the partially torn-up lawn as she walked up the porch steps. "So people are paying you to destroy their homes now?"

He put his hand on her back and talked lowly so the other guys couldn't hear.

"Apparently, I'm a contractor. Much sought-after, of course. We're renovating this house."

Bonnie put her hand on her chest. "Do you mean to tell me that Damon Salvatore makes a living doing..." she gasped, "manual labor?"

"I'll have you know that I'm good with my hands," he winked.

She rolled her eyes and turned her attention to the porch. On one side, a porch swing had been installed and on the other, a fan was going and providing a little breeze in the stuffy Virginia heat. Instantly, she could imagine herself in that swing, under that fan, sipping a cool drink and reading a bestseller that she helped get published.

"Wanna see the inside?" Damon asked.

"Sure."

"After you, darling."

He motioned for her to walk in first, and he followed closely. Bonnie's eyes jumped around the huge living space with the vaulted ceilings. Half the walls were painted in a putrid green and the other half had been stripped of any color. Paint cans lay on the ground and Bonnie wondered what color would eventually be put up. She wandered through the formal dining room and into the kitchen, where she stopped and her mouth dropped. The rest of the house may have been in disarray but the kitchen definitely was not. It was nothing short of a chef's dream, complete with marble countertops, sleek appliances and a cooktop and oven that looked big enough to cook several meals at once.

"Wow," she said.

"Pretty nice, huh?"

"I mean, I don't even love to cook like that but I would learn to have a kitchen like this."

"I could definitely do some damage in here," he said, sliding a smooth hand along the marble. "You know, wake up on a lazy Sunday, come down here in nothing but my birthday suit and cook a nice breakfast for my lady." He winked again.

"Hopefully you don't burn your man bits off by cooking in the nude."

"You're such a romantic, Bon-Bon."

She stuck her tongue out at him and he led her through the rest of the house. There were three bedrooms and three baths, and the master bedroom was certainly a highlight. Not only was it huge with beautiful windows and a small deck right off it, but there was a built-in bookcase that Bonnie could practically see brimming with her favorites. When they finished the tour, they went back out to the porch and sat down on the swing.

"So? What do you think?" Damon asked.

"I think it's coming along very nicely. It's a beautiful house."

"Could you see yourself living here?"

"Well, yeah. Duh."

"Good. Because this house is yours. Well, ours."

Bonnie raised her eyebrows in surprise. "What?"

"This house is my gift to you," he said, looking out on the lawn. "A marital home for us to start our life in together."

"Wow," she said slowly, as his words sunk into her head.

They didn't say anything for a while, just swung in companionable silence. Damon gently swayed them back and forth, while Bonnie tucked her legs underneath her. She looked at the bare lawn, with nothing but big holes and dirt, and she could visualize a garden filled with brightly-colored flowers. Her Grams had a bit of a green thumb, so she could get tips from her on how to keep the plants alive.

She could see herself driving up to the home, and she could see a couple of kids playing in front of the house. She had never been the type of girl who dreamed of a wedding or the perfect man, but she did want to get married and have a family. She'd always had a vague idea of what that would look like: 2 kids, maybe a dog, family vacations. The husband in her mind had always been faceless. But as she sat on the swing, for the first time, she could see Damon as that man.

And it freaked her out.

"Wow," she said again.

"What?"

"It's just..." She chanced a look at him and saw that his azure eyes were focused on her. "Isn't this weird to you? How...easy...this is between us?"

He thought for a moment and shrugged. "Not really."

"Not really? How? We've spent the majority of our relationship yelling and screaming at each other and now, suddenly, we're getting married and fixing up our first house and having kids play in the yard."

She didn't realize that her voice was getting frantic until Damon held up his hands and smirked.

"Easy there, tiger. One thing at a time."

Bonnie took a deep breath and nodded. "Sorry. You're right. This is just all so much. Every time I think I've gotten used to the idea of us, something happens and I'm shocked all over again."

Damon narrowed his eyes, studying her quietly for a long moment.

"Are you really that surprised?" he asked quietly. "Don't you feel like there's always been something between us?"

"Uh, yeah. Hatred."

"Mild annoyance at best," he said. "At least on my part."

"You have a funny way of showing mild annoyance," she mumbled.

She turned her attention back to the lawn but felt Damon scoot closer to her until his thigh was on hers. She inched away from him, but he followed. They kept doing that until she was trapped between him and the side of the swing.

"Damon!" she yelled, but kind of laughed too.

"See, this is why I'm not surprised by this development, Judgey. Yes, sure, we yelled and screamed and fought. But we could also be playful with each other. And there is something here, whether you know it or not. As smart as you are, you can be a complete dumbass when it comes to guys."

"Hold up, hold up, hold up," she said, putting her dainty hand between them. "Are you telling me that all this time that you were pining away for Katherine, then Elena, you actually had some kind of feelings for me?"

"Is that what you think I said?"

"Oh my God, you are the most obtuse person I have ever met in my life."

"I like when you use big words like that. Turns me on."

"Ugh!"

Bonnie pushed him away from her and got off the swing, only to have him pull her back down. She landed on his lap, mere centimeters from his gorgeous lips. She couldn't fight the urge to look at them and he purposely licked them.

"You want to know if I had feelings for you?" he asked, barely above a whisper.

Her heart started beating out of her chest and she was eternally grateful that he could no longer hear that.

"I've always liked you, Bonnie. I didn't know how to show that all the time, but it's true. I liked you then and I like you now."

She searched his eyes for any signs of deception or sarcasm but she found only honesty.

"Who are you?" she asked quietly. "My Damon would never admit something like that."

She realized her mistake too late and Damon broke into a full-fledged grin.

"Your Damon, huh? Kind of possessive, are you, Little Bird?"

"Not fair. You know I like that."

"And I plan to use that to my advantage every chance I get." He wrapped his arms around her, effectively trapping her against his body. He kissed the side of her head. "Now stop being such a Negative Nancy and enjoy this. Your parents are alive, your Grams is alive, you're doing the job you've dreamed of. The only bad thing you have to deal with is little old me. And I'm not so terrible, am I?"

Bonnie looked at him, really looked at him, and had to admit that human Damon was not so bad. In fact, he was kind of wonderful. And as scary and weird as that was, it was also kind of nice.

So she fought her natural urge to run away and instead hesitantly relaxed into his embrace and rested her head on his shoulder. They swung back and forth quietly until she worked up the nerve to answer his question.

"No, Damon. You're not so terrible."