When Bonnie pulled out of the kiss, her eyes widened. "Oh, my god," she said. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do that!"
Kol grinned. "Even if you didn't mean to, you did it very well. What's the matter?"
"What do you mean 'What's the matter'?" Bonnie asked. "How could you not know? You're dating my best friend and I just kissed you!"
"Actually," Kol told her, "your friend Caroline and I are not really dating. We were just pretending to in the hopes that it would finally force you to admit that you felt more for me than you'd admit."
"Are you lying to me?" Bonnie asked.
"No," Kol shook his head. "I'm not. Do you want me to call Caroline so she can come over here and corroborate my story?"
Bonnie sighed. "No, don't bother. Since you have to stay here for the night, I won't do anything that would cause a fight. I'll just go to Caroline's house and apologize to her in the morning."
Kol pulled out his phone and dialed. "Hello?" He said. "Caroline, it's Kol. Bonnie and I just kissed and she's having some moral qualms about it. Would you tell her that you and I are not really dating and what she did was okay?" He handed the phone over to Bonnie a few seconds later.
"Hello?" Bonnie said. "Caroline, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to kiss him. It was just that I was so worked up over Trevor's wife showing up and then we hugged and…"
"Is he still a good kisser?" Caroline asked.
"What?" Bonnie replied.
"I think you know what I said," Caroline replied. "Is Kol still a good kisser?"
Bonnie looked at Kol, who stared back at her with a smirk and a raised eyebrow. "Just a minute," she said. "I can't talk in here. I want to go somewhere more private." She walked into the bedroom with the phone still attached to her ear and shut the door.
"So, you wanted to know if Kol is still a good kisser?" Bonnie asked.
"Yeah," Caroline nodded. "Is he?"
"Definitely," Bonnie replied. "Better than I remember, actually."
"And why couldn't you have said that in front of him?" Caroline asked.
"Because he already knows," Bonnie said. "I don't think I need to say it."
"You should always say it," Caroline told her. "Everyone likes compliments."
"Even when they compliment themselves at least fifty times a day?" Bonnie asked.
"Maybe he'd stop complimenting himself if you started doing it," Caroline said. "Maybe if he knows you think well of him in some way, he'll become more modest."
"I doubt it, but I suppose a couple of compliments wouldn't hurt," Bonnie said.
"Are you mad at us for deceiving you?" Caroline asked. "You shouldn't be. Based on the look of Trevor's wife, we did you a favor."
Bonnie grinned. "Well, if you're not mad at me for kissing Kol, and if the intent of your going out was to help me, then I suppose I can't be mad at you. At least not so much, anyway."
"Good," Caroline replied. "Now stop talking to me and go talk to Kol. Or just stick your tongue down his throat again. I don't really care which one as long as you do something, especially since he'll be stranded at your house tonight."
"Was your taking his car part of the plan too?" Bonnie asked.
"Well, yeah!" Caroline replied. "We weren't leaving anything to chance."
"If I get through tonight, I'll thank you tomorrow," Bonnie said. "Goodbye, Caroline."
She shut the phone off and went back into the living room. As she approached Kol, he stood up. "Everything all right?" He asked. "Are you mad at us?"
Bonnie shook her head. "I suppose not," she said. "I mean, Caroline's not mad at me, and you did get me away from Trevor's crazy wife, so how could I be mad at you?"
He came forward and put his hands on her shoulders. "I'd really like it if we kissed again," he said.
Bonnie smiled. "Me too," she said. "You're a good kisser. Did I ever tell you that?"
Kol looked surprised. "Not that I can remember," he said. "I believe you always thought I was too busy complimenting myself so you didn't need to tell me."
"Well, I'm sorry," Bonnie said. "I guess I always thought that since you always seem so confident about everything, you wouldn't need any good words from me, or that any compliment I gave you would just inflate your head more, but...I guess I was wrong. I'm sorry."
Kol sighed. "I have dated women in the past just because they told me what I wanted to hear, but you aren't one of those women. One of the reasons why I like you is because you're always honest with me. You tell me things I don't want to hear as well as things that I do."
"Well, then, can I tell you again how stupid it was for you to dump me just because you couldn't reach completion?" Bonnie asked. "That really hurt!"
Kol sighed. "I know. I was stupid. I regretted it once you were gone, but then I was too...I don't know what I was. Embarrassed I guess, would be the word. I was too embarrassed to call you and I figured you probably wouldn't want to talk to me anyway, so I just...I didn't do anything. Was that a mistake?"
"Of course it was a mistake!" Bonnie said. "Cause I was under the impression that what we had meant something to you. It certainly meant something to me that you made such an impression on me that I blindly followed you from a restaurant and helped you TP someone's house without knowing a thing about you. But when you just gave up on us after such a small matter as that, it just...I felt like nothing to you. And when you didn't call, that just confirmed my thoughts." She cast her eyes downward.
Kol put a hand under her chin and brought her eyes up. "I'm sorry," he said. "I had no idea. I would have called if I had."
Bonnie sighed. "I should have tried to call you," she said. "I'm just as much at fault. One of us should have taken the initiative. It would have saved us both a lot of misery and me two lousy, inadequate relationships." She paused. "Aside from this fake relationship with Caroline to get me all worked up, did you see anyone? Were you serious with anyone when were were apart?"
Kol shook his head. "No one serious. Got myself the occasional one night stand, but nothing more than that."
Bonnie nodded. "Well, I suppose you did what you had to do."
"As did you," Kol said. "I figured the only reason why you let those men near you was out of desperation." Bonnie's mouth opened to protest, but he put a finger over her lips. "Don't try to deny it, darling," he said. "You know I'm right."
She nodded and he removed his finger. "Okay," he said. "How should we entertain ourselves tonight? I have a few ideas. Want to hear about them?"
"If they're the sort of ideas I'm thinking of, I'm surprised," Bonnie said. "I would have thought you'd wait on us going to bed together until we'd been reconciled a little longer."
He shrugged. "Not necessarily. I'm up to it if you are."
"We just kissed for the first time in who knows how long!" Bonnie said with a grin. "I don't think we should go to bed now. Let's consider this the beginning of round two."
"If this is the beginning of round two, we've already gone out twice," Kol reminded her. "Even if the second time ended in disaster, it still counts. And how many dates do people usually go on before they decide whether or not to have sex? Three? I guess that means we only have one more date to go before you end up in my bed." He winked.
Bonnie laughed. "Glad to see you sure of yourself again," she said. "And I genuinely mean that." She leaned forward and kissed him again lightly. "What do you say we play a game?" She asked.
He grinned. "I don't know. It depends on what kind of game. What did you have in mind?"
"Oh, I don't know," Bonnie said. She left and came back with a deck of cards. "How long has it been since you played strip poker?"
Kol smiled broadly now. "It's been awhile, he said, coming toward her as she shuffled the deck with a naughty twinkle in her eye. "Can you tell me what the rules are again?"
She put the deck down and said, "Well, we play a hand of poker and if I win, you take off an item of clothing, and if you win, I take off an item of clothing."
"Why waste time with cards?" Kol asked her. "I'd be more than happy to take off all my clothes right now."
"But where's the fun in that?" Bonnie asked as she began dealing out cards.
"Would it be more fun if I let you undress me?" Kol asked.
Bonnie sighed. "Do you really not want to play?" She asked. "If you played a game with me, I'd count it as our third date, which means that by the time we were both naked we could just go straight to bed. It would simplify things so much."
"Or we could just do it on the sofa. Or the stairs..." He grinned.
Bonnie shuffled again. "So what do you think, cowboy?"
He grinned. "I think you should deal," he said.