Chapter Eight
Present Day
Okay, so, the wooden bench wasn't the most comfortable seat in the world. The boards were unforgivingly hard under her rear end as she worked, but, hey, at least it was in a shady spot under an enormous, ancient live oak, and it was close to the playground. On this beautiful, hot Tuesday afternoon, Elena was simultaneously tallying up the inventory it was already necessary to reorder after just two days(!) of The Lace Apothecary being open as well as keeping an eye on Diana, who was playing close by.
Little Wickery Park was mostly empty, which was a rare and pleasant occasion. Only a few other families were there. From his leafy perch above her, a solitary bluebird trilled, and in an adjacent grassy field, a man played fetch with his Labrador retriever.
"Mommy, watch! Mommy, look!"
Elena looked up from her laptop. Diana sat expectantly at the top of the tallest slide, waiting for her mom's attention. As soon as she saw that she'd gained it, she pushed off and whooshed down the slide with a shriek of laughter, black hair streaming behind her.
"Nice!" Elena called, laughing as well. "Looks like fun."
Diana popped up to run and climb back up the slide.
Elena looked back down at her computer. Reading through a column of numbers, her eyelid began to twitch. She rubbed it absently in an attempt to get the spasming muscle to calm. She blinked a few times, and that seemed to help. A final blink, and Damon Salvatore appeared in the distance, coming towards her at a slow pace. As usual, he was strikingly, fiercely attractive and beyond eye-catching, especially given that he had a pink unicorn stuffie tucked under one arm, an amusing and incongruous contrast to the rest of him all in black.
So, she thought. He actually showed up. She had to admit she was mildly surprised. And pleased. But only on Diana's behalf. Not for any other reason.
Just as there was no other reason that she had used a little extra care when selecting something from her closet to wear to the park, something flirty and sweet, a sundress that left her tanned and supple limbs mostly bare, simply because he might make an appearance today.
No other reason.
She'd keep repeating it to herself until she believed it.
When he got to the grass, he spotted her and headed her way. The closer he came, the slower he walked. He didn't seem to notice the admiring and inquisitive glances of the other female park-goers. When he was within a few feet of Elena, he stopped. Looking full into her eyes, he dared a small half-smile.
He appeared to be waiting for some sign, but she pursed her lips. Did he really think she was going to make this easy for him? She didn't even want him there.
To break the awkward standoff, he gestured towards the kids screaming and running around. "Where do they get all that energy, huh?"
His sinful voice sent shivers across every inch of her skin. She bit her lip and looked down at her computer screen again. She refused to smile back. "That's why we're here." She said it in a way that implied, Duh. "Hopefully, she'll get most of it out before we go home."
He made a throat clearing sound. "Right."
When she didn't say anything else, he lowered himself next to her. The bench creaked. She stiffened as his proximity hit her like a thunderbolt. He wasn't actually that close, there was a foot of air between them, but it was still too close. His nearness fizzled in her blood and bones, set her teeth on edge.
She could feel his gaze on her, and as a result, threw him some serious side-eye shade.
Do not let him affect you, she warned herself.
He held up the pink stuffie. "I remembered she likes unicorns." When that didn't garner a response, he gestured and asked innocently, "Working on something?"
"Oh, just stuff for the store. Very boring." She closed her laptop and slid it beneath the purse resting next to her on the bench. Evaluating the rest of her current stock for inventory purposes could wait a little while, she supposed.
Damon's head tilted, one black lock of hair draping in his eyes, the rest spilling down to brush feather-light across his collar bone, a dark, silky tangle of invitation for her fingers. She curled her fingers into tightly clenched fists.
"Having a good day so far?" he asked.
"So far. Thank you." This small talk was face-palmingly awkward. "You?"
The small smile he'd flashed her with earlier returned, played across full, sensual lips. "It's been interesting. Jeremy did his first tattoo today. That wasn't on an orange or himself."
"An orange?" she asked, confused and also annoyed that he'd picked the one topic she wouldn't be able to resist asking about.
"Yeah, you know, for practice." He wiped away the lock of hair from his face, tucked the unruly raven silk behind his ear, drawing her eye to the silver flash of his piercings. "If you can't make solid, straight lines on an orange peel, you can't make solid, straight lines on human skin."
"Mmm, right, makes sense. How did it go?"
"Why don't you be the judge of that?"
He pulled up the right edge of his shirt, baring the heavy black lines of a freshly inked tattoo. She quickly averted her eyes with a small gasp. Then looked back. Then tried not to look again. Then looked back again.
"Relax," he chuckled. "It's nothing indecent. You can look."
"I am looking," she said defensively, embarrassed that she'd reacted like a middle-schooler. For god's sake, she'd had sex with him before – see the adorable child running around nearby as exhibit A. She already knew what his penis looked like! Which meant she shouldn't be so shocked by the sight of a little side flesh. But god, it was incredible, muscular, lickable flesh. She didn't want to admit it, but it was true.
Nothing indecent, my freaking ass. He couldn't have been more wrong, not when he was mouthwateringly, mind-blowingly, irrefutably indecent to the core. In fact, the patch of skin on his side right above his hip that he was currently showing off like it was no big deal was far more than indecent. It was sexy and kinky and it sent a wild burst of lust flooding through her, hardening her nipples and making the sensitive flesh between her legs pulse. It made her remember the scent of sex on tattooed skin. She imagined all too easily those lean hips thrusting under her, driving up inside her, harder, faster, more, then behind her, slamming into her hard and easing out slowly, making her quake and quiver and cry out every time she came.
She blushed even harder and barely resisted the urge to press her palms to her reddened cheeks like a complete goose. She desperately willed herself to think about something, anything, else. Gah, it was like her hormones were completely out of control. Was she ovulating or something? Maybe she was going insane.
She took a deep breath and tried her best to don an objective perspective and be a dispassionate observer, to stare past the exposed abdomen of a muscular, virile male in his prime and see only a freshly bandaged and healing tattoo.
She was semi-successful, able to note the curving black lines forming the shape of a howling wolf's head with a couple of thick tribal swirls at the throat and the single curved black line behind the head suggesting a full moon. Damon's pale skin was still the slightest bit red and aggravated, she also noticed.
She longed to touch that raised skin, stroke it with a soothing finger, explore the other parts of him covered in older ink, trace the stories and history written on his flesh, such intriguing clues to the man inside. Her hand actually moved an inch or two in the direction of his hip before she caught herself.
"See?" Damon said.
Her eyes flashed to his. See what? Had he seen her hand move? Just kill her now.
"Kid's not bad," he went on.
She expelled a relieved breath she hadn't known she'd been holding before giving him an incredulous look. "I can't believe you let him tattoo you."
"I liked his design." He let his shirt fall back down. "He's not touching an actual client until he shows me he can do decent lines."
"Did he prove himself?" she wanted to know.
"He's getting there."
They fell silent. Unsure of what else was safe to talk about.
She really hated to admit it, but going to work for Damon may not have been the worst decision her brother ever made. In fact, it may have even been a good one. He hadn't gotten into any trouble since becoming Damon's apprentice and seemed to be really embracing the whole tattoo artist thing and taking it seriously. At least so far. Fingers crossed.
"I was surprised to hear that you moved in with Stefan," she said for want of anything else to say. "How, um, is that going?"
"Well, Stefan hates me, so there's that. Makes for fun times around the breakfast table."
"Stefan doesn't hate you. He's mad at you for abandoning him." Two different times - after their dad died and then again when their Uncle Zach died.
For a long moment, he didn't say anything, the hard angles of his face like chiseled stone. Finally, a low, "I couldn't stay."
"Right, because you hate Mystic Falls so much."
He frowned in thought. "For a long time, I did hate Mystic Falls and everything that went along with this town. But then I grew up." The corners of his eyes tightened with remembered pain. "And I realized that we're not always running from the things that we think we are. Perspective is funny like that."
In that moment, she hated him so much. She hated how effortlessly good-looking he was. She hated how amazing he smelled, like leather and smoke and spicy sex. She hated his stupid piercings and tattoos that made him look like some unholy, kinky god who ruled a shadowy underworld realm. She hated how he always managed to lure her into liking him when all she wanted to do was hate him. But most of all, she hated how confused he always left her feeling. She should be stronger than this. She should be better. Why wasn't she?
And, perhaps most all, even more than she hated him, she was terrified that he'd sense the desire she still felt for him.
She shot an angry look his way. "You know that's not a real answer, right?"
He flashed her a disarming grin. "Enough about me. I'm glad to see you're now open for business."
For a single moment, she didn't follow and thought he was implying –
His grin faded at the look on her face. "The Lace Apothecary just opened the other day, or did I understand that wrong?
She started, embarrassed she'd suspected he meant something else entirely. "Oh, yes, no, I mean, yes, my store is now open." Except for all day Sunday and Tuesdays and Thursdays after three. Hopefully, her budget would soon allow for her to hire an assistant to help work some of those hours. One could dream.
"Congrats." Damon sounded sincere.
"Thank you. The opening went really well." The turnout had surprised even her. Who knew this town was just waiting for something lacy and fun to happen to them, something that would dare them to explore beyond their normal boundaries? It had also helped that she'd offered free fittings and muffins. By the end of the first day, she'd rung up purchase after purchase on her old-fashioned cash register and had already sold out of an array of teddies, bras, panties, and corsets. And unexpectedly and delightfully enough, the small selection of hand cuffs she'd decided on a whim to keep in stock. Who could've guessed? "I didn't see you there." She cleared her throat. She sounded moronic. Why would he be there, when she'd made it perfectly clear that he wouldn't be welcome? "You missed muffins. Blueberry. Mrs. Fell made them. She's an amazing baker."
"I remember," he murmured. Mrs. Fell had been ancient and baking even before Damon took off a lifetime ago. Then he grimaced. "Please tell me Mrs. Fell was not one of your customers."
With a saucy raise of an eyebrow, she asked him, "You don't think she just gave me all those muffins for free, do you?"
"She gives me free muffins."
She eyed him skeptically. Mrs. Fell was old and socially conservative and a big proponent for everything traditional. It was hard to see her approving of Damon, given his rebellious past and visibly modified body. Then again, it was hard to see how any woman with eyes that functioned could be immune to Damon Salvatore's charm and incredible good looks – and this included, apparently, even Mrs. Fell.
Completely serious, he said, "She adores me. Next time you need baked goods, let me know. I've got the hookup."
Yes, she could just imagine it. Her eyes narrowed. He was so freaking hot, he probably had his own underground network of baking hussies at his every beck and call, ready to butter him up with pastries and pies and other whimsical confections. What a bunch of hypothetical dessert whores. "I'll try to remember that for next time. But, you know, it was kinda fun helping Mrs. Fell pick out something she liked. Let's just say that Mr. Fell is definitely in for one heck of an evening."
He grimaced again. "Jesus. Not a mental image I needed." When she laughed, he protested, "You do realize they're old enough to be your great grandparents?"
"And yours!" she bounced back.
He nodded ruefully. "True."
Damon looked out across the playground at all the children running willy-nilly. Then he looked over at her, and his eyes were so blue and swoon-worthy and intense that she couldn't stand it. "I want to know everything about her. She's smart?" he asked.
Huh? "Mrs. Fell?" For a moment she had no idea what he was talking about. Then – right. "Oh, you mean Diana. Yes, she's brilliant. She's already being tested for placement in the gifted program at school." She told him this with pride. Diana was her beautiful, perfect little girl.
A quick grin from him. "She definitely got that from your side. As long as she doesn't turn out anything like me, she's going to be absolutely amazing."
"We can certainly agree on that much." Time to switch to something safer. She looked away and called, "Diana!"
When her daughter looked their way, Elena gestured for her to come over.
Damon was the one now who suddenly developed a ram-rod straight spine, sitting up all tall and stiff. He clutched the back of the bench with a white-knuckle grip as he watched their daughter trot to where they were seated. Those blue eyes of his were wide, his expression comically nervous. "Shit. What do I do?"
Elena tried not to soften towards him, but she couldn't help it. "Don't worry. You'll be fine."
They waited until Diana was closer. Into the nerve-wracking silence came her young voice. "Hi." She looked at them with alert, clear eyes that were as blue as the summer sky overhead. The purple bow in her hair was askew and strands of black hair clung to her neck and temples. Her daughter had been playing hard.
"Hi, sweetie," Elena said, handing the red-faced child a water bottle, "you remember Mr. Salvatore from the other day?"
Diana took a quick drink. "Uncle Damon," she corrected. "We met at the Grill." She asked with a lisp, "Is that for me?"
"Yes, it is." He handed over the pink unicorn.
Diana's whole face lit up, and she hugged it tightly.
"Say thank you," Elena prompted her.
"Thank you!"
Damon smiled. "You're welcome."
Elena smiled, too. Wonderful, they were all smiling. "You'll have to think of a name for it."
"Her," said Diana. "She's a girl." She thought for exactly point two seconds. "I'm going to name her Pink Forest."
Damon's eyebrows, the same obsidian black as his hair, arched upwards in pleasant surprise. "That's an awesome name. Extra points for creativity." He leaned forward off the bench. "I was thinking maybe you needed someone to help push you on the swings."
Diana tipped back her head and smiled her gap-toothed smile. "Yes!"
Elena stretched out a hand. "Want me to hold onto Pink Forest while you play so she doesn't get dirty?"
"Okay, thanks, Mom."
Diana, utterly delighted that an adult wanted to play with her, grabbed Damon's hand. Her tiny hand was swallowed up by his. Her eyes sparkled, feet practically skipping as they began to walk, a dark, tattooed man with a tiny, happy, raven-haired child. She was already telling him a story, and Elena knew her daughter was going to talk his ear off.
Elena called, "Be careful."
Damon glanced back over his shoulder and grinned, utterly delighted that his child wanted to play with him. "Yes, ma'am, we will."
At first, Elena pulled her laptop out again and attempted some more work, but she quickly gave it up because her brain simply refused to process any more numbers. Probably because she kept pausing to look up.
Oh, who was she kidding? She ditched the laptop.
Unbidden and definitely unwelcome, her heart swelled as she watched Damon and their daughter play together. She was glad for Diana to get to know her father. In her heart, she knew it was the right thing to do. Damon might be a dick when it came to women and sex, but he wasn't abusive or addicted to drugs or unstable in any way yet that she could tell. He deserved a chance to know his daughter, and vice versa.
It was just really hard to be that big enough of a person. It hurt so fucking much.
She curled her fingers into Pink Forest's fluffy pink mane. The thought of what could've been brought a shimmering of tears to otherwise clear brown eyes. A life flashed before her eyes like the startling, rapid motion scenes of a movie, a dream of happy, healthy relationships and joyful memories and just being there for each other. Simple things. Priceless things. All the things she'd witnessed her own parents be blessed enough to find in each other.
Then, the movie ended, and she shook herself, dismissing such useless thoughts. What was even the point of thinking them? She hated herself for being so weak.
After a while, Diana ran over to her mother who still watching every moment from her spot on the bench. Damon straggled behind with a genuine, beaming smile on his face. It made him so unbelievably gorgeous that her breath snagged in her throat.
"Mom," Diana said in between sips from her water bottle, "Uncle Damon said we can get ice cream."
"Oh, he did, did he?"
The nonplussed look on Damon's face was priceless. She almost laughed aloud.
"What I said," he was quick to clarify, "was that maybe we can get a few scoops from the little ice cream shop that's on the square, you know, sometime. Obviously not right now. And assuming it's okay with you, Elena."
"It's fine," Diana claimed. "My mom lets me have ice cream all the time. Right? Mom?"
"Not all the time," Elena said quickly. Jeez, she didn't want him to think that she let Diana eat sweets all the time or anything. "And definitely not right now."
Disappointed, Diana set her water down and was ready to go back out. "Come on."
Damon flopped down on the bench next to Elena. "Sorry, kiddo, I need a time out."
"Awww," Diana pouted.
"Hey, I'll be back out there. Just need to catch my breath."
Elena gave her daughter a look that said the adults needed a few minutes.
"Okay," Diana whined and ran off.
Now that her daughter was out of ear shot, she saw no problem with ribbing him. "Tapping out already?"
"It's been half an hour! She hasn't slowed down yet. And she's not even done." He nodded at Diana still running up some playground stair case with the other children.
"Welcome to my life," she said. But she didn't say it bitterly. Just wistfully.
His grin slipped away, and he looked down at his clasped fingers for a time. His hair fell forward to hide his face. The silence expanded between them. Finally, still without looking at her, he said, "Elena …."
"Hmm?" She wore a guarded expression, steadfastly watching Diana run from one end of the playground to the other.
"Ah, fuck, Elena, how …," he swallowed and began again, "how do I say I'm sorry?"
A pulse of pain. Not what she'd been expecting. "For what?"
A beat of prolonged silence, and then he was looking at her, drawing her gaze to his, and she felt like she was drowning in a sea of blue. "I'm sorry that you had to go through everything alone. I should've been here. For you. For Diana."
She froze, not daring to move an inch. If she did, she'd crack into a thousand jagged pieces. "Diana and I were never alone."
"I still wish I'd been here." He took a deep breath, blew it out. The expression on his face made her heart suddenly ache more than she could bear. "I - I want to be here now. I want to help. With Diana. In any way I can. In any way you'll let me. If she needs anything - "
She cut him off. "We're fine." Her voice was clipped, brisk, business-like, when all she wanted to do was clap her hands over her ears and scream at him to stop. She didn't want to hear another word.
"Right, but if you need anything, like money for clothes, for a pony, for anything - "
"I don't need or want your money." Let him find some other way to assuage his well-earned guilt.
"I know you don't, but for Diana. Let me give you something for her. Please. If you don't need it, you can squirrel it away in a savings account for her for when she's older or save it for an emergency."
"Stefan already took care of all that. He's been more than generous." To the tune of a five hundred thousand dollar trust fund that became Diana's when she turned twenty.
That knocked the wind out of Damon's sails to a considerable degree. "Ah. Of course he has. Good ol' Stefan."
Diana ran up, interrupting them. Elena could tell just by looking at her that she was finally, truly getting tired.
"Done already?" Elena asked her, not minding a bit as she was glad to bring an end to this conversation.
"I'm hungry." Her daughter took Pink Forest back and clutched it tightly in her arms. "Me and Pink Forest want ice cream."
"You and Pink Forest are not getting ice cream for dinner. You can have some for dessert if you both eat all your vegetables." Elena got to her feet abruptly. "Say good bye to Uncle Damon, and thank him for playing with you today."
Diana ran to him and threw her arms around his legs in a tight embrace. "Thank you, Uncle Damon! It was fun playing with you today. Thank you for Pink Forest. I love her. She's going to sleep in my bed tonight."
"You're very, very welcome," he said, resting a hand on the top of her head, tenderly stroking dark hair that was a perfect match to his own. "I hope we get to see each other again soon."
Elena just barely heard her daughter's muffled reply. "Me, too."
"Okay," Elena said with resolute, false cheerfulness. "Car time."
Diana released Damon and sprinted for the car parked only a few feet away. Meanwhile, as Elena tried to make her escape, he caught her, a gentle snag of her elbow, tugging her back around. Those tattooed fingers warm upon the surface of her skin made her whole body start humming. "Please, Elena, let me do something."
She fixed him with a glare, doing her best to shut down that obnoxious humming. "We don't want or need anything from you."
Jerking her arm free, she walked away.
Diana was waiting beside the car. Elena couldn't avoid noticing his baby blue Camaro parked on the other side of the lot. She helped her daughter in and buckled her into her booster seat. When she shut the door and moved towards the driver's side, Damon was waiting.
"I'm not trying to offend you, Elena." he said. "That's the last thing I want to do."
"What do you want?" She was exasperated and fed up, and that was exactly how she sounded. "Because I'm still having trouble figuring that one out." Why did she even bother asking? She hated him and always would.
His lips twisted bitterly. "You mean, aside from a magical re-do button that doesn't exist? I told you. I want to help. I have a lot to make up for, a lot of time I've missed. I want a relationship with Diana. I don't know how good of a father I'll be, because mine was absolute shit, but I want to try. I need to."
"You've only been on one play-date with her. We should probably wait a bit. Just in case. You might find you don't like being a father and all that comes with it." She was thinking of mainly the needing to stick around and be involved part.
"Or," he countered gently, "I might like it a great deal."
"I guess we'll see." She started to turn away, then stopped and turned back. "I'm not ready for her to know who you are yet."
"I'm fine with that. I understand."
When she turned away again, he said quickly, "You hate me, and I deserve every bit of it, believe me, I know, but… you asked what I wanted, and I want to be honest. I want to make things right between us. Whatever that means. Whatever it takes. What I did is … not something I'm proud of and not something I would ever do again. I hope you know that."
She could read the sincerity in his gaze. She closed her eyes. It felt like her heart was slowly imploding. Why was he saying these things? Was he trying to hurt her even more than he already had? When she opened her eyes again, they were bleak, her face forlorn. "I can't forgive you." She shook her head and stepped away to create some much needed distance. "Not yet." She shook her head again. "Maybe never."
"But there's a chance, you say?" His resulting grin was boyish and crooked and absolutely charming. "Hey, that's better odds than I was expecting. I'll take it."
She almost said something cruel, but then she looked at him again with those big blue puppy dog eyes of his and said softly instead, "As long as you realize you're wasting your time."
A single shoulder rose and fell. "I've got plenty of time to waste."
She looked away, and couldn't keep the smallest of smiles from stretching unbidden across her lips. "Somehow I doubt that. A busy man like you? I assume you didn't take the whole afternoon off." Or maybe she was just hoping. "Isn't there a client you should be tattooing right about now?"
He mock-glanced at a watch that he wasn't wearing. Her eye was drawn to the bold lines of ink wrapping around his wrist. "Technically, yes, but I'm okay with making her wait. My next appointment's very understanding."
Her. Why did the way he said that she was very understanding make Elena grit her teeth and want to strangle something? She guessed she'd be very understanding too if she was waiting to have his hands all over her body.
Grrr, she was not jealous. Absolutely not. Damon could tattoo, and diddle, whomever he pleased. It meant nothing to her. "Good bye, Damon."
"Good bye, Elena," he replied, soft as a breath.
She was in her car with the door closed before he could say anything else. As Elena drove away from Little Wickery Park, Diana chattering away in the back about all the fun games she and Uncle Damon had invented together, she couldn't stop thinking that she'd done an absolutely godawful job of not letting him affect her. How could this afternoon have gone so horribly wrong?