But there was another Bonnie beneath that one, and even another still beneath the Bonnie that liked fast cars and fast boys, and that was the one her friends would recognize the most easily. It was this deepest Bonnie who had envied Elena and Stefan, not for their fairytale relationship, but for the stability that she could sense in it. A Bonnie who was, at heart, a woman, and who had been one for a long time.
And Damon had just thrown a challenge to the womanly Bonnie. She could feel the hurt, hot rage burning inside her as she walked with Stefan up the staircase, his arm in hers. Elena? she called. She was furiously calculating if the plan that had just occurred to her might possibly hurt anyone.
Elena?
Silence.
Can you hear me?
Silence.
Elena there’s a Plan B I want to try with Stefan, but I don’t know if you’ll be mad.
I’ll forget about it right now if you’ll be mad.
Nothing. Bonnie tried to think other colors and forms in her mind, to “change channels.” Sometimes it worked.
Elena, if I don’t hear from you I’m going to try it. I can’t think of anyone else that it might hurt, and it might do Stefan some good.
Still no “presence” from Elena.
Bonnie’s heart sank suddenly. Are you leaving this entirely up to me? That would be just like you and Meredith. You would say it would help me grow up to know what I want.
Silence all around her. No one present except herself and Stefan—alone together, as they said.
All right, then. I’m taking you all on. This is my responsibility, and only mine.
Which was all part of being a woman.
Stefan was watching her. He had seemed startled by her eager
ness from the beginning, but probably putting it down to wanting to get it over with.
But now, with the door shut and locked behind him, he was watching her, with distinctly worried eyes. As she walked around the room and ended up on the worn, creaky old couch, his aura was burning a puzzled yellow. She wondered whether to feign nervousness, and then decided she didn’t have to feign it. She looked up at him, with her stillwet, stillcornflowerblue eyes at their widest.
Plan B was what the girls called a blitzkrieg plan.
“I tangled the tie of my windbreaker before, and now I can’t see to untie it,” she said.
And that’s the absolute truth! she thought. Yes, if you don’t ask exactly when ‘before’ was.
He untangled it, necessarily standing close to her. All boys were tall compared to Bonnie, but Stefan was just the right height for leaning her head against his shoulder, and so straight and slim and somehow pliant—like a ninja or a panther or something that had to be ready to move in any direction at once. And he smelled wonderfully good. That was one of the most important things to the deepest Bonnie: smell. And another, which he also had, was voice. Stefan was a virtuous knight, faithful to the memory of his Elena—but he also had a voice that could melt butter right out of the refrigerator.
Yes, we have no problems here. I’m attracted to him. But—could he ever be attracted to me?
Bonnie slid off her windbreaker, and then, watching Stefan under her eyelashes, undid the one big button of her jade green sweater, and began to pull it over her head.
Stefan—as expected—made an incoherent noise of protest. That was one advantage she had. She was a gabbler. She could talk the hind leg off an elephant given the chance, and Stefan was a polite listener who didn’t like to interrupt.
“It’s okay, silly, I’ve got another top on underneath it,” she said and finished shrugging the sweater off.
This was technically true. She had a camisole on underneath it; a very pretty cream colored one, with knots of ribbon and lace decorating the bodice. She usually wore it with a sweater when the weather could change suddenly and she could whip on a lighter top over it.
She just hoped that Stefan didn’t know enough about modern women’s underwear to recognize it as notexactlyoutdoorwear.
Especially when the only thing under the camisole was Bonnie.
It seemed that Elena had neglected this area of his education. Bonnie mentally wiped sweat off her forehead.