Besides, Bonnie thought pragmatically, the falcon weighing cool against her neck, it seemed like Damon was gone for good. Part of her missed him-there'd always been a special connection between her and Damon-but it might be better here without him. It was certainly calmer.
"Matt's here," Stefan said, glancing up from murmuring into Elena's ear. You could never surprise a vampire, Bonnie thought wryly.
But now they all saw Matt working his way over to their corner of the bar. He kissed Bonnie on the cheek and handed her a small package. "Hey," he said. "Happy birthday. Sorry I'm late. "
"No problem," Bonnie said, surreptitiously feeling the present to see what it was. A DVD, she thought. "Where's Jasmine?"
Matt grimaced. "She really wanted to come, but she's on call for the emergency room," he said. "She said to tell you happy birthday and she'll take you out to lunch sometime next week instead. "
"It's a pretty good excuse," Bonnie said. "You know, come to Bonnie's birthday drinks or be ready when they need you to save lives. "
"Since Jasmine couldn't come," Matt said, smiling at Meredith and Stefan, "you can tell me what happened with Celine. She's dead?"
That was the one problem with Jasmine, Bonnie thought, taking a swig of her drink. She'd been dating Matt for a couple of years, and everyone really liked her, but she didn't know the truth about him, about all of them. Jasmine knew Bonnie liked fortune-telling, herbs, and "New Agey" stuff, but she didn't know she was really a witch. She knew Alaric had a doctorate in paranormal studies and folklore, but she didn't know any of that was real either; she just thought he was an academic. And she sure didn't know the truth about Stefan, or Zander and his friends, or Elena. She didn't even know Matt, not really, how he'd fought evil again and again, how strong and brave he was. She just thought he was a nice, ordinary guy.
Maybe Bonnie needed to slow down on the champagne cocktails, because she opened her mouth and he
ard herself say, loudly, "Matt. How can you love Jasmine, when she doesn't even know who you are?"
Matt's face stiffened, his mouth forming a tight line, and a hot flush of embarrassment ran over Bonnie. Wasn't she ever going to learn to keep her mouth shut? After a moment, Matt said stiffly, "It's safer for her this way. " His light blue gaze met hers. "I just want Jasmine to have a normal life. "
Bonnie's throat tightened. She remembered when she and Zander had finally told each other the truth about themselves, more than five years ago. How she'd held his hand, nervous. Normal is overrated, she'd told him, and they'd kissed, sweetly and honestly, everything open between them. She couldn't imagine keeping secrets from someone she loved for so long.
She managed to smile at Matt, although the smile felt pinched on her face, and nodded, blinking away the stinging in her eyes. "Okay," she said in a small voice.
There were an awkward few moments of silence.
"Anyway," Meredith said, with a brittle little laugh. "Since you asked . . . " She began to describe to Matt the battle she and Stefan had fought with Celine.
It was a dramatic story. There were secret passages and close calls and much use of Meredith's skills and Stefan's vampire speed and strength before they'd even gotten close to Celine. But finally they'd tracked her down in Atlanta, evaded her vampire soldiers, and killed her with Elena's magic blood.
The first two times they'd told the story tonight, Bonnie had been hanging on Meredith and Stefan's every word.
This time, though, she politely stifled a yawn and glanced around. Everyone else was still riveted. Even Alaric, who was usually Bonnie's compatriot in being more interested in the magical side of fighting monsters than the physical side, was asking intelligent questions about weaponry.
She sighed, dutifully fixing her eyes back on Meredith. It was possible, Bonnie admitted to herself, that she was a little bit jealous. They hadn't asked her for help at all in tracking down Celine.
Bonnie was good at fighting evil. It was just that, as her friends had become even more superpowered-faster, stronger, in Elena's case immortal-it was possible that they didn't really need her.
Bonnie pushed the feeling away and took another sip of her drink. Stop being ridiculous, she told herself firmly.
Meredith was reaching the end of her story-Stefan was about to cut Celine's head off, as the Old One writhed in her death spasms-when Zander caught Bonnie's eye and suddenly hopped to his feet, knocking his tiny gilt chair over with a clatter.
"Whoops," he said, winking at Bonnie as he sauntered closer. She grinned back at him. Maybe she hadn't been doing as good a job of hiding her emotions as she'd thought. "Time to toast the birthday girl," he announced, and everyone climbed to their feet.
"Okay," Zander said thoughtfully. "I'll go first. What is there to say about Bonnie McCullough that you don't all know already?" He pulled her closer, wrapping a warm, strong arm around her shoulder, and she leaned happily into him. "Well, there was the first night we moved into our apartment. It felt weird being in this brand-new place, and I couldn't sleep. But then Bonnie started telling me all about these myths she'd been reading about selkies. She was so smart and looked so gorgeous with the moonlight shining on her, that I would have fallen in love with her right then and there if I wasn't already fully and completely in love. And I thought, as I fell asleep, Moving in with Bonnie is the best decision I ever made. " He kissed her briefly, the corners of his sea-blue eyes crinkling affectionately, and raised his glass. "Which of course I already knew. To Bonnie!"
They all drank, and then Meredith cleared her throat. "I couldn't have gotten through the wedding without Bonnie," she said. Her olive cheeks flushed slightly as she added, "You all know what my parents are like. When I couldn't stand them taking over the wedding planning anymore, Bonnie and Elena would kidnap me and take me somewhere on a 'sanity outing. ' The very best sanity outing was Bonnie's idea. "
Elena started to laugh. "This was completely Bonnie's idea. "
"They took me to the batting cages down at the park," Meredith went on, "and slapped a batting helmet on me and turned on the machine, and I whammed balls around until I didn't feel like running off to Vegas to elope anymore. And Bonnie sat there and shouted advice at me and bought me a hot dog when I was done. " She slung an arm around Bonnie and hugged her tightly, pressing a cool cheek to hers. "Best friends ever. "
"Me next," Elena said, as Meredith let go of Bonnie. "So, as you'll recall, Bonnie and Meredith and I spent all four years of college rooming together. When we graduated last summer, it was"-she shrugged-"scary. We weren't going to be there for each other every minute anymore. That last night, Bonnie decided we were going to have a slumber party just like the ones we had in junior high. We did one another's hair and nails and prank-called our boyfriends-"
"I was very surprised," Alaric added solemnly.
"It was a silly night," Elena said, "and it took Meredith and me a little while to get into the spirit of it, but Bonnie coaxed us along, and it ended up being perfect. Sisterhood. " As Elena raised her glass, Bonnie suddenly remembered how Elena had looked that night, her usually perfect hair in a hundred sloppy braids, laughing in pink pajamas. Elena, she thought, needed to laugh more.