The Engagement

The Brother

Elena looks around her in the garden. It's nice, green and trim. She has a dark blue dress with small, with flowers and her hair is straight and loose, as usual. She's waiting for Damon. They are going to one of his friends, the one Pricilla presented to them and do the recipe for the wedding. Priscilla is already there, and Elena and Damon are going to drive there in his car. 

She doesn't expect the Tripp to be anything but mind-blowing, because if there was one thing Damon loved more the cooking it was his car. Stefan had warned her about putting her feet anywhere were they weren't supposed to be. He had thrown in a little lecturing about not sleeping with Damon too, and not in a subtle way.

"Hi there, girl. Ready to leave this place until tomorrow night?" Damon asks as he walks up beside her. Elena turns to him, smiling.

"Yes, I am" she says, looking him in the eyes. "But it's beautiful. Are your friends place as beautiful as this?" She doesn't think she imagens Damon's eyes stuck on her just a tad too long.

"Well, I would say so" he starts, looking out over the vineyard in front of them. "Even though this place is more beautiful now than I ever seen it. But I think his place will get that little detail when we get there" he says, eyes stuck on her and that sexy little smirk stuck on his lips.

Elena's breath gets stuck in her throat, her comeback with it, and she stares after him with wide eyes when he turns to leave.

"Are you coming?" he asks and Elena quickly follows him to his car, carefully keeping her distance. She didn't like it but Stefan and Caroline were right. She was here for Stefan's, her ex and good friend, wedding and she couldn't go sleep with his brother. Regardless of how much she liked him or her forbidden feelings for him.

When he starts the car, with a roar because he can't have a normal quiet car like everybody else but has to have an old veteran, he hands her the phone.

"You can handle the music, right? I'm okay with everything without hard metal and girly pop songs" he says, as he slides out on the road.

"Hey! What's wrong with girl pop?" she asks jokingly but puts on a popular song that's on her playlist, and his too apparently.

"I think the word 'girly' answers that question" is his only comeback and Elena stares at him, playing mocked.

"You should know, Mr. 'I'm not girly', that there aren't such things as 'girly' and 'manly'. It's up for the taste of the person in question" she says, looking forward again. He smirks a little and glances quickly at her.

"And some of these things most women like and some of them most men like" he argues back with a big smile, showing off all of his dimples.

"Doesn't mean that they naturally fall under the category" she answers, her voice slightly pitched and with a big smile herself. Her words filled with laughter.

"No, but it does mean that if you look at the statics, these things are either more 'girly' or more 'manly'" he says, even his voice laced with a laugh now and that little teasing tone at the side.

She punches him in the arm for that. Just lightly, not wanting to hurt him, just trying to shot the little bit inside her that shouts to her to kiss him, touch him. Just do anything so that she can feel him. He plays hurt a few seconds, before he laughs, his smile so big that the skin around his eyes adorably wrinkles. She wrinkles her nose in response, ignoring the longing look he gives her afterward.

He is Stefan's brother, he's Caroline's enemy and he clearly dislikes her twin sister. He is her ex's brother. Just that should be enough to make her stop looking at his sinewy hands and muscly arms that she can see because of the t-shirt. But it isn't. It wasn't years ago, it isn't now. She doesn't know what it is, but she does know that she has been drawn to him since the first time and that she can't shake him from under her skin, where he always seems to be nagging. Even after more than two years apart, she can feel him there, close enough to her speeding heart to be real. Too far away from her shouting brain to be bothered.