the vampire diaries matt and elena first date - l.j smith (first color ebook reader .TXT) 📗

the ‘Ice princess” side of Elena Gilbert, and he didn’tknow what he thought about it. But, he figured, if Elena were really perfect,she wouldn’t be human. And if anybody at Robert E. Lee had a right to have an attitude like that, Elena Gilbert was that person.
“Shall we?” he said and handed her a menu.
“By all means,” Elena said in a mock-19th century gracious manner, and they opened the menus.
Despite all his preparation, the prices still took Matt’s breath away. A New York steak was $39. But if Elena ordered a steak, he could have the chicken, which was only $23. That would be $62. The entrees came with vegetables, but there was also the appetizer to consider. He could suggest they share the spinach salad, which was only $10. That made $72. Then even if she wanted a desert, he’d have plenty to indulge her—but wait, there were the drinks. He’d had two; she’d had one. That sparkling water was $7 a bottle—each Coke was $2. And the tax. And the tip. And the valet’s tip.
Well, he’d just have to drink regular water from now on, and hope that maybe Elena didn’t want both an appetizer and a dessert.
“What do you want to start with?” Elena whispered. “I usually like half a Caesar’s salad. They make it at your table here. It’s really good.”
Matt nodded vigorously so he wouldn’t have to look her in the eye. At least it was only one Caesar’s, at fifteen dollars. Hey, wait! He knew. There was some kind of smoked salmon on the appetizers list. He could have it for his entrée—Matt knew you could do that—and it would only be six dollars. He’d just make himself a sandwich when he got home. Everything was going to be all right.
The waiter was back, looking snootier than ever.
Matt spoke up, “I—I mean we—we—we’d each like half—”
“We’d like to split a Caesar’s,” Elena said calmly, barely glancing at the waiter. She smiled into Matt’s eyes. “Right?”
“That’s right,” Matt said heartily.
When the waiter had stalked off, Elena’s smile changed, became a mischievous grin. “He’s not going to forget us in a hurry,” she said. The light from a chandelier shone over her left shoulder, framing her in rainbow light.
Matt wished he had some way to capture the image forever. There was something about Elena—as if she were sparkling at the edges—that he’d never seen in a girl before. It was as if light constantly danced around her, as if sometime she might just disappear into the light. Hell, he thought, I can just “get a stomach-ache” and not be able to order any entrée, he thought. Then I’ll recover in time for dessert or something. But she can have the lobster for all I care!
Now he was getting embarrassed, though. No one was saying anything.
“Do you have a pet?” Elena asked suddenly.
“Um.” Matt’s first impulse was to check if there were dog hairs on his jacket or something. Then he looked up to find her smiling into his eyes again.
“Well, I had an old Labrador Retriever,” he said, slowly, “but she got cancer and—well that was about six months ago.”
“Oh, Matt! What was her name?”
“Britches,” he admitted, feeling himself flush. “I named her when I was four. I have absolutely no idea what I was trying to say.”
“I think Britches is a perfectly respectable name.” Elena said. She touched his hand lightly, with one finger. A feeling like slow, sweet molasses, crept out from her touch and into his veins, sustaining him. He wished she wouldn’t take her finger away.
She didn’t. She said, “We keep losing cats. Margaret brings them home half-starved, Aunt Judith slaves over them and then they run around the neighborhood—” She made a slight, meaningful gesture.
Matt winced. He had a low tolerance for furry animals getting squashed, but he had to be macho about this. “Cat au vin?” he suggested, miming pouring a glass of wine.
Elena’s eyes wept but her mouth gurgled. “As in—a cat’s that been run over by a . . . yeah, that’s about the size of it.”
Matt couldn’t help but laugh, and then he told the story about how one year Britches had put her paws on the counter and picked up a half-eaten Thanksgiving turkey in her mouth and wandered into the family room holding it up like a trophy. Elena laughed and laughed at that. She laughed as the waiter made up a Caesar’s salad beside their table too, and told a story about Snowball, who loved to sleep in boxes or in open drawers, and who had been accidentally shut inside one when she was a kitten.
“The noises she made!” Elena exclaimed. Matt laughed with her. He would have thought you had to sit at attention and watch the salad being tossed, but no—Elena clearly had seen enough of such sideshows. She accepted her plate with a cheerful “This looks great!” and a waving away of the Fresh Ground Pepper Shaker, as if she’d done this all her life.
Maybe she had. Maybe, going out with so many other boys . . . but what difference did that make? Tonight she was his.
A girl was walking around the room selling little sweetheart bouquets and single roses. Elena talked to Matt without once giving the girl a glance. There was no reason to do it—it was a stupid impulse—but something inside Matt burst as he saw the girl, who was dressed like a gypsy, turn away.
“Wait,” he said. “I’d like to get that.” He gently touched one rose that was in almost full bloom. It was mostly white but the inner petals were touched with pink and the outer petals with a color that was almost golden. It reminded him of Elena: her skin, her cheeks, her hair.
“Very nice; perfect choice,” the gypsy girl said. “A genuine Florentine rose such as Botticelli painted. And only fourteen dollars.” She must have seen Matt’s look of shock—the single rose he’d bought at the florist’s had been only five dollars. The gypsy added quickly, “And of course it comes with a love fortune—for each of you.”
Elena was opening her mouth, and Matt could tell that she was going to send the flower seller away. But he instantly said, “That’s great!” and she shut her mouth, and looked a little sober for a moment before smiling.
“Thank you so much,” she said taking the rose, while Matt wondered suddenly if he should have bought her a whole bouquet—he could see the sign on the basket now, and they were only a dollar more because the rose in them was a miniature—or maybe an all white rose to go with her outfit. God, he was dumb. Why not just buy her a red rose and make the colors clash completely?
“One fresh, long-stemmed Florentine rose,” the gypsy girl said “and a double love fortune. Show me your palms, both of you.
Flushing, Matt did as she asked. Then he was caught with a case of the snickers. He knew he couldn’t laugh, either roaring or giggling—but he almost couldn’t hold it in. Oh, God, he thought, don’t let me fart! Not now, while the gypsy lady was poring over their out-thrust palms, going, “Hmm,” and “I zee,” and “But yez, of course,” in a fake French accent.
Finally, he sneaked a peek at Elena and from her hand over her mouth and her crinkled up eyes he saw that she was having the same problem, and that immediately made it twice as bad.
Finally, the gypsy lady stopped muttering and spoke to Elena. “You will have nearly a year of sunshine. Then I see a darkening—there will be danger. And in the end, you will prevail over the darkness and shine anew. Beware of dark young men and of old bridges.”
Elena bowed gravely in her seat. “Thank you.”
“And you,” the woman said to Matt, still looking at his palm, “you have found your lady love, half-child and half-woman. Now that you have fallen under her spell, nothing will tear you apart from her. But I see a time of darkness of the heart for you, too, before you move on. You will always be ready to put your love’s interest ahead of your own.”
“Um, thanks,” Matt said, wondering if she expected him to tip her, but she said, “For potions, love or hex, visit me in Heron, at my shop ‘Love and Roses.’”
She handed Matt a card and went ambling on with her bouquets.
And then Elena and Matt could laugh as hysterically as they wanted, which was quite a bit. Matt only calmed down when he remembered he probably should have gotten the white rose, to go with Elena’s outfit. He felt dumb. But Elena was still laughing,
“Meredith would have taken her to pieces,” Elena gasped finally. “‘A time of darkness before you move on . . . ’ But the rose. . . it’s the prettiest I’ve ever seen.”
“Really?” Matt felt a rush of passionate relief that came out as rather silly laughter. “Um, better than a white one?”
“Of course.” Elena stroked her cheek with the bloom. “I’ve never seen another one like it.”
“I’m so glad. It, well, it reminds me of you.”
“Why, Matt Honeycutt! You flatterer!” Elena tapped him gently with the rose, and then began caressing her lips with it.
Matt could feel another flush beginning, but this one was for two reasons. Normally, there would have been a third, an embarrassment about how to word what he needed to say, but his need to figure things out was so urgent that he simply said, “Would you excuse me a minute, please?” and scarcely waiting for her gracious nod, he hurried off in the direction of the bar to find a restroom.
The men’s room was right down a little corridor. Matt went in and took a stall, pulled his wallet out and began to calculate frantically.
Hey, relax, he told himself before he started. You’ve got plenty. Just don’t do any more impulsive things like the rose, and don’t plan on giving big tips.
Now, if she had, say the chicken and wild mushroom piccatta—he felt he had the menu memorized by now—that would be $25. And then he could have the salmon cakes
appetizer, which was only $12. And then they could even have desert and coffee, too, if he cut the tips to the bare minimum.
“Get back out there and entertain yer girl,” he swore he could hear Uncle Joe saying, while at the same time the feeling of a boot to the backside seemed to come from his back pocket. And it was good advice. The only problem was that it made him need to take a look at the hundred-dollar bill, to touch it for good luck, and to gaze at it for comfort.
Shaking his head at himself, he twisted the wallet sideways so as to expose the secret compartment and felt in it.
And felt in it.
And felt frantically in it and around it, managing to almost turn the wallet inside out.
At last he had to let the words surface in his brain.
The hundred-dollar bill wasn’t there.
It was gone.
It was gone.
Where? When? He’d last seen it when he was playing with his wallet at home, day-dreaming about the date. He knew he’d seen it then. What could have happened to it?
Desperately, he searched the rest of his wallet. Nothing, His other money was there; he hadn’t been robbed, but . . . no hundred-dollar bill.
Matt spent the next ten minutes in the most frantic and most intimate skin search of his life . . . on himself. He looked everywhere. Could he have slipped it into a sock?
Could it have somehow got taken