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

in with his laundry? No. Other compartments, anywhere? No.
Finally he had to admit that nothing else but the bare fact mattered. The hundred was gone.
And the terrible thing was that it hadn’t had to happen this way. There was a rumor that Elena Gilbert never went out if she didn’t pay half. She’d actually confirmed that to him when he’d gotten up the courage to stammer out the words, “Will you go out with me next Saturday?” He remembered exactly how her blue eyes had lit up and how she’d said, “Yes, but I always go Dutch.” And he, idiot of idiots, had puffed out his chest and said, “Not this time, you won’t.”
Hoist on his own petard. Whatever that meant.
Now, what to do about it? God, what could he do? Most of his buddies were practically broke in autumn—besides it was a half hour drive for them. His mom—he glanced at his watch and winced. It was after 9:00—no wonder that waiter was so mad—and his mom would be asleep by now. Her shift at the bakery started early.
Damn! He could almost cry. This was—how was he going to walk up to Elena and tell her that he didn’t have the money to buy her dinner when they were already there eating it? Oh, God, she wouldn’t speak to him for the rest of his life. And he’d be arrested, locked up as a con man . . . or whatever you called it . . .
He couldn’t do it.
But he had to.
It just had to be done.
And telling himself that, the way a soldier on the night of his very first battle might, he made himself march back to the table. There he made himself sit down facing Elena.
She was bubbling with good cheer. “Monsieur Garςon came by but I sent him away. He’s going to be back in—” She suddenly stopped, her whole manner changing. “Matt, what happened?”
Matt opened his mouth but nothing came out, not even the dry brown moth he imagined being inside. What could he do? Did they even let you wash dishes to make up for it if you couldn’t pay for a meal? Or was that just an urban legend? He couldn’t imagine Elena, in her sparkling moonlight-blue dress, washing dishes.
What if he just let the meal progress to its conclusion, and then tried to have a word with the manager in private? Things were tight around the Honeycutt household right now, but when weren’t they? Surely, his mom would lend him the money in the morning? But one thought of how the waiter’s face would look and that plan bit the dust. Besides, Elena would be humiliated. Elena! His perfect precious angel would be—
“Matt, you’re sick. You’re freezing. We need to call a doctor.”
Matt blinked, the world slowly coming into focus. He could just imagine how he must look: blue-white in the face, with icy hands and a constant tremor going through him. Hell, maybe that would work. Maybe if he acted really sick—
“I lost the money,” he heard himself telling Elena.
“Matt, you’re delirious.”
“No, it’s the truth.” He found himself pouring out the story of his Uncle Joe to her, of the way he’d worked to make this date perfect, and of the horror it had become.
He watched as Elena’s face took on a different look—he couldn’t tell if it was a good look or a bad look. It was a look of quiet, lonely, suffering.
Finally, he finished the story.
He stared at the spotless white tablecloth.
And then he heard the most incredible sound. He had to turn his head to make sure he had heard it.
Elena was laughing.
Laughing at him? No, laughing with him, her head tilted to the side and tears of sympathy in her eyes.
“Oh, Matt, what you’ve been through. What you’ve done just to make all this happen! But you can stop worrying now. I should have plenty to tide us over.” She scooted and picked up a little purse that matched her blue outfit. “Here, let me see—oh!” Suddenly she was biting her lip in chagrin. “I forgot; I blew it all on this purse and some new makeup. Oh, I’m sorry.”
That “I’m sorry” was enough to rip a hole in Matt’s side and hull him. But then again, he heard melodious, mischievous laughter. He looked up dully, not really caring what happened to him anymore.
“Matt, it’s okay.” Under the table a warm hand found one of his and gave it a quick squeeze. “It’s all going to be fine. Now listen to me, because I’ve got a plan—“
Years later he learned to be wary of that phrase “I’ve got a plan.” But this was the first time he’d heard it. So he listened. And his mouth dropped open. And then kept opening and shutting, like a goldfish’s.
“You really think we can do that?”
“I know we can, because of this blank space here.” She pointed at the menu. He stared.
Then, slowly, he looked up at her and smiled.
“Okay, now wipe your face off, because you look as if you’ve just run a marathon. You lost your napkin? Here take mine.”
It had to be his imagination, but Matt actually thought he could smell her fragrance on the napkin. He wiped himself down just in time for the waiter to return. Elena immediately entwined her fingers with Matt’s on the tablecloth.
“Have Monsieur et Mademoiselle vinally decided to eat here tonight?” the waiter asked, heavily, looking at Elena, who nodded, “Mademoiselle?” “‘Madame,’ si’l vous plait,” Elena said sweetly. “And I’d like a chocolate soufflé, with two spoons, merci.”
“Mademoiselle—” The waiter looked about to explode.
“ ‘Madame’ “ Elena reminded him.
“Madame, you cannot—cannot—” The waiter’s face was brick-red.
“But we can,” Elena answered in her sweetest voice. She pointed to the menu. “There’s nothing that says there’s a minimum charge per customer.”
“That,” the waiter said as if he were trying to keep his haughty attitude, but was blowing up like a balloon ready to hit the ceiling “is because—is because—because ze clientele we serve knows better without being told!”
Elena put her free fingers to her lips. “Monsieur, people are starting to stare.”
The waiter controlled himself, obviously gathering all the dignity at his command.
“And monsieur?” he said in a voice like ice, turning to Matt.
“Oh, um. me? I’d like, um, two scoops of vanilla ice cream. And two spoons,” Matt found himself saying, and curbing equal urges to flee and to burst into hysterical guffawing. “Oh—and two cups of coffee.”
“You want—”
“Two scoops of vanilla ice cream.” Matt was afraid he the waiter would burst.
“C’est impossible . . .” murmured the waiter, but he wrote something on his pad. The crisis seemed to be over now. The man had gone from red to pale, and he managed to turn away from them without detonating. “It weel take ‘alf an hour for ze soufflé to cook,” he said, with his back to him. “Meanwhile . . . Bon appétit!”
Once he was gone, Matt and Elena collapsed into out-of-control laughter.
“Oh, God, did you see his face?” Elena gasped. “The poor man—we’ll have to give him all we have left for a tip . . .”
“Tip, nothing. He was rude to you. As far as I’m concerned he gets no tip, and I’m gonna ask him to ‘step outside’ if it happens again.”
“Oh, Matt. You really are a knight in shining armor. But can I tell you something? My favorite restaurant is Hot Doggles—yes, the hotdog place back in Fell’s Church. And my favorite thing to do on a date—now, I don’t want to sound spooky—but I like to walk around the graveyard or the Old Woods in the moonlight. I—I don’t really care about fancy stuff. If I like a guy”—and here her eyes seemed to be saying something Matt could hardly let himself believe—“I’d rather just go to his place and listen to music, or bring him over to eat dinner with the family. The rest is just—” She made a dismissive motion with her hand. “Just for the idiots I have to put up with sometimes. The jocks
who need jockstraps for their brains.” She tossed her head, so that her beautiful, waving. golden hair flew from side to side.
Matt opened his mouth and again nothing came out. There was no Uncle Joe to kick him in the behind.
But somehow there was. In spite of the missing bill he felt a kick, and words just dropped out of his mouth, “If I’d known you were that kind of girl, I’d have asked you out a long time ago,” he blurted. “I thought you were—some kind of pampered princess.”
The next minute he could have bitten his tongue off. But Elena wasn’t mad. Instead she was saying sadly, “Lots of guys think that. I guess I am, really. I know what I like when I see it. And I want what I want when I want it.” And once again her eyes said something to him. And this time he couldn’t help but believe it. And he knew that his eyes were saying something back to hers, too.
“So that’s why you never asked me out. I guess it’s up to me to set the record straight.” She sat up and smiled again, this time brilliantly, “And when I take you out on our next three dates—”
“Three dates!”
She nodded solemnly. “They’ll be dates at places like Hot Doggles or something like that—have you ever tried Midge’s, right at Main Street and Hodge? It’s great—and we’ll talk and just have fun. When spring comes we’ll go on picnics. Have you ever flown a kite? I know it’s for kids, but it’s really exciting to run and run and suddenly feel the wind bite. Then you let go.” Her expression went dreamy. “Sometimes I don’t want to let go. I want to go up with the kite.”
“Like skydiving,” Matt said, watching her face eagerly. He loved to look at her when her cheeks flamed and her blue eyes took fire.
“Oh, yes, like skydiving. Wouldn’t that be fun to do together? Or a balloon ride. . . I hear they have those over in Heron. We’d have to save up, though—in winter we can make snow people!”
“Snow ‘people’?”
“Oh, that’s Meredith. She says we always say ‘men’ when we mean ‘men and women’ so we’re all used to using ‘people’ for everything by now. I want you to meet them all: Meredith, and Bonnie, and Caroline.” She held up a finger sternly. “No dating them though. Bonnie’s got a crush on you. But I have first dibs.”
Matt didn’t know where he was going. He didn’t care, either, because it felt as if he were headed straight for Heaven.
“I’ve known Caroline for years and years,” he heard himself say. “I thought you were like her, only, like, multiplied by ten.” Then he saw her glance at him and wanted to clap his hand over his mouth.
“Well, sometimes I am,” Elena said. “You’ll just have to find out in what ways, won’t you?”
Just then the dessert arrived. Matt watched as the waiter solemnly placed a chocolate something-or-other in front of Elena—and two spoons, and two round balls of vanilla ice cream by his place—and two spoons. Then he poured them coffee, put down a little folder with the bill inside it, and turned on his heel as if he never wanted to see them again. He didn’t even say ‘Bon appétit.’”
“Did we make it?” Elena whispered as Matt frantically calculated the tips for waiter and valet.
“With a dollar to spare!” he whispered back, and again they broke out into laughter together.
They each wanted to let the other one