#makeashadowblr

For a long moment, they’re quiet listening to the rumble and whine of the elevator shaft. She can feel the burn of his eyes on her again but decides against engaging. He clears his throat. “You look...different.”

Her eyebrows go up but she doesn’t respond. The barrel curls she’d done this morning fell from the humidity and there’s coffee stain on the sleeve of her sweater, which she keeps clenched in her fist or tucked into the arm of her peacoat. Kai faces forward and rubs his cold hands together. “Good. You look good. Hot date tonight?”

“Yup.” She pops the p for emphasis. Thick brows knit together before his arm juts out in front of her and he punches the emergency stop button. Bonnie rolls her eyes and turns to face him. “If you get us stuck in here and I’m late to—“

“Who?”

“...you don’t know him.”

“What’s his name?”

Her nose flares. He can troll the student directory just as easily as she can. It helps her organize her advisor’s schedule come time for class enrollment. She can’t say for sure Kai uses the system with the same good intentions. “Are you jealous?” she teases.

“Always.”

Already at her threshold for his nonsense without having her morning coffee as a buffer, she reaches out to disengage the emergency stop but his hand covers it. “We’ve got appointments this morning. You’re really going to keep my Grams waiting?”

Bonnie has long given up on trying to distance herself from him. They have the same major and are both administrative assistants to advisors of the same program in the same building. On the same floor. The only way she could get her position through work study was if she didn’t work directly under her own grandmother. And since he’s the glorified secretary to Sheila Bennett, he’s unavoidable.

His gaze rakes over her face, long lashes and stubborn mouth and emerald eyes defiantly gazing back at him. Her very presence dares him to do something. Anything. When she’s in hearing distance, he wants to talk to her. If she stands close enough, he itches to touch her. When he spies her weaving through the crowd at yet another frat party with her blonde bestie, he chokes on the urge to follow, drag her into an empty room, and have his way with her. Again.

Conceding, he presses the release button but the lift doesn’t budge. Bonnie’s eyes widen. “You. Moron.”

“I heard they called the fire department to your building this morning. Someone got stuck in the elevator?”

“Not someone. Me...and Kai Parker.”

She’s all the way across campus and yet Bonnie can clearly visualize the way Caroline’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “Seriously?”

She spins in her desk chair and glances out her office door. Her advisor is out at a meeting and it’s her lunch break, so she sneaks in the personal phone call while she waits for her food to be delivered. “He punched the emergency brake and the button got stuck.”

The rustling of Caroline’s notebook stops. “Why would he press that button in the first place...Bonnie, did—”

“Nothing happened!” she rushes to clarify, her hushed whisper echoing in the small room. “I only mentioned I had a date tonight and he freaked out.”

“There is no way you have a date and you didn’t tell me,” her best friend deadpans.

“You’re right. I don’t, but he didn’t need to know that. He’s so weirdly possessive for some guy I only hooked up with freshman year. It’s not like he’s ever bothered to ask me out.”

“Well, how long were you two trapped?”

“Like, an hour.”

“An hour? Bonnie Bennett, you were in there with him for an hour and nothing happened?”

“I came very close to killing him if that counts.”

She slips out of her heels and sinks to the carpeted floor, her canvas messenger bag crumpling beside her. “I could strangle you with my bare hands right now.”

Despite the severity of the situation, Kai’s eyes are alight with amusement. “Does your date know you’re into choking? I can play along, but guys on this campus have no imagination.”

“You don’t have any friends, so how would you even know?”

“You and I go to the same parties. Unlike you, I actually talk to people before we make out.”

She shoots him a glare. “I resent the insinuation. I don’t hook up with every guy who hands me a beer.”

“Guess that makes me special.”

She pushes her hair from her forehead, twirling the long, chocolate strands into a ponytail. “Sorry to burst your bubble, but…you were a dare.”

That stops him cold. With his arms folded across his chest, he blinks down at her. He runs his tongue behind his teeth and, instead of letting the sight of the pink muscle drum up old memories, Bonnie focuses on stretching her toes.

“What? I was a freshman living away from home for the first time, my best friend was off again with her on again-off again boyfriend, and we wanted to have fun. And, well, I thought you were cute.”

“Where does the dare come in?”

“When Care and Nik are on the outs, she lives vicariously through my love life.” She shrugs. “Said she was going to lock me out of our dorm if I didn’t at least kiss a guy.”

He huffs and counters, “We didn’t just kiss.”

“Yeah,” she averts her attention back to her curling toes. “Well, there’s a reason I don’t drink beer anymore.”

“You told him about that stupid dare? Bonnie! I wouldn’t have pushed you at him if you hadn’t been staring in the first place.”

“I wasn’t staring, I was—”

“Staring. God, why are you so mean to him?”

She scoffs, a smirk growing wider across her face. “Care, what about Kai Parker makes you think nice girls are his type?”

“You’re not wrong,” a deep voice responds and Bonnie jolts as Kai rounds the corner into her office. She scrambles to hang up on the Forbes girl while he’s ill at ease strolling in with a bag of styrofoam containers. “Caught the delivery guy in the lobby. Told him not to bother with the elevator.”

She snatches the fifteen bucks she has on her desk and crumples the bills in her fist. “After that stunt you pulled this morning, I think you owe me.”

“Yeah, I know.” He’s annoyed because it hadn’t even crossed his mind for her to pay him back and yet that’s what she assumed. Then again he heard enough of her conversation to realize maybe this hot and cold, back and forth thing they have going on isn’t exactly working in his favor.

Kai’s been quiet. Unnervingly so. After she admits their first and only hook-up wasn’t as spontaneous and well-intentioned as he first believed, he shuts down. Drops to the floor with his backpack and scoots to the corner of the elevator. Pushes back the maroon sleeve to pick at a scab on his forearm before leaning his head back against the wall of the lift and closing his eyes.

There’s a compartment under the main panel, which Bonnie opens and picks up a phone from its receiver. Instead of a dial tone, it automatically rings to an automated number. And rings. And rings. A few minutes of this and a handful of attempts later, she gives up on the emergency phone and pulls out her cell. She tries to text or call someone, anyone, but there’s no reception. Is it the metal box they’re trapped in blocking her signal or is this just her shitty luck?

“You’re wasting your time,” Kai says out loud for the first time in a while. His head still rests on the wall, eyes closed, breathing even. And here Bonnie thought he’d fallen asleep. “This is the only elevator in this building. They’ll figure out soon enough that it’s stuck. Save your battery.”

Grudgingly, she tucks her cell between her thighs. “I can’t believe you’re going to make me miss my morning appointments.”

“Bummer.”

She pins him with a glare. At least she tries to if only he’d notice her. “You should feel bad, you know. You got us stuck in here for no good reason.”

“Seemed like a good one at the time.”

“Well, bully for you because there is no date.” Defeat courses through her, so she throws her hands up. “There’s no guy. There’s never been a guy. Your knee jerk display of hyper-masculinity was all for naught.”

In his calm façade, his jaw tightens but that’s the only change in his demeanor.

“Really. You have nothing to say for yourself? You never shut up and now you’re mum?”

“I’m a little hurt actually. I like to lick my wounds in peace.”

She can’t stifle the scoff that erupts. It’s habit with him now. “You’re mad I lied to you about having a date?”

His eyes pop open, shades of an unreadable emotion on his face. He unfolds himself and turns his whole body to face her. Long legs cage in her own short ones, cuffed denim rubbing against dark washed skinny jeans, and he leans forward with elbows on his knees. “Would you have fucked me if your friend hadn’t dared you to?”

Taken aback by his crude phrasing, she grimaces. “She didn’t dare me to have sex with you” is her quiet clarification. Still waiting for a real answer, he sinks his teeth into his bottom lip and raises his eyebrows. “I don’t know. I didn’t go to that party expecting to hook up with anyone.”

“So why me?”

“I told you. I thought you were cute.”

“I was cute enough to kiss, but that’s not all we did. So, what about me was good enough for a cheap fuck?”

“Stop saying it like that!”

“That’s what it was, though. You fucked me. I mean, let’s think about it. You were on top. You just so happened to have a condom in that wallet-”

“Clutch.”

“—of yours. And if I’m remembering it correctly, I came first. So, yeah. You fucked me. You were the subject, I was the object, which is fine. It was pretty great actually. But then you left, which had me feeling cheap. You see how it all ties together?”

“I was embarrassed, okay.”

“By me.”

“By the whole situation! Like, what a college cliché. Hooking up with some random guy at a frat party? Not really a bucket list line item I was trying to check off.”

“And the condom in your clutch?”

Her legs cross inward so she has the leverage to punch him in the shoulder to get him out of her personal space. “What century do you live in? Girls have to protect themselves, too! And if you must know…they were handing them out at freshman orientation at a booth for the health clinic on campus.”

His jaw clenches again and, exasperated by his questioning, she staggers to her feet and jams any button that might get the elevator moving. It does nothing and they go nowhere, so she rounds on Kai, who’s chewing the inside of his cheek.

“You know, you have a lot of nerve. You’re acting like I used you when we both know you enjoyed yourself just as much as I did. We could’ve made out on the couch like literally every other drunk couple. You’re the one who pulled me into that spare room.”

Kai scrambles upright and backs Bonnie into the corner with his massive chest. “So you’re saying I pressured you into it?”

“No!” She groans. “I’m just saying we both wanted it. So, quit blaming me.”

He’s close enough to catch the wet scent of eucalyptus and something like citrus wafting from her warm skin. A shuddering breath rolls through him, one part tempered aggravation and two parts heady attraction to the small, irritating woman. Staring down his nose, he squints at her unwavering stare. Much of her anger has dissipated, a film of an entirely different emotion filling her green eyes. His lips tilt dangerously. “You never came back for seconds.”

“Kai, if you’ve never done anything in your life for anyone else, do this for me: drop dead.” She shoves him away and he stumbles backwards to the other side of the lift, his smirk split open in a wide grin.

Making himself at home, Kai props himself on the other side of her desk and rifles through the styrofoam and paper containers. He helps himself to sticky rice, sesame chicken, and half an egg roll. With a cocked eyebrow, Bonnie watches him expertly twirl the wooden chopsticks between his long fingers. “Hey, remember how a few hours ago you were clinging to me like you never wanted to let go? We should talk about that.”

Steam rises from her mug of coffee and she runs the tip of her finger along the rim muttering, “Let’s not.”

Some time later there’s an ugly sound of metal scraping metal happening behind the closed doors. With incredible force, two firefighters pry the doors open and peer into the lift stuck few feet from the sixth floor. One gets on his hands and knees. “Y’all all right down there?”

“Peachy,” Kai replies while Bonnie gives an emphatic “No!”

The firefighter nods his head and rises to say something to his partner before dropping back to the floor. “We’ve called the company that services all the elevators on campus. Looks like the emergency buttons weren’t meant to be used in emergencies. We’ll get you both outta there and then work on getting this thing moving.”

Bonnie blanches and whispers to Kai, “He wants us to crawl through there?”

“You want us to crawl through there?” he asks the first responders.

“Yeah. Don’t worry, it’s perfectly safe. That lift ain’t going anywhere.”

Bonnie backs against the far corner. “I’ve seen enough movies and tv shows to know you never climb through that.”

“What kind of movies are you watching?”

“The kind that tell me crawling out of an elevator caught between floors is a one-way ticket to getting your middle chopped in half. That kind.”

“Would it make you feel better if I went first?”

At the kind gesture and his soft tone, her eyes widen in surprise. Then they darken. “And leave me with the trauma of your bottom half getting cut off right in front of me?”

“My bottom half is your favorite, remember?” He winks then grabs his backpack and goes for the break between the sixth floor and the ceiling of the elevator. It takes upper body strength Bonnie’s not sure she possesses herself, but he swiftly heaves himself up and out of the lift. Shoving his backpack away, he spins back around and holds his hand out for Bonnie.

She looks up at him as if he’s a lifeline and for once he doesn’t roll his eyes or tease her about getting over the chip on her shoulder. He patiently watches her with his open palm out and waits until she’s ready. Choking back the wave of nausea that threatens to weaken her, she gathers up her heels and umbrella and bag and tosses them up to one of the firefighters. If she hops, maybe she can get her forearms and elbows up to the floor but that’s a big maybe.

“I’m too short,” she whines.

Again, this is the perfect opportunity of Kai to write her off as a scaredy cat and make some snide remark, but he doesn’t. Instead, he scoots until his arms and head hang into the shaft. “Jump up and wrap your arms around my neck.”

Gulping down her anxiety, she clenches her face in concentration and does what he says. They latch onto one another, his hands grasping for purchasing at her waist, her hips, his fingers gripping her belt loops. As he inches her up and out of the shaft, she holds onto him for dear life with eyes clenched shut.

When she feels her stomach slide against the lip of the floor, she swings a leg up. In her panic, she crawls atop Kai, her arms still tight around his neck, face buried in his shoulder, hearts hammering. Like the outdoorsy guy he is, he smells like pine needles and soap and Bonnie could get drunk on the smell. A chuckle rumbles through his chest and she feels it in places she didn’t anticipate.

She finally looks up and finds herself straddling him like an anxious turtle, his warm hands holding her to him by the softness of her hips. There’s a crowd of students gathered to witness their rescue and the firefighters are eyeing each other before they shrug at the young adults and hop down into the elevator.

Bonnie glances down at Kai, who has a shit-eating grin on his lips. “Deja vu, huh?”

They reach for the two fortune cookies that spilled from the bag, but Bonnie’s hand snakes them both back to her, crushing the cookies in the process. He makes a face that reads both now look at what you did and what happened to sharing? Couple that with the look of smug satisfaction that he’s still under her skin and that’s where he likes to be, Bonnie’s two seconds away from kicking him out of her office.

“What do you want? Other than to eat my food.”

“To talk.”

“We did plenty of that earlier. I think I’m set until graduation.”

“God, you give off the distinct impression that you don’t like me, but I know that’s not the case.”

“Mm, no. You were right the first time. I don’t like you.”

“That why you and your gal pal were wondering why I’ve never asked you on a date?” Unabashedly, he pops a piece of orange chicken into his mouth. Heat rises up the sides of Bonnie’s neck. Of all things, he had to hear that?

“I wasn’t wondering why,” she starts. “I was saying you’re mighty possessive for someone who’s never asked.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Bon. I have asked you out.”

Her face scrunches in contemplation. In the three years she’s known Kai, he has never, not once alluded to the possibility of taking her on a date. Except…

Her mouth drops open. “Are we seriously still talking about that night?”

He nods, his expression reading duh! And to that Bonnie throws her head back and laughs. She remembers the moment in crystal clarity because it was captured with her overall embarrassment of the whole party.

He’d handed her a beer. That was all.

Standing in the kitchen of the Alpha Delta Dick house, Bonnie rubbed a hand down her arm. This was her first official frat party and apparently that’s something no sane college coed should pass up. Well, so said Caroline. But it was overwhelming to say the least. Smells and dim rooms interrupted by strobing lights, the bass of the blaring music made her chest hurt. She sipped beer to settle her nerves. Her Grams thought she was studying tonight.

Noting how Bonnie’s gaze lingers on someone across the room, Care’s in her ear and gestured to the guy hunkered over and peering into the fridge. He grabbed a Tupperware container, opened the lid to sniff its contents, and gagged. He tossed it back onto the shelf, and hands pushed Bonnie in his direction. She threw a glare over her shoulder at the blonde but kept moving forward.

He straightened, as if he felt her presence, and looked down at her. “Beer?” she squeaked, holding up her own. It’s down to its dregs, so he gripped a new bottle by its neck, even twisted off the top before handing her a new one. She pursed her lips in thanks and slinked away.

When she got back to her best friend, she felt Caroline’s disappointment radiating off her. She was practically steaming. But to Bonnie’s defense, that was the fifth guy she’d been thrown at. “Coward” was her only response.

“Just because you and Nik are fighting doesn’t mean you can play matchmaker for me.”

“We are not fighting. I’m right and he’s being stubborn. Who cares? I swear, if you don’t at least kiss a guy tonight, I’m locking you out.”

“Care!” Bonnie’s voice shot up a few decibels, and fridge guy turned to look at the pair before going back to his hunt. Bonnie knew she meant business. Former Mystic Falls High School varsity cheerleading captain Caroline Forbes did not bluff. “Fine,” she spat.

Bonnie took a few gulps of the beer, barely stomaching the taste, and huffed marching over to the same guy. By then he was fully aware of any move she made in the small kitchen and closed the fridge door at her approach. With no hesitation, she grabbed him by the sides of his face and pulled him down to her height for a kiss.

It took him half a second to decide yes, he wanted to kiss this strange, crazy girl back, so he did. Pressing her between him and the fridge, he held her by her neck, her pulse racing under his fingertips. Not expecting this reaction, she hiccuped. The guy pulled back to look her in the face like he was seeing it for the first time. “I’m Kai.”

“Bonnie,” she breathed, her eyes on his surprisingly pillowy mouth. Blaming the liquid courage, she raised up on the balls of her feet and captured his lips again.

The rest was a blur. Of drunk partiers and a pleased Caroline as this Kai pulled her by the hand out the kitchen, down the hallway, and up the staircase. Of giggles and locked doors and clothes being shed, his black Star Trek graphic t-shirt and cargo shorts and her too-tight green halter top and skinny jeans. Of hands and kisses and sighs and who is this stranger with his expert hands and tender mouth? Of her quick realization she still had a condom in her silver sequined clutch with her fake ID and debit card.

Bonnie wasn’t a virgin. No, she “lost” it a while ago to the Mayor’s son and even had a boyfriend before she left for college, but this was different. Tyler was a childhood friend and Luka, while he’d just moved to Mystic Falls they took the time to get to know each other. Kai could be a serial killer for all she knew.

Reality hit as she laid on her back beside this guy she just met. When he tossed the spent condom in a nearby wastebasket, a cold wave washed over her and she quickly sat up.

In the dark of some frat guy’s room, she gathered her clothes from the floor and Kai propped himself up on the mattress. Watching her, he tugged his boxers and shorts up his hips while Bonnie tripped over her shoes. “You like movies?”

She’d frowned at the odd question and pulled her top down over her torso. Murmuring something vaguely in the affirmative, she didn’t afford him a last look before fleeing the room without having tied the straps of her halter.

“You asked me if I liked movies, not if I wanted to go see one.”

“I was getting there!”

She rolls her eyes. “Get out of my office.”

“You ran out before I had the chance,” he continues, ignoring her.

“So the past, what, three years of you being an absolute pain in my ass was your way of wearing me down?”

He scrunches his nose and furrows his brows. “What? No. If all of this,” he waves the chopsticks up and down his lanky body, “wasn’t enough to hold your attention in the first place, why try?”

“Oh, my god.” She leans her chest against the desk and jabs her own chopsticks at him. “You’ve never asked me out again because you think I rejected you.”

“That’s definitely a static simplification of it, but okay. Let’s go with that.”

A curious gleam brightens her irises as she gazes up through her eyelashes. “You’re not as mysterious as you seem, Kai Parker.”

“Please, I’m a damned open book. Any chapter, any page, and I even come with an index.”

He finishes his food, musing about how the weather’s supposed to be nice and cool and sunny this weekend, and then proceeds to hop off the edge of her desk. Ignoring her stingy nature, he grabs one of the crushed fortune cookies and peels open the plastic wrapping. Humming at his fortune, he throws the rest of his trash in the bin and he heads for the door.

Frowning, Bonnie deflates. “Kai.”

“Hm?” he responds, his tone unaffected. When he gets to the doorway, he turns, a cracked cookie between his lips, and faces her with a impassive expression.

She gulps against the thickness in her throat. “After all of that, everything that happened this morning, and you’re still not going to ask me out?”

He squints with a faraway look in his eyes and chews as if he’s earnestly contemplating the open invitation. “What century are you living in, Bon? Girls can ask guys out, too, ya know.”

He winks. Spinning on his heels, Kai disappears down the hallway and whistles while he goes.

It’s too early for a headache, but a dull pounding drums against Bonnie’s temples. She swipes up the forgotten strip of paper and reads whatever generic nugget of wisdom Kai left behind.