He lowered his drink from his mouth as he looked towards her, licking wet lips. Stefan hadn’t met Caroline until now, but he instantly recognized her. His first impression of her was that the pictures didn’t do justice to the images embedded inside his memory. She projected such an earnestness as she dropped everything, Stefan found himself paying closer attention to her out of intrigue. To Stefan, the knockout blonde might as well be a stranger. A beautiful stranger, but a stranger nonetheless.
First, he glanced from her to his whiskey. Then he cracked a smile, a chuckle leaking through. ❝Damon encouraged me to drink up. Said it helped with the hunger.❞ He told her so with no pretense, just simply stating a fact. Not arguing Caroline’s point, he went ahead and set the glass down on a nearby table. The wife-beater accentuated the muscles in Stefan’s arms as they were smoothly folded across his chest. ❝Apparently neither of them thought I should know.❞ His eyebrows hiked up, both from confusion and frankly a little bit of disbelief. Yet even as he stated as much, Stefan found himself not necessary minding that they were gone. He preferred Caroline’s upbeat chattiness to Elena’s overbearing gentleness and Damon’s eyes stalking his every movement in a cross between suspicion and concern any day. And while Stefan didn’t like that Caroline was technically here to babysit him, he liked her.
Especially when she promised not to try to trigger his memory. Damon already did that, and mostly in not so pleasant ways.
❝Hmm. So you’re my favorite person? I think I’m starting to see why.❞
