state of grace | mikaelson men

3 | ELIJAH

"So, this guy should be at my place in about twenty minutes, which gives us time to find out just which closet Miranda left all that junk in," Jenna told her. "Then, after however long that takes, you can take him to yours for those archives."

"Sounds like a plan. Tyler and Matt helped move everything to the attic after my parents died, so everything should still be in the same place and easy to find," she said. "Did Carol mention the author's name? Maybe I've read something of his before."

"Uh, something Smith?" she said, wincing.

Lottie chuckled. "Right. That just narrows it down to a million people."

"So, pretty high odds," Jenna joked. Then she smirked devilishly, though not quite as bad as one of Kol's. "Maybe he'll be handsome — get you out of your slump."

"I'm not in a slump, Jenna," she said, rolling her eyes. Though the townspeople didn't know that.

"It's been months since the whole Allison and Dean thing ended. I know you've gotta be itching to get back out there," she went on. "Who better than a potentially hot, older writer who has the money and time to travel to exotic destinations?"

That caused Lottie to let out a loud laugh. "In what world is Mystic Falls an exotic destination?" she asked, continuing to snicker.

"You know what I meant," Jenna said, reaching over to poke Lottie's shoulder. "If he's hot, I dare you to flirt with him."

"You sound like Caroline when she was twelve."

"Don't you mean Caroline now?"

It was nice to catch up with Jenna on the car ride and not have to talk about anything supernatural. It was mainly gossip about Alaric or Elena. Though Lottie was thankful for the lack of vampire talk, a part of her wished that Jenna knew about it all.

The woman would certainly be safer if she did, but Lottie wasn't in the Gilbert family and so didn't think it was her place to reveal the truth to her. But with John Gilbert in town and causing even more problems, it likely wouldn't be long before she knew anyway. For now, though, the human was enjoying the obliviousness of it all.

Neither Kol nor Finn was present — it was just one of those days where they went off. Between the full moon tonight, Elijah's witches poking around Bonnie, and John plotting something, they had lots to keep tabs on. They also just thought helping an author learn about small-town Virginia was boring.

"Oh, thank god, he's not here early," Jenna breathed out as they parked in front of the house. She didn't want to give a bad first impression and then have this author run back to complain to Carol.

"Then let's go get everything we can before he does get here," Lottie said, following Jenna into the house.

They didn't get very far. Upon opening the closet under the staircase, the girls realized that the Gilbert archives weren't nearly as organized as the ones at the Lancaster house, which likely wouldn't impress this Smith author.

"This'll be fun," Jenna grumbled while looking at the stack of boxes.

"Ah, I spot a fancy car," Lottie said, seeing a dark SUV park on the curb by the window. "Go greet our guest."

Jenna yet again grumbled complaints under her breath childishly while going to get the door. Lottie grinned to herself and began looking through the closet, identifying different boxes. She listened in as Jenna opened the door and greeted the author before he could knock.

"Hi, you must be Mr. Smith. I'm Jenna Sommers. It's lovely to meet you," Jenna said with fake enthusiasm. Most children of prominent families learned early on how to be falsely enthusiastic and charming. "Come on it."