ᴡᴀɪᴛɪɴɢ ɢᴀᴍᴇ • ᴋᴀɪ ᴘᴀʀᴋᴇʀ ✔️

25. PERSONAL LIES

"Has everyone left?" Molly asks.

"Elena and Bonnie are passed out downstairs." Damon says. "Be my guest and go wake them up because this house isn't gonna clean itself." He smiles cheekily and Molly rolls her eyes before heading downstairs.

Trash covered every inch of the house, the floor sticky with spilled alcohol. Molly scoffs at the sight of Bonnie and Elena curled up on the couch, drool spilling from Elena's mouth.

Molly picked up a trash bin and started picking up what she could, letting the girls sleep for a little bit longer. "Oh good, you're alive." Caroline says, coming around the corner with a trash bin of their own. "Parties are fun until you're left to clean up everyone's mess." She sighs.

"Tell me about it." Molly squirms as she lifts someone's boxer's off of the stair railing and into the bin.

Her phone rings and she pulls it out of her pocket to find a text from Kai displayed on the screen.

'Meet at the cemetery at 10 tonight.' The text read.

It took Molly a second to process it, but when she did a smile crept up on her face. "Who is it?" Caroline asks.

Molly quickly looks up and puts her phone away. "Uh— Tyler."

"Hm." Caroline says quietly, and the two continue to pick up the trash around the living room.

Molly didn't like lying to her friends. She wished she didn't have to. But some things are just better kept as secrets.

—

Leaves crunched underneath her feet as she paced back and fourth. Her brown corduroy jacket protected her a bit from the cold wind, but her legs were exposed due to her floral dress being cut just above her knees.

She kept anxiously checking the time on her phone.

10:04

10:07

Then she started to panic. Was this a ploy? Did something happen to him? Was she being stood up? She sat down on the bench and let out a sigh, giving him two more minutes before she left.

A stick broke. Molly looked up from her phone and glanced around quickly, looking for someone amongst the dark trees.

"Kai?" Molly whispered. When there was no response, she let out a frustrated sigh and stood up— she began to walk off when someone grabbed her hand and spun her back around.

Molly's eyes widen in surprised before Kai grabs her face and connects their lips eagerly. Molly gently lifts his hands off, and pulled away. "Not here." Molly says, quietly.

He narrowed his eyebrows at her. "Why not?"

"Because anyone can see us." She says.

"We're in a cemetery in the middle of the woods." He says, leaning in again. Molly dodges it, and Kai scoffs, scratching his chin.

"And this is Mystic Falls and cemetery dates aren't very uncommon." She says. "We're just gonna have to take this a bit slower." She nods.

"I'm not a very patient person." Kai sighs.

Molly smiles faintly. "Neither am I."

Kai returns the smile and admired the girl in front of him. "You look pretty."

Molly immediately looked down at her feet. "Thank you." She says, she looks back up at him with an awkward look on her face. "You do too?"

Kai laughs. "Oh, gee thanks." He says. He holds his hand out and Molly looks at it questionably. "This is the point where you take my hand."

She rolls her eyes and intertwines her hands with his, and the two begin to walk. "Where are we going?" She asks.

"Getting dinner." Kai says.

"Oh." Molly says, then she begins to shake her head. "Matt works at The Grill—"

"That's why we're not going to The Grill." Kai says. Molly nods. Kai turns to look at her as they walked. "You're tense."

She looks up at him quickly, and then focuses her gaze back to where she was walking. "I'm just worried about—"

"Being caught?" Kai finishes her sentence.

"Yes." She sighs. "It's not that I don't want to be seen with you it's just— you've done a lot of things and—"

He clenches jaw. "I get it." He says.

"Yeah." She says quietly, he squeezes her hand and she smiles up at him. "What about that cloaking spell you did last night?"

"You don't care if I do that?" He questions.

"No?" Molly asks. "If it means we can actually go out in Mystic Falls then why would I?"

He shrugs. "Well I just thought that I have to kill the person I mask before I take their body—"

"What?!" Molly stops in her tracks, Kai looked just as confused as she did. "You had to kill someone to do that spell?!"

"Yes?" Kai says, his eyebrows narrowed. "I thought you knew that."

"Why would I know that?!" She says, widening her eyes.

"Don't worry— he was trying to drug some girl at the party last night so it's not like he was a great person. I did the world a favor if anything." He shrugs.

Molly closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. 'Baby steps.' She told herself.

"Then we'll just have to be careful." Molly nods, continuing to walk through the woods again. 

"Meet at the cemetery every night at ten?" He asks.

"I'd like that." She responds.