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Sultry Summer Sizzle

Here on the Upper East Side, the sun shines a little brighter, the air's a little warmer and the scandal is infinitely more interesting. And all this heats means that no-one stays clothed for long. Perhaps it's the heat or the skimpy clothes, but my friends and I are always particularly raucous during the summer, and this one feels like it's going to be extra-sultry...

Not as easy getting into college as it is into each other's pants...

As our beloved B has recently discovered, getting into college isn't as easy as it seems. And now that she's into Yale, she should have everything she wants, but what she didn't plan on was catching S and N celebrating their admittance to Yale together... in the bath.

Sightings

S wandering around Central Park looking generally forlorn; what's up, sweetie? Feeling a little guilty, are we? But aside from that, there's been very little from S and N... Wonder why that could be? As for B, she's practically taken up residence in Barney's since her discovery last week... A little retail therapy makes everything better. D skulking around V's building... left some socks behind, did we? Anyway, V's with A... for now.

Your email

Q: Dear GG,

I keep seeing D moping around the city. I know he's not over V, but do you think he'd let me take his mind off of things, if you know what I mean?

- Lonely Poetess

A: Dear Lonely,

It's worth a try. Buy some thigh high boots and offer him some bad coffee and a smoke. The way to D's heart is filling him with chemicals.

Gossip Girl

Q: Dear Gossip Girl,

I've kind of had a crush on one of my students for a couple of years now, and she's graduating soon. Would it be totally inappropriate to ask her out?

BecksyBoy

A: Dear Becksy,

Yes.

-GG

Yes, things are rarely dull in the Upper East Side. And I have a feeling that things are really about to hot up. Don't do anything I wouldn't do.

You know you love me,

Gossip Girl

B gives the people what they want

"Come on, Mrs. M," said Blair Warldorf exasperatedly, adjusting the position of her Dolce & Gabana alice band. She could see from mirror positioned behind her headmistress that she was looking good. So good, in fact, that it would be stupid to appoint anyone else as graduation speaker. Blair was the complete package. Okay, perhaps she wasn't quite as effortlessly charming as Serena van der Woodsen, her irritatingly gorgeous ex-best friend, but Serena was so absent-minded that she'd probably forget to even write the speech.

"I don't know, Blair," sighed Mrs. M. "I haven't even given the other girls a chance."

It took every last ounce of Blair's willpower to stop her from rolling her eyes. Who else was there to consider? Blair was an excellent public speaker, she was taking five A.P. classes and she was gorgeous. The few girls in at Constance Billiard who were more accomplished than Blair had absolutely no social skills and were disgustingly acne ridden. Not exactly ideal candidates. As for the rest, they were all just wannabe versions of Blair. And why settle for a cheap knockoff when you could have the real thing?

Why indeed?

"Mrs. M, I am the perfect advocate for this school," Blair told her earnestly, tapping her manicured coral nails against the headmistress' mahogany desk. "Can you really think of anyone better suited to the job?"

Mrs. M opened and closed her mouth, apparently unable to think of a single candidate. "I suppose not," she frowned. "But I ought to at least give the other girls a chance. We'd normally vote on this sort of thing."

"Look, none of the other girls even want the role of speaker," Blair lied. "Everyone's been telling me all week that I'm perfect for it."

"Really?" said Mrs. M, raising her eyebrows.

"Yes," Blair told her firmly. "Can you really see Kati and Isabel fighting over the position?" Actually, Blair could imagine this, which was precisely why she was here.

But shh.

"I suppose not," Mrs. M said again.

"Exactly. Give the people what they want, Mrs M," said Blair, fluttering her eyelashes.

Mrs M sighed in resignation. "Fine," she agreed, somewhat grudgingly, Blair couldn't help but notice. "You'd better get working on your speech then Blair. I don't want to regret this."

"Oh you won't," Blair grinned as she got up to leave. "I've already written it."

Desperately seeking V

Daniel Humphrey tapped his chewed-on pencil against his skull as he watched the clock. Was it just him, or was it being extra slow today? He could have sworn the clock knew when he was bored and slowed down, just to fuck with him.

Right...

Finally, when there were only thirty seconds to go, Dan's teacher, Mr Rowland, remembered that he had an announcement to make. Dan rolled his eyes. Mr Rowland was Riverside Prep's most notoriously forgetful teacher. But apparently, chicks found this endearing as it was rumoured that Mr Rowland had had a string of twenty-something girlfriends and was currently engaged to a nineteen year old Brazilian model. Dan couldn't see it somehow, but Chuck Bass claimed to have it on good authority.

Which makes it totally legit.

"I almost forgot- this year's graduation speaker is none other than Mr Daniel Humphrey! Congratulations, Dan!" Mr Rowland beamed.

What the fuck? Dan thought as he gathered up his things. Graduation speaker? That was crazy! Why the hell had his jackass classmates, who'd spent the last four years pretending that he didn't exist, vote him graduation speaker?

"Are you serious?" said Dan dubiously, suddenly afraid that this was some sort of lame-ass joke.

"Aw, no need to be modest, Danny-boy," Chuck Bass sneered from the back of the classroom. He looked completely ridiculous with new platinum blond highlights and purple monogrammed cashmere scarf.

"At least I know how," Dan shot back, surprised at himself. He gathered his books and walked swiftly out of the classroom, feeling incredibly confused. What would Vanessa say? She hated all this graduation-related, conventional establishment stuff. And then, with a horrible, cold, sinking feeling, Dan realised that it didn't matter what Vanessa thought, because they weren't together anymore.

Dan flopped down onto the nearest bench. How had it come to this? Every time things were working out for them, one of them always went and fucked it up. Had they really let some artsy girl and her stupid ferret get in the way of their relationship?

Now she was dating a Harvard bound hippy and rooming with an Upper East Side princess. It was like the Vanessa he'd known and loved was suddenly gone. She was moving on with her life whilst he... wasn't.

He needed to see her. Right now. Maybe they could work this out? Before he could talk himself out of it, Dan hailed a cab and set off towards Williamsburg. The driver tried to make idle conversation with him, but Dan was too preoccupied to listen. He only had one thing on his mind:

Vanessa.

The princess and the pauper

Dan leaned against the abrasive brick wall and sighed. As it turned out, Vanessa wasn't home yet and waiting had given him plenty of time to consider the pros and cons of him being here. He knew that it was probably a mistake, yet he couldn't bring himself to leave. He had to see her. He'd wait here all night if he had to.

Nothing like going hobo to demonstrate your love.

Still, he wished she'd hurry up. The longer he waited, the more nervous he got. Dan dug in his pocket for a much needed cigarette, lit up and took a deep drag. There, that was better.

"Mind if I have some of that?"

Dan span around to see Vanessa's roommate standing next to him, hands on her hips. For the life of him, he still couldn't see what had made Vanessa room with someone like her. She was a notorious bitch and a total diva.

"Sure," said Dan, trying to sound nonchalant. For some reason, his cheeks felt surprisingly warm. Blair thanked him and raised the cigarette to her lips, staining it with her plum coloured Stila lip gloss.

"I needed that. So, I guess you want to come in?"

"Please. I'm here to see Vanessa," he added, somewhat unnecessarily.

Blair rolled her expertly lined eyes. "I didn't think you were here to see me."

Dan followed Blair to the door of Vanessa's apartment. She looked so out of place in Williamsburg and Dan couldn't help but wonder why she living here, rather than in some luxurious Upper East Side penthouse.

Long story.

"You know Vanessa's dating my stepbrother right?" Blair asked him, somewhat accusingly, even though it wasn't like she really cared whether Vanessa cheated on Aaron or not.

"Yes. But, um, Vanessa and I, we've kind of got this on-off relationship and..."

Blair laughed hollowly. "Oh yes, I know all about those," she said.

"Really?" said Dan. "But I thought that you and your boyfriend were New York's Golden Couple?"

"Not anymore," Blair sniffed. "I caught him cheating on me with Serena on senior spa day."

Dan felt himself turning red. It wasn't so long ago that he had been caught cheating on Vanessa with a crazed poetess. "I'm sorry," he offered. "I dated Serena, you know."

"Oh yeah," said Blair. She'd completely forgotten about Serena's brief flirtation with Dan. Of course, she hadn't been speaking to Serena when it had happened, so she wasn't entirely sure of the details. "She's kind of a flake. She and Nate won't last."

"Do you think you guys will ever get back together?"

"I don't know," she sighed. "It's like, me and Nate are so perfect for each other, but life keeps getting in the way."

"I know exactly what you mean," Dan laughed bitterly. "Can't live with each other, can't live without each other."

"Totally," Blair agreed. It was nice to talk to someone who actually understood. Now that she thought about it, Dan and Vanessa's relationship was a lot like hers and Nate's. Why had she and Vanessa never talked about it before?

Um, maybe because she's dating your stepbrother?

"Well, if Vanessa's anything like me, she'll drop any guy she's dating once her leading man shows up."

Dan looked confused. "I'm Vanessa's leading man?"

Blair nodded. "Oh, absolutely. She and Aaron won't last, not when she's got a guy like you."

Dan suddenly felt warm all over. He'd never realised before how pretty Blair was, but standing this close to her, it seemed incredible that he hadn't noticed. There seemed to be a kind of infectious energy radiating from her that made her hard not to marvel at."Well, thanks," he smiled sheepishly.

"Don't mention it. So are you here to woo Vanessa back?" Blair asked, poking him lightly in the ribs.

"Oh yes, I'm going to throw her against the fridge and make mad, passionate love to her," Dan joked.

"Ugh. Please. We have to eat in here!" she cried in mock-disgust.

"You're just jealous," he accused her playfully.

"Am not!"

"Are too!"

"You sound like a five year old."

"You started it."

"See what I mean?"

Dan laughed. "You know, you're actually kind of fun. I can see why Vanessa likes living with you."

Blair looked at him, bemused. "Why wouldn't she?"

"Well," Dan sensed he'd said too much and stared down at his black-and-white chequered Vans.

"Because I'm Blair Warldorf, Upper East Side princess and uptight megabitch?" said Blair accusingly.

Nicely put.

"Well, I wouldn't have said it like that," Dan muttered, not taking his eyes off of his shoes.

"It's okay," Blair said, surprising herself. She even managed a laugh. "I have been acting like an uptight megabitch recently."

Recently?

"Well, you've got an excuse, I mean, with Nate and Serena and everything..."

"Actually, I was thinking my mega-bitchiness was what drove Nate away," Blair sighed. "He likes Serena because she's carefree and sweet and charming and... I don't know how to be all of those things."

"You can only be you," said Dan consolingly. "You shouldn't compare yourself to Serena, you know. You're two totally different people."

"I know that, but no matter how hard I try she always looks better than me and people like her better than me and she gets all the things that I want, without even trying." Blair's eyes were staring to tear up a little and she blinked furiously. Nevertheless, it still felt good to open up to someone about how she felt towards Serena.

"Not everyone likes her better than you. You're Blair Warldorf! My little sister worships you!" Actually, she worshiped Serena and was kind of afraid of Blair, but she'd probably do anything to get into her little clique. "Everywhere you go you're surrounded by admirers, you're probably just so busy thinking about what Serena's got that you don't even notice."

Despite herself, Blair's lips curled up into a small smile. "You've got your share of admirers too," she reminded him. "Remember in the steam room on the spa day, when all the girls were talking about how in love with you they were?"

"Yeah, I remember," said Dan, smiling. "I also remember that you insisted that you were not in love with me."

Blair batted her eyelashes at him. "I say the craziest things."

V gets a little surprise

Vanessa Abrams had had the worst day ever. Not only had she spilled coffee all over herself, stepped in gum and been forced to sift through thousands of shitty, soppy poems as the editor for Rancor magazine, her camera was now broken.

"Stupid, stupid, stupid!" Vanessa cried. Now what was she going to do? It wasn't like she could afford another one and with the summer coming up, what the hell was she going to do until college?

Get a job, maybe?

She let herself into her Williamsburg apartment building and trudged up the stairs, hoping that her roommate, Blair Warldorf, was waiting with tea and sympathy. Or better yet, vodka and sympathy.

"Yo, Blair," Vanessa called as she walked inside, slamming the door shut behind her. She kicked off her black combat boots and returned to fiddling with her camera, in a vain attempt to get it working.

"Vanessa! Guess what! Someone's here to see you!" Blair trilled, sounding pleased with herself.

Great, Vanessa thought, rolling her eyes. She really wasn't in the mood to see anyone right now- not even her boyfriend, Aaron. All they did when they met up together was have sex, and quite frankly, Vanessa wasn't in the mood.

"Hey," said a familiar voice.

Vanessa's jaw dropped. "Dan!" she exclaimed. He was the last person she'd been expecting to see. What the hell was he doing here?

"I- I came to tell you something," said Dan, giving her that cute half smile she'd always loved. His brown eyes were visible due to a tidier haircut and he wasn't shaking quite as much as he usually was. After she got over the shock, she realised that it was actually good to see him. She felt... relieved, as though she'd been holding her breath ever since he'd left.

"Uh... okay, so tell me!" said Vanessa, trying to sound light and carefree, rather than confused. She wasn't the kind of girl to get stupid over boys. She was down-to-earth, matter-of-fact, no-bullshit Vanessa, but there was something about Dan that just brought it out in her.

"So I was voted to be this year's graduation speaker," he told her shyly.

Vanessa let out a bark of laughter. "Ha! That's hilarious!"

Blair looked from Dan to Vanessa, apparently confused. "You don't seem to be very happy about it."

"Of course he's not happy!" spluttered Vanessa.

"But the role of speaker's an honour," Blair reminded her.

"Exactly! It's so... not Dan!"

Blair watched disdainfully as Vanessa continued to laugh. Dan was staring at the floor again, looking so cute it made her heart hurt. "Congratulations, anyway. I'm speaker too!"

Vanessa stopped laughing at once. "She caved? Congrats!" She high-fived her roommate. Dan had never seen Vanessa high-five anyone before. It was so cheesy. It was so...

Not Vanessa?

"It only took, like, ten minutes," Blair informed her roommate proudly.

"Blair had already written her speech," Vanessa told Dan, nudging him in the ribs.

"That was optimistic of you. I've got no idea what to say in mine," he said despairingly, running his hands through his unruly brown hair.

"I'll help you!" Blair offered enthusiastically.

"You'd really do that?" said Dan, sounding wary.

"Of course!" Blair grabbed his hand and pulled him towards her desk. "Come on, it'll be fun!"

Vanessa turned around and slowly retreated to her room. She had a feeling she wasn't going to be missed.

J knows what a big deal is

"I'm home!" Dan called as he let himself into the filthy, crumbling apartment that he shared with his father, Rufus, and little sister, Jenny. The apartment was full to burst with junk and it was almost impossible to find anything you needed. Right now, on top of being dirty, it also smelled disgusting, which could only mean one thing: Rufus was cooking.

"Just in time for dinner!" Rufus growled cheerfully. He looked somewhat like a middle-aged lion with terrible dress sense. He was currently wearing a pair of pink tracksuit pants that looked as though they were Jenny's and a yellow vest. His mane of grizzly hair was pulled back into bunches with green elastic bands and he was badly in need of a shave.

"Great," Dan replied unenthusiastically. Rufus' cooking was notoriously bad- tonight they were having what looked like burnt scrambled egg with curried cauliflower.

"Where have you been?" Jenny asked as she entered the kitchen, wrinkling her nose at the stench of her father's cooking. "Ugh, dad, you can't seriously expect me to eat that, can you?"

"I was uh..." Dan didn't really want to tell Jenny that he'd been at Vanessa's apartment, although come to think of it, he hadn't really seen her that much. "I was with Blair Warldorf," he said finally.

Jenny's jaw dropped. "What?"

"Yeah, she was helping me write my graduation speech." Dan didn't really feel like discussing it any further. He hardly believed it himself. Blair had been so sweet to help him with his speech like that, and unless he was much mistaken, she'd even flirted with him a little. But he didn't really want Jenny to know all of this. She'd just blow it out of proportion and say something stupid to Blair. Besides, it wasn't like Blair could be genuinely interested in him, right? She was in love with Nate, and had been forever.

"Ohmigod! Ohmigod! You hung out with Blair Warldorf? Blair Warldorf helped you write your speech! Ohmigod! I cannot believe this!" Jenny reached for her phone and began to frantically stab at the buttons.

"It's not like it's a big deal," Dan muttered, annoyed. Why did Jenny have to make everything into such a drama? So Blair had helped him with his graduation speech. It wasn't a big deal, was it?

Actually, he kind of hoped that it was.

The morning after

Blair was in a better mood than she had been all week as she and Vanessa stepped out of their taxi and began to ascend Constance Billiard's stone steps.

"Beautiful day," she remarked cheerfully.

"How very British of you," said Vanessa wryly. "So, did you finish Dan's speech last night?"

"No, actually, he's coming over again tonight to finish it off," Blair smiled. "Is that alright with you?"

"Yes!" said Vanessa, sounding far too high-pitched. Luckily, Blair didn't seem to notice. "That's fine. Why would I care?"

"Because he's your ex and everything," Blair shrugged.

"I'm with Aaron now," said Vanessa, attempting to sound offbeat. "Anyway, nothing happened between you guys, right?"

"No, no," Blair assured her. "I just didn't want you to feel weird about it or anything. I mean, if I was in your position and Nate was coming over I'd be completely freaking out-" Blair stopped short. There stood Nate Archibald himself, as though she had conjured him up just by saying his name. Next to him was Serena van der Woodsen, looking as infuriatingly perfect as ever. Serena was wearing the same navy blue skirt and grey suede flats she'd been wearing yesterday. So she'd stayed over Nate's house. Blair felt her blood begin to boil.

"Blair!" Serena cried, hurrying towards her old friend, hand in hand with Nate. "Hi. How are you?" She kissed both Blair's and Vanessa's cheeks, then stood there, a little awkwardly, waiting for someone to say something.

"I'm fucking great," said Blair. "My boyfriend cheated on me with my best friend and now they think that they've got the right to fucking talk to me, but whatever."

"Blair, I'm so sorry," said Serena earnestly. Her navy blue eyes were completely sincere. But if she was really so fucking sorry, then why was she still holding hands with Blair's boyfriend?

But then Blair thought about it. She thought about what she'd do if their positions were reversed? Would she have refrained from hooking up with Nate just because he was Serena's boyfriend? Of course she wouldn't have. And weirdly enough, she didn't feel jealous when she looked at their interlocked fingers. Hurt? Yes. Angry? Yes. But not jealous. Instead, she thought about Dan and a small smile crept onto her face, but she quickly erased it with a guilty glance at Vanessa.

"Look, I'm sure you'll find a way to make it up to me eventually," said Blair, curving her Stila-glossed lips into a gracious smile. "But please, just give me some space for a while. You owe me that much," she added bitchily, and with that she turned on her Stella McCartney heel and walked towards her first lesson, Vanessa by her side.