"You know that you don't have to do it if you don't want to... right?" Chuck's voice echoed from the foyer as Blair was setting up some dishes on their kitchen table.
Blair rolled her eyes, pretty much annoyed; "This is an occasion I can't lose, Chuck. I need to try these things because Dorota could get sick other times and I will have to do what she does."
Chuck, that meanwhile had reached her in the kitchen, was looking at her with attentive eyes. "We could still hire another maid -" he was about to tell her, but Blair trailed him off.
She nodded and smiled viciously. "Yes, I am well aware of that. But that would be the easiest choice for me. I am a working woman now, a wife" she made eyes contact with him and caught his smile as the word wife, her favorite lately. "Maybe someday a mother. I can't always lean on Dorota to do things that a random middle class woman would do for her family."
"I thought you wanted to distinguish from a middle class woman because you're not middle class" he interjected, but Blair kept putting stuff on the table that he supposed she would try to cook very soon.
"Since you're being so skeptic, I'll now show you I can do the laundry" she then said, leaving the last pile of ingredients for lunch on the marble surface and exiting the room.
Chuck followed her shortly, he knew she was directed to the laundry room they had in the darkest side of their townhouse. When they reached the room, Blair started putting casual stuff into the washing machine as he watched her intently.
"Are you sure it's safe to put black with light colors, Blair?"
Blair felt questioned and so she stopped for a moment to answer him. "Who are you, the genie of the washing machines? I didn't know you knew how to do your laundry, I thought the hotels where you lived before used to do it for you" she raised an eyebrow and then turned again.
He felt annoyed so he didn't question anything more until she filled the whole thing with clothes of different colors. He didn't want to tell her, but he thought a mess was about to come out of that.
Once she had put the liquid cleaner to wash the clothes, she switched the thing on and left the room. Chuck wondered if he should follow her around the house since he didn't have anything better to do. It was Sunday and it was their day off from work to enjoy time together.
He decided he would try to focus on a book he wanted to finish reading, he hoped it would fill the time Blair would be doing other stuff. He honestly just wanted to be with her, but he realized maybe this practicing she was doing today was what she really needed to do in order to feel happy. They would have time to be together in the evening anyways.
He was half-away a paragraph from finishing a chapter, when he heard his wife scream.
He knew she was in the same laundry room where the washing machine was, so he run to her thinking something bad had happened to her. There was a lot of stuff on the shelves and it wouldn't be impossible that something would fall off by mistake if she took or put something the way it didn't have to be put.
"Blair? What happened? Are you okay?" he asked her with a worried voice.
Blair was turned towards the window. He noticed there was a ironing board next to her, and she was holding a flatiron in one hand. "I'm sorry" she whispered to him.
"What? Why are you sorry... Blair, are you hurt" he said wanting to make it look like a question, but it really came out as a random affirmation after she turned and showed something to him.
Chuck's first thought was to laugh, but then he realized she wouldn't take it well, so he tried to restrain himself and looked vaguely at her.
"I'm so sorry, Chuck" she said again. "I didn't want to ruin it."
He shook his head and managed a little smile to make up for the giggle he wanted to make. "That's okay, Blair. It's just a shirt. I'll buy a new one tomorrow."
Blair looked so sad and sorry for ruining his shirt that he got closer to her and put the flatiron and the holed shirt she was still holding, on the ironing board. And then he kissed her on the cheek and hugged her.
"I'm sad I ruined it. I need more practice" she said, before she freed from his hug and turned back to the ironing board.
Chuck frowned and sighed when he understood she wouldn't stop there, so he just walked away and told her few words before he left. "At least keep one shirt out of your tests otherwise I won't have anything to wear for work tomorrow."
He could hear her laugh from behind him. At least she was finding the whole thing funny and not raging. He really hoped she wouldn't burn anything in the next few hours.
He came back to his book then, and he made progress. Blair actually made progress too, because after a while she had been trying to learn how to iron clothes, she succeeded. Of course she didn't iron his shirt perfectly, but he was happy she was on the good path to learn how to do it.
He thought she would be done for the moment, but ahem, it was time to check the clothes she had put to wash in the washing machine.
He didn't know why, but he expected it. Another little scream came from the laundry room and this time he wasn't alarmed.
He found Blair with some of the clothes in the machine. They had turned black. He sighed again and couldn't help but looking at his wife with a severe expression.
Blair bit her lip, she seemed very upset. "I apologize. Please don't be mad at me."
"Being mad at you is the last thing on my mind today" he reassured her.
"Thank you" she answered while she checked the wet laundry. He noticed one of his white shirts had gone dark grey because pants or a jacket of one of his suits had colored them.
He really didn't care that some of his clothes changed colors, but he wished Blair would have asked someone how to put clothes into the washing machine to avoid unwanted clothes coloring.
Chuck didn't return to his book after this, because he was confident that wouldn't be Blair's last practice of the day. Lunch was close and he was sure she would try to cook him something. He told himself to be as calm as possible when she would serve him something, even if the dish wouldn't be good. He knew Blair made delicious cakes, but he wasn't sure she also knew how to cook other stuff. They had a maid who cooked for them everyday in their lives, it felt kinda strange that one of them would be preparing food.
Blair told him to wait in the dining room because she would be taking the dishes to him. He wasn't expecting any differently since it was usual to do for people who weren't wealthy, but it felt new to him. He hoped she hadn't messed up anything.
He was surprised when she took the dishes on a little trolley that they used for tea. She had managed to make two dishes of pasta and they didn't look bad.
His wife put his dish in front of him and did the same for hers. Blair was the first who tasted the dish, while Chuck drank a glass of wine first.
He turned to look at her before he would be using his fork to eat the pasta. She had a displeased expression on her face, and this made him think something was wrong.
"Don't eat it, please" she begged, but he didn't listen to her and put some pasta in his mouth anyway as she watched him with a worried look.
He could admit it wasn't really bad, it was just... "It's really nice" he commented, and Blair seemed to light up a bit; "but I think you put too much salt in it and they had to be cooked for more minutes. They're a little hard to chew on."
"They really don't suck?" she wondered, and he shook his head. "Do you really mean it?"
He nodded. "They don't. But like I said, next time less salt please."
The dish got a little worse towards the end but he didn't mention it to her when she brought a cake she baked. That one thing looked and was delicious. He didn't know why but Blair knew how to prepare cakes for every occasion. Must have been Dorota's advice maybe.
When they were done, he was left all by himself again on the sofa of the living room. Blair had gone to do other things – he wondered when she would be finish her daily duties and spend a little Sunday time with him.
She looked like she had to check the clothes that she had put in the drier a while earlier before lunch. He didn't know why but he expected her to call him again.
"We'll just put this somewhere for our future son, right" she told him with an apologetic look when she showed him one of his shirt completely resized because she had selected the wrong buttons on the drier machine.
He hoped that would be the last thing she would do that day but she only stopped when they finished dinner; yet again another cake she had baked because she hadn't succeeded in making what she had planned for the night.
She was clearly feeling a little sad after they finished eating. Every thing she had tried to do today had gone wrong.
She found him back on the same sofa reading a book when she decided that she was done for that day, she had had enough proofs she couldn't substitute Dorota.
"Have you had fun playing Dorota?"
Blair sat down on an armchair nearby and sighed. "I were a total fail, weren't I?"
He smiled a little. "It doesn't matter, Blair."
"It matters to me" she said with a low voice. "Imagine if we didn't have a Dorota, like Lily. I would have to do something for my house because you know how much I hate not doing anything."
"But Lily has a cook and a maid that clean the rooms every day" he reminded her.
She sighed again. "I know, but I just wanted to feel useful for once."
"Useful?"
"You know, since we've been married, I... I've felt a little guilty" she said, and he frowned. He wasn't understanding her. "Not about our marriage, that was one of the smartest choices of my life. I felt guilty that I was just acting like one of those UES matrons who bosses the people that work at her house around and that does nothing more than gossiping and attending events."
He put his book aside and stood up to sit on the side of the sofa closer to the armchair where she was sitting on. He took her hand as she watched him intently. "It is true that we attend events and that we give orders to the people who work for us. But that's not just it. You are a successful woman on your own with your company and I think you work enough from Monday to Friday."
"But I don't know how to cook a meal nor wash clothes. I don't know any of those things. I know that we can afford ten Dorotas, but it may happen again that she's sick or she wants to go on holiday and I want to practice a little. I want to be a real wife, Chuck."
"You are perfect the way you are" he told her.
She nodded and looked away for a moment. "I know, but I've often imagined this moment where I tell Dorota to go home early so that I can cook dinner for you and surprise you, but this can't ever happen if I don't learn how to do it."
He felt all fuzzy and warmed inside. "If that makes you happy, then it makes me happy too. I'm sure Dorota would be happy to tutor you."
Blair smiled and kissed his cheek. "I've already asked her" she let him know. "And by the way, I still need to do something today."
"But... it's almost midnight. Let's go to bed and rest for tomorrow" he suggested her, still holding her hand and standing up.
She stopped him before he would start walking and tried to get him back on the sofa. Then she leaned closer and started kissing him, faster and faster after every second. He didn't recoil back and he continued what she was starting until they ended up loving each other on the sofa.
He thought she was exhausted and had fallen asleep because she hadn't said a word in a while, but then she whispered something in his ear, making him shiver a little.
"I hope this was a good apology for all those shirts I've ruined" she said.
Chuck laughed a little. "You didn't have to excuse yourself but I'm glad you decided to do it this way."
"I knew there was no better way than this to apologize."
"You know I can't resist to sex if not in rare occasions" he reminded her.
She smiled while playing with his hand; "I know very well" she giggled. "And that's why we can use it in our favor to try to make other things."
He frowned, a little unsure on what she was talking about. "Other things as what?"
She sighed and then told him what she was thinking. "I told you I wanted to be a real wife, Chuck, but that's not the only thing I'd like to become right now."
"I see" he answered, imagining what she was meaning with her words.
"We've been together for years now, husband and wife for nine months. I'd love to -"
"That is also my dream" he cut her off.
She slowly turned her head to face him. "Are you okay with it? You know, I've waited for so long because I thought you weren't ready to do this. After all that happened with your father I believed you wanted to wait to play that part."
"The situation with my father was really harsh, that's true. But that didn't stop me from thinking about our future – our future as a family. I can't wait to be the father of our children, Blair. I am eager to test myself with this and don't repeat Bart's mistakes."
She grinned and leaned in to kiss him on the lips. "I'm sure you won't. You are not your father and you won't act like him. You are a good and better person that he was."
"Yeah" he answered with a melancholic tone.
Blair kissed him again, trying to continue what they were doing now that he had openly told her he wanted to have a baby too.
"We can't waste time" she told him eagerly while she kissed him.
"True, very true. Maybe we shouldn't rest at all tonight" he said as he kept kissing her.
"Sounds like a plan" she agreed, helping him to do what he had done four times already that night.