Our life is defined by opportunities, even the ones we miss.
[-]
She was the first girl to call his bluff.
They were at one of the first Lost Weekends (before he coined the term and made it his bitch) in Monaco, his tanned calloused finger tracing its way up her inner thigh near the sunshine yellow bikini that barely covered her naughty bits. Blond locks sloppily pulled back at the nape of her neck and turquoise earrings laying against her gold skin. It's the blossoming of summer: fiercely humid and sticky and he can feel her light into him with the flick of a knuckle against his three day stubble.
"You're beautiful," he whispers the vowels getting caught in his throat, eyes half-shut with sleep.
"You're a fucking idiot," she whispers right back, pulling her slim frame out from under his grip, sauntering away, bare feet hitting the terracotta tiles and then launching herself into the serene surface of a clear whirlpool.
He smirks. And realizes that for once, he wasn't lying.
[-]
He's pretty sure that she's almost an equal when she skips out and leaves him completely naked in a white hotel with white linens and white shades and white, white, white everything. The rest of the world is blue: cerulean ocean, breathtaking skies, buildings defecated with age and worth like toppers on some kind of child's birthday cake.
He figures the only way that Greece has ever been golden was when she was there.
Lighting a cigarette and placing a worn pair of sunglasses over his hazel eyes, he takes in his disheveled appearance in the reflection of a window. She takes some of the best of him when she leaves. God, he wants to hate her.
(Mostly because she reminds him of himself too much.)
[-]
Golden. Golden. Golden.
Her hair, her skin, her dress. Like some ethereal goddess in a pantheon and then she smiles and time feels slower.
It sounds ridiculous, but he's in this suit and she's in that dress and there's dancing and he feels like Humphrey Bogart, but he'd never fit that role well as it's far too clean. And well, he's, kind of not.
"Hello beautiful," he tells her and watches her try not to grin. That trademark smirk crooks across his mouth.
[-]
He's slept with a lot of women. He knows his number is higher than Chuck's because Chuck had to have learned these things from someone else of course.
But like Chuck, he also has a weakness. The only difference between Serena and Blair is that Blair, she, understands her power. She's all woman. Just this sultry glass of wine and caviar and all the rich things in this world that make a man crave a woman. But Serena is this bombshell of life. Of what makes the world work, makes it turn. Some man want a woman, others want the whole fucking universe handed to them on a silver platter. Chuck wants Blair, always has since they were young and he still wore those damn purple ties and she matched her headband in kind. Carter wants Serena, always has since they were young and he still had a spark of mischief in his hazel eyes and she matched her own blue orbs in kind.
The difference is simple: with Serena, there's going to be a long chase. And he's not tired yet.
[-]
One of the first times he sees her with Dan, his heart slams a bit too hard upon his ribcage. It feels like the world is slipping betwixt his fingers and she is smiling that smile at another man and her eyes are fixed on deep brown instead of lazy hazel and the way the other man's hands sit with ease on the swoop her hips makes the bile rise in his throat.
He wonders if this is what jealousy feels like.
[-]
Asia is incredible. And so fucking lonely.
In Thailand, he meets an American girl with sun kissed hair and long golden legs and eyes so blue they could kill a man. He wines and dines and charms her pants off literally until all he can see is that freckle on her cheek that doesn't exist and suddenly she isn't so golden and completely tarnished and he runs so fast, shirt undone and pants unbuttoned to the edge of the ocean.
In Laos, there are girls with dark hair and dark eyes and creamy skin and nothing, nothing is golden. All silver. So silver that it looks grey.
[-]
When he finds out that Gossip Girl has a map for him, he vaguely wonders if Serena has ever used it to look for him. When it comes up at a much later date when he is in the city, he can feel her eyes on him and his new suit and new, new, new haircut and same old debauchery and he knows with one eye raised over his teacup that for certain that has never stopped looking for him.
[-]
The New York skyline is the only thing he feels like he can count on sometimes. When Nate punches him and Chuck shoves him against the wall and all he can taste is the blood in his mouth, he welcomes reality's harsh hand upon his cheekbones and deals it back in double. He courts Blair. Buys her those damn macaroons and gin martinis and silk nightgowns and when he feels her skin against his, he feels so sick like the world stopped spinning because this is not what it is supposed to be like. The lies feel like led in his mouth.
When Serena sees him sneaking out of Park Place, he watches her façade tumble but never falter. Shoulders set strong and fierce and she stamps screams with her Jimmy Choos and she knows he's watching her walk away once more. It takes all of his strength to stand still and call out the words she has heard fall from his lips many a time, dripping with sin.
"Hello beautiful."
[-]
She's never going where he is going. But that's how it works: suddenly he's on her doorstep, every other word a curse, and stomping his foot like a toe-headed child. And then he lifts an eyebrow and slights a nod, fingers yanking softly at the hem of her dress.
His composure is like glass in her presence. And he can see the chips when she asks, begs him to please Carter, you're the only one that can help me.
He sighs in defeat and pretends he had been planning it all along.
[-]
"I would have stayed with you all summer."
Her dress is tangerine and her skin is flecked with little pieces of light and her hair is wild, tumbling freely down her naked back. She smiles a bit and he recognizes that freckle on her cheek and then her mouth is on his and the world is presenting him with everything. Everything.
He falls asleep in an orchard, imagining fairy book tales and unprovoked stories that never make it very far in life. People that care for each other but are so damn self-destructive that the second one cuts and runs the other about faces and takes off in the opposite direction until they meet on the other side of the globe and he smirks and she grins wide and the world just fucking whirls for them. She murmurs into his chest little nothings and runs a knuckle over his three day stubble.
[-]
When he wakes up, he's alone and can still smell her perfume lingering. The orchard is quiet, serene and empty.
"Old habits die hard," he says with a chuckle, gathering his shirt and shoes. His lips taste like mortality and the apple that Eve gave to Adam. Nothing but pure sin in motion.
[-]
He can hear her from all the way across the room at the hotel. Her voice sends every nerve in his body on key. She's wearing yellow and he can imagine back when she was fifteen in Monaco and the world was at their feet and they were promises left on a page in some story somewhere. The champagne flute in her hand cascades to the floor when he meets her eye. Hazel and blue. And he sees her lips lift a touch, one hand smooth over her tasteful French twist and place one golden heel in front of the other as she sashays over.
His hands find the delicate swish of her hips and she giggles into his neck. "You're beautiful," he tells her, tracing a tanned calloused finger over the sweet skin of her collarbone.
A grin wrought on her pucker, she looks hazel with blue and says, "You're a fucking idiot." She laughs loudly like a child and watches as his faces breaks. And he realizes that for once, they are actually saying what they mean.
[-]
The moment he flees the city and the repercussions, he regrets it, but he now knows that some things are not worth chasing anymore.
But he isn't talking about Serena van der Woodsen at all. When she is ready, she'll find him. He's almost sure of it. It's all part of this, of them.