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I stop to catch my breath
And I stop to catch your eye
No need to second guess
That you've been on my mind
-Kate Voegele "Fooling Myself"
NEW YORK; 2013
He has imagined her everyday for nearly six years. When he finally sees her, he squints to make sure the sun is not playing tricks on his eyes and watches in wonder as Blair Waldorf makes her way into the Starbucks on Lexington and 78th. He walks to the side door and pauses, looking in. He chooses not to step in because he tries to avoid confrontation if at all possible, and nothing was more explosive than a ticking b- Blair.
He can't hear her order through the thick glass windows of the coffee shop, but years of dating her and being her friend let him know that she is uttering the obligatory triple tall nonfat cappuccino, no foam please, with a small smile and dainty gestures at the now-stuttering barista at the register.
When she exits the premises, her perfectly manicured hands fly to her head, instantaneously sliding down her black Fendi frames. They cover a large part of her face, but he can still see her ruby-stained lips. He licks his own because he cannot taste hers. Memories of strawberries and champagne begin to haunt him, so Nate Archibald walks away from the Upper East Side, into the unknown.
Blair spends her first hours in New York caffeinating herself and devouring exactly two dark chocolate truffles outside the display window at Tiffany. She is about to call her absent best friend to come join her before the cappuccino she just bought spills carelessly across her satin Kate Spade flats.
"Here, let me help you," a handsome stranger begins, but when the brunet in front of her lifts his face to meet her, she realizes he is not a stranger at all, and starts to melt into the hazel-green eyes of one Carter Baizen. She feels thirteen-years-old and ugly again, her face beginning to redden when remembering her childhood crush on her boyfriend's oldest friend and mentor.
"Thank you," she whispers breathily, trying to sound effortlessly beautiful, a little more like Serena. Hadn't he too enjoyed her best friend? Thoughts of Nate were beginning to run amuck through her mind, so she tried instead to focus on the boy in front of her.
"Well, well. What do we have here? Waldorf, I haven't seen you in years." As he looks her up and down in the compulsory Carter Baizen way, Blair feels her cheeks redden even more. It isn't as if she isn't gawked at constantly, being a beautiful girl, but the way he looks at her reminds her too much of her best friend's current stepbrother, and that just wouldn't do.
Blair nods in response, before telling Carter, "After my social debacle during junior year, I decided to finish my schooling in France, living at my father's vineyard. Then I studied at Cambridge and I'm just now returning to the city. What have you been doing as of late?"
When he grins at her, she thinks she might melt even more. What did these Upper East Side boys do to her?
"I got out of Harvard Business School last year, actually. I'm working at my dad's firm, making decent money, and living on the fourteenth floor of Trump Towers. You should come see my place sometime."
"I'll have to do that," Blair replies, easing back into her old self. She isn't even sure why she is so nervous around him anyway, because she has grown up hearing about his womanizing antics.
NEW YORK; 2014
The next time he sees her, Nate breathes in deeply and wishes he hadn't smoked that roach five minutes earlier because it impairs her flawless beauty. It is winter and her hair is pulled neatly into a bun at the base of her neck.
This time the Starbucks is on 76th and Second and she is wearing dark jeans with a black sweater and matching flats. He wonders briefly if she is cold and laughs to himself because he was never this attentive of a boyfriend when he had her. He wonders if this is borderline stalking, but dismisses the thought as he watches her still.
She is meeting someone. She orders her cappuccino once again, smile in place. The barista once again gets nervous and Nate once again feels for the guy.
When she turns around, a stray curl falls from her hair and Nate feels the urge to tuck it behind her head, but finds he can't because he is outside and remembers that he is cold. A man walks up and tucks the curl behind her ear for her and Nate feels his fist ball up.
As they turn to the side door to leave, the man's left hand is on the small of her back as she turns to him and smiles. When they leave through the door, Nate nearly bites his tongue off when he recognizes Carter Baizen's natural swagger.
It is not the first time Carter has stolen something from him, nor will it be the last.
Eleanor is more than surprised the first time that Blair brings Carter home with her. She merely raises an eyebrow at her daughter, because they both know that Victoria Carnegie Baizen's diamond is worth much more than Ann Archibald's.
There is no talk of rings and other things because Eleanor spends the evening quizzing Carter on his intentions with her daughter.
"Mom," Blair starts, "I'm twenty-three, not fifteen."
"You might as well be," her mother retorts, "I'm just looking out for your well being."
"As am I," Carter adds in, and in this moment, Eleanor looks at him glowingly. She was almost as fond of him as Celia Rhodes was.
LOS ANGELES; 2014
Before she can go to Tiffany & Co. with him, Blair says she must do something. And he doesn't question it, like he doesn't question her, and she thinks this is why she loves him so much. He kisses her like he needs her before she goes, and his kisses are insistent, so she has to stop him before she climbs into a taxi.
Blair takes the red-eye to Los Angeles and rents a car to go see her best friend. A wide-eyed Serena answers the door at her West Hollywood apartment.
"You could have just called, B."
"I needed to ask you," Blair insists, "just to make sure it was okay."
Serena laughs, uttering, "I was never in love with him or anything."
"I know," Blair replies, "but I had to ask before it was permanent."
"I love you, B, but seriously. Go home, go kiss Carter, and please, go get engaged."
"Okay," and with that, Blair is back out the door, not even staying the night. "You know you love me!" she yells back through the door, and she hears a faint chuckle as Serena shuts the heavy door behind her.
NEW YORK; 2015
As she rushes in and around the Vera Wang boutique, Blair is in near hysterics because her gown doesn't fit quite right.
Vera comes out herself to placate her customer and tells her that the dress doesn't fit because she has lost weight.
The tears halt and Blair asks timidly, "Really?" before nearly fainting with delight. Serena stands next to her and rolls her eyes in typical van der Woodsen fashion.
The blonde adds in, "That's probably the best compliment you could've given her."
Vera nods knowingly and assures Blair that the dress can be taken in before the wedding because she will see to it herself. Serena almost snorts, because of course she will see to it herself; Harold shelled out over $40,000 for it.
When Vera takes the dress to alter it, Blair begins half-nakedly bossing Serena around again, reminding her to pick up the calla lily bouquets for the bridesmaids and to remind the florist that her maid of honor bouquet is to be interwoven with orchids. Serena nods; she has heard this speech multiple times in the past ten days.
"What's your theme again? A Nazi wedding?" Serena asks Blair.
"Who are you?" Blair nearly screams. "Just let me be Charlotte York and have my dream wedding to my dream boy at my dream church. Okay?"
"Geez B, you don't have to bite my head off."
NEW YORK; 2018
Nate gets used to randomly running into Blair, but he can't call it that, because she never sees him. This time she is balancing an iPhone in one hand and her cappuccino is a venti for the first time that he's witnessed. It seems that she gets smaller as her coffee gets bigger, as the True Religions that once hugged her slender hips are now gently sliding off.
She hangs up the phone and her eyes dart around. Does she see him?
He breathes a sigh of relief when she does not, but sucks one in when he sees what comes out of the bathroom. Into her arms climbs a little girl, a toddler, and even from a distance he can see that she is beautiful like her mother. It pains him to see a family that could have been his, should have been his, and he turns around to leave once more. He begins to curse Starbucks in his head, for surely he would have never seen her if she didn't have a slight addiction to caffeine.
His thoughts go back to junior year Cotillion and he begins to wonder whether Carter had a thing for Blair back then or not.
NEW YORK; 2021
He doesn't even pause to think when he orders a cappuccino with the foam please and the barista doesn't stutter at him. He walks to the right to get his drink and the girl behind him in line proudly beams at the barista when she utters her order, "I'd like one hot chocolate please, and a triple venti caramel macchiato for my daddy."
Nate does a double take when he hears a child correctly pronounce a coffee order, and tries to hold back a gasp when he eyes Carter Baizen standing in line with his eldest daughter. Blair's daughter.
"Daddy, did I get that right?" She looks up at her father and he beams back down at her.
"Yes, sweetie. Let's head over and pick up our drinks, okay?"
The girl's eyebrows furrow as she looks at her father, "Why didn't you get anything for mommy?"
Carter sighs before he looks down at his daughter, "Brooke, your mother's pregnant. She can't have caffeine." He looks at her still when he sternly asks, "You haven't seen her drink any coffee, have you?"
"Uh uh," Brooke says, shaking her brunette curls around carelessly, "just mint tea, like Victoria Beckham." Her tiny nails are adorned in a delicate shade of pink, Ballerina by Chanel, Nate remembers, and those same little fingers adjust the navy headband atop her head.
Carter sighs again before taking his daughter's hand, "She would have you read tabloids. Perfect."
It is then that he sees that someone is looking at him and he comes up to greet Nate like an old friend, "Nate, man. How have you been?" His daughter looks up inquisitively at the blond and asks, "Who is this, daddy?"
"This is Mr. Archibald, Brooke. Nate, this is my daughter, Brooke."
Nate politely takes her hand and notices that she is Blair's spitting image, with the exception of Carter's eyes.
"She looks like her mother," Nate starts, and Carter laughs gaily, agreeing, "Yeah, thank God. I don't need anything looking like me. Hey, I've got to drop Brooke off at Constance and get to my meeting, but we should catch up soon. No hard feelings, right?"
Nate shakes his head, lying through his teeth, "Yeah, let's meet up soon."
Nate never ends up meeting up with Carter or Blair and silently thanks God that Carter hasn't called him.
Brooke tells her mother about the man she and her daddy talked to at Starbucks and Blair all but raises her eyebrows as she tucks her daughter into bed.
"What was that about?" she asks her husband.
"What?" he asks, not sure what she is asking.
"Brooke told me you talked to Nate at Starbucks."
"Oh, that. It was nothing."
Blair put a hand on her swollen stomach and asked, "If it was nothing, why didn't you tell me?"
"He was your first love, Blair. I didn't want you to think about him while you're pregnant with my child."
"Are you worried?" Blair asks, laughing. "I love you," she assures him, and when she kisses him, he kisses with all the reassurance of Nate, and all the passion of Chuck. She finds it less disturbing now that the man she loves embodies the qualities of both boys she used to lust after, or love, or whatever, and stops thinking to pull her arms around his neck to assure him.