Find A Map And Draw A Straight Line
The first time he sees her- she's five. Big blue eyes, lots of hair and cheeks flushed red like an apple. She isn't made for this- the prim little dresses or the small cups of tea.
Her eyes burn like she's made for more than just this and even when he's gone he'll remember that.
She was always- always made for more.
***
The next time, she's fourteen and already queen.
She's the sort of girl that doesn't have to try. Her hair hasn't seen a comb in three weeks and her dress is from last year, pulled on over a pair of too- tight skinny jeans and she's already making her own rules. Legs crossed at the knee instead of the ankles.
Her friends sit and simper, sipping champagne from thin flutes and Serena doesn't deal with such stuff- she doesn't need to. She struts up to the bar- drinks wine from a mug.
The other girls titter and her best friend- Waldorf, was it?- wrinkles up her cute little nose and shakes her chocolate brown curls in disapproval.
Serena lifts the mug, swings it all down and slams the glass back on the table. There is applause and she twists in the stool to meet it- sweeps her heady blue gaze around the room and that's when she notices him.
Their eyes lock for half a second- and damn. Damn, he's never been more captivated by a girl and if it wouldn't sound gushy, he'd swear she took his breath away.
"Wanna dance?" She trips over to him.
He puts his hands on her waist and they shake and shimmy to the music, till her essence is seeped into his bones. And this way- this way. He can't ever forget her.
***
"So where are you going from here?"
She holds her liquor well. They stumble out into the night, laughing and tickling and yeah- he's kissed her and she tastes like sin.
"Santorini."
Her eyes grow wide and he smiles at her over the rim of his beer bottle and nods. She returns it with a pretty little twist of her mouth, half wistful.
Carter catches her hand, runs his thumb across the inside of her wrist and it's him whose shivering.
"Come with me," he whispers low in her ear.
Serena blinks, her dark lashes fluttering like butterflies against the skin of her cheeks. Her eyebrows pull together into a serious sort of frown and he feel his heart drop in disappointment.
"Ok," she turns to him suddenly and says- "Ok. Let's go to Santorini."
***
They kiss everywhere.
The way it's done in the movies, with her legs tied around his waist and her arm loose around his neck. She's got a quick tongue and he doesn't know how long he can keep this up, his hands roaming all over her.
They kiss on the deck, atop kitchen counters, across table tops and perched on railings- they kiss like every surface in the world is a make out spot.
They kiss through parties; of the formal or laid back sort and they don't stop until one day- she pulls away.
"Carter," her mouth is close to his ear and he's never heard her voice tremble before- "Carter, take me."
He looks into her eyes and that's it. He knows.
***
They go out to the beach. The sand is wet- he wouldn't do this for any other girl, but this is Serena. He's whipped and he's heard it said. His friends hang around them and Carter isn't deaf. The comments flow freely during the few moments that she isn't attached to him (ladies room- though he doesn't think he's ever seen her powder her nose).
"That Baizen's new toy?"
Heads shake-"No, my friend- Baizen's new goddess."
He can't even deny it, especially not now when she's dancing before him in the moonlight and peeling off her white dress. It pools charmingly at her feet and she's reaching for him now and he can't believe it. His hand run over her naked skin, half frantic, half reverent and nothing- nothing should ever feel this powerful.
His knees grew weak- they fall to the sand and his mouth travels up her smooth, flat belly and their bodies collide.
Serena whimpers and he instantly stops moving inside her.
"Baby?" he whispers, lips pressed to her temple, "Is this your first time?"
She nods, smiles and he coils back his desire, all tender caresses that he's never used before and he touches her like she's made of glass.
Her heel comes around to the small of his back and she arches upward, forcing him deeper within her. "More," she moans.
More? Carter Baizen is hers for the taking.
***
They don't tire of each other after that night. The thrill, the anticipation- it isn't gone.
He wraps an arm around her waist as they walk now, strolling across the beach like newly weds and they look in love, melting and twisting into each other with every step. She wears long tea dresses in wintry colors, without any panties and he wears all the t-shirts that make his mother frown. They smoke Gaulouises on the deck and drink Bloody Marys and he teaches her how to fence in the long dining room, with the table as their stage and the kitchen staff as spectators.
They fight too- large and loud and angry fights, like a married couple- for everyone to see. She throws glasses at his head, he swears like the sailor he pretends to be and it ends with the two of them wrapped into each other and their mouths melded together with just enough heat to set fire to the world.
He rests his forehead against hers, after one such encounter and her breath smells just like his toothpaste. He hold her tights and tries to pretend that he isn't in love- that he isn't convinced that he never wants to let her go.
***
"It was an accident."
He sounds desperate, but he doesn't really care. Serena's crying, tears running down her perfect skin and she shoves angrily when he moves to kiss them away.
"I never meant to hurt him- and I would never do that. Especially not in front of you."
She bites her lip till it bleeds. "Is he going to press charges?"
Carter shakes his head- "No. I called my-"
She flings up her hands and "I can't believe you"- her voice is cold, she presses a hand to her forehead, like she's tired- "You were just like everyone else."
She moves to leave. His brain is racked for ways to make her stay and he remember his mom telling his sister on her wedding day that the only way to make it work is if you never go to bed angry.
"Come back to bed."
He keeps his voice soft, fighting the panic- the urge to clutch her and keep her.
She curls up in a ball, three feet of white sheets between them. When she's gone in the morning, he isn't surprised.
***
He takes to haunting bars, picking up girls on stools. Usually- they're short, dark and meek. Everything she isn't and he's trying to fuck her out of his system, one demure brunette at a time.
"I shot a man in Rhino and the girl I loved shot me," he jokes and his hollow eyes are scary and this is what draws them in, like moths to a flame. His cock is never lonely but something heaves in his chest and he doesn't know-
He doesn't know what the fuck to do about it, so he sits and waits and bides his time like the villain in a poorly scripted pantomime.
***
The grapevine tells him she has sex with Nate Archibald and fled to Connecticut. He skates back home, slithering into the private sanctum- Lost Weekend. The Bass boy has style.
Nate Archibald sits pretty and Carter can't stand it, so he fleeces the kid. Milks him for all he's worth and doesn't feel a shred of remorse. Chuck pulls him out, though- he'll have to watch out for that one.
He calls Serena's cell while he's there.
She's changed her number and his mouth turns. He's standing in the street, clutching his phone and frowning because she's changed her number and he feels like one of them chicks from Sex and the City. He squares his shoulders and leaves.
What a fucking pussy that girl makes him.
***
Her grandmother calls him. He answers the phone drunk and almost curses- wrong generation, damnit- but Daddy tried to teach him to be polite so he says hello and listens.
It's worth it. Golden ticket and he pulls out his Brook Brothers shirts and makes nice with the matrons.
Anything is worth it for her.
***
She has a boyfriend now- a boyfriend!
It's not something he anticipated. He wants to punch the guys lights out and kiss Serena senseless but grandmother is watching. So he sips his tea and talks about Dubai to some snotty girl (oh, that's right, Waldorf- she's filled out well.)
He takes her to the ball and she steps on his feet, so he flirts with her best friend to get back at her. Nate ends up punching him.
All fair in love and war- he ends up with Serena's hand on his cheek. And just for one moment, all of this- the monkey suit, the hair gel, the Christian Loboutins pressed into this toes and Nate's fist against his jaw- it all seems worth it.
She leaves then and he catches a glimpse of her, later, waltzing off with her poet. He pours himself a Scotch, neat and tells himself that it just isn't their time.
He doesn't tell himself, he'll wait forever till it is. Somethings go without saying, even in your heart.
***
His next trip to New York is more momentous. He charms a girl out of Bass's hands and sleeps with Blair Waldorf. This is what they call two birds with one fuck.
Blair is a beauty and if she's less than wonderful in bed, her wit is sharp enough for him to cut himself on. She's even more the antithesis of Serena than every other girl he's slept with for four years and she tastes just about perfect as an antidote.
Bass cop and good cop stride into his life and ah, success- how sweet it smells. She's even hotter when she's angry and he's half imagining her hand cuffing him to the bed.
This is what they do right? They fight and then they fuck.
Tickets are like a slap across his face. He tears them in the elevator and burns them in the car. For a moment there-
He almost hates her. Other side of love, baby.
***
They go to Europe the summer before college. (He doesn't tell he's enrolled Brown, as he's bought a car and put down a deposit on a place near campus.)
He hasn't found her father. Not really and he doesn't have a P.I on speed dial but he thinks quickly on his feet and he's good with his hands. It isn't before long that she's back in his arms.
Two weeks later and he's still racking his brain, when she comes up behind him, presses her head to his shoulder and sighs.
"I know you didn't find my dad. I knew the letter was a fake." He freezes, thinking he should have hidden the guns before she got here, since as far as he can remember she's a more than fair shot.
She feels his muscles tense against her, rubs a hand across them.
"I came anyway,"- she's almost shy- "I just wanted to be with you."
They make out against the wall and he buries himself inside her for the first time in fours years. The release feels like redemption.
***
She moves in with him.
She has more shoes than he bargained for and more clothes too, which he insists she doesn't need since she mostly wears his shirts and nothing else. (Sometimes his boxers and nothing else but semantics don't bother him, right now.)
He teaches her how to drive and she crashes their car more times than he can count, getting into fights with the mechanic over the state of the bonnet. Stands arms akimbo and tries to look business like, while her boyfriend smirk in the background.
The whole place smells of bagels and patchouli and burned cheese, even though they never cook. (There's a drawer in the bedroom filled with takeout menus and he scowls when she flirts with the delivery guy and "forgets" to tip him.) She plays loud music in the car and develops a strange affinity to Taylor Swift that he vainly tries to coax her out of.
They watch old movies at night, the sort she hasn't seen before. Vintage horror, vintage porn and it's all black and white but no Audrey and she likes this better, screams at all the wrong parts and laughs at all the pertinent moments.
"Carter?" she whispers one night, when they're lying on the pillows at the foot of their bed and definitely not sleeping.
He moves his head against her shoulder. "Hmm?"
"I'm glad you found me," she confesses, face buried into crook of his elbow and he twists himself out of the giant pretzel that their entwined limbs formed, just so that he can kiss her.
She tastes like white chocolate. She tastes like tomorrow.
Serena tastes like she always does, with just a hint of "forever" mixed in.