There are fools out there who call him a genius and splutter in his presence, spewing out praise and flattery. It's sick, she tells herself as her eyes slip over the morning paper and she wonders if she can muster up enough feeling to hate him.
She should, she supposes. It's her story that won him his first grand and then some.
He still doesn't have everything she does. He still doesn't have all the fame, fortune and happiness he covets. He will, though. It's only a matter of time after all. The ice princess and the devil sell more copies than even Dan Humphrey thought they would.
She wonders if this strange new feeling spilling from under her skin is a feeling of violation but quickly remembers she's felt that way since eight grade. They'll make this book a movie someday. It's a sick, sick version of a dream come true.
Serena calls. Says she's coming Paris. She wants to talk about the book that put her ex boyfriend on the bestseller list. She says she wants to see if her once-best-friend is all right.
She just wants to look Blair in the eyes when she asks her if she slept with him.
****
The city of lights goes darker when he comes to town because he's still smirking his lazy smirk and he still turns her to liquid with a single loaded glance. She ignores this. She ignores him, concentrating all her attention on the ruffled collar of her blouse as she straightens it up. It's a warning, a sign- this night won't end in his bed.
The blonde duo arrives separately and they sparkle their way into her dimly lit living room. Cigarettes on the veranda and row of pretty cocktails on the coffee table but their expensive scent aren't as tempting as the skin of her neck, peeping at him through the eyelet lace. He gestures to the ex stepsister. She is still the best bar tender he's ever known and she serves it straight up, the way they all need it.
Hard liquor is numbing. It dulls the edges of reality and reality is that this is not a high school reunion and they are not the non judging breakfast club anymore. They are hear about a book that none of them has read because the blurb alone was enough to convince them that this is no more and no less a complete biography ; like a round up of all Gossip Girl's inane posts only with more metaphors and thinly veiled aliases taking the place of letters of the alphabet.
This is them; their lives. In black and white and covered with a pretty picture, every page dripping with the malevolent decadence that coats their very soul. And a pretty little brunette with sharp eyes and fox like face is the heart of the story.
Nate Archibald voices his thoughts first. Nathaniel, Nathaniel, Nathaniel. You lost your golden ticket with the Waldorf heiress years ago. Her stony silence informs him of this.
They go to bed drunk with curses on their lips and long lingering glances in the hallway.
The Waldorf heiress lingers on the balcony, waiting for the sun to rise. She is thinking of the story she should be telling them. Not the one between the pages of Daniel's novel but the one that put their life in print. The one that doesn't date back to the year of their birth but the summer just gone past. The tale of the reporter and the princess looking to get away. Sound familiar?
***
The writer was born with some skill but no creativity. A trip to Europe was not easy on a teacher's budget but he made the journey armed with visions of dark eyed French beauties with their soft voices and softer hair and enough tales to fill a million bare leafs. He catches her instead because her eye's reek with loneliness he's never seen before. It's deep and haunting and strangely seductive so he follows the flick of her thin wrist and sits beside her, sipping champagne against the dying lights. They don't speak of New York or first loves or lost times because they it's not like they are friends.
God, no. It's companionship as she leans in to him and they stroll the streets of Paris, their interlocked fingers swinging between them. She spies a crumbling stall, a fortune teller fortress and insists on stepping in. He waits outside, cynical smile curving his lips and he won't follow her inside.
The woman inside is festooned in satin and costume jewelry, bright rings on every finger. She waves about the dog eared cards, laying them out in a vague star and it's the nine of swords, perhaps and the Tower and the Lovers and many appealing things. Her gnarled fingers spill the deck and she throws her hand in the air, wrinkled features contorted in despair. This ought to bode ill, but Blair merely crosses her ankles and sits back in the arm chair.
"Nothing you say can scare me." Her voice is bored; lazy but her heart thuds erratically.
The old crone spits words fast and they jangle together in the girls head making little sense. So she lifts herself off the worn leather and departs, leaving behind a Hermes' scarf as payment. "You wrap those cards in silk, don't you?"
She is shivering like a leaf when she meets Dan, even more aloof than before. They traipse back to the Ritz and she downs a shot or two of whiskey while he watches, brow furrowed in concern. The drink loosens her tongue. She cannot recall what is said but it is more than she ever meant to reveal. She kisses him, she thinks but she is not sure. He seemed surprised. Women usually kiss him to shut him up. Never to quiet themselves.
The morning after is awkward. Each is confident that nothing untoward, inappropriate has taken place but she has said more than she meant. She doesn't know how enchanting she is to him. How transfixed he was by her pouty lips as secrets spilled from them. She only knows she open now, vulnerable. Afraid of being betrayed.
It's fitting. She stole his plotting virginity. She becomes his biggest conquest yet.
****
Chuck is the first to join her. He is the last person on the planet she ever wanted to see because the asinine novel is merely proof that even the boy from Brooklyn can tell that he is the only man to ever capture her heart.
She is crying by the time he joins her, dragging his chair in front of her own and she wipes the tears away. A pitiful attempt is made to square her shoulders but his hands come down on them, wrapping around her upper arms and forcing her into her seat. His eyes burn through her flimsy mask, all her petty complexities naked to his gaze. There is too much between them to ever deny.
It's a frustrated growl that erupts from him as his hands slide under her knees and he tugs her on to him, lips fastened with more haste than grace but the ache of long ago is swallowing up both of them. There is no contentment in their heated embrace, with dawn breaking around them and the sun casting shadows deep within their hearts. There is a bitter regret on his tongue, broken promises, lost years but she's past caring at this point and when they finally break apart there are no words left to say.
He will come back. When they have all left, when the phone stops ringing off the hook and even Harold Waldorf gives up on trying to reach his daughter, Charles Bass will come back someday and they will collide again.
Every touch, every lost moan and every goodbye will be potent, cast aside carelessly but privately cherished. She can't quite hate the Humphrey boy. He's given her the chance to write her own sequel.
There aren't any happy endings. There are no endings with them. They stray and they curse and they slide all the way back to each other because this is what the book gives them back. The game.
It's simple physics. Nothing comes from nothing.
Nothing ever will