Thank you for the reviews :) I'm happy to see you guys haven't tired of Dair fics yet! Forgot to say in the Chapter 1 AN, Georgina is serving as Blair's best friend in this fic because I had fun writing her in the since-halted fic, The Bridesmaid and The Journalist, I had started a while back. So I hope you enjoy her just as much as I do!
The following evening, Blair steps into a pair of white leather block heel ankle boots and draped a metallic AllSaints leather jacket over her shoulders. Blotting her Charlotte Tilbury "Glastonberry" cranberry lipstick, she checks herself over in the mirror and deems herself Brooklyn-ready. Then, she thinks better of ever deeming herself Brooklyn-ready, a girl from the Upper East Side can never truly be ready for that.
Arriving exactly at the dictated time, Blair does a once over of the building. It's exterior was white brick and she soon learned the interiors consisted of concrete flooring, marble walls, and industrial elements. She scans the still empty venue for Hudson, the photographer, and spots him taking shots of some of the artwork across the room. Satisfied that aspect of the feature was being taken care of, she sets out to find Rufus Humphrey. She sort of figured he would wait at the front to let her in but instead a bouncer had greeted her, hardly welcoming.
"Hudson? Have you seen the owner around?" Blair frowns once she's standing before the photographer.
"Hey," He looks up from his camera. "Yeah, he's in the back. Just go down that hallway and there'll be an office to your right."
"Thanks," Blair nods at him before she heads in the direction he gestured to, her heeled boots echoing with each and every step.
"Hi, Mr. Humphrey?" Blair tentatively knocks on the half-open office door.
The man with the floppy brown hair, looks up from the tablet he was typing on. "Hi!" He smiles broadly, crows feet appearing around his eyes in a friendly way. "Please, call me Rufus and take a seat."
Blair slides into the seat across from him after shaking his hand and introducing herself. "How are you?" She asks, as she always does before an interview. If she had it her way, she'd jump right into it but Lennon insists the writers always chat first with the interview subject. You have to "warm them up" Lennon always says, "be their friend", as though Lennon knows better how to manipulate people to get what info you really need. That was always Blair's field of expertise. But you don't make managing editors by going against your boss' wishes. So instead, she doles out the niceties every single time she conducts an interview.
"I'm great, couldn't be happier." Rufus nods, effusively. "We're expecting a large turnout so I'm hoping we meet our expectations." He crosses his fingers, seeming as though he can't dare to hope.
She nods, happy he's already on the subject of the opening. That's the bait she was hoping for. Blair sets off with her interview questions, not even needing to glance down at the written list in her notebook. "It looks amazing from what I've seen. What inspired the design?"
For the following half hour Blair jots down his answers to each of her questions. By the end, she feels satisfied with what she has and excuses herself. "I'm sure you have a lot to tend to before the doors open, in-" Blair glances at her watch. "15 minutes if I'm correct."
"Is it that close already?" Rufus looks a little alarmed. "Then, yeah, I really should go check everything is going smoothly. The bar should be open now though, help yourself to a drink in the meantime."
"Thanks," Blair smiles. Lennon doesn't need to know she takes him up on his offer. Technically, she's already gotten all her work done. But she just needs to stay for at least the first half hour to report on the turnout and to get some details on which of the gallery's offerings attract the largest onlookers.
When the doors finally do open, it seems Rufus' expectations had to have been met if not exceeded. Within a few minutes, the place is bursting and a line is wrapped around the corner. Blair observes as a Rufus negotiates sales on a painting and is impressed with the efficiency in which it's sold. At least a quarter of the artwork is marked with "Sold" stickers faster than Blair can drink her second cocktail. Checking her bag to make sure her notebook is in there, she finds it missing and momentarily panics. This is why she should switch to digital, but she can't help but love the feel of pen and paper in her hand. She traces back through the night, trying to think of when exactly she used it. As soon as the doors opened, she switched to notetaking on her phone. So that would mean, Rufus' office…
She scans the busy room, trying to find him but doesn't spot him. She walks toward the hallway, feeling a bit of relief as she sees it's empty. Blair walks slowly down the hallway, hoping she will see Rufus so she can just have him go get it but he never appears. The office door is still half open but she knocks anyway.
Pushing it open, she sees a guy about her age grabbing something out of the drawer of the desk. "Oh, sorry." Blair says quickly, turning to leave. She looks at the door, checking that she walked into the right office.
"Can I help you with something?" He asks before even glancing up. "The bar is-" He halts as his eyes meet hers. His brow creases into a frown and his eyes flicker with recognition a moment later. "Blair?" He asks after a long silence in which he searches her face.
In the silence, she thinks for a second that he looks familiar and she can't shake the feeling, but then she realizes it must be a resemblance to his father.
"Yes," She responds automatically, curtly even. "Waldorf. With Nylon, I was covering the article and I left my notebook in here. Can I just grab it?" She points to where she sees it sitting on the desk.
He smiles, slowly, "Sure," He gestures for her to come in.
Blair walks over to the desk, only a few feet from him now and reaches for the pale pink Moleskine notebook. "Thank you," As she looks back up at him, the reason for the familiarity dawns on her but before she can speak he does.
"You don't remember do you?" He smirks. "Dan Humphrey, we went to high school together."
She feels so stupid, that was where she knew the name Humphrey. Not from Rufus Humphrey's one hit wonders playing on the radio. She remembers he's waiting for an answer and finally speaks. "Right," She shakes her head feeling clueless. "Sorry, I just didn't recognize you at first."
It had to have been at least 8 years since Blair had last seen him. Dan was the guy that had replaced Isabel when the assigned seating was instituted in film studies class. She scans his appearance, surveying the changes that occurred over the past 8 years. The buzzcut was gone, and now his hair spun into curly tendrils edging just over the forehead but cropped close at the side of his head. The cut highlighted his strong cheekbones and jawline, the chiseled features catching her eye. The realization of how attractive she finds him, brings a slight blush to her cheeks and she feels grateful for the dim lighting back here.
"That's okay," Dan responds, breaking her thoughts. "It's been a long time."
"It has," She says blandly, unable to think of a witty reply. "Sorry, I just didn't even make the connection when I was assigned this. I never knew you had a famous dad."
Dan laughs, "I'm not sure I'd call him famous. Washed-up perhaps. Either way, don't let him hear you call him famous, it'll go to his head and after tonight's success, that's the last thing he needs."
"So I should take out the part of the article where we deem him a 90s rockstar slash an icon?" Blair asks, wryly.
"Please, change it. If you do publish that, he will frame that and probably change "Former Musician" to just that on his About page on the gallery website." Dan cringes.
Blair laughs, "Only kidding, we are focusing on his art background." She glances around. "So are you working with him here?"
Dan shakes his head, "No, just helping out for tonight. As much as I love art, running a gallery doesn't interest me. You?" Color rises to his cheeks. "I mean, obviously you work for Nylon and are here covering the feature but what exactly do you do there?"
"I'm the managing editor. This actually isn't part of my normal job though. Our senior staff writer is no longer with the company so we had to divide up the assignments amongst ourselves." Blair explains.
"That's awesome, do you like it?" Dan asks, leaning against the side of the desk.
Blair nods, "I do. I mean, it's still just a stepping stone, if I'm being honest. But I do feel lucky to be where I am. So what do you do when you're not helping out here?"
"I'm a professor at The New School." Dan supplies.
Blair considers this, "Didn't you want to be a writer?"
Dan seems surprised and he looks sideways at her, "You remember? I mean, I suppose I am, I've had a couple of works published. It's what I do when I'm not teaching. Being a professor gives me enough time to work on my writing on the side and summers."
"It sounds like a great set-up." Blair shuffles her notebook, against her, feeling a bit awkward.
Dan eyes her and suddenly says, "Sorry, you probably need to leave and I'm keeping you."
"Oh, it's fine. It was nice catching up with you." She says with feeling.
"It was." Their eyes meet as he speaks and Blair feels suddenly shy and for some reason, she doesn't want to leave at all.
"Well, good to see you." Blair says, wondering if she should leave now. She eyes the door.
"If you need anything for the article, I'd be happy to help." Dan says and he starts scribbling something down on a notecard and Blair feels an unexpected tiny bubble of excitement forming that's quickly bursted when she realizes it's his email not his phone number. "I know my dad can be so bad about responding to emails so here's mine."
As Blair takes the notecard, she wishes their fingers would brush so she can tell if there's a spark or if it's all in her head. But then she remembers this isn't a romantic comedy so of course there's no contact. "Thank you, I appreciate it." She smiles politely, clutching tightly to the notecard. "I should be going, tell your dad I say thank you again."
"I will." Dan says and then pauses before adding. "It really was great to see you."
Blair is already headed for the door and she's out of earshot now but she replies anyway, softly. "You too."
The whole car ride home she's buzzing. It does strange things to her, seeing someone from such a different time in her life. A time in her life when everything was in front of her. A time when she still thought she could be an editor at Vogue by the age of 25, and be married to the man of her dreams. Except dreams rarely come true. But it really felt like they could to Blair, back then.
Blair shakes her head as she exits the car which has since arrived to her building, chalking up the feeling she was experiencing to nostalgia. She unlocks the door to her apartment, leaving behind any lingering thoughts of Brooklyn and boys who once made her feel something indescribable.