When he arrived back at the house, Blair was up reading a book in the study in a flowy pink dress. Her hair pulled back perfectly, her heels on the floor, and her feet tucked under herself, she almost looked like a painting. Effervescent and serene.
"You're back," she said, setting her book down. "How was your errand?"
"Completed, and I come bearing food. You hungry?" he asked, heading towards the dining room.
"Famished," she responded, forgoing her heels and following him barefooted.
They began digging into a brunch of croissants, eggs, and fruit. It wasn't his typical meal, but he figured Blair would enjoy it.
"Where has that girl been?" Blair asked, initiating conversation.
"Girl?" Dan questioned between bites.
"You call yourself a gentlemen, but you don't know who I'm talking about when I say "girl"?" she said incredulously. "You were shirtless with her just the other day?"
Dan almost choked on his strawberry. He wasn't quite sure how to broach this topic. Should he be honest or should he avoid? Avoidance would be the path of least resistance, but he felt so cowardly taking that route. He took another bite of his eggs, chewed slowly, swallowed deliberately, and said as nonchalantly as possible, "Samantha kind of broke up with me this morning. Can you pass the orange juice?"
"Oh. Was that your errand?" Blair responded, passing the orange juice. "Pick up croissants. Get dumped. Drop by the produce section for strawberries. I'd laugh if I thought pathetic was amusing."
Dan just grunted in the affirmative.
"Well, I'm glad she's gone," Blair said definitively. "Who wants to date a townie anyway. You're not Nate. You shouldn't have fallen for that bumpkin kind of charm."
Dan chuckled. "I'd hardly call a Hamptons' native a bumpkin."
"That's because you're from Brooklyn. Trust me on this one." Blair took a second croissant, spreading Nutella and strawberries on top. "If you don't mind me asking, why did she break up with you?" she asked, rather abruptly.
"Actually, I do sort of mind."
"What, is the wound too fresh?" she said almost laughably. "Did the summer fling leave a paper cut?"
She didn't want to the know the real answer, that he was sure of. He wasn't ready to share it with her either. Sam had left him with good advice, but at this point, were the risks too high?
He watched Blair eat contently. She had folded her feet up under her again, and he was enjoying the strangely domestic and comfortable feel of the situation. "Do you want the honest answer?" he said before really thinking it through.
She looked up at him, tilted her head and asked, "Is there a reason I wouldn't?"
"Probably," was all he could think to say.
His chair was only a few feet from her, but he felt the odd compulsion to scoot it closer to her. Close enough to her that he could touch her if he wanted. The act of moving closer was so familiar, so similar to his experience in her penthouse foyer the night they had kissed for the first time that he felt his head lighten. He would later blame that momentary blood lose to his brain for what he said next. "You see. There's this thing that Sam noticed. All summer long, I've been trying to get over someone."
His voice was low. Perhaps too low for her to have heard. But he wasn't so lucky. "What?" she asked, not because she missed it but because she required further clarification.
He stood up for a moment, beginning to pace in a small circle close to her chair. "I was hoping it would just go away."
"It?" Her voice was a mixture of shock and horror. He tried not to let it get to him.
"I suppose "they" would be a better word choice," he half rambled to himself.
She stood up, grabbing his shoulders and steadying him. "Humphrey," she said looking him straight in the eyes. "What are you talking about?" she asked letting go of his shoulders. "Is this about Serena? Because if it is, you really need to move on. Well, until at least she makes up her mind. Serena's not going to want you until she thinks she's lost you. That's how she works," she said, moving back to the table for the rest of her croissant. "Trust me. Maybe I can help you come up with a plan once she's back in the city."
"What?" Dan asked disbelieving that Blair could be so thick. "No, I don't need to scheme to get Serena."
"We'll call it a ploy. That sounds better," she said licking a bit of Nutella off of her finger.
"No," he said, slightly distracted. "This isn't about Serena."
"Charlie then? I'd give up on that one if I were you. She's back in Miami and if you want to talk about bumpkins, that one's got it tattooed on her head right beside 'crazy'."
He would have normally laughed at how she said "crazy" in a slightly high pitched tone, but his frustration with her was growing past her cuteness. "Blair, you're making this really difficult," he said, rather gruffly.
"You know I don't like your taste in women," she said casually, and apparently still oblivious. "We just had this conversation last night."
"Yes, well apparently I like girls who have no clue what's going on," he said mostly to himself.
"Charlie, is it then," she said, slightly self-satisfied at figuring it out and slightly disgusted looking. "Or should we call her 'Serena-lite'?"
Dan stood staring at her. Bare-foot in a pink Mark Jacobs dress, grabbing for a unprecedented third croissant, and completely clueless about what he was trying to communicate. "Blair, this is important," he said, waiting for her to turn her eyes to him. "I don't like Charlie. I mean, I like her but not in that way. And what I said about Serena this summer was accurate. I'm just not interested in riding the "will-we-or-won't-we" ride any longer. When I said I was trying to get over someone, it wasn't Charlie and it definitely wasn't Serena."
He let his comment sit for a moment, weighing down on Blair trying to ground her in his reality.
Her face changed from light to serious.
"It's not me, is it?" she asked somewhere between alarm and full understanding.
Dan didn't answer because to be honest, when he had said he wasn't planning on taking Sam's advice of full disclosure, he had meant it. He had had no intention of telling Blair Waldorf, formally of the infamous ChuckandBlair, and currently of the famous soon-to-be Princess Blair, that he, Lonely Boy Dan Humphrey, had been missing her all summer and thinking about her all summer and not getting over her in the slightest all summer. But somehow, he had ended up here. Not admitting it but clearly fully admitting it.
The summer wasn't even over yet.
The tourists hadn't left the Hamptons.
The city was still sick with heat.
If this were a tv drama, they'd probably still be in the season premiere.
A casual fan would be complaining about how quickly the writers were moving.
It was downright...
"Humiliating," he heard her harsh voice echo his thought. "This is humiliating," she said, this time her turn to pace in small circles.
The word felt like a cold shower. Humiliating? He figured they had moved past the mortification phase. "Wow. Really?" he said, his tone sardonic, but his eyes just plain hurt. "If that's how your treat friends, I think I'd rather go back to my old role of sideline irritant."
"You don't like me. That wouldn't be horrifying," she said.
"Horrifying? That's a bit much, Blair."
"No. Really. I thought we cleared this up last spring. Remember how it would affect Serena."
"Don't forget that it would be social suicide."
"And that!" Blair exclaimed.
"Yes. I know. And you're engaged," he said, his voice cracking sadly on 'engaged'.
"Yes. And I'm engaged," she repeated, adding for good measure, "to a prince."
"I know that," he winced.
"What were you thinking?" she said, thumping him on his shoulder.
He grabbed his arm instinctually. "I wasn't really thinking."
"Well, that's clear," she remarked snidely. Then much smaller, much more hesitant, "What are we going to do?" she said, slumping back into her chair.
"I'm not sure," he said sitting beside her.
For a moment, they were silent. Both pretending to mull over options, but really both just shell-shocked. "I suppose I should leave," Blair finally said.
"Maybe you should." He said it without thinking, and really he didn't mean it. But perhaps, he knew it would be best.
As Blair walked towards her room, Dan felt a sad sick thump in his chest. He had always known that telling Blair he had feelings beyond friendship would end in disaster, but somehow, he had hoped against hope that he would be happily surprised.
But he wasn't surprised. In fact, he was ending his summer even worse than how he had begun.