Return of the Waldorf
Chapter 7
Day 7: Thursday
Blair blinks in the sunlight streaming across her face, waking her up from a very pleasant dream. She instinctively blushes, recalling the subject of it. It had been a reenactment of the very pleasurable encounter she had with Chuck Bass the previous night in the bathroom at Balducci's. She shakes her head and forces herself to focus. She glances over to check the neon glowing numbers on her alarm clock.
7:53am? Damn, she was supposed to be up an hour ago. She has to leave for school in twenty minutes!
Blair runs a comb through her tangled bed-head of hair, too rushed for time to be able to shower. She carefully applies concealer under her eyes and mascara to her lashes, all to make her appear more awake.
Blair hurries around her room, gathering her materials for school. Her book bag is already packed, lying on the floor where she discarded it the previous day, but she can't find some essentials. Blair finally locates her Palm Pilot and M.A.C. Lip Conditioner, but she can't find her phone. When did she last have it? Her mind flashes back to the previous night.
Chuck nibbles on Blair's neck, pushing her gently backwards until she wraps her legs around his waist and he hoists her onto the counter. Blair's hip bumps her purse and knocks it to the ground, her Sidekick sliding across the floor into a corner.
"Chuck…" she attempts to pull away. "I need to grab that."
She moans as Chuck's tongue laves a particularly sensitive spot next to her collarbone. "It'll still be there later," he murmurs against her skin, and any thoughts of Blair's phone have fled her mind.
Now Blair remembers where her phone is.
She resolves to call Balducci's to arrange a retrieval of said Sidekick right away…later, she realizes, as she checks her watch. Blair can't believe that Chuck got her distracted enough for her to forget her phone, which was practically a fifth appendage of her body. But now is not the time for such contemplations, as Blair is late for her dramatic arrival at school.
A few streets over, Kati Farkas is checking her own phone on her way to school. It buzzes. Gossip Girl has sent her an update. She scans it and her carefully controlled facial expression falters and she blanches.
Blair arrives at school more confident than she has any other day in the past week. She is on her way to reclaiming her crown and the entire student body knows it. She strides down through the courtyard wearing her most satisfied smile and swinging her hips a little.
She is surprised, however, when she gets looks reminiscent of last Thursday. Girls whisper about her to their friends as she passes and boys smirk and point.
Blair gets to her locker and is surprised to find Kati there.
"What's wrong?" Blair asks in a low voice. "I thought we weren't going to acknowledge each other during school, so we don't set off any suspicion."
Kati runs her fingers through her hair nervously. "Well, I think we have bigger problems than that, Blair."
Blair's brow furrows in suspicion. "What do you mean?"
Kati hands her phone to Blair. "Gossip Girl updated."
"Ohmigod," Blair breathes as she reads the post.
Gossip Girl Exclusive: B and her Secret Lover
Gossip Girl has exclusively obtained a recording of a conversation that B had with a boy, presumably on her cell phone, last night. We thought that Nate and Chuck had unfairly cast aspersions on poor B's reputation, but clearly we were wrong. Click below to hear the recording:
Link
The recording is pretty self-explanatory, but it starts after they greeted each other, so we have no names. So the only question is…who's the mystery guy?
Blair clicks on the link. Her own voice floats out of the phone, tinny and distorted by the tiny speakers. "What do you want?" She presses the end key to shut off the media player.
"Do they know who the guy is yet?" Blair asks Kati.
Kati shakes her head. "People are guessing, of course. That William guy from Tuesday night, a Yale alum, Hugh Hefner. But nobody's come forward, which is good."
Blair laughs hollowly. "Relatively speaking."
Kati ignores this. "Hey, we have to get to class. I'll see you later, okay?"
Blair stands at her locker for a moment as Kati walks off. Who could possibly have made that recording? Blair doubts that Hazel had that initiative, which left only…Chuck. Her eyes narrowed. That fucking liar.
There is another excruciating weekly assembly that day. Just like the previous Thursday, Blair must attend a school-wide assembly and spend forty minutes being stared at by her peers. And, unfortunately, Blair is still the head of the Social Committee.
Which is why she finds herself standing up in front of both St. Jude's School for Boys and Constance Billiards' School for Girls making an announcement, doing her best to ignore the smirks of her classmates. Yet even out of all the sneering stares Blair can still pick out a few of them. Hazel with her nose in the air; Little J looking vindicated; Nate sporting a look of special disgust; Chuck leering.
Blair inhales and does her best to ignore them.
"Another committee meeting will be held at Café Angelique's at 4pm this Saturday," Blair proclaims. "Additionally, a school-wide rally has been called to discuss and vote on the new dance regulations. Attendance is not mandatory but," she glances at her teachers, "highly recommended." She pauses. "It will be held on Saturday at 5:30pm, right after the Social Committee meeting. It will take place right here, I believe."
The student body would usually groan at being forced to go to school on a Saturday, but this particular rally was of importance because it would determine the strictness of the next school-sponsored social function. And on the Upper East Side, every social event is important.
Blair must once more deal with the accusing stares of her classmates at lunch that day. She does her best to slip unnoticed into the courtyard, but of course nothing escapes the attention of gossip-hungry teenage girls. Her entrance is met with loud whispers and snickers.
Blair looks straight in front of her and marches directly towards the table where Serena and Dan are sitting, avoiding any eye contact with other people. She hears snatches of conversations as she passes, all about her.
"God, this is a nightmare," Blair murmurs to Serena as she sits down. "I was really hoping we could implement the plan we talked about with the girls last night as soon as possible, but I guess we'll have to delay things for a few days because of this idiocy-"
"Everything's still going according to schedule," Iz assures Blair as she sits down, Kati close behind. "I've checked with every girl at the meeting today and they all just want Hazel gone even more."
"Why?" Serena asks in confusion. "I thought now they wouldn't want to be associated with Blair." Seeing her best friend's face, she tries to apologize. "No offense to you, B, of course."
Blair rolls her eyes at Serena but doesn't respond. Kati takes the opportunity to explain, "This is just what we all hate about Hazel. She loves to out people's secrets and that pisses a lot of girls off. She has no social tact."
"And it was particularly tactless of her to expose Blair now," Iz adds. "Especially since a lot of people are considering defecting to Blair anyway because of Hazel's incompetency. This just confirms their concerns."
"By the way, Hazel won't be confronting you today," Kati lets Blair know. "She'd like to mock you, but she figures it's better to do if from afar where you can't tear her down verbally. She remembers the outcomes of the last few."
Blair is still stuck on something Kati said earlier. "Wait, Hazel was the one who got this recording?"
"Yeah," Kati confirms as if it was obvious. "She's been bragging about it all day. How Chuck invited her to dinner with his father at Balducci's and how she followed you afterwards while Chuck was talking to the maitre d'. She thinks she's just so sneaky," Kati snickers a little.
Serena turns to Blair and raises an eyebrow. "While Chuck was talking to the maitre d', huh?"
Blair ignores Serena's implication. "You heard Kati," she shrugs. "That's what Hazel says."
Iz looks at Blair for a moment, having caught Serena's innuendo. "Wait, who was that guy in the conversation, anyway? He sounded really familiar."
"I'll tell you some other time," Blair snaps. "It's really not something I'd like to discuss."
Iz and Kati both purse their lips. They might be Blair's friends, but they still appreciate juicy gossip.
"Hey, why are you guys sitting with us, anyway?" Blair realizes.
Iz raises her hands in a half shrug. "We figured you could use some back-up, and we've got plenty of girls on the inside anyway," she explains.
"Makes sense," Blair muses. "I appreciate it a lot, thanks you guys."
Kati and Iz just smile. "Anytime."
Blair leaves the slightly awkward conversation to scan the courtyard a little, just to see how the social groups are reacting. She spots the last person she wants to see, Chuck, waggling his fingers at Nate and Jenny.
Chuck's fingers trace circles on her bare thigh and Blair shivers. They float up to the edge of her tiny slip and start to lift it over her head. Chuck does this tentatively, with none of his usual aggression. It is as if he is still afraid that she will back out.
Blair doesn't think that she could possibly stop this now. Being with Chuck feels too good to even consider ending it. She gives Chuck a reassuring smile and murmurs against his ear.
"You know you want to."
Thirty seconds later, Blair's slip lies abandoned in the corner with her Sidekick.
Chuck still doesn't sit with Nate at lunch, but they now exchange at least a friendly greeting. It isn't much compared to their old friendship, but at least its progress, Chuck reflects. He waves a hand to
Nate and Jenny as they pass, heading towards Hazel's table, and Nate smiles back. Little J, as usual, ignores him. Not that he blames her.
Chuck's friend Jeremy turns to him. "Man, now I think I get it about that Blair chick," Jeremy announces.
"Why?" Chuck asks tiredly. Chuck never needed to be convinced of Blair's worth. Even when he had lied to her about not wanting her, Chuck had still been pining. Now, Chuck is still pining but a little pissed, too. One would think that another night of fun and debauchery in a bathroom would at least merit an acknowledgement in the hallway, although a phone call would be preferable.
Jeremy grins. "I mean, I used to think she was all stuck-up and shit but dude, did you hear that recording on Gossip Girl?"
Chuck's expression informs him that no, he did not hear that recording on Gossip Girl.
"Well, it was this conversation between Blair and some dude and it was all about how the guy only wanted her for her body, and I dunno, they must have had some hot phone sex or something because there were a few sexy sounds at the end," Jeremy nods his head and smirks. "If you know what I mean."
Chuck's eyes automatically flick to Blair across the courtyard. As if she can feel his gaze, Blair looks back at him, their eyes meeting, before they both return to their friends.
"Do you know who the guy is?" Chuck does his best to act nonchalant.
Jeremy shakes his head. "Nah, that's the weird part," he tells his friend. "Even though they talk a lot, Hazel didn't manage to record his name." He laughs. "Too bad, I bet that guy'd have some stories to tell!"
Chuck does not laugh with him. What will happen when someone recognizes his voice? And yes, it is a question of when and not if, because there are certainly people out there that know him well enough to do that.
When Nate lifts his head and gives Chuck a weird look, Chuck swears a little on the inside. He's keeping his phone off tonight; he doesn't need any wacky accusations from his ex-best friend.
Blair, however, is glued to her phone all night. After stopping by Balducci's to retrieve her Sidekick, she proceeded to check all of her voicemails (eight new) and respond to every text message (sixty-five new). She is now chatting on the phone to Iz's phone but due to the fact that Kati and Iz are basically joined at the hip, all three of them are talking.
"So, is the plan still on track?" Blair asks lazily as she reclines on her bed.
"Yup," Iz and Kati nod, even though Blair can't see them. Iz continues, "It's all ready for Saturday. I've got some stuff I'm about to send to Gossip Girl now, so that we can sort of spread this gingerbread-crumb trail of secrets to the truth."
"Sounds good," Blair smiles. "So what do you need me to do?"
Iz thinks for a moment. "It would be good if you could stay out of any big scenes tomorrow," she finally decides. "We don't want the news of any confrontation to take the place of Hazel and her nastiness on the front page of Gossip Girl."
"Can do," Blair notes. "Anything else?"
What Iz and Kati were going to answer ends up being drowned out as Eleanor Waldorf enters Blair's room.
"Hold on a sec," Blair mutters into the phone before setting it down next to her, not bothering to end the call. This shouldn't take long. "Hey, mom," she says cheerily.
"Honey, I just wanted to thank you for helping me and Bart out yesterday," Eleanor begins. "I know it was difficult for you to work with Chuck, but you handled Tommy very well and the Rodriguezes are now fully sponsoring this latest project," she tells her daughter. "Besides, it wasn't too bad, was it? I mean, it seemed like you and Chuck got along okay."
"Chuck and I got along fine, Mom," Blair says in exasperation. Her traitorous brain reminds her how fine they did get along. And how much Blair wants to them to get along fine many, many more times in the future. She internally sighs and steers away from hat train of thought. The previous night, although amazing, clearly meant nothing to Chuck, as he barely acknowledged her that day at school. "Can I talk to my friends now?"
"Of course, of course," Eleanor sighs. "I just wanted to thank you for helping."
"No problem," Blair waves her mother out.
"You spent last night with Chuck?" Kati asks slowly.
Blair chews her lip nervously. "No. I just was at a business dinner that he also attended," Blair says, not exactly lying.
"So…Chuck isn't the other guy in the conversation?" Iz's grin is practically audible over the phone line.
Blair doesn't want to lie to her friends. "I didn't say that," she finally admits.
Iz and Kati's squeals of excitement are heard round the world.
A/N: Thanks maz4pj for the beta! I hope you all liked this chapter and remember, feedback is better than Waldass love!
