A/N- Major props to Brenda, JoJo.x, Bassdorf, Gaara-LOve, mystripedskirt, Mary1415, teddy bear, Heavenlydoll, poptart :), xoxo - Amber, al2010, Blood Red Kiss of Death, Edwardslover09, sailor cyanide, SmearedLipGloss, MZGG, Stella, laxer77, :D, Laurienlaurie, MissDK, annablake, and flipped for being awesome and reviewing last chapter :)
I don't normally update on a Wednesday but I've been sick and have had time to write. Also got an idea for a new oneshot and chapter fic. Go me :)
Enjoy xxx
Five Doors Down
Chapter 25: 4th of Ju-LIE
"Blair, can you toss the salad if I make the salsa?" Cassie asked, handing the brunette an apron to save the dress she was wearing. "Nate, you're on guacamole."
"Uh, okay." He replied, eyeing Blair who seemed to have no clue what she was doing.
"Asher, you can help my dad with the meat."
"How come he gets to do something fun and manly?" Nate asked. "He gets meat and I get pureed avocado? That's not fair."
"Because he needs to bond with my dad. You don't." Cassie returned, grimacing as Blair soaked the lettuce under the cold tap before leading her now current-again boyfriend out of the back door.
"I can't believe they're back together." Blair said.
"I can't believe she gave us the worst jobs." Nate returned before chuckling a little. "Actually, I can believe you got salad."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"She said toss the leaves, not leave them exposed to a monsoon."
Blair looked back to the lettuce drowning in the colander. "Oh."
He chuckled again and put down his knife. "Here, you need to do it like this." He moved so that he was standing behind her and took her hands in his, lifting the salad up in between his fingers.
She shifted her body and put her hands down. "Nate."
"Oh yeah. Sorry."
She shrugged. "It's okay."
"I didn't mean to-"
"I know."
"Are you missing him?"
"It's not even about that."
Now it was Nate's turn to shrug. "It was just a question."
"But I don't have to answer to you." She snapped, dusting the stray bits of lettuce off of her fingers before leaving the room.
Cassie entered the kitchen seconds after with a confused expression on her face. "What just happened?"
"What do you mean?"
"Blair just ran across the lawn to the apartment. Did something happen between you guys?"
"I just asked her if she was missing Chuck."
The blonde took hold of the colander and emptied the contents into the wooden bowl on the counter. "You didn't try anything did you?"
"Um..no."
"Nate."
"I didn't mean to. And I didn't mean to upset her, I just…the last time her and Chuck broke up, or, at least when everything in high school happened she wasn't like this, wasn't sad. Something's happened between them Cassie and Blair's messed up."
"I thought we talked about this before." She sighed. "Blair isn't yours to protect Nate. Yeah, she probably is messed up. She just broke up with her boyfriend. Every girl gets upset when that happens, and the last thing she needs is you acting like anything other than a friend."
-
She knew she shouldn't have even contemplated it, let alone typed the address into Google. Still, Blair had found herself reading Gossip Girl and everything she'd suspected, yet hoped wouldn't be true was documented for the world to see.
Chuck Bass seeking solace in his old comforts?
Victrola Victory for Chuck Bass
The worst one however, was the picture of the limo. She knew what it meant even before she read the post, yet it was as though her life depended on reading every sordid detail because she couldn't pull herself away.
The brunette jumped when she heard Cassie's voice beside her. "Are you okay?"
She shook her head. "Look."
"Gossip Girl." Cassie frowned. "What's…oh."
"Yeah."
"It won't mean anything Blair."
She shrugged and tried to joke. "It's Independence Day after all right?"
Cassie only offered a small smile before hugging her friend. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be. There's nothing you could have done." Blair breathed out and clicked off the screen. "So how are thing with you and Asher anyway?"
She bit her lip. "Good I guess."
Blair frowned.
"It's just, both of us are avoiding the whole 'where is this going?' thing and it's starting to get a bit tense. I know he wants to ask but he can't exactly leave here this weekend after my parents have invited him." Cassie sighed. "Things were simpler before we both got boyfriends huh?"
"Definitely."
"So I saved the salad from a watery grave." The blonde continued. "And Nate seems to be handling the guacamole so if you want, there's some cupcakes that need frosting."
"I'm on it."
"And Blair?" Cassie added as her friend made her exit. "If you ever want to talk, or just tell me what happened; you can call me whenever."
She smiled gratefully. "Thanks Cass."
-
"Sorry about earlier." Blair apologised to Nate after a long period of frosting cupcakes in silence.
He shrugged and waved it away. "You don't need to apologise. I shouldn't have asked."
"You were just trying to be a good friend."
Nate swallowed as he wiped the counter. "Right."
"I should've known Chuck and I wouldn't work. It just seemed like it was going to be different this time."
"Different?"
"Come on Nate." She rolled her eyes. "I know you've checked Gossip Girl too this weekend."
"You've seen the posts about him?"
"It's not like I expected anything different."
It wasn't a lie. She'd just hoped for something different, and yet there was something satisfying about his behaviour in Manhattan because it meant everything she'd done, the lies she'd told, the pregnancy and abortion she'd covered up were for something. Bart was right. Chuck would never be able to handle a child.
"Still, seeing them actually makes it real huh?" Nate replied quietly.
Blair dipped her head. "Yeah."
"Look, I know you probably just need some time to yourself right now, but I miss hanging out like we used to before Chuck came to Yale."
She smiled. "Me too."
"And I'd like us to be friends again you know, so that you can tell me stuff if you want to – I don't mean about you and Chuck, just…college stuff. Stuff that you maybe can't talk about with Cassie."
"That would be nice." Blair replied. "But I do just need some time on my own." She smiled at him as he nodded and made his way towards the door to show Asher his guacamole. "And Nate?"
"Yeah?"
"I'll always want to be your friend. We are always going to be friends. Right?"
He grinned at her and nodded again. "Right."
-
They'd been to 4th July parties before, Nate and Blair, and of course they were extravagant: they were held on Park Avenue. But this one with the red, white and blue streamers, the bunting, the ridiculous amount of food on offer was a million miles better than what they were used to.
"Blair I cannot believe you're drinking beer!" Cassie squealed from her place on Asher's lap, clinking bottles with her friend across the table.
"We should take a picture of this." Nate laughed as Cassie's mom jumped up on cue, glad of another excuse to snap a photo.
"Yay, photo op!" The blonde squealed again. "Everybody say 'Happy 4th July!'"
"Happy 4th July!" They all chorused before clinking bottles and glasses and downing whatever they had left of their drinks.
"Hey." Asher whispered into Cassie's ear, placing a hand over hers. "Can we talk?"
She nodded and eyed Blair nervously as the pair left the table behind.
"Break up round two?" Nate asked Blair with a raised eyebrow.
She shook her head. "Not even close."
-
"So today's been great." Asher told Cassie as she sat down on her bed and he closed the door. "But all I can think about is-"
"Doing me in my bed at my parents' house?" She cocked an eyebrow and giggled.
"Cass, this is serious. I feel that this." He gestured to the two of them. "Us, is serious."
She nodded silently.
"But I can't keep doing this. I can't keep doing us if we're not headed anywhere."
"You don't love me Cassie." Asher said softly. "And I've accepted that. But I love you and I can't be around you because it's too hard. Like when you and Blair were in that club the other night and I saw you with those guys all I wanted to do was knock them out and pull you out of there. But…" He sighed as she bit her bottom lip. "There's no reason for me to do that is there? Because you don't love me."
It was as though she couldn't swallow, couldn't speak, couldn't open her mouth. If she thought about it, she figured she probably could love him. She just didn't right now. She couldn't right now.
"I just need to not be around you when we finish off classes this month and then over summer."
"Asher…"
He half-smiled and shook his head. "Maybe next semester we won't see each other as much anyway. Nate and I will be at Alpha Delta Phi and you and Blair will be in your apartment. It won't be so hard."
He got up to leave, opened the door and looked at her in a way Cassie had never seen him look at her before. She crumbled then.
"Don't go."
"Cass it can't be like this. I have to go."
"No, no you don't. You don't have to go. You can't go."
"Why not?" He asked, seemingly angry judging by the tone of his voice.
"Because I love you."
She finally managed to blurt it out. And as he asked her to repeat it and she did, she felt like a fraud as he kissed her lips and her neck and her collarbone like he'd done outside of the club a few nights previously.
"You love me?"
She closed her eyes as she kissed his lips another time because she couldn't lie to his face again.
"I love you."
-
Blair was getting changed for bed and wearing only a lilac slip when her cell vibrated only in the way it did when Chuck was calling. The way her ears banged and her breathing became shallow involuntarily was what she'd imagined a heart attack to feel like.
Reaching a shaky hand out to pick up the piece of equipment, she suddenly realised she didn't know what he'd want, or even if she wanted to speak to him.
But she was Blair Waldorf and she'd torture herself forever if she let it go to voicemail. And she couldn't even get out a faux-confident 'hello?' before he spoke first.
"What was the cheque for?"
"W..What?" She stammered.
"The cheque in your file. The one my father wrote out to you last week. What was it for?"
She shut her eyes in a failed attempt to stop tears from falling. "I didn't touch the money."
"What was the money for Blair?" He demanded, his voice booming over the line making her jump. "You can't even say it, can you?"
"Chuck-"
"Save it." He cut icily. "You disgust me."
She wrapped her cold arms around herself as all she had left to hear was the dial tone in her left ear and Cassie's happy giggles in the room next door in the other.