A/N: Hey guys! Okay so this was just a story that literally wrote itself and I hardly have a plot for it. And I know, I still need to finish "Is it too late for fate?" But once an idea sets itself in my brain I just have to iron it out and see where it goes. Maybe this'll be a short story or maybe I might not even carry on with it, depending on whether you guys like it or not. It's also written from Dan's perspective and if (huge IF) I do carry on with this story, I still need to figure out whether I'll be alternating between the two perspectives or if I'm just going to stick with Dan's perspective. And please, if you like this story leave a like or review so I can know if it's good enough to carry on with or not! Much love and to whoever's reading, I do hope you enjoy!
Strangers in the Night.
Dangling chandeliers breathing brightly upon a polished floor. An Italian art piece stretches across the ceiling and it's accompanied by a ceiling junction that may have well been carved out by Michelangelo himself. Champagne flows around the waltzing room like water down a stream and ideas of etiquette are slowly losing its ground among these elitists. Although it's my first time at a ballroom dance I must admit it's shown itself to be better than I dared to anticipate.
Okay, I'm not actually an invitee of the dance, and the fact that I'm walking around the room with a silver platter tells you more than you need to know. But this rented tuxedo's granted me a few looks through the masks of girls which I imagine to be pretty solely because they have the money to be. My platter which was just moments ago filled with champagne glasses is now emptied out and there's no incentive within me to go and refill. Something's saying ditch the platter, steal a mask, find a girl and dance the working hours away. I'm not sure whether this voice just has a way with words but it's criminally convincing. My platter goes discretely behind a hanging cream table cloth and under a snack table. A man rushes to the exit doors, chasing after a crying woman, but I catch him just in time. If he's leaving then there'd be no need for him to have a mask on and that's exactly what I say to him. He looks at me as if to say my problem means absolutely nothing in comparison to the dilemma I've just interrupted him from but after the disgust falls from his face, a black mask with silver linings falls into my hands and the man vanishes. I fit the mask against my face quickly before my supervisor Jacob possibly sees me and within seconds I'm apart of the grandeur. Oh, Brooklyn would be proud!
The night's running away from me though so I need to find a dance partner, quickly. I, like an amateur, step onto the dance floor in hopes of seeing a potential partnering-waltzer but it's clear after a few minutes that whoever's already on the floor is already waltzing with someone. But from my position I can see a girl sitting at a round table alone, and by the black dress she has on that's enraptured by these sparkles that reflect beautifully under the beaming chandeliers above, and by the way her autumn-leaf colored hair falls graciously against her pale shoulders, and even by her cherry coated lips, it's unfathomable to me that she's sitting by herself.
A friend of mine comes whistling past me with a silver platter above her head and I grab a champagne glass from it and turn my back and walk off before she notices who I am and what I'm doing. If there's one thing movies get horribly wrong all the time, it's the idea that a face mask that covers only your eyes is plausibly a good disguise. As I walk with the glass stirring at my fingertips, my eyes dart back to the place where the lonely girl was sitting. But she's not there anymore. In the moments after, I twist my body around multiple times as my eyes gaze around the room in search of this person. How could she have disappeared from this place so suddenly? Especially after I planned on downing that champagne to give me some sort of a confidence booster and then go and introduce myself to her. What is it with plans never going to plan? Out of pure frustration I down the glass anyway. Well, if that's not the person I'm supposed to dance with tonight, so be it. My eyes scan around again whilst I go stand in the room's corner. Next to me stands a vase with red roses in and it's admirably pleasing to look at. To my surprise it captures my attention for a solid moment and I'm hardly aware of my surroundings.
"Jay Gatsby found out how grotesque a rose was during his dying breath." Those words travel along an unfamiliar tongue but they enter my ears with immense grace.
I turn to identify the person and without any subtlety my lips corner up and a smile forms against my better judgment. Her dress is like that of a starry night, a dark surface with glimmers of brightness scattering around. Her hair, now on closer inspection, curls as wonderfully as a ballet ribbon. Her lips, the one thing my eyes struggle to dismiss, are more rosier, redder and appealing to admire than a rose itself. Her black feathery mask, although prominent, could not override the depths of those brown eyes in which an iota of her soul shows itself to me for the first time. I am in awe. In spite of my admiration though, I manage to form an utterance.
"It must be a good thing I'm not dying then."
She chuckles, "Do you usually gaze at things with such intensity?"
My throat catches at the realization that she's come to notice my staring and I swallow a lump before saying, "Human eyes are in love with beauty and we search for it in everything we look at, so I'm hardly able to help myself."
She takes a second to ponder over my words, "And are your eyes still searching?" She says with such softness.
I shake my head nervously and say, "No, not anymore." As I look at her.
A smile grips her face and she takes a step closer into my vicinity. She then holds her hand out to me, "Blair Cornelia Paige Waldorf."
It amazes me that she introduces herself with her full name. It must be a sign of upper-class culture so I do the same, "Daniel Randolph Jonah Humphrey," I say as I take her hand.
As I'm about to tell her what a pleasure it is to meet her, she places her left hand over the hand I'm using to greet her with and she clasps them together and before I notice what's happening, she pulls me toward the dance floor. Everything about her just screams confidence, from the way she speaks, to the way she walks, up until the way she looks at me. We get to the dance floor and I immediately know who's going to be the leader and who's going to be the follower. There should be hardly any surprises if she ends up twirling me around and catching me before I hit the ground. She pulls us together and her scent is the first thing I notice. I just know it's an expensive fragrance and it's making me want to nibble at her neck. Oh no. Now it's her neck I'm entranced by. It looks so smooth and delectable. She snaps me out of my high and starts moving our hands and feet in unison. We're dancing!
She guides our movements to the split second of the beat and I swear it's as though the entire room is now watching us. With every twist and turn we travel around the floor, our bodies repel and then they collide, but our eyes are unable to be torn apart. The song comes to an end and I dread the idea that I have to untie my fingers from hers, but just as my heart sinks at the loss of contact, a slower song plays and she drapes her hands warmly around my neck. And like the natural order of the world in which 1 precedes 2, my hands then instinctively move to the small of her back. How I've gotten to this point is all still a shock to me. As we slow dance, her lips part and she speaks again,
"Daniel Randolph Jonah Humphrey..." She says in a near whisper, "...that's an awfully long name don't you think?"
I chuckle before saying, "That's funny coming from Blair Cornelia Paige Waldorf."
She beams a naughty smile, "I'm kidding, I just wanted to see if you still remembered my name."
"Don't worry, I don't think I'll ever forget it."
"How can you be so sure?" Her eyes suddenly soften.
"If you could possibly see the way that I see you, you'd be sure too."
A smile that encompasses beauty forms across her face, "I wanna show you something." She says quickly and then grabs my hand.
She pulls me across the room towards the same corner we were at earlier and for a minute I can't help but laugh at how impulsive this complete stranger is but for some weird reason it feels oddly comforting. Her impulsiveness, not the fact that she's a stranger. We stop at the corner and she turns to me and grabs on my lapels. Our eyes dance for a second and I'm begging for her to kiss me. She doesn't. Instead she pushes her hand against the wall next to us and a small part of it opens up. This surely explains how she was able to disappear from the party without a trace and how she could sneak up on me by the rose vase earlier. She moves inside of the opening and pulls me in with her. If I thought I was in a movie before, this part of tonight's feeling way more cinematic than I could ever possibly imagine.
It's kind of dark as we step through the opening but the warmness of her hand and the eagerness in her stride makes it easy to trust her. We walk through the passageway until we reach a vintage wooden spiral staircase. She navigates me all the way up until we step right into a home library that's piled up with books. Letting go of my hand, she graces through the middle of the room as though she's taking the scenery in, but by the warm smile on her lips I know full well she's been here before.
"How did you even know about this place?" I let out a disbelieving laugh.
"It's my favorite room in the house." She replies.
For a second my mouth falls open and she laughs at the sight. I'm not too sure what to say to her. If this is her favorite room, then that means she lives in this gigantic mansion, which then means her parents are the ones who've hired me but instead I'm here, in their library, frolicking about with their daughter.
"I know you're a cater waiter..." She says it like it's taboo, "...and I also know you took that mask from the Captain but don't worry, I won't tell." A mischievous smirk falls on her face and I don't know whether to feel offended or relieved.
"So you're like all the other girls who've been staring at me tonight?" I shoot, more out of defensiveness than playfulness.
"Maybe, but unlike those other girls I'd say I've gotten my stares back." She winks and my heart pounds out my chest.
"Who's the Captain?" I then ask.
A hint of worry shows on her face but she says strongly, "As far as you're concerned Daniel Randolph Jonah Humphrey, the Captain is the guy whose mask you took."
"Correction..." I raise my index finger, "...the mask he gave me."
Her eyes roll, "Is correcting me going to be a common occurrence between us?"
"Will we be seeing more of each other after tonight for it to be a common occurrence?"
"If that's you assuring me that it will be, then I guess we won't be seeing more of each other, no." She chuckles.
"Is wit just another part of your tactics to charm me?"
"Another part of my tactics? And what other tactics might I have been using tonight, may I ask?"
I step a little closer to her, "Oh Blair Cornelia Paige Waldorf, please don't purposefully be obtuse..." I cup her check with my palm and four fingers and my thumb plays on her bottom lip, "...it's in the way you talk to me..." I gaze deeply into her eyes, "...it's in the way you look at me..." I bring my hand down to clasp it with hers, "...it's in the way you've intertwined our fingers whenever you've had the chance tonight."
She swallows hard and says, "You must be illiterate because you've read me all wrong!"
She unclasps our hands and pushes past me, but before she can move further than past my torso I grab her hand gently and pull her into me. I know I just pushed a pride a button of hers by pointing out those things. We're chest to chest now and her breaths are suddenly heavier than before. She's nervous and I can tell by the fact that she can't look me in my eyes anymore, but she doesn't move away. If I didn't just meet this girl I'd probably kiss her, I probably should kiss her, but there's something about her that makes me want to wait before I do.
"Then show me how to read you right." I say softly and the tension rises.
Her eyes stay downwards though and for a few seconds I feel like the biggest idiot for thinking that saying something romantic would be more romantic than a romantic kiss.
"Unfortunately, that's something I don't even know how to do myself, so I'm not sure I'll be of any assistance to you." She says and a hint of insecurity seeps through her broken voice.
In that moment I suddenly wonder who is the girl hiding behind this mask? Hiding behind these walls where she escapes from the ballroom parties? Hiding behind the faux confidence and the witty remarks? Knowing her name has now become far too little for me. There's gorgeous layers within these doe eyes and I want to unpack them as though I'm on a search for a beauty that's much deeper than meets the eye.
"Well if you can't show me, will you at least give me the chance to figure it out?" I basically plea to her.
She finally looks up and a small smile runs across her face, "Do I really have that much say in the matter or are you just asking to be polite?" She chuckles.
I laugh and say, "You can credit my parents for the good manners."
We laugh together for what feels like a blissful eternity and as the laughs die down again, our eyes dance for the umpteenth time tonight. This time she's the one with the intense look in her eyes. She brings her hand up to my cheek and strokes it for a hesitant second as though she's pondering over what to do next. My jaw clenches as I silently pray that she smashes her lips against mine. She then licks her lips and my breathing suddenly wavers because I feel it coming, but just as she moves her hand to the back of my neck to pull me towards her, the turn of a doorknob startles us both. I'm not sure how, but in a split second she points me toward the staircase and I blitz down it and run through the passage until I get to the secret opening. Within seconds I'm back at the ballroom party again.
My heart's still racing as I walk through the party but before I'm allowed the chance to gather myself, my friend from earlier that I took a champagne glass from catches eyes with me. These masks are honestly no help because she's now literally marching my way with the most pissed off face I've ever seen.
"Dan! Where the hell have you been? Jacob's been looking for you all night and I've had to serve drinks to your side of the venue as well." The girl screams.
"I'm sorry Vanessa. This guy ran out the party earlier and he gave me his mask so I thought what the hell? I am at a ballroom dance." I shrug my shoulders.
"You're so giving me your pay cut. And I'd love to see how you explain this to Jacob." Vanessa says.
"Don't worry about Jacob. The fact that his got 16 year olds serving champagne can cause him more trouble than he could ever threaten me with V. And yeah, the paycheck's all yours."
"I wasn't asking." She huffs.
"Anyway, I'm gonna head to the restroom quickly." I say and turn around before she protests.
Once I'm out of her sight I set my eyes upon looking for that certain lonely girl once again. But the party moves by in what seems like just mere minutes and when the clock hits midnight the hopes of seeing her again is suddenly trampled upon. I exit the mansion doors with a pit in my stomach. For the last parts of tonight I haven't seen her but what's more stressful is I'm not even sure who it was that came into the library while she was still in there. It could've been anyone really and I just left her there the same way I found her tonight - by herself. As I drive home the streetlights shine through my windscreen and it's reminding me of her shining eyes. As I step out the car I look above me and the stars are reminding me of her dress. A cold wind hits the back of my neck and suddenly I miss her warm hands that were draped around them for nearly half the night. I step into the loft and luckily my dad and sister are sleeping already. With the knowledge of only her name, Blair Cornelia Paige Waldorf, I go to bed that night and have the most restless sleep I've ever had. How a stranger has overrun all my thoughts is a question that I can't answer. But I swear, the look in her eyes tonight said: "We're not really strangers."