It was an uncomfortably hot Friday evening when Chuck's limo finally pulled up outside CeCe's Hamptons house to collect Blair. The sun still hung high in the sky and it shone down on the white, gravel path in front of the building, blinding anybody who dared to watch where their feet were going for too long. They'd visited the house every year since they'd been young children, and when Lily had called on Blair, Nate and Chuck to insist that, despite Serena's absence, this year be no different to the others, not one of them, even Chuck, had found the confidence to deny her. So, despite the pledges they'd made to finally break the decade-long chain of summers spent in each other's pockets, the three of them had dutifully packed their bags and headed out to the coast.
Not one day of the summer had felt remotely the same as those which had come before it. Lily was barely around, and on the few occasions she was, she'd been so heavily plied - by her own hand - with glass after glass of ice-cold rosé de Provence, that she'd hardly noticed they were even there at all. They floated around like lonely ghosts of summers past; it was the parent-free vacation of their childhood dreams, but not one of them had any desire to be there.
The biggest problem of all though was Nate. He seemed to drift through the days and nights with absent eyes, sometimes disappearing without a word to either one of them. It wasn't until she'd made several, frantic calls one night, that Blair discovered he'd been holing up at the empty property his parents had that year rejected in favour of the Italian riviera. It was an undeniable fact that Nate had been neglecting their relationship over the course of the entire year, but in the Hamptons his despondence had reached new heights.
'Where's my boyfriend?' With narrowed eyes, Blair scanned the dim space for Nate, dubious as she lingered by the limousine door.
'He's not with you?' Chuck returned disinterestedly, not looking up from the cell phone between his fingers.
'No. I thought he was with at dinner with you.' She protested, somewhat frustrated to have been so overtly placed second in order of importance to his phone.
Finally, Chuck looked up at her from his seat, doing little to disguise his irritation at the minor delay she was causing them. 'Sorry,' he began. 'Did you need a refresher on how to get into a car? Are you suddenly victim to some mysterious paralysis?'
She frowned, her arms folding over her chest. 'He promised me he'd come tonight. Where is he?'
'Didn't I just say I don't know?' Chuck snapped, then sighed and softened. 'He's probably at the club already. Just get in the car, please, you're letting in all the hot air.'
Blair scoffed but did as she was told. Sliding onto the smooth leather beside him, she slammed the door with a little more force than she might usually have applied. He looked over briefly to roll his eyes at her dramatics, but it wasn't long before his attentions once again returned to the chirping device he clung to.
'Dare I ask who you're texting so ceaselessly? Perhaps the box-dyed blonde from the beach this morning- or is it the mysterious older woman whose identity you won't unveil?'
'Been keeping record, have we?' His mouth twisted into the devilish smirk that had not oft left his features since the tender age of three. 'But no, you know I prefer brunettes.'
Blair couldn't help but snort at the wink that accompanied his sentence. 'In your perverted dreams.' She retorted, reaching for the glass of scotch he'd already drunk half of.
He didn't stop her, but instead watched on, quietly amused as she endeavoured to look carefree while choking back the fiery liquid. It had no right to look quite so much like the colour of rich, sweet honey.
'How do you know about those?' He asked after she swallowed the painful mouthful, prising the glass back from her fingers. She was happy to give it up.
'Salaciousness doesn't suit you nearly as much as you think it does, Bass.' Blair spat, searching through the well-stocked bar for a champagne bottle and lone flute.
'Now you're the one dreaming.' He grinned, swatting her hunting hands away to pull a bottle out from the back of the cabinet. 'So, which lame social-climber are we out celebrating tonight?' He asked, coaxing the cork from the bottle neck.
'Her name is Margot, and she's not lame. Her father works in admissions at Yale.' She informed him, plucking the now fizzing glass of champagne from his fingers without a word of thanks.
Chuck tutted loudly. 'So I'm being dragged to this thing so you can flirt with a college admissions tutor?'
'It's simple networking, you could stand to learn a thing or two.' Blair huffed. 'You're going to have function in decent society someday.'
He shuddered. 'I'd rather my last night in the Hamptons be spent in indecent company, if it's all the same to you.'
'God, haven't you had your fill yet?' She scowled, recalling the countless girls she'd watched sneak out of CeCe's front door early in the morning, as he shook his head slowly. 'You'll get your chance, just behave yourself for a few hours.' Blair ordered.
For the rest of their journey, Blair stared out the window, unwilling to look at him. She checked her phone countless times for some word from Nate, but none came. With his string of absences piling up like a shaky tower of odd-sized books that threatened to topple over at any given moment, it was growing more and more difficult to fabricate excuses for him.
'This is a bit short for schmoozing fusty, old college alumni, isn't it?' Chuck broke through her stream of thought, tugging absent-mindedly at the hem of her white, pleated tennis dress. 'No offence, but you're not exactly going to breeze through the application process on your sweet personality alone, wouldn't something a little studious be more appropriate?'
Blair smacked his hand away. 'Like I'd take fashion advice from you.' She grumbled, watching eyebrows raise as he wordlessly challenged her lie. 'Alright, fine. Maybe I would, but you're wrong on this one.'
'You could have worn socks at least.' He continued, reaching back to pull on her skirt once more.
Blair rolled her eyes. 'In case you somehow hadn't felt the sweltering heat, we're the height of summer. I could probably show up in my swimwear and no one would even notice.'
'Oh, I've noticed your swimwear.' She watched his tongue dart out to wet his lips. 'The lilac two-piece suits you particularly well.'
'What are you talking about?' She glowered, ignoring the shameful giddiness that licked up in her stomach.
'The cut accentuates your figure.' He leered, leaning so close to her that she could feel his breath tickling her bare, freckled shoulder.
'Would you shut up?' Blair had meant for it to sound like an order, but it came out more like a plea.
'Never.' Chuck grinned, poking her forearm softly. She ignored him, looking pointedly back out of the window. 'Someone's got to tell you.' He murmured.
She knew he was goading her, waiting for her to blow up and bite his head off, insisting that her boyfriend had told her plenty of times how good she looked, thank you very much. But she wouldn't do it, not least because they both knew very well that Nate's compliments had never once gone beyond a non-committal nice swimsuit, Blair or a Hey, didn't Serena have one like that last year?
'Tell me what?' She exhaled, upending the glass she'd been, until this point, sipping at slowly through their ride.
'God.' Chuck groaned, half laughing as he slumped further back against the seat.
'What?' She snapped, shooting him a glare.
'He really never says it, does he?' Chuck marvelled. 'All this,' he paused gesturing towards her, 'and he doesn't even acknowledge it.'
She knew she ought to have denied his claims, not played dumb, but there was some part of Blair that was too far gone. She'd been starved of meaningful compliments for years; she needed desperately to hear the words from somebody's lips, even if they weren't the ones she really wanted them from.
'And what is it exactly?'
Chuck grimaced. 'While I find it deeply personally taxing to even imagine feeling a shred of envy for the monotony of resigning myself to one person, there's not one guy at St. Jude's who wouldn't line up for a taste of you.' His eyes were wicked, glittering.
'Not even one?' She pushed.
His eyes drank in her figure again, overt and languorous from head to toe. 'No.'
'Well, too bad none of them can have me.' Blair announced haughtily.
Chuck studied her for a moment; irked by her baiting, he frowned. 'Too bad the only one who can doesn't seem to care then, isn't it?'
Stung, Blair lifted a hand across her chest and held her shoulder; comforting herself since there was no one else to do it. 'Nate cares.'
'Oh really? Where is he then?' Chuck asked scornfully.
Blair narrowed her eyes at him. 'Like you said yourself, he's probably already at the club.'
'Right.' He sneered, his tongue clicking against the roof of his mouth.
Nate wasn't at the club, he wasn't at the bar, on the tennis courts or anywhere else at all in fact, and Chuck, skulking behind her like a miserable shadow, hadn't attempted to once make any useful introductions for himself. Instead, he sipped despondently on a non-alcoholic negroni, one she'd watched him trickle gin from a hip flask into mere seconds after it had left the cautious bartender's hands.
Margot's father didn't show in the end, and neither did Nate. So, disappointed beyond all measure, Blair decided to follow suit, siphoning dribbles of gin from Chuck's flask, ignoring his begrudging complaints, until she found herself alone and hardly able to stand up straight anymore.
Chuck had long since vanished, and she was propped up against the bar, her back to the rest of the room, when a hand snaked around her waist. For one, hopeful moment, she wondered if it could have been Nate.
'Don't think I've seen you here before.' Spoke the unfamiliar voice, gruff against her ear.
Shuddering, Blair tensed in the stranger's tight grip. She shifted quickly to regard him beside her; he was young, a townie with sun-bleached hair and broad muscles, not entirely dissimilar in appearance to Nate after all.
'Mmm,' Blair hummed. 'And It's unlikely that you ever will again.'
'Don't be like that, I just want to talk to you. You looked lonely over here on your own.' His words, sickly sweet in their delivery, made Blair's gin-laden stomach churn.
Whatever it was that tugged at the corners of his mouth could not have been described as a genuine smile- Blair grimaced at his bared teeth.
'My own company is highly preferable, thanks.' She hissed, angling her neck as far away from him as possible.
The unnamed intruder chuckled. 'Let me buy you a drink at least, you're empty.' He motioned to her long since drained martini glass with the hand that wasn't busy pawing at her side.
'I'm perfectly capable of buying my own drinks.' Blair insisted.
'Come on, what's the harm in one drink?' He pressed, unabashed.
Blair's brows knit together in disbelief, and she marvelled over his self-assured approach. Her hand itched to clap across his cheek.
'Would you mind removing your hand from my girlfriend's waist?'
Relief washed over Blair and she sighed happily, until the sound of the voice that had provided her escape finally registered; for the second time that night, Blair realised, she'd celebrated the right words from the wrong mouth.
The unwelcome arm slithered away from her, and Blair turned to find Chuck lounging casually against the wall behind them. His usual cool aloofness remained intact as ever, but there was an undeniable challenge in the way his eyes were trained so hotly on the imposition beside her.
'Your girlfriend?' He taunted, but neither one of them missed the minute step he took away from Blair. 'But you're Chuck Bass.'
Chuck shrugged, his eyes flickering to Blair for a moment before they returned to her company. She almost scoffed aloud when she realised the look he now wore was one of proud amusement.
'Well, I'm delighted that my reputation does indeed precede me. But is there some point to your statement, or was it just a display of sycophancy?' Chuck drawled.
The presumptuous stranger snickered but then held his palms up in defeat. 'I've heard things, guess I just didn't see you as the girlfriend type, that's all.'
'All it takes is the right person, isn't that so, Blair?' Chuck shot her another glance, his smirk flattening somewhat.
Later, when the hazy swirl of alcohol that clouded her brain had lifted, she'd analyse the strange flash of sadness that had crossed his features when he said it, she'd analyse it to its bare bones. But in that moment, Blair's mind wasn't quite fit to consider much beyond getting out of the tennis club as quickly as possible.
'Yes.' She piped up, hurriedly grasping her opportunity to move towards the strange and sudden safety of Chuck Bass. 'It's true,' She admitted with a grin almost as smug as his had been. 'I was the one who could convince him to change his ways all along.'
Chuck's arm rose to wind around her shoulder possessively. 'The car is waiting, baby, we should be going.'
She didn't have time to properly acknowledge the strange fluttering that seemed to spring to life in her abdomen. He was steering her swiftly towards the exit without another word or look back at the fair-haired letch whose sights had been so intently set on her.
It wasn't until they made it outside that he loosened his grasp on her. With the late-evening sun still beating down harshly, Blair's head started to spin again.
'You're wasted.' He surmised, watching her slump against the wall and slide down onto the ground.
'It was your gin.' She protested feebly, guiding her legs towards her chest.
'So it's somehow my fault that you got drunk and attracted a self-tanning loser?'
Blair ignored his bitter swipe.
Chuck sighed and dropped down beside her. 'Here,' he grumbled, shedding his jacket and draping it over her legs. 'You'll give the whole club a show like that. Then they'll never accept your and Nate's perfect kids for tennis lessons in the future.'
Blair scowled at him but adjusted the fine linen blazer until it covered her lap fully. 'My kids won't spend their summers locked away at a tennis club.'
He offered her a twisted smile.
'Thanks for this.' She said weakly, lifting and dropping an arm of his jacket.
'No problem, you know there's nothing I love to do with my evenings more than play Mr and Mrs with my best friend's girlfriend.' She could tell he'd wanted it to sound snide, but Chuck's words were tinged by a soft sadness.
Blair toyed with the phone in her hand, sliding the screen up and down, over and over. She let out a dark laugh. 'He still hasn't texted.'
'I'm sure he's sorry.' Chuck offered absently.
'No, he's not. He's been checked out all summer- all year actually. He knew this mattered to me and he didn't even bother to text.'
Chuck sighed, his head resting against the wall.
'You were a better fake boyfriend to me in those two minutes than my real boyfriend has been this entire trip.' Blair laughed again- it was an even darker sound this time.
He elbowed her gently. 'Don't say things like that.'
'Why not? It's true.' She murmured, dejected.
'You'd insult my reputation like that?' He joked.
'That's almost the worst thing about it.' She looked up at him. His dark, almond eyes, fringed by thick lashes, were curious, but she couldn't bare to go on. Blair sighed. 'Can we go?'
He didn't say another word and instead rose from his position. Reaching out for her arms, he hoisted her up from the ground and guided her towards his limo. Chuck opened the door and she climbed in, waiting for him to close them in.
'Sorry for ruining your last night here.' Blair whispered in the safety of darkness, curled against the leather of the seats once again.
'Don't worry about it.' He returned.
I think this Hamptons moment is going to be a two-parter, but I just haven't written the second part yet :')
Sorry for the delay in updates as well (honestly I think there are like two people actively waiting/checking, but to those I am sorry), it's been a bit of a busy month!
Love to you always, I'm excited for the reboot to start next month!
P.S. If, like me, you aren't receiving story alerts etc., maybe check that your email notification opt in (in settings) hasn't reverted to 'no.' I changed mine back to yes today, didn't even know this was a thing!
