Blair stood looking from the side of the stage as Dan put his heart on the stage with his songs. His lyrics were a somber look at love and the loss of it and she, in that moment, felt a deeper connection with the meaning than ever before. Chuck, predictably, had sent a stream of nasty messages to her phone (well, for the time being, her computer) about how she was a liar about their anniversary and how dare she make a fool out of him. Buried in his tirade was also the new fact that he was coming to get a bag and heading to Paris for a week for a possible expansion of Bass hotels, which she knew was code for a week long vacation with his mistress.
Despite the failing of the marriage and the crumbling pieces around her, she was still enraged by the fact that he openly dangled the affair in front of her. It was like he was daring her to say anything, daring her to ask to be out of it. She wasn't sure if he would fight for her, he liked his reputation as a family (at least marriage) man, but she also wasn't sure if she wanted him to. And as she stood at the side of the stage, she was becoming less and less sure that she could deal with the kind of heartbreak that divorce gave her. It was the lyrics, the breaking of the soul through the music, that convinced her that regardless, she would stay married. She didn't deal with loss well.
She started to clap for Dan as he said to the crowd that it was their last song for the evening and their last song in Brooklyn for at least the time being. She could hear the fans boo at the news and she felt a bit proud to be there as his personal guest.
"So, I need to tell a quick story before I get into the last song. Arguably the happiest song we have as a band. Usually we play it at the beginning of the show, but we wanted to switch it up for you tonight." Dan looked at the side of the stage when he had said you and Blair felt her heart flutter before he turned away and she felt like the little boy on the drums in Love Actually. "Usually we play the show as the relationship that I sing about went, from happy to this all consuming loss. I think things are looking up for me, for us, lately that I wanted to have that optimistic song about love come last. I love you Brooklyn, you know. I love being home. This song was originally a poem that I scribbled down not to far from here when I started a relationship with this girl. I usually say all my stories, all my songs, are a combination of relationships and experiences I've had but… that's not the truth. I lied today and I lie most of the time when I say that. It's embarrassing, you know, basing all these albums on a relationship that failed but I carry it with me because it was the one… and I'm sure anyone who's ever been in love and had their hearts pulled out of their bodies by another's hand has felt this. The relationship you look back on and say what if, and that's what it's like for me. But hopefully, you know, hopefully just because it happened once and ended doesn't mean it can't happen again and stick. Even in the most unlikely circumstances… like me, sitting up here, telling someone in the audience that all of this, all of what I sing and write… all of it is for them. So let's end this on a high, Brooklyn. Let's sing about falling in love and not worrying about the breaking the heart part. Let's be optimists for the last 3 minutes and thirty seconds of the set, even though we know the ending. Let's just forget it and fall in love."
Blair scanned the crowd for Serena or maybe even Vanessa and saw no familiar face in the sea of the audience that was swaying along. It hit her like she would expect what it would feel like to have a brick hit her… hard and fast and she felt sick. "No," she whispered to herself as she turned to leave. She wasn't going to be humiliated by Humphrey in Brooklyn.
When she got outside, Blair felt her breath catch as the cold air hit her. She pulled her coat tight to her body and started to look for a cab. How dare he. How utterly maddening to sit there and listen to that, that rant, that lie. Blair raised her hand and tried to find the familiar yellow cars that were so prominent in the middle of Manhattan. Giving up, and not really wanting to sit in the dirty taxi, she dialed a car on her phone, which happened to be working semi-fine for the time being, and propped herself on the brick wall of the venue.
"Who do you think the girl is?" she hear some tween squeal as she walked by her, arm in arm with her friend."
"I don't know, but she is so lucky. Could you imagine having a song about you, let along albums? Maybe they're getting back together!"
Blair wanted to shout at them or kick them or something, but she remained stubbornly silent. She heard the door from which she came out of open and shut.
"Blair," she heard Dan say her name and she looked away. "Blair," he said again and she bit down, hard, on her lip. "Come on, Blair."
"What the fuck was that, Dan? Did you bring me here to humiliate me?"
Dan looked hurt or maybe he was still drunk from before, "What are you talking about? Humiliate you?"
"That, inside, was humiliating."
"For me? Yeah."
"No, you asshole, for me. To have to listen to that. To know that I made you feel all that shitty shit and broken hearted and fuck. That was awful. Do you think thats flattering? Do you think I want to know that all your sob stories that you write about were inspired by me? That I ripped your heart out of your body with my blackened hand and my black heart and," while Blair was shouting into the black of the night, she hadn't noticed Dan step closer to her and suddenly his hands were around her waist and his lips were pressing against hers and she felt herself kissing him back. Madly, passionately, desperately.
Dan pushed her against the wall of the venue and Blair felt the bricks digging into her skin despite her heavy winter coat. Blair wrapped her arms around his neck, her fingers digging into his curls as she pulled him closer to her.
"Get a room," a male voice called and Dan pulled away giving the finger to his drummer. "No, seriously, either get a room or board the bus. Davin wants to drive now so he can have a normal night sleep so we need to go."
Dan sighed, untangling himself from Blair's limbs as she tried to collect herself. "I'll be there in five."
"That's fine. I have to go collect Marvin from the Milf he took to the green room."
Dan rolled his eyes and waved Greg away. "I need to go," he said, his voice low and husky as his fingers brushed the side of Blair's face.
"Yeah, I heard," she said, trying to slow down her breathing and sound calm at the same time. "This, this shouldn't have happened anyways."
Dan nodded, "Yeah, but it did. And at least now I have new material to write about."
Blair laughed and hit him lightly on the shoulder. "Your soul crushing stuff is better than your happy things so maybe you should leave this out."
Dan smiled, the kind of smile that reached your eyes, and leaned in to breath in the smell of her. Lavender and clean laundry, that's what she smelt like and it smelt like home. Or at least it smelt like what he wanted home to be. "About your rant… I'm sorry if you took it like that. Really, you stomping on my heart gave me so much material."
She bit her lip and looked away, "I don't think I stomped on it."
"You chased Chuck across the world and then married him."
"Yeah, well, look at how far that got me."
"Maybe you should write about it. We could tour together," he said, putting both his hands on the sides of her face. "I don't really want this to be a one off, Blair."
Blair shrugged, "I think it has to be, Humphrey. I'm married," she said, holding up her hand and wiggling her ring finger.
"Unhappily."
"And that's life," she said, pushing him gently away from her. "Look, you should go and I should get home."
"That's it?" he asked, his arms wide to the side of him and he looked at the sky. "That's it?"
"What do you want from me, Humphrey? To leave Chuck for this life on the road? We can get drunk every night and commiserate on our shared misery."
"Well, when you put it that way," Dan threw his hands to his side and shook his head. "This is something, Blair. You can feel it, I know you can."
"No, what I can feel is that I'm mad at my husband and this is the wrong way to get back at him. We need to grow up, Dan. All of us. This, this is a step back."
"Or a step forward."
"For you. For new song material."
"No, Blair. That's not it. I love you."
"No, Dan," she snapped back. "You loved me. You love the idea of me. You love twenty year old me. You don't even know me anymore. This day isn't us knowing each other, it's us being stupid."
"You won't even let yourself give it a chance."
Blair saw the black car pull up to the curb and started to walk towards it. "No, I won't, because I'm not a stupid twenty year old anymore. I'm married, Dan, and whatever that was," she pointed to the wall, "was me regressing, not progressing. I need to go, my car is here. And you need to go to Boston."
"Blair," he called out again, his face crest fallen.
"What?" she said, turning around as the wind whipped her hair back and forth.
"Thanks for the inspiration," Dan said, pretending to tip his hat to her.
Blair frowned as she climbed into the backseat of the car, "Bye, Humphrey."