Chapter 3
Looking around the table, Blair couldn't believe that everybody was buying into this Ethan guy's pretentious crap. As much as she loved Serena, the blonde really did have some awful taste in men, except for Nate of course. Finally her eyes made contact with Dan Humphrey, the worst of all of Serena's boyfriends as far as she was concerned, and she noticed that he too seemed to be less than impressed by Ethan's latest short film. He was sitting next to Blair (much to her chagrin), and you'd think that he would have noticed Blair's calculating gaze on him but he seemed to be rather distracted by looking at anything or anyone but her. His eyes were darting all over the Van der Woodsen's apartment and he visibly gulped when Blair made the slightest shuffle in her seat to make herself more comfortable.
Blair smirked and wondered if this perhaps had to do with the fact that he had a very easily accessible view of her legs, which were in her opinion one of her greatest assets; all he had to do was look down and slightly to his left. Deciding to test this theory, Blair asked some inane question of Ethan, automatically drawing the table's (and more importantly Dan's) attention to herself and then she oh-so-casually crossed her right leg over her left, causing the dress to slip up her thigh and expose even more of her skin to the defenceless Humphrey and an amused Eric who was sitting on her other side and seemed to have figured out exactly what Blair was doing. That was when she felt it; the intensity of his gaze on her legs caused a heat to rush through her, creating a soft flush on her cheeks. Almost against her will, she once again looked at Dan and this time his eyes made contact with hers. She forgot to breath under his scorching stare, the want she saw in his darkened eyes made her instinctively lick her lips, which only drew his attention there. And in an instant she had a flashback of their first kiss: the strength of his arms as they encircled her, the warmth of his body pressed firmly against hers, the heat of his breath and, surrounded by slight stubble, the softness of his lips as they moved against hers.
"Chuck!" cried out Serena, unwittingly throwing a figurative bucket of ice-cold water over her best friend and ex-boyfriend. Blair instantly jumped out of her chair, pulled down her dress and drew in a big breath of air. Trying to put as much space between her and Dan Humphrey as possible, she ran over to her boyfriend.
"Hi!" she gasped out in relief and kissed him full on the mouth, very much aware of Dan Humphrey's eyes on her.
"Hi," replied Chuck, once her lips withdrew from his, confusion apparent in his eyes. Disentangling himself from his girlfriend he walked over to Serena and gave her a hug, "welcome home," he said warmly.
"Dan! Set out another place for Chuck," ordered Serena, with a smile on her face as Chuck shot a glance in Blair's direction at the mention of the returned Humphrey, "Chuck, you have to come meet my boyfriend, Ethan, you'll love him!"
"As much as I would love to meet you latest… beau, Serena," Chuck murmured, "I actually have a last-minute meeting to attend in about ten minutes; I just came by to say welcome home."
Disappointment graced Serena's features as Rufus offered, "You sure you can't just postpone this one, Chuck? I've made my world famous Chilli!"
"I'm afraid not Rufus," he answered, his lip curling slightly at the mention of 'Chilli'. Turning towards the rest of the family sitting at the dining table he continued, "Charlie, Eric it's always a pleasure. Ethan, maybe next time if you're around long enough." And finally his eyes landed on Dan, "Humphrey." He muttered, a look of disdain appearing on his features.
"Bass." Replied Dan in a mocking imitation of Chuck's patented whisper, silently laughing at Chuck's obvious attempt at intimidation.
Rolling her eyes, her words full of exasperation Blair said, "Come on Chuck, I'll walk you to the elevator, I need to talk to you."
Raising his eyebrows at her almost ominous words, Chuck, indicating with his arms towards the elevator doors replied, "after you."
But it seemed that they would not have much time to talk at all because as soon as Blair pressed the button for the elevator, the doors slid open and Chuck stepped in. Blair immediately pressed her hands up against the doors, thereby preventing them from closing in her face, "What could be so important that you had to schedule it during your family dinner, Chuck?" came her whispered demand, not wanting the Humphrey-Van der Woodsens to hear their exchange.
"Blair," said Chuck in what Blair thought was an irritatingly condescending tone, "How many times do I have to tell you? If I'm going to rebuild the Bass legacy as my own I'm going to have to – "
"Work long hours." She interrupted, "I know, Chuck, but they're your family and they gave you plenty of warning for this dinner! Not to mention we haven't had any alone time in what feels like weeks!"
"I don't have time for this; what's this really about?" demanded Chuck, who was becoming more impatient by the second.
"What are you – "
"That's an interesting choice of attire for a family dinner, Blair." He said scathingly, looking her up and down and reaching forward to finger the hemline, "Did you wear that for my benefit… or his?" he asked, nodding his head toward the dining room.
"What are you – … Who are you – … I don't know what you're – " Blair was almost too angry for words, "I wear what I wear because I like it! I wore this for myself, Chuck! My God, I couldn't possibly have worn if for you because I haven't seen you properly in weeks!"
"I don't have time to go over this argument again, Blair. I'm already running late. I'll come by the penthouse tonight and you can yell at me then."
"Don't bother!" replied Blair, sticking her chin out defiantly, "We can talk about this tomorrow; I'll yell at you on my own time." And with that she let go of her hold on the elevator doors and let them slide shut on the annoyed face of her boyfriend.
Blair took this moment of privacy to calm herself before she returned to the family dinner. Her relationship with Chuck had been what Blair would call 'strained' at best these past couple of months. After she had ditched Louis, realised that Dan had ditched her (not that this had any effect on Blair whatsoever), and then learned that Chuck had ditched Bass Industries in order to protect her honor, Blair had returned to him. Big romantic gestures of these kind were what epic romances were made of; and who was she to deny her destiny with Chuck any longer? ChuckandBlair, BlairandChuck.
The first month had been great. Not exactly as she had remembered but, as she often reminded herself, a lot had changed since then and this was to be expected until they got back into the swing of things. And then the second month had happened and Chuck had decided, with Blair's full support of course, that he would rebuild his legacy, from the ground up if he had to. And so he had thrown himself into his work, and Blair suddenly finding herself alone in the city and without entertainment applied for a job as an assistant to Epperley. But even with work to keep her occupied during the day, Blair was not distracted from the many nights she had alone. And she hated that suddenly she had become so reliant on Chuck for entertainment; she missed Serena and… well, she missed Serena. So she convinced herself that this was only the first stage of Chuck rebuilding his legacy; surely if she just waited, eventually he would be able to pay her more attention once his business started to develop. But now it was the end of the third month of their relationship (if you could call it that) and she was frustrated, and he was frustrated; they were just one big frustrated mess who spent their brief pockets of time together fighting.
Sighing, Blair plastered the best attempt she had at a smile on her face and returned to her seat at the dining table where the conversation had once again returned to Ethan's short film. This time, Blair didn't even make an effort at pretending to listen to whatever spiel was coming out of Ethan's mouth, instead she focused on her breathing and tried to finish her meal. Her hands were shaking from restrained anger and Dan, noticing this, leaned toward Blair and whispered, "Are you Ok?"
"We are not friends Humphrey, so I really don't see how my wellbeing effects you!" Blair hissed back, carefully looking around to see if anybody had noticed their private exchange; they hadn't.
"Blair," Dan all but groaned, "I thought we were past this!"
"We were," she quipped back lightly before her expression darkened, "Until you saw fit to just runaway to God knows where, leaving me by myself in the city (and don't act like you didn't know Serena had left too), without even a word or message goodbye. I had to hear it from Charlie can you imagine the humiliation!" Dan opened his mouth to interrupt her but she quickly held her hand up to prevent him from doing so and said for the second time that evening, "Don't bother."
"But I – " he attempted helplessly, only now just realising the full extent of the damage he had done to his and Blair's already precarious friendship by leaving without a word.
"I've already had one friend disappear off the map without saying goodbye," and here her eyes darted automatically over to Serena, who was smiling up at her new boyfriend, "and I forgave her because she was my best friend. You don't even rate Humphrey; consider whatever went on between us as my own failed attempt at charity." And with that she rose suddenly, the scraping of her chair interrupting the rest of the table's conversation. Choosing to ignore the hurt expression on Dan's face she announced, "Thank you for dinner, Rufus. It was lovely to see you all again but I really must be going now; Epperley is having dinner with her in-laws tonight, which means I have to head home now and mentally prepare myself for what will be a very hung over boss tomorrow."
"Oh, B! You sure you can't just stay a little longer? Ethan was going to show us some of his films!" cried out Serena, her eyes begging her friend to stay and support this new relationship.
Blair merely smiled at this, thanking her lucky Manolos that she had decided to leave before she was bored to death, "I'm sorry S but as much as I would just love to watch one of Ethan's uh… films I really must get my beauty sleep." And then out of nowhere, a small scheme formed in her mind giving her a slight thrill. Instantly masking her features with a look of pure innocence (which, incidentally caused alarm bells to go off in Dan's head), she said in a sickly-sweet fashion, "Humphrey here however, was just telling me how much he really wanted to watch them tonight; and I mean all of them." Her eyes dancing with laughter, she smiled down at Dan evilly who was gaping at her in shock, "See?" she cried out with unrestrained enthusiasm, looking around at the rest of the table, "He's lost for words he's so excited! Ethan! Make sure he gets to watch them all, I know Humphrey would feel as if he had sorely missed out if he didn't get to see even just one of them!" Suppressing an evil cackle, because that was just not becoming of a lady in public, she instead allowed herself a small victory smirk as she strolled casually out of the apartment.
…
Later that evening Blair was curled up in her bed, watching Breakfast at Tiffany's and munching on a pistachio macaroon. It was nearing midnight but she wasn't feeling the least bit tired and she had lied to Serena earlier when she said she had to work tomorrow; it was in fact her day off, which meant that she would have plenty of time to "catch up on her beauty sleep". Paul had just picked up the engraved ring from Tiffany's when she heard a soft knock at her door. With what was admittedly an un-ladylike huff, Blair clambered out of bed and tossed on her silk bathrobe. Opening the door to her room she expected to be faced with an apologetic Chuck since Serena had decided to spend the night at Ethan's hotel room but she was surprised instead to be faced with an apologetic Humphrey.
"What are you doing here?" she asked, trying to force some venom into her voice.
"I come bearing gifts!" Dan replied warily, waving a copy of An Affair to Remember and a tub of Il Labatorio's salted caramel gelato with two spoons under her nose, "And also a heartfelt apology. You were right Blair; me leaving without even a word goodbye was unforgivably rude, I shouldn't have taken our friendship for granted but you have to understand that I really just needed to – "
"Stop!" cried out Blair trying hard not to smile, "Humphrey, you're babbling."
"Right. Sorry." He muttered, laughing nervously. "Look," he said, indicating towards the gelato, "the ice cream's melting. Can I come in? I was thinking we could make up for lost time with a Classic Hollywood movie marathon or something…"
"Humphrey," Blair sighed, not wanting to give in too easily, "it's nearly midnight and – "
"Well, I would have been here earlier," he interrupted, "but someone decided that I would just love to see all of Ethan's short-films. Do you know how many he had?"
"How many?" asked Blair, smirking slightly now.
"Well, I'm actually not too sure on the exact number but it did take two and a half hours, Blair. Surely that's punishment enough?" Dan pleaded, his eyes searching her face for any signs of mercy.
"Not nearly enough! You know me better than that by now, Cabbage Patch." She chided.
"Cabbage Patch? You haven't called me that in a while," he murmured, his eyes hopeful now.
"I thought it was about due for a come-back," she retorted, raising her eyebrows in silent challenge.
"Waldorf" he whined, "the ice cream is starting to make my hand go numb, please forgive me? I'll watch as many Audrey Hepburn movies as it takes!"
"As if that is such a sacrifice," she scoffed and then finally she allowed herself to look into those pleading puppy-dog eyes (no wonder he reminded Darota of a Labrador) and when she thought about it she really could do with an extra friend, sighing she could already feel her resolve weakening.
"Please?" he wheedled.
"Oh! Fine!" she cried, "come on in then but don't think that next time I will forgive so easily," and she stepped aside to let him in her bedroom, trying to hide a smile when she saw how his face lit up with a wide grin in response to her words.
Flopping himself on her bed and tossing her a spoon, he ripped off the lid of the melting gelato, "So," he said, "what are we watching first?"
A/N: Wow, this chapter turned out to be much longer than I expected. I was considering posting half of it at a time, but then I figured I hate it when other authors do that to me! Thank you again for all the lovely reviews; they truly keep my motivated to keep writing! I really hope you enjoyed this chapter; if there's anything you think I missed, or should have added, just know that constructive criticism is very welcome! Here's hoping that tonight's episode 'Pretty in Pink' doesn't disappoint! Please review! IBH x