Thank you everyone, yet again, for the wonderful reviews! I must warn you all, there is alot of Nate and alot of love for Nate in this chapter both coming from Chuck and Blair. Discussion of the past and what-not. Why Blair doesn't know Chuck, why Nate hasn't visited Blair and all.
Also, school is back and I need to focus more on my studies. Ew, I sound like a nerd but I flunked Biology and Statistics. Oops. And we have this National Achievement test thing that I can't fail unless I don't want to move on to Junior year. I'll be hitting books. (Both literally and figuratively.) So, I apologize for any late and/or craptastic chapters.
He stares out his hotel room with a glass of scotch in his grasp as he slowly runs his fingers along the rim. Keeps his gaze focused on every brunette that passes by on the street below him, thinks of his girl from the past night and the possibilty of any of them being her. Her ruby lips and porcelain skin won't leave his mind, how he had touched her and how she had touched him. She had said perhaps, perhaps meaning it might possibly happen. Perhaps meaning he's going to make it happen.
"Still brooding I see, didn't I leave you like this a year ago?" A voice behind him asks, he can hear the smile in the other boy's voice. He turns around, finds sandy blonde hair and bright blue eyes infront of him. He looks down to hide the obvious grin his mouth has formed.
"Nathaniel." he greets his best friend, Nate pulls him in for a tight hug. He has missed the blonde boy with his sunshine and easy smile, it reminds him that it's been so long since they last saw each other.
It was in Paris, a few years back, when Bart had stowed him away from his city (his kingdom) due to the death of his mother, when his father wanted to forget and pretend as if she was never alive (And that Chuck was not his son). There, Chuck had learned to drink all his troubles away and indulge himself by being surrounded by French women. He had gained the knowledge of how money bought him happiness and helped him lose his troubles. It was during those years he had lost contact with anyone from New York until a summer ago.
When Nate had visited with his shimmering hair and carefree laugh, he had realized how much the blonde boy had changed. How much he, himself had changed. It was probably the way Nate rambled on about the soon to be liquor ban and sailing in the Hamptons that made him miss the New York breeze in the Fall and sometimes-snow in the winter or perhaps the mention of proposing to a girl made him fear that Nate was moving on and leaving him behind.
("I'm proposing to her, to Blair Waldorf." he muttered. "I'm giving her my mother's old ring. You're going to like her, Chuck. She's smart and pretty. Everybody thinks we're perfect." he said losing the color in his voice. He made it sound as if getting married were some kind of death sentence.)
Nonetheless, there was something about Nate that made him get off his arse and buy a ticket back to New York.
"I didn't expect you to visit so soon." Chuck rasps as they pull away from each other.
Nate shakes his head. "My father saw your arrival on the newspaper the other day. I would've visited earlier but my mother told me to let you rest first. She said surely you must still be tired." he tells Chuck with a laugh.
"I would prefer no other company but yours, Nathaniel." he assures with a sentimental grin. Chuck spoke the truth because it was the only way he ever spoke to Nate. He believed that only Nate deserved it, not the girls from the lowly prostitute houses or the snotty society people with their judging looks. No, it was Nate with his innocent ways that never made Chuck feel as if he were not a monster but somebody who deserved to know someone like Nate.
"As do I." he chuckles, taking a seat on an armchair. "Is that scotch?" he points to the glass in Chuck's hand.
"I got it from a speakeasy somewhere in the Lower West Side. I would've bought home some from Paris but Bart had my bags checked." he rolls his eyes. "The old bird claims that I will ruin his name in the city by bringing shameful things that will 'cause scandal."
Nate laughs at this. "Is scandal not your middle name?"
"Indeed." he smirks, looks at Nate for a second and remembers the last summer yet again. He shakes the glass in his hand. "What has happened since we last met?"
He ponders for a moment and then looks at Chuck. "Ah, nothing much I must say... It seems as if your arrival is the most news I've heard."
"What about that girl of yours? The one you had given your mother's ring?" he asks, pouring Nate a glass of scotch and hands it to him. "Are supposed to be tied down by now? The Waldorf girl, was she?"
"Oh yes, I've proposed but have you not heard? Mr. Waldorf ran away to Paris with all their money. I am quite surprised your father has not run into Harold." Nate says, his tone was dead and expression blank. "My parents have been rethinking the engagement and they haven't permitted me to see her." he shrugs.
"Do you want to see her?" Chuck counters, raising his eyebrow skeptically.
"Well, she is my fiancée." he says it af he wants to tell it to himself.
"Nathaniel, if I didn't know you better I would say you didn't want to marry this girl."
Nate finishes his glass in one gulp and coughs. "I do, I really do. I've known her since we were kids and she's really the only choice and she's really something, I must tell you that."
Chuck shakes his head in dismay. The problem with Nate was that he had his head in the clouds, stuck in some fantasy that his life were to be perfect if he simply followed what everyone else told him to do and followed he did. The boy barely made any descisions for himself.
"What about the Penelope girl?" he faintly recalls the girl who had her hands all over Nathaniel during the family dinners together. "She's a choice."
"She left town a few years ago. I do not know why, the paper said it was because she was devastated when Blair and I had started dating." He makes it sound as if it were nothing to him. "Chuck, I'm engaged to Blair. I love her."
"In that case, I know nothing of love." he lets the subject go and shifts onto another. "I am investing on a burlesque house a few blocks away from the Palace. It's called the Victrola." he smirks.
"I've never heard of it, shall you take me tonight?"
Chuck claps his hands. Oh, how he loves Nate who doesn't judge or care. "I do believe you just read my mind."
"What's it like? Cabarets, the night life?" Nate questions. Chuck wants to laugh at how Nate is so innocent, how easy it would for him to make Nate see the way he had lived in Paris. The dim lights, exotic music. A little touch, a little feel. How it would be so easy to corrupt Nate's innocence. He smirks and pours himself another glass of scotch.
"It's stunning. The girls, the music." It's an understatement but Chuck Bass is not usually a man of words. "There was a girl last night."
"Ah, I see." Nate nods. "A girl, you say? I have yet to hear you talk about any kind of girl. Is it love?" Surely, Nate was worldly enough to see any kind of mention of a girl meant love.
He starts to laugh. "Ofcourse it is not, I just did not get her. There has never been a girl I could not get." Chuck smirks because he's Chuck Bass and he can get anyone. He's got the money, the looks and the words. His name practically yells out the word classy. "I will get her."
"Another Chuck Bass conquest, I do recall the one last time. I believe we were so young then." Nate muses. "We both remember how well that ended."
"Ah, but we were naive. We simply did not understand yet." he frowns, recalling the first girl he had followed around like a lost puppy. He feels ashamed to remember how he gave the girl flowers and cards everyday. How she giggled, tossed her hair back only to leave him hanging. When they kissed for the first time, Chuck realized she was not worth his time and left her. He remembers the name for a minute, thinks of her as a lost memory. Her chocolate colored locks in the sunlight, her tiny fingers entwined with his. He will never forget her as much as he will ever try. Georgina Sparks.
"My parents were probably already planning my engagement then, seeing as Blair had made me dress up as her groom for when I visited." Nate says breezily as he played with something on his sweater. "She gave me this sweater, you know? I found this pin the other day. Her heart on my sleeve."
"A romantic gesture, I take it?" Chuck pauses for moment. "She sounds terribly domesticated, it's as if she were already your wife."
"Ah, you are wrong there. She is in love, I suppose. She used to tell me everyday."
He shakes his head again and frowns. "I will never understand love, Nathaniel."
"And that is why you will never marry and have children." He lets out a loud laugh. Surely, Nate did you understand who he was talking to. He was Chuck Bass who did not believe in committment. He was investing on a strip club for God's sake.
"I'd be damned before any smaller Basses run around this city." he throws his head back, tapping the glass of the window slowly. "You should know me well enough."
"How could I not." he tells Chuck with a small smile.
"Indeed, how could you not." he pats Nate's shoulder affectionately because he saves the smiles, keeps the sugar-coated words and lies in his mouth and opens his heart to Nate and only Nate. "Now, shall I send Arthur to pick you up tonight at nine?"
"Make it ten, I will be visiting Blair tonight."
"Ah, breaking the rules? That is very unlike you. I see the thought of romance has seeped into your mind as well." Chuck puts his finger towards Nate's face, slowly tilting it to the side and back.
"I have decided upon it just now. Blair is different and I should be very lucky to have her accept my proposal." he shrugs as if the idea were nothing to him, as if it were a mere object he was stuck with and he decided was fine with him. He gets up, straightens his suit. "I should go now."
"I shall see you tonight then." Chuck nods. "Do not forget."
"I won't." Nate smiles.
The sound of knocking has her racing to the front door, earning her a loud Ladies don't run, Blair! from Eleanor upstairs. She tugs at her sundress and blows out a huff. They've never gotten visitors since their dirty laundry had been aired out infront the whole city. She tries to catch her breath before she pulls the door open but when she does she's caught off guard.
She's met with blue eyes hidden under a mop of bronze hair under the sunlight. The same eyes that have gazed into to hers a few months ago with the same sunny expression, how he held her in his arms and kissed her lips slowly. How he was the only person she ever believed, how he made everything worth it. Words are stuck in her throat, there is no air in her lungs. Blue collides with brown. She can't think straight. She resists the urge to kiss him hello like many times before.
"Nate." she breathes out the word. It feels too foreign on her lips. It's not the same as before. "Wha-you're here."
"I-yes. I am." he nods slowly as if he couldn't believe it himself. "Can I...can I come in?" he asks.
"Yes. Ofcourse." she says unsurely and she reminds herself that she's supposed to hate him. How he didn't even dare visit as soon as the filthy paper ruined their lives, how he only chose now to come over. She's not supposed to want to kiss him or feel like everything is going to get better just because he was there again. He walks past her, the scent of his cologne lingering in the air as she closes the door slowly. "I should get you something to drink." she mutters.
He takes a long sweeping look around the mess her father has left them. Their living room is empty without some of the chairs and paintings that used to fill it with color. "No, it's fine. I had stopped by a friend's house." he waves his hand and takes a seat on the love seat. He pats it as if to tell her to sit next to him.
She's unsure for a moment but hesitantly takes the empty spot. "What are you-why are you here?"
"I thought we needed to discuss what has happened in the past months." Her heart beats quickly, all the cliches fill her mind. She balls her hands into fists.
"I-what is there to discuss." It's not a question.
He ignores it and takes her hand in his, and looks down at it. "You're not wearing my ring." It's not a question either. Blair pulls her hand away and shakes her head.
"That's what happens when your fiancé doesn't show up for months." she snaps at him. She doesn't mean to do it but she does. The look on his face changes, it's not anymore the sunny smile he always wears. "I-i'm sorry."
"No, no. It's fine. I was hoping we could talk about what happened.. I-I should be sorry." he stammers, making her raise her eyebrow at him questioningly. "And I am. I am. I'm sorry. I-I had to think straight, I didn't know what to do, okay? I panicked. I'm sorry."
She shakes her head at him, he pulls her hand again and squeezes it. "I don't know, Nate. " she mumbles. "You-"
"I'm really sorry, Blair." his eyes are pleading, the walls break down and the Blair Waldorf facade falls off. She can't hide under a masquerade mask this time, she can't pretend not to feel anything for Nate. "I found this pin on my sweater the other day. You should take it back."
"I put it there so...you'd always have my heart on your sleeve." it comes out as a whisper. She had forgotten about it until now. "You should... You should keep it. I gave it to you." The way she feels about him, it hasn't changed. He'll always have her heart, she can't change that.
"I can't imagine you not wanting it back after all I have done."
"It does not change the way I feel about you, Nate." The way I will always feel about you.
"I'm sorry." he pulls her in and she gets pulled in until their lips meet for a second. (Two, three, four, five...) She can't stay mad at him because he's Nate and she's Blair. He's her prince charming. The way her name sound perfect with his. Mrs. Blair Archibald. "I love you." he whispers. Words are stuck in her throat, it's been months since she heard those words.
"Me too." she says. "Always have, always will." she breathes out, Nate kisses her again or she kisses him. She's not really sure, it's all too fast.
"A wedding in July with all our friends. You'll be in your white dress, the one your mother wore. That's what you wanted, right?"
"Yes, a wedding in July." she agrees, her mind spinning. She's not sure if it's Nate heavy musk or the way her lips are still tingling. "That's only a few month from now."
"Yes, it is but is that not what you want?" he repeats the question and she does not know how to answer it.
"It is, it is. I just cannot believe it." she smiles unsurely, not knowing how to react at Nate's sudden enthusiasm. He had never been this happy before. "I-I really love you." her lips are on his again, her fingerr wrap around his tie and pulls him in closer. She needs to feel him again and remember what there had been before. White dresses flowing in the summer breeze, his hands on her waist.
She has to remind herself that he left her. Alone.
Her eyes are closed when she hears Eleanor's voice from the other room. "Blair? Who was at the door?" she calls out, Nate pulls away and wipes his lips with the back of his older woman appears by the doorway, hands on her heart. Blair rolls her eyes. "Nathaniel. You should've called me, Blair, darling."
"I did not think he would stay long, mother."
"Yes, I shall go now, I only wanted to talk to Blair about our wedding." It's the way he says our wedding that makes her feel like giggling. Eleanor's face falls.
"The wedding? What about the wedding?" she asks with a forlorn expression as she fingers her pearl necklace nervously.
"It's in July. I told Blair that I am to call Penelope or Hazel." Nate explains, her mother lets out a sigh of relief.
"How are your parents?" Eleanor asks.
He nods slowly and Blair wants the scene to end already. "They are fine. I shall get going they must be looking for me already." he tells them, placing a kiss on Blair's cheek slowly. He nods to Eleanor and walks out.
And Blair's just scared that he might not return again.