Disclaimer: I don't own Gossip Girl.
Thanks as always for reading, and the generous feedback I've received. I apologize for the lengthier-than-usual period between chapters – that one-shot wouldn't get out of my head until I wrote it down, and then work was a killer. Isn't it awful when (un-fun) real-life obligations demand you away from your fictional land of Carter? On the up side, I spent my tax return gloriously on key summer wardrobe updates! Always enjoyable. However, Topshop in Soho? Sh*t is bananas. Seriously. Avoid. Go all the way to the UK if need be. Anyway! On with it. I'm out of my angstspace and sending our favorites on vacation. Hope you like! -- Sarah
Entanglement, and Vodka.
Blair suffers a momentary attack of fashion panic, followed by another kind of panic, when the end of April arrives with unseasonably warm weather and she realizes she has absolutely no idea what to pack or how to behave for the weekend on Nantucket with Carter and his parents.
The trip has been so long-anticipated, it seems, and escalated from a - somewhat terrifying-sounding, she thinks, honestly - sailing excursion to a three-day affair with something of an itinerary and mentions of his grandparents being in town as well.
Carter had been almost sheepish, with a flicker of nerves in his downcast eyes when he'd recalled the earlier-abandoned subject a couple of weeks back, and she'd felt that familiar tugging inside her chest and involuntarily reached out to brush his hair back off of his forehead before telling him that, of course, she'd still love to go.
His smile had lit up the room but he'd been too quick to assure her that he'd make it clear she was just accompanying him as his friend, and the tugging in her chest had become somewhat unpleasant. She'd frozen her smile in place, though, because he'd said it for her and she knew it.
She realizes now, as she stares hopelessly into her closet, that she's been holding the ball in her court all along because he's been letting her and she's still not quite sure how to tell him she wants him to steal it from her.
XOXO
Her slightly hazy memories of her last time on the island (for Figawi four years prior with the Archibalds) recall far too many cobblestones and an alternate universe sense of overwhelming wealth packaged neatly in understatement with plentiful accents in insane colors, so she replaces Louis with Longchamp, and Louboutin with Lanvin, and rounds out her packing with pearls and polos.
She's tugging at her hair and considering flatironing when Carter appears in the mirror behind her with an amused little smile.
"You," he announces with a look up and down as he leans against the doorframe and casually folds his arms across his chest. "Are going to freeze."
She glances down at her tailored black shorts and sapphire silk blouse. "I need a hat, don't I? Nantucket is a hat place!"
He laughs and crosses the room to kiss her hello. "No, you're perfect."
She smiles up at him with her arms around his neck. "Yeah? Well you're …" she pauses, taking him in for a moment. "Really … preppy. What? You're putting Nate to shame here!"
He laughs again as she toys with his nautical flag-patterned belt. "What, did you think you were the only one who can dress the part?" he demands. "And, also, I think we've established that anything Archibald can do, I can do much, much better."
She raises her eyes, wide and playful, back to his, her fingers still playing along his belt, and nods. "Oh, I think we've definitely established that," she agrees before asking him how long they have before the jet is scheduled for take off and placing her palms flat against his chest to push him gently toward her bed.
XOXO
Carter's mother instantly clasps Blair's hands in her own and kisses both of her cheeks when they meet the Baizens at the runway.
Emily Baizen has her son's bright eyes and as Blair inhales her wake of Chanel No. 19 she catches sight of the modest-sized brilliant cut diamond studs in the woman's ears and recalls, years ago, Eleanor conspiratorally informing her that they'd been the first gift Mr. Baizen had ever given her and she'd worn them every day since.
"I can't tell you how happy we are to have you with us," the woman tells her now as Blair prays that the tell-tale wrinkles that resulted from her little pre-flight activity have fallen out of her blouse. "And that you've been spending so much time with Carter."
"Mom," Carter protests, rolling his eyes alongside his father, and his mother turns to him to place a hand on his cheek while keeping the other on Blair's arm.
"What, darling? Can I help it if I enjoy having something – someone - keep you around for more than 48 hours at a time?"
With that she turns and guides them all breezily toward the jet while asking after Eleanor and Cyrus, though not before Blair catches the hint of blush that creeps across Carter's cheeks.
XOXO
"I thought Hyannis was on Cape Cod?" Blair asks, confused, as the jet begins descent a little more than an hour later, and raises her eyebrows at Carter as his parents look at the two of them with a mixture of sympathy and indulgence.
"It is," Carter confirms. "This is a detour. You and I aren't taking the jet to Nantucket."
"We're not?" Blair replies dubiously, and before she knows what's happened they're in a cab pulling up to the Ocean Street docks.
"We are not taking the ferry," she blurts, disgusted, as she stares at the large white ship before her.
"Of course we are," Carter tells her calmly. "Because I'm willing to bet you never have, and you haven't really done Nantucket unless you've arrived by boat."
"So let's take a boat," Blair agrees. "How about that one?" she indicates a sleek, triple-masted schooner with tags from Bar Harbor in a slip farther down the docks. "Or at least the catamaran? Carter!"
He's shaking his head and laughing as he hauls her gently by the elbow up the gangway.
XOXO
The ferry isn't so bad, Blair decides as she's sipping a Sapphire martini 30 minutes later and Carter is pointing out the various homes that make up the Kennedy Compound with one hand while his other arm rests securely around her waist.
He'd let her sweat for all of five minutes as she tore in horror around three decks of hard wooden benches, cold open air and the distinctly wretched snack bar scents of hot dogs, stale popcorn and draft beer, before informing her that there was in fact a First Class Lounge, for which they did have tickets, at the bow of the ship.
Since then, though, it had been perfectly lovely, with the plush seating and top shelf bar and his arm around her.
She relaxes a bit more against his chest, turning her face from the window and into him to let her eyelashes graze his collarbone, and wonders briefly as something flutters inside of her why she'd ever thought this could just be a distraction.
Another part of her, smaller but no more easily pushed aside, nags in a less pleasant way as she wonders just how far she might have set whatever this is back by making that mistake in the first place, though.
XOXO
She stirs and wakes an hour later, blinking blearily and unfolding her legs from where she'd tucked them up onto the couch just before the rolling waves had lulled her to sleep. Her eyes dart around, searching, and an elderly woman with a white shi tzu in a Vera Bradley carrier smiles kindly at her and tells her that her boyfriend is waiting for her just outside on the deck.
She doesn't issue a correction, just a smile of gratitude, and Carter instantly offers her his hand as she steps out onto the bow, where she immediately shrieks at the cold sea air.
"I did tell you you were going to freeze," he points out with a knowing grin, but he's already put his own fleece jacket over her shoulders and pulled her tightly against the warmth of himself, turning her face gently in the direction of the harbor as the ferry approaches the island.
The day is brilliantly sunny and the water glistens impossibly, like diamonds, as Nantucket comes into view like a postcard, all widow's walks and grey shingles and white shutters, extravagant yachts occupying every slip at Straight Wharf and the downtown cobblestone streets packed with people.
It looks like a fairy tale and Blair lets herself have just a moment to bask as they make their way down the gangway minutes later.
XOXO
She gasps at the bright and plentiful daffodils springing from what appears to be every available window box, streetside garden, bicycle basket, woman's ponytail, and most anywhere else one might find a daffodil, and Carter smiles beside her.
"Yes," he nods with a glint in his eye. "Daffodils. About three million. I had them brought in for you."
She grins back with a raised eyebrow. "That so?" she replies, cocking her head in the direction of the banner over the chamber of commerce welcoming all to Nantucket's Annual Daffodil Weekend.
"Of course," he insists. "Ignore that. Thieves on the tourism board, taking all the credit …"
His eyes are soft and hers shining as she plucks one of the flowers from a planting barrel and tucks it into her wind-tossed curls, and he thinks these perfect moments where he can see the glow he can feel on his face reflected in hers are so foreign to him, and here he'd been so sure he was Carter Baizen and there was nothing left to be foreign to him at this point.
It's ironically the first time he can remember ever being scared of the unknown and so he rushes on with harmless cocky charm because he's never been one to fuck that up, at least.
"Just wait til you see what I've done about hydrangeas in this place," he tells her, smirking as he waits for his heart to calm down.
She's laughing again as he leads her down the street, and she thinks that so much laughing is new for her, and so welcome.
XOXO
He insists they make a stop at the Cisco Brewery before heading to his family's home in Madaket. She makes a fuss about good impressions and he silences her with a hand in the air.
"Please," he tells her. "They were smitten with Blair Waldorf long before you even had the good … or bad … sense to get yourself all entangled with me."
She smiles a little naughtily in response. "The elder Baizens are fans of … entanglement, then?"
He laughs, and replies honestly: "They're fans of me behaving myself, on continents they can keep track of."
He's briefly caught off guard when she catches his lips gently, almost carefully, with her own, kissing him softly without tongue and then again on his cheek.
"I think they're just fans of having you around," she tells him. "I can understand that."
He smiles down at her. "I think you're primarily a fan of entanglement, actually."
She squeals and slaps him playfully on his arm as his hand strays indecently beyond the small of her back.
XOXO
The Brewery is jam-packed with a combination of tourists unknowingly labeling themselves with their too-dark-to-be-aged Nantucket Reds and islanders in seersucker and Reefs despite the chill that never fails to mar springtime in New England.
Blair is instantly charmed by the quaint set up, with the small huts housing the brewery, winery and distillery forming an almost enclave around clusters of crowded outdoor picnic tables. She smiles at Carter and looks in the direction of the winery, but he shakes his head and takes her by the hand to lead her in the opposite direction.
"The distillery?" she asks doubtfully. "Vodka tasting? Really, Carter?"
He offers her one of her favorite smiles, the one that crosses recklessness with certainty, like he knows something she doesn't and it all might be a big joke but not in a way that can hurt her, at least not on his watch, and informs her that they don't have any gin here and the winery is the weakest of the three tastings.
She follows him, then, because she secretly is kind of convinced she just might follow him anywhere, but she makes a point to huff audibly and roll her eyes half-playfully, because, well, she's not sure she's supposed to let him know that yet.
Also because, whether or not the winery is the weakest, like hell she's doing a beer tasting, so vodka it will be.
XOXO
"No, I swear. Vodka martinis from now on!" she exclaims as Carter laughs.
They've made it through the Triple Eight standard 6-flavor vodka tasting – twice – and moved on to pointing at random to the more involved and specialized blends and Blair has decided, and announced more than once, that Tanqueray be damned and she is certain there must be some Russian in her somewhere.
"I. Love. Vodka." She declares seriously. "Oh! Ginger and mango!"
Carter nods to the bartender before grinning back at her. "How much do you think you're going to love vodka tomorrow, though?"
She glares at him with one eye, training the other on the half-filled shot glass before her, and sips at it delicately and smiles delightedly.
"I can hold my liquor and you know it, Baizen," she informs him. "Also, this one is soooo good." She offers the remainder to him and he takes it and puts it to the side.
"I want to try the pineapple-bacon one," he counters. "But I'll finish that one after."
She wrinkles her nose at this. "One, ew," she begins, snatching her shot glass back. "And two, no babysitting! I've got this one."
He laughs at her again, and raises his own shot glass to toast her. When they've finished he leans in close to her.
"I'd never try to babysit you," he informs her. "I know you can handle it. I just like looking out for you."
She softens at this admission, resting her forehead against his. "Well, you're pretty good at it," she tells him, but before his smile reaches his eyes she continues. "You could work on fighting for me, though."
He looks genuinely surprised, and straightens up, frowning. "Fighting for you?"
Somewhere in her vodka haze a voice is insisting she should be appalled that she'd just let that one slip, but a louder voice tells her that everything with Carter has been better generally-speaking, and even better than that when she let things happen without trying to control the variables, so she goes with it, waving a hand dismissively.
"Yes," she says. "I mean, no big deal or anything. But, you know. You did let me get away kind of easily there for a minute."
She's surprised when he laughs at this, and teasingly demands, "Oh, you think so?"
He's doing that thing, the one where he's looking like he knows something she doesn't, again, and so she gets apprehensive but raises her chin defiantly all the same. "Well. Yes."
"I disagree," he tells her quietly, leaning in toward her again, and she cocks an eyebrow. "I didn't fight with you for you, no. But I told you – I'd never try to make you do something … be with me … if it wasn't what you wanted …"
She doesn't realize she's holding her breath until he pauses and looks at her curiously, waiting, until she suddenly has to exhale in a rush.
"But I'm still here, aren't I?" he finishes once she's resumed breathing.
The weight of his words descends on her like a tidal wave, and as she finally understands that Carter's fight for Blair Waldorf didn't involve beating Chuck, or Nate, but just the very nature of someone greater - of Carter Baizen himself - she decides she absolutely needs more vodka and that she will try the pineapple-bacon blend.
He nods and turns to beckon the bartender, but she grabs his face between her hands and kisses him with an intensity that suggests she'll never be satisfied that she's holding him close enough until he has actually, physically melded with her.
When they finally come up, gasping for air, their shot glasses have been refilled and the bartender and their surrounding patrons are offering up appreciative nods and a few whistles.