Disclaimer: I do not own GG or the NJBC.

A/N: Here's chapter 2! This one is more focused on S/N, but the next will have bunches of Chair, don't worry! Please review!

Matchmaker, Matchmaker

FIND ME A FIND

"Would you happen to know why Blair Waldorf just gave me, Vanessa, and Jenny plane tickets to Fiji?! She claimed that she just 'had extras lying around' and that she wanted to be a 'charitable person.' Well, listen. Dan Humphrey does not take charity, nor does he need it. I am not some poor homeless person and I am not community service to pad her job applications!"

"Slow down, Dan! I just woke up," Serena mumbled into her cell phone. "Maybe she's trying to be nice. Why can't you accept that Blair can be nice?"

"She's not being nice! It's not humanly possible for her to be nice! The psycho hates me! She's obviously got some sort of ulterior motive. You're friends with her. So tell me what's going on!"

"Can you calm down?" pleaded Serena, who was still not fully awake. "And does it really matter why she gave them to you? Can't you just accept them, go to Fiji, and leave the rest of the world to deal with her scheme? And no, that's not me admitting that she has some sort of scheme planned!"

"Please, Serena! I have principles. And that means that we are not taking these crazily expensive tickets and jetting off to Fiji until I know what is going on! Nothing adds up! She hates people from Brooklyn! She hates me! She hates Vanessa!"

"So maybe she just wants you to leave the country because she hates you so much," sighed Serena, stretching. "Listen, Dan, I've got to go, um, do something. Bye." She hung up and fell back onto her bed. Mmmm. . .the pillows were so soft. . .

Serena woke with a jolt as her phone buzzed itself off of the edge of the bed and crashed onto the floor. She sprang up and snatched the phone. The tiny clock said that it was past noon! She flipped it open and saw that she had a new voicemail message from Blair. It more or less commanded her to meet Chuck, Blair, and Nate for lunch at one o'clock at a new Italian restaurant nearby.

Serena sighed and managed to pull herself out of bed. She ran a brush through her hair a few times and yawned. She pulled on a pair of comfortable jeans, a tank top, and flip flops. She glanced in the mirror and pulled her hair back into a messy ponytail. There.

Just then, her phone chirped.

Dress nice, S. It's upscale, remember? xoxo B

Serena sighed, loosed her hair from the ponytail and kicked off the flip flops. Blair knew her well. She looked through her clothes until she found an appropriate dress. It was a little low cut, but it was passable, and Serena didn't want to spend any more time on her appearance than she had to. She was out the door in fifteen minutes.

It was beautiful outside, so she figured she could walk. She skipped down the sidewalk and was very surprised to run right into Nate.

"Hey!" she smiled, a little taken aback. "What are you doing here?"

Nate shrugged nonchalantly.

"I thought maybe we should head over together," he said, smiling despite himself.

"So I have a stalker?" asked Serena teasingly. He flushed and she laughed. "No, I'm just kidding! Of course I'd be happy to walk with you." He smiled hugely, making her a bit uncomfortable. Did Nate. . . like her?

They trudged down the sidewalk in silence. Suddenly, the low cut dress felt like a bad idea. Serena kept stealing glances at Nate in hopes that he would do something to betray his real feelings, but his face seemed almost abnormally blank of emotion. Nate stared straight ahead, his hands once again shoved in his pockets. He willed himself not to look at Serena, but couldn't help but see her out of the corner of his eye. He could've sworn that she kept looking at him. Was she trying to encourage him? He had no idea.

They arrived at the restaurant at two minutes past one. Serena smiled and made a half-hearted joke about how angry Blair would be that they were late. Nate laughed, perhaps a little too loudly. Serena started to panic. It seemed like he really did like her!

The maître d' approached and calmly asked if they had reservations. Serena smiled charmingly.

"Yes, but I'm not sure under what. We're meeting our friends. It could be under Waldorf, Bass, van der Woodsen, or Archibald." The maître d' perused the list.

"Aha! Here, under van der Woodsen," she said, looking at them rather oddly. "If you would follow Alicia?"

A young woman holding leather-bound menus appeared and led them across the restaurant to a tiny booth.

"Excuse me," said Serena, confused. "There's got to be some mistake. We have a party of four, and this looks like a table for two."

"A party of four? Excuse me, let me go check," Alicia apologized, heading back to the front desk. Serena and Nate stood there awkwardly until she returned. "No, the van der Woodsen reservation is for a party of two. Do you need me to switch tables?"

"Blair!" Serena exclaimed under her breath. "No, we'll be fine, thank you." The woman nodded and headed back to welcome the next group.

"Wait, I don't get what's going on," said Nate, looking befuddled. "Where are Chuck and Blair?"

Serena sighed and climbed into the booth.

"They weren't really planning on having lunch with us. It was just a ploy to get us here together! That's why the reservations were only for two."

"Oh," said Nate, sitting down next to her.

Each stared off into the distance, purposefully avoiding the other's gaze. The waitress hadn't even taken their order yet, and the situation was already beyond awkward. Serena twiddled her thumbs, then wondered if people did that anymore. Twiddle was a weird word. It made her think of Tweedledum and Tweedledee, which in turn made her think of tweezers. Thinking of tweezers, she suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to see if Nate plucked his eyebrows. She looked at him straight in the face. It was very hard to tell.

Nate turned to steal a glance at Serena and felt kind of embarrassed to see her staring at him. It was very disconcerting. She looked like she was thinking very hard about something. Sadly, the look on her face did not seem to say 'Nate is so handsome!' or 'I've liked him for forever!' It was definitely more of a 'Nate has a huge pimple on his forehead and doesn't realize it' look.

Both breathed a huge sigh of relief when Serena's phone chirped. She grabbed the phone and flipped it open.

"It's a text from Blair," she explained. Nate nodded understandingly.

"Talk about what you have in common," Serena read aloud. "Okay, that's not weird at all!"

"Okay, here's one: we're both being stalked by Chuck and Blair," offered Nate.

"What do you mean?" asked Serena, looking at him oddly.

"Well, how else would Blair know how awkward things were if she wasn't watching us?"

"ESP?" Serena giggled.

"I bet that they're in this restaurant right now, watching us!" Nate concluded.

Serena smiled at Nate. For once, something he said totally made sense! She glanced around the room.

"Let's see if we can figure out which ones are them!"

"Well, that couple is wearing berets and sunglasses. . ." started Nate.

"Chuck and Blair's favorite outfit for espionage!" Serena finished.

"And that couple is making out passionately," he pointed.

"One of Chuck and Blair's favorite activities," she nodded.

"And that blonde girl's hair looks like a wig."

"Yeah, and the beard on the guy next to her looks totally fake!"

They laughed. And Chuck had said playing 'Where's Waldorf?' wasn't fun!

"You know what, I have an idea!" exclaimed Serena. "Do you remember how we tried to figure out who Gossip Girl was?"

"By texting her?" Nate nodded. "I see where you're going with this!" He grabbed his phone and sent a short text message. "So what do we do after Gossip Girl gets the text I sent her?"

Serena's mouth dropped but she quickly shut it. She felt bad for Nate, but, honestly, how confused can you get?

"Um, Serena, that was a joke," said Nate. "Ha ha, remember those?"

"Oh yeah, of course," she smiled, feeling stupid.

"No, you totally thought I was serious!" he laughed. "Come on, Serena. I'm not that clueless! Give me a little credit here! You're blonde, too. Doesn't it annoy you when people act like you're stupid all the time?"

Serena beamed like a little girl and nodded enthusiastically.

"All the time! This one time—wait, wow, we are stupid. We forgot to watch the people and see who got the text!"

Nate opened his mouth to reply but was cut off by the waitress who had finally decided to take their order.

"Hi, my name's Shelby and I'll be taking care of you today. Are you two ready to order?" Nate looked at Serena and smiled, his blue eyes gleaming merrily. Investigating could wait until after lunch, right? After all, they were both starving.

It turned out that having lunch with Nate wasn't half bad. Once they had overcome the initial awkwardness, they never seemed to run out of things to talk about. Plus, the food was delicious!

Serena had just finished the last bite of her pasta primavera when her phone went off again. It was yet another message from Blair.

S—meet me in the ladies room. NOW!!! xoxo B

Uh oh.

you know you love me
xoxo

A/N: A haiku:

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