Hello, beloved readers! Here's our next chapter. I'm hoping to publish another in a few days, so this one is cut a little shorter than I wanted for scene arrangement purposes, but hopefully still enjoyable =)
i.
Wednesday, January 16
Late evening
Serena seems mildly irritated that he's not drinking Scotch. Like he's drinking warm milk or something, and not whisky. He stifles an eye roll.
"I'll make yours with Scotch if you want," he offers.
She shrugs. "I'll have what you guys are having."
He reaches for a lemon, but she picks up his glass, which is heavy on the whisky and light on everything else. He's not sure whether she's deliberately stealing his or thinks it's for her.
"So." She drops into the love seat, barefoot, bright blue oversized sweater dress slipping up her knee. "What's the plan?"
Nate, on a break from juggling, smacks his lips. "Plan?"
"What are we doing?"
The boys look at each other and then back at her.
"For Blair," she says, mouth staying open after the syllable, Blair, dies on her lips, gaping at them like they're idiots. "The guy's still in town."
"We're not… doing anything." Chuck goes back to squeezing a fresh half-lemon.
Her shoulders fall, head tilting in exasperation. "Come on. You're trying to tell me you're not scheming something up here? What, you two are just hanging out?"
She takes a long, bored drink from her glass, regarding them with goading skepticism. Like the very idea is absurd.
"We're drinking," Chuck corrects. He knows from experience that Insolent Serena requires a lot of emphasizing various words to get one's point across.
"That's reason enough," Nate agrees, putting his half-full glass down and picking up the four lemons again.
She glares hotly, and then gets to her feet and snatches one of Nate's lemons mid-arc. "Well, I'm not going to sit idly by and do nothing," she insists, almost at a yell.
Oh, great.
"There's nothing we can do," Nate tells her. He's also very experienced with Serena's drunk insolence, although it's usually aimed at Blair when she wants Serena to stop drinking and call it a night.
"Speak for yourself. You're just being lazy." She passes the lemon back and forth between her two palms. Her eyes are hard and angry as they rove over Nate's face. And then, low, lethal, disgusted: "You don't even care about her."
Chuck's fist loosens, lemon bleeding into Serena's sour, as he looks up.
Nate catches all three remaining lemons in neat succession and stares at her, lips parted in affront. "At least," he bites after a long moment, "I went to see her today and took her flowers."
That your mother chose, Chuck thinks tiredly.
Serena freezes, fingertips just holding onto the lemon. She steps back like Nate back-handed her.
He watches, carefully. There's some thread that loops across all of this, tugging the pieces together at the back of his mind. The look on her face in the photos. Blair's quick, flat refusal to ask her to sleep over.
Her eyes fall. "She didn't want to see me," she mumbles.
He glances sideways, and Nate is frozen too, eyes sliding to his own.
What?
Nate steps forward. "Hey, I'm-"
She steps back again, jerkily.
He stops. "Serena. I didn't mean that. I'm sorry."
"She didn't want to see me," she repeats, looking up at him, her lips parted now like she's waiting for him to explain why.
"I'm sure she didn't mean…" he reaches for the hand that isn't holding the lemon.
"Don't touch me." With a flick, she tosses the lemon back at him.
Behind the bar, Chuck notes how she tensed when Nate approached her, like she's afraid of him somehow. Or his talk of Blair. Because surely she's not afraid of Nate.
The blonde tries again, hands full of lemons now: "She really liked the macaroons you recommended to Dan as a gift."
Chuck sighs, but silences it.
Serena shrugs and turns toward Chuck- no, toward the bar- and picks up Nate's drink.
"I'll make you another," he offers, a glance at the coffee table confirming she's drained the one she stole from him already.
"I want Nate's," she replies, turning away.
With an exchanged glance at Serena's familiar antics, Nate passes Chuck his own empty glass, and he makes a new sour to replace the first one she stole, sliding it to Nate.
Serena's back on the love seat, knees pressed together below the modest- for Serena- hemline, staring hard out the window and sipping her drink too fast. Chuck pushes a banana into her hands.
"Not hungry."
"Come on, sis," he chides, betting she won't refuse in front of Nate.
She rolls her eyes and takes it. Nate sits down across from her with his full glass; and Chuck, who has been making sours for the last ten minutes, starts on a third one, hopefully for himself this time. He's going to have to cut into Nate's juggling stash if this keeps up.
"I didn't mean that before," Nate says softly to Serena when she finishes the banana, inclining his head, trying to get her to meet his eyes. There's a fervency in his pursuit that's unique to interactions with her.
"It's fine." She looks at him and then down into her drink, not bothering to apologize for her slight. Insolent Serena never apologizes until the next morning, if ever; they all know that.
The tinkling of Chuck mixing his drink is the only sound that cuts the silence that settles, which is neither uncomfortable nor comfortable. They've all sat in his suite drinking any number of times before, although it's been a while; Nate with an obvious-to-anyone-who's-looking visual interest in Serena; Serena oblivious-yet-engaging, warm-yet-vacant in a way that only she can be; him behind the bar, mixing and stirring and garnishing.
But Blair's usually here, too: stem of a glass of red perched delicately between her third and fourth fingers; wrinkling her nose at the "gasoline" the boys are drinking. (Like she's ever encountered gasoline.)
He's leaning against the counter opposite the bar, gazing idly across the suite, central seating area and the bedroom beyond, the city shimmering cold violet and a million pin-prick lights through the oversized windows to his left, when Serena swirls the ice in her near-empty glass.
"You really don't have a plan?"
She's looking at him.
"Nothing?"
He takes a sip, finally, of his fresh sour. Regards her.
"This isn't as simple as Nate distracting the teacher while someone dead-drops the English essay you paid them to write for you," he replies with a searching look. "It isn't a matter of 'let's run up and down the streets and buy every newspaper we can find.'"
Nor is it a matter of simple public humiliation.
No- that's been achieved already. In spectacular fashion.
"It's dangerous," Nate chimes in, staring into his glass.
"It's not even that." He shrugs. Danger is not the issue. He'd approach the guy – kill him with his bare hands, actually – if he saw him on the street. "It's that we don't have a target or any kind of intel. The police are involved. Until they narrow the search field," … or, until Tyler does, if he could just pick up the damn pace… "it's a waste of bandwidth. There's nothing to go on yet."
Serena sets down her glass, blinking slowly. She sniffs. Nate looks up at her sharply, like he's worried she might be crying- but she isn't. He can see from here.
"There's a little something to go on," Serena replies, steady, head turned toward him, face flat.
"And that is?" He has to apply a bored lag across his syllables, because he feels an inexplicable, uncomfortable twisting in his stomach at her sudden calm.
She's quiet for several seconds. Nate sets down his glass and shifts forward on the sofa, poised at the edge of the cushion, elbows on knees, and knits his fingers together.
"We know he likes girls who are vulnerable, and alone." She crosses her legs toward the bar now, toward him, and the fingers of one hand absently trail through the ends of her hair. Across from her, Nate's blue-and-white-striped shoulders rise and fall as he takes a deep breath, hanging on every word, trying to puzzle out where she's going with this.
Chuck's ahead of him, as usual. He stares Serena down, folding his arms across his chest. He shakes his head back and forth, once, twice, with finality.
No, Serena.
Unmoved, she says quietly: "We could use me as bait."
Nate's hand shoots out at once. "Oh my God, absolutely not."
She glances down at where his hand hovers at her knee and then retracts. She doesn't look him in the eye.
She meets Chuck's gaze again. "I'd be alone. I'm vulnerable."
"No," he says, voice hard and low.
"We don't even know where he is – he's probably hiding out – or if he's in the city, or where he'd go…" Nate rambles, glancing back and forth between them.
"If he's in the city, he's obviously crazy enough to not understand repercussions," she points out, and when Nate begins to splutter indignantly, then- (probably "then why on earth…") she cuts him off: "I've thought about it. Mark Bar isn't a big destination spot. It suggests he has specific taste. He told Blair he lived a few blocks from there. There are a few dozen spots like it that would be worth trying. It's not great odds," Serena agrees, still not looking at Nate's earnest face. "But it's better than nothing." She picks up her glass and takes a sip, as if the logic is sound and the answer is obvious.
"But he obviously- likes… brunettes," Nate struggles, anger getting the better of him. They've all seen the photos of the girl in Boston now – well, Nate and Serena and the viewing public have just seen her face, smiling in scarf and trench coat the spring of the year she was killed; not the carved pelvic crest and the swollen joints and purple arches of teeth marks and flopped wrists. Just the dark, soft velvet of her hair and her long eyelashes. Nate swallows in an effort to contain his fury at the thought of Serena in harm's way. "You're too…" Special. Blonde. Overtly sexy- he imagines Nate trying to choose a word to adequately describe Serena- "You're not his type. Even if it wasn't crazy. It wouldn't help."
Serena exhales, angry, through both nostrils. "If we do nothing, it definitely won't help."
"No," Chuck says again, not moving from his spot against the counter.
She turns, finally, to Nate. "Can you bear the thought of this guy being free? Getting away?" she appeals to his sympathetic, tipsy blue eyes. "What he did to Blair? What if he does it to someone else?"
His hand hovers again, and this time palms her knee. She twitches but doesn't flinch away. "Not you," he murmurs.
The two of them look like lovers whispering sweet nothings, Chuck thinks idly. If one didn't know the subject matter of their conversation, it would be easy to assume they were about to start kissing.
"You'd be right close by," Serena points out, her tone warming with comfort- a tactic that wouldn't work on Chuck, and she knows it. "I wouldn't really be alone. Just act like I was. But you'd be there the whole time."
And she sets down her drink and lays her fingers on top of Nate's hand on her knee, other hand toying with the ends of her hair again. Nate's eyes flicker down at the contact between their hands- how long's it been since they touched? Chuck wonders- and then follow her other hand as it twirls the golden waves.
"You'd protect me," she says softly to Nate.
Nate the Hero.
"It's dangerous," Nate says again, but weaker. This time it sounds more like a plea.
"Not if you were watching out for me," she insists, just above a whisper, her knuckles tenting as she gives the hand on her bare knee a squeeze.
He watches this blatant manipulation of Nate with well-concealed admiration and, frankly, surprise. Serena has always provided the transparent yin to Blair's clever, subtle, complex yang. But then again, it should come as no shock that a lifetime at the side of a schemer on the level of Blair has taught Serena a few tricks along the way, not to mention how to spot those that are ripe for maneuvering.
"No," he says a third time, louder. "Out of the question."
"It would be safe," Serena says, but it's more to Nate, on whose face her determined expression is now fixed. "You'd be there for me. We could have a chance at stopping this guy."
This is the Serena he knew he saw last night at Divine. Serena who doesn't care enough to feed herself; Serena whose recklessness, whose carelessness, extends- at last- to herself. End-of-the-Cycle Serena; Trapped-Under-Rock-Bottom Serena; he's never hit quite on the right name for this phase, because he's only seen it a few times.
This Serena curls in a ball and shivers when it's not cold and she's not having a rough comedown from something. Her heart races when she's sitting still and hasn't touched cocaine in days. She picks at the skin around her fingernails until she has hangnails, and then peels them backward until they bleed.
And she lies. And she uses people.
And she knows how to turn it on, but the signs are there – not transparent but translucent; one just has to know where to look. And he knows this, and Blair knows this, and even Nate should damn well know this.
But he can see the slow shift of Nate's throat as he swallows.
He rolls his eyes heavenward for a moment. "Enough. We're not having this conversation."
"What if one of us was right next to her," Nate turns toward him, hand still firmly on Serena's knee, "and the other was by the door?"
Barely perceptible, Serena nods, eyes still locked on Nate's face. Her gaze is cool.
Oh, Jesus.
His eyes tick between the two of them. "What would Humphrey say about this?" His tone drips condescension and entendre. They all know what Humphrey would say, and no amount of hand squeezing would change his mind.
It works. Nate withdraws his hand. Serena shoots Chuck a withering look.
"He's right," the blonde mumbles, picking up his glass. "It's not safe, Serena."
As Nate looks away, Chuck lifts his glass, other arm still crossed across his chest, slightly, in toast toward her. Her face has gone flat again, and she drains her- Nate's- drink. Gets up to approach the bar, still glaring at him, and pours herself straight whisky.
"Easy, Van der Woodsen," he says low behind her.
She turns around, fury in her eyes, surprisingly sharp despite how drunk she is. "Fuck you," she seethes under her breath.
"Let's get rid of Nate first," he levels back, his tone just as poisonous- and instantly regrets it. He doesn't know how to deal with this Serena. She's exhausting and he has no patience for it. They need Blair- which, really, is the problem at the root of all this: they don't quite work without her.
She doesn't bother concealing her sneer. "You're so disgusting."
The irony of her inebriated anger at him while she's sipping his whisky out of his glass in his suite – because he won't let her attempt to throw herself in the way of a rapist – roils in his stomach.
She clenches her jaws, mouth tight, and lowers her eyes to her drink, a technique he knows well:
Look down when you deliver the nastiest thing you're about to say. You don't need to see the other person's expression to know what it is.
Just say it like it's nothing to you.
"I'd think you'd want to help, when this is all your fault."
Leaning back against the counter, half-full sour in one hand, arms crossed lazily, he's the picture of nonchalance. The light in the kitchen is dim enough that he's sure she can't see the way the color drains from his face.
He waits.
"If you hadn't sent that tip," she continues, eyes blurring now, "then none of this would have ever happened…"
Nate has been watching their exchange, probably sees Serena wiping at her cheekbones, the motion of her hand coming up in front of her face obvious even as she keeps her back to him. But he can't hear the undertoned barbs they're exchanging. "Are you guys fighting?" he pipes up suddenly.
Serena turns. He's suddenly aware that hot splotches are burning high on his cheekbones. Not embarrassment or guilt because he sent in the tip, either. The way Serena looked down before she said the nastiest thing she could say to him…
Looking down at his Scotch, feeling wide, wet eyes on him. Heart thudding, fingers clenched around the glass, knuckles white- the knuckles facing away from her. So she can't see how he has to anchor himself to something, the way she digs her nails into her palm when emotion threatens to surface at an inconvenient time.
A deceptively light breath through his nose.
"Rode hard and put away wet."
"No," Serena tells Nate. "Just getting another drink. Want one?"
ii.
A staple of Manhattan pre-war architecture, the Classic Six apartment is a time-honored tradition. Consisting of a formal dining room, full living room, complete kitchen, master and second bedrooms, small maid's quarters off the kitchen, and two bathrooms, the Six is how one announces to the world that one has arrived.
Many original Sixes have, over the years, been renovated to keep up with the times. They've been gutted and turned into modern, airy open-floor-plan studios, finished top-to-bottom in three coats of matte Farrow & Ball in French Cream, with gallery walls of well-lit original Manets and Picassos. The maid's quarters have been turned into storage, or walls knocked down to shift the kitchen further down to make room for an appropriately-located guest bedroom. One does not hide one's guests away behind the kitchen, after all.
For the larger and better-endowed family of wealthy Manhattanites, there is of course the Classic Seven, with one additional full-sized bedroom; and for those planning on an especially large brood of children in Italian wool peacoats and private school blazers, the Classic Eight.
However, when one is a Waldorf, one has a fully appointed penthouse. It is two levels, with original hardwood floors and handmade carpet in its four bedrooms, and Grecian tile in its three and a half baths, two of which have full soaking tubs in addition to their showers. Its ceilings are high, tall windows and sweeping curtains – velvet in winter, chiffon in summer – and wood-burning fireplaces in four of the rooms. There's a full kitchen, off of which its maid's quarters are intact and fully utilized. There is also a grand dining room, formal parlor and an additional sitting room, for when one's list of fascinating and well-pedigreed friends cannot be contained to just two full-sized rooms. It has a small study, tucked away at the end of the second-floor hallway past the four upstairs bedrooms, with built-in bookshelves that date back as far as it's been in the family.
It is the ideal place for an Upper East Side princess to grow up into a beautiful, flawless and accomplished queen.
Its piece de resistance, from an architectural perspective, is its original structural staircase, fit for guests of honor to make their grand entrances at lavish parties – after readying themselves in one of the spare bedrooms upstairs, naturally. Fit for sweeping down in ballgowns, flowing silk day dresses, tasteful sheaths and stilettos and oversized sunglasses.
Fit for a girl, perhaps a princess- though it's hard to tell as she pads quickly, barefoot, down the staircase, apprehensive in the dark, slotting her feet deliberately against spots of light that come in through the parlor windows as though keeping her feet illuminated will stop a hand from reaching out to grab at her ankle and force her to her knees- bunching her hand around- not a taffeta gown, nor a lace calling dress, but a loose turtleneck sweater- to descend in the middle of the night.
Not with an air of superiority, or sophistication, or even the grace she normally carries- if this is, in fact, the same girl, slipping as she does down the stairs, leaning on the bannister for support with every step.
Trembling chin, stomach full of acid. She feels a hand reaching out after her, just missing her shoulder or her hair every time; she's narrowly evading capture, her heart tells her, and she needs to hurry.
And her fingers are furious as they squeeze and twist at her knitted cotton, because princesses aren't supposed to be afraid of the dark. But more important than that is her need to get away, just in case the heel of a wingtip is about to crack down on her foot, or kick her at the knee and suddenly she'll be flat on her chest again- and she doesn't have her phone this time- and she can hear him hissing, and it sounds like he's just behind her- whore- WHORE-
She breaks into a run, gasping at the sting of her rib- she's not even supposed to be walking- and throws herself at the first door on the left in the corridor past the kitchen- hears an exclamation, too quick to be half-conscious, and pushes it open.
Dorota takes one look at her, reading lamp next to her bed casting golden light on the book that's asleep beside her, and beckons her in without a word.
Blair shuts the door behind her, jaw quivering and tears spilling over, and turns to lock it behind her.
She spins, and even as the pink cotton at her chest darkens with overflowing tears, she blinks at Dorota. "I came because," she manages, voice impressively royal, "I don't want smoked salmon with my eggs tomorrow. I want a crab omelet."
Dorota nods dutifully, hair loose above her nightgown, also pink.
"Yes, Miss Blair."
Blair stands, still, stepping away from the door like it's going to wrench open behind her and she'll be dragged out, flipped onto her back, and-
She clasps her face in both hands, splinted one uselessly covering her good one, and shivers where she stands.
"Dorota…" she manages at a whimper, like a little girl.
"Come." The book is on the bedside table now, Dorota pulling back the corner of the comforter for her, and she doesn't have to look up to ease herself under the covers.
Ever since this princess was particularly small, this room has been where she comes when she needs to hide. She'd bring a stuffed animal, or a small, tattered blanket; and then nothing, for years, when she was too proud to cry. And then once, just once, when the king abandoned her, and the queen swept off to Paris and left her behind, the sixteen-year-old princess reappeared and buried her head in Dorota's shoulder.
And always, always: "Come."
And always…
"Leave it on," Blair murmurs from behind her hands, although Dorota doesn't reach for the reading light.
Small feet and slim ankles furling beneath her, because she cries best when she's curled up.
And always…
"Kochanie, moje kochanie," Dorota murmurs, stroking her hair back from her forehead and temples, lifting and twisting it in the way she used to do to soothe her when she was just a little princess.
Sweetheart, my sweetheart.
Just the same as always; but then again, it's never been quite like this.
iii.
He manages to get rid of Serena around three; it's a close call. She keeps trying to fall asleep on the love seat, and Nate throws him accusatory looks when he nudges her awake. Like it's not his suite, and she has every right to sprawl wherever she feels like and make herself at home, and she doesn't have a room of her own in her own family's suite literally three floors up.
Ordinarily she'd leave on her own, but she doesn't; and there's a cold fist squeezing his stomach since her suggestion of using herself as bait, and he wants confirmation that she's safely behind the door of her suite, where her mother and brother are at least there to keep track of her. MIA Serena is one of the only things that could make their current situation palpably worse.
And so it is that he walks her up, and not Nate, because Nate pointedly ignores the opportunities that present themselves to escort her. Indeed, Nate is suddenly completely preoccupied, with his drink or the view of Midtown at night that he's seen a thousand times from these very windows, at any suggestion of her not sleeping on the love seat three feet from him. Subtle, Chuck thinks drolly.
"Do you think they'll catch him?" she asks quietly in the few moments they spend in the elevator. Her tongue is thick in her mouth; she's had another two whiskies at least- she and Nate were playing musical glasses for a while, so he lost track- and refused another banana. He wants her to pass out and wake up, hungover but safe, in any suite but his.
"Of course," he says with a coolness that implies they're in the midst of a manhunt for someone in Union Square Park and not the whole of New York City, with a densely packed population of millions that swells up to nearly double with the influx of commuters every day. With its dozens of neighborhoods, hundreds of ways out, and thousands upon thousands of places to hide.
The Van der Woodsens' suite is as far from the elevator bank as possible; Lily doesn't like to hear the noise of the dinging and conversation that come with being near a "transportation thoroughfare."
As they draw near her door, she asks, with effort: "Do you think she'll want to see me when they do?"
He wouldn't have brought it up, but he stops and turns toward her.
"What happened?"
"We were sleeping last night, and I woke up and she was- having a nightmare. A flashback. And I woke her up…" Serena blinks slowly, the same look of misery that was pasted on her face in this morning's tabloid spread settling back in. "And she was staring at me and then she said…"
I think I should be alone right now.
"And she was just… so still, and she was crying but she wouldn't tell me why." She swallows and looks him in the eye. "And then she didn't want me to come over today when everyone else was visiting. Although I guess she didn't necessarily invite any of those people."
Are you coming?
On my way. In traffic.
She shrugs. "And maybe she was just tired of having people imposing."
He nods. "I'm sure that's it."
"I tried to apologize to her for what I said that night…" Serena sniffs, miserable, and tucks her hair behind one ear, shifting her feet. "She said it was forgotten."
I know you didn't mean it. It doesn't matter.
"But I… I told her she was on her own. And then last night, when she was having a nightmare, she said she thought she should be alone."
Please. Please, don't-
She's looking at him expectantly, like she just asked him his middle name and the answer should be straightforward.
"I'm sure she's just having a really hard time," he tries.
Maybe you could ask Serena to come over.
No. I'll be fine.
"They just need to catch him," Serena says, rambling: "They just have to- catch him, or- we have to, and then she'll- she can start to heal and she'll stop…"
Pushing me away.
Just like he lied to Blair in the hospital when he knew what she wanted to hear: "They will. And she will."
"Don't scheme without me," she warns with a smack on his shoulder before disappearing inside her suite.
Back in 1812, Nate is on his back on the sofa, clearly ready to stay over, head tilted slightly sideways to look at the empty love seat across from him. He's throwing one lemon in the air listlessly, straight up and down above his face. He's as drunk as Chuck's seen him in a while, at least while Chuck is sober; he was drunk for most of the eleven days he spent in Monaco, and especially when Nate was with him, bursting with talk about how his night with Blair was thirsty business and, from the look of her afterward and the way she collapsed on his chest, she'd obviously never even imagined it could be like that- you have no idea, man- while he chain-smoked under opaque sunglasses and channeled the blackness in his gut into tumbling every woman that looked his way. You're in rare form, Nate had chuckled to him one morning, almost a twinge of concern in his otherwise impassive smile, but then a more pleasant thought had distracted him: I oughta thank you, you know- all these years watching you pick up girls; I think some of your swagger must have rubbed off on me, the way Blair was wrapping her legs around me and saying my name.
"Need a blanket?" he asks as he yanks his shirt off over his head with uncharacteristic irreverence, retrieving his pajamas from a hook on the inside of his closet door.
He's hoping Nate will say, nah, I'm going to head out.
Of course, he doesn't.
Instead, the lemon stills and the last thing Chuck expects to come out of the blonde's mouth does.
"Did you care about her?"
He looks over his shoulder, and Nate's head is inclined, one arm folding upward to cradle behind it like he's settling in to discuss this.
The incredulity on his face. Mocking.
"Oh, so you cared about her?"
He blinks at Nate, still looking over his shoulder, not bothering to turn. "We've all been friends a long time." Hopefully that's enough.
But Nate waits.
Blinking softly in her dark room, horizontal, face to face, hearts inches from one another. One of the few nights that they spend fully together.
Fingertips on his cheekbone, top border of his eyebrows, tracing the slope of his nose, his cupid's bow, the hard lines of his jaw. No one's ever touched him like this. Not that no one's tried, though few have; but he certainly hasn't let any of them get away with it.
At a whisper: "The tops of your ears are flat."
In the same whisper: "The tops of yours are round." Because his fingers are mirroring the path of hers, tracing her face, his fingertips creating memories as he hadn't even known fingertips could until recently.
She laughs, low in the dark. She's tired. They both are.
She surprises him by kissing him sweetly on the lips. No desire at all. "Goodnight."
He surprises himself by placing the same kiss on her forehead, hearing what might be a sigh or the first deep exhalation of sleep, both slipping from consciousness.
He finally turns halfway, licking his lips slowly.
"Sex complicates things." His teeth hold his lower lip for a moment. "You know?"
Nate lays the lemon on the coffee table behind him, and his eyes flick over the empty love seat. "Yeah." He clears his throat, reaching for a pillow. "I'll take that blanket if the offer's still good."
"For you, a thousand blankets," he replies, tossing it over still folded. When he's safe in the dark under his own covers, he tests it, and yes- the memory of her rounded ears, the delicate spine of her nose, is still alive in his fingertips.
iv.
Thursday, January 17
Early morning
He's still rubbing his eyes a few hours later when, after jolting upright at the angry whir of a vibrating cell phone on his nightstand, he's unsealing the large manila envelope, splitting the cursive "Kathryn" that spans its back seam.
Nate's cheeks and nose are flushed with sleep; he's pushing his hair back from his face with both hands in a completely childish manner, feet planted unsteadily on the floor, down blanket crumpled around him like a scrunched-up cloud.
He rests one elbow on his knee, cradling his head in his hand, eyes shifting closed. "What is it?"
Chuck ignores him, turning pages. He half-snorts. Those peonies look even more ridiculous in photographs.
ARCHIBALD LOYALLY AT WALDORF'S SIDE!
Nate smacks his lips and swallows loudly, unaware of his own odd mouth noises in his half-consciousness.
"Is it the guy?"
And it's not just the peonies; it's Nate glaring from the porch of his penthouse, looking over his shoulder accusingly outside the school gates, holding up a hand as he hitches up his duffel bag of whatever gear varsity athletes carry around after school.
WALDORF'S BOYFRIEND IS HER ROCK!
"No."
There are photos from as far back as their junior high winter formal, when Blair and Nate were co-chairs of the committee to plan the dance (joint pressure from Blair and Anne having forced him to volunteer).
VANDERBILT-ASTOR HEIRS: AMERICAN FAIRY TALE, INTERRUPTED!
"Is it her?"
And the two of them at his own father's Labor Day party last September, Blair flawless in a white hat with fuchsia bow, white-and-beige striped dress and perfectly matched fuchsia wedges, Nate awkwardly dark next to her in a dark red button-down. "Not a summer color," she'd whispered at Chuck accusingly when the boys showed up. "I'm not his mother, Waldorf, I didn't lay his clothes out for him" he'd replied with a smirk. He himself had been dressed in white-and-green seersucker with a dark pink cravat and pocket square that Nate had glanced at, then his own shirt, then back at the cravat, then shrugged as they left 1812.
NATE ARCHIBALD: WALDORF'S WHITE KNIGHT!
Nate straightens as he walks past him on his way back to bed, and he drops The Enquirer right onto his waiting lap.
"It's you, actually."