A/N: I really apologize for the delay. I'd been feeling under the weather the last few weeks, and it turns out I had strep throat! Recovering now =)
Thank you all so, so, so much for your patience, and your kind reviews!
i.
Thursday, January 17
Morning
There's a muffled scream in Manhattan's throat, like an unwilling viewer of a horror movie burying her face in a pillow. Not for the faint of heart.
And a terrible, teasing irony that struggles to the surface: that rapists, murderers, most certainly walk these streets every day. They might be the blue jeans and backpack ahead of you at the turnstile in Columbus Circle; the overcoat sliding from the cab pulled up diagonally to the curb, yielding its service to you; the horn-rimmed glasses and conductor's cap that glances at you over the top of its book in Bryant Park.
And New Yorkers know this.
But when the NYPD calls a press conference to point out that a specific one is in your midst, it throws a different color on things. Suddenly every pair of blue jeans, every overcoat, every conductor's cap feels like a threat. If the city is a bow, its loops have been shortened, tails clipped, center knot tied savagely tight.
Constance-St. Jude's is still closed, and now other private schools follow suit, with hasty notifications sent via email and followed up by private phone calls to sprawling Classics on both sides of the Park, and trendy SoHo lofts and high rises with views of Lady Liberty in FiDi: "In accordance with the NYPD directive to exercise extreme caution in the safety of our children…"
The Museum of Natural History, the New York Public Library and the Central Park Zoo hold a pre-dawn conference call to organize a series of activities for children of all ages, to be conducted in safe, secure environments, with press releases going out and fliers still warm from the press delivered in sheaths to the family-laden neighborhoods of the Upper East and Upper West.
Join us today, Thursday, January 17 and tomorrow, Friday, January 18, for private tours-
"Parents are urged to consider this situation a hazard, and the suspect extremely dangerous-"
Husbands and wives exchange tense words about whether to let their teenaged children go out alone. Nannies are instructed that toddlers must be held by the hand at all times outside the confines of the apartment. Doormen politely ask visitors to please sit and wait while they phone up to confirm that their host is indeed expecting a guest.
Phones are poised in gloved hands as wool coats pause on street corners, casting quick glances over the faces of passersby that are doing the same in return. Weary eyes on unusually quiet subway cars flood with an odd stab of relief when the blind man gets on at his usual stop in TriBeCa and begins swinging his cane, singing showtunes.
Mobile signal towers and landlines buzz and flicker with the hundreds, thousands of tips that pour into the NYPD headquarters, sifted through with ruthless swiftness: hurried descriptions accompanied by email attachments of blurry photos; a half-face above a trench coat here, a fork poised at the mouth there- could this be him? Possible sighting?
And flash bulbs and elevated microphones are poised, surrounding the Waldorfs', the Archibald townhouse, the Palace, waiting to strike.
ii.
The two blondes step off the elevator and forget to stay close to the wall, to hide in the lee of the pillar. They freeze, guiltily, in the near-instantaneous explosion of flash bulbs and muted shouts of their names from beyond the wall of glass at the other end of the lobby, zoom lenses training on them with an almost magnetic swiftness.
Nate catches Serena's arm, too slow- she's already backing toward the wall.
"Jesus," Nate mutters.
"My fault," Serena replies. "I should've known they'd be here."
Hesitating at the elevator bank on the 18th floor, finger hovering, hovering, above the Down arrow.
And finally pressing Up. Tucking in his undershirt, smoothing his hair on the three-floor ride.
They edge up the wall past the elevators and head for Dais, which is open from early breakfast through late lunch, vibrant green walls and gold cutlery mimicking a classic English sitting room. Serena waves hello to a server whose name she doesn't remember and they settle in a corner booth where no one could get a clear shot at them through any window.
"This is ridiculous." Serena runs her fingers through her hair, gathering it into a careless ponytail over her long-sleeved plain dress- an odd non-shade of mauve-gray-lilac- and reaching for the ice water that's deposited in front of her. "I feel like a goldfish."
Nate drops the sheaf of photos of himself- tabloids, technically, but they're mostly photos and splashy headlines without much further text to go on- on the table. "Tell me about it."
Hesitating again at her door, thinking for a moment that he should just leave.
"So- did you have something specific you wanted to talk about?"
Nate's cheeks are still somewhat flushed from the flustered sleep he fell back into after Chuck dropped the headlines in front of his eyes.
"Not really."
Erik's flat, unsurprised smile when he answers the knock.
His blue eyes blink twice. "Just…"
Miss you.
"Wanted to see how you're holding up."
She gives him a sad, lopsided smile after she orders two scrambled eggs with half an avocado, and tells him she's been better.
"Sorry, if she's busy or asleep I can- "
"I'll get her. Hang on."
"Which one of us do you think deserves her less?" Serena asks offhandedly after a few moments of what he thinks- apparently mistakenly- is comfortable silence, trickling cream into her coffee from a tiny gold jug.
"Don't do this to yourself."
She nods, like he actually offered a response and she's agreeing with it. "I think me, too." She stirs with a gold coffee spoon, which is a pointless Serenaism because she's about to add sugar and she'll have to stir that too.
You could just stir them in at the same time, Chuck has pointed out to her on any number of occasions while they're eating breakfast, often when she's pounding cup after cup of coffee to drown her hangover, at various degrees of burnt to a crisp himself, tie perfectly in place or still in last night's rumpled shirt.
I like my way, she's always replied, eyes barely open or bright and flawlessly shadowed.
Nate watches the usual Serena ritual that he could imitate if he wanted: she tidies the spoon with her mouth and lays it carefully on a napkin, then reaches for the tiny gold sugar bowl.
"Well," he says just as quietly, "I told her I loved her and lost my virginity to you an hour later, and then left and called her from the cab- shirtless- and told her I'd twisted my ankle and had to go home." He pauses. "And then said I loved her. Again."
"I banged you in a public place and then ignored her for almost a year." She shrugs, swirling the sugar.
"I wrapped my ankle- which was definitely not twisted- and propped it up under an ice pack so I could keep up the lie when she came around the next morning with my favorite scone and coffee for me."
He sips his cup, black, and waits.
"I ignored the fact that her parents were getting divorced and never reached out to see if she was okay, and then finally came back and got her to forgive me, but never told her we slept together." Two mini-spoonfuls of sugar; she pauses, gold sugar scoop hovering above its bowl, and raises an eyebrow at him. "What else you got?"
"I did tell her we slept together. When she was half-naked and ready to lose her virginity to me." He props one blue-and-white-striped elbow on the table, cradling the side of his head in his palm.
She's stirring slowly, mechanically, though her coffee is clearly fully blended.
Around and around.
"After all that, and everything that happened that split you two up, and then everything with Chuck, I failed her again. I told her she was on her own."
"It was my fault she was on- "
Her scoff bites his sentence off where it is. "No. I talked to her after that. I told her she was on her own." She glances up through her eyelashes. "We're best friends. I'm supposed to be there. Guys come and go. I'm supposed to be with her forever. She's stuck by me through everything and what did I do?"
Nate holds her gaze.
"What I always do. Blew off our friendship at the first test of loyalty. I'm the reason she was by herself to begin with." She cleans her coffee spoon again, smile sparkling up at the server when their eggs arrive, and settles back into her seat, posture loose and careless.
Quietly: "It was all of us." She rolls her eyes, and he reaches for her hand suddenly, grabbing it where it sits next to her spoon. She doesn't pull away. "We all left her alone. Because this terrible thing happened, it seems like she paid more for her mistakes than we have. But they're not- connected. And this isn't your fault." He tightens his hand when Serena's blank expression doesn't change. "Okay? It's not your fault."
"In the end, though, it all comes back to me," she says blankly when he's finished with his classic Nate-Archibald-everyman's-champion pep talk. "If I wasn't me…"
Nate clamps down on her fingers when she tries to withdraw her hand. "If you weren't you, I don't know where any of us would be. You light up the world," he tells her seriously.
The corners of her mouth curve up, but her smile is absolutely the saddest thing he's ever seen. Sadder than Blair tucked in bed with broken ribs and a torn face; sadder than his mother, delicate and refined in perfume and pearls and cashmere, crying against his chest, small frame heaving with the force of her sobs.
"I light up the world," Serena repeats, quiet, still sitting back in her seat and looking over his earnest face he keeps his grip warm and firm around her knuckles, just like last night, when she almost, almost had him. When she almost got him to see that her best (only use- only value, really) use was as bait.
Almost. But not quite.
She sighs. "Let's eat?"
She's finished in under five minutes, gestures the server to put it on her room bill, and tells him she has to go. He watches her leave, head tilting to follow her path out the door as far as he can.
She hasn't touched her perfectly mixed coffee. He picks it up, switching it out for his empty cup. It's smooth and sweet and effortlessly perfect.
He wonders if she knows what he meant. That if she wasn't her, he's not sure who he'd be.
iii.
Afternoon
"But this is one of how many?"
"Thousands, by this point."
"And didn't we think we had something similar last weekend? And then it turned out to be false?"
"Yes, but this was a proactive tip, corroborated by more than one person."
Chuck's fingertips drill the countertop.
"And why aren't they going after him, if it's the first promising lead they've had so far?"
There's yelling in the background on Tyler's end. "Hang on." A fuzzy noise as he blocks the receiver with his thumb, raises his voice at whoever it is to keep it down. "Sorry. We're seeing whether there are other witnesses, ideally on the train the guy got on. An undercover police officer from the local unit will get on at the stop after the next, which is in about an hour and a half."
"Can't they stop the train?" he demands incredulously.
Tyler stifles a sigh; he can hear it through the phone. "We can't bring the New York State infrastructure to its knees or spare a team to go chasing after every potential sighting, even every strong potential lead."
His tone says: be reasonable.
Fingertips drum faster. He's not interested in reasonable.
"What station is that?" He looks at his watch. Could he and Arthur-?
"Sit tight, kid."
Chuck squeezes his eyes shut and tries and fails to unclench his teeth. "You're striking me less like a PI and more like a personal assistant." And one who needed to be fired, at that.
"Oh?" Tyler fires back, sharp and low. "I'm technically violating my code of ethics through being involved in the official search and leaking information to a member of the general public. I could lose my clearance for this phone call."
"Interesting."
They're both silent.
Irritated with his own finger tapping, Chuck snaps his hand open and splays his fingers on the bar.
"Maybe keep that in mind when debating how quickly to pass me further updates," he mutters into the phone.
There's a half-snort on the other end, mixed in with the white noise of a police headquarters abuzz with the scent of blood. "You and your two blonde sidekicks gonna go attack him?"
Chuck's nostrils flare.
"Leave them out of this."
"I need to leave you all out of this." He stops to respond to a flurry of vocals on the other side- yes, yes- they're on the way- that's okay- and then lowers his voice. "I'm happy to continue with our arrangement, but I can't do anything that endangers any of you, and that includes helping you put yourself in danger."
"Does hiring a hit man count as endangering myself?"
"Kid," Tyler murmurs, close like he's cupping his hand around the mouthpiece, "I get where you're coming from. I've seen people I care about hurt and wanted to hurt in return. Why do you think I got into this line of work?"
Chuck blinks down at his hand, which, he realizes, is tracing lines on the counter. Bridge of nose, delicate crest of upper lip.
Curved rim of ear.
"You getting yourself mixed up in this is no use to anyone. You helped jumpstart this whole thing, but it's rolling now."
He releases his hand and Chuck can hear background noise again.
Smooth slope of jawline.
"We're going to get him. Trust me."
Chuck touches his own eyelashes, a fan not as thick as hers. She told him once that she liked them. Thanks, he said.
"I trust you'll keep me informed."
"I will. Stay put."
People I care about.
iv.
The detective visits her in her own room this time, because she's actually observing the fact that she's supposed to be on bed rest.
She's reading, with detached amusement, the spreads on Nate. She can see the tabloids' point. They make a good-looking couple, obviously, and they do paint quite a picture, given the circumstances.
"No arrests yet?" She's quiet, good hand carefully clasping splinted.
"No- but several leads," he offers. He doesn't shift his feet or look around; doesn't do anything to violate the private bedroom he's invaded to talk about how he has yet to catch her rapist.
She licks her lips, which are perpetually chapped now, no matter how much she balms them, no matter how much water she drinks. "Anything promising?" she asks hopefully.
Downstairs, through the door the detective left open, she can hear the hum of her father's voice, the spike of her mother as she interjects- Harold – Harold… !
"We have a few that seem particularly interesting. They may well be reports of the same- person- from different points over the past few days- "
Stop it. Her father's hiss is sharp and desperate-sounding. Just stop it. I'm doing the best I can-
The best? The best?! How can you possibly say that, when they're practically papering her baby pictures all over the subway, for Christ sake-
Eleanor-
As though you've not been absentee enough-
There's no law-
When she actually needs you-
"You can shut the door," Blair suggests.
For God's- are you ever going to forgive me? Are you ever-
Forgive you? Forgive you?!
The door closes with a soft click. The detective turns slowly, face blank.
"Will you still need me to identify him?" Blair asks needlessly, just to fill the awkward pause.
"Yes. Just given the- the lack of viable DNA samples."
She nods. "Can we do it at night or sometime when I won't be photographed?"
The detective blinks. He's not thought that far ahead. "We'll sort out a way to handle it without you being seen," he promises.
I know they think he's still in town and they've relocated the search, she told her mother that morning. If the detective stops by, I want to speak to him alone.
Her mother's cheeks had flamed instantly, shame and surprise blooming under the hastily applied concealer that doesn't quite disguise how poorly rested she is.
And then, finger marking the spot in the mostly-photos-anyway tabloid spread she was reading about this fantastically contrived view of her personal life, it tumbled out: I'm not with Nate anymore. I haven't been for a while. Just so you know. We're… a small shrug. Friends, though.
Friends? Eleanor repeated, like she was tasting vinegar when she meant to take a sip of wine.
On a good day. And fanned open the pages, verso showcasing their beaming smiles- if uncoordinated outfits- at the Bass Labor Day party.
"Do you think he'll be… alive? When he's arrested?"
She shivers a little. If he's dead, she won't have to identify him in person. Surely she wouldn't have to identify his corpse.
He hesitates. "It's difficult to say how these things will go," he apologizes. "I'm afraid I can't make assumptions."
"Maybe dramatic shoot-outs in the movies aren't the best way to imagine it playing out." She tries at a smile.
"We wouldn't open fire unless a suspect opened fire on us." He pauses again. "And even then, we would aim to wound, not…"
"Kill." She holds his gaze for a long moment, then looks away. "I understand."
Though it seemed a little unfair, since he had aimed to kill, not wound.
"We'll keep you informed if anything changes, by phone if not in person," he promises as he takes a step backward, a respectful nod.
There's silence, somehow deafening and acidic, from the foyer below.
"Please ask to speak to me if you come in person," she says, gaze sliding through the open door.
v.
Lily is pacing, gorgeous fuchsia robe gathered around her long white nightgown, ruffled neckline peeking through with the kind of carelessly coincidental perfection that can only be achieved by tugging and shifting and adjusting in front of a mirror.
"Come on, talk to me," Jenny says, leaning forward, blonde hair falling like a curtain over one shoulder, trying to force her brother to look at her.
"I'm fine," Dan grinds, though he's clearly not fine. He looks out the window agitatedly for the thousandth time.
Erik watches his mother, hot black decaf in a tall mug perched on the coffee table in front of him, from his spot on the floor. Back against the sofa.
"Let's go for a walk. Just a few minutes- clear our heads." Their father is at the gallery; school is cancelled and they're both finished with their school work (a lack of more interesting alternatives is often the best motivation toward academic excellence); surely it won't hurt anything if they take a turn around the block.
At this, Dan's spine tenses. He looks hard at her, and then at the door, as if welding it shut with his glare. "You're not setting foot outside this loft again," he tells her softly, "until it's safe out there."
She rolls her eyes, playing at lightness. "Come on, even if he's in the city, he's not here. It's Brooklyn," she points out, like he doesn't know where they live.
"Mom, come sit down," Erik begs again.
Lily's warm brown eyes, the mirror of his, shift over his face fondly like he's a little boy begging her to play with him. "In a minute, my love."
She's touching every surface, fingers plucking at her and Serena's purse straps, hung on their hooks near the door, like they're harp strings. Skimming the back of a striped armchair, dancing from color to color.
"What if I crawl out the fire escape?" Jenny tries again, an attempt at getting him to smile. They both know he's the only one who ever uses the fire escape.
Dan doesn't respond and she sighs, giving up, and shifts away. He reaches after her. "Don't go anywhere."
"I'm not." But he tugs her back down to the sofa and looks away again. "What, I'm just supposed to sit still all day?"
His mouth tightens and he looks over at her, like he's going to respond, but stops. His mouth tightens.
"You're wearing a hole in the floor," Erik teases, clasping his mug in both hands.
Lily smiles sideways at him, checking her phone again to see if anyone has called. She's not sure who she's expecting.
Serena emerges then, with a thick metallic click as her door opens, toweling her wet hair.
"Well, hello," Lily beams at her daughter, like it's morning, when in reality the sun will be going down in an hour or two and they've all been shut up in their rooms all day. "Have you heard from Blair?"
Dan's eyes fill with tears.
"Hey, I'm fine," Jenny says, patting his hand where it's still loosely gripping her upper arm. "You don't have to be so scared. It's fine."
"It's not fine," he whispers, echoing her insistence from Monday morning in the limo.
Her heart slows down and thuds, heavy, in her chest. She knows what he's seeing now. "That was a long time ago, and it's not the same thing at all, and it's fine. I'm fine."
Serena blinks, any semblance of peace slipping from her face as it tightens almost imperceptibly. "No," she says quietly. "But that's fine."
Erik's gaze tracks her as she crosses paths with their mother, pouring French press into a tall mug identical to his, and waits for the trickling sound of the cream, and then the tinkle of the spoon.
Dan swallows, hard. "I didn't protect you."
She blinks at him. "You did, though."
And then the second tinkle as she stirs in sugar.
"Any word on calling off the circus animals downstairs?" Serena asks Lily, nodding toward the window, not bothering to raise her eyes from the mug in front of her. She's wearing oddly unstylish clothes, Erik thinks, even for lounging- long pants and a shapeless sweatshirt- and seems to be stirring her coffee for longer than necessary.
Lily tilts her head. "Darling, you know there's nothing he can do," she says, in a tone that implies she's said this more than once before. "It's not like they're coming inside, and…"
"Sidewalks are public property," Serena finishes for her, eyes rolling slowly heavenward.
"She's going to be okay," Jenny tries, for lack of anything better to say. "Everything is going to go back to normal."
Her brother is unmoved by this, as she should have known he would be. It's her that this is about, not Blair, as proven by the way he looked at her the other night after coming back from the Waldorf penthouse to where she waited in a café a few blocks down. He'd almost run through the door and slid into the seat opposite her, looking around as though making sure no one was looking at his sister the wrong way. She could see that he'd been crying, though he'd done an admirable job of cleaning himself up. Hi, she'd said softly, shrugging back the sleeve of her blue turtleneck to look at her watch. Are you hungry now? It's getting late-
Home, he'd said quietly, then added, please.
Serena sets down her cup on the coffee table next to those of her mother and brother and picks up her phone, flicking through it idly, then opens and closes drawers on the desk in the corner of the room. She doesn't touch a single thing in any drawer; just opens, closes, softly, mechanically.
And then she starts over again, free hand bouncing against the back of the writing chair she's pulled out in a way that would suggest she had plans to sit down.
Which, Erik knew as he watched her do it, she had no plans to do.
And followed her too close through the turnstile, stood shoulder-to-shoulder with her on the platform, nudged her with an elbow until she sat down on one of the benches and then stood guard over her, wordless, all the way back to Brooklyn.
Jaws clenched the same way they are now. Fists, too.
"I'd die if anything happened to you," he tells her simply.
"Likewise," she tries to tease back, jostling his shoulder with hers. "Can I get up, though?"
He smiles a little. "I guess."
"Sit down with me," Erik implores Serena, leaning his head back against the sofa cushion, tilting it to the side with the most engaging smile he can muster.
He's forgotten what it's like to be surrounded by two skittish Van der Woodsen women.
"In a minute," Serena smiles back, but it doesn't reach her eyes, and then she turns away and is thumbing through last month's Vogue, too fast to look at a single ad.
Lily is straightening the frames of every painting on the gallery wall at the far end of their dining area.
Erik rests his head on the cushion completely, closes his eyes and exhales, long and silent, through his mouth.
Jenny presses her laptop into his hands a few minutes later, and he doesn't look up at her until he sees what's on the screen. She bites her lip and hands him his phone, then turns to give him some privacy.
"I promise not to go out the window," she calls over her shoulder.
vi.
"We were just having breakfast," Serena whispers, sounding more irritated than sorry.
"That's- that's fine."
Pause.
"It doesn't seem like it's fine." Her tone is flippant.
"I'm just- look, I'm just trying to understand how it is that I can barely get ahold of my girlfriend for the past several days, but she has time for breakfast dates with other guys."
"It wasn't a date." She sits down on her bed, watching her makeup-less, wet-hair, un-glamorous reflection in the mirror. "We were up late at Chuck's…"
"You slept over at Chuck's?" He keeps his voice even, but it's clear that it takes effort.
She tilts her head, closing her eyes and struggling to maintain patience too. "No." He wouldn't let me. "We were just up late talking, the four of- the three of us."
"Okay."
He seems to be waiting for something, but she doesn't know what.
"Okay?"
"And did Nate sleep at Chuck's?"
She balls her fist and releases it. "You mean, did he come home with me? No, Dan." Her voice spikes, incredulous, insulted.
"I'm not- I'm sorry. I'm not trying to accuse you of anything. I just… you're shutting me out." He clasps his head in his hand. "And I love you."
"I love you, too," she whispers back, voice softening automatically. "I'm having a hard time with all this."
"Can't you… can you talk to me about it?" Instead of Nate?
"I will- I'll be able to, it's just- the four of us have been… together, a long time."
There's a pause, a silence that, in Serena's mind, is filled with quizzical looks.
Until you slept with her boyfriend, she reminds herself. And wrecked 'the four of us' forever.
"It's complicated," she tries again.
She hears him swallow, the sound of the little breath he takes after. "Okay. Well, I'm- "
"Dan!"
Jenny's shriek is piercing and even startles Serena.
Two seconds later, from the living room: "Serena!"
She hears Jenny's footfall on the other end of the line and glances back and forth, bedroom door to mirror. There's a quick swish in her ear, and then Jenny's voice comes across: "Serena? Turn on the news."
"Wh-" She's sliding off her bed.
Heavy, urgent knocking on her door. Erik, with his the side of his fist- not his knuckles. "Serena, quick, come out, there's…"
"They have him- turn on the news- they caught him…!" Jenny's exclamations come in quick fragments, Dan's voice intermingling behind her.
He takes the phone back as she's reaching for the door handle. "Oh, my God. They do. Serena- are you seeing this?"
"I'll call you back." She throws the phone behind her, not bothering to hang up.
vii.
Buzz.
"Already have the news on."
"Just doing my job."
"Is it him?"
"Sure looks like it, doesn't it? SWAT team is en route."
Click.
Dial.
"Hello?" She's breathless.
"Are you…"
"Yes, I see," she manages, almost a gasp. "Does it look like… do you think he has a gun? Do you think he's going to try to open fire?"
He pauses, surprised that that's the first thing she says. He'd gladly lie for her if he knew what she wanted to hear. "Hopefully no one gets hurt," he tries.
His phone chimes softly against his ear; he flips open Nate's text.
Looks like they got him.
"I c… I need to sit down." She's breathing too hard; he hears a wheeze behind it. "Call you back?"
"I'll wait by the phone."
He tries to make it sound dry and witty.
To Nate: Not until he's ID'd.
Because he wouldn't say this to Blair, but unless someone on the ground is live-streaming it directly to her, no one can actually see the guy that well yet.
He hesitates and flips open his conversation with Serena. No bait needed.
Nate: Buy you a drink if it is.
He runs a hand through his hair, watching the somewhat fuzzy live feed. Buy you an island, he replies without taking his eyes from the television.
viii.
"Imbeciles."
Eleanor punctuates the word with a flourish of a hand gesture as she turns off the television.
Blair's shoulders slump. Her face crumples.
Her father shoots her mother a warning look and buries a hand in his daughter's hair without a word, tugging her close. She presses her face into his shoulder and cries.
ix.
Buzz.
His father doesn't bother to say hello.
"What a disappointment." He doesn't even need to sigh; it's contained in the words somehow. "I certainly hope she wasn't watching."
"She was."
He's perched, defeated, at the foot of his bed.
Bart clears his throat. "I've sent out an all-points bulletin to every building with a full report and photos."
"Thank you," Chuck sighs.
"Charles," his father starts, and then pauses as though double-checking a phrase in a foreign language before he says it: "This makes me angry."
A bemused smile tugs at his lips. He tries to think- has he ever heard his father identify an emotion to him, other than 'Charles, I'm disappointed in you'?
"Me, too."
"But you need to keep your hands out of it. Can you agree to that?"
He flops back, lazily, eyes closed. Of course Tyler is probably sending his father summaries of every conversation they have.
"My hands aren't in it," he points out, words dancing, smug and precocious. "I'm at home in my suite."
"If you had the chance, or any credible lead, I'm not sure that would continue to be true."
"We'll never know." He's trying his father's patience, and he knows it.
On cue, Bart's tone sharpens. "Son. I want your word that you'll stay out of it."
"Father." He opens his eyes and looks at his ceiling, delicate crown molding meeting the wainscoted walls. "Would you agree to that, if it were Lily?"
Too late, he realizes what he's said.
Silence.
He blinks rapidly and clears his throat, scrabbling for something, anything to say to divert his father's attention.
People I care about.
"Blair is my friend- one of my oldest friends. I care about her, she's- important to me. I'm angry, too."
Silence again, and then, with a surprising hint of softness: "I understand. But let the law have its way."
Four texts.
Nate: Dammit.
Serena: Spoke too soon, Bass. (She never calls him Bass.)
Nate again: Offer for a drink is still good. Can we extend the island offer?
And, just a minute ago, somehow oozing bravado through letters on a screen, Blair: Well, hope you didn't disband the sniper army yet.