Don't You Forget About Me (30 page)

“Only if he does it naked,” Blair quipped hopefully. She sat down and bounced up and down on the end of the huge bed.

Nate blushed. Blair loved to make him blush and he knew it. “Okay,” he responded boldly, sitting down next to her on the bed.

Blair snatched a Kleenex out of the silver tissue box on Nate’s mom’s bedside table and blew her nose noisily. Not that she really needed to blow her nose. She just needed a distraction from the overwhelming urge to throw Nate down on his parents’ bed and tackle him. He was so goddamned adorable it made her feel like she was going to explode. God, she loved him.

There had never been a time when she didn’t love him. She’d loved the stupid lobster shorts he wore to the club in Newport when their dads played tennis together in the summer, back when they were, what—five? She’d loved the way he always had a Spider-Man Band-Aid on some part of his body until he was at least twelve, not because he’d hurt himself but because he thought it looked cool. She loved the way his whole head reflected the sunlight, glowing gold. She loved his glittering green eyes—eyes that were almost too pretty for a boy. She loved the way he so obviously knew he was hot but didn’t quite know what to do about it. She loved him. Oh, how she loved him.

Oh, oh,
oh
!

She blew her nose with one last trumpeting snort and then grabbed a pink, tacky-looking DVD case from off the floor. She turned the case over, studying it. “
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
. I’ve never seen it, but she’s so beautiful.” She held the DVD up so Serena could see Audrey Hepburn in her long black dress and pearl choker. “Isn’t she?” “She is pretty,” Serena agreed, still sorting through the movies.

“She looks like you,” Nate observed, cocking his head in such an adorable way that Blair had to close her eyes to keep from falling off the bed.

“You think?” Blair tossed her dirty tissue in the general direction of the Archibalds’ dainty white porcelain waste paper basket and studied the picture on the DVD case again. In the movie that began to play in her head, she
was
Audrey Hepburn—a fabulously dressed, thin, perfectly coiffed, beautiful, mysterious megastar. “Maybe a little,” she agreed, removing her black cashmere cardigan so that her hot pink bra was clearly visible beneath her blouse.

Blair picked up the DVD case again. Audrey Hepburn looked so fabulous in the pictures on the back, but also sort of prim and proper, like she wore sexy underwear but wouldn’t let a guy see it unless he was going to marry her. Blair pulled her cardigan back on and buttoned the top button. From now on, her life’s work would be to emulate Audrey Hepburn in every possible way. Nate could see her underwear, but only once she was sure that one day they’d be married.

That makes sense—to her.

“I watched that movie with my mom,” Nate confessed, causing both girls’ hearts to drip into sticky puddles on the floor. “It’s kind of bizarre, actually. I think it’s supposed to be romantic, but I’m not sure I even understood it.” That was all the girls needed. Blair stuck the DVD into the player while Serena mixed martinis at the wet bar in the adjoining library. This involved pouring Bombay Sapphire into chilled martini glasses and stirring it with a silver letter opener. It was only 11 A.M.—not exactly cocktail hour—but Blair was in crisis, and Nate tended to take off his shirt when he got drunk. Besides, it was Saturday.

“There,” Serena announced, as if she’d just put the finishing touches on a very complicated recipe. She handed out the glasses. “To us. Because we’re worth it.” “To us,” Blair and Nate chorused, glasses raised.

Bottoms up!

Before
V
filmed her first movie,

D
wrote his first poem, and
J
bought her first bra.

Before
B
watched her first Audrey Hepburn movie,
S
left for boarding school, and before
N
came between them. . . .

it had to be you

the gossip girl prequel

Coming October 2007

Blair Waldorf and Serena van der Woodsen were the reigning princesses of the Upper East Side.

Until now.

Something wild and wicked is in the air.

The Carlyle triplets are about to take Manhattan by storm.

Lucky for you, Gossip Girl will be there to whisper all their juicy secrets. . . .

A New Era Begins May 2008

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