Only In Your Dreams (19 page)

Nate pushed past a couple of girls in fullon shimmy mode and scanned the room. It was so crowded he could barely find a familiar face.

Or maybe he was just too baked.

He hadn’t expected to have any kind of epiphany at this dumb Hollywood party. This was supposed to be the summer when he got serious, when he turned his back on parties and pot and chasing girls who were more trouble than they were worth. This was supposed to be the summer he worked hard and used his hands and did some honest, challenging labor and got to know himself and prepared for his career at Yale. Captain Archibald and even Coach Michaels were determined that Nate head off to Yale a different man, a new man, able to handle responsibility. And now, suddenly, Nate felt like he already was that new guy.

That was fast.

Something Dan had said really stuck with him: his life was right here, waiting for him, inside this shitty, overcrowded apartment. The girl he was meant to be with was right here, and the only honorable thing to do was to break the news to the girl he wasn’t meant to be with.

But he couldn’t find Tawny’s familiar golden mane any-where: the place was that packed. Nate pushed his way across the dance floor, ignoring the beckoning wave of some short, overly tanned weirdo who was wearing sunglasses even though they were inside. There was no time for small talk: he was a man on a mission.

Nate slipped into the tiny sliver of a kitchen and hopped up onto the countertop. From that vantage, he surveyed the apartment, looking for Tawny. The apartment was completely packed. There were faces he recognized—Isabel and Kati huddled in a corner, whispering to each other as usual; that pale, grim-looking bald girl was talking to some little kids—but for the most part, the room was crowded with strangers

Then there she was: her distinct blond hair was unmistak-able. It was full and wavy and fell over her tan freckled shoulders, one of which was bare where her peach-colored top had slipped off. Nate had to admit it was pretty sexy. He saw that she was grinding with Chuck Bass, who’d unzipped his mint-green shirt and was gyrating bare-chested to a dance remix of that Ciara song. Ew.

Nate felt a tug on the leg of his Trovata khakis and looked down to see Serena smiling up at him.

“Whatcha looking for?” she asked, hoisting herself up onto the countertop beside him.

“Hey,” Nate said, helping her up. He was grateful for the company of an old friend.

Serena scanned the room and looked in the direction in which Nate was staring intently, watching the almost-obscene display of Chuck and Tawny dancing.

“You know,” Serena whispered into Nate’s ear. Her breath was sweet and tickled him pleasantly. It was a nice, familiar sensation. “You don’t have anything to worry about. Chuck Bass is just a horny, harmless jerk-off, and we love him for it.”

“I’m not worried,” Nate told her. “It’s not like that.”

“It’s not?” asked Serena. She knew Nate, and she definitely knew better than to believe him when it came to girls. He basically always got it wrong.

She’s an actress, remember? She only plays stupid.

“I thought it was, but I was wrong,” Nate admitted. “Hey, where are they going?” Tawny had taken Chuck by the hand and the two slipped behind a nearby door.

“That’s the bathroom,” Serena observed.

Double ew.

“Whatever.” Nate shrugged. He’d passed the point in his life where he was interested in girls who slipped into the bathroom at parties with guys they barely knew. He didn’t care what was going on behind that door right now. Then, on the dance floor, barefoot and beaming, he spotted Blair, firmly in the embrace of a much-taller guy in a conservative gray suit. Their lips met and Nate had to shut his eyes.

“I’m taking off,” he muttered. He’d had enough of this party. Nate shot his familiar, disarming, lopsided grin in Serena’s direction. Then he hopped off the countertop and disappeared into the crowd.

Serena remained on the counter and pulled out the cigarette she’d wisely tucked behind her left ear. She smoothed out the wrinkles in her “borrowed” black Bailey Winter dress, turned on one of the stove’s burners, and bent to light her cigarette in the flame. She took a long drag, turned the stove off, and turned her attention back to the still-pulsating dance floor.

“Where did Nate go?” Blair stormed into the kitchen.

“Who knows?” laughed Serena, helping Blair up onto the counter next to her. She handed Blair her lit Merit Ultra Light and surveyed the scene with a satisfied smile on her perfect lips. “Where’s Jason?”

“He’s going down to his apartment,” Blair explained. “He’s got some leftover fried chicken in the fridge and I’m starving.”

“You’re so lucky,” Serena cooed, taking her cigarette back from Blair.

Yeah, Blair’s the one with all the luck.

Serena slipped her hand into Blair’s. She leaned over and whispered into her friend’s ear, which was adorned that evening with one of those famous Bvlgari Bs, “This summer is going to be amazing.”

Blair set her dark head on Serena’s shoulder. “I hope the Hamptons is big enough for all of us.”

Serena squeezed Blair’s knee in response. Blair surveyed the living room. If she blinked, it looked exactly like the party scene in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. She’d dreamed of this moment so many times, she’d lived this moment, in the movie in her head, so many times over that it felt familiar. It felt wonderful.

There were Kati and Isabel, wearing matching black Tocca dresses and trying to hide the fact that they were whispering about Blair and Serena by smiling and waving excitedly. Blair could practically imagine what the two of them were saying about her. There was Chuck Bass, spinning that fluffy, tan blonde around, his bare chest slicked with sweat. Every other person was looking in their direction. Was it Serena or was it Blair who had caught their attention? Did it really matter?

Nope.

The DJ—a frantically sweating guy whom Bailey Winter couldn’t stop ogling—switched the records, and he must have been reading Blair’s mind: the apartment filled with a taut staccato beat, and then a sexy voice sang some very familiar words:

Moon River, wider than a mile . . .

I’ll be crossing you in style, someday.

Dream maker, you heartbreaker . . .

“It’s me!” Serena cried.

“You sound incredible,” Blair told her honestly, clutching Serena’s hand.

In the movie inside her head, this was the perfect closing scene. The music was just right, and the crowd was going wild dancing. An adorable guy was preparing a plate of cold fried chicken for her in his downstairs apartment. Even though it was just an unfurnished dump, the apartment felt totally glamorous. Blair was thrilled. This was her place. This was her party. Sure, the movie might be ending, but really, summer was just beginning.

Disclaimer: All the real names of places, people, and events have been altered or abbreviated to protect the innocent. Namely, me.

hey people!

Oh. My. God. I didn’t think it was possible to have the kind ofhangover I am currently suffering through, but then it’s myown fault: when am I going to learn not to overdo it on thechampagne? Then again, I always have been the life of theparty. And what a party! I’m sure those of you who were luckyenough to be in attendance will agree: the second-biggest,bestest blowout of the summer. Looks like someone is shapingup to be the hostess with the mostest, don’t you think?

mix and match

Dying to know who went home with whom? I’ve got the full dossier:

T is indeed a one-man guy. The second the party ended hegrabbed the first available cab and sped down to the Mercer,where he met up with his secret sweetie. I hear the two ofthem spent the next forty-eight hours ensconced in the honeymoon suite.

That fabulous designer, the one who insists on wearing his mirrored Ray-Ban aviators inside at night, lured that dreamboatDJ back to his manse on Park Avenue, no doubt with the promise of a free outfit from his new menswear line. Wonder if the DJ will be spinning vinyl out in the Hamptons for the restof the summer ...

S went to bed alone. Will wonders never cease?

D and V shared a taxi back to his—um, their place on the Upper West Side, but the romance is officially dead. Separate bedrooms, people. Separate bedrooms.

N was spotted on a very late-night LIRR train out to the island, all alone. So what became of . . .

Trashy bottled-tan-and-bottle-blond girl? She and C kept the party going, hitting the club circuit and ending up at Bungalow 8 at 5 a.m. They still haven’t been heard from.

Want to know why S went to bed alone? Because her roomie was crashed out downstairs. But B was definitely not alone....

if we took a holiday ...

People, let’s not forget that the summer was made for relaxing. July is just around the corner, and by the time Bastille Day rolls around (isn’t that someone’s birthday?) we’ll officially be halfway through the break. There will be plenty of time for work come fall, for midterms and fraternity mixers and worrying about interviewing for the best internships for next summer. This is our time to play, so get down to business and just . . . chill. Oh, who am I kidding? In this town, we never just chill! Okay, maybe N does, but the rest of us never slow down. Speaking of never slowing down . . .

Will B break another heart? She’s already cast aside two suitors, and it’s not even July!

Will S be able to adjust to life without the cameras rolling? Will she share the limelight with B in the Hamptons, or will she go Hollywood and spend the rest of her days with her new BFF T?

Will N make nice with B? Will he go crawling back to S? Or has he finally given up on chasing girls and decided to grow up? And have we heard the last from his little summer fling? Methinks not. After all, he still has lots of work to do on his lax coach’s house....

What about the Hamptons? Will this vacation playland for the rich and famous be big enough for B, S, and N? What about the rest of Manhattan’s elite? The location might be changing, but the stars are character actors—they never really change.

And seriously: what the hell is going on with V and D? Odds are three-to-one they re–hook up by July Fourth. Any gamblers out there?

I’m going to stay on the case and get some answers. It is, after all, my summer job, and I’m the hardest worker I know. Someone’s got to do it.

You know you love me.

gossip girl

Once upon a time on the Upper East Side of New York City, two beautiful girls fell in love with one perfect boy....

Turn the page for a sneak peek of

it had to be you

the gossip girl prequel

and find out how it all began.

by the #1 New York Times bestselling author

Cecily von Ziegesar

Disclaimer: All the real names of places, people, and events have been altered or abbreviated to protect the innocent. Namely, me.

hey people!

Ever have that totally freakish feeling that someone is listening in on your conversations, spying on you and your friends, following you to parties, and generally stalking you? Well, they are. Or actually, I am. The truth is, I’ve been here all along, because I’m one of you.

Feeling totally lost? Don’t get out much? Don’t know who “we” are? Allow me to explain. We’re an exclusive group of indescribably beautiful people who happen to live in those majestic, green-awninged, white-glove-doorman buildings near Central Park. We attend Manhattan’s most elite single-sex private schools. Our families own yachts and estates in various exotic locations throughout the world. We frequent all the best beaches and the most exclusive ski resorts. We’re seated immediately at the nicest restaurants in the chicest neighborhoods without a reservation. We turn heads. But don’t confuse us with Hollywood actors or models or rock stars—those people you feel like you know because you hear so much about them, but who are actually completely boring compared to the parts they play or the songs they sing. There’s nothing boring about me or my friends, and the more I tell you about us, the more you’re going to want to know. I’ve kept quiet until now, but something has happened and I just can’t stay quiet about it. . . .

We learned in our first eleventh-grade creative writing class this week that most great stories begin in one of the following fashions: someone mysteriously disappears or a stranger comes to town. The story I’m about to tell is of the “someone mysteriously disappears” variety.

To be specific, S is gone.

In order to unravel the mystery of why she’s left and where she’s gone, I’m going to have to backtrack to last winter—the winter of our sopho-more year—when the La Mer skin cream hit the fan and our pretty pink rose-scented bubble burst. It all started with three inseparable, perfectly innocent, übergorgeous fifteen-year-olds. Well, they’re sixteen now, and let’s just say that two of them are not that innocent.

If anyone is going to tell this tale it has to be me, because I was at the scene of every crime. So sit back while I unravel the past and reveal everyone’s secrets, because I know everything, and what I don’t know I’ll invent, elaborately.

Admit it: you’re already falling for me.

Love you too . . .

gossip girl

“Truce!” Serena van der Woodsen screamed as Nate Archibald body-checked her into a three-foot-high drift of powdery white snow. Cold and wet, it tunneled into her ears and down her pants. Nate dove on top of her, all five-foot eleven inches of his perfect, golden-brown-haired, glittering-green-eyed, fifteen-year-old boyness. Nate smelled like Downy and the Kiehl’s sandalwood soap the maid stocked his bathroom with. Serena just lay there, trying to breathe with him on top of her. “My scalp is cold,” she pleaded, getting a mouthful of Nate’s snow-dampened, godlike curls as she spoke.

Nate sighed reluctantly, as if he could have spent all day outside in the frigid February meat locker that was the back garden of his family’s Eighty-second-Street-just-off-Park-Avenue Manhattan town house. He rolled onto his back and wriggled like Serena’s long-dead golden retriever, Guppy, when she used to let him loose on the green grass of the Great Lawn in Central Park. Then he stood up, awkwardly dusting off the seat of his neatly pressed Brooks Brothers khakis. It was Saturday, but he still wore the same clothes he wore every weekday as a sophomore at the St. Jude’s School for Boys over on East End Avenue. It was the unofficial Prince of the Upper East Side uniform, the same uniform he and his classmates had been wearing since they’d started nursery school together at Park Avenue Presbyterian.

Nate held out his hand to help Serena to her feet. She frowned cautiously up at him, worried that he was only faking her out and was about to tackle her again. “I really am cold.”

He flapped his hand at her impatiently. “I know. Come on.”

She snorted, pretended to pick her nose and wipe it on the seat of her snow-soaked dark denim Earl jeans, then grabbed his hand with her faux-snotty one. “Thanks, pal.” She staggered to her feet. “You’re a real chum.”

Nate led the way inside. The backs of his pant legs were damp and she could see the outline of his tighty-whiteys. Really, how gay of him! He held the glass-paned French doors open and stood aside to let her pass. Serena kicked off her baby blue Uggs and scuffed her bare, Urban Decay Piggy Bank pink–toenailed feet down the long hall to the stately town house’s enormous, barely used all-white Italian Modern kitchen. Nate’s father was a former sea captain-turned-banker, and his mother was a French society hostess. They were basically never home, and when they werehome, they were at the opera.

“Are you hungry?” Nate asked, following her. “I’m so sick of takeout. My parents have been in Venezuela or Santa Domingo or wherever they go in February for like two weeks, and I’ve been eating burritos, pizza, or sushi every freaking night. I asked Regina to buy ham, Swiss, Pepperidge Farm white bread, Grammy Smith apples, and peanut butter. All I want is the food I ate in kindergarten.” He tugged anxiously on his wavy, golden brown hair. “Maybe I’m going through some sort of midlife crisis or something.”

Like his life is so stressful?

“It’s GrannySmith, silly,” Serena informed him fondly. She opened a glossy white cupboard and found an unopened box of cinnamon-and-brown-sugar Pop-Tarts. Ripping open the box, she removed one of the packets from inside, tore it open with her neat, white teeth, and pulled out a thickly frosted pastry. She sucked on the Pop-Tart’s sweet, crumbly corner and hopped up on the counter, kicking the cupboards below with her size-eight-and-a-half feet. Pop-Tarts at Nate’s. She’d been having them there since she was five years old. And now ... and now ...

Serena sighed heavily. “Mom and Dad want me to go to boarding school next year,” she announced, her enormous, almost navy blue eyes growing huge and glassy as they welled up with unexpected tears. Go away to boarding school and leave Nate? It hurt too much to even think about.

Nate flinched as if he’d been slapped in the face by an invisible hand. He grabbed the other Pop-Tart from out of the packet and hopped up on the counter next to Serena. “No way,” he responded decisively. She couldn’t leave. He wouldn’t allow it.

“They want to travel more,” Serena explained. The pink, perfect curve of her lower lip trembled dangerously. “If I’m home, they feel like they need to be home more. Like I want them around? Anyway, they’ve arranged for me to meet some of the deans of admissions and stuff. It’s like I have no choice.”

Nate scooted over a few inches and put his arm around her. “The city is going to suck if you’re not here,” he told her earnestly. “You can’t go.”

Serena took a deep shuddering breath and rested her pale blond head on his shoulder. “I love you,” she murmured, closing her delicate eyelids. Their bodies were so close the entire Nate-side of her hummed. If she turned her head and tilted her chin just so, she could have easily kissed his warm, lovely neck. And she wanted to. She was actually dying to, because she really did love him, with all her heart.

She did? Hello? Since when?!

Maybe since ballroom-dancing school way back in fourth grade. She was tall for her age, and Nate was always such a gentleman about her lack of rhythm and the way she stepped on his insteps and jutted her bony elbows into his sides. He’d finesse it by grabbing her hand and spinning her around so that the skirt of her puffy, oyster-colored satin tea-length Bonpoint dress twirled out magnificently. Their teacher, Mrs. Jaffe, who had long blue hair that she kept in place with a pearl-adorned black hairnet, worshipped Nate. So did Serena’s best friend, Blair Waldorf. And so did Serena—she just hadn’t realized it until now. Serena shuddered and her perfect skin broke out in a rash of goose bumps. Her whole body seemed to be having an adverse reaction to the idea of revealing something she’d kept so well hidden for so long, even from herself.

Nate wrapped his lacrosse-toned arms around her long, narrow waist and pulled her close, tucking her pale gold head into the crook of his neck and massaging the ruts between the ribs on her back with his fingertips. The best thing about Serena was her total lack of embarrassing flab. Her entire body was as long and lean and taut as the strings on his Prince titanium tennis racket.

It was painful having such a ridiculously hot best friend. Why couldn’t his best friend be some lard-assed dude with zits and dandruff? Instead he had Serena and Blair Waldorf, hands down the two hottest girls on the Upper East Side, and maybe all of Manhattan, or even the whole world.

Serena was an absolute goddess—every guy Nate knew talked about her—but she was mysterious. She’d laugh for hours if she spotted a cloud shaped like a toilet seat or something equally ridiculous, and the next moment she’d be wistful and sad. It was impossible to tell what she was thinking most of the time. Sometimes Nate wondered if she would’ve been more comfortable in a body that was slightly less perfect, because it would’ve given her more incentive,to use an SAT vocabulary word. Like she wasn’t sure what she had to aspire to, since she basically had everything a girl could possibly want.

Blair was petite, with a pretty, foxlike face, blue eyes, and wavy chestnut-colored hair. She let everyone know what she was thinking, and she was fiercely competitive. For instance, she always found opportunities to point out that her chest was almost a whole cup size larger than Serena’s and that she’d scored almost 100 points higher than Serena on the practice SAT.

Way back in fifth grade, Serena had told Nate she was pretty sure Blair had a crush on him. He started to notice that Blair did stick her chest out when he was looking, and she was always either bossing him around or fixing his hair. Of course Blair never admitted that she liked him, which made him like her even more.

Nate sighed deeply. No one understood how difficult it was being best friends with two such beautiful, impossible girls.

Like he would have been friends with them if they were awkward and buttugly?

He closed his eyes and breathed in the sweet scent of Serena’s Frédéric Fekkai Apple Cider clarifying shampoo. He’d kissed lots of girls and had even gone to third base last June with L’Wren Knowes, a very experienced older Seaton Arms School senior who really did seem to know everything. But kissing Serena would be . . . different. He loved her. It was as simple as that. She was his best friend, and he loved her.

And if you can’t kiss your best friend, who canyou kiss?