I Will Always Love You (21 page)

There, standing by the elevator, his hands in his pockets and a smirk on his face, was Hollis.

“Okay, we’ve already got our first date planned. Shower, here we come!” Hollis grinned. He had slight bags under his gray
eyes, as if he hadn’t slept in months. He wore a black leather jacket and his trademark fedora over his thick dark hair. He
stood there casually, like he’d only been gone a matter of minutes—not months.

Vanessa didn’t say anything. She felt like she was going to cry. Even though it was practically a scene from a terrible chick
movie, she couldn’t resist running to him and wrapping her arms around him tightly. She lifted her face up until her mouth
met his.

“Remember, there’s a kid watching!” Ruby called from the couch. Moxie gazed, entranced, at Hollis.

“Hi,” Vanessa said dumbly, staring up at him as if he were a vision.

Courtesy of too many Scrubbing Bubbles fumes?

“I couldn’t wait a month. I don’t want to be in Iceland. I want to be with you,” Hollis said simply.

“You’re back?” Vanessa asked. “For good?”

Hollis nodded. “Unless you’re hiding a boyfriend somewhere.”

“Just Paul Morrissey.” She gestured to the DVD case on the coffee table.

“We’ll leave you alone,” Ruby said, bundling Moxie back into her snowsuit. “Maybe there’s a movie about talking penguins we
can see.”

Vanessa didn’t even notice her adorable niece and sister as they made their way into the elevator. She was too busy kissing
her boyfriend.

Beats mopping the floor.

survivor

“Do you think Jenny will choose RISD or Pratt?” Serena asked, taking a thoughtful sip of her organic chai. She and Dan were
seated at a small table in Blue State Coffee, one of the cute coffee shops on Thayer Street in downtown Providence.

“Pratt,” Dan said confidently. His hair was sort of shaggy—Serena hadn’t been able to drag him to John Barrett’s—and he wore
a rumpled blue cotton oxford shirt and jeans. He looked slightly homeless, but to her, he was absolutely adorable. “Jenny’s
wanted to go there since she learned how to draw,” he said proudly.

“I didn’t have a clue when I was her age.” Serena wrinkled her nose. “But I guess it just depends on the person. Blair always
knew she wanted to go to Yale….” She trailed off.

“Have you spoken to her? Is she in New York for the holidays?” Dan asked before emptying the last of his double espresso from
his mini porcelain cup. It made him feel like a character in Alice in Wonderland. The espresso was his second, and they’d been in the shop for less than an hour, hanging out while Jenny took her RISD tour.
She was due back any minute.

“I don’t know.” Serena shrugged, thinking of her and Blair’s huge fight last winter. A blowup between them wasn’t anything
new—they’d been fighting since before they could properly form sentences. But their arguments usually blew over quickly. This one hadn’t. Blair had gone to study abroad at Oxford while Serena had gone to Yale, and they hadn’t spoken since last January.
“It doesn’t matter. I just hope she’s had as good a year as I have,” Serena added, smiling at Dan.

She and Dan had gotten together the previous winter break, and the relationship had quickly turned serious. By April, Serena
was spending most of her weekends at Dan’s Upper West Side apartment. They’d sit at the tiny kitchen table, studying together,
or go to the coffee shop on his corner and read. Dan was a junior at Columbia and Serena wasn’t quite sure what she was at
Yale. She’d just started in September, but she’d carried over a few credits from courses she’d taken at the New School earlier
that year.

Being at Yale was more complicated than she’d thought it would be. It was strange living in a dorm when she was used to having
her own apartment. She felt years older than her fellow freshmen, and it wasn’t easy to get back into studying mode, especially
since she’d only taken fun classes at the New School, like screenwriting and New York in Literature. She liked reading books,
but she’d never been one for taking tests and writing papers. And even if she did go back to the city every weekend, it was
hard to be separated from Dan from Monday to Thursday.

She did miss acting, but she didn’t miss having an agent and a publicist and getting followed around and pointed at everywhere
she went. Her first few weeks on campus, she’d get the occasional second look or stare, but she’d quickly found a degree of
anonymity she relished. Yale students were so busy with their own lives that for the most part they couldn’t get worked up
over a girl who was an actress once.

“Another cup?” Serena teased, noticing Dan’s jittery hands.

“Nah, I’m good,” Dan said, missing her sarcasm. Sometimes, like right now, Dan still couldn’t believe Serena van der Woodsen
was his girlfriend.

She laced her fingers in his as she gazed absentmindedly out the window. It was starting to snow, and the flakes swirling
around the Gothic buildings of the Brown campus were very romantic. It reminded her of playing in the snow with Nate back
in high school. It made her want to start a snowball fight, but Dan wasn’t really the roughhousing type.

Dan’s cell buzzed in his pocket. “It’s Jenny. She’s meeting us at the car.”

“Let’s go.” Serena stood and made her way out of the coffee shop. Together, they headed to the parking lot and settled into
Dan’s blue Buick Skylark.

Dan rested his hands on the steering wheel and leaned back into the bucket seat as they waited for Jenny. He was suddenly
glad he’d had the two espressos. He loved Jenny, and he loved Serena, but the two girls together had made for an exhausting
ride up. They’d bothered him every fifteen minutes to stop for coffee, snacks, and bathroom breaks, making what should have
been a three-hour trip more like five. Dan didn’t want a repeat performance on the way back, especially since the snow was
starting to stick to the ground.

Jenny bounded in the back door of the Buick, looking red-cheeked and radiant.

Wonder why?

“You’ll never guess who I ran into—Nate Archibald! Isn’t that crazy? He was going to take the train back to the city, but
I figured we could just give him a ride,” Jenny said without taking a breath. Her gaze landed on Serena. Oops. In her excitement,
Jenny had almost forgotten about Nate and Serena’s complicated history. To her, Serena was simply Dan’s girlfriend. Would
this be weird?

Of course it will!

Dan narrowed his eyes at the dark blond, green-eyed figure outside his car. Nate Archibald was the asshole who’d broken Jenny’s
heart three years ago, and had broken Serena’s heart just the year before. Dan had only heard the vaguest details about what had happened, but he knew Nate was bad news.
What the fuck was he doing here? “Actually, I think we’re pretty full—” Dan began. He racked his brain, trying to think of
some lie to prevent Nate from driving home with them. A weight limit?

A no-assholes rule?

“Natie!” Serena squealed, peering out the window at Nate. “What are you doing here?!” Serena couldn’t believe Nate was right
in front of her. She’d hardly thought about him this past year. She knew she should still be mad at Nate after what happened
last winter, but it all seemed so far in the past. Besides, she could afford to be generous. If Nate hadn’t made her so miserable
last year, she’d never have reached out to Dan. So in a way, she owed her current happiness to him.

“We totally have room!” Serena announced, getting out of the car. Nate looked so cute and helpless, with snowflakes sitting
in his dirty blond hair. She threw her arms around Nate in an affectionate old-friends hug. “Hop in,” she told him, getting
in the backseat with Jenny.

Dan sputtered, his blue fleece–gloved hands gripping the steering wheel. He didn’t love the idea of Jenny talking to this
douche, and he really didn’t like the familiar way Serena had hugged him. And now he had to give the guy a ride?

“Hey, I really appreciate the ride, especially with this snow. I’ll take middle,” Nate offered, climbing over Serena and wedging
his lanky frame into the middle of the seat between her and Jenny.

Serena squeezed his shoulder. “Let’s go,” she said.

Dan glared mutinously toward the backseat. Why didn’t Serena offer to sit up front with him? What was he? Their fucking chauffeur?

“Great. Let’s go,” Dan growled, navigating out of his spot and slowly driving down Thayer Street toward I-95.

“Dan, aren’t you going to ask me about RISD?” Jenny needled in her little-sister voice.

“How was it?” Serena asked curiously.

“So good,” Jenny gushed. “And guess what? Nate’s going to Brown!”

“You are, Natie? Oh my God, that’s awesome!” Serena cried. “Wait, we need something to celebrate. Dan, can you stop for snacks?”

Dan grunted. The last thing he wanted was for them to eat a fucking cake in the backseat of his car while he drove them around
like a fucking soccer team. “I think we should just try to get home as quickly as possible. The snow’s really coming down,”
he pointed out.

“Whatever you say.” Nate shrugged. “I’m still not used to being back on the East Coast. We don’t get snow at Deep Springs.”

“Did you know that Nate knows how to birth cows?” Serena said proudly as Dan merged into the bumper-to-bumper traffic of I-95
South. The cars were jockeying for road space, and the steadily falling snowflakes made for poor visibility. Dan sucked in
his breath. He hated driving. Part of the reason he loved living in New York was that he never had to drive.

“I need to concentrate,” he muttered, turning on the windshield wipers.

Nate tapped Dan’s shoulder. “You want me to drive? I’m pretty good at dealing with the dust storms in California.”

“No,” Dan said shortly. He looked in the rearview mirror. Jenny was leaning toward the middle section of the seat, practically
on top of Nate. She was a smart girl, but when it came to boys, she could be sort of a ditz. Dan knew his sister, and right
now Jenny was in full-on flirt mode.

God help us.

“I got stuck in the snow once,” she offered. “With my friend Tinsley. Our car broke down in the middle of the highway, and
we had to spend the night in it. We thought we were in, like, the middle of nowhere, but when we woke up the next morning
we realized we were right in front of a hotel. The owners felt sorry for us and gave us a free breakfast.”

Nate chuckled. “That’s funny. I always wondered what went down at boarding school. Serena would never give up any stories
about Hanover.”

“What do you want to know?” Serena stuck out her tongue at Nate. “That was a million years ago, anyway.”

Dan pulled forward into an empty lane and accelerated angrily.

Suddenly, the car swerved toward the shoulder. Dan whipped the wheel in the opposite direction, the back of the car swinging
like the tail of a snake. Behind them a car horn blared. Jenny shrieked, and Serena braced herself against the back of Dan’s
seat.

Dan pressed on the brake and pulled over, his breath short and heart pounding. Everyone was silent. They could’ve been killed. He peered out the window. Fat flakes were falling, and the stormy clouds meant it was only going to get worse. Fuck. Stuck
in a fucking blizzard, hours from home. “It’s too dangerous to try to get all the way back to the city in this. I don’t have
snow tires, and this car isn’t exactly in the best of shape.” Dan said flatly, hating the truth of the statement.

They all peered out at the swirling snow. “Damn, dude,” Nate swore sympathetically. Dan just glared at him in the rearview
mirror. Helpful. Really helpful.

“We could stay at a hotel!” Jenny offered happily. She loved hotels. They could get two rooms: one for Dan and Serena and one for her and Nate.

“I have an idea…” Serena offered. “Blair’s Newport house isn’t far from here. It’s empty. Her mom’s in California and her
dad’s in France. And I still remember the security code.”

Dan shook his head. That was the thing about Serena. Everything always worked out for her, so it never occurred to her that
breaking into someone’s house could be a bad idea. “I don’t think—” he began.

“Perfect,” Nate enthused. “Man, I used to love that house. Remember how we always used to play croquet on the lawn and talk
in British accents?”

“Oh my God, yes! And Blair would always get so competitive?” Serena rolled her eyes. “I’m going to drive. I know where it
is,” she announced, already unbuckling her seat belt and climbing up front.

Wordlessly, Dan slid out of the driver’s seat and walked through the falling snow to the passenger door.

Buckle up! The road ahead sounds seriously bumpy.

the more the merrier

“More wine, Blair-Bear? After all, you’ve been legal in England for months!” Harold Waldorf held up a bottle of his vineyard’s
Côtes du Rhone. Blair sighed in contentment. It was the perfect winter break: no drama, no one protesting her movie choices,
and plenty of cozy time with her family and her fabulous boyfriend.

And who might that be?

“Thanks, Daddy,” she cooed, holding out her glass. Harold wore a red cashmere sweater and tight jeans that, really, no man
should ever wear, but he looked surprisingly good. It was hard to remember a time when her dad was a straitlaced partner of
a Park Avenue law firm and not a French vineyard–owning gay man with a partner named Giles and adopted twins from Cambodia
named Pierre and Pauline. As infants the twins had been named Ping and Pong, because of their cute round hairless heads, but
as soon as Harold and Giles began applying to nursery school programs, they realized their son and daughter might be teased.

You think?

“‘For auld lang syne’…” Harold warbled as he stepped between the pieces of the elaborate train set the twins had gotten for
Christmas spread out on the floor. In the corner, Giles was having a tea party with the twins.

Blair contemplatively swirled the wine in her glass. It was nice to be in Newport, where she’d spent so many of her childhood
holidays. Christmas had been perfect: They’d spent the morning opening presents underneath the gigantic Douglas fir, then
taken turns helping Pauline and Pierre build their train set. She’d gotten a pair of limited edition Chanel booties from her
father, and she’d spent the afternoon curled up by the fire reading and drinking wine. There’d been no unexpected surprises,
and she liked it that way.