I Will Always Love You (5 page)

It’s already late afternoon and I still have to take a nap before slipping into my don’t-you-wish-you-knew-where-it-was-from
frock. And while I have my beauty sleep, I suggest you do the same. After all, who knows where and when (and with whom) you’ll find yourself in bed tonight.

You know you love me,

gossip girl

double-booking NYE is never a good idea

Serena crowded into the elevator of Thaddeus Smith’s loft behind Amanda, Alysia, and Alison. She’d invited Blair, but Blair
had declined, saying she’d just meet her at Chuck’s later. Serena hoped Blair didn’t think she was lame for stopping by an
industry party, but she’d promised Thad she would.

“Oh my God, Serena, you should date Thaddeus! His building is soooo pretty!” Alysia enthused in between hiccups. Thaddeus
lived in a top-floor triplex in an all-pink eight-unit Julian Schnabel building that overlooked the Hudson River.

“I don’t think we’d be good together.” Serena giggled. Because he’s totally gay, she wanted to add. Serena had found this out the hard way last summer, when Thad was her costar in Breakfast at Fred’s. She’d thought he liked her—until she’d met his boyfriend, Serge, and realized Thad had been flirting with her to cover up
his real relationship. It was disappointing, but she’d gotten over it quickly. Now, she wasn’t about to out Thad. He’d come out when
he was ready.

Even though the news would make so many boys’ dreams come true.

“Oh my God, I heard Brad and Angelina are going to be here, and that Brett Ratner will be too and is looking for a lead for
his next film. Do you think I look too skanky?” Alysia asked, examining her red marabou feather dress in the elevator mirror.
She looked like an aging Vegas showgirl.

“No, you look great,” Serena lied. The theme of the party was Heaven and Hell. Serena hadn’t really planned on dressing up,
but at the last moment, and at Blair’s urging, she’d decided to wear a short white Calypso sundress that was technically a
bikini cover-up, a black garter on her perfectly toned leg, and a headband that had little Swarovski crystal devil horns.
The entire look was fun-sexy, unlike Amanda’s custom-made angel wings or Alysia’s feathered dress.

“You want?” Alysia asked tipsily, passing Serena a silver Tiffany flask. She hiccupped again.

“Alysia, I swear to God, if you embarrass me in front of any agents, I’m going to tell everyone you starred in a fat camp commercial when you were twelve,” Amanda said haughtily, elbowing
Alison in the ribs.

Serena laughed, remembering all the mini fights she and Blair had had in elevators on the way to parties over the years. It
all seemed so long ago.

Does that mean it’s time for a rematch?

The elevator doors slid open to reveal the living room of Thaddeus’s apartment. It was an enormous, loftlike space, with floor-to-ceiling
windows that looked out onto the inky black Hudson River below. The space was already crowded with scantily clad girls in
red and white, and guys in jeans and white button-downs or red T-shirts. The air felt twenty degrees hotter than in the elevator.

“Serena, baby!” Ira Green, the producer of Coffee at the Palace, greeted her, slapping his fleshy palm against her bare back. “I noticed your boyfriend was here. Great career move.” Ira
nodded importantly.

“My boyfriend?” Serena asked in confusion, glancing around the crowded room.

“Breckin O’Dell? Says in Page Six you’ve been canoodling.” Ira grabbed a glass of champagne off the tray of a passing server
clad in a white bikini and red stilettos. “Look, I’m all for it, but I don’t want you to get exclusive. Not good for pre-film
buzz. In fact, I’d love for you to really spend the evening mingling. I’ve got a couple of my own friends who’d love to meet
you.”

“I’d like to meet them,” Amanda piped up, sticking her hand out for Ira to shake. Serena took that moment to gracefully duck
away, weaving between party guests toward the bar set up in the corner. She usually loved parties, but right now, all she
wanted to do was say hi to Thaddeus and then hop a cab to the Tribeca Star and spend the night partying with Blair. Tomorrow,
they could have a lazy brunch, nursing their hangovers with glasses of fresh-squeezed orange juice. Then they’d watch Breakfast at Tiffany’s and all the other old movies Blair loved.

“Serena!” someone shouted from behind her. Breckin O’Dell was lumbering over to her from the bar, looking extremely pleased
with himself. His reddish hair was artfully spiked into peaks, and he wore a skinny purple tie and a black vest.

Hell is other people’s… outfits?

Serena made a beeline for the bathroom. She really didn’t feel like getting into another conversation with Breckin. He was
definitely attractive and had appeared in a couple spy thriller movies, but his conversation topics ranged from his abs to
his agent.

She swung open the bathroom door. A bare-assed girl was straddling a half-naked guy on the edge of the onyx sink.

Definitely occupied.

“Sorry!” Serena squealed, slamming the door shut. Gross.

“Serena!” Breckin sidled up to her. “May I say you look lovely.” He snaked his arm around her shoulders, drawing her closer
to him. “My agent thinks we should date. What do your people say?”

Serena stifled a giggle. Her people? The phrase made her think of little green aliens landing their UFO on Earth. “Do you always do what your agent tells you,
or do you have a mind of your own?”

“Oh, I have a mind of my own,” Breckin said slimily. He plucked two flutes of champagne from a passing waiter and offered
one to her. “And there’s a lot going on in there.” He winked.

“Cheers!” Serena clinked glasses with him while sneaking a glance at her gold Cartier tank watch. Eleven fifteen. She’d planned
to leave the party by eleven, and she still hadn’t said hi to Thad or talked to any of Ira’s producer friends.

It’s a tough job, but somebody’s gotta do it.

“So…?” Breckin asked, clearly waiting for her opinion on their dating future.

“My people will be in touch,” Serena lied as she backed away. She pulled her iPhone from her silver Chanel clutch, sending
a text to Blair that she was on her way.

“Serena van der Woodsen, you are beautiful!”

Serena whirled around, relaxing when she saw Thad. He wore a tight white cashmere muscle tank and a pair of white linen pants.
A six-foot-tall girl with straw-colored, ass-skimming hair held his hand. She wore a red cleavage-baring dress with an amoeba-shaped
cutout at the middle. Serena recognized her as an up-and-coming singer who’d won some reality show competition.

“This is Carilee Roberts. Our agent introduced us,” Thaddeus said tightly, brushing his blond curls from his forehead as if
he had a headache. “Carilee, this is Serena van der Woodsen.”

“Hey there, sugar. Why, don’t you look like just the sweetest thing? I could just eat you up! Of course, I don’t mean that
literally. I only like boys!” Carilee said enthusiastically, yanking Serena’s shoulders toward her and kissing her aggressively
on both cheeks.

“Nice to meet you.” Serena said as she backed away.

Thaddeus’s light blue eyes flicked down to Serena’s almost empty champagne glass. “We need to get you a drink. And we need
to get me ten. Can you hang out with us for a bit? Serge couldn’t make it. He decided to go to a Boys’ Night Out party instead,”
Thaddeus whispered. Serena could detect a hint of desperation in his voice. Thad obviously wished he was at a Boys’ Night
Out party, rather than the Hollywood-heavy party Ira had insisted he host.

“Of course.” Serena smiled as she trailed after Carilee and Thaddeus to the bar. It was the least she could do. Blair would
understand.

Of course she would.

What the fuck, Blair murmured as she listened to Serena’s voice-mail message click on for the tenth time tonight. She was sitting on the
edge of the bathtub in Chuck Bass’s Tribeca Star suite. Serena had promised that she’d only stay at her Hollywood is Hell
party for an hour, but it was now almost eleven thirty. Of course, Serena had invited Blair along, offering to “add her to
the guest list.” Like Blair was so pathetic she needed her movie star best friend to get her in places. She’d demurred and
opted to meet Serena here instead.

Blair sighed in frustration as she tossed her phone back in her clutch and sauntered out of the bathroom. She couldn’t believe
Serena would just ditch her like this. They’d always spent New Year’s Eve together. Blair remembered so many parties in this very suite, splashing around in the raised hot tub
in their skimpiest Calypso bikinis, trying to find the cutest guy in the room to make out with when the clock struck midnight.

Of course, they always wound up kissing each other.

“I heard Blair and her Yale boyfriend had this secret wedding in Mexico, but then they had to have it annulled,” Laura Salmon
whispered to Rain Hoffstetter over by the makeshift bar in the kitchen annex. She wore a glittery sheath dress, and a matching
Swarovski-studded headband was perched on her dark roots.

“Really? I heard Blair found out she was pregnant with Nate’s baby and now she’s trying to make it seem like the Yale guy
is the father. Luckily, she’s not really showing,” Rain Hoffstetter whispered back. A diamond stud glittered in her left nostril,
drawing attention to her pug nose.

Blair strode over to her former Constance classmates, aware their eyes were on her.

“Hey,” she said to the group. She grabbed a bottle of Ketel One and liberally poured it into a tumbler, then added a splash
of tonic. The suite was pretty empty. In the corner, a group of flannel-clad guys were playing Xbox, entranced by the flat
screen against one wall. The hot tub, constructed in an anteroom between the bedroom and the main suite, was filled with flat-chested
girls Blair vaguely recognized as members of the freshman peer group she’d led last year at Constance. Blair squinted to take
a closer look. Through the steam, she noticed two topless girls making out with each other. Obviously slutty L’École girls,
trying to get attention. Blair wrinkled her nose. Was this seriously how she was spending her New Year’s? This party was lame even by high school standards.

“Where’s Chuck?” she asked Rain, trying not to stare at the infected boil that erupted from her nose piercing. She’d heard
Chuck was in military school or monkey training school or something.

You know, either one.

“I don’t know.” Rain shrugged. “More importantly, did you see Isabel?”

Blair shook her head blankly. Why the hell would she care about Isabel Coates?

“Look.” Laura Salmon pointed a pearly manicured finger toward the two girls in the hot tub. “Isabel’s dating a girl named
Casey. Except she’s just doing that to show off,” Laura said in disapproval. Blair squinted through the fog, recognizing Isabel’s
profile. Interesting. She wished she could deconstruct the whole ridiculous scenario with Serena. Where the fuck was she?

“Are you dating anyone?” Rain asked nosily as she chugged her vodka soda from a Riedel glass.

“I’m dating a comp lit major. He’s a junior and I was just with his family for the holidays. He’s in Costa Rica right now…
working on a… project,” Blair fibbed, getting more and more annoyed by the second. In the movie of her life, tonight was supposed
to play like the scene in My Fair Lady, when Eliza makes a grand entrance at the ball and everyone wonders who that stunning, gorgeous girl is. Instead, she was
busy trying to impress the wannabes she’d never even cared about in high school.

How the mighty have fallen.

“Serena’s dating a movie star,” Laura offered, taking a seat on one of the bar stools next to Blair. “I read about it in the
Post.”

Blair pretended she hadn’t heard. She did not want to get into a conversation about Serena’s fabulous, star-studded life. Was she dating a movie star? Was she with him right now? And why hadn’t any of the flannel-clad guys in the corner even noticed
her? Blair unhappily drained the rest of her drink. She pulled out her iPhone and frowned at it. WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU? she texted, then quickly pressed send with a nude-polished fingernail.

“I’m going out to smoke,” she announced, turning on her knee-high Sigerson Morrison boot and stomping toward the terrace.

If you can’t make a grand entrance, make a grand exit.

fancy meeting you here

Nate shivered and stuffed his hands deep into the pockets of his blue toggle coat. He and Chips had docked in Palm Beach in
the morning, and Nate had hopped an afternoon flight back to New York, arriving at his Upper East Side town house in the early
evening. He’d taken a long shower, then spent hours seated on the floor of his room, unsure what to do. Aboard the Belinda he always had tasks. But back in the city, he had nothing to do and nowhere to go. No one even knew he was here. His parents
were in St. Barts for New Year’s, like always, and Regina, the Archibalds’ housekeeper, had the week off. It would be cool
to have the house to himself, if he didn’t feel so lonely. Everything in his room, from the lacrosse sticks propped in the
closet to the framed photos on his desk, reminded him of his old life.

Eventually, Nate had gotten dressed in a dark blue Ralph Lauren sweater and a pair of Diesel jeans and left the house. He’d
wandered aimlessly downtown for about an hour, until he remembered that Chuck always threw a New Year’s Eve party at the Tribeca
Star. As if his feet had a mind of their own, he found himself headed there.

Nate glanced left and right across East Houston and crossed the street toward the ultramodern Philippe Starck–designed hotel
that loomed above lower Manhattan. He paused at the corner, gazing up like a tourist. His neatly ironed clothes felt scratchy
after months of wearing frayed cargo shorts and T-shirts. What the fuck was he doing? Maybe it was a dumb idea. Maybe Chuck
wasn’t even having a party this year. Or maybe he was, and by some crazy coincidence, Serena and Blair would be there.

But Blair didn’t even have a home in the city anymore. She was probably out in LA for the holidays, meeting smooth-talking
California surfer dudes who’d take her on moonlit walks on the beach. Serena was probably off filming a movie somewhere, guys
falling at her feet. Neither of them would give a second thought to the kid who almost didn’t get his diploma and fucked up
everything with both of them.