Gossip Girl: It Had To Be You

There were three in the bed and the little one said, "what the *$#@?"

Blair blinked up at the white eyelet canopy looming above her. She'd been dreaming about kissing Nate on a beach somewhere in the Mediterranean, and it had felt so real she could actually smell the Bain de Soleil tanning oil and taste the sea salt in her mouth.

Or maybe that was just cotton mouth from last night's drinking and smoking binge.

She turned her leaden head. Nate's cheek was on Serena's chest. His gray T-shirt was off and he looked totally . . . blissful. Serena was wearing a skimpy white camisole and was hugging Nate's head tight. Blair bolted upright and kicked away the covers, simultaneously removing them from their cozy cuddle sandwich and revealing their long legs, which were all atangle. "I know you do that to Serena because you do it to me when I sleep over at your house," she remarked loudly. "Maybe you should just, like, get a teddy bear or something."

Serena's enormous blue eyes opened and she blinked her dark lashes at Blair. Nate's wavy golden brown hair was practically in her mouth as he mumbled, "What time is it?"

"I don't know. Ten, eleven." Blair swung her leg out and kung-fu kicked Nate in the ribs. "Will you get up already?"

His eyes flew open and he sat partially up, looking startled. Rays of unrelenting white winter light blazed through the large plate-glass window. "Jesus," he murmured, letting his head fall back onto the sumptuous goose-down pillow. "Blair, you really know how to wake up a guy. I should have you wake me up every morning."

That's the idea.

Blair stared down at him, so adorable now that he was lying on the pillow and not Serena's perky 34Bs. She cuddled up to his Serena-free side and put his lacrosse-calloused hand over her face, talking into it the way she'd done a thousand times before. "We have to do something really excellent this summer, you guys," she announced emphatically. No way did she want to hang out with her insane family this summer, witnessing her father sneaking around and her mother getting fatter and fatter, especially when there was no school and she could actually escape to someplace far, far away.

Like the Mediterranean?

"Summer," Serena mused aloud. No school. Sunny days filled with kisses. Skinny-dipping. Nate. "I can't wait." She slipped her hand over Nate's wrist and squeezed his free hand. He squeezed back, and she kicked her feet happily against the mattress, silently screaming with the thrill of it. This was just the beginning, the beginning of her and Nate.

Nate held the two girls, feeling happily confused. He remembered kissing Serena last night, and he remembered kissing L'Wren too. Both had felt nice. He remembered feeling super stoned, which also kind of rocked. He loved holding Blair's face in his hand like he was doing right now. He loved the way her tiny bones felt beneath his palm and the way her soft lips brushed against his fingers. Girls were all so great. Girls rocked. Man, was he lucky.

"Hey Nate. Why don't we spend the summer at your aunt's in France?" Blair rattled on. "Doesn't she live in, like, Provence or something? We could probably even get AP French credit for it."

"No way," Nate responded quickly. "She's even more of a prima donna than my mom. We could stay there, but we'd be her slaves. We'd have to, like, bring her lunch in bed and drive her dogs into town to get them groomed or take her to her plastic surgery appointments."

Blair thought this sounded sort of romantic. She and Nate could be Nate's aunt's live-in couple. They'd help around the house and make love on the porch in the evenings while his aunt was asleep, recovering from one of her many surgeries. And Serena could sleep in the guest house with the dogs. She'd always liked animals.

Oh, she'd love that.

"Then maybe we could go sailing on your boat instead," Serena suggested.

"Even better, Blair mused.