Gossip Girl: It Had To Be You

D has smelled worse

It was a Friday, and Brok was busy as hell. Smelly or not, everyone seemed to want to eat fish when it was hot out. Vanessa doled out softshell crabs, filets of grouper, swordfish steaks, and some new trendy oversize yellow scallops that looked like Twinkies. Her latex-gloved hands were caked in fish guts and her bare calves were spattered with fish blood and unidentified gray slime.

"I'll take six pounds of calamari, and all the clams you got," the next guy in line told her.

Vanessa checked the glass case without looking up. Six pounds of squid? She stood on tiptoe and peered over the top of the high countertop. Smiling at her was the shaggy-haired, goofy-grinned boy of her dreams. "Hey, I know you. You're SpongeBob SquarePants." She turned to Hon and pointed directly at Dan's face, covering her mouth like Dan was absolutely the funniest-looking guy she'd ever seen. Hon just smiled uncomfortably, wary of what was obviously some sort of twisted lover's quarrel.

"Cool job," Dan observed. He'd been watching Vanessa for a while. She looked supremely self-assured, slapping fish filets down on waxed paper and wrapping them up so professionally. She even knew how to use the cool old cash register. It made him wish he'd spent the summer working in the fish shop with her.

Duh.

"My sister has been sleeping at her friends' house. She can't stand the way I smell." Vanessa began to help the next customer, conscious of how closely Dan was watching her. She paid extra attention to the folds in the waxed paper. It was like making paper airplanes: the neater your folds, the straighter the plane flies. Which had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with fish.

But we know what she means.

"So I was wondering!" Dan was forced to yell over an older woman's head. The woman had ordered twenty fresh sardines and now she was counting each one to make sure Vanessa hadn't gypped her.

"There's this movie at the Angelika I want to see—"

"The Tom Waits one?" Vanessa yelled back, tossing a softshell crab at Hon just for fun.

Dan nodded. "You want to go?"

Vanessa considered Dan's face. It hadn't changed. If anything, he was paler now than he'd been in May. And as long as they stuck to Brooklyn and downtown, they'd be at no risk of bumping into Serena van der Woodsen. She took off her apron and tore her gloves off with her teeth. Her shift was over in half an hour. Hon could cover for her. Besides, she was honestly sort of sick of slinging fish. Hell, she might not even come back.

She stepped around the counter and led Dan out of the tiny shop. Outside the sun beat down on the sidewalks, turning everything white. Vanessa shielded her big brown eyes. "You don't mind walking around with me all stinky?"

Dan put his arm around her shoulders and took a good whiff. After years of smelling the impossible odors that emanated from his dad's kitchen, he didn't mind her eau de poisson at all. "You smell like a sushi restaurant." He lit a cigarette and smiled sexily at her without meaning to. "It's nice."

Vanessa totally hated him for being so disarming, but she also still totally loved him. Dan kept his arm around her shoulder as they walked down the street to the subway. She wasn't sure what his arm meant, but it was enough for now.

As long as nobody mentions a certain blonde.