Only in Your Dreams (Gossip Girl #9)(33)

Following Tawny, Nate thought about how weird it was that he’d only been out of school for a couple of weeks and yet his entire life had completely changed. He was working construction and dating a hot Hamptons chick. Well, why not? If Blair could change everything—she was getting married, for Christ’s sake—why couldn’t he? It was easier to be with Tawny than it was to be with any other girl he’d ever known; she wasn’t demanding and self-absorbed like Blair, she wasn’t na?ve and needy like Jenny, she wasn’t unpredictable and inattentive like Serena. She just ... was.

Classic stoner logic.

“Come on,” Tawny urged, backtracking to grab his hand and pull him through the bushes.

She led him into a sun-dappled clearing where two massive trees had fallen on top of one another, creating natural benches that were obviously popular with the locals, since the forest floor was littered with old beer bottles and cigarette butts. Three guys hunkered on one of the felled logs, passing a joint between them. Behind them, through the trees, the blue-black water of the sound glinted and swelled.

“Hey guys!”Tawny cried.

Three heads swiveled in their direction. With their baggy jeans and plucked eyebrows, gelled hair, and dorky striped button-downs, these were the kind of guys Nate and his friends would have scoffed at if they’d ever come across them in the city. They were the kind of guys who got into fights with bouncers and wore gallons of cheesy drug-store cologne. And they were also, apparently,Tawny’s friends.

“Nate,these are Greg,Tony,and Vince.”

“What’s up?” Nate asked, nodding uneasily in their direction.

Tawny clambered over the trunk and took a seat next to Greg, a deeply tanned guy cupping a joint in his palm and jutting his chest out into the air territorially in a way that reminded Nate of a bulldog.

“We’ve got some herb, bro,” announced Vince, who appeared to be Greg’s twin. “Have a seat.”

Nate’s ears pricked up at this offer. He hated being called “bro” by guys he didn’t even know, and he hated guys who pretended to be cool when they were really losers, but he had to admit a smoke—even with these dorks—sounded like his kind of dessert.

Tawny took a hit and handed over the slightly damp roach. Nate inhaled greedily.

“Good stuff, right?” the guy called Greg asked gruffly. “I got it off my regular guy. He’s always busiest in the summer, you know, but he saves the best shit for loyal year-round cus-tomers like me.”

It wasn’t great stuff—the Hawaiian stash Nate had stored back in his bedroom was much better—but he couldn’t complain.

“Fucking city kids,” growled Vince, taking the joint from Nate. “They always f*ck everything up during the summer. Fucking traffic. Fucking clubs. Fucking pain in the ass.”

Eloquently put.

“Summer crowds, man,” mumbled Tony, who hadn’t yet spoken. He was glaring at Nate, studying him suspiciously from under the perfectly creased bill of his Coney Island Cyclones baseball cap.

Nate was zoning out as usual, the way he liked to when he was smoking herb, but he heard what the guys were saying. Loud and clear.

“Totally.” Tawny yawned, lazily resting her blond, curly-haired head on Nate’s shoulder.

Nate glanced down at his tattered work outfit. It was pretty clear Tawny disliked the wealthy crowd that flooded the Hamptons every summer, and Nate was definitely part of that crowd. With his workingman’s tan and ragged clothes, she’d probably taken him for the kind of guy who had to spend his summer earning his money, presumably to pay his way through Yale in the fall. He felt a stab of guilt. He hadn’t exactly been honest with her.

Old habits die hard. “Same old story every year,” Tony continued. “Why don’t they find someplace else to go, like France or some shit?” “They’re not so bad,” Nate ventured. “I mean, I’m kind of from the city—” “You are?” Tawny demanded, lifting her head. She narrowed her normally wide blue eyes. “You never said anything.”

“You never asked,” Nate pointed out. There were murmurs from the other guys. Vince spat into the sand. Out on the water, a fishing boat flashed its lights.

“I knew it,” Tony said, spitting on the ground. “I could just smell it on you.”

“But I mean, it’s no big deal.” Nate shook his head. “I mean . . . I’m not like a lot of those kids.”

“Well, I guess . . .” Tawny sank back into him, rubbing the side of her face against his work-strong chest. “Maybe you’ll take me back to the city some time?”

“Sure, sure.” Nate wrapped his tanned arm around her waist. “That’d be fun.”

As long as he keeps her away from Blair Not-so-good-with-jealousy Waldorf.





Gossip Girl 09 - Only in Your Dreams

come up and see me sometime

The evening after their study session and another disheart-ening day of rehearsal, Serena sat in the backseat of a taxi on her way back to the Chelsea Hotel. But this time, she had something to look forward to. She checked the text messages on her phone again, mostly because she wanted to reread the note from Thaddeus.

Come down and see me. I miss you. xx

Serena had been starting to doubt herself after all the insults from Ken Mogul, but here it was: incontrovertible, digital proof that she, Serena van der Woodsen, still had it.