Only in Your Dreams (Gossip Girl #9)(44)
After throwing on a casual pink floral Lilly Pulitzer tunic top and some white shell-embellished flip-flops, Blair headed upstairs. Jason was already waiting for her with a blanket slung over his shoulder and a bottle clutched in his hand. He scaled the rusty ladder and pushed open the black steel trapdoor. Then he reached down to help Blair up with more studly grace than Marcus had ever shown. Blair grabbed his hand eagerly and let him pull her up to the rooftop.
“I hope it doesn’t rain tonight,” she remarked as she twirled around, taking in three hundred and sixty degrees of Manhattan skyline view. “Because I’m never going down that ladder.” She was only half-kidding.
“I told you the view was great,” Jason teased, digging a wine key into the cork and pulling it out with a satisfying pop.
It wasn’t as commanding as the view of Central Park from the high-up terrace of Blair’s Fifth Avenue penthouse, but there was something magical about the hot summer haze lin-gering over the neighborhood’s bland apartment towers. The trees weren’t as perfectly pruned as the oaks and elms that surrounded the park, but the spindly branches that peeked above the roofline were lush and green. The Upper East Side, Blair realized, was just like Bailey Winter’s line: from Fifth to Park Avenues was Bailey Winter Couture, everything from the Park to Lexington was like Bailey Winter Collection, and everything between there and the river was Bailey by Bailey Winter.
That’s one way to think of it.
“It’s really nice,” she agreed, taking a plastic cup of chilled wine and settling onto the worn navy blue cotton blanket Jason had spread on the warm tar roof. It wasn’t as soft as her favorite cashmere Asprey picnic throw, but she had on the perfect summer outfit, a gorgeous man was sitting next to her, and her career in fashion was about to explode. Who needed minor British royalty? She was a New Yorker and this was a classic summer-in-New-York moment. London was a damp and smelly slum by comparison.
“So, how come Serena never mentioned you before?” Jason asked.
“Maybe she wanted you all to herself,” Blair replied mischievously and probably accurately. “To a crazy summer.” Blair clinked her plastic cup of wine with Jason’s. “So far,” she added giddily.
“To a crazy summer,” he echoed, taking a sip. “Anyway, I don’t think Serena’s interested in me. We hung out the other night and she seemed sort of spoken for, if you know what I mean.”
“You mean Thaddeus Smith?” Blair and Serena hadn’t had much time to catch up but she knew, just knew, that there had to be something going on between Serena and Thaddeus.
Since she and everyone else believe everything they read.
“The one and only,” Jason affirmed. “But you know, Blair,” Jason continued, fixing his blue eyes on hers. “I’m not really into hanging out with movie stars. I like regular girls.”
Was he calling her—Blair Waldorf—regular? How wrong he was.
“Wait, you’re not in the movies, are you?” He eyed her suspiciously. “Because you look like you could be.”
“I’m more of a behind-the-scenes kind of girl,” she murmured, batting her Chanel-mascara-blackened eyelashes mysteriously.
“I don’t have anything against it,” Jason backtracked. “Don’t get me wrong. It’s just that I’m interested in different things. Like the law. That’s my main focus, you know?”
“I was thinking of studying law when I start at Yale in the fall.” She could always be a lawyer and a fashion muse at the same time. She could wear couture under her Supreme Court gown.
“Beautiful and smart,” Jason said. “You’re almost too good to be true.”
Blair sipped her wine hungrily. Serena could have the movie star. Jason was exactly the kind of guy a Yale woman should be involved with.
At least, the kind of woman a Yale woman should be involved with this week.
Disclaimer: All the real names of places, people, and events have been altered or abbreviated to protect the innocent. Namely, me.
hey people!
I’m not ashamed to admit that “Summer Lovin’” (from our secretfavorite I’m-staying-in-Friday-night movie, Grease) is one of thebest songs I’ve ever heard. Not only is it catchy, it’s true:summer is all about love and gettin’ some lovin’, right? Butthere seems to be a shortage this summer.
It’s been almost three weeks and our friend S is still a solo performer! What gives? Sure, she’s been spotted around townwith T, but there’s no law that friends can’t have dinner together,now is there? Besides, we think T might have his eye on someone else. You heard it here first.
Meanwhile, B is throwing herself into her work—word is she’salready the second–most feared person on that movie set. Wehaven’t gotten close enough to verify the rumors that she’ssporting an engagement ring on her right hand—to throw offthe paparazzi, just like the stars. Word also has it that B’slooking a little rosy in the cheeks: mother-to-be flush, secretlove, or great new facialist? Break out your camera phones,people: we need evidence!
More summer-lovin’ updates: it seems D and V are definitely on the outs, and again, you heard it here first. He’s looking surprisingly tan and toned. Swearsies! And what about N andhis summer lover? How long till he shows his true city-boy colors? He might say he’s not like the rest of the city crowd,but N can only forsake creature comforts like nightclub bottleservice, black-tie fundraisers on Lilypond Lane, and private helicopter rides back to the city for so long....