I Like It Like That

by Cecily von Ziegesar

  Nate got up all of a sudden and walked over to her. His emerald green eyes weren't sparkling so much as smoldering. He looked like he had a lot on his mind.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey,” she said back. “How come you're not in the hot tub?”

  Nate shrugged. “It's too hot?”

  Blair jumped up and dumped her paper plate in the trash. She didn't like making small talk with Nate when Erik was outside with Georgie and Serena. It didn't make any sense. “Come on,” she said, leading the way outside.

  “Catch you later,” the stoned guy called after them.

  It had snowed for a few hours earlier in the day, and Georgie's backyard sparkled in the moonlight with crisp, fresh, dry snow. No Doubt had morphed into Missy Elliott, and the ski patrol guys were dancing with a group of girls from the local high school on the deck surrounding the hot tub.

  Serena had always loved soaking in hot tubs outside at night in the cold, especially when it was snowing lightly and everyone was naked. This time she was particularly grateful to be wedged between her brother and Chuck Bass, while Jan-the-Dutch-dentist gazed at her dreamily from the other side of the tub.

  Georgie had eaten too many potstickers or too much something and was doing handstands in the middle of the tub, leaving no part of her naked body up to anyone's imagination.

  “Oh,” Blair said, anxiously surveying the scene. Okay, so she'd been planning to get naked that night, but not in front of Nate and Georgie and the Sun Valley Ski Patrol and the entire Dutch Olympic snowboarding team. And she certainly wasn't doing any fucking handstands.

  “You coming in?” Erik called from inside the tub.

  Serena blinked water out of her long, dark lashes. “It's nice.”

  Blair pulled the sleeves of her borrowed sweater down over her wrists. “Not right now.”

  Georgie popped up out of the water and wiped her nose. Her skin was ghostly in the moonlight. “Leave her alone. Maybe she has her period.”

  Blair blushed angrily.

  “Does Nate have his period, too?” Chuck taunted.

  Nate pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his shorts pocket, lit one, and then handed the pack to Blair. Then he trudged off into the dark, snowy lawn behind the house, wearing only his sweatshirt, shorts, and tennis shoes.

  Blair put a cigarette in her mouth, wishing she didn't feel quite so sorry for Nate. It was weird, this sympathy-for-Nate business. And probably totally undeserved.

  “I'm going back inside,” she said pointedly.

  Serena elbowed Erik in the ribs. “I think that's your cue.”

  Behind her, Blair heard someone splash out of the tub.

  “Oh, wow!” she heard Georgie squeal, and knew she was looking at Erik.

  Sorry, babe. He's spoken for.

  “Wait up, Blair.”

  Blair stopped in the kitchen and snatched a chocolate macaroon from off the caterer's tray. She took a bite and then turned around to face Erik. He was wearing only a white towel, just like when she'd first seen him at the lodge, the day they'd arrived in Sun Valley and she'd realized that he was the man to deflower her.

  Now was as good a time as any.

  She grabbed a bottle of chilled Veuve Clicquot champagne from the kitchen counter, tucked it under her arm, and picked up the plate of macaroons. “Let's take these upstairs.”

  Just like santa's reindeer

  “I don't wanna go inside,” Georgie pouted as the high-school girls and the ski patrol guys followed Conrad, Josef, Gan, and Franz into the house to get something to eat. “I wanna do something wild.”

  Serena's skin tingled. Me too! Me too! She was tired of tagging along with Erik and Blair's little lovefest. And she couldn't wait to escape Jan's lovelorn gaze. It was time for an adventure.

  “Did you see? Those guys have one of those ski patrol toboggan things on top of their car. I've always wanted to ride in one of those. …”

  Georgie was out of the tub before Serena even finished her sentence. “Come on!” she cried, stepping into her moon boots, the rest of her just as naked as ever. “Let's check it out!”

  Leaving their clothes behind, Chuck and Serena followed Georgie out to the car-filled driveway in front of the house. Quickly and quietly, Chuck and Georgie unhooked the toboggan from on top of the ski patrol guys' Subaru wagon and lowered it onto the snow. Georgie opened the back door of one of the Dutch Olympic snowboarding team's Mercedes SUVs and groped around inside.

  “Anyone want one?” she called out.

  “Me!” Chuck replied, joining her.

  Serena didn't know what Georgie was offering, but she didn't need anything at the moment except a warm coat. “Aren't we going to be cold?” she ventured. The toboggan had a thick wool blanket strapped to it, but unless they all got under it they were going to die of hypothermia.

  “Don't you want to be in the papers again?” Chuck wheezed. It sounded like he was snorting something.

  Georgie pulled her head out of the SUV and slammed the door. She rubbed her nose, her brown eyes wide. “All we have to do is keep moving.” She pointed at Serena. “You get into the sled and Chuckie and I will pull you—like Santa's reindeer!”

  Not one to poop on anyone's party and eternally grateful that Jan-the-dentist was too much of a wuss to join them, Serena undid the straps holding the blanket down to the toboggan, wrapped the blanket around herself, and then lay down in the toboggan. Georgie crouched beside her and tucked Serena's arms into the blanket. Then she buckled up the straps, pulling them tight across Serena's body, as if her bones were all broken and needed to be held together. Serena noticed tiny beads of sweat on Georgie's upper lip and forehead, even though it was only twenty-eight degrees and she was naked.

  “Ready?” Georgie shouted, her moon boots ankle-deep in snow.

  It felt odd and a little scary to be strapped in lying down. Serena couldn't undo the straps even if she wanted to. Underneath the blanket, she pressed her palms against her thighs to steady herself. “Ready.”

  Georgie and Chuck giggled as they tugged on the toboggan's harness, their naked butt cheeks straining with the effort as they dragged it down the driveway and onto the snowy shoulder of Wood River Drive.

  “Wait, where are we going?” Serena called out helplessly. She lifted her head to see, but all she could make out were two naked bodies gleaming in the moonlight as they jogged down the quiet road. Chuck had a tan line left over from Christmas in St. Barts, but Georgie was as pale as a daisy.

  Though not nearly as pure.

  Serena's neck was aching and she was about to let her head fall back, when Chuck and Georgie's bodies were set aglow by headlights. A car was coming.

  “Help!” Serena cried, her face aflame at how pathetic she sounded.

  Never mind how strange the sight must be.

  “Woo! Nice ass!” someone shouted out the window as the car screeched past.

  The toboggan bumped and slid along as the car's taillights disappeared down the road. “Hey, you guys!” Serena yelled, straining her neck. “Can you stop?”

  Her so-called friends didn't even turn around. Perhaps they didn't hear her, or maybe they were just pretending not to hear.

  “Please?”

  But still they didn't stop. The road lit up again as another car approached. This time the car slowed down. Then a siren blared, and red-and-white lights whirled and churned up the night.

  “Fuck, it's the police!” Chuck shouted. “Run!”

  “No!” Serena shouted back. The toboggan bumped and slid as the police car drew closer.

  “Let go! Let go!” Serena heard Georgie scream.

  All of a sudden, the toboggan zigzagged haphazardly, before careening into a ditch. It rolled once and fell on its side in a stream of freezing slush. Water seeped through the wool blanket and covered her knees. It was so cold, it felt hot.

  “Stop! Stop right there!” the police ordered as they gave chase, the lights on top of their car whirling off into the distance.r />
  Serena shivered in the ditch. The police hadn't seen her.

  “Help,” she whimpered. “Please, help.”

  To do it or not to do it

  “Now we're dressed exactly alike,” Blair said as she stepped out of Georgie's mom's bathroom, wearing only a towel.

  Erik put down the ski magazine he'd been reading while he waited for her on the bed. “Cool.”

  The room had a high, slanted, timber ceiling and gigantic mismatched triangular windows facing Mount Baldy. Headlights on the Snowcats grooming the runs for the following day twinkled in the darkness. Blair wondered fleetingly if Nate was still out there, wandering around in the snow in his sneakers, or if he'd come to his senses and come back inside. Not that she cared. She spun her ruby ring around and around on her finger and shifted her gaze back to the bed. I'm about to become a woman, she reminded herself.

  Even with cookie crumbs scattered all over his chin and bare chest and his hair damp and matted from soaking in the hot tub, Erik was irresistible. She walked over to the bedside table and took a swig of champagne right from the bottle.

  “Okay. I'm ready.”

  Erik took her hand and pulled her down on top of him. Their lips met in a thrilling mixture of chocolate and champagne. He pressed himself against her hip. He appeared to be ready, too.

  She closed her eyes as music filtered up from the party downstairs, some hip-hop song she didn't recognize. The night she'd thought she was going to do it with Nate, she'd burned a mix CD and filled her room with candles. Then nothing had happened. This time she was in a strange house with strange music playing. But maybe it was better this way—the looser the script, the more room for experimentation. Not that she wanted to try anything weird.

  Of course not.

  “Open your eyes,” Erik murmured, nuzzling her neck. “You have beautiful eyes.”

  Blair opened her eyes and giggled to herself. She was kissing Serena's hot older brother. She closed her eyes again, diving in for another round of mouth-to-mouth. It seemed easier to just do it rather than think about what she was doing or who she was doing it with. Erik pulled back the cinnamon-colored silk duvet and scooted underneath it. Blair shimmied in after him and removed her towel, tossing it onto the floor with more flourish than she'd actually intended.

  Ta-da!

  “You've done this before, right?” Erik asked as he drummed his capable fingers slowly down her spine.

  Blair shivered—partly out of pleasure and partly out of fear—and squeezed her eyes shut. “Oh, sure.”

  She could feel Erik bulging hugely against her leg. Maybe they wouldn't have to do it all the way, just a little bit. Then she remembered what she and Serena always told the ninth-graders in their peer group. Don't do it just to do it. Do it with someone you love who cares about how you feel. And don't do it unless you know without question that you're ready.

  That had always been easy for Serena to say. She had lost her virginity way back in the summer after tenth grade, with Nate, no less. It was the constant, invisible, unspoken thing between Blair and her. The albatross in their friendship.

  When Blair approached the topic of sex in peer group, she spoke with such authority, she almost believed she'd done it herself sometimes. And sure, she'd come pretty close—with Nate on several occasions while they were together—but not that close. She'd always stopped him, just in the nick of time.

  Which, considering the fact that she and Erik were both naked and lying very close together, was like, right now.

  “Are you nervous or something?” Erik asked, stroking her hair and looking into her eyes in that pleasant, gorgeous way of his.

  “No. Why? Do I seem nervous?” Blair replied a little too hastily.

  “It's just the way your knees are kind of pushing me away …”

  Blair hadn't even realized what she was doing with her knees. Even though she desperately wanted to do it and get it over with, her body clearly had other ideas.

  How was she going to lose her virginity when her body wouldn't even cooperate?

  Her knight in shining armor

  Nate was on his way back to Georgie's house, his legs numb with cold and his sneakers soaked through from the snow, ready to give in and jump in the hot tub. He'd thought a good long walk alone would help clear his head, but he had so much to think about—getting into Brown, not making lax captain, Georgie's erratic behavior, the way Blair seemed to look right through him—all he could really think about was how great it would be just to smoke a joint and forget all his troubles.

  “Damn,” he swore under his breath as he hurried along the shoulder of Wood River Drive.

  “Please help?” He heard a tiny, pleading voice whimper from the ditch to his left.

  Nate whirled around, his eyes bulging out of his head when he recognized the pale blond hair and the familiar body strapped inside the overturned ski patrol toboggan. If he hadn't been so sober, he would've thought he was having some sort of mental allergic reaction to weed or something.

  “Serena?” He knelt down and began unbuckling the straps. “Jesus, what happened?”

  As soon as Serena's arms were free she reached up and hugged Nate around the neck, sobbing wordlessly. She wouldn't have minded if it had been Jan who'd rescued her, but Nate was ten thousand times better.

  “You're okay. You're okay,” Nate murmured, stroking her hair with one hand as he worked the rest of the toboggan straps with the other. When all the straps were undone he pulled back the heavy wool blanket, never imagining what he'd find underneath.

  “Whoa.” He grabbed her under the arms and helped her to her feet before wrapping the blanket around her once more.

  Serena swayed against him, too overcome to be embarrassed or even to explain how she'd wound up naked in a ditch, strapped to a ski patrol toboggan.

  Nate bent down and picked her up like an oversized baby. “Let's get you back. All you need is a nice warm bath and some warm clothes and you'll be good as new.”

  He started down the road toward the house, his arms and legs ablaze with energy from his manly rescue. Serena let her head fall against his shoulder and breathed sweet, warm air into his ear. Maybe it was Nate—her Natie—who she'd been meant to be with all along. Her knight in shining armor. The love of her life.

  When they got back to the house, ever-efficient Nate carried Serena upstairs to the guest bathroom and ran her a nice hot bath. While she relaxed in the bubbles, he went down the hall to Georgie's mother's room to look for a warm bathrobe and some cozy cashmere socks. The door was closed, but the cleaning staff had kept it closed ever since he'd arrived at the house, so he thought nothing of opening it without knocking.

  Oops.

  Nate stood frozen in the doorway, blinking. Blair's clothes were on the floor and her delicate hand with its little ruby ring was curled around the neck of somebody blond. The blond person turned his head, proving not to be a member of the Dutch Olympic snowboarding team—thankfully—but Erik van der Woodsen, Serena's older brother. Which wasn't much better.

  “Sorry,” Nate muttered. “I just needed some stuff out of the closet.”

  “Um, can you come back later? We're kind of busy,” Erik said, without a hint of embarrassment.

  Nate just stood there staring at them with his hands in his pockets. He needed some sort of explanation or acknowledgment from the bottom half of the Erik-Blair nooky sandwich before he could turn his back.

  But Blair just lay there with her eyes closed. Erik had almost talked her body into going on the trip she'd wanted to take in the first place, but at the sound of Nate's voice, she canceled the flight. Finally she heard the sound of the door closing and Nate's footsteps hurrying down the hall. Then she rose up on her elbows and inched her body away from Erik's, pulling the sheet up over her chest to cover herself.

  “Actually, this was going to be my first time,” she admitted, blushing with shame for lying about it when he'd asked. “But I guess I'm not ready.” She looked up at Erik, her blu
e eyes round, hoping with all her heart he wouldn't be too mad.

  Erik's adorable lips curled up in a half smile. “Nah. You're ready. I'm just not the right guy, that's all.”

  And it's no secret who is.

  gossipgirl.net

  Disclaimer: All the real names of places, people, and events have been altered or abbreviated to protect the innocent. Namely, me.

  hey people!

  I know, I know, it's seems like forever since we last talked. Spring break is almost over, and by the sound of it, everyone has been pretty busy not thinking about the college acceptance letters that are due in our mailboxes in only two weeks. Yes, we've been busy, busy, busy. But before I get down to who's gotten into what trouble where, let me first clarify a few things in no particular order.

  a) The members of the Dutch Olympic snowboarding team are not all gay or married or boring. I know this because I hooked up with one of them very briefly when my family was skiing in Banff. His name was Jansen, and he was gorgeous beyond belief.

  b) If you are still a virgin when you go off to college, you won't be the only one. I know this … well, just because I know.

  c) It is not a federal offense to drop mail into a river, unless you work for the postal service.

  d) It is a federal offense not to answer a girl's e-mail when all she wants is for you to forgive her and kiss and make up. It is also a federal offense to receive a gift and not say thank you. And it is very definitely a federal offense to run naked down a public road, especially when the police are chasing you—see news below.

  e) Last but not least, as much as I hate to say it, we all feel better about ourselves when we aren't fighting with our parents.

  Glad we got that cleared up. Now, the latest news …

  Infamous Connecticut heiress and Upper East Side boy-about-town arrested for indecent exposure