Butterflies and Hurricanes

Chapter 7: Nowhere To Go

Blair sat at a table with a bunch of people she had never met. In fact, she had counted the number of people she knew on one hand. That was a tell tale sign she was way out of her element. There was some shitty cover band playing so loud that it was hard to have a conversation with anyone, not that she wanted to actually converse with these people.

Her champagne glass had been empty for exactly three minutes and she was starting to get irritated. People kept coming up to her and introducing themselves, she smiled politely and pretended to listen to their life stories that for some reason they felt they needed to tell her.

The only reason she was at this stupid wedding is because there was no way she was going to let Dan watch his mother remarry some pompous idiot alone. She had found the invitation on his desk one afternoon and proceeded to question him until he filled her in on the details.

Alison was marrying some middle aged, salt and pepper haired, business man. From the little time she had spent around them she decided that the marriage was simply for convenience and security. She told Dan it was very Upper East Side of them and he laughed, rolling his eyes.

It was an early summer wedding and they were all back in the city after completing their second year at Yale. After the Captain's overdose Nate had proceeded to slowly remove himself from their lives, claiming that he needed to focus on getting his family life back together so he could "figure his own shit out, too." It hurt both of them, Blair especially, but there wasn't much she could do.

They had both been disappointed when he said he couldn't make it to the wedding, he had promised his father he would go sailing with him. It wasn't unusual for him to bail these days so they didn't press the issue.

Blair spotted Dan working his way through the crowd holding two glasses above his head, trying his best not to spill them. She excused herself from the conversation she wasn't even interested in and rushed over to Dan, taking the glass from him as he handed it to her.

"This I the most God awful wedding I've ever been to, Humphrey. You owe me big time. It's like these people don't know how to interact with other human beings without sharing unnecessary details about their life."

He laughed at her as she drank half of what was in her glass, suppressing a shudder.

"Is it really that bad? I mean aside from the whole my mom marrying some guy she barely seems interested in?"

She rolled her chocolate eyes and set her finished drink down on a table.

"Well one, it's in Brooklyn."

Dan pretended to be offended and she playfully hit him. The band had taken a break and now typical wedding type songs were playing. Blair smoothed out her black cocktail dress.

"Dance with me."

"How many years have we known each other? You know I don't dance."

"Oh, come on! Just one dance, how bad could it be?"

He didn't have a chance to respond before she grabbed his hand and dragged him out onto the dance floor. She threw her hands behind his neck and smirked knowing she had won the battle when he placed his hands around her back and pulled her in closer.

"See? Not so bad."

Dan shrugged and said nothing. The truth was, there isn't anywhere else in the world he would want to be. She actually made dancing tolerable. He felt her rest her head on his chest and he let his chin sit atop her head. Even in her heels, she was still a few inches shorter than him.