Not that she would have had a problem with that if they had been alone. But … there were a lot of factors to consider. She knew it was silly—age shouldn't matter. Madonna was ten years older than Guy Ritchie! But Guy Ritchie wasn't a freshman.
It really was more than that, though. Her favorite moments were the ones leading up to that first kiss—when you're not sure if it's going to happen or what it's going to feel like, when your nerves are all on edge, waiting for it. Sometimes—sadly, too many times, for Tinsley—the anticipation was better than the payoff. The kiss, and the guy, often disappointed her. And once the kiss was over and it was only so-so, the whole thing basically ended.
And she really didn't want that to happen with Julian. It felt so thrilling to be sitting next to him in the dark, with Benny and Lon just a few feet away, watching one of the funniest movies on earth and trying not to wonder what Julian's lips would taste like. He had a great laugh, too—like he didn't care who was listening.
After the credits rolled, they snuck out of the common room, Benny's head lying softly against Lon's big chest, one of them snoring loudly, and snuck up to the roof. Where they were now.
“Come here,” Julian said suddenly, looking down over the edge again. Tinsley quickly approached him and peeked over, wondering if Pardee was finally coming home. But she didn't see anything except the dark grass and bushes far below. Nothing even moved.
“What am I supposed to be looking at?” Tinsley demanded, aware of how close she was standing to Julian. He was only inches away.
“Oh, I don't know.”
Tinsley looked up at him, puzzled. He'd taken off his knit cap at some point in the night, and the breeze ruffled his grungy hair. The dimple at the corner of his lips deepened. “I just wanted you to come closer.”
“Oh,” Tinsley replied. “What else do you want?” A shiver ran through her body.
“I want you to stop asking questions so I can kiss you.”
“Why would you …” she started, suddenly feeling nervous that things were happening too quickly. She didn't know if she was ready to give up that anticipation yet. But then Julian leaned toward her and pressed his lips to her right cheek, holding them there for a moment, and Tinsley remembered what his hair smelled like—pine trees.
He hadn't said anything to her about the bitchy way she'd ended the stupid game of I Never, and Tinsley liked that. He didn't seem surprised, or disappointed, or anything—he just seemed to like her.
And so she couldn't help herself any longer. She let her nose brush against his, and then her lips touched his, gently and then harder, and Julian's hands tightened around her waist as he pulled her toward him.
He may be young, but he definitely knows how to kiss, she thought.
“See?” Tinsley said when she pulled away from him, but not too far. “I know how to shut up sometimes.”
Julian pushed back her hair and kissed her ear, or kind of kissed it, his soft lips actually just touching it lightly. Then his mouth slid down to her neck, sending an icy explosion of pleasure through her body. “Don't get me wrong, I like it when you talk too… .” His words felt even more intimate than kisses against her skin. “But it's nice to mix things up. I really dig you, you know.”
Tinsley sighed. “You hardly know me.” She pulled herself out of his arms and leaned against the wall around the roof.
“I don't know about that,” Julian countered. “I know how you shave your legs in the shower. I know how you start to giggle even before a funny line comes in a movie just because you know it's coming. I know you have a funny little mole behind your left ear that only really lucky people get to see. Or to kiss.”
Tinsley stared at the multitude of stars in the sky, which seemed to be winking at her. “Thanks,” she said dreamily, wishing they could both fall asleep up here. “I like you too.”
Julian ran a hand through his hair, making it all flop over to one side. He looked kind of like one of those starving rock stars. He could use a little meat on his bones. Tinsley picked up a pack of cloves that someone—Callie?—must have left up there, a box of matches next to it. She lit one up and offered the box to Julian. He shook his head. “No one is going to believe this.” He had a kind of goofy grin slapped on his face.
“Wait, what?” Tinsley was suddenly wide awake. “We can't actually tell people about this. This has to be, kind of, our secret.”
Julian looked like she'd just thrown a bucked of cold water on him. “Why?”
Because you're a freshman, she wanted to cry. But instead she gathered her thoughts and spoke calmly, like she was presenting her position in a debate—except this was definitely not debatable. “I don't mean it in a bad way—but you haven't been here long, so you haven't seen how all Waverly relationships tend to crash and burn under all the intense scrutiny.” She shrugged innocently, but she was already thinking about Jenny and Easy's imminent collapse. “I just don't want that to happen to … this, you know?”
“It's not that you're afraid of dating a freshman, is it?” Julian's brown eyes examined her face, as if searching for clues.
“Not one as hot as you,” she replied quickly. The freshman thing really was only part of it. In reality, Tinsley was just kind of … bad … at relationships. As soon as she felt like she was in one, she wanted out. And the prying eyes of Waverly Owls did nothing to help the situation. As soon as it was rumored that two people were dating, people always seemed astonished to see them apart. Tinsley hated the thought of people greeting her with “Where's Julian?” It was like once you were a couple, you ceased to exist as an individual. It made her a little sick to her stomach.
And right now, her feelings for Julian were just so pleasant, she didn't want to fuck it up.
“It'll be so much cooler if it's just between us,” she continued, seeing that Julian was wavering. “There'll be no one to get in the way.”
“Does anyone ever say no to you?” Julian asked after a short pause. His eyes twinkled with exasperation, like he knew he was getting into something he should resist but couldn't.
“Rarely,” she admitted, her mouth curling into a grin.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
CC: [email protected], Dumbarton residents
Date: Sunday, October 6, 5:14 p.m.
Subject: Essay
Dear Dean Marymount and Miss Rose,
We accept the fact that we had to sacrifice an entire weekend in lock-down for what we did. What we did WAS wrong. But we have come to a different conclusion after discussing what we think a responsible Owl is. You see Waverly Owls as you want to see Waverly Owls—in the simplest terms and the most convenient definitions. You see us as legacies, princesses, psych cases, delinquents, band geeks, and responsible Owls. Correct? That's the way we saw each other before we were locked in. We were brainwashed.
We are not all guilty of what you thought we were—but we are all guilty of something. We are guilty of giving in to labels, to letting them be placed on ourselves, and for trying to fill them.
Therefore, it has come to our collective realization that a “responsible Owl”
Does not try to be someone she is not, even when wearing someone else's clothes
Knows who her dormmates are and who they are not Does not lie about herself, to others or to herself Says what she means and means what she says Respects herself so that other will too
This is our collective answer. This is what we have learned this weekend and what we won't forget.
Sincerely,
The Girls of Dumbarton
BennyCunningham:Nice work, B! I'm proud to call you my class prefect. How'd you come up with all that crap?
BrettMesserschmidt:Jenny and Callie and Kara helped me. And I'm not convinced it's crap …
BennyCunningham:You mean J and C haven't strangled each other yet??
BrettMesserschmidt:I don't think that's going to happen—at least, not anymore.
BennyC
unningham:Everybody's talking about Kara throwing her beer in Heath's face—that was pretty effing cool… . She's a funky chick. I'm glad we got to discover her.
BrettMesserschmidt:She's been downstairs all year, B… . It's not like she was waiting for you to discover her or anything.
BennyCunningham:Still … I like her style. She's got … I don't know. Something.
BrettMesserschmidt:Maybe we all do.
Once upon a time on the Upper East Side of New York City, two beautiful girls fell in love with one perfect boy….
Turn the page for a sneak peek of
it had to be you
the gossip girl prequel
and find out how it all began.
by the #1 New York Times bestselling author
Cecily von Ziegesar
Disclaimer: All the real names of places, people, and events have been altered or abbreviated to protect the innocent. Namely, me.
hey people!
Ever have that totally freakish feeling that someone is listening in on your conversations, spying on you and your friends, following you to parties, and generally stalking you? Well, they are. Or actually, I am. The truth is, I've been here all along, because I'm one of you.
Feeling totally lost? Don't get out much? Don't know who “we” are? Allow me to explain. We're an exclusive group of indescribably beautiful people who happen to live in those majestic, green-awninged, white-glove-doorman buildings near Central Park. We attend Manhattan's most elite single-sex private schools. Our families own yachts and estates in various exotic locations throughout the world. We frequent all the best beaches and the most exclusive ski resorts. We're seated immediately at the nicest restaurants in the chicest neighborhoods without a reservation. We turn heads. But don't confuse us with Hollywood actors or models or rocks stars—those people you feel like you know because you hear so much about them, but who are actually completely boring compared to the parts they play or the songs they sing. There's nothing boring about me or my friends, and the more I tell you about us, the more you're going to want to know. I've kept quiet until now, but something has happened and I just can't stay quiet about it….
the greatest story ever told
We learned in our first eleventh-grade creative writing class this week that most great stories begin in one of the following fashions: someone mysteriously disappears or a stranger comes to town. The story I'm about to tell is of the “someone mysteriously disappears” variety.
To be specific, S is gone.
In order to unravel the mystery of why she's left and where she's gone, I'm going to have to backtrack to last winter—the winter of our sophomore year—when the La Mer skin cream hit the fan and our pretty pink rose-scented bubble burst. It all started with three inseparable, perfectly innocent, uber-gorgeous fifteen-year-olds. Well, they're sixteen now, and let's just say that two of them are not that innocent.
If anyone is going to tell this tale it has to be me, because I was at the scene of every crime. So sit back while I unravel the past and reveal everyone's secrets, because I know everything, and what I don't know I'll invent, elaborately.
Admit it: you're already falling for me.
Love you too …
gossip girl
the best stories begin with one boy and two girls
“Truce!” Serena van der Woodsen screamed as Nate Archibald body-checked her into a three-foot-high drift of powdery white snow. Cold and wet, it tunneled into her ears and down her pants. Nate dove on top of her, all five-foot eleven inches of his perfect, golden-brown-haired, glittering-green-eyed, fifteen-year-old boyness. Nate smelled like Downy and the Kiehl's sandalwood soap the maid stocked his bathroom with. Serena just lay there, trying to breathe with him on top of her. “My scalp is cold,” she pleaded, getting a mouthful of Nate's snow-dampened, godlike curls as she spoke.
Nate sighed reluctantly, as if he could have spent all day outside in the frigid February meat locker that was the back garden of his family's Eighty-second-Street-just-off-Park-Avenue Manhattan town house. He rolled onto his back and wriggled like Serena's long-dead golden retriever, Guppy, when she used to let him loose on the green grass of the Great Lawn in Central Park. Then he stood up, awkwardly dusting off the seat of his neatly pressed Brooks Brothers khakis. It was Saturday, but he still wore the same clothes he wore every weekday as a sophomore at the St. Jude's School for Boys over on East End Avenue. It was the unofficial Prince of the Upper East Side uniform, the same uniform he and his classmates had been wearing since they'd started nursery school together at Park Avenue Presbyterian.
Nate held out his hand to help Serena to her feet. She frowned cautiously up at him, worried that he was only faking her out and was about to tackle her again. “I really am cold.”
He flapped his hand at her impatiently. “I know. Come on.”
She snorted, pretended to pick her nose and wipe it on the seat of her snow-soaked dark denim Earl jeans, then grabbed his hand with her faux-snotty one. “Thanks, pal.” She staggered to her feet. “You're a real chum.”
Nate led the way inside. The backs of his pant legs were damp and she could see the outline of his tighty-whiteys. Really, how gay of him! He held the glass-paned French doors open and stood aside to let her pass. Serena kicked off her baby blue Uggs and scuffed her bare, Urban Decay Piggy Bank pink-toenailed feet down the long hall to the stately town house's enormous, barely used all-white Italian Modern kitchen. Nate's father was a former sea captain-turned-banker, and his mother was a French society hostess. They were basically never home, and when they were home, they were at the opera.
“Are you hungry?” Nate asked, following her. “I'm so sick of takeout. My parents have been in Venezuela or Santa Domingo or wherever they go in February for like two weeks, and I've been eating burritos, pizza, or sushi every freaking night. I asked Regina to buy ham, Swiss, Pepperidge Farm white bread, Grammy Smith apples, and peanut butter. All I want is the food I ate in kindergarten.” He tugged anxiously on his wavy, golden brown hair. “Maybe I'm going through some sort of midlife crisis or something.”
Like his life is so stressful?
“It's Granny Smith, silly,” Serena informed him fondly. She opened a glossy white cupboard and found an unopened box of cinnamon-and-brown-sugar Pop-Tarts. Ripping open the box, she removed one of the packets from inside, tore it open with her neat, white teeth, and pulled out a thickly frosted pastry. She sucked on the Pop-Tart's sweet, crumbly corner and hopped up on the counter, kicking the cupboards below with her size-eight-and-a-half feet. Pop-Tarts at Nate's. She'd been having them there since she was five years old. And now … and now …
Serena sighed heavily. “Mom and Dad want me to go to boarding school next year,” she announced, her enormous, almost navy blue eyes growing huge and glassy as they welled up with unexpected tears. Go away to boarding school and leave Nate? It hurt too much to even think about.
Nate flinched as if he'd been slapped in the face by an invisible hand. He grabbed the other Pop-Tart from out of the packet and hopped up on the counter next to Serena. “No way,” he responded decisively. She couldn't leave. He wouldn't allow it.
“They want to travel more,” Serena explained. The pink, perfect curve of her lower lip trembled dangerously. “If I'm home, they feel like they need to be home more. Like I want them around? Anyway, they've arranged for me to meet some of the deans of admissions and stuff. It's like I have no choice.”
Nate scooted over a few inches and put his arm around her. “The city is going to suck if you're not here,” he told her earnestly. “You can't go.”
Serena took a deep shuddering breath and rested her pale blond head on his shoulder. “I love you,” she murmured, closing her delicate eyelids. Their bodies were so close the entire Nate-side of her hummed. If she turned her head and tilted her chin just so, she could have easily kissed his warm, lovely neck. And she wanted to. She was actually dying to, because she really did love him, with all her heart.
Sh
e did? Hello? Since when?!
Maybe since ballroom-dancing school way back in fourth grade. She was tall for her age, and Nate was always such a gentleman about her lack of rhythm and the way she stepped on his insteps and jutted her bony elbows into his sides. He'd finesse it by grabbing her hand and spinning her around so that the skirt of her puffy, oyster-colored satin tea-length Bonpoint dress twirled out magnificently. Their teacher, Mrs. Jaffe, who had long blue hair that she kept in place with a pearl-adorned black hairnet, worshipped Nate. So did Serena's best friend, Blair Waldorf. And so did Serena—she just hadn't realized it until now. Serena shuddered and her perfect skin broke out in a rash of goose bumps. Her whole body seemed to be having an adverse reaction to the idea of revealing something she'd kept so well hidden for so long, even from herself.
Nate wrapped his lacrosse-toned arms around her long, narrow waist and pulled her close, tucking her pale gold head into the crook of his neck and massaging the ruts between the ribs on her back with his fingertips. The best thing about Serena was her total lack of embarrassing flab. Her entire body was as long and lean and taut as the strings on his Prince titanium tennis racket.
It was painful having such a ridiculously hot best friend. Why couldn't his best friend be some lard-assed dude with zits and dandruff? Instead he had Serena and Blair Waldorf, hands down the two hottest girls on the Upper East Side, and maybe all of Manhattan, or even the whole world.
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