Gossip Girl: All I Want Is Everything

Copyright © 2003 by 17th Street Productions, an Alloy company

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

First eBook Edition: July 2008

Hachette Book Group, USA

237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017

HachetteBookGroupUSA.com

The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

ISBN: 978-0-316-04204-8

Gossip Girl novels by Cecily von Ziegesar:

Gossip Girl

You Know You Love Me

All I Want is Everything

the belles of the ball

"If she was, like, six inches taller, he could rest his chin in her cleavage," Blair Waldorf observed as she watched her ex-boyfriend, Nate Archibald, dancing with Jennifer Humphrey, the short and extremely buxom ninth grader for whom Nate had unexplainably ditched Blair only a few weeks ago. "But then again, he might have trouble breathing." Luckily, Blair had skipped dinner that night; otherwise she would have headed straight for the ladies' room to vomit in disgust.

Serena van der Woodsen, Blair's oldest and newest best friend, shook her pale blond head in response. "I don't get it," she said. "I have nothing against Jenny, but I always thought you and Nate were, like, the perfect couple. You were totally destined to spend the rest of your lives together." It was a strange thing for Serena to say. After all, she and Nate had lost their virginity together behind Blair's back the summer after tenth grade. If any two people were destined for each other, you'd have thought it would have been them. But as with every relationship Serena had ever had, her little fling with Nate had been just a spur-of-the-moment affair. Blair and Nate were the real thing. And they had always been such a reliable fixture—like the doorman in the lobby of Serena's Fifth Avenue apartment building—that it was impossible to fathom what the future might be like without them as a couple. Through them Serena sampled what it would be like to be a part of a committed relationship, and it was a little scary to see how badly things had turned out.

Blair gulped her glass of Cristal champagne thirstily. The two girls were sitting alone at a big, round table draped in white muslin and black taffeta in the opulent ballroom at the St. Claire Hotel, where the annual December Black-and-White Ball was in full swing. Girls in long, strappy black dresses by Versace and Dolce & Gabbana with white feathers in their hair were dancing with boys in crisp black-and-white Tom Ford for Gucci tuxedos, and a gigantic ball made of black and white roses hung from the ceiling. Blair was having major déjà vu.

Her mother had been married only a month ago to a loud, sweaty, overweight loser named Cyrus Rose, and the wedding reception had taken place in that very same room. The wedding had also taken place on Blair's seventeenth birthday, the day she'd planned to go all the way with Nate. She'd spent hours grooming herself and had played out every moment of how it was going to be over and over in her head. But then she'd stumbled upon Nate making out with that little girl in the hotel lobby and realized that in the end, it didn't matter how hot she looked in her espresso-colored Chloé maid of honor dress, or how dramatic her hair was, or how high her pewter Manolo Blahnik stilettos were. Nate was too busy groping that fuzzy-headed fourteen-year-old's balloon breasts to even notice.

It had been by far the worst birthday Blair had ever had. But she wasn't about to dwell on it. She wasn't like that.

Yeah, right.

"I don't believe in destiny anymore," she told Serena, plonking her crystal champagne flute down on the table and nearly breaking its stem. She ran her fingers through her long, dark brown hair, which had been trimmed earlier that day by Antoine, her new favorite hairdresser at the Elizabeth Arden Red Door Salon.

Serena laughed and rolled her dark blue eyes. "Then how come you're always saying Yale is your destiny?" "That's different," Blair insisted.

Blair's father had gone to Yale, and Blair had always dreamed of going there, too. She was at the top of her class at Constance Billard and had extracurriculars coming out of her ass, so applying early admission had seemed like an obvious choice. But during her interview, she'd cracked under pressure and become Blair, Drama Queen of the Silver Screen. She'd told her interviewer a heart-wrenching sob story about how her mother had divorced her gay father and was about to marry a man she barely knew, and how she couldn't wait to go to college so she could start a whole new life. And then she'd kissed her interviewer—actually stood on her tippytoes and kissed him on his hollow, stubbly cheek!

Blair was always imagining herself as the heroine of some black-and-white fifties movie, in the style of Audrey Hepburn, her idol. This time it had been her downfall. Now she'd been forced to apply to Yale regular admission along with everyone else, and she'd even had to ask her father to donate a Yale study abroad program in France to help give her a leg up. But her chances of getting in were still slim at best.

Blair reached for the bottle of Cristal sitting in its silver cooler in the middle of the large, round table and filled her glass. "Destiny is for losers," she said. "It's just a lame excuse for letting things happen to you instead of making them happen."

If only she knew exactly how to make the things she wanted to happen happen without fucking them up completely.

Serena's attention span was shorter than that of a newborn puppy, and she had already drunk way too much wine to have such a serious conversation. "Let's not talk about the future for once, okay?" she said. She lit a cigarette and blew smoke into the air above Blair's head. "You know, that blond kid Aaron's talking to has been totally staring at you for the last ten minutes." She covered her mouth with her long, slender fingers and giggled. "Oops. Here they come." Blair turned around to find her dreadlocked vegan stepbrother, Aaron Rose, and an extremely tall boy with spiky blond hair and light brown eyes, wearing a fabulously tailored Armani tux, walking over to their table.The boy drummed his long fingers nervously against his superlong legs and looked down at his shiny black Christian Dior dress shoes, as if he was worried about tripping over them or something. Behind the two boys, the dance floor was heaving with gorgeous, gorgeously dressed girls and adorably handsome boys, their arms wound around each other's necks, swaying to a Beck song.

"Say something nice to Blair," Serena told Aaron. "She's stressing about the future." Blair rolled her eyes. "Who isn't?" Aaron's thin red lips curled down in an apologetic frown. He, Blair, and Serena had come to the ball together, and as soon as they'd arrived, Aaron had left the two girls to drink and smoke cigarettes while he went and found his friends. But Blair had been kind of wound-up and emotional lately, what with their parents' wedding and her lousy Yale interview and everything. She needed all the moral support she could get. "Sorry. I haven't been a very good date. Wanna dance or something?"

Blair ignored him. Did she look like she felt like dancing? She glanced at Aaron's tall, blond friend. "Who are you?" The blond boy grinned. His teeth were even whiter than his shirt. "I'm Miles. Miles Ingram." Son of Danny Ingram, the famous restaurant and nightclub owner, proprietor of such hot spots as Gorgon in New York and Trixie in LA, to name just a few.

"He's in my class at Bronxdale," Aaron added. "We're starting a band. Miles plays the drums." Blair sipped her champagne, waiting for them to say something that wasn't completely boring.

Miles grinned at Blair and drummed his fingers on the back of an empty chair. "You're much prettier than I thought," he said.

He was cute, but the drumming fingers thing could get seriously annoying.

Blair didn't smile back. She picked up her drink. Aaron had probably told Miles she was a total witch, and he'd expected her to have warts on her nose and a broom up her ass.

Not exactly. Aaron just didn't like to talk about his new stepsister because he wanted to keep her all to himself. But don't get your fishnets in a twist—we'll get to that later.

Aaron pushed his dreadlocks behind his ears. "And this is Serena," he told Miles.

Miles gave Serena's perfectly chiseled face, deep blue eyes, long, lithe body, and fantastic black Gucci dress the once-over. He let his eyes linger on her a moment—it was hard not to—before turning back to Aaron. "It's weird. You didn't say anything about Blair being so beautiful." Aaron shrugged and looked uncomfortable. "Sorry." Blair and Serena lit new cigarettes, still waiting for something crazy to happen. Considering the point Blair had just made about destiny, it was up to them to make it happen.

Aaron cleared his throat. "Sure you don't want to dance?" he asked Blair again.

Blair noticed that he wasn't wearing a bow tie and that his tuxedo shirt was untucked and unbuttoned at the throat. Apparently he was making a statement. She took a long drag on her cigarette and blew smoke in his face. "No, thanks." The Beck song ended, and people crowded back to their tables to fill up on booze.

"My feet are dying!" Kati Farkas whined, flinging herself down on a chair opposite Blair and whipping off her heels.

"Mine are already dead," Isabel Coates chimed in, sinking into the chair next to her.

For the past two years, while Serena had been away at Hanover Academy in New Hampshire, Isabel and Kati had been glued to Blair's side. They bought makeup at Sephora together, they drank cappuccinos at Le Canard together, and yes, they even went to the bathroom together. Blair ruled the social scene, so when they were with her they felt almost famous, getting red-carpet treatment everywhere. But just before Columbus Day, Serena had gotten kicked out of boarding school and reappeared in the city to steal Blair away from them, and Kati and Isabel had gone back to being plain old Kati and Isabel again.

"How come you guys aren't dancing?" asked Kati. Blair shrugged. "I'm not in the mood." Isabel sighed. "All we have to do is make it through midterms next week," she said, mistaking the note of boredom in Blair's voice for fatigue. "And then we get to go away for Christmas." "You guys are so lucky you're going someplace hot," Kati added. "I have to go stupid skiing in stupid Aspen, again."

"Well, that's not as bad my boring country house in Connecticut," replied Isabel.

"It's going to be awesome," Serena gushed with an excited smile.

Kati and Isabel glared at her.

Blair and Serena were going to St. Bart's together for Christmas break. Blair's mom and Aaron's dad had spent their honeymoon cruising in the Caribbean and had arranged to meet Blair, Aaron, and Blair's little brother, Tyler, for the holidays at the exclusive Isle de la Paix resort in St. Barts. They were each allowed to bring a friend if they wanted, so after making up in the bathroom during her mother's wedding reception, Blair had asked Serena.

Of course they'd be back in the city for New Year's. No self-respecting party girl spends New Year's away with her parents after the age of twelve.

"It's going to kick ass," Blair agreed with a smug smile. She could picture herself perfectly, slick with tanning oil, in her new Missoni bikini on a pristine white-sand beach, her face masked by enormous Chanel sunglasses, while hot guys in surf shorts brought her exotic drinks in coconut shells. She was going to forget about Yale and Nate and her mother and Cyrus and just bake herself brown as café au lait under the hot island sun. Of course she knew Kati and Isabel were totally jealous that she hadn't asked either one of them to come to St. Barts with her, but to be honest, she didn't give a rat's squiggly ass.

Only one more week to go.

Chuck Bass came up behind Blair and put his big, warm hands on her bare, tennis-toned shoulders. "I just saw Nate and that little girl from Constance feeling each other up in the corner," he announced, as if everyone wanted to know.

Chuck was handsome in a dark, after-shave commercial sort of way. He was also the horniest boy in all of New York City. He had tried to molest Serena when she was passed out drunk in his family's Tribeca Star Hotel suite in October, and he had almost gotten little Jenny Humphrey to take her dress off for him in the ladies' room at the Kiss on the Lips party that same week. Chuck was the worst sort of slimeball, but they all still put up with him, because he was one of them: He went to a small, private all-boys' school; in grade school he'd gone to dancing school at Arthur Murray and tennis lessons at Asphalt Green and sung in the church of the beachfront hotel in the South of France. He got invited to the best parties and the most exclusive private sales, just like they all did, and he was born to live the high life, just like they all were. Even when he got rejected, Chuck still came back for more. He was ruthlessly unflappable.

Blair tried to shrug his hands away. "So?"

Chuck kept his hands where they were. "Nate never got you to give it up, did he?" He began massaging her shoulders. "I was thinking maybe I should be the one to do the honors." Blair's whole body stiffened. Until that moment, she'd never had much of a problem with Chuck, but now she understood why Serena hated his guts. She pushed her chair back, wrenching her shoulders away from his hands, and stood up. "I have to pee," she announced to the table, ignoring Chuck entirely. "Then let's get out of here. We can have a party back at my house or something." Aaron stood up and took a step toward her, tucking his dreadlocks behind his ears self-consciously. "Are you okay?" he asked, sounding concerned.

At that moment, his whole Mr. Sensitive act annoyed Blair almost as much as Chuck's sliminess.

"I'm fine."

She turned and marched across the room as best as she could wearing four-inch Christian Louboutin Perspex stilettos and a supertight black Gucci dress, keeping her eyes straight ahead of her to avoid the sight of Nate with that little Ginny girl, or whatever the hell her name was.

People were gathering on the dance floor, murmuring excitedly. It looked like Flow—the hottest lead singer in music—was about to make his appearance. But Blair didn't care. She didn't go crazy over famous people, like most girls. She didn't need to: She was the constant star of the feature film playing in her head, the most famous person she knew.

rock star hottie turns the beat around

Jenny had been in a sort of blissed-out trance all evening. Before escorting her to the Black-and-White Ball, Nate had dressed up in a new Donna Karan tuxedo, picked her up in a cab, taken her out for sushi and too much sake at Bond, and given her a little turquoise star-shaped Jade Jagger pendant. His green eyes sparkled in the candlelight, and his golden brown hair was so perfectly tousled, Jenny kept taking mental Polaroids so she could paint a brand-new portrait of him in the morning to add to her collection.

The best part was that after they'd arrived at the ball, Nate hadn't dragged her around to talk to people she didn't know. Even Nate's boisterous best friends, Jeremy Scott Tompkinson, Anthony Avuldsen, and Charlie Dern, had left them alone. Tonight Nate was all hers, happy to just hold her as they kissed quietly in the corner.

"You know that painting The Kiss, by Gustav Klimt?" Jenny gushed, as she looked up at Nate's adorable face.

Nate frowned. "Not really."

"Yes, you do. It's totally famous. Anyway, that's what this reminds me of." He shrugged and looked up at the stage. "I think that dude from 45 is about to come out and say something."

Jenny leaned her back against the wall. Before Nate, she would have wet her pants with excitement about seeing a celebrity like Flow, but now all she wanted was to keep kissing Nate.

"So?" She giggled and dabbed at her mouth with the back of her hand, careful not to smudge her pink MAC lip gloss. "That was nice," she added quietly.

"What?" Nate asked, glancing distractedly around the room. "I've never kissed for that long before," Jenny admitted. Nate turned back to her and smiled. He'd smoked a joint on the way to pick her up and was still feeling it. He liked the dress Jennifer was wearing. It was long and black, cut low in the front and back, with a dramatic white ruffle that flapped around her tiny ankles.

Jenny had bought the dress at Century 21, a discount designer store frequented by bargain hunters and desperately clueless people who will buy anything with a designer label in it, even if it's obviously imperfect or just a designer's really bad idea that wouldn't sell anywhere, except at Century 21.

It would take exactly four months' worth of allowance to pay her father back for the dress, but Nate didn't have to know that. He thought she looked like a tiny black-and-white angel. An angel with the best set of bazongas he had ever seen. He reached out and rubbed his hands up and down her pale, baby-soft arms. She felt nice, too, nice and warm, like freshly baked bread at a five-star restaurant.

The DJ started to play 45's hit song, "Korrupt Me," and then Flow swaggered onto the dance floor out of nowhere, wearing a tuxedo jacket over a red T-shirt that said BE KIND in white capital letters, and grinning like someone who knows he's one of the hottest guys in the entire world. Flow was the son of a Danish lingerie model and a Jamaican coffee mogul, and looked like a tan, blue-eyed version of Jim Morrison from the classic sixties band The Doors. He stepped behind a glass podium, the music stopped, and everyone whooped and clapped. Jenny slid her small hand into Nate's bigger one and gave it a squeeze as they stepped out of the corner to watch.

"I just want to give a shout out to all of you for dressing up and coming out tonight to raise money for . . ." Flow opened his tuxedo jacket and pointed to his T-shirt, and some of the perky, enthusiastic guests at the ball who weren't ashamed to sound like assholes shouted, "Be Kind!" At that same moment, Blair pushed open the ladies' room door to find Nate and Jenny standing directly in her path, holding hands. Jenny was wearing a loud grandma-style dress of dubious design that was way too big on the bottom and way too small on top. She and Nate looked like tacky kids from the suburbs out on their prom night.

Blair adjusted the straps of her dress and smacked her ruby-red lacquered lips together. The sooner she got out of there, the better. But she couldn't just slink away like some poor ditched ex-girlfriend. She had way more fucking pride than that.

Way, way more.

"I'd also like to thank the organizing committee for the ball, chaired by Blair Waldorf and Serena van der Woodsen," Flow continued, reading from the little cue card in his hand. "Hey, why don't you two girls come up here and help me announce how much money you raised?" Everyone craned their heads to look for Serena and Blair.

In her typical exuberant fashion, Serena let out a loud whooping sound and glided effortlessly across the dance floor and up to the podium with her pale hair flying. Flow took a step back, struck dumb by her loveliness, and Serena leaned into the microphone. "Come on, Blair," she cried, looking around the crowded room. "Get up here!" Blair could feel people staring at her. She attempted a smile and left her post by the bathroom door, walking directly in front of Nate's and Jenny's noses as she made her way to the front of the room.

Nate's mouth opened as Blair swished by. She looked taller than he remembered, and her ass was more defined. Her long hair gleamed, and her skin had a pearly sheen that made him want to touch it. She looked hot. No, she looked better than hot. Suddenly he felt confused. He wanted to grab Blair's arm and say, "Come back here. I made a mistake." But then Jenny squeezed his hand, and he looked down into her soulful brown eyes and deeply plunging cleavage and instantly forgot about Blair again.

Nate was like the dumbest Labrador retriever. If you dangled a stick in front of him, he just had to have it, but if you threw a tennis ball, he forgot all about the stick and went after the ball.

Blair joined them at the podium and Flow handed Serena a piece of paper, grinning from ear to ear because the two chairs of the ball had turned out to be so gorgeous.

"Okay," Serena said, reading from the piece of paper. "So we raised eight hundred thousand four hundred dollars. All proceeds will go to Be Kind, the new international animal rescue fund." She showed off the famous smile that had been captured in so many photographs for the society and gossip pages and nudged Blair in the arm.

Blair had chaired hundreds of these things. She knew the drill.

She leaned into the microphone. "Thank you for coming!" she shouted, smiling her best do-gooder smile. "And don't forget your Coach gift bag—that's the best part!"

The music started up again, louder than before, and everyone went back to boozing and dancing. Flow bent his head toward Serena and whispered something in her ear. His breath was warm and tickled her ear. He smelled like new leather.

Serena giggled. "Wait one sec, okay?"

Flow nodded as Serena grabbed Blair's arm and stepped away from the podium, dragging Blair with her back to their table. "He wants me to meet him outside so we can go for a ride in his limo. Quick, get your coat.You're coming, too." Blair frowned. She really wasn't the third-wheel type, thank you very much. "I don't think so." Serena pretended she didn't hear her. She wasn't going to let Blair poop all over her party.

Kati, Isabel, Chuck, Aaron, and Miles were still sitting at the table, drinking shots of Stoli that Chuck had snuck in with him in a silver monogrammed flask. "Come on," Serena told them gleefully. "Everybody outside! We're moving the party to Flow's limo!" Blair fished her coat-check ticket out of her not exactly cruelty-free mink-and-armadillo-skin Fendi baguette purse. Sometimes Serena's enthusiasm verged on annoying. But it wasn't like she'd been having the time of her life at the ball.

She liked the idea of being all dressed up and riding around town watching the world go by through smoky limousine windows. It was so Audrey in Breakfast at Tiffany's.

And maybe a ride in Flow's limo would be just the thing to magically transform her life from a series of disasters to a series of dreams come true.

Or maybe not.

Nate was getting kind of bored of just kissing Jenny. He hadn't had much to drink, and he really needed another joint.

"Want to go for a walk or something?" he asked.

Jenny smiled up at him. His eyelashes looked like they'd been dipped in gold, just like his hair. The only thing that would make tonight even more perfect than it already was would be if Nate told her, "I love you." And hopefully that was exactly what he was about to do. "Sure," she replied eagerly.

They retrieved their coats, and Nate held the door open for her as they left the bustling hotel.

A massive black limo with smoky black windows was parked outside. Nate and Jenny walked down the marble steps to the sidewalk, and Nate let go of her hand to discreetly light a joint. Jenny fiddled with her black suede gloves, disappointed. If Nate was going to say, "I love you," she didn't want him to be baked when he did it.

All of a sudden, the back window of the limo rolled down and Serena's beautiful blond head appeared.

"Hey, you guys!" she said to Nate and Jenny. "Come on! We're having a party! Get in! Get in!" As usual, Serena was acting on impulse. It didn't even occur to her that they were the last fucking people on earth Blair wanted to see.

Jenny had always pretty much worshipped Serena, and riding around with her and whoever else was in the car sounded exciting and decadent. More exciting than walking around in the freezing cold while Nate got high. She touched Nate's arm. "Can we?" Nate shrugged. He was up for anything, as long as he could bring his joint with him. "Sure," he said. "Why not?" The door swung open, and Jenny giggled excitedly as she clambered over the mass of fishnet-clad legs and tuxedoed knees and wriggled into a tiny spot near the window next to a girl wearing the most amazing and expensive-looking shoes she had ever seen. A girl who happened to be Nate's ex-girlfriend, Blair Waldorf.

Jenny's face turned tomato red, and she immediately turned her head the other way, only to make direct eye contact with a leering Chuck Bass, the asshole who had tried to smother her in a bathroom stall at the Kiss on the Lips party in October.

See what happens when you dive into a limo without checking to see who's in it first?

d might save himself for marriage

Daniel Humphrey bit Vanessa Abrams's pinky nail off and spat it onto the brown shag rug on his bedroom floor. The nail was much longer than the others, and he was tired of the way she was always accidentally scratching him with it.

"Hey, that was my guitar nail,"Vanessa protested, wrestling her hand away from him and examining the damage.