Our Love To Admire: Chapter 8
Chapter Eight: Silence or Everything’s Not Lost
Charles Bartholomew Bass sat on the grass behind his stepbrother’s house staring blankly into the lawn before him. His mind was…empty. Each puff of marijuana smoke into his lungs chased away another thought of Blair because every thought of her tore his heart to shreds. Blair stood in the doorway of his office wearing a dark trench coat and four-inch Louboutin pumps, it didn’t take long for him to figure out there was nothing underneath. He slowly inhaled from the end of the joint in his hand again before he heard the glass doors open behind him.
“Did you sleep?” Eric asked before planting himself on the ground next to his stepbrother. He pushed a mug of fresh coffee in the older man’s direction. An offensive smell caused him to wrinkle his nose in disgust before he realized what Chuck held between his fingers. “Can you keep the illegal substances to a minimum in my house?”
“Sure…” Chuck drawled before taking another hit.
Eric shook his head and placed the coffee on the grass between them. “That includes the lawn, Chuck.”
Chuck took a quick toke before flicking the roach away towards the property line. He exhaled slowly, letting the heavy smoke escape his lungs. “No, I didn’t sleep.” He responded to Eric’s earlier question. “How did I get this far, Eric? How did I let it slip away?” he sighed into the fresh morning air.
Eric shook his head before taking a sip from his own steaming mug. “I can’t answer that question for you.” He responded honestly.
“Do you think this is the end?” Chuck turned to his companion for the first time that morning. “Do you think it’s finally over?”
The younger man shifted uncomfortably in his position. In fact, he knew it was the end. Blair had called Henry during dinner the previous night to discuss what had happened. She had asked Henry to start drawing up divorce papers Monday morning. “Yes, I do think it’s over.” Eric responded in a dejected tone.
Chuck smiled and acknowledged the coffee by his side for the first time. “You’re wrong Eric.” He took a deep gulp of the hot liquid, feeling it burn through his insides. “I went to our house last night when I got back from the penthouse,” Chuck began, before Eric cut him off unceremoniously.
“Wait, you went back to Manhattan last night?” Eric said, clearly alarmed. He thought Chuck had gone back to the woman he was sleeping with.
“I had some things to take care of,” Chuck drawled. He abandoned his coffee and leaned back against his elbows. “Let’s just say, Uncle Jack is getting a very crazy and clingy early birthday gift.”
Eric waited for Chuck to continue, but the brunette had his head thrown back catching the rays of sun on his pallid skin. “What happened when you went to your house?” he prodded.
Chuck laughed quietly in his chest, thinking about the state Blair was in when he arrived at 4 a.m. “Blair was drunk, passed out on the couch in the living room.”
“And that makes you think you still have a chance of saving your marriage?” Eric asked an edge beginning in his voice. He hated the way Chuck treated Blair for the past six years, since the old Chuck Bass behavior had come back.
“Why are people always cutting me off?” Chuck questioned rhetorically.
“Because you talk so damn slow,” Eric mumbled, before signaling Chuck to continue his story.
Chuck carried Blair to their bed and slowly began undressing her. After divesting her of the scrap of fabric that presumed to be a dress, Chuck left the silk camisole that was underneath but slid her legs into grey cashmere pajama bottoms. He then went to the en-suite to retrieve a damp washcloth, knowing how much Blair hated to sleep with makeup. When he finished cleaning her skin, he relaxed on his side of the bed. His wife was naturally curled inward, in a position that would wrap perfectly against his frame. Chuck turned on his side and took her hand, admiring the way it fit into his, before he placed it against the spot on his chest above his heart. “Yours,” he whispered into the silent darkness.
Blair subconsciously moved towards the heat on the other side of the bed. She snuggled her face against his dress shirt, inhaling deeply. In her sleep, she mumbled “mine” against his pounding heart.
“She still loves me, Eric,” Chuck smiled genuinely staring up at the empty blue sky. Every fiber of his being was hopeful. He stood up, straightened his clothes, ready to start the day and put his plan in motion.
Eric sighed, the fear of his knowledge resting on his shoulders. “Do you think that’s going to be enough?”
Both men turned when they heard the glass door slide open. Serena stood holding a paper bag full of breakfast pastries, anger pushing at her voice box when she saw her stepbrother. “Wake and bake, very classy Chuck,” she sneered, the smell of marijuana instantly hitting her nostrils when she opened the door. “What’s he doing here, E?”
Eric pushed himself into a standing position and dropped a kiss on his sister’s cheek. “Chuck is staying with Henry and me for a bit,” he announced nonchalantly.
“Are you kidding?” she replied heatedly.
Eric grabbed Serena’s upper arm, pulling her back into the house, and away from Chuck. “What’s your problem Serena?” he snarled. “I understand that Blair is your best friend and she’s always been like another sister to me, but Chuck is our family…”
Serena pulled her arm away from her brother’s grasp and dropped the paper bag on the couch. “He’s not our family Eric, and don’t start going all psycho-babble on me. Blair and the girls are the only one’s I care about-“
Eric cut her off, “And you think that the girls not having a father while they go through the hardest period of adolescence is a good idea?”
“Well your kids don’t have a mother!” Serena snapped, but was instantly shocked by her own words.
Eric shook his head, artfully avoiding his sister’s remorseful gaze. “That was low, even for you Serena.”
“Eric, I… I’m so sorry…you know I didn’t…” Serena stuttered, searching for the words that would take back the wounding barb she had shot at her brother.
“You don’t understand anything that’s going on here,” Eric said, staring into his nearly empty coffee mug. “You and Dan were gone before any of this started. And there are things I can’t even tell you because Blair forced Chuck to come to me for marriage counseling, so it’s privileged information,” He finally met her eyes before continuing. “I have to find a way to help them get through this, together or apart.”
Serena nodded dumbly before responding. “I just want to do what’s best for my friend Eric. She’s lost and in so much pain because of him…”
“I want to do what’s best for both of them S.”
“So what is best for them, in your professional opinion, doc?” she asked with a sad smile, attempting to lighten the mood.
Eric finished off the last of his coffee as he contemplated the question. “First of all, I’m not a doctor, I’m a therapist.” He turned and looked through the closed glass door at his stepbrother on the lawn. “I don’t know the answer yet, but I know they have to be civil towards each other before anything else.”
Serena squinted and examined her brother. “You say that like you have something planed E.”
Eric smiled enigmatically before returning his attention to Serena. “I don’t…but I have a feeling that Chuck might.”
The man himself walked through the doors, pushing past Serena and offering Eric a curt nod, before walking out the front door. The siblings knew he was going to see his wife.