In the gallery, Bex isn't hearing it: "Don't act so surprised to see me. How could I not stop by after all those pitiful messages you left?" Rufus apologizes, and tries once again to explain. He does a pretty good job: "Look, Bex. I was married for almost twenty years. And before that, I was a somewhat successful musician, and I wouldn't really call what I was doing dating." It was? "A succession of women -- groupies, mostly -- whose chose me. I really don't have any experience with real honest-to-goodness dating." I like that, the whole thing about eating whatever's on your plate instead of deciding what you want, and going after it. That's so true, and it's so Rufus, and I'm proud he figured that one out. "Despite your worst efforts, I am completely charmed by you, Rufus Humphrey." She speaks for us all! "Okay. Here's where we are. Dating 101, Lesson One: In two days, you're gonna call me, and thank me for forgiving you your dating faux pas. You'll ask me out to dinner. Someplace elegant, but intimate. And we are going to have a fabulous time. You got all that?" She delivers this with charm over and above the already pretty-charming lines. I like this one, I hope she sticks around. She takes off, promising they'll talk in two days, but of course she only makes it two steps toward the door before her phone rings, and she starts to laugh. Oh, Rufus.

Serena appears at the loft with a strange, yet totally valid, request: "I need to know why you love me." He can tell she's freaking, so instead of patronizing her, he stands up like a man and takes her hands immediately. "Because I do." She promises him she wants most to trust him, when he says that -- maybe if she knew why, she'd stop being so scared of hearing them, and saying them. Not the performance of love, but the words themselves, and the words behind the words. "Okay. Well, if you want to talk about why," he starts, and she cuts in with more words and explanations, about Lily and "her many marriages," and he laughs. "There. That's why. Because I actually like it when you interrupt me -- which is often, by the way -- I love you because you make no apologies about being exactly who you are," of course, unless you're apologizing to me for being exactly who you are, but it's a nice moment and I'm not going to throw a fit except to say that he loves making her apologize for that too. But the her he's talking about is "Beautiful, smart, sexy as hell..." She gets bashful, and this too is a reason. "You're completely unaware of your affect on me. You're also completely unaware that you laugh like a four-year-old [WTF?], just like that... And I love you because you can be with someone like me and still be best friends with someone like Blair." Ugh, Dan. Gross. "I love you because you have the good taste to love me, but the charity to love somebody I'm so much better than"? You can do better than that. But it's Dan, so he saves it at the last second: "You never give up on her. That is how amazing you are." She responds that he is amazing too, but can't come up with anything in particular: "You just are." Hee! That's like the truest part. Dan is awesome in a way science cannot properly describe; I'm on board with that. "And I love you...but I have to go." One of the many reasons he loves her, she explains, and blows him a kiss. I can't disagree; the intensity of her love for Blair really does recommend her quite highly, I think.