Most young women believe that Gossip Girl star Leighton Meester has a dream job. And Meester isn’t one to disagree, thanks to one of the perks of her job: kissing costar Chace Crawford.

“I’m Chace’s girlfriend on the show,” Meester told PEOPLE recently at a fund-raiser for model Petra Nemcova’s Happy Hearts Foundation. “It’s great.”

Though Meester, who plays Crawford’s love interest, Upper East Side snob Blair Waldorf on Gossip Girl, she denied knowledge of Crawford’s real-life romance with country star Carrie Underwood (”I don’t even know if he had one”). But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t enjoy some on-screen makeout sessions with her costar.

“Of course, it’s fun,” Meester said. “He’s soooo cute. It’s definitely not hard.”

But it does take some prep work: “I make sure I don’t have any lipstick on, so it doesn’t go everywhere, even thought that could be hot. And to make sure to stay fresh, I chew gum.”