Page 15 of How to Say I Do
Wyatt nodded. “About five years before, my dad finally put away one of the big-time county losers, and for longer than a thirty-day stint. He made sure the charges really stuck. Domestic abuse, assault, drug distribution, the whole nine yards. ’Course, that made this guy spitting mad, and he spent his whole time up in Dalhart thinking about how, when he got out, he was going to come and kill my father for what he'd done. And...” He cleared his throat and shuffled his bottle from one hand to the other.
I grabbed him without thinking, wrapping my palm around his forearm. His muscles were firing, rock-hard and snapping.
“The coroner said my mom and dad had probably fallen asleep on the couch. They might not have even known what was happening. So maybe they just fell asleep together, and maybe that was all they ever knew.”
“It wasn't obvious? I mean, forensically? Like you see on TV—” My lips clamped shut. This wasn’t fucking TV.
“No.” Wyatt cleared his throat. “After he shot them, he set the house on fire and fled. I was at football practice with Liam, and we only knew something was going on when we saw the plume of smoke rising over our ranch. By the time we got home, there was nothing left. Firefighters were trying to save the barn and stop the fire from spreading to the fields, but our house was gone. And so were they.”
Wyatt had losteverything. His father, his mother, his home, and everything in it. He and his brother had driven home from football practice, of all things, and found out hell had cracked through the crust of the earth and swallowed their lives. He'd losteverything, and he—
And he'd spent today with me, trying to cheer me up. I couldn’t breathe.
Now that Wyatt had started talking, he didn't seem to be in a hurry to stop. “Took my dad's deputies, a full district of highway patrolmen, and a posse of Texas Rangers four days to find that son of a bitch cowering in a culvert off Interstate 10. He's at Walls now, on death row. And as soon as that fire stopped smoldering, I was clearing out debris. It took me six months, but I rebuilt our house. Every board and plank and nail got put back where it belonged. My dad's deputies came and helped anytime they weren't on shift. The football team, too.”
“Wyatt—”
“Liam and Savannah were dating then. They'd been dating since freshman year. Mom and Dad loved Savannah. They said they already knew that she and Liam’d marry each other as soon as they could. But it was... It was real hard, after they died. I was trying to rebuild our home, and get the ranch back up, and get guardianship of Liam,andgraduate high school, and… Well, I wasn't there for Liam as much as I needed to be. He and Savannah ran a little wild trying to outrun their pain. They got pregnant that summer. Just a couple months after everything.”
“They were sixteen?”
“Yeah. They’d just finished their junior year of high school when they found out. They both were terrified. Came to me crying, full of fears about what they were gonna do. They’d had big dreams of going to college and moving to Austin or San Antonio.” Wyatt pronounced San Antonio without the final-io, and he dragged out thenuntil it was almost its own word.
“What did they do?”
“They had the baby. My nephew, Jason. He's going to be Liam's real best man in a few days. He's his daddy’s best friend, too.” Wyatt was smiling again, something purer and deeper than the goofy smiles from this morning’s brunch, or even the gentle smile he'd given me at the lagoon. “I helped them every way I could. I took care of Jason so they could finish high school and then go to college. We all lived together at the ranch while they commuted to San Angelo. Both of ’em graduated in three years, not four, and they walked across the stage with Jason between them. Proudest damn day of my life.”
“Wyatt…”I couldn’t form words. I couldn’t even think.Fire. Baby. Rebuilt our home. My dad’s dream.
Wyatt shrugged again, as if to say,What else was there to do? “Savannah is a teacher now. Middle-school science, which I think qualifies her for sainthood. Liam is a wildlife biologist. He works with the state. And they didn't move but one town away, which I amsograteful for. I don't know if I could live without seeing Jason or the two of them all the time.”
People like him didn’t exist anymore, I thought. Who wasthisloving and kind and absolutely selfless without the Insta post to go along with that good deed?
Last year at the Met Gala, I held Blake Lively's hair back as she vomited out of sight of the cameras. I helped scrub her dress and fix her makeup, and I stuck by her all night so she could grab my arm and we could make a swift escape to a trash can I'd hidden in a closed gallery. I would love to say that was purely out of the kindness of my heart, but it wasn't. Blake Lively had been the star-studded jewel in our promo package for the night, and she needed to lookfabulous. Ergo—
“I don't know what to say.” It was the most honest I could be. Any more honest, and I'd beg Wyatt’s forgiveness for bothering his life before I tried to drown myself in the surf. “I'm sorry.”
“I don't normally share all that. Or any of it, really.”
The hesitation at brunch. The deft maneuvering around subjects, careful to not speak about himself. “Thank you for telling me.”
He clamped his lips shut and nodded once.
“It’snotwhat I expected when I asked you 'why wine,’ that’s for damn sure, though.”
I hadn't meant that to be funny. It just slipped out, my mouth going haywire in front of Wyatt again. But Wyatt snorted, and then he leaned, and all of his hot skin rubbed up against mine. We’d drifted closer without realizing it, scooting in and in until we were side by side. I tipped my head to his, resting my temple against his ear and beneath the brim of his hat. “I'm sorry.” My hand was still on his arm.
He laid his hand on top of mine. “Thanks.”
We stayed like that, heads together, hands together, as the band started playing another swaying song. Couples danced and gazed adoringly into each other's eyes. Groups of friends and families laughed. I could feel Wyatt’s pulse pounding at his wrist, and the steady rise and fall of his chest as he breathed.
“Señors?”
Finally, a waiter—only about a lifetime too late. Wyatt and I peeled apart, resettling with a normal and respectable distance between us as I ordered two more beers and two shots of tequila, straight up.
We downed the shots immediately, then poured half a bottle of fresh beer down our throats.
Wyatt went boneless in his chair. He kept up a drum beat over the next several songs, his fingertips moving over his thighs as he sipped his beer. Every few minutes, he'd turn to me and smile. Firelight burnished his broad face, rubbed embers into the cherry glow of his cheeks.
