Page 28 of How to Say I Do
Noël thrust out his now-empty wine goblet. “Well, hurry up and pour me a glass.”
I laughed and unscrewed the top. He arched his eyebrows and shot me a look. “It’s recyclable. All the rage in California.”
We toasted and dug the wine bottle into the sand, then stretched out our legs and pointed our toes at the surf. The tide was low, and the waves rumbled and tumbled far from us. He asked how dinner had gone, and I told Noël all about Jason’s yellow coloring job and how everyone had asked a thousand questions about him, and that they all agreed he was a fantastic guy and should definitely join us tomorrow on the beach.
Noël preened and pretended to be non-plussed. Praise did beautiful things to the color of his cheeks. “Liam and Savannah are wonderful. Jason is adorable.”
“I’m glad to hear you say that,” I said. “Because Jason is a carbon copy of me when I was that age. Full speed, launch-me-into-space-and-let-me-orbit-on-sugar-powered rockets.”
“He’s sweet. You’re good with him. You’re a good uncle.”
No praise on Earth meant as much to me as hearing that I was a good uncle to Jason or a good brother to Liam. Good uncle, good brother, good son to my father and mother. Good family. That’s all I wanted in this life—to be good for the people I loved. I didn’t know how to react to hearing those words coming from Noël.
I gulped the last of my wine and buried the foot of my glass in the sand. Noël was watching the stars with a tipsy smile. “Can you see many stars in New York City?”
“Not a single one. This is breathtaking.”
“You can see more of ’em in my part of Texas, you know.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Mmhmm. On a cold night, you can even see the Milky Way. My dad and I used to camp out in our back pasture sometimes. He taught me the constellations when I was young. Every year, before school started, we’d watch the Leonid meteor shower. Liam never had the patience for it, but Dad and I would be out there all night long.”
“Have you taken Jason out yet?”
That he knew to ask. That he knew, on some level, that I would carry that tradition along, from my father to Jason through me. That he knew me well enough, even after so few days, to guess I’d been counting down to Jason’s seventh birthday, when Savannah said he was finally big enough to spend a handful of hours out in the fields, dressed up in a snow parka and clutching a thermos of hot chocolate. I was burning up all over again, about to leap out of my own bones. It was indescribable, these feelings Noël sparked inside me. I wanted to crawl into his lap and cradle his face in my hands, look into his eyes and whisper,Where have you been all my life?
“I took Jason out last year. We didn’t know if he’d be bored or enthralled, but he loved it. He’s more like his uncle that way. Less like his daddy.”
“I bet Liam is thrilled.”
“Liam has put me in charge of Jason’s astronomical education.”
Noël’s laugh bounced across the waves. I rolled bits of sand and crushed seashells between my fingertips to stop from reaching for him. “Do you know your constellations?”
“I think I drew the Big Dipper in fourth grade.”
“Well, that’s no good. C’mon, we gotta get you up to speed. Here, lie back. It will be easier on your neck.”
I’d like to say that was a smooth move and that I’d planned for this moment, but that would be giving me too much credit. I was not that suave or seductive.
The space between him and me seemed to evaporate. I wiggled, and he rolled into my side. His head ended up nestled into my shoulder.
I pointed at the sky. “See that bright dot? The brightest one in that little dark space?” He was so close. So close I could breathe him in, smell the sage-and-blossom shampoo of the resort and his warm, clean smell. Nighttime and moonlight, brash eyes hidden behind aviators, the cocky angles of his smile as he swirled a glass of red wine, and his hand laced through mine as we swam after sea turtles.
“I see it.” His breath tickled my throat.
“That’s Venus. And that right there is Jupiter. Over there, that’s the Big Dipper.” I took his hand and traced the constellations like we were finger painting. “And this is Gemini, the twins…”
I pointed out every star and planet over our heads. We watched for meteors, and when we spotted one, running from east to west in a long and dazzling dash, he curled his hand in the center of my chest.
I told him about being seven years old and wishing for a new fishing pole when I saw my first shooting star, and how I thought there was absolute magic in the night sky when I came home from school the next day, and, lo and behold, there was a brand-new fishing pole tied up with a bow. Never mind my dad’s indulgent smile as I ran around the house screaming my head off.
I told him stories about the Greeks and their tales behind the constellations, and about the Paint Rock pictographs in Central Texas, and how the earliest Native Americans painted symbols of the sky across Hill Country. About the Cholla Site in West Texas where some of the earliest human handprints are pressed into boulders that face the annual solstices. About how the Apache tribes called Orion’s Belt the Three Vertebrae, and how the Cree people called the Milky Way the Ghost Road. I spoke for hours, long after Noël’s breaths evened out and he went soft and slack against me.
It was only when he was asleep that I was brave enough to take his hand and kiss his knuckles. “Noël, what are you doing to me?” I whispered.
I held him beneath all those glittering constellations, and as the tide rolled in, I wished on every shooting star I saw that this little moment could grow into forever.
