Page 3 of How to Say I Do
I don’t know how Noël got that vodka on the plane. I thought for sure he wouldn’t have been allowed to board the flight, but Noël was a charmer. He breezed his way through check-in and then slanted down the jetway, digging his shoulder into the wall so he wouldn’t fall to his feet.
Onboard, I followed him to the very back row, which wasn’t where his ticket said his seat was. He was supposed to be up in first class—two tickets in row two—but he handed his first class seats to a man and his wife sitting by the window at the back. They were decked out in matching Hawaiian shirts and khaki shorts, and they lit up like they’d won the lottery. They were out of their seats and up to the front of the plane in seconds.
My seat was somewhere in the middle, but when Noël plopped down and patted the cushion next to him, what was I supposed to do? Of course I stayed.
Noël unbuttoned his satin vest and unknotted his silk tie as he slumped against the window. When he sighed, I caught a buzz from the vodka on his breath, and I asked one of the flight attendants for a couple bottles of orange juice and a can of Coke.
“Oh,fantasticidea,” Noël murmured when the flight attendant returned. He took one of the orange juices and chugged half.
Hydration,I thought.Sugar. Vitamins. That’sexactlywhat he needs.
Then Noël pulled out that bottle of Tito’s from wherever he’d hidden it inside his tuxedo and filled his orange juice bottle the same way he’d filled up my water glass, all the way to the tippy top. He screwed the lid back on and shook it, beaming at me.
“Ladies and gentleman, we’re getting ready to push back from the gate,”the pilot said over the intercom. His voice cracked and popped and came in extra loud in our row thanks to a staticky speaker embedded above us.“I know we have a handful of newlyweds on board, and some special couples on their way to celebrate their anniversaries”—loud cheers rose around the plane—”and I just wanted to give an extra special congratulations to all you lovebirds back there. We’ll be getting you to paradise in just a few hours, where you’re going to have the time of your lives with your nearest and dearest.”
Noël uncapped his screwdriver and started to chug.
We were two hours into the flight, and Noël was snoring beside me. He’d stripped out of his jacket and his vest, tied his tie around his eyes like a blindfold, tucked his aviators on top of the silk, and had fallen asleep against the bulkhead with his feet in my lap.
Earlier, he and I figured out—over Noël’s impromptu cocktail and while ascending to cruising altitude—that we were not only headed to the same country—Mexico—and the same city—Cancun—but to the same exclusive and all-inclusive resort. The resort was billed as both a honeymooners’ paradise and a storybook-perfect location for the destination wedding of your dreams. Liam and his fiancée, Savannah, had fallen in love with the idea of the place four years back when they’d started saving up their pennies for their wedding. It was a lot of pennies, and they’d been only halfway to their goal six months ago when I’d gifted them with the rest. In return, they named me honorary best man and official wedding organizer, which meant, according to them, I had to fly down a couple days early and make sure everything was arranged.
Arranged. Sure. This was an all-inclusive resort that specialized in high class luxury. “Going early” was just their way of giving me a longer vacation under the guise of being helpful, which was smart on Liam and Savannah’s part. I wasn’t likely to hop on a plane and spend several days alone in Cancun by my own whims.
Here I was: on the way to paradise, being helpful.
I had extra bags of salted pretzels and another can of Coke tucked into the seat beside me. Noël was going to need a whole lot when his blood alcohol level started to descend, and the easier I could make that fall, the better for him.
My thumbs moved in slow circles over his ankles. I was trying—and failing—not to stare at him while he slept.
This was a big first for me.
I was knocking out a whole heap of firsts today, in fact. First international flight. My passport in my back pocket was so new it crackled when I opened it, and all the unstamped pages stuck together.
First time I’d approached a man in public. Now, I hadn’t gone to Noël with any sort of intentions like that. Noël had needed help, and no one else was holding out their hand, so—of course—I did. I wasn’t in the habit of lying to myself, though. Noël had captivated me right from the first moment I’d laid eyes on him. Even smashed, Noël looked like he’d walked out of my daydreams.
And, first time I had a man’s feet in my lap. I liked it. Not the feet part, but the caring part. I liked that he could trust me in at least this little way, enough to let me rub tender circles into his ankles.
I liked it, all of it: the way some people looked at us and thought we were together, and what that did to my insides. The way my heart was pounding, and the way my eyes kept sliding sideways, despite my best intentions, to watch the rise and fall of Noël’s chest.
One of the flight attendants came by on her last sweep through the cabin. I passed her Noël’s bottle of Tito’s alongside my sweetest and most sincerely apologetic smile, and she looked at me like I was a rat infected with rabies.
That was because, after Noël had finished pounding his vodka and orange juice, he’d pulled out his cell phone and started showing me photos of his ex. Jenna was her name, and she was breathtakingly gorgeous, the kind of devastatingly beautiful woman you only find in New York or Paris, made of bone china and chiseled cheekbones.
I tried to keep up with his blitz down memory lane, nodding along as he showed me their engagement photos and pictures he’d taken of the two of them in their fancy Manhattan loft. There was something off about the images. Some quality, some depth that was missing, something I was used to seeing in couples who were madly in love. Something I saw in Liam and Savannah, but I didn’t see between Noël and Jenna.
Noël got to the end of his camera roll while one of the flight attendants came down the aisle on her first pass, collecting the Starbucks and the soda bottles and layover trash that everyone had brought on board. Noël smiled at her beatifically—
And then he pitched his iPhone right into her trash bag.
She stared at Noël. Noël settled into his seat with a contented sigh, folding his hands in his lap.
“I can’t recover that for you,” she said. Her voice was arctic cold. “A lady in economy plus put two dirty diapers in this bag. Icannotrecover your phone for you, sir.”
“Good.” Noël said as he pushed his seat back. “I don’t want it anyway.”
Ten minutes later, he’d been snoring.
Noël didn’t rejoin the land of the conscious until after we touched down, and he did so reluctantly, peeling off his makeshift blindfold but keeping on his aviators. He shoveled my pretzels into his mouth as we shuffled off the plane, sans his phone, and the only words he said to me were, “The resort is sending a car. Ride with me.”
