Page 4 of How to Say I Do
He was starting to sway, but I couldn’t tell if that was from the booze or his exhaustion. Those dark circles beneath his eyes looked like craters now. He let me wrap my arm around his shoulder and steady him as we moved through the airport. He leaned hard into me, and his head rested against my shoulder.
We must have looked like quite the couple.
I loved it. The feel of holding another man in public and having someone special to care for, to have in your arms, and to focus all your little attentions and fondness on.
Another big first: my first time looking very gay in public.
When we stepped out of the airport, a limo driver with a sign that readBettancourt Wedding Partywaved. Noël hid his face in my armpit.
He perked up, though, when the driver offered him a glass of champagne. Noël downed his like a shot before climbing into the backseat. I clambered in behind him and offered up my glass of bubbles, and he slung that back, too.
We sat in silence on the drive. Noël was boneless and bobbing against me, and his knee kept bouncing off my thigh. His sunglasses were down again, hiding his eyes.
I kept my arm around him and rubbed circles into his shoulder with my thumb. I couldn’t stop his world from ending, but maybe I could stop it from rattling around so much.
The driver had obviously radioed ahead. We were met by a full welcoming committee and an all-out celebration for the Noël Bettancourt Honeymoon Party. Champagne corks popped, and white rose petals fell on our heads as we climbed from the limo. I had his hand in mine to keep him on his feet, and he shifted closer to me, almost inside my shadow. We were each handed a mango Bellini. A luxury golf cart, decorated withJust Marrieddécor, whisked us away under waves of applause to the honeymooners’ beachfront villas.
The flawless sky was unblemished, a sweep of perfect blue that rivaled even the best of Texas’s horizon-to-horizon endlessness. Crystalline sand stretched in all directions like ground pearls, so soft it seemed like clouds had been shredded and laid out by hand. Gentle waves lapped against the shore, and beyond the rolling tide, the ocean mixed and merged, waters shifting from turquoise to lapis to cobalt, changing every time you looked away and back. Palm trees swayed, hyacinths bloomed. Orchids and lilies and snapdragons and stargazers burst into rainbow riots. Plumeria blossoms were everywhere: floating in pools and falling in fountains, arranged into puddles and piles, decorated in spirals and waves and hearts.
Noël had become one with my side, half of him melted into half of me. My arm was permanently fixed around his shoulder. I rested my cheek on top of his head as our driver told us about the honeymoon massage options. Moonlit. In room. Ocean-salt infused at the edge of the honeymoon villa’s private pool.
If only, I thought.If only.
When we arrived at Noël’s villa, our driver carried my bag and escorted us both to the front door before disappearing with a “Congratulations,señors.”
The villa was the size of a house, thatch-roofed and ringed with tropical landscaping. The back was a wall of sliding glass doors, and outside, palm trees curled around a private deck and a plunge pool. Beyond the deck, an unspoiled stretch of sand ran all the way to the waves. Everything was white. Fluffy white sofas and chairs, white marble tile, white curtains lighter than air. A giant white bed, larger than a king, turned down and ready for love.
Except, there was also a vase of one hundred perfect red roses on the bedside table, and, on top of the bright bedspread, hundreds of pink and red rose petals had been romantically scattered. I’m Texan, so roses to me were only right if they were yellow as the sun and sweet like sugar, but I could appreciate the message, and the moment.
Noël stared at the enormous bed and all those petals. He’d made it here from Manhattan, all the way through three airports, two flights, countless uncaring strangers, two burgers, I’d-lost-count-how-many shots of vodka, a honeymoon reception, andthis—this was the moment I could tell was about to break him. His chin wavered as he peeled off his sunglasses and turned away.
I gathered the four corners of his bedspread into one messy bundle. It was down-filled, and I got a face full of feather dander as I dragged it off. I got it out to the back deck, though, where I opened it up and let the wind grab hold of those petals. They floated end over end, swirling and spiraling away.
When I walked inside, with the comforter but without any rose petals, Noël tried—failed—to shoot me a smile. “Thank you.”
“No problem.” I did my best to arrange the comforter back into place. My best ended up being one step up from a heap.
Noël dropped his jacket and his unbuttoned vest and his undone tie to the ground before he toed out of his dress shoes. “I’m so tired,” he mumbled with his eyes mostly closed. He shook his head as he fumbled with his shirt buttons. He managed two, struggled with the third, and gave up. Two steps brought him to the edge of the bed, where he went face-first into the down pillows, still in his shirt and his pants and one sock. “I need…”
He never finished the sentence.
I found water bottles in his fridge, aspirin in the bathroom, and a basket of snacks on a table. I laid out cookies and crackers and the last bags of peanuts I’d wheedled out of the flight attendant next to six bottles of water on Noël’s bedside table, then dragged the bathroom trash can out and set it nearby, just in case.
And then…
Well, that was that. What was I going to do next? Wait for Noël to wake up? And… do what? I’d stopped him from drinking himself into a blacked-out stupor in Dallas, had inadvertently helped him to his flight, and then physically—and emotionally—carried him to his honeymoon villa. All I’dintendedto do, hours ago, was buy him a burger, distract him enough to get some glasses of water into him, and stop everyone from staring at an obviously devastated man.
There had been a dozen opportunities to tip my hat and say farewell before this. I hadn’t taken a one, but this was the big goodbye right here. I wasn’t his honeymoon guest. And no matter how much I might have enjoyed some of the moments today during our haphazard adventure, I doubted he could say the same. What I’d been to him and what he’d been to me were exceptionally distinct realities.
If he’d been in a different place—less heartbroken, less devastated, less drunk—maybe I would… Well, I didn’t know what I’d do. Here was another big first, and a huge, thorny question:do you or don’t you let your heart run free, Wyatt?
I ran my fingers through Noël’s dirty hair, squeezed his shoulder, and then headed for the door.
And I took that giant vase of roses with me, too.
It was a long walk across the resort back to the front desk, and I was soaked to the bone with sweat by the time I arrived, carting my duffel and that impossibly huge vase. Without the cachet of the Bettancourt Honeymoon Party, I had no access to a private golf cart or a valet, and the whole point of the honeymooners’ side of the resort was total peace and privacy, which meant no one was there to see me trudging.
Everyone in the lobby tracked me with wide eyes as I dragged myself in, hugging the roses and wiping my brow. “I think these will be better here, ma’am,” I said to the stunned receptionist, setting the roses down on the check-in counter.
