Page 42 of How to Say I Do
I’d run every morning to that song. I’d bopped my head to it in the office, and I’d slipped an earbud in and tuned out the world while riding the M or the 6 train. Derrick Kane was everywhere and everything, and I’d beenoblivious.
There’s someone else, Jenna had said.
Igor reappeared. His face was stone. “Mr. Bettancourt, we’re bringing your belongings up from storage. There’s a taxi here to take you wherever you need to go.” He guided me to the curb, where one of Igor’s men was loading my little pile of boxes into the back of a taxi. Like most New Yorkers, I didn’t accumulate much. My clothes—I had a wardrobe to kill for, one of the only perks of my industry—my handful of books, a few knickknacks from college. Moving in with Jenna had been simple.
Moving out, it seemed, was going to be even simpler.
Igor held open the door. “Where to, Mr. Bettancourt?”
I ended up at an old college bar, a hole-in-the-wall dive that served watery beer and ran pizzas in from up the block. My moving boxes and I were piled into a booth for two, and I bulldozed my way through half of a pepperoni pie and three dirty martinis while perusing the cutthroat Manhattan sublet market. Technically, I was homeless, and I needed a place to live—immediately.
Lucky for me, there was a NYU post-grad in need of a warm body to take over occupancy on a crappy studio in a concrete post-war monstrosity in Murray Hill. The student—a little scuzzy-looking, a lot high, and probably washing out of NYU and wanting to get a head start on the post-post-grad life of giving no fucks—agreed to meet me at the bar. I handed over the rest of my pizza and $16,000 in cash, and he handed over a set of keys and shot me a peace sign.
Somewhere to live: check.
The studio was a dump. Murray Hill wasn’t known for its glamour or its luxurious offerings, but even by student standards, this was a low bar. Rats could jump it, in fact.
The whole room was one long, narrow hallway. Standing in the center, I could touch both walls. There was a toilet and a shower stall behind a curtain at the back, and on the other side of the curtain, there was a sink, mini fridge, a broken microwave, and a hot plate. The studio had one folding chair, a TV-dinner tray, and two plates, one chipped coffee cup, and a red solo cup stuffed with plastic silverware and takeout chopsticks. There was a futon against one wall—I had to walk sideways to slide past it—and a window with “city views.” That city view was the air shaft between the crowded buildings and a dead pigeon lodged against a windowsill that was starting to decay. Somewhere above, an AC unitdrip-drip-dripped.
The futon burped a cloud of pot debris when I sank onto it. I coughed, waving away the dust and the ash. Horns flared as taxis rumbled down 2nd Avenue. Dishwater gray light fell lifelessly down the airshaft. I stretched my legs and pushed my toes against the opposite wall. The drywall bowed.
I spun my sea-turtles ring and imagined waves tumbling up a diamond shore, coral reefs, and my hand encased in Wyatt’s. His voice, low and sweet when he sang, his lips at my ear and the sand between our toes. I could still smell him. I could stillfeelhim. His hands on me, him inside of me.
Sunshine warming my face, champagne bubbling on my tongue. Me screaming into Wyatt’s shoulders as he held my hand and steered the jet ski. His eyes, so huge and raw when he cracked open his father’s journal. His breath curling into my hair, my legs around his waist. His skin, sweat-slick, and the taste of his kiss, the feel of his fingers, the feel of his body—
Enough. Enough, it’s over. You left.My inner voice was vicious.You left.
For Wyatt’s own good, a part of me whispered.
What aboutthis—this apartment, this cash-paid studio stuffed with pot ash, my invasive work, my complete lack of any life outside of one-hundred-hour workweeks—or, fuck, me, mylife, or my existenceat allwould Wyatt find irresistible? What part of my real life could I offer him that he’d fall in love with? The Noël I’d been in Mexico was… Well, someone I wished I could be. Butme? Real me, real Noël?
There was nothing here that he’d want. Or—let’s be real—what he deserved.
I had a hundred unanswered work emails from that afternoon, two dozen texts, and three missed call from my boss. I ignored everything. In thirty minutes, I’d need to dig through my boxes for my suits, hope to God one wasn’t too horrific looking, and brave downtown for the Gucci party.
While I watched influencers double-air-kiss and down vodka-and-grapefruit cocktails, what would Wyatt be doing? And Liam? And Savannah? Was Wyatt going to show Jason the stars over the beach now that he didn’t have me monopolizing all of his time? God, how needy and desperate had I been that I’d inserted myself into Wyatt and his family’s lives?
My fingers tapped on the edge of my new phone’s case. I pulled up an email draft and watched the cursor blink.
Dear Wyatt—
I’d almost forgotten what it was like to crawl into work half-dead, still coughing out cigarette smoke and stinking of spilled cocktails. I’d spent the absolute bare minimum amount of time I could get away with at the Gucci party, and after, I’d gone the wrong way home, automatically hopping on the A train before realizing what I’d done, and then switching to the M at Washington Square. I’d hiked across 34th Street and collapsed face-first into the filthy futon after 3 a.m.
Sometime in the middle of the night, I’d dragged out a dirty resort t-shirt and curled around it like a teddy bear. I woke smelling coconut and saddle leather, and imagined lips trailing along the side of my neck.Mornin’, I heard, soclearly, the drawl smooth and sweet and warm as the sun. I reached behind me, looking for a meaty thigh, Wyatt’s thick quads, his work-rough hands—
Stop.
New York creatives didn’t mix with the business commuters. We usually limped into our offices around ten in the morning, which was practically midday for the industrious banker and lawyer types. Occasionally, when I’d be closing down a truly ostentatious party, I’d end up passing morning commuters on my way home.
My firm, Harrison Ltd., named for my boss and founder, Harrison Harper, worked out of a sprawling Garment District loft space, full of the old neighborhood charm. Industrial elevators that clanked and screamed, exposed brick and beams and industrial ducting, floor-to-ceiling windows, and a lingering worry of asbestos. Trade shows, sample sales, and models were neighborhood decorations, along with the street-fashion Instagram-influencer types, low-level paparazzi vultures trying to pull a scoop out of the alleys of the fashion world, tourists lost several blocks off of Times Square, and hustlers hawking fake Chanel and Louis Vuitton.
A dozen pairs of eyeballs drilled into me as soon as I walked through the doors. I had my earbuds in—my playlists now purged of all Derrick Kane—and my face hidden in an oat-milk cappuccino, but still. The sudden, sharp attention, the wretchedly vicious side-eyes, the arm slaps and pointed chins flung my way. If I hadn’t known that my life was utterly fucked, my coworkers’ reactions were enough to clue me in.
No one said a word as I dropped my messenger bag and sipped my coffee. Urban defense in this millennium wasn’t shields or catapults or boiling oil. I cloaked myself in aggressive disinterest and kept my back to the rest of the room.
“Noël.”
I couldn’t ignore my boss, though. Harrison waved me into his office, and I went like I was on my way to my own execution, dropping into one of the chairs in front of his desk in full view of my coworkers. Harrison’s office was a fishbowl. Everyone was watching us.
