Page 65 of How to Say I Do
“That’s fucking impossible.”
A flutter of a laugh escaped him. “Did you curse? My God.” He hissed, a quick, bracing inhale. “It’s true, though. And I know why. I’m fucked up. I’m difficult. I’m acerbic. I’m opinionated, and moody, and high-maintenance, and anal-retentive. No one wants to deal with me long-term. Everyone I’ve been with has dumped me. Girlfriends in college. The few girlfriends I had before Jenna. Jenna, obviously, didn’t want me. And my parents—” He breathed in until he couldn’t. “Just give it time, Wyatt. You’ll see what everyone else does, and when you do, you won’t like me either—”
“That’s not true.”
“Itistrue. Trust me, I know. And I don’t— I don’t think I’m an irredeemable asshole. I mean, I help people with strollers in the subway, and I give up my seat whenever I see someone who needs it, and— I’m justme, butmeisn’t what other people want. Everyone gets tired of me. I wish I knew what to change—”
“Don’t change, Noël. You’re perfect—”
He made a noise like a snort and a sob all rolled into one, like he didn’t believe me at all.
“Youareperfect to me. I adore all of that, everything you just said. I love how fierce your opinions are. I love hearing you go off on nineties fashion, or critique the newest line from Dior, or declare this year’s trends dead. I love the way you view the world. I’ve never known anyone like you, or anyone who sees things the way you do. The ideas you came up with for the ranch? They’re perfect. Even thinking that this place could be worth a wedding like Tessa and Tyler’s—”
“Of course it’sworththem—”
“You believed in the Gran Cielo Viñedo, and you hadn’t even seen it.”
Silence.
“You’re built out of platinum. No one can fuck with you. Noël, you astonish me. You stopped me in my tracks the moment we met. There is nothing about you that is fucked up.”
Broken whimpers melted across our connection. “Wyatt… I have to go.”
“Wait, Noël—”
“No, Ihaveto go. I have to—”
The last thing I heard was his desperate, wet inhale and then a long, plaintive sob before the line cut and he was gone.
I was up for most of the night, wondering if I’d ever hear from Noël again or if I’d crossed some unknown line and pushed him away for good.
If I had, at least he knew the truth. He knew that I adored him, exactly as he was.
So I wasn’t expecting any texts in the morning, all groggy-eyed and sleep deprived and hunched over my coffee, but my phone buzzed, and there he was. He’d sent me a selfie, him also bleary-eyed and falling asleep in his bagel, pouting for the camera with his sunglasses perched on the tip of his nose.
It was such a him pose, and such a him photo, and it brought back memories of burgers in Dallas, vodka and orange juice on airplanes, and me working up the courage to take him by the hand.
Looking at him, I realized: even with all the heartache and the unknowns, and even if Noël, with all his luminosity and his prickliness and his brilliance, his defensiveness and his shyness and his hidden sweetness, ultimately wasn’t meant to be with me, I was still unbearably lucky to have him brush against my life.
I spent the day working on the barn. I dedicated the morning to practicing on scraps of lumber and perfecting my whitewashing technique. The trick was, I had to use a scraper, not a brush, which meant the whole project was going to take an absolute age to complete, but, when I was finished, it would look like it had fallen out of aPottery Barnmagazine.
I sent Noël a photo of my progress, which he responded to with a line of exclamation points, and then he asked about my progress, not-so-subtly questioning how slowly I was going. I replied with a picture of Peanut holding a paintbrush in her mouth. Noël sent me a selfie of him glaring at me, tossing a droll stare over the tops of his aviators.
All that did was turn me on.
Days passed, and it seemed like Noël and I had moved through some sort of fundamental passage. We were still saying the same things to each other, and sending the same kinds of photos back and forth, but there was a new undercurrent to everything. A warmth, and a tenderness, and a beautiful openness. What was rising between us felt like a newly-born star.
I started visiting Liam and Savannah again. That might have been a mistake, because Liam wanted to know what had gotten into me to put me into such a dang good mood.
I hadn’t told him anything. Not a word about Tessa and Tyler’s wedding, or Noël’s visit, or how his and my lives were drawing back together.
The truth was, I didn’t want to tell Liam because he’d shoot off to the goddamn moon.
Liam didn’t hate anybody. He was a sweet man, softened early by fatherhood, and he was known for his kindheartedness. So when he’d blown up over Noël, I’d been taken aback at the raw force of his rage. He’d been incandescent; I’d never seen anything like it. Not even after our parents died, when Liam had turned dark and broody and had disappeared on me for days, leaving me alone with the ruins of our burned-down lives and our parents’ bones.
There was a lot of scorched earth between Liam and Noël, and I wasn’t sure how to go about fixing that.
So I kept Noël to myself, and if I started chewing on worries about keeping things from my baby brother, well—
