Page 8 of How to Say I Do
I downed a huge gulp of my champagne, and the bubbles went straight to my veins. I was on the edge of something. Hilarity or weeping, I wasn’t sure. “I… God, Wyatt, I think that was the worst day of my life, and it could have ended up a lot fucking worse if you hadn’t stepped in to take care of me.”
Wyatt’s eyes were gray and soft as he studied me. “I’ve had a worst day of my life. I know what it’s like to feel alone, and I know what a difference it makes when you’re not.”
He was theonly one. The only person, from The Plaza in Midtown to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, who’d done more than stare and whisper and walk away. “Thank you.”
“I’m happy to have helped. Honestly.”
Fuck the tears. I thrust up my chin. “I think we should celebrate.” Up went my champagne flute. “To you. And to ‘our’ honeymoon.”
Wyatt laughed. “To ‘our’ honeymoon.”
We drank, and our eyes locked above the rims of our glasses.
Brunch ran long. So long, in fact, we ended up finishing one bottle of champagne and getting deep into another. Luis wasdelighted.
Wyatt and I demolished everything—all of the french toast, all of the poached eggs, all of the crab-and-lobster salad, all of the pineapple-and-maple-glazed bacon, and even all of the danishes. We talked, too, doing the get-to-know-you chitchat we should have done yesterday, but that I had been too incapacitated to be capable of. He told me again about Liam and Savannah and their upcoming wedding at the resort. I had vague memories of hearing their names and then knocking back a shot.
“I’m supposed to scout out the place and make sure it’s all good.” Wyatt looked left and right, peering up and down the picture-perfect beach before he nodded. “Looks good.”
“Your brother and his fiancée couldn’t have picked a better spot. Atonof A-list celebs get married here.”
I could name them all, too. This resort had been the destination du jour for beachy celeb sets for the past decade. They mostly flew in over December and January, escaping the cold and the slower social calendar of winter that mere mortals had to endure. Now that it was spring and festival season was upon the world, not a single celebrity would be within one-hundred miles.
“Yeah, Savannah saw some photos a few years back and fell in love. It wasn’t hard to convince Liam that a beach paradise was perfect for a wedding, especially when he found out they would handle everything.” Wyatt mimed wiping his brow. “So this whole ‘prep for our arrival’ business is just them pushing me into a vacation. I haven’t taken one in…” He tilted his head up and squinted at the sky. “Nine years.”
“Nineyears?”
“Not a day off.”
“And on your first day of vacation innine years, you decided to feed a drunk stranger two burgers in a bar?”
He shrugged and smiled, then simply said, “Well, one burger was supposed to be mine.”
Jesus. I shook my head. My eyes drifted downward. Wyatt’s hands were bare, no rings, but that wasn’t definitive in this day and age. “Did you come here alone? Or is your girlfriend arriving later?” A guy like Wyatt couldn’t be single. There was no way on Earth, no possible way at all—
Color rose in Wyatt’s cheeks. He tipped his hat back, resettling it higher as he cleared his throat. “Ahh, no. I’m gay. And there’s no boyfriend, either.”
Knock me the fuck over with a feather. I looked him up and down, taking in his bulk and his brawn, his chiseled masculinity and his ruggedness. He looked like he’d ridden a horse off a Marlboro ad. He was too authentic for even a Hollywood production. No actor could pull off what Wyatt was exuding. Gay? I hadn’t had even a minuscule particle of a thought.
Wyatt was carefully, purposefully not looking my way, instead stirring cream into his coffee cup and gazing intently at the corner of the table by my right hand. He looked a little wary, like maybe I was a douchebag or a dick, and maybe he should be getting up and leaving in the next few moments.
“Sorry, I… I’m sorry, you blew my mind. Honestly? I’m shocked you’re single. What the fuck?”
Wyatt’s cheeks turned magenta again, and he tried to hide his smile in the croissant he was pulling apart. “You’re from New York, right?”
A deft change of subject. “Yes. Manhattan. How’d you know?”
“Lucky guess. No, just something about you yesterday. Maybe how you said hello.”
“You mean howrudeI was to you?”
“Not exactly rude.” Good fucking God, he had a dimple, an adorable little divot in his left cheek that came out when his smile was as big as it could get. “You have that kind of confidence. I don’t know anyone who could—orwould—sneak a bottle of Tito’s onto a plane, but you did. And you dazzled the lady taking our tickets, even though you were walking just about fully sideways while we were boarding. You know how to turn on the charm when you need to.”
“You’re observant.”
There was that smile again.
I folded my napkin in my lap and squinted at the waves. “I have to be able to turn it on. I have to make a lot of very rich and very important people very,veryhappy in my job.”
