Page 85 of How to Say I Do
It’s not your wedding, Tessa.Elitelaid down $10 million for it.
“Noël, would you like to stay for dinner?” Tyler wagged a bottle of Baby Boy wine at me. “Tessa and I are making ravioli. You want to pitch in?”
Tessa propped her chin in her hand. They were sharing a wine glass, their pinky fingers hooked together around the stem. “We can gossip about Wyatt…” Tessa singsonged with a smirk. “And I can sing you some of the new lyrics I’m composing. I need someone else’s opinion: blues-jazz or pop-funk?Pleeasestay. Help me. Oh, and we can chop more people off the guest list. That’s my new favorite thing to do.”
I had a happy hour for Dior I was supposed to drop in at, but...
“I’d love to stay for dinner, as long as you don’t expect me to contribute anything. I can only toast bread.”
Tyler popped the cork as Tessa laughed. “We shan’t make you work for your meal,” she teased, faking a playfully posh accent.
“Or,” Tyler countered, “you could go wild and make garlic bread. It’s just toast with an attitude. I’ve got some fancy garlic seasoning you can sprinkle. Think you’re up for an adventure?”
I rolled up the cuffs of my Hugo Boss. “Oh, I was born ready. Bring it on.”
CHAPTER23
Noël
And then,suddenly, Wyatt and I were out of time.
He called me in the middle of the day, in between my morning ass-kicking atEliteand an afternoon photo shoot on Chelsea Piers. He’d carefully asked about my schedule earlier, wanting to know when would be a good time to call.
“You can call anytime,” I’d told him, slurping the last of my oat milk cappuccino as I jogged down the water-warped stairs in my building.
“I have something I want to talk to you about.”
Which was a good-morning kick to the balls. I’d stammered something aboutSure, call whenever it works for you, I’ll always pick up, and then imagined tossing my phone beneath a taxi on 2nd Avenue and let its tires grind away all of my dreams.
Points for maturity: instead of running, I paced the alley beside our office and sucked down a cigarette while I waited at the time he said he’d call. He was punctual to the minute, and I answered after half a ring.
“Wyatt?”
“Noël, I have to ask you a question.”
I waited. And died. “Yes? What is it?”
“I know we’re both swamped. I know you’re going crazy with Fashion Week, and Tessa’s wedding planning, and…” His voice kept getting tighter, his words clenching up. “But I tested the brix this morning—”
The brix: the measurement of sugar in the grapes. Wyatt had been measuring the brix in all of his blocks for weeks. He’d shown me both of his highly technical methods: his refractometer—which I’d accused him of making up, that it wasn’t real, that it was a salt shaker and a calculator like the tricorder fromStar Trek—and his taste buds and his fingers. With the refractometer, Wyatt (supposedly) measured the angle of light that bent through his grapes, and he frowned at the complex readings the little machine shot back at him. With his hands, he tested the plumpness, the firmness, the ripeness of the fruit, and then he plucked a grape and fed it to me and asked how sweet or bitter each one tasted.
“—and it’s time to pull them all in.”
“You’re harvesting?”
“I am. Which is why I’m calling.” Wyatt hesitated again. I nearly hung up on him. “Harvest is huge. We do it by hand, and with the size of the place, it takes days to get all those grapes off the vines. It was just me and Liam for a few years, but now most everyone in town drops by to help. When it’s all done, I host this big get-together to thank everyone. Liam and I roll out last year’s barrels of wine—”
He was rambling, which was very un-Wyatt-like. He sounded like he was about to collapse.
“You’re going to be busy for a while. I get it.”
“Yes, I will be, but— What I’m saying is— Look, it’s—Noël,this week? This week will be ten yearsexactlysince my dad and I harvested that first block of petite sirah.” His voice got very small. “And that barrel I showed you? He wanted it to age for ten years. And…”
Everything came out of him in a rush. “Noël, I want you here. I’m gonna open up the last barrel of my father’s wine ten years to the day after he and I barreled it, and I don’t know if I can do that on my own. I know this is damn selfish of me to ask, and it’s awful timing, but, God, Noël, I want you here.” A wet sniff, and a sound like he was wiping his nose on his sleeve. “I don’t want to do this alone. I want you with me.”
Wyatt never asked foranything. Not a single thing, but here he was, breaking down on the phone and asking me to come help him. Of course I would. Of course, of course. I’d dump Kim Kardashian in the middle of Newark, or chauffer almond milk to Poughkeepsie a million times, or judge a nineties fashion show every day for the rest of my life if he asked me to. I’d do anything for him.
My heart clobbered my ribs. The world was a watery mess. I couldn’t see across the alley. “Wyatt, ofcourse. Of course I’ll be there.”
