Page 69 of How to Say I Do
“I love the mobile. It’s a charming touch.”
Wyatt stayed back while I explored the room. Mirror above the dresser, high school pennant stuck into the frame. A picture of Liam and Savannah, him in football gear, her in a cheerleader uniform, the two of them holding baby Jason on the porch swing. They looked wide-eyed and terrified and very, very young.
“The top drawers are cleaned out for you if you wanna use them. There’s baby stuff in the bottom ones, and some of Jason’s clothes for when he spends the night, so—”
“It’s perfect, Wyatt.” I swirled my fingers across the top of the dresser and turned to him. He was slouched against the doorframe, trying to look casual, but the way he picked at a fingernail and vibrated told me he was anything but.
"Is this okay?" Wyatt finally asked. His voice was low, and he jerked his chin to the room that he’d obviously spent time on getting ready for me. He hadn’t thrown this together in five minutes. "Here, I mean." He straightened and shoved his hands into his jeans pockets, his shoulders rising and tensing. "I didn’t want to presume—"
"It’s perfect. Honestly."
He nodded, and his shoulders dropped a half-inch, but that tightness was still there. "I didn’t know what you wanted. Or what... Well, I wasn’t entirely sure what was going on. What this was."
So this was it. We were finally going to have the talk about us.
“This is…”
This was us trying for a second chance. Me trying to fix everything I’d done wrong. Him deciding whether or not he did actually like me, and if I wasn’t going to be “a lot” for him, or too much for him.
This was us maybe falling in love.
If past was prologue, then I already knew how we would turn out. We would end in despair, and, sooner or later, I would be making poor choices into a bottle of vodka again, or, this time, wine. After Wyatt, maybe I’d finally learn that I wasn’t cut out to be with anyone, and I’d morph into one of those scummy, middle-aged Manhattan men who were married to their jobs and walled themselves off from human interaction. There might be a trophy wife—or husband—in my future, along with a single kid, but there might also just be one-night stands until even those got to be too much trouble, and, eventually, all that mattered was the job.
That sounded an awful lot like my father.
But what if Wyattdidlike me? What if hecouldfall in love with me?
“I know what I want this to be,” I said. I knew what I wanted. You don't spend every waking moment of the day thinking about and texting with and reaching out to someone unless you believe they’re the most special person in your world. Wyatt was the star in my sky, the only one I could see in New York.
I wanted slow, sweet nights and beautiful days, and his eyes on mine as he played with my hair after we made love. I wanted to see his gorgeous smile and hear his hearty laugh, and I wanted to be the person who made him that happy. I wanted to be the man who cherished him more than anything else, and I wanted him to know that.
But how did we get from our past to there?
I sat down on the bed and ran my hand along the comforter. “I know we’ve already…” We’d already made love every way there was, and I still dreamed about him making love to me again. “But I was thinking we could go a little slower this time?” My voice rose, uncertain. “We should get to know each other”—You should get to know me, see if you really like me, if you really want me—“and figure out how all this works—”
I was starting to ramble, so it was a relief when he cut me off. “I agree,” he said. His shoulders dropped fully, and he smiled. “I wanna do this right.”
Oh, this was going to hurtsofucking badly when it ended, and when he decided I was too much and wasn’t worth all his effort.
“That, uh…” Wyatt rubbed his thumb over his brow and pointed to the box beside me. “That’s for you.”
I pulled the box into my lap. It wasn’t wrapped, but it didn’t need to be. It was sturdily made and wrapped in soft leather, its edges patched with gold-colored rivets. It had a certain Texan charm about it, something I’d never find in Manhattan. It was almost too beautiful to open.
There was a layer of tissue paper on top of whatever was inside, and when I pulled it back—
I needed a moment, time and space and seconds to compose myself.
He’d bought me a hat, a cowboy hat, chocolate felt with a pinch front. I knew those terms because I’d spent hours looking up hat styles while languishing in my memories. Him and his dove-gray cattleman, him sliding a hibiscus into the band. The straw hat I’d bought—awake, thinking of him, bruised over Jenna’s memory, wanting a measure of happiness and believing I could find it in his smile—and how he’d flicked the brim and chuckled and told me he’d buy me a real one. Here it was, the hat he said he’d get for me. I lifted it from the box. “It’s beautiful.”
“Try it on?”
I did. His lips parted, and his Adam’s apple rose and fell. “Now it’s beautiful,” he said.
Well, now I would never take the hat off. Not if that’s how he was going to look at me.
Wyatt cleared his throat. “I’ll let you get settled.” With a nod and a last, lingering look, he backed out of the bedroom, and I heard his boots thunder down the stairs.
I lost a ridiculous number of minutes mugging for the mirror in the bathroom, sultrily posing one way and then the other, tipping the hat forward, slowly raising my head, then practicing the sexiest way to slide it on. I shot a duck face at the mirror—
