How to Say I Do

by Tal Bauer

“I’m tired. And cranky. I shouldn’t be calling you like this. I’m sorry—” “Call me anytime. I’m happy to listen.”

“I’ll do anything you want, Noël. You tell me what you need.” Was I talking about barns? Or something else?

“You were right,” he said. “The stars in Texas were more beautiful.” “They’ll be here waiting for you whenever you come back.”

“Cab drivers won’t wait for you to shut the door before they’re rolling away. And who do I have in my life that would ask?” “Me.” A deep inhale. I imagined his eyes going wide, turning soft, the blue shifting from sharpened ice to tumbling water. “I’ll text.”

“I’m glad you called, Noël.” “Me too.”

I gave myself a talking-to every afternoon, preparing myself—I thought—for the day when I wouldn’t hear from him. It will stop eventually, Wyatt, and you gotta be ready when it does. But Noël kept texting, all day, every day.

Our lives, even a thousand miles apart, were drawing closer together. We never talked about us.

Or if there was an us, or what we were doing, or what it meant that we woke up to each other’s messages, spent the day trading photos and catch-up texts and have a good afternoon and look at this: a flower booming, or a butterfly on a vine, or a sunflower against the clear blue sky, or a unicyclist in the middle of 5th Avenue, or a Texas wine he found on the menu at Per Se and Gramercy Tavern.

Was this helping him? Was our constant connectivity enlightening him about what he really wanted, or was I a compelling distraction—again—from figuring out his life?

And what was I doing? Was I waiting around while Noël decided if I was someone he wanted? Or were we both trying to figure each other out? Learn each other from the outside in, rather than the head-first plunge we’d taken in Cancun?

Each morning, I woke up to a selfie of him sipping his coffee, sleepy eyed and exhausted, but shooting me a smile. And I was happy. Then one day, his texts stopped.

“You could have been out with someone.” To my own ears, my voice sounded strangled. “Why would I be out with someone?”

Cause there are eight million people in New York City”—eighteen million in the greater metropolitan area—"and at least a million of them have to be smart enough to recognize that you’re…” Amazing? Wonderful? Perfect? Way out of everyone’s league? I sighed. “There’s got to be someone there, Noël.”

“There’s not. There’s no one,” he snapped. “Why are you— Are you trying to tell me something?” “No.” “Are you— Is there someone in Texas?” “Noël—” “I haven’t been with anyone since Mexico. I don’t want...

He said nothing. “I just… I don’t understand why a thousand people aren’t trying to give you the world,” I finally said. “And someone out there, in the city, with all that opportunity… What they could offer you…”

I’d never felt smaller, huddled outside the edge of my desk light and rubbing my thumbnail around a knot of wood, alone in my dark little corner of the world. I was so, so out of my league with Noël.

“Wyatt…” Noël sounded incredibly far away. “You know, when people get to know me, they don’t actually like me...

“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.”

“It is true. 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 just me, but me isn’t what other people want. Everyone gets tired of me. I wish I knew what to change—” “Don’t change, Noël. You’re perfect—”

“You are perfect 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.

“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, I have to go. I have to—”

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.

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.

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.

For the moment, Noël and I were the only two inhabitants of our little world. We shared our mornings and our midnights, our coffees and our laughs, our tenderness and our goodnight, sweet dreams texts.

“I could find you a good wine out there, if you want.” “No, I just want your wine.” “I guess you’ll have to come back, then.” I heaved an exaggerated shrug, playing it up like I was joking, like my heart wasn’t pounding. “Well, obviously,”

I laughed until tears pricked at the corners of my eyes. Noël beamed, looking so dazzlingly happy that it made me glow all the way inside of me.

He was going to come back. There was nothing specific, and nothing was set in stone, but I was going to see him again.

“You should go to bed.” “Mmm, I don’t want you to go yet.” I was all summery inside. “I’ll be here in the morning.” “I wish you were.”

“When can I come back to Texas?” he whispered. “Anytime, Noël. You can come back anytime.”

Nothing could touch us or fuck with us or break us as long as we were in that bubble. Except— Nothing could break us except for me. I was the danger to the two of us. I knew that. I’d known that forever. I was always the problem, and excising me was always the solution.

There were so many intractable complications between us, and all of those complications spiraled around me. The distance between us, both physical and otherwise. Our past, which I wasn’t foolish enough to pretend was settled history. Our very, very different lives, and, our wildly divergent futures.

What do you want to matter right now? Wyatt. Only Wyatt. I only wanted him.

I wanted the hand-holds and our fingers tangled around the stem of a wine glass, the tender glances and the soft caresses. I wanted him to see that I was wearing his sea-turtles ring on my middle finger again.

Wyatt, I landed!!!! I’m here!! My promise to be cool had apparently flown out the window after the second extravagant exclamation point. I’m at the airport. I’ve been here for an hour, actually.

Who cared? I breathed him in, that warm-sunshine and saddle-leather smell. Then the embarrassment started to kick in, and I pulled back. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry—” Wyatt held me tight, not letting go. “Noël,” he whispered. “I’ve missed you.”

I talked a mile a minute again, but this time I made Wyatt laugh until the warmth of it filled up his truck, and he would flash me that rogue dimple of his that I hadn’t seen since Mexico.

Wyatt had seen me at my worst, many, many times, and at my best when I was trying to impress him and be wonderful for him in Mexico. Now? I had to just be me.

If Wyatt liked me—really, honestly liked me, maybe even enough to fall in love with me—then he had to know me. He had to know all my difficult parts, my moody parts, my high-maintenance parts, and my bat-shit parts.

If I was too much for him, it would be better to find out as soon as possible. Like, this week, before I was too far g...

The new flowers— Was that hibiscus potted on his porch? It was, and he plucked a bloom for me as we climbed the steps. I buried my nose in the petals and tried to control my smile. Which was impossible.

“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.

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.

But what if Wyatt did like me? What if he could fall 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 e...

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,...

His shoulders dropped fully, and he smiled. “I wanna do this right.” Oh, this was going to hurt so fucking badly when it ended, and when he decided I was too much and wasn’t worth all his effort.

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.

No, don’t despair this quickly. I had a week. I had to pace myself with all that doom and gloom. I splashed water on my face and searched my reflection. Embrace every moment with him.