How to Say I Do

by Tal Bauer

He was everywhere. The scent of him—his soap, his shampoo—hung in the air, and his toothbrush and razor lay on the counter. The door leading from the shared bathroom to his bedroom was open.

I had been. I was blissful that day. A few hours after that photo, I’d kissed Wyatt for the first time. When else had I been as carefree and joy-filled as I’d been with Wyatt? I couldn’t remember.

His boots trapped my foot between them, and he held my hand in both of his when we were done.

His dimple was out. He couldn’t stop smiling. Candlelight flickered across his eyes. His boot curled behind my calf as he bit his lip. Stars peeked out over the roof. It felt just like Mexico, like the dinners we’d had, like that night we finger painted the night sky.

He pulled a face. “Aside from the obvious problems with that, there’s no way he could be mine. My first time was with you.”

wait what.

Wyatt’s smile knocked the breath clear out of my lungs. His eyes sparkled, so full of adoration that my mind stopped. I could have stayed there forever, lost in everything that he was.

He wrapped his huge, work-worn hands around my shoulders and squeezed, and then dropped a kiss to the center of my forehead. “Goodnight, Noël,” he whispered. “I’m real happy you’re here.”

My sweet, sweet cowboy, who was shy and didn’t like selfies and said goodnight to his horse, and who made the lives of everyone he touched remarkably and extraordinarily better. My dearest, darling Wyatt. The man of my dreams.

Noël’s eyes were so startlingly blue. His touch was soft and strong at once. He didn’t have to say anything at all for me to borrow from of his strength.

I’d waited ten years for this afternoon, and now that it was here, I was desperate to stop time. I was too scared. I wasn’t ready. It was all happening too fast. I hung on to Noël’s waist and closed my eyes.

Those stars I’d loved with my dad became nails driving down into my soul, each point of light a memory. I’d felt microscopic and alone and so staggeringly afraid of the future that I hadn’t known how I was going to make it through that night and all the way to dawn.

“Noël knows what it’s going to take to love you the right way.” Liam held up his hands as he spoke like he was delivering some final statement on the matter. “That’s all.”

Hard, slow swallow, like trying to push down a blade. Everyone was watching me. “I don’t know how we would have survived without y’all. I truly don’t. Y’all saved us, time and time again, and I don’t know how I can ever show my thanks.” My voice cracked. It felt like there was no oxygen, like I was underwater and drowning, like I couldn’t escape and couldn’t move and was going to die.

Noël’s hand slid up my arm and over my back, grounding me, drawing me back to this moment, and, suddenly, I could breathe again.

“Dad told me, when we sealed this barrel, that he wanted to crack it open in ten years’ time and share it together as a family. Mom and Dad aren’t with us today, but y’all are, and y’all are family. You all are the best family that two boys needed. So, here’s to family.”

My father’s voice rushed back, all the thousand different things he’d said on a thousand different days, all his quips and aphorisms and cautions and words of wisdom, all the names of stars and grapes and flowers he’d taught me, and all his words of love.

One memory rose over all the others. The day he and I sat on the tailgate of his pickup and I confessed to him that I was afraid I might be different, that I was afraid I was gay. You don’t have anything to be afraid of, he’d said. You are exactly the way you are meant to be. Don’t be afraid, Wyatt. You have nothing to be scared of. And you’ll never be alone. I’ll always be with you.

You’ll never be alone. I’ll always be with you. A sip— Rich, velvety ripeness. Complexity. A story unfolding in a taste of love and loss and heartbreak. I was sobbing before I swallowed.

Time looped and folded, past and present. All of my father’s love and all the ways he worked this life, nurturing fruit and family in equal portions, and I heard my father’s voice again. I’m so proud of you, Wyatt.

He was so close that I wanted to pull him out of death and draw him back into this life so we could do everything together the way we were meant to, the way we had always dreamed of. Dad, please, please come back.

My knees buckled. Noël grabbed my wine glass before I dropped it. He and I went to the ground, and he kept his arms around me as I cracked all the way open, the anguish that I never, ever let out finally breaking free. I wept against Noël’s neck.

Crickets sang. A wind chime twittered a soft melody. Wind stroked the vines, the blooming roses, and the dancing wildflowers. I smelled saddle-leather and sun-weathered wood. Dad felt so close.

Noël and I shared a private toast before he took his first sip. This night was a goodbye to my father for everyone else, but it was both a hello and a goodbye for Noël. He would never know my father as a living man, but he’d know him through my memories, and now, through this wine my father had made.

His eyes slammed shut at the first sip. All the stories I’d shared of my dad—summer nights and planting baby green shoots and riding Peanut for the first time—and all the ones I still had to tell—of Dad and me at football games and working on homework, and how he’d taught me to grill the same way I’d taught Noël, and all the little moments hidden all over the ranch, memories embedded into each tree and rock and fence post and field—rose out of the wine like ghost stories.

Dad, meet the love of my life, I thought. I gathered Noël close, and he melted into me.

Birds sang their daytime farewells. The evening wind was gentle, and it curled around Noël and me like a caress, a goodbye whisper, there, then moving away. Goodbye, Dad.

I laughed. “Noël, I didn’t do any of this. These were all your ideas.” He sputtered and spun in my arms. I kissed his nose. “You came up with this. I told you I’d make it happen.” “I did not imagine this.” He pointed behind him, his finger circling the yard and the fairy-tale evening. “This is beyond. Beyond, Wyatt. You”—he bounced his finger off the center of my chest—“should be an events manager. You’ll put everyone out of a job.”

This was my dream and my wish come true. I’d wanted to bring Noël here, beneath the oak branches and the stars that my father and I used to share. I had a thousand memories of my dad and me here. Now I had new memories to share space with the old: Noël and I dancing in the same dust, loving each other as deeply now as I’d been loved back then.

Honestly, I was shocked I lasted as long as I did. The past week had been arduous, and this afternoon had been a personal crucible I’d only survived because Noël was beside me. Now, the night wrapped around me, too huge, too full, and too wonderful.

I spun Noël until his back was tucked into my chest and rested my chin on top of his shoulder. His hat was long gone. Earlier, I’d seen it hanging off the end of my stairs. He’d casually flung it there without a second thought, and the sight of it had hit me like a truck. It was such a simple thing, but it had wrapped around my heart and refused to let go. To be so comfortable in a place he could sling his hat around. Home. He’s at home here.

Everywhere I looked, the people I loved were laughing and dancing and having a grand time. The hardest work of the season was behind me. Noël was here and in my arms, and the way he was guiding me toward the house—doing the kindergarten-dinosaur-double-footed lurch—felt close enough to dancing to make me giddy.

He seemed otherworldly, like the perfect man I’d conjured up out of my adolescent daydreams had come to life by some magical spell, and then a tornado had picked him up and dropped him at my doorstep.

Me trying to save Noël from a bad day, him turning around and pulling me out of my cloistered life. Me saving him, him saving me. Noël scooted closer. “I’m glad you did, too.”

“And then you insulted me.” He scrunched up his nose like he’d just bit into a mustang grape. “I’m sorry—” “Don’t be,” I laughed. “I started falling in love with you that second.”

I wanted to explain to him all of my whirling, muddled thoughts, tell him that he had always been the man for me, that my taste had always been him, that I’d dreamed of him since I was sixteen and had sneaked looks at the pages of The Wine Enthusiast. Sure, okay, Noël didn’t know a thing about wine when we met, and maybe I’d shot off into impossible dreams after only two days together, and maybe we were never meant to be more than a vacation hookup, but… but but but— But here we were.

I buried my face in his wrist, inhaling the scent of his skin. He was so real against me, so solid and alive. “It means everything to me that you came today. I was scared to ask you to fly out.”

“Bro, why do you have oat milk in your fridge?” “Oh, here we go.” Noël threw his head back. “’Cause Noël likes it,” I said. “’Cause Noël likes it?” Liam parroted.

“You want kids.” I pushed out a breath and nodded. “I do.” His eyes closed, and I imagined him imagining it. Us with kids, maybe even us here at the fence with a boy and a girl running around with Peanut. Teaching them how to ride and how to fish and how to count shooting stars, and also how to strut their stuff on a runway we built in the living room. How to sass, and how to grill, and how to make toast. The two of us with little versions of ourselves.

I didn’t know how to ask. Or, rather, I was too scared that if I did ask, the answer would be something I wasn’t ready to hear. I couldn’t leave Liam, or Savannah, or Jason, or my home, so how could I ask Noël to consider the same?