How to Say I Do

by Tal Bauer

We must have looked like quite the couple.

I loved it. The feel of holding another man in public and having someone special to care for, to have in your arms, and to focus all your little attentions and fondness on.

I couldn’t stop his world from ending, but maybe I could stop it from rattling around so much.

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.

I could have listened to him for hours. I could have sat there until the sun rose, until the sky bloomed gold, and until he re-drew my entire world.

I wanted everything. I wanted his sharp edges and the teased-out laughs. I wanted to watch his eyes glitter, then turn mischievous or soft or startled, doe-eyed or wondrous or uncertain. He was like a top that spun and spun, and I was dizzy with him.

He looked me right in the eyes and smiled, like that smile was crafted just for me and hand-delivered into my heart.

Lord, I was gone for this man. Pure gone, and you couldn’t have beaten my soul back into my body with a baseball bat, or nailed my heart down when it started to run.

It was indescribable, these feelings Noël sparked inside me. I wanted to crawl into his lap and cradle his face in my hands, look into his eyes and whisper, Where have you been all my life?

Wyatt had become, in such a short amount of time, an addiction. Everything he was drew me in.

Wyatt tasted like sea salt and waves, chapped lips, and the coconut margarita he’d had earlier. Like promises and patience and the way he’d touched his fingers to his hat brim when he’d said “Howdy” in Dallas. Like sweetness and adoration and the first blush of falling in love.

I brought us forehead to forehead, and he stared into me like he was looking at something wondrous and unimaginable.

I wanted him to burn me up from the inside, take me, change me, and leave me breathless and tearing at sheets long destroyed.

“Hey, cowboy,” I purred. His slow smile unfurled like warm butter, lopsided and tenderhearted. “Hey there, beautiful.”

He held out a ring between us, softly wiggling it back and forth as the sun caught on its edge. “It made me think of you.” His voice was barely audible.

ring finger, and I was supposed to say “I do.” Now, Wyatt slid a $25 ring of sea turtles onto my middle finger and smiled when it fit snugly into place. “I had to guess your size.” “It’s beautiful, Wyatt.”

His arms around me felt like a dream. If it was, and if he was, then I never wanted to wake up.

I’d been made for him and he’d been made for me. We moved like silk on silk.

He gazed at me like I had climbed into the sky and hung the sun just for him.

This was a love story, our love story. His sea-turtles ring caught on the callouses of my palms, a physical reminder of putting that band on him.

I was in love. Heartbreakingly and profoundly in love. I loved him, I did, even in such a short time.

I’d love him until the end of time.

Happy ever afters didn’t begin with exes and rebound sex, no matter how amazing the orgasms.

How do you not fall in love, though? Once we met, once I said “Howdy” and Noël looked me up and down like I was a cartoon character and disparaged me and my state and my hat, there was no stopping me.

I’d been not just over the moon, but miles and miles above it. When it came to Noël, I was gone.

Six days together, six weeks apart, and he still had my heart in his hands.

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.

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.

Starlight filled Wyatt’s face. He kept looking from me to the sky and then back to me, as if what was down on Earth and who he was holding were more precious than the heavens.

Wyatt whispered, “Make a wish.” I couldn’t keep the words in one second longer. “I’m in love with you, Wyatt,” I blurted out.

“Noël, I’ve been in love with you since Cancun,” he said in a rush. “I know that sounds crazy, I know it does, but I fell in love with you down there and I’ve never stopped loving you, and I want to do this right this time because—”

Being with him, being around him, and feeling his love, felt like I was surfacing from the bottom of the ocean.

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.”

“Would you like a different flavor of toast, Liam—” “Bread doesn’t come in flavors—” “I could get crazy up in here, go wild with toast toppings. I’ve done garlic, but how does arsenic or radiator fluid sound, just for you—”

It felt like all of the wonders of the universe were here. Him in my arms, my family beside me.

I remembered another night in a faraway place, on a beach beneath tropical stars. I’d wished on forever that night, and had asked those shooting stars for somehow, some way, for Noël and I to turn those handful of days into something that lasted. Maybe there was magic in those old balls of flame after all.

“I love you, and I want everything with you!” I screamed. “All of it, our whole lives, together-forever! I want to marry you and have kids with you! I want to grow grapes with you and stay up for a whole week to pick them! I want to listen to Jason run wild on Christmas morning, and I want to hide Easter eggs for him in the vineyards, and I want to argue with Liam every day of my life. I want to grow old with you and sit in rocking chairs and wear sneakers with Velcro. I want to be with you, Wyatt, forever, because I love—”

He kissed me, big and bold and true, just like those Hollywood movies. No, better than, because this was my true love’s kiss and this was our meeting in the rain.

I’d leaped, and I’d soared, and I’d fallen, and, now, finally, I had landed. I was exactly where I was meant to be. I was home.

“What?” he asked. “I got food on my face?” “Nope. Just wanted to gaze lovingly at you for a minute.” “Well, you can keep right on gazing.” He hooked his thumbs through the belt loops of my jeans. “Because I’m all yours.”

He gazed at me like I was the only thing in the world that could touch his soul. He’d look at me like that forever, I realized. We would never break this bond between us. We would never find the end of this love.

And he would look at our kids the same way, full of love, and adoration, and awe. He’d look at our kids the way his father had gazed down at him.

“This belonged to my father, and to his father, and now I want you to wear it. Noël—” His voice died. He took a breath and tried again. “Noël, marry me?” His voice was nothing but a whisper. “Hitch your star to mine, and let’s spend the rest of this life in long certainty with each other. Let’s raise children and grapes and cattle together. Marry me, Noël?”

All of our moments, and now, this one: a new first step down the long and winding road ahead of us that led to the rest of our lives. This was our happy beginning.