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when a glint of gold caught my eye, slipping out from beneath the neck of his t-shirt. That glint belonged to a ring, a ring slipped through a chain, and it stopped my heart cold.
“You never finished. You didn’t sign off. You—” He was shaking his head. “No, never—”
I didn’t know his favorite food or his favorite movie or what kind of toothpaste he used, but I knew he was a man who was kind to a child, who told stories about Bluey and PAW Patrol, and who’d looked like his own heart had broken when I’d told him about my father.
“You were right,” he said. “The stars in Texas were more beautiful.” “They’ll be here waiting for you whenever you come back.”
Our lives, even a thousand miles apart, were drawing closer together.
“Wyatt…” Noël sounded incredibly far away. “You know, when people get to know me, they don’t actually like me.” “That’s fucking impossible.”
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 believed in the Gran Cielo Viñedo, and you hadn’t even seen it.”
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.
I fucking love them so much
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.
He’d bought me a hat, a cowboy hat, chocolate felt with a pinch front.
Oh my gawdddddddd
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.
We’d gone out there to watch for shooting stars, and, finally, one long, fiery trail glided in from outer space. 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.
“Well, I’ll be damned.” We were both so absorbed in each other that we hadn’t heard Liam coming.
Ooooooooooooof
If he looks at you cross, or he don’t make your coffee the right way, or he gives you attitude when he should be thanking every fucking star in the sky that you are even talking to him again—”
I love Liam
I thought I could leave him behind and it wouldn’t matter. My life wouldn’t change. It never did, because no one ever cared. How wrong, how fucking wrong I had been.
We made love again that night.
So much for taking it slow
“Just don’t destroy him, okay?” Liam’s voice shifted, losing some of the hard edges and his unpeeled rage. “If you can’t stick around? If you can’t be his One? Then break his heart early, all right? Don’t string him along until you leaving will vaporize him.
“I think—” My voice wavered. “I think becoming your brother-in-law would be the best thing that could happen in my life.”
“You came.”
That's what she said
“Today, ten years ago, Dad and I finished our first—and only—harvest. This is the last wine left on Earth that my father made with his own hands.” The last grapes he touched, the last summer he lived.
<333
“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’s vegan.” “That—” Liam spun toward Noël and brandished his spatula. “Is a naughty word in Texas. Fifty cents into the bad-words jar.
Lmaoooo
After we finished, Noël rose and cleared everyone’s dishes. Well, most of them. All of them, ’cept for Liam’s. He left those right where they were. “You forget something?” Liam asked. “Nope.”
I loved when they got along in Mexico but this is almost better
He was sweaty and warm, soft and pliable, cuddly in a way he wasn’t during the daytime, when he wore his labels and his sarcasm and his distance like layers of intricate shielding. I was the only one who got to see him like this, mellow and serene, languid and open.
“I fucked up, but I’m going to fix this. I have to. I have to, because—”
Because then the wedding is canceled. Oh shit
That ranch, that slice of perfection built by dreams and grief, held more love in each speck of dirt than I had felt in my entire life, until I met Wyatt, and Liam, and Savannah. I would stand in front of an army to protect that.
“Oh, fuck the farmer!” Harrison’s shout shook the windows. “Doesn’t that hick realize this is the biggest paycheck of his life? He’s going to thank you for the publicity in a year when half of America wants to come pose for a selfie and drink shit wine where Tessa Yarborough said ‘I do.’ He better cash in fast, though, because there’s money on how long this love story of hers will last. People are only going to care about breaking down his doors while she’s still married.”
Insulting Wyatt in front of Noël will not bode well for you
And that was it. I was fucking done. Done with this life. Done with the fucking bullshit, and the farce, and the hyperactive superficiality of it all.
you won’t step one foot on that ranch, so help me God, Harrison.”
Texas, as it turned out, was fucking massive. Another five hours passed, and I cried at a truck stop outside Houston into a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken. This state was endless, just unbearably endless.
Lmao so true
He was staring at me like I’d lost my mind. “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—”
Literally have never been more obsessed in my life
“Wyatt, I drove here. All they would rent me in New York was a Tesla, and do you have any idea—any idea—what it’s like to try and find charging stations in West Virginia? Or Kentucky? I had to beg to run an extension cord into a dozen gas stations because there’s no actual Tesla recharge stations anywhere. Anywhere, Wyatt. I thought I could make it past San Antonio, but the stupid car ran out of charge, and I’ve been walking for miles—”
“I have three things left in this world that belong to my father.”
Oh my god oh my god oh my goddddd
“And I have this.” Wyatt held out a ring, an old-fashioned and simple gold band, honey-colored and worn with scratches.
I KNEW IT I CALLLLLLLED IT
I never told Wyatt, but sometimes I talked to his father when I was all alone and out on the ranch, where I knew his dad could still hear me. I’d whisper promises to him that I’d love and cherish his son forever, and that I’d try my best to never, ever fuck up again. And if I did—because of course I would, I’m me—I swore I’d make things right every time. Abel, I’d murmur to the wind. I love your son, and I’m going to love him for all time. I promise, I swear. He’ll never be alone. I felt wind slip down the back of my neck.
I. Am. Literally. Sobbing.
Wyatt took my left hand. “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.
I nodded, frantic, desperate, ecstatic, gasping as I choked out, “Yes, Jesus, Wyatt, yes. Oh my fucking God, yes. Yes, I will marry you—” He cut my rambles off with a kiss, slipping that ring onto my finger before taking my face in his two hands.
A breeze slipped around us and rattled Wyatt’s wine glass like a celebratory bell. Abel, I thought. Abel.
