Page 62 of How to Say I Do

City noises clattered over the line. “Yeah?”

“All the time, yeah. Constantly since you left.” I cleared my throat.

“Tell me about your day?”

“Well, I’m chipping away at your list. Spent the day plotting out where to place the support poles for those shade sails. Tomorrow, I’m digging the holes.” I chuffed out a broken laugh, viciously self-conscious. “Sexy, interesting stuff, I know. 'Specially compared to your day.”

“I wish I’d been digging holes all day,” he snapped. He sounded harsher, harder, in New York. The airy lightness of him from Mexico was gone. “Maybe I should apply to be a subway worker. Digging in the dark would be a fucking relief. And, you know, chasing rats would be almost like what I’m doing right now.”

“Bad day?”

Another long sigh. A siren wailed, rising and falling as it neared and passed him. “I’m tired. And cranky. I shouldn’t be calling you like this. I’m sorry—”

“Call me anytime. I’m happy to listen.”

Silence. I heard him breathing. “Um… I was thinking… The barn? If you paint it bright-white, that will work, too. If the weathering is too much to do? Like, we hire set decorators and film crews to create that look, and it’s unfair to ask you to create something we spend $500,000 on. So just do what you do. It’s going to be perfect no matter what. You can’t fuck up that place, it’s literally impossible—”

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

“How’s Jason? Has he come over to stargaze?”

The sudden shift was dizzying, and this veer into the personal caught me off guard. “Uh, no, not for a while. He’s been busy with school. First grade is a wild time.” And I’d been locked up in my own head, living the life of a broken-hearted exile.

“You were right,” he said. “The stars in Texas were more beautiful.”

“They’ll be here waiting for you whenever you come back.”

A car horn blared. “I’m… I’m at the subway. I’ve gotta hang up, I’ll lose you when I go down.”

“Text me when you get home? Let me know you’re safe and sound.”

“God, people really do ask that?” He sounded astounded, like I’d just asked him to fly to Egypt and bring me back a sarcophagus.

“All the time. I like to know when my people are safe and sound. No one asks you to check in?”

He snorted. “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.” Then there was a whoosh and the sound of pounding feet. He said, “The train is here, I gotta—”

And before I could say another word, he hung up.

Thirty-two minutes later, while I was drinking water at the sink, trying not to wait for a text while that’s exactly what I was damn well doing, my phone buzzed.

I’m home.

CHAPTER18

Wyatt

He textedme first thing the next morning, grumbling about being up and facing another day and the sad state of his coffee. I texted him a picture of my routine—coffee on the porch, watching the morning sun ruffle the flowers while Peanut and her friends munched on hay—and that set him bitching and moaning again.

I learned about his gross studio sublet and saw his lavish view of the concrete air shaft, complete with six minutes of sunlight, and how he could touch the opposite wall of his studio with his toes.