Page 105 of It Couldn't Be You
We discussed our plans to go to a winery on the edge of town, where I had booked a wine-tasting experience. We were going to get lunch while we were there. After we had finished talking about our plans, we quietly sipped our coffees and looked at each other as if there was something else to say, but we were just waiting on the other one to say it.
I let out an awkward laugh. “I guess we should go soon?”
“I feel kind of lucky. I have you all to myself. No sharing you with anyone. Not with my sister. Or people in the coffee shop. I can ask you whatever I want,” Gabe said with a mischievous gleam in his eyes.
“What are you wanting to ask me?” I asked curiously, albeit cautiously.
“I have a list, you know.” He scooted closer to me. My mind went wild with questions I could ask him, a list long enough to cross California to Texas.
I bit back a smile. “Hit me with one.”
“Well, for starters,” he paused to think for a moment, then proceeded with, “do you ever compare people to me, to us?”
“How do you mean?”
He went silent for a few beats. “I mean, I went out with a girl last November. We went on a couple dates, actually. She was cute, sweet. But, for some reason, I kept thinking about you and me. Howweare when we’re together. Comparing our conversations. Thinking how you might respond differently than she does. How we feel… Okay, like, she’d lean into me when I made a joke, similar to how you always do, but there’s something about…” He went silent.
“Yeah, I do,” I said, taking a steadying breath as I answered honestly. “I know exactly what you mean.”
He turned and looked at me. His eyes were digging into me like he was searching for something buried, hidden.
“What do you think that means?” he asked, almost a whisper.
He was trying to get me to look at him. I looked at my coffee cup as if the cardboard sleeve was really something special. This conversation was a precipice we could carelessly fall into, the truth not that far, just a dive below, and he knew it.
“What do you think?” I asked, my voice weak, cautious. There was a line we couldn’t cross, or it was game over, go home. I’d rather have the reckless possibility than any sort of honest closure.
Finally, he said, all jokes and false casualty, “It probably means you’ve always had a crush on me.”
“You figured me out.” I finally looked into his eyes. “I’ve been pining for you since I was thirteen years old,” I said it in a sarcastic, rolling-my-eyes tone. As if it wasn’t as real as my very hand reaching up to brush his curls back. He closed his eyes against my touch.
“Every poem you wrote was for me?” He played along.
“Except for the ones about my boyfriends.”
The entire ride to the winery, the two of us were laughing in the backseat about old memories—things we’d never discussed before. Times we were jealous of each other’s love interests or each other’s attention. Silly, childish miscommunications. We asked about things we’d always wondered. It was as if something had cracked open between us, and instead of ushering in to glue it back shut, we were delicately peering inside. What was there? What had always been there?
We walked to our table, guided by a sommelier. The air was cool even though it was spring, so there were heaters on the patios.
The server set a big charcuterie board before us, and we dug in with gusto. Brie, prosciutto, peppery salami, olives, grapes, jams, nutty crackers, sourdough bread, goat cheese—all of it just for us two.
We ate. We sipped. We laughed. We became friends with Bridgette, our server. We became friends with a couple celebrating their thirty-sixth wedding anniversary at the table across from us, Michael and Laura. They bought a bottle of wine and shared it with us. My mouth turned purple, and Gabe’s did, too.
Bridgette, Michael, and Laura all thought we were a couple. We didn’t set anyone straight. We told our new friends about our mutual childhood crushes, about being in high school and writing poems for each other, all romantic and dramatic.
“I fell in love with her before I even knew what love was,” Gabe said, tipsy and truthful. He squeezed my hand across the table. “She’s how I learned what love was.”
I swooned.Does he mean it?Deep down, as terrifying as it was to admit, I knew that he meant it.
“He makes me feel like I’m perpetually a lovesick teenager,” I joked. But it wasn’t a joke. It was the God-awful-break-my-heart truth.
We didn’t tell our new friends about my twenty-first birthday. We didn’t mention Jordan. In this perfect afternoon, we wrote the story the way it happened in my dreams. We stayed at the winery for the whole afternoon.
Our Lyft picked us up as it edged closer to evening and drove us home. I rested my tipsy, sunburnt head against Gabe’s shoulder the entire ride back.
“Can this be my new spot,” I whispered. My filter melted away under the West Coast sunshine
He laced his fingers in mine and said, “It’s yours whenever you want it.”
