Page 13 of The Note
“Um. Yes?”
“Yes!” he agreed brightly. “Yes it was. I have read some early versions of this poem, you guys, and—” Gus whistled through his teeth. “It. Is. A.Doozy.Isn’t it, Tyler?”
“It… Yes?”
“Yes,” he said again. “Entire stanzas where he rhymesaltarand, uh…and, uh…”
“Never falter?” I supplied.
He blinked at me. “Right! Yes. And, um, spouse and…”
“House!” I said happily, getting into it. I was good at this game.
“Yes! Exactly,” Gus said. “You guys are gonna love it, but—”
“Table and fable! Hand and band! Wedding and bedding!”
Gus’s hand fastened around the back of my neck and squeezed. “Whoa! Let’s not give thewholepoem away, Tyler? Always leave ‘em wanting more, yeah?”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He nodded emphatically. “So! We’re gonna go now. Tyler and me. Kinda refine what Tyler already has and… you know. Perfect it. That kind of thing. You guys have a good night.” He handed the microphone back to the wedding planner dude, whose name I realized belatedly wasDermot, then ushered me out the side-door of the tent, into the February night.
“Hey. I was just… I hadquestions,Gus!”I said pulling against him.
Gus only grunted and grabbed my hand more firmly as he dragged me across the frozen grass.
“Do you even know where you’re going? I wasn’t gonna… Gus! You’re gonna pull my arm out of the socket, and then you’ll be sorry.”
He muttered something that sounded like, “Will I?” He adjusted his grip, but didn’t slow down.
“Gus! It’s really fucking cold,” I said, watching my breath form clouds in the air. “And I don’t have a coat.”
He pulled me through an opening in the shrubbery that surrounded the tent, and out into a vast open field. Everything was covered in snow or ice or frost or something, and the moon glinted off all the whiteness the way the sun hit the water at the beach. Blinding. Beautiful.
But fuckingcold.
“Seriously, Gus! It’scold-cold,” I informed him. Cold-cold? Now I was sounding like Grandma Berry with herhappy-happy bullshit. I snorted, and then choked on the lungful of frozen air and doubled over, coughing.
Gus rounded on me.
“What thehellwere you thinking, Tyler?” he demanded. “Getting drunk? Trying to ruin Marissa and Alex’s wedding rehearsal dinner? Jesus Christ. At what point are you going to give thisup? He doesn’tlove you.And it fucking kills me watching you—” He broke off and turned away from me, scraping his hands through his hair, rumpling the brown waves.
I could count on one hand the number of times Gus had lost his patience with me. Actually, I could count it on two fingers. And the second time was no less stunning than the first.
Just like it had eight years ago, Gus’s anger shocked me past my hurt, past my confusion, past all my terrible guilt, past the first layer of the drunken buzz that had been insulating my heart.
“Look, I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry. Maybe I shouldn’t have asked my questions in public.” I rubbed my forehead as it began to dawn on me just how close I’d been to disaster. “And maybe I had a bit too much to drink, because it hurt too much to be sober. Because… because I realized I’ve spent eight years believing this load of utter bullshit and ithurtsto know it was a lie. But you’re looking at me like… like I’m some swirling vortex of drama who got liquored up on a Friday, grabbed her car keys, and went all Carrie-Underwood on the pickup truck of some guy who’s done me wrong.I amnot Carrie Underwood, Gus. That’s not what was happening here. You know me better than that.” At least, he should.
Gus turned his head to look over his shoulder at me. “Carrie Underwood?” He shook his head in disgust. “Eight glasses of wine, Tyler? Really?”
“It was four,” I corrected. “At most.”
“Eight.”
“Pfft.How would you evenknow? You weren’t there!”
“That’s…irrelevant,” he said, so brusquely that even in my inebriated state, I was confident it wasveryrelevant… to something. “You have got to give Alex up, Tyler. Iknowit’s hard, but—”
