Chapter Thirty-Six
TAD’S HANDS are sweating in the back of the Lyft. Three major things are competing to be Tad’s Big Fear right now. His pulse keeps yo-yoing as he talks himself down and then remembers the other stuff waiting to duke it out in the Anxiety Thunderdome.
“Are you okay?” Lewis asks.
“Um.” Tad isn’t sure which thing he should choose. Big Scary Wedding? Maybe-We-Shouldn’t-Get-Divorced? He lands on the one that’s been giving him flop sweat and digestive issues since that phone call a few weeks ago. “I’m worried the wedding my brother’s going to is at NYBG today.”
Lewis looks relieved. “There are two other weddings going on at NYBG today, and the bigger one is out at the Stone Mill.”
It’s like golden light spills out of some non-denominational but benevolent heaven, accompanied by choirs of angels. “That’s all the way on the other side of the gardens,” Tad says.
Lewis nods. “And the wedding in the conservatory is super small and super gay. They were setting up as I was leaving. Your brother probably isn’t one of five people invited to the wedding of two drag queens.”
“Wait oh my god, which two drag queens?”
The relief on Lewis’s face tips over into affection. “Is that the only thing that’s bothering you?”
“Now I’m also bothered by the fact you’re not telling me which two drag queens are getting married.”
With a grin, Lewis says, “I don’t know. The wedding planner just mentioned they met at Diva Royale while they were performing.”
“Oh my goddddd,” Tad groans. “Okay, you have very effectively distracted me from my anxiety, so well played.”
It’s not true, but Tad slaps an easy smile on his face and pretends like everything is okay. He’s been pretending so much of his life—it’s second nature.
It just sucks he has to pretend for Lewis. He hasn’t ever had to do that before, and it feels like something rotting inside him.
This is the part of Tad that Lewis doesn’t understand. The hiding. The pretending. This is the part of Tad that will inevitably disappoint Lewis, and Tad will just be another in a long line of men to let him down.
A hand squeezes Tad’s heart; then hooks its claws into his lungs and crushes those too. Something that’s half sob and half laugh crawls up his throat and lodges there, because that’s where he keeps every choked-off word, every muffled sob, every stifled outburst, every smothered scream.
On that morning they woke up together in Vegas, Tad was already half in love with Lewis, and he wanted more than anything to be with him. Now that they’re together, he’s just waiting for it to slip away.
Tad thanks their driver when they get to the NYBG, and he smiles and tries not to freak out, and smiles some more. He’ll just keep smiling and get through this day, and maybe everything will be better tomorrow when there aren’t a million things going on and his brain isn’t spinning out of control and telling him he’s garbage at everything.
Since they’re early, Tad finds a corner of the Garden Terrace Room where he won’t be in the way. Lewis disappears to do his wedding duties. The room is already decorated—swags of organza drape from the ceiling in swoops of dusty rose and warm gray. Scattered unlit tea lights dot the room.
At the front of the room, where the officiant will stand with the bride, groom, and wedding party, there’s a podium draped with red and gold, which doesn’t go with the color scheme at all—but Lewis mentioned how red and gold are traditional colors in Vietnamese weddings.
When guests start arriving, Tad finds an unobtrusive seat off to the side. His stomach can’t decide if it has butterflies or acid reflux when he thinks about Lewis in that tux. It’s a fantasy to think Lewis will want to stay with him forever, but god, it’s such a nice fantasy.
And then he feels ill, because Lewis will probably dump him, and they’ll get divorced and be strangers again instead of husbands, and Lewis will meet a guy somewhere who won’t let him down and or be a giant disappointment, and they’ll get married and Lewis will have his gorgeous wedding and look absolutely beautiful in a tux and some other man will be kissing him and getting to wear his ring, and—
“Hey!”
Tad jumps as Lewis lands heavily in the chair next to him. He looks flushed and flustered and slightly at the end of his rope. Seeing that tugs something embedded deeply in Tad’s center, and he smoothes Lewis’s hair back.
“Here.” He offers Lewis his pocket square. “Your tux doesn’t have one.”
“Thanks.” Lewis dabs his forehead. “I shouldn’t have gotten dressed until the wedding was about to start. I feel sweaty. I probably look sweaty—oh god do I smell?”
Obligingly, Tad takes a deep breath through his nose. He loves sweaty Lewis. It’s one of his favorite smells in the world, the sharp, masculine scent of sweat. But yeah, probably not great for a wedding.
“You’re clear,” Tad says. “All I smell is your cologne.” Which is sexy too.
That alleviates a little of the stress on Lewis’s face, but not all of it. He probably won’t be totally calm until they get home.
Not home . It’s not like they live together.
“Ofelia was late,” Lewis grates out. “Something about waiting for her boyfriend because he had to drive in from upstate. I finally got on the phone with her and told her to get her ass down here and that her boyfriend could get a cab.”
Tad snorts. A third sexy thing—Lewis getting bossy. “Is the ceremony going to start late?” he asks.
“I think I instilled a sense of urgency in her,” Lewis says aggrievedly. “So we should start on time. I just wanted to say hi.”
“Hi,” Tad says, smiling.
Lewis’s eyes sweep over his face and linger on his mouth, and he smiles too. “Hi,” he says softly before he leans forward and brushes his lips over Tad’s. “Save a dance for me later?”
“I’ll need a lot of alcohol to dance.”
“That can be arranged.” Lewis kisses him again just as gently. “Hey, listen—sorry for being so weird earlier. I’ve just been like, super stressed, and my filter is pretty much gone.”
“It’s okay. Don’t worry about it.”
Lewis looks relieved, like he wants to believe this and is going to grab at the chance to. Tad wants to believe it too.
“Okay.” With one more kiss, Lewis says, “I better go make sure Ofelia’s ready. Had to wait for her boyfriend! Seriously!”
With that, he rushes off again. His seat and the one next to it are taken by a young Asian couple. Tad shrinks into himself and hopes no one will want to talk to him.
No one does. He’s pretty good at giving off don’t approach the weirdo vibes.
The ceremony finally begins. Several older couples process down the aisle to a Sigur Rós song and take their seats at the front of the room. Next comes Alang, alone, and then the wedding party. Alang’s groomspeople (there’s a woman and a nonbinary person) walk slowly down the aisle with Stacy’s bridesmaids. Tad only knows Ava.
Then comes the part Tad is secretly most looking forward to—Lewis walks down the aisle arm in arm with Alang’s best man, a handsome Sikh man who’s wearing a rose quartz turban.
Lewis looks… oh. Lewis. He’s beaming. He looks so proud, and so happy, and so beautiful. He looks like he was born to walk down the aisle at a wedding.
The Sigur Rós song ends and Canon in D begins, played by a string quintet that includes a ?àn nguy?t. Everyone stands with a scrape of chairs and cranes their heads to see Stacy walk down the aisle.
Her arm is looped through her father’s, and she looks radiant. It’s totally a cliché, but it’s true. She’s glowing. Her blond hair is in a messy updo and topped with several sparkling hairpins. The dress—ugh, chef’s kiss. It’s ivory, the gown layers of tulle and lace, off-the-shoulder sleeves draped over her upper arms, and a fitted bodice with delicate boning. Beads and pearls sparkle in the gown and the bodice. She looks like the fairy-tale princess that, by Lewis’s account, she’s always dreamed of being.
Tad’s gaze drifts to Lewis. That huge, beaming smile is still on Lewis’s face as he watches Stacy come down the aisle. As though he feels Tad watching him, his eyes find Tad’s.
His smile changes. It gets—not wider, but more . Softer, and more intimate, more loving. That smile says a million things Lewis hasn’t actually said, and it fills Tad with euphoria and terror. Imagine if he could be the guy worthy of walking down the aisle with Lewis, instead of the guy who drunkenly married him under fluorescent lights in some corny, run-down Las Vegas wedding chapel?
But he holds Lewis’s gaze, because he has this for now, and he might as well take all the perfect moments and tuck them away for a time when he doesn’t.
The ceremony is inclusive, nice, and short. At the end, Stacy and Alang kiss, and everyone stands and applauds as they process back up the aisle hand in hand.
Tad knows he should go through the receiving line, but every time he joins it, he has trouble getting a breath. After getting out of line three times, he gives up and drifts to the reception ballroom. Servers circulate with trays of hors d’oeuvres and the string quintet is playing instrumental arrangements of pop songs. “Blank Space” wafts through the room.
A head of brown hair makes its way through the crowd. Tad’s heart lurches in happiness. Lewis. He reaches Tad’s side and grabs his hand. “It was good, right? The ceremony? It was perfect?”
“Completely perfect.” Tad squeezes Lewis’s hand. “I could not keep my eyes off the maid of honor. What a hottie. Do you think he’s single?”
Lewis slips a hand onto Tad’s hip. “He’s actually not single at all. He happens to have a boyfriend who’s super incredible and super gorgeous. The whole package.”
Tad squirms at the praise, his face getting warm, and pulls Lewis into a quick hug. He lets go before it can turn into more than a fleeting embrace but keeps his hand in Lewis’s. “Sure, the whole package, who’s currently worrying about what table he’s at for the reception.”
“Oh, you’re with all the other plus ones of the wedding party!” Lewis gives his hand a reassuring squeeze. “You and Elise can commiserate about how this is the last place you want to be.”
“It’s not the last place….” Tad trails off at Lewis’s knowing smile. Clearing his throat, he says, “Do you know the other people?”
“Not really. I met Ofelia’s boyfriend once. But who knows if he ever made it.”
Lewis snags a peanut satay from a passing server and offers Tad a bite. Tad leans forward, but then he hears an incredulous, “Tad?!”
Every muscle in Tad’s body locks. That was—that sounded like—but it can’t be. Walt can’t be here—
Everything Lewis said in the Lyft about how unlikely it is for Tad and Walt to run into each other today floods his mind. And Lewis was right. Whatever wedding Walt is at today can’t possibly intersect with this one.
He misheard. Obviously! That wasn’t his brother’s voice calling his name.
“Tad! Yo! Thaddeus Pierce!”
“Oh,” Lewis says flatly. “It’s Ofelia’s late boyfriend.” Confusion flashes over his face. “Wait. You know Ofelia’s boyfriend?”
Oh god. Oh god oh god oh god this cannot be happening.
A hand slaps down on his shoulder and spins him. Tad drops Lewis’s hand like it’s one of those poisonous frogs that lives in the Amazon.
Walt’s face a mixture of surprise, befuddlement, and happiness. A petite Latinx woman is at his side.
“Hey Ofelia,” Lewis says. “Hey—Walt, right? Glad you made it.”
“He missed the ceremony,” Ofelia says.
Walt’s hand is still on Tad’s shoulder. It weighs a thousand pounds. “Yeah, traffic—I don’t know how you stand living here—”
“Um, it’s called leaving enough time,” Ofelia shoots back. She doesn’t sound playful. Tad hopes maybe he’ll disappear if they keep talking.
But no—no. Obviously not, because Walt, his brother, Walt , is here.
“You didn’t mention you were going to be at this wedding,” Tad manages without sounding too strangled.
“Well, I don’t think you know everyone in New York,” Walt says. “Small world, though! Are you friends with Alang?”
Tad makes a gurgling sound.
“Oh my god, Walt!” Ofelia beams. “Tad’s the guy Lewis married in Vegas!”
Walt looks even more confused. Tad considers running out the door and disappearing into the NYBG, possibly never to be seen again. Once in a while school groups will catch sight of a feral queer running through the gardens. He’ll be a homegrown cryptid.
Even though there’s no saving this, Tad looks to Lewis—who looks even more confused than Walt—until realization clicks on his face.
He gets it.
Dimly, Tad registers that Lewis has met Walt. If Tad had shown Lewis a photo, one photo of his brother, this situation could have been avoided.
“I think Stacy needs me!” Lewis practically yells, reaching for Tad.
Ofelia looks crestfallen. “Okay—but you have to tell Walt later about how you and Tad were grinding on the mechanical bull! It’s adorable you’re still together. What happened to the divorce stuff? Oh my god, are you going to stay married? That’s so cute!”
Tad knows he’s just one small, insignificant person at this wedding. No one is paying attention to this conversation, and no one sees how all the air leaves Tad’s lungs. No one feels how the Earth stops spinning in just this one pocket of space.
It would actually be funny if it wasn’t such a complete fucking disaster. Walt looks so flummoxed. Like he knows he’s missing something, and he’s putting the pieces together, but they don’t fit. Of course they don’t fit, because he’s putting the wrong ends together. If he’d look at things the way they are instead of the way he thinks they should be, he could snap everything into place.
Walt’s eyes are locked on Tad. His confusion dribbles away. “Stacy’s bachelorette party was the same weekend I was in Vegas,” he says, but he’s not looking at Ofelia. “With Tad.”
Now Ofelia looks like she’s putting puzzle pieces together. Her mouth drops open, but she looks delighted. She’s completely unaware she’s lobbed a grenade into the middle of Tad’s family. “This is your brother?”
She sounds thrilled. How can she sound thrilled? How can she be so bad at reading the room?
“Tad, come with me.” Lewis’s voice is pleading.
“Tad?” Walt sounds unsure. “What the hell is going on? What does Lia mean about you gr—about a mechanical bull?”
Finally, Ofelia realizes something is amiss. “Did… I say something wrong?”
The idea of sticking around for the answer is enough to rot a hole through Tad’s stomach. There’s nothing he can do but turn away from Ofelia and Walt, from Lewis, and beeline for the door.
He thinks he bumps into a few people. He thinks he hears someone call his name.
He doesn’t stop running.