“Come on, Gabe, she was gorgeous! And totally into you!”
“Luke, I told you to stop. You know I’m not interested.”
“It’s been years since Molly passed, man, you’re going to have to move on sometime! She’s dead! You have to get over it sometime,” Luke said, scoffing. “Are you just never going to fuck anyone else or something? Because that’s pathetic bro.”
Gabe’s hackles rose and he turned his furious gaze to Luke. He was tired as hell of his friends harassing him about moving on and finding another girl. Molly had been the love of his life. They had known each other since elementary school, for Christ’s sake. He didn’t want to move on.
“All right, man, I get it,” Luke said, raising his hands and shaking his head miserably. “I’m just trying to help you out. Jeez.”
“If you got it, you wouldn’t keep bringing it up,” Gabe growled. “And tell the same to everybody else. They think they know what’s good for me? Well, they don’t. They don’t know a fucking thing. So just drop it!”
“You’re way too sensitive about this. I’m serious. You have to move on or you’re going to be a crusty old sex-deprived man.”
Gabe stood abruptly from the table in Maurice’s diner, where he and Luke had just finished a meal together, and grabbed the man by the collar of his shirt.
“Whoa, easy man!”
But there was nothing easy about losing his wife, and the little asshole was going to find that out the hard way.
“I’m going to settle this like a man,” Gabe growled. “Because you’re not good enough to see my wolf form.”
A small crowd gathered at the sound of Gabe’s raised voice.
“Ready?” he said darkly to Luke.
“Can’t we just talk about this?” Luke asked, shifting nervously. There was no way he could match Gabe and both of them knew it. He was lucky he wasn’t interested in fighting in his wolf form.”
“I’m done talking.”
Gabe held Luke’s eye until finally, the man nodded.
A few swift blows to the face and Luke was writhing on the ground, his face bloodied.
“Never bring up my wife to me again,” Gabe spat. He left Luke to foot the bill, which seemed appropriate considering the enormous pain Luke liked to inflict upon him, telling him to just get over the loss of his wife as if it were the easiest thing in the world to do.
Now that Molly was on his mind, Gabe checked his watch. The flower stand on the corner should be open by now.
Stuffing his hands in his pockets, Gabe stalked down the sidewalk toward his house, where the vendor on the corner had set up shop.
“Morning, Frank,” Gabe said, pulling out his wallet.
“Good morning, Gabriel,” Frank replied, handing a crisp, perfect red rose over the stall. “This is the nicest one today.”
“Thank you, Frank,” Gabe said. He rarely spoke the phrase with such conviction, but whenever it came to getting the best rose of the day from Frank, he meant it. Only the best for his wife, whether she was alive to see it or not.
“Of course. Molly was a lovely woman.”
Frank rarely mentioned Gabe’s wife; maybe the pain from his conversation with Luke was still etched on his face. Whatever the reason, though, Gabe felt a brief moment of comfort and a heavy pain re-entering his chest.
“She was.”
The truth was, Molly had been beloved by the entire pack. Even wolves from packs from miles around had been touched by her sweet disposition and the grace with which she carried herself. She was always working to make Stonybrooke a better place. It had been a community tragedy when she had lost her life in a car accident just shy of her fortieth birthday, and since then, Gabe had been completely lost.
He had spent his entire life with Molly. She had been the best thing about him. Gabe had started out rough and tumble; a hard ass with sharp edges that made everybody on edge as soon as he walked in the room. It was funny just how opposite he and his wife had been. She had been beloved, and he had been feared.
But she had softened most of his rough edges, and given him a reason to focus on bettering his life instead of giving in to bouts of anger that sabotaged his efforts. She had helped him to build his business into the success it was. Without her, he would have nothing. She had meant everything to him. Nothing could ease the pain of losing Molly.
“See you, Frank,” Gabe said, trying to tear his mind away from his pain.
“Take care of yourself, Gabe.”
Gabe turned the corner and walked down the sidewalk until he reached the comfortable two-story house he bought with his wife all those years ago. Molly had been a school teacher; a woman who had reached out and changed the lives of everyone she touched. They had struggled financially for the first couple of years of their marriage, until both of them had gotten more established. They had been through the hardest times of their lives together, having met and bonded so young. But she had left him alone for the hardest part of it all.
“For you, sweetheart,” Gabe said softly, laying the rose on his mantle in front of Molly’s photo once he got inside the house. He stared at the perfect features of her face; the gentle slope of her nose and the deep brown of her captivating eyes, pain and then anger rising in his chest.
“Who the hell does Luke think he is, anyway?” Gabe mumbled to Molly’s photo. “He thinks a man mates with a woman like you and can just move on when he loses her. He probably hasn’t lost anything in his entire life.”
He grew silent, half expecting her to speak back. Little moments like that were unbearable, and he felt more alone than he had in a long time.
Gabe took a deep breath. He had to get out of there.
“I’ll be home soon, honey,” he said, the futile, hollow ring of his words striking him sharply. He would have done anything to have her there with him again. And Luke and all his buddies would probably be waiting for the rest of their lives to see Gabe move on. Molly just wasn’t the kind of woman you “moved on” from.
As far as he was concerned, he was going to spend the rest of his life alone. His heart belonged to his wife, and that’s all there was to it.