Chapter 37
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Gabe
“ B eer?”
I turn and take the bottle Ben holds out to me.
“Thanks, Ben. And thanks for opening up the bar like this. It’s really great of you and Jeremy.”
Allie’s funeral was this morning, and afterward, Ben and Jeremy closed Fireside to the public and invited everyone here. There are people scattered all around the space. The girls are huddled together in a corner. Jordan slumps at a table, hair a mess and eyes glazed and unfocused as his three brothers try, unsuccessfully, to engage him in conversation. Jordan’s parents are talking to Ben’s parents at the other end of the bar. Hallie’s parents and her sisters, Hannah and Jo, occupy one of the other tables.
It’s subdued but comforting, in a way. It feels like home and family. Like an exhale at the end of this long, difficult day.
Ben shrugs, taking a sip of his own beer. “Jordan has been my best friend since we were roommates our freshman year of college. I would do anything for him, and he needs us now. We needed to be together. Jordan would never say it, but he didn’t want to go to that stupid country club thing Allie’s parents planned. What he really wanted was to go home and shut himself in a dark room, but his mom forced him to come here. Told him that when you’re at your worst, you need your family to get you through.”
“Sounds like your mom and Jordan’s have a lot in common.”
Ben’s mouth quirks up. “If you mean nosy, slightly overbearing, and they enjoy smothering their children with love, then they absolutely do.”
I drain my beer, my eyes straying to Molly and the girls. They’re carrying on some kind of conversation, but I don’t have to be over there to know Molly isn’t a part of it. Not really. She’s there in body, but I’m willing to bet she hasn’t heard a word.
I don’t think she’s heard much of anything in the past four days.
“How’s she doing?” Asher asks, striding up to us with Jeremy close behind, following my gaze.
I blow out a breath and set my empty bottle on the bar, dropping onto one of the stools. It feels wrong, talking about Molly, but I’m worried about her, and this is her family. We might be together now, but there were so many years when I wasn’t here, and they were. She needs them too.
“Not good,” I admit, rubbing a hand over my forehead. “She’s here, but she’s not here. She’s either cleaning or burying herself in work. She rarely talks, and she isn’t sleeping. Not well, at least. I can’t…”
My voice breaks and I take a slow, steadying breath. “I can’t reach her.”
That’s the toughest part to swallow. The night Allie died, I thought I had reached her. Made her understand she could lean on me. But the next morning, I woke up alone to an empty, immaculate house. No clutter. No shoes on the floor. No jackets tossed on chairs. And no Molly.
When I finally tracked her down at her similarly clutter-free office, she was surrounded by work and was plowing through it like a woman possessed. It’s been that way for the last four days. She eats food when I put it in front of her, which I do as much as I can, bringing it to her office myself when she won’t come home. She drinks water only when coffee isn’t available. And lying next to me at night, when she finally comes to bed, she’s quiet, the only evidence she’s there at all, her hand gripping onto mine.
I fucking live for the moment she slides into bed next to me and winds her fingers through mine.
Asher puts a hand on my shoulder. “The girls are worried about her, too.”
“It’s not just you,” Jeremy says, walking around behind the bar and handing me another beer. “She won’t talk to them either. Ems says they’ve never seen her like this except when—” He breaks off with a wince.
“I mean, you know you can’t just leave it hanging like that, right?” I say, raising a brow.
“Fuck,” he mutters. “Since they first met her back when they started law school.”
I’m smart enough to put this together. “After I shoved her out of my life.”
“You were twenty-two and grieving,” Ben says. “Give yourself a little grace.”
“And she’s grieving now.” Asher takes the stool next to me. “Everyone is, but it’s different for her. She was there. She went to pick Allie up for a dinner they never got to have. She was the one who broke the news to Jordan. She saw his face in the first moment he realized the love of his life was gone and held him while he broke. It’ll take her some time to work through that.”
I shift my gaze away from Molly and turn to Asher. “You know, for a football player, you’re pretty smart.”
Asher narrows his eyes at me. “I’m not just a football player; I’m a quarterback.”
“ Were a quarterback,” Jeremy says, tossing Asher a grin.
“Just like you were a hockey player,” Asher shoots back.
Jeremy’s gaze strays to Emma. “I sure was. I’ve got a different kind of life now. I wouldn’t trade it for all the unfucked knees and NHL games in the world.”
When Asher glances over at Julie, everything about him radiates contentment and love. I recognize that look because I feel it every time I lay eyes on Molly. “I know just what you mean,” he says, voice quiet.
“I know you love her,” Ben says. “It’s been all over your face every time you’ve look at her since the first moment you walked into their office two months ago. You love her like I love Hal, and like they love Emma and Jules. It’s the huge, unbreakable, forever, don’t know how you ever lived without her kind of love. I know you feel a lot of guilt for the way you guys ended back in college when your parents died, but you’re not that person anymore. You’re not going anywhere this time. You’ll get her through it.”
“Bet your ass I will. I can’t do anything but love her. I loved her when we were in college, but now?” I shake my head, exhaling, turning to look at her, still standing in the corner with the girls but a million miles away. “I would burn down the entire world if it meant she didn’t have to feel the way she’s feeling now. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for her. She’s the other half of me. Always has been.”
Asher snickers. “Welcome to the Simp Town, brother. We’ve got T-shirts.”
Jeremy hooks a thumb at Asher. “He’s the president.”
Asher just smiles proudly and sends a dopey grin in Julie’s direction.
Even with how awful the past four days have been, and despite the fact that I can feel the grief and pain radiating from Molly, even from half a room away, I laugh. Because right here is the big, sprawling family I didn’t realize I had been looking for. The one that wraps their arms around you when you’re grieving and broken. That takes you in and loves you and accepts you exactly as you are, scars and all. All they ask is that you love them in return and be there when it's their time to break.
Molly made this family for herself, and then she let me in to be a part of it, and none of us have to get through this alone, because we can get through it together.
“Simp town doesn’t seem like such a bad place to be. Not if I get to be there with her. No matter what life throws at us, I choose her every single day. Thanks for this,” I say to all of them. “You didn’t know me at all, and I basically crashed all your lives so I could convince Molly to give me another chance. It’s very cool of you to accept the parentless, superhero T-shirt wearing tech nerd into your ranks without question.”
“You love Molly, and she loves you. That makes you ours,” Ben says simply.
Jeremy and Asher nod, and maybe it really is just as simple as that.
“Also,” Asher says, grinning, “do you really count as a superhero T-shirt wearing tech nerd when you’re a billionaire a hundred times over and you invented the most popular electronic device in the world?”
“Yes,” Jeremy and Ben say together.
“Hey now. Just for that, none of you are getting your hands on the special edition Redwood Eleven I just got in the mail yesterday. They sent me ten of them.” I smirk at all of them.
Asher gasps. “The one that doesn’t come out for six more months?”
I nod. “The very same one.”
“What was that thing I just said about you being ours?” Ben asks. “I think your family really should have the newest versions of your phone.”
“It’s only fair.” Asher shoots his empty beer bottle across the bar to Jeremy, who catches it on the fly like the bartender he is. “Especially since I’ve always been an early adopter.”
Ben gives Asher a you’re so ridiculous expression. “I seriously sometimes wonder how you get through the day.”
Asher gives him a lazy grin. “Your sister keeps me in line.”
“Hey Jeremy, can we grab another drink for Jordan?” We all turn as Jordan’s brothers, Elliot, Noah, and Cooper, walk up to the bar. I met them earlier this morning, and I appreciated how the three of them glued themselves to Jordan’s side and have stuck there all day. Ben told me they drove in from Boston the second they heard the news and haven’t left since. It’s obvious they’re a close-knit family, and I’m glad for Jordan that he has that.
“Sure,” Jeremy says, turning to grab the whiskey Jordan likes off the shelf. “Has he said anything?”
I turn and glance over at where Jordan now sits with his parents on either side of him. His mom is leaning down and talking quietly to him, and the rigid line of his shoulders tells me how tightly he is holding onto his control. I know that feeling. I have lived that feeling, and my heart clenches, knowing how many impossible days Jordan has ahead.
Elliot sighs. “Not much. Thanks for opening your bar like this. I think going to Allie’s parents’ thing might have actually killed him.”
“A country club post-funeral gathering—what the fuck?” Noah mutters, shaking his head with a look of barely concealed disgust. “It’s like they didn’t even consider what Jordan, the person who loved Allie more than life, would want. The way he would need to grieve. I hate everything about that.”
Cooper lays a hand on Noah’s shoulder, squeezing it in comfort. I barely know these guys and I can already tell that even though he’s the youngest, Cooper is the peacemaker of the group. The one who holds everyone together. “Jordan never liked them anyway, and Allie wasn’t close to her parents. We were her family. Us, Mom and Dad, and everyone in this room. It’s about Jordan now, and what he needs to get through this. This is what he needs.”
Noah takes a deep breath and nods, but I can see the pain in his eyes as he glances over at Jordan.
“You know we’re happy to do it. We would do anything for him. For your family too.” Jeremy hands Elliot the drink and a glass of water. “Make sure he drinks the water. I’m sure he’s not eating, so a hangover is basically inevitable, but at least he’ll be hydrated.”
“I think he’d have a hangover even if he was stone cold sober right now,” Ben says, glancing over at Jordan with a concerned expression on his face.
“This whole week is one long hangover,” Elliot says, scrubbing a hand over his jaw. “I’m worried about him. We all are.” Elliot gestures to Noah and Cooper. “We’re all staying another week, but we tried to convince Jordan to come home with us to Boston for a while when it’s time for us to leave. He won’t. He doesn’t want to leave their house. When we go just…”
His voice catches and he closes his eyes for a second. When he opens them, I see the worry for his brother and also grief for the sister he and his brothers lost too. Cooper puts his free hand on Elliot’s shoulder, so the three brothers are linked together, and then glances between Ben, Jeremy, and me.
“Just watch out for him, okay? No one has ever loved another person like Jordan loves Allie. We really don’t want him to be alone.”
“He won’t be,” Jeremy says, his voice serious. “Ever. I promise. We all promise. He’s our brother too, and we’ll be here to help put him back together.”
“Thanks, guys, we all appreciate it.”
“Always,” Ben says, leaning in and hugging all three brothers before they go back to their table, sliding the drink in front of Jordan and then surrounding him on all sides, ready to hold him up until he’s ready to stand on his own again.
“They’re really good guys. Jordan’s brothers,” I say.
“The best.” Ben leans his elbows on the bar and props his chin on his hand. “They’re all super close, and I think it was a hard decision for him to decide to settle here instead of in Boston with the rest of them. I wonder if eventually he’ll go back there now that Allie’s…”
Ben cuts himself off before he says dead or gone or whatever it is he can’t bring himself to say and shakes his head, huffing out a breath. “Well, whatever he decides, we’ll be there.”
Jeremy and Asher nod, and I’m about to say something but stop short when I see Molly step away from the girls. She catches my eye and nods towards the back of the bar. I’m in motion immediately.
Thirty seconds later, we’re face-to-face in the small hallway by the bathrooms, and Molly grabs my hand. The small gesture is everything. She might not think she can share her grief with me right now, or give me the thoughts in her head, but holding my hand seems to give her some kind of comfort, and I’m glad for it.
I cup her cheek with my other hand and study her face. My girl. She’s gorgeous, but she’s muted right now. She’s wearing all black, with not a color in sight. Her curls are pinned back instead of flying free. She’s not carrying any bags. And with only one single bracelet on her wrist, the jingle of jewelry that is so uniquely Molly is missing. It’s like grief has turned down her volume, stripped her of everything that makes her, her. It breaks my heart even as it makes me determined to help return her to herself.
Leaning forward, I press a kiss to her forehead and hear the hitch in her breath. The sharp inhale that means the stifling of tears.
“Rory,” I murmur against her skin. “Let it out, baby. Talk to me. You can tell me anything.”
She shakes her head and squeezes my hand. “Not now, Gabe. I can’t. I just…I can’t right now.”
I pull back so I can look in her eyes, my hand still on her cheek. “You don’t have to. Not today and not tomorrow, but one day you’ll be ready to, and when you are, I’ll be here. I’m not going anywhere. I’ve waited ten years to get you back and now that I have you, I’m never letting you go. This is always and no matter what.”
The distress in her face has my heart squeezing and also steels my resolve to be exactly what she needs me to be. She’s sad and grieving, but I’ll be damned if she feels alone while she works through that.
Molly takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “Emma is leaving now to go relieve the babysitter. She’s going to drop me off at the house.”
“I’ll take you, baby. We can leave together.”
She shakes her head. “I really want to go with Emma, if that’s okay. I think I need to be with her for a while. Stay for a little longer; hang with the guys. Talk to Jordan’s brothers. They’re fun guys. Don’t worry about me.”
I smile a little. “I’ll always worry about you. I love you and that’s part of the deal. But whatever you need, Rory. I’ll see you at home.”
Molly doesn’t say anything, but she leans in, letting go of my hand and wrapping her arms around my waist. I hold her tightly, breathe her in, feel the slight shake of her body. The vibration of holding herself so tightly wound, for so many days. Eventually she’s going to break, and I make a silent promise to myself and to her that I’ll be there when she does.
When she pulls back, she looks at me for a long moment, then turns to meet Emma by the front door. I watch her leave, wondering why that felt like so much more than goodbye.
An hour later, I pull up to my house and I know immediately that something isn’t right. Every window is dark, and Molly’s car isn’t in its spot. Throwing my car in park, I’m inside the house before I even realize I’m moving.
The entry and living room are orderly and uncluttered, like they have been for the last four days, and I hate it so much my fingers itch to find some of Molly’s hair ties and scatter them on the furniture. To dump her nail polish on the coffee table next to an empty mug. To mix her things with mine again. Toss the evidence of her everywhere I can see it.
I jog up the stairs to look for Molly, but one glance into my bedroom confirms what I already know. She isn’t here. I consider that maybe she’s still with Emma, but Emma was dropping Molly off on the way home, which means she should be here. But she isn’t, so where the fuck is she?
I force the panic down, trying to think clearly. Molly wouldn’t just leave. I consider calling Emma to check if Molly is still with her, but I don’t want to worry her friends any more than they already are. The office would be the most logical place to look for her since that’s where she’s been spending the bulk of her time, but my instincts tell me that’s not where she went. She said she would come home. That she would meet me here. Or did she?
Think, Gabe .
I replay our conversation in my head. And no, that’s not what she said. She said Emma was going to drop her off at the house . Not at home. And when I said I’ll see you at home , she said nothing.
Suddenly, and with absolute clarity, I know exactly where she is.
I grab my keys and take off at a run.