The Angel and the Werewolf

WC: 1064

Gabe surveyed the remaining costumes and shook his head.

“No way, Jeff. I’ll go without a costume.”

“You can’t get in without one.”

Gabe turned away. “Maybe I shouldn’t go. I don’t feel much like partying anyway.”

Jeff sighed. “Get over her, dude. Plenty of fish in the sea.”

“That’s original,” Gabe said, then winced. He hated how gloomy he sounded all the time; how he tried to pretend he didn’t care that Rosaline Fairview had broken his heart. But she had. And Gabe gazed at a bleak future.

“Look!” Jeff held up a pair of angel wings. “You can go as yourself: the angel Gabriel.” He dissolved into fits of laughter.

“Ha ha. I’ve never heard that one before.” But Gabe grabbed the wings. He might as well amuse his friends if he couldn’t amuse himself. “Fine. Let’s go.”

===

Gabe stood in the corner and leaned his back against the wall. The wings dug into his shoulder blades but he didn’t mind.
Physical pain was easier to handle.

Beer in hand, he gazed around the old hall. Oakenfield College seniors knew how to throw a party.

Then he remembered. Rosaline was on the planning committee. No wonder it was such a great party.

Gabe morosely scanned the crowd, but paused when he noticed a werewolf. The full werewolf mask didn’t catch his attention so much as the odd contrast between the mask and the extremely feminine form attached to it.

Whoever she was, she was nicely rounded in all the right places. Her clothing wasn’t provocative - black silk tank, trousers, and heels – but her movements, full of wolf-like grace, absorbed Gabe’s attention.

Her arms were white and smooth; he had a sudden vision of kissing the tender underside of her arms, grazing his lips across the bend of her elbow where her pulse pounded.

Gabe caught himself up short. How could he think that way about anybody but Rosaline?

As though she felt his gaze, the werewolf turned and stared back at him. Gabe shivered as he looked into the empty black holes where he knew feminine eyes sized him up.

Jeff swaggered into Gabe’s corner. “Come on. I’ve got girls waiting. You want Catwoman or Anne Boleyn?”

“No, thanks.”

Jeff shrugged. “Suit yourself. I’ll take ‘em both.”

Gabe laughed. “Find Gavin. He’ll take one for you.”

“Think I can’t handle two?”

“No. But I think you’d try; that’s what worries me.” Gabe pushed his friend out of the corner. “Go. Gavin hasn’t had a girl in months.”

“Fine,” Jeff said and walked away. “Your loss.”

Gabe shook his head and smiled. He’d miss Jeff after graduation. But, oddly enough, he began to feel that he wouldn’t miss the continual partying. Gabe was tired of parties, hook-ups, and temporary relationships. Jeff said they were too young to settle down; they’d be sowing wild oats for another ten years at least. But some part of Gabe yearned for stability, depth, even – dared he say it? – commitment.

A voice at his elbow interrupted Gabe’s reverie. “I suppose the angel thing is meant ironically?”

Gabe turned and looked down. The werewolf was considerably shorter than he – a petite werewolf, he thought with a grin.

He didn’t recognize her voice, muffled by the mask. He must know her, though; the student body at Oakenfield wasn’t large.

“Do I know you?”

Some familiar scent tickled Gabe’s memory, but the plastic smell of the mask nearly obliterated it.

“Yes,” she answered. “But I’m not telling.” Her voice, even through the mask, was low and flirtatious.

“Are we in classes together?”

“A few,” she said, laughter in her voice. “My turn." Her voice was suddenly intense. "Did you know there’s a girl here who has loved you since freshman year?”

Gabe blinked. “What?”

“This girl has watched you stumble through all sorts of relationships, listened to you lament over your broken heart, advised you in getting over those girls, but has been too afraid to say anything about her own heart for fear you’d be too blind to recognize the one you ought to be with.”

Gabe saw the werewolf’s pulse racing, beating against her collar bone.

The werewolf took a step back. “I just thought you ought to know.” She turned and was lost in the crowd.

“Wait. Who…?”

But she was gone.

Gabe stood, dumbfounded. Suddenly, the noise and heat in the old hall was too much. He turned and stalked away.

Who was she talking about? And who was the sexy werewolf? Were they the same person? Clearly, the mask had emboldened her, maybe enough to say something she had been storing up for four years. Or was someone just messing with him? Jeff was the only one Gabe could think of who might set up something like that and he was clearly occupied with Catwoman. Or Anne Boleyn.

No, the werewolf had been urgent and nervous enough to be telling the truth.

Gabe set off across the quad, hands thrust into his pockets. He thought back over the last four years, concentrating on what girls had been there all along, especially ones he hadn’t particularly noticed. He racked his brain for classmates, fellow club members, friends, acquaintances, but no one came to mind.

Okay, he thought, when Fiona left, who was there? When Angela, Mia, Hilary and Rosaline broke up with me, who did I talk to?

One name came to mind.

Surely not.

Gabe stood still in the middle of the quad. Of course. How could he have missed it? Had love been waiting for him all this time? Had he been too blind to recognize real love?

Gabe turned around and ran. He burst through the hall doorway and scanned the room frantically.

There.

He pushed his way through the crowd and stopped behind the werewolf.

“Kara.” He spoke so softly he didn’t know if she could hear above the music, but he had no breath for more.

It was enough. Still facing away from him, she slowly bent and pulled the mask from her head.

A mass of red hair spilled out. Gabe’s chest constricted even further.

Kara flipped her hair back, and turned to face Gabe.

Gabe gazed into familiar blue eyes, freckles he knew so well, and a mouth he had never realized was so inviting.

“It’s you,” he said.

“It’s always been me,” she said, and kissed him.