Summer Lovin'

Chapter Sixteen

(Gabriel's POV)
May 14th, 2009

I rolled over again and punched my pillow annoyed at the spinning thoughts running rampant through my brain. I was exhausted but Addy's words from last night were swirling around in my head.

The seductive suggestion of Hailey returning my feelings, made it impossible for me to sleep.

Add in that she had then turned me down and I was more confused than ever. It's not that I had expected anything with Hailey to be easy but it felt like we could never seem to get the timing right and I was worried that yet again we were going to mess it up and drift even further apart.

A lot of time had passed and she had every right to turn me down but the rejection had still stung. It didn't help in the least that, while I was talking to her I could feel Stephie's eyes burning a hole in the back of my head. I felt like I'd fled out of there with my tail between my legs, feeling incredibly sorry for myself.

I ended up going straight home, skipping my Mom's place. I knew I wanted her advice but I also recognized that I was not going to have any success getting advice from my mom in the mood that I had been in.

She wouldn't have had any patience for the fact that I had been feeling sorry for myself. At the end of the day I had no one to blame for any of this except myself. I had been the one who started the process of pulling away, damaging our friendship. Hiding my feelings.... If I had just been honest this entire time we wouldn't be in the situation now.

When I thought about all the time that I'd wasted and all the mistakes I'd made, I felt like an idiot.

Last night, I'd coped by stress eating my burger, poutine and way more ice cream than anyone should ever be allowed to consume.

But this morning, by the light of day, I was ready to do something about it.

My Mom rarely held back with her opinions. However for years, she had steered clear of talking to me about Hailey. I knew a piece of that was that she never wanted to have to pick sides. She loved Hailey like a daughter and had never wanted whatever was happening between us to come between either relationship.

I rolled around until the sun started to come up and finally realized that there was no chance that I was going to get any more sleep. I decided to stop prolonging the inevitable and go for a run.

Murphy, my German Shepherd, opened one eye as I got out of bed and watched me obviously annoyed that he wasn't sleeping any longer. He would come for a run with me but he always managed to make it known that he would rather be sleeping. He was the laziest, loyalist, loveliest dog in the world and he didn't leave my side often. It was one of the benefits of being in the construction business. Most of the  jobs that Liam and I took on were big home renovations, which meant that it was just me and Liam at a site and Murphy was welcome to keep us company. 

As I laced my runners he opened both eyes and groaned, stretching and getting down off my bed. It was as if he was one hundred years old, not two. I rolled my eyes at his drama, I knew the way that he struggled to get off my bed was complete fabrication designed to make me feel bad. "You don't have to come, you know." He raised his head and trotted to the door and I shook my head at how much I loved his ridiculousness.

I looked around as I walked to the door, taking mental notes on the jobs that we still needed to complete before we listed it.

When my Grandfather had passed away he left each of my brothers and I some money for our first homes. I had used mine to buy my first house which I completely flipped and then banked my profit and used the money again to buy my next. I was now on my third flip and knew that the process would continue.