Every Way (Brush of Love 4)

“My bad, man. I’m glad you guys got some time too. I know you’ve been stressed with shit lately, so I can only imagine how Hailey’s been.”

“It’s been rough. I’m worried about her. We’ve got this kid coming in less than five weeks, and she’s up in arms.”

“What do you mean?” Drew asked.

“My mother’s being a bitch, and she’s stressed with training this new girl at the gallery. She’s got all this baby stuff and becoming a new mom. And again, I’m back to feeling like there’s something she’s not telling me.”

“She makes a habit of that, doesn’t she?”

“You think so?” I asked.

“Uh, you don’t? First with the shit with your brother. Then the shit with her being sick. It’s kind of her thing.”

“You think that’s a bad thing?” I asked.

I watched as Drew turned the question around in his head. I darted my eyes to look out the window and settled them on Hailey’s gallery. By all accounts, my dreams had come true. I built a successful business, and I had a job I loved. I found the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, and we were expecting a child. All of those boxes I had set out to tick off my list as a young man emerging from college had been accomplished.

So why wasn’t I happy?

“I think it could become a bad thing if she makes it a habit,” Drew said.

“For all the grief and heartache my mother has caused, she did point that out about Hailey’s personality.”

“What did she say about it?” he asked.

“That it made her unreliable and that, eventually, she would betray me.”

“Yep. Sounds like a load of shit from your mother. Hailey not telling you things like that doesn’t mean she would betray you. That sounds like your mother’s manipulative train of thought.”

“At least we agree on that,” I said.

“What it does mean, though, is that Hailey is still struggling to open up.”

“But why?” I asked. “Why? After everything we’ve been through? Haven’t I shown her I will stand by her side through anything?”

“Dude, it’s got nothing to do with you. Hailey’s her own person, and not all the things she deals with will center around you, man. Maybe this is just her shit. I mean, she’s not close with her family, right?”

“She was when she was sick,” I said.

“Okay, let’s start there. So, they were around when she was sick. She relied on them, probably. Leaned on them maybe?”

“Yeah? They came to visit a lot,” I said.

“Then, they what? Left? Have they been back?”

I leaned back in my chair as I chewed on a french fry.

“No. They haven’t been back,” I said. “But, we also went on that European tour.”

“You guys have been back for almost a month now. Have they come to see their pregnant daughter?” he asked.

“No,” I said.

“You’ve only been in her life for, what? A year, maybe? But she’s lived with her parents and their bullshit her entire life. You saw what they went through with Anna when her sister branched out and shit. They’ve reinforced that mindset, man, that unless shit really kicks up, they won’t be there.”

“Holy hell. It’s got nothing to do with me,” I said.

“Nope. She made decisions with her life, and her family left her. So she keeps tough and hard decisions close to her for ... I don’t know. It could be many reasons. Maybe she feels like people will only be there if she’s suffering. Or maybe it’s her way of testing people around her, to see if they will stay despite the tough calls she makes. Or maybe it’s her way of protecting herself because the most important man in a girl’s life is her dad, and hers wasn’t there. Who the fuck knows? I’m not a head doctor. But from being back around Anna, that shit has affected her. And Anna has only dealt with it the past year or so. Think about how Hailey’s formed, having to deal with it ever since she was eighteen.”