❖ Chapter Fifteen ❖

                                    

                                              
Healing Gabriel: Chapter Fifteen
                          

                          
                                                            〒|〒Evan's POV〒|〒
                          

                          
              Let Satan reign winter.
                          
            I had absolutely no idea how Gabe could love snow so much. It was like he was a little kid again, hopping around in the fresh snow in excitement. In just an hour the blizzard had created a white fluff on the grass that was hard to trudge through without snow boots, which was precisely what we were doing. Stupid, I know, but it wasn't like we were planning on camping out here . . . at least, I think we weren't. Judging from the way Gabriel was interacting with the snow, I wouldn't doubt it if he did insist. Anyways, neither of us were dressed in the proper snow gear: no gloves, no scarves, no coats (we had two sweatshirts on each) . . .
                          
             But Gabe did look really adorable in his hat. It was a furry faux gray animal hat; usually I found that only a certain number of people could pull them off, and trust me, he was one of them. I watched him fall backwards into the snow, making me chuckle.
                          
            The blizzard had eased down some. Dusting off some snow from a chair in his backyard, I took a seat on it. As I watched Gabe begin dragging snow onto his lap, I felt myself warm at the thought of him finally being mine. Okay, I guess he wasn't exactly all mine to claim since I hadn't even asked him to go out with me yet, but . . . Come on, do you really think he, of all people, was the type of guy to go around kissing whoever he'd like?
                          
             No, of course not; that would be someone like Adonis, the cocky so-called Greek model Gabe and I met what seems like forever ago in Pop's bathroom. Jeez, I wonder what that creep was up to.
                          
              My lips couldn't help but form a small smile as I remembered when Adonis got a little too close to Gabriel's liking. He must've had a hard kick; the model didn't seem like he'd be walking the catwalk anytime soon.
                          
             Running my hand through my hair to brush some of the snowflakes out, I glanced up at the sky, licking my bottom lip once as I remembered the feeling of his lips against mine. Sadly, it wasn't a make out session filled with the hottest guy-on-guy action out there, but it was instead the beginning of a relationship that promised the former.
                          
            The softness of his lips were constantly reliving its actions across my own. If I hadn't been focusing my entire being on him for that one second, I'd have never even known that he'd kissed me. It was tentative to an entire new level, but yet it felt like it lasted in an eternity in some ways.
                          
            I wanted more of him. So, so much more. I wanted to taste him, all of him, just like any partner in a relationship would. I wanted to hold him, to touch him, to go places with him. I wanted a lot of things from him, I realized, but I had to keep keep one thing in mind: Staying in his comfort zone was all I could do; it was the key. I couldn't strain our budding relationship. Patience, loads and loads of patience, was a skill that was about to be tested to the max with me. By getting myself into a relationship with someone as, disturbed, I guess, as Gabe, was like walking across a lake with a thin blanket of ice covering over it.
                          
             How could I be so sure that it could bear my weight?
                          
            Rubbing my left temple with my index finger, I focused my gaze on Gabriel. He was staring up at the darkening sky, snowflakes as white and pure as him showing vividly against his dark eyelashes. I thought about the color of his eyes, an electric, piercing gun metal blue, that when looked into hard enough, showed his broken emotions flailing around inside him amuck.