One Day Soon (One Day Soon, #1)(100)

“You didn’t have to do my laundry,” he said after I sat back down.

“It was no big deal. I’m happy to do it.” I waved away his protestations.

Yoss picked at a spot on his jeans. A nervous gesture that I recognized. “What exactly is the plan here?” he asked.

I frowned. “The plan?”

“Yeah, how long am I going to stay in your guest room? This can’t be an indefinite thing, Imogen. You have a life. A job. Friends. This entire situation is weird.” Pick. Pick. Pick.

“It’s weird being here?” I asked softly, honing in on that one particular sentence.

“Isn’t it? I mean you haven’t seen me in over fifteen years, now here I am, sleeping in your spare room, watching movies on your couch as if we were old friends simply catching up. As if the last time we were together we hadn’t been making plans to be together forever. As if we hadn’t been together during the absolute worst and best time in our lives.”

I sucked in a breath and let it out slowly. “Yes. It’s strange,” I agreed.

Yoss dropped his hand from his jeans and sat up straight. “I should go—”

“You never let me finish, Yoss. You have a really bad habit of interrupting me,” I chastised and he gave me a half smile.

“Yeah, I think you’ve said that a few times before.”

“A lot of time has passed. There are a lot of unanswered questions, but I think you came back into my life just when I needed you.” I met his eyes. “When I needed to remember what it was like to care about something. About someone. I think I’ve forgotten how.”

I turned on the couch so that I was facing him. I pulled my legs underneath me. “I don’t want you to leave. I want you to stay here. With me. I want to help you, if you’ll let me. I want to make you comfortable and safe. I want us to do all of the things we were supposed to do fifteen years ago.”

Yoss shook his head. “I don’t think—”

“Don’t do that, Yoss. Don’t start thinking of a million reasons why you shouldn’t. I don’t know everything that’s happened to you, or all that you’ve been through, but I can tell you that for me, the last fifteen years haven’t been the greatest. You see the house and the job and you think that I’ve had it good. Well you’re wrong. And I think being together is the way to make it better.”

Yoss gazed at me, his green eyes full of things I had never forgotten. That I had hoped I’d see again. “How do you do it, Imogen?”

“What?”

“Believe in the fairytale?”

“You told me once that you don’t need to have a great life. Just a happy one. I want that for you. The happy life.”

Yoss closed his eyes. “I can’t let you take care of me. I have to contribute,” he argued.

“What you need to do is focus on your health. The rest will come later. This is a second chance, Yoss. For both of us.”

“A second chance,” he repeated.

“Yes. To do things right.”

“I tried do things right once before, you know,” he went on. “I’ll get a job. I’ll go back to my old boss at the apartment complex. Maybe he has more work for me. I’ll find something. Something legit.” Legit. He didn’t have to explain why that one detail was important.

I noticed a spot of red dripping from his nose. My heart hammered in my chest. “Yoss, your nose is bleeding.” I handed him a tissue and he wiped it away.

“Thanks,” he muttered, dabbing at the blood that continued to flow. He pinched the bridge of his nose and leaned his head forward. After a few minutes he sat up again and crumpled the tissue in his hand. He had a note of panic on his face as he wiped away the rest of the blood. “I’ll be right back. Just going to flush this and clean up.” He quickly got to his feet and hurried towards the bathroom.

I didn’t want to make a big deal out of a bloody nose, but for someone like Yoss it was a big deal.

It could be a matter of life and death.

A sign that shouldn’t be ignored.

From the fear on Yoss’s face, he knew that too.

I should make him go to the hospital to get checked out. His earlier nausea and now the nosebleed were bad signs.

But when Yoss came back a few minutes later, he was carrying the skates from his bedroom. I decided to hold my tongue for the time being. He wore an almost defiant expression and I knew that for now, he needed something else.

“What are you doing with those?” I asked in surprise.

“I thought I’d knit a sweater.” Yoss rolled his eyes. “What do you think? We’re going roller-skating.”

“I haven’t been in roller skates since my seventeenth birthday.” I shook my head when he tried to hand them to me.

“Well then I think it’s time for you to try it out again. I thought it would be nice to put these to use. To have a little fun.”

I was hit with a wave of déjà vu.

“Happy Birthday, Imi.”

Shane’s laughter. Karla’s annoyance. Di’s grin a mile wide. Bug giving me his Zippo lighter, one of the few things he truly valued.

Yoss quickly put one of the pairs on, tying them sloppily before dropping to his knees in front of me. He grinned as he looked up at me, his lean face lit up as he picked up my foot and slid it into the roller skate in his hand.