“How long was I asleep?” I asked groggily, turning on the lamp behind me.
“I’ve already watched The Black Cauldron, Labyrinth, and now I’m halfway through this one. So I’d say five hours or so. I guess you needed the rest.” Yoss paused the movie and put the remote on the coffee table.
“I feel totally out of it,” I grumbled, trying to smooth out my hair and running my tongue over my teeth, which were feeling fuzzy. “You should have woken me up.” I looked at the clock on my phone and saw that it was past seven. “Are you hungry? I should make dinner. I was thinking chicken and rice.”
“I’m fine. I’m not hungry at all. It’s been nice sitting here watching movies while you slept. Feels sort of normal,” he chuckled, scratching the back of his neck. “I forgot how much you snore though.”
I glared at him. “I do not snore.”
Yoss smirked. “I’ll never tell.”
“You seem better. Are you feeling alright?” I asked him.
“Yeah, I’m fine. I told you it was just too much pizza,” he responded shortly.
“Did you take your medicine?” I was nagging him. But I wouldn’t stop worrying about him.
“You don’t need to watch over me, Imogen. I’m a big boy.” Yoss sounded slightly annoyed, but gave me a small smile.
“Crap. I need to put your clothes in the dryer.” I jumped up and hurried to the laundry room, quickly shoving Yoss’s clothes into the dryer and turning it on. When I returned to the living room, Yoss had turned on a few more lights and the television was off.
“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.