Read Online Only You by Willa Okati - Free Book Online Page A

sleep mode and reminded him of that one linked article he hadn’t quite finished reading.
    Just the one , he promised himself as he powered the tablet fully to life, knowing exactly what people said about good intentions.
    A little spilled coffee dried into rings on their table wouldn’t be the end of the world.
    Still, he’d spent longer than he’d meant to—long enough for his feet to fall asleep tucked up beneath him—when a knock at the front door of the cottage startled him out of his reader’s fugue. Nick? He pricked his ears. No, couldn’t be. From the sounds of it, the rusty blade wrestling with the dry, dead old tree, he had a ways to go yet.
    Who else? No idea, but the curiosity was enough to prod Barrett up to find out. Sort of. He stumbled over his numb feet and swore at the pins and needles as he made his way to the door. They still tingled like spitting sparks and icicles when he turned the knob. “Daniel,” he said, surprised.
    Daniel looked, well, terrible. If he’d slept at all since last night, Barrett would eat Nick’s ax handle.
    “Everything all right?” Barrett asked.
    A ghost of a smile flickered across Daniel’s mouth. “Pretty far from it. Do you mind if I come in?”
    “‘Course. You don’t need to ask.” Barrett stood back from the door to wave Daniel past him. “If you’ve got the time, I’ve got half a slow-cooker’s worth of fancy stew left over.”
    “Not really hungry, but thanks all the same,” Daniel said. He moved slowly, almost like a sleepwalker. He nudged the door closed in the manner of an afterthought, and didn’t go farther into the house. He bent his head as he turned the latch. The back of his neck was bare. Smooth, sun-warmed, unmarked.
    A breath Barrett hadn’t known he was holding eased out of him, followed by a strange taste in his mouth. It was a fear he hadn’t even dared to think to himself. Maybe he shouldn’t have been quite so glad, but if he had to lose Nick, he couldn’t have borne losing him to another friend.
    “Okay,” he said, trying to cover before Daniel noticed and asked about his relief. “What can I do for you? Need more help with the wall?”
    “Wall? No.” Daniel blinked but didn’t accomplish much in the way of focusing his eyes. “I did come about last night.”
    “Right.” Since he didn’t sit, Barrett decided not to either. He propped himself against the wall and rotated his ankles one at a time to work out the last of the tingles. “Nick didn’t mean anything by asking, but he’ll apologize. And I will, too.”
    “That’s not why I came.” Daniel blew out a long breath. “I want to explain, but that means I need to tell you the truth about my past. I should have done it a long time ago but I’m too used to keeping myself to myself.”
    “You don’t have to—” Barrett started.
    Daniel wasn’t easily dissuaded. “Maybe not, but I need to. Do you know what a Finder is?”
    Barrett did, though he’d never met one in person. Used to be the big noise in older times, when people didn’t live so close together and finding one small soul in a great huge world was considerably trickier than running a web search or scanning identimark registries. Skilled Finders could match likely prospects, and they weren’t often wrong. Some people still swore by them.
    “They don’t usually work with anyone younger than eighteen,” Daniel said. He leaned against the wall, facing Barrett, but his shoulders were rounded, his hands tucked under his arms and his frown engraved deep. “I lied through my teeth and used a Finder who’d set up shop online. They weren’t too happy with me when they figured out how old I was, but by then…”
    Barrett cleared his throat as carefully as he could. “Did they find your Probable? Is that the word they use?”
    “Mmm. They couldn’t be sure, not without the soulmark, but…ninety percent odds in favor sounded better to me than waiting years and never knowing.” Daniel grimaced