Who I Am With You (Imagination #10) - Staci Stallings Page 0,129

and added her into the mix. “What time is your first class?”

“Eight,” she said softly, backing away from the fight.

“Okay. I have an eight o’clock too,” Nelson said. “Then after that…” He looked at Greg.

“Yeah, we have Chemistry after at ten. I can definitely help with the housing thing or whatever you need after that,” Greg said.

“Great. Good,” Nelson said. “You have work tomorrow?”

“Yeah. At two, but I can make sure she gets home first.”

“Okay, good. Sounds like a plan.”

At the end of the discussion of her new life and how it would be led, each of the guys gave her a hug and told her it would all be okay, they would make sure of it.

“If you need anything, anything,” Greg, the last of them to leave presumably because it was his room, said, “I am right out here. You’re welcome to anything in the kitchen. Oh, and here.” He crossed past her to the dresser and came out with some sweats and a ‘That’s Not My Problem’ T-shirt he had worn in high school. In fact, there was a small rip at the bottom of it where he had snagged it on a speaker him and Wes were carrying. Crazy the little things she remembered about that time in her life.

“I’m fine,” Taylor said though not at all convincingly.

His gaze slipped to hers and held there. Gently he put his arm out and she stepped into it. “It’s going to be okay. We’ll get through this.”

Taylor sniffed softly. “I feel like I’m always leaning on you, like why can’t I just get this together already.”

“Hey. Hey. Hey.” He pulled her back and gazed down at her. “Remember what I said, when am I going to be here for you?”

She smiled despite everything. “Always.”

“That’s right. Always.” He pulled her once again into his embrace and settled her there for a long moment. “You’ll see, this is just going to be a little, tiny bump in the road. Just a bump.”

“I hope so.”

The next morning, Nelson was true to his word. He was at breakfast before Taylor got there, and they were both quiet as Greg was still asleep in what looked like a very unhealthy position on the couch.

“How’d you sleep?” Nelson asked.

“Actually pretty good,” Taylor said, quietly retrieving her toast. “I feel bad for making Greg sleep on the couch though.”

“Eh. Trust me, he’s done much worse.” Nelson ate some cereal. “So for real, how are you?”

She sighed. “It’s just so weird, you know? Everything was going so good, I mean, so, so good. I felt so much more at peace and then this happens.” She shook her head. “It’s ridiculous, but it feels like something’s trying to make sure life doesn’t work out for me.”

“You ever think that means God’s got big plans for you?” Nelson asked.

“God?” Taylor had never really heard Nelson expound on God before.

“Yeah, you know, Big Guy in the Sky, the One Who created everything and makes sure things keep spinning? God?”

“I know who it is,” she said, “but what does God have to do with this?”

Nelson shrugged. “Take it from somebody who knows, when God’s got plans for your life, Satan is going to do everything in his power to take you out well before you get where God’s planning to send you. I should know. I was very nearly a notch on Satan’s belt. He did his level best to make sure I never made it here, that’s for sure.”

“Really?” Taylor was intrigued and remembered Merel saying something very similar.

“Oh, yeah,” Nelson said. “Believe me, if it wasn’t for LJ and Yoli and a couple other people that God put in my path, I would not be sitting here right now.”

“And you think God did that?” Taylor was starting to understand that for herself, but she was incredibly surprised that Nelson did too.

“Oh, yeah. Believe me, God is very good at putting the right people and lessons and things in your path at the right time, and taking the wrong ones out too. Don’t get me wrong, I fought Him through most of it. I thought it all needed to be how I wanted it to be, or how I had thought it should be. What I see now is that God’s got a plan, and if you quit fighting Him every step, and you walk through the doors He puts in your path and stop standing there, banging on the doors He’s closed, things start to make sense in a