Page 81 of Losing a Piece of Me

We order a pizza and sit in front of the TV, but I’m not watching what is playing. I can't. I'm too distracted about what tomorrow will bring. Finally, he picks up on my behavior.

“What's going on in that head of yours?” he asks, setting down his plate.

“I'm scared.”

“Of what?”

“I'm scared that you're going to leave now that the store is done. We haven't talked about whether or not you’re going back home when you finish.”

His eyes lock on mine. “I've been putting off asking you the same question.”

“I mean, you have a company to run. Can you do that from here?”

He takes my hand in his. “Not really, but I've been thinking about moving it up here. I just didn't want to assume you wanted me here and pack up my whole life for you to tell me otherwise.”

I cock my head to the side and look at him. He's so amazingly gorgeous. His dark hair is pushed away from his face, his green eyes are bright and full of questions. The same questions I have. “I want you here. I don't want you to go back home, but I don't want to force you to uproot your life either.”

He sits back and stretches his arm along the back of the sofa. “Did you ever think about what would've happened if we did get to leave town together? Where do you think we would've ended up?”

I shake my head. “I don't know; I never allowed myself to think that way.”

He smiles brightly. “Well, I've thought about it, a lot.”

“Where do you think we would've ended up?”

“Right here.”

I feel my brows pull together.

“If we would've left, we wouldn't have had the money to go too far. I bet we would've stopped right here. We would've gotten an apartment, like this one, and you probably would've found Hannah and started working at the same store.”

“So what you're saying is…."

“I think it's time we got our lives back on track. I want you for the rest of my life. I don't care if I have to move two hours away. I don't care if I have to move my company and start all over. I want you. That's it.”

My heart pounds in my chest and my lips turn up in a smile. “So you want to move in?”

He pulls me onto his lap and brushes my hair away from my face. His hands linger on my cheeks as our eyes lock. “I will move anywhere for you.”

I wrap my arms around his neck and press my lips to his.

* * *

It takes a month of running back and forth on the weekends to get all of his belongings to my apartment. Every weekend, we stop and visit with Pops and my parents. My mom has kept her promise and she has accepted Striker into our family with open arms.

Most of the guys that work for Striker don’t have families and want out of the small town they had grown up in, too. They happily make the move to the city, leaving Striker with an almost full crew.

Our lives are blending together and finally, I feel like I have every piece of me back again.

It seems like I was leaving pieces of myself behind for the longest time. I left a piece with my parents when I up and ran away. I left a piece with Ken, when he manipulated me into leaving. But the largest piece I left behind was with Striker. He completely had my heart and I have no idea how I lived so long without it.

Finally, after letting go of the secret that controlled me for so long, all of my pieces found their way back and Striker is slowly putting them together, one by one.

Chapter 20

Six months later…

Over the last six months, Lex and I have grown into so much more than just a couple of kids who fell in love. We were broken together and we were each pieced back together, slowly but surely.

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