Page 61 of Missing Pieces (Men of Manhattan 3)

"You don't need me." He pressed his forehead against mine. His words and actions contradicted each other so fiercely. Like he was telling me no but beckoning me forward.

I breathed in his breaths. He tasted so sweet. Every second with him was better than any I had ever experienced before. "When I'm with you, I feel like everything's going to work out. Come back to Indiana with me. Please, I don't want this to end. Your heart is bigger than you realize. There's room for me too."

"I can't."

"Why?"

"When I left New York I felt like I needed something to hold on to."

"Hold on to me."

He brushed my tears away again. "If I could, I would. I'm falling for you. All I want to do is stay right here with you and forget the world."

That's what I wanted too. But the world wasn't stopping. And I was running out of time to save my dad. "Stop time back in Indiana."

"I joined the Marine Corps."

I lifted my forehead off his. "What?"

"I needed to make a change. It seemed like the right choice."

For some reason I couldn't process his words. "I don't understand. You joined the marines?"

"I'm heading to California because that's where basic training is."

Oh my God. It felt like my heart was beating out of my chest. "When do you have to report?"

"Friday."

I shook my head. "This Friday? As in two days from today?"

He nodded.

I was completely speechless. So that's what him and Josh were talking about when Josh said he only had a few days of freedom left.

"I'm sorry. I should have told you sooner. I've just been trying to clear my head on this trip. I needed to not think about it the whole time."

"But last night...it seemed like you were going to come back with me. Tyler, I meant what I said. I'm falling in love with you. I don't just say that all the time. I mean it."

"I'm falling for you too." He touched the side of my face. "For just a second I wanted to believe it could be more."

"This doesn't mean it can't be."

His hand fell from my cheek as he stood up. "It does."

I stood up too. "No, it doesn't."

"I signed up for three years. We've known each other five days. I'd never ask you to wait for me."

"Then don't ask me. Let me make my own decision."

"I wasted three years of my life pining over a girl who didn't reciprocate those feelings. I'm broken, Hails. You deserve so much more than that. I wouldn't let you wait. Not when we don't know what we even have. Three years is a long time. I would never do that to someone."

I know what we have. And I had two days to show him what I already knew. That we were two pieces of the same puzzle. Cast aside. Lost. Second. I knew how he felt. I knew what it was like to not be good enough for someone.

Proving to him that we could be more would take my mind off the nerves dancing around my stomach as we got closer and closer to Pasadena. It gave me something to hope for. Something big and scary and so wonderfully exciting. I hadn't had something like that in my life for a long time. "Okay."

"Okay?" he asked.

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