My mind goes dark and the thumping of my heart moving blood around my body is the only noise I hear.
And that’s when I witness the almighty slap, Mabel putting her whole weight behind it.
“We’ve got to go,” I shout to the boys as we drop our instruments to the floor of the stage.
“Go,” Lacey leans in and takes my guitar from me, I offer her a nod as I sprint off the edge of the stage and jump onto the hard grass, falling straight onto my knees. Pain shoots up my right leg, but in this moment;I couldn’t give a single fuck.
Squeezing my way through the crowd, I feel someone pull me back. Colter, Jake and Luke are right behind me as they push more of the crowd out of my way, clearing a path back to my girl. I can’t hear the noise forming around me, all I hear is static.
Getting closer to my family, I watch Wyatt stand from his seat, arms raised, trying to get to his daughter.
“What’s going on?” I hear Wyatt say as I etch myself closer to my girl, feeling the pull willing me to keep moving forward.
“Oh, leave off, old man,”hiccup, “I’m, trying to have,”hiccup, “moment alone,”burp, “with your daughter,” Jimmy slurs as he wipes his mouth.
“We don’t want any trouble, son,” Wyatt replies, trying to calm the situation.
I scramble my way over to Mabel and reach for her hand, but she pulls it away from me, tears forming in her eyes as she barely looks at me.
What has this fucker said to her?
I feel the panic rising and the attack ready to pounce, when Jimmy leans back and throws a really shit punch across Wyatt’s chin, he hardly even stumbles, but Jimmy does.
My dad stands to attention, and I watch Colter dive at Jimmy. One swift punch to his cheek and he falls to the ground, knocked out cold. Colter grabs onto his hand and looks towards his father.
“Nice shot, son,” Wyatt winks at his son which causes Colter to smirk.
Colter leans down over Jimmy’s unconscious body and grabs his hair. “In case you didn’t realise, your fired, Fucker.” he says into his ear as he lets go of his hair line, and his head smacks against the ground.
Cheers and claps come from around us, but my focus is on the girl who’s refusing to look at me.
“Firefly, what’s wrong?” I whisper into herear, but once again she moves away from me.
That’s when I see the tears rolling down her cheeks as she shakes her head.
“Baby, what did he do?” I ask again, praying silently to myself that he hasn’t just told her what I think he has.
The muffles from the cheering calms down, but my eyes remain on my girl.
And then she turns to face me.
“Why did you leave, Maverick?” She asks me, sky blue eyes staring straight into mine and my soul.
She never uses my full name anymore.
“I- uh,” panic running straight into to my chest, I gasp for air. I look over to my parent’s whose faces etched with worry, are looking back at me.
“Don’t look at them, look at me,” she says, her voice sharp.
“Why did you leave?” She asks again, the tears now flooding from her eyes, but she makes no sound.
“Baby, why don’t we go somewhere else?” I say to her, trying so hard to keep my breathing under control.
“No, I’m done with this,” she sniffs back her sob. “Tell me, please,” she begs.
I let out a ridged breath, look around me to find that everyone is staring at us. Colter’s eyes burninga hole within me, my best friend doesn’t know either.
“Look baby, I was eighteen and really fucking stupid,” I start, trying to make this sound reasonable, but if anything, I sound desperate.
