Page 94 of Mind Pucked

I don’t know who this man is, but he sure will know who I am by the end of the night.

I raise my fist and deck him in the face just as she opens her eyes and sees me. I rear back and hit him again as she says my name.

The guy sprawls out hard on the ground. Oddly enough, the fight hasn’t attracted too much attention…so far. If I do what I did on the ice, however, I know it will gain the attention of most.

Before it can go that far, Amelia takes my hand and pulls me back.

“Let’s get out of here, he isn’t worth it,” she says, and she pulls me along with her.

We see the man get to his feet as we round the bar toward the back of the club.

“Oh shit, he’s coming,” I say as I let out a laugh and run with her.

“That guy is after us,” she says to the bartender as we pass.

I see the bartender nod to someone and then a giant bouncer moves out in front of the piece of shit who dared to get rough with my girl.

We continue to move, hand in hand, as I think about those words.My girl.

Amelia is no longer my girl. Although, at a time like this, every bit of rage I’ve felt toward her is doused with fear for her safety. I was just thinking about her, and now her hand is in mine, and we’re running out the back door of the club into the alley.

We run a little further down the brick wall where the alley comes to an end. There’s nobody in sight…only a stray cat that runs from a dumpster with a scared meow.

We both press our backs to the brick, out of breath. Panting, we look at each other and start to laugh. The laugh becomes uncontrollable as we chuckle hysterically.

“Who was that?” I ask the moment I catch my breath.

“My ex, Trevor,” she says.

“Well, a man willing to hit a woman like that, no wonder he’s your ex,” I say. Now I kind of want to go back in there and beat his ass all over again.

She looks at me for a moment as she gets serious once again. Her smile fades and she looks like she might cry. I want so badly to go back to the moment when we were laughing, but now we’re both thinking about everything that’s happened between us.

“I’m going back in. I’ll let Brooke know I’m leaving, then I’m going to get an Uber home,” she says as she takes her hand from mine and begins to walk back down the alley.

My heart is thundering in my chest as I watch her walk away from me. Sure, things are complicated, and I’m not exactly sure how I should feel, but I don’t want her to be walking away right now. I can’t let her walk away. If I do, it will be the dumbest thing I have ever done in my life.

“Amelia,” I say, drawing her attention.

She pauses in her tracks and turns around to look at me. She gulps once, twice, then a third time before walking the few steps back toward me.

“Jackson.”

“I’m still so incredibly angry with you, but I can’t spend another moment away from you,” I admit to her, and even I’m surprised at my words.

“You’re just saying that because you almost saw me get my ass handed to me by a man,” she says with a frown.

“No.” I bring my hand up to the side of her face and grace her cheek with my fingertips. “That’s not true. I was coming to the rescue regardless of who you were. Honestly, I didn’t know it was you until I already had that guy’s fist in my hand. It being you was just an added bonus,” I admit. “Not that you were going to get hurt, but that I could save you. Because, Amelia…” I step closer, until our foreheads are touching. “I’ve been thinking about you every day, every hour, every minute, and every second since you walked out after our fight.”

“Jackson, I can’t…” She trails off, as if thinking about all the things she should say.

“Shhhh,” I say as I put my finger to her lips. “Just listen.” I breathe in her intoxicating scent. The smell of roses andlavender wafts over my senses. “I want to hate you, so much. I do. The truth is, I can’t. No matter how angry I am…was, I just can’t let you go. Do you want to know why?”

“Why?” she says against my finger.

I drag my fingers down her lips, her bottom lip puckering out in a small pout as I let my hand fall.

“Because no matter how much my mind thinks that I should run, my heart says that I love you.”

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