Page 156 of Cherry Beats

“Molly, I need to get to him,” I said with urgency, gripping her arms tight.

“Thengo!” she beamed. “Stop wasting even more time.”

Turning to look at the crowd in front of me, and then at the side, I knew what I had to do. I could get there. I could make it.

The people were packed in tightly as Rhett and Bryan walked down the long aisle of the stage, delving deeper into their audience. I moved, my mind made up, and my face scrunched up as I used my shoulders and elbows to barge my way through. Women complained, men told me to watch it, and others tried to push me back, but I stood firm, not arguing, simply shaking my head and surging forward while Bryan asked the crowd to forgive him and Presley’s drum beats quickened.

The words floated over me, seeping into my bones.

I’m coming, Presley. I’m almost there.

“Hey, I know you!” a girly voice shrieked as I got closer to the metal barriers separating the stage and the people. “You’re Presley’s girlfriend.”

“Please… just… move,” I pushed out, ignoring any attention that was coming my way, and somewhere along the journey, losing my trilby hat in my efforts.

“Oh my God, it’s her!”

“I need to get to him,” I said to myself. “I… need to…”

“Fucking help her then,” someone else cried out, and before I knew what was happening, the crowd were no longer fighting me, hushed whispers making people step back and create space for me to slip through. It was then that I slowed down, looked up and glanced around at a sea of strangers who were all smiling and nodding at me, wanting me to get to the stage.

They wanted me to get to Presley.

“Go get him, honey!” another woman shouted, making me spin around to look, only to see how close I now was to the barriers.

I ran.

I ran as soon as I saw the clearance, crying out my gratitude to those around me before I reached the metal barrier and jumped onto it, my feet off the ground and my arms taking all my weight.

“Hey, hey, hey. Get down!” a security guard growled at me, his hands forcing my feet back down to the ground.

“No. You don’t understand. I need to get to Presley.”

“Sure you do, honey. You and twenty thousand others in here.”

“I’m his girlfriend.”

“Of course you are.”

“She is, man, let her over,” a big, burly man behind me said in a voice so low it echoed Barry White’s.

“She really is!” someone else said.

“Please! I begged, jumping and climbing up again.

Bryan and Rhett’s voices grew closer, and when I looked up, I saw Rhett standing over me, singing into his mic, his arm stretched out as he bent down and waited for me to go to him.

With one glance at the security guard, I silently asked for his permission, only to see him sigh and help me over the barrier, lifting me up like I weighed nothing at all.

Then it was on.

Everything. My life, my love, my urgency.

I moved to a block of black steps in front of the stage, and I reached for Rhett’s hand with a smile on my face as he pulled me up, never once breaking his duet with the legendary Bryan Adams.

Bryan Adams, who was standing behind him, singing so closely that I could see the strain of his neck as he reached the high notes and asked for my forgiveness. Any other time, I’d have dropped to my knees and told him I wasn’t worthy.

But I had somewhere else I needed to be. Someone else I wanted to worship.

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