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Grab my diploma. Shake hands with people I didn’t know but were somehow important to the education system. Then walk off stage. There were a total of four stairs down off of the impromptu built platform. I’d counted them.
That had probably been a bad idea because now I knew there were ten opportunities for me to nose dive off stage. I did feel relatively confident I could walk up the stairs without issue.
Shit. There went Rs. It was the Ss time to line up.
“Psst. You have to follow after the person in front of you,” the guy behind me whispered like I was an idiot. “Remember, we practiced this.”
Okay, I was going. One foot in front of the other. My breaths were coming shorter and shorter, but I forced myself to slow down.
There was Ryan going across the stage.
The crowd went ballistic with cheers when his name was called. He even let out a battle cry of his own.
Nope, that wasn’t for me. I wouldn’t even look at the crowd when I was up there. It was bad enough they could all see me down here like an ant under a cruel magnifying glass.
The Ss. This was it. In a few short minutes I’d be a graduate.
No looking at the crowd, I reminded myself. If I couldn’t see them, they couldn’t see me.
“Astrid Scott,” the principal announced as she pressed her mouth too close to the microphone.
A round of cheers, just as loud as Ryan’s, spilled from the stands. Maybe even louder because they were more masculine and deeper.
Unable to hold back my curiosity, I glanced over to the stands, and there were Trinity and my guys, all on their feet whistling and pumping their fists. Well, except Thatcher, who was using my camera to take pictures.
Graves and Angel were also cheering.
And surrounding them were about fifteen to twenty bikers I now recognized, all yelling in unison. Ah hell, I shouldn’t have looked.
Whatever shots Thatcher was getting were now graced with my ketchup red face.
I climbed the stairs, reached the top of the platform and extended my hand to shake while also reaching for the diploma. The superintendent had started to hand it to me under our clasping hands, but I had gone over.
Then he swapped directions and I did the same, once again missing the diploma and still our hands bounced between us.
He chuckled, dropped my hand and held it out. “Here you go, Ms. Scott.”
I snatched it and kept walking, shaking hands on my way. Except for the guy behind me who muttered, “we practiced this,” I didn’t comprehend anything else these important people said.
Step.
Step.
Step.
Only a few more to go.
As my foot touched the grass, I gasped for air. Hell, I’d been holding my breath that whole time.
Now that the hardest part was behind me, I followed the line back to our seats. Being in the crowd didn’t bother me so much after being on stage.
When Jonah’s name was called, he got the same loud, jeering cheers. He grinned, held his diploma up as he walked off stage with far more charisma and grace than I could ever hope to have.
I would love to say I’d paid attention to every single detail from that point, but it all blurred together. It was like I’d built up that one moment on stage so much, as soon as it was over my brain essentially checked out.
I was okay with that because before I knew it, Rhys and Jonah found me and we were walking off the field.
In the parking lot I got hugs from Thatcher, Beck and Trinity. Pats on the back from Graves and Angel.
