Free RIDE (A Stone Kings Motorcycle Club Romance) by Daphne Loveling

me long for the days when I still believed in true love. When I still believed true soul mates were possible.
    The sad, sad truth was, even though Caleb Jackson had turned out to be a terrible fraud who had pinpointed all of my deepest insecurities, the afternoon we had spent at the hot springs all those years ago was still one of the most intimate, romantic moments of my life.
    God. How pathetic was that?
    Princess …

    A fter we rode back to town from the hot springs on Caleb’s motorcycle that day, he dropped me off at my house. I was a couple of hours later than usual getting home, but I wasn’t too worried. Normally by that time of day, my mom was so drunk she was passed out on the couch with the TV blaring. As long as Caleb just dropped me off at the curb, he wouldn’t have to know what awaited me inside.
    Unfortunately, luck was not in my favor that day.
    I was saying a shy goodbye to him when the screen door slammed behind me. My mom, hair sticking out in all directions and wearing a stained T-shirt and jeans, began screaming at me from the front steps to get into the house. I turned to Caleb in horror to see him taking it all in.
    She was so clearly drunk, so clearly out of control that there could be no doubt he must have been absolutely disgusted by her. All I could think to do was to get my mother inside the house as quickly as possible.
    I ran up the steps without looking back at him, pausing only to hiss at my mother, “Come inside. God, the whole neighborhood can hear you!” I didn’t stop until I got to my room.
    Then I slammed the door, flung myself down on my bed, and scream-cried into my pillow until I was hoarse and exhausted.
    But my humiliation wasn’t over yet.
    Two days later, on Sunday afternoon, I had the misfortune of running into Debbie Turner, my across-the-street neighbor whose locker was next to mine as well.
    Debbie and her family had long looked down their noses at my mother and our family. More than once, I had heard her father saying to another neighbor, just loud enough for me to hear, how our unkempt lawn and peeling paint brought down the property values of the entire neighborhood.
    Debbie crossed the street and walked up our drive just as I was leaving the house to go stock up on groceries for the week. I should have known right away that something was up. Most of the time, she ignored me as being too far beneath her to talk to.
    “I noticed you riding on the back of Caleb’s bike after school on Friday,” she said, a smirk curling her pink-glossed lips.
    “So what?” I tossed back. I had been trying as hard as I could not to think about Caleb after what had happened with my mother. I was too afraid to nurse the tiny, tiny kernel of hope inside me that my mother’s outburst wouldn’t change the way he felt about me.
    “So, nothing,” she said. She flipped her hair over one shoulder in a practiced gesture I’d seen her do a hundred times. “It’s just that I didn’t want you to think he actually, like, liked you or anything.”
    “What do you know about anything?” I challenged.
    “Well…” Her expression was smug. “I ran into Caleb at a party last night. At Meredith Singer’s house? And he was telling me about what happened when he drove you back here to drop you off.”
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    Suddenly, I thought I might vomit. I should have just gotten into the car without saying another word, but I couldn’t make my body move. I couldn’t make myself leave the conversation before I heard what she had to say.
    “He said,” she continued smugly, “that your mom came outside and she was acting all drunk and crazy. You know, like she does?” It was true, Debbie had seen my mother out of control on more than one occasion. Most of the neighborhood had. “And, he said you think you’re some kind of princess, but your mom is trash and you live in a trash house.” She gave me a pout of mocking sympathy. “So, you know, I just