Free Gone For You: New Kings Motorcycle Club by Amri Ackers Page A

brain with that something about him.
    I don't say anything to him. But when I ask him about my next class, he snatches my schedule. "Come with me," he says over the ringing bell. For the first time, I leave just as the bell rings instead of noting in my agenda what we discussed in class. No lecture wrap-up notes for me, Cale Logan has grabbed my hand, asked, no, commanded , I come with him. I discover we don't have the same class when he starts to walk away, but for all I know he isn't even going. He tells me where the cafeteria is, and that he'll meet me outside.
    "To study?" I ask. Timid as a caught mouse, I think my voice actually speaks like I’m willing my brain. But I don't care.
    I actually hold my breath till I hear his answer, "Yeah, turns out I have a good reason not to fail all my classes now."
    He squeezes my hand, and I nearly faint.
    He lets go and I stutter out his name.
    "Yeah Sher?" And my mind is dizzy. Is that just a nickname, or is his gruff voice making a French reference rolling out my name?
    "You didn't even have a pencil. You don't have a bag. Is it in your locker?"
    He laughs, and it is a sound I feel needs treasuring. I just know he doesn't laugh often enough. When he walks away and I have pulled myself from my thoughts, I will notice the ugly looks people cast him. But I will treasure him. Cale Logan belongs in my heart, and I have been evolving and growing for him to be part of me.
    I reach inside my tote - I carry a tote, not a backpack - and give him one of my dark green pencils because it looks rich like his eyes. And I give him my notebook. Forget my color coding. I wanna give whatever I got to Cale Logan.
    He takes it and smiles. "Thanks. I'll take notes or something. See you at lunch."
    He walks away and I catch my breath.
    This fresh start is the best yet.
    But with a sinking feeling, I know that I will have one in a few years after this. I am already crazy about Cale. I can't start over anymore.
    But I am like that, mind racing and mourning the future.
    Only because I know when I gotta hold onto something. Gotta hold onto Cale Logan.

2 - Cale
    Eight years later...
    IN MY HEART I Knew what she wanted us to be, even then, even being so young, but it didn't matter.
    Though I was as wrapped up in her as she was in me, I knew I had to let go because her dad was military, they left.
    She was never coming back for me, no matter what she had said. Military kids, they move, and they never see anyone again.
    But when I saw her that day, when I was out on my bike and paying just enough attention to cages coming in town to make sure no one destroyed me or my fucking ride, I knew her face when I saw it. Years later after seeing each other in person. That was my Sherry.
    My Sherry I tried to never think of myself as havin'...but I want her.
    Sure, when she'd looked me up on Facebook last year, I'd been fucking stunned.
    And we talked. But I never thought she was really coming. And I hadn't heard from her in several weeks.
    Shit, I realized that we'd never gone this long without talking since we'd reconnected on Facebook.
    And she'd sent me letters before email was the big thing. Then we'd email.
    Fuck. How'd I been too blind to see that Sherry was always coming back to me.
    After my younger years and feeling like I shit, I felt like big shit on the road as a biker now, just like my MC Prez Dad.
    But I practically turned to a liquid on my bike, pulling over in front the jewelry store office complex the MC owned when I saw her.
    I shook my head.
    I only saw her for a second. I hadn't seen what she'd looked like in a while. Unlike most people, she hadn't posted a million selfies on her Facebook.
    Far as I could tell, fucking Sherry only used it to talk to me. And it had one old picture she'd put on there when she'd graduated high school. Thousands of miles from me.
    Fucking Sherry.
    Fucking. Sherry...
    She hadn't said she was coming.
    She hadn't said anything to me in almost a month.
    Was I losing my