by Hope Stone
So that was how it was left. No ties. Just the wind puffing up the back of my jacket and a hamburger joint coming up. I’d been riding for three hours and that was about my limit in any given stretch. Time to let my long limbs have a rest. Standing six-feet-two could have its advantages, but on a bike, it could tighten up the legs a little. I kinda wished I took the coastal route. To have some of the ocean spray hit me in the face along the way. But for some reason, I chose to stick to the Pacific Highway. The sign said “Bakersfield” as I pulled up to an old-school diner. I parked and stretched, taking in the clear blue California sky. A few large trucks were parked on the gravel driveway as I pushed through the screen door. The familiar sizzle of hamburgers on the grill and the distinct smell of onions made my mouth water. Wouldn’t mind a beer as well. However, I was riding so I’d wait. A Mom and Pop hamburger joint, right up my alley. Anytime I rode out and found a good place to stop off for food, I stored it in the memory bank for the next ride. A few truckers were in the booths, making their stops and reading the paper. The sound of the radio flowed through the diner.
“Hey, good looking. On a stop? What can I get ya’?”
I gave the lady behind the counter a big grin. I liked her spunk. A little dumpy probably, in her early fifties with brown hair stuck to her forehead from the Cali heat. She was wearing an old apron. It was just her out front with a rectangular peephole where the meals were being placed behind the counter. An older man with a net was whipping up the meals in the back. I looked up at the chalk menu board.
“Yep. Just passing through. I’m looking at that mega burger. I’ll take it. Don’t leave anything out,” I replied.
“Okay.” She laughed and her stomach heaved along with her. “That’s a mighty fine bike you got out there.” She pointed to it.
“Sure is. My pride and joy.”
“I can see why. We get some bikers that roll through here from time to time. Check out those mags in the rack if you want.” She pointed to a pile of magazines in the middle of the diner. “Take a seat and I’ll bring your burger out. Help yourself to water on the side there.”
“Will do.” My meal came out ten minutes later. I devoured the juicy hamburger with everything included. I washed it down with juice. I sat out front of the takeaway, flicking through a local bike magazine. I stopped a few pages in. A bunch of old dudes in riding gear, getting together for rides. But where? Merced. I looked again. So they like their bikes up there. The article mentioned they tried to get a club going with no success. Disbanded. As good a place as any to start. Might take some legwork to get it going but my instincts told me yes... Merced, California, here I come. The open road became a sanctuary for me long ago. A place to unwind, to contemplate, to be free. Heading to Merced was no exception. I could lay down roots and set up shop for a while. Yep. Might be nice, see how I like it.
I’d been married once to Catarina. Fresh out of high school and struggling to make ends meet. “You’re too young to get married, Diego. Why don’t you wait?” my sweet mother warned me, but we were blinded. I was nineteen at the time and I wanted what I wanted.
“Stay out of it. I love Catarina and she loves me. We’re getting married.” Five good years or so I’d thought. Put my heart and soul into it as a man. We thought we would never want to be apart from one another. Fairytales don’t last forever, sometimes they end badly. A vivid flashback came to mind as I sat in Bakersfield.
“What the hell is going on? Get the fuck out of my house!” Some weedy dude was bumping and grinding with my wife. “Is this why you’ve been working late?” I screamed. I nearly lost my mind when I caught her.
“You were never home and I was lonely.” Catarina’s sad eyes filled with tears, staring back at me. The irony being I was working hard as a mechanic at my local garage trying to make ends meet. Catarina worked as a secretary in a doctor’s office. The divorce sucked the life right out of me. Then add the drain on my little bank account and you could say I received the ultimate uppercut. After that, I vowed never to be committed again.
“I heard you're looking for members? I’m in, if you’ll have me.” That was the moment I joined the Outlaw Souls. Six years ago to the day and I never looked back. A brotherhood that would never abandon me, so I couldn’t abandon them. I would support my fellow riders to the death.
Belly full and with a new resolve, I briefly looked over Merced on my phone. It was close to college campuses and the nearby Yosemite park. Good places to take day rides to.
I rode into Merced, California on a candy-coated sunset two-and-a-half hours later to start my new life and a new chapter.
2. Misty
The size of a clenched fist. The one muscle that does all the work. The illustrious aorta and master of the pulmonary valve function. The door to the lower heart chamber, allowing the pulmonary artery to do its work, pumping blood through the body.
My eye vision was blurring because of all the back and forth over the textbook pages. I was tired from trying to absorb information and retain it for my upcoming test. I was getting back to basics first and revisiting my knowledge of myocardial infarctions. In layman's terms, the heart attack. I was knee-deep in the study zone with anatomy books spread open to various pages at my study desk in my room. The sun streamed through my curtains, making it a little more bearable. My mug of strong coffee helped that along as well.
Funny that scientists say the heart holds more intelligence than the brain. It’s the epicenter of the body. If my heart had such intelligence, why was I always getting stabbed in it? It made me think of Carlos. I raised my head up from my books, giving myself an eye break, and sipped on my coffee. The guy was a heartbreaker and dream killer – that was what I called him. The suave Mexican with dark, jet-black hair, chiseled face and well-toned physique. He was older than me by three years. I didn’t know any better when he wormed his way into my life.
“Hey, pretty lady. You’re waiting on your brother, right?” That silky voice entered my life while I waited on Palo outside the clubhouse to give me a ride to my friend's house. When I looked at him, I thought he was mesmerizing. I thought he was a God. My first mistake.
We dated from the tender age of twenty-three on the low for three long years. He was part of the fucked-up motorcycle club – Las Balas. I shook my head at my stupidity as I listened to the birds chirp. As the hands of fate would have it, he left later down the track after we broke up. From that point on, I wanted nothing to do with Las Balas. Hard to deal with because my brother was involved with them, heavy.
“El Diablo’s gone now. I can run the club the right way now.” My older brother Palo had his sights set on being the next head of the club. He’d been riding with Las Balas a long time.
“I don’t want nothing to do with the club. All that criminal activity is what Carlos was involved in. I’m studying to be a doctor and you need to keep that shit out of the house.” My limits had been reached. The destruction and bloodshed that Las Balas caused was common knowledge to those in the know. I used to live with Carlos and got caught up in the lifestyle he provided. The cars, the bags, the shopping, the dinners and the sex. All that money could buy. Except it didn’t stop him keeping his dick in his pants. I didn’t know the extent of the cheating until we broke up.
It was exposed one night when I was out with my study partners from campus. Another Spanish chica approached me at a local bar.
“Ola. I see what he likes.” Her long dark hair swung as she walked. She had olive skin and wore a skintight dress. I was halfway wasted at the time so I was paying little attention to her.
“What?” I slurred back at her.
“You Carlos’s girl?” The bar was cranking and I was ready to get back out on the dancefloor with my girls and this payasa was scanning me. Up and down. Up and down.
“Used to be. Not anymore.” I could barely focus. I was that drunk. I was hanging onto the bar for support, laughing like a hyena. All I knew at that point was having fun. A damn good time in fact.
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br /> “I had him.” She wiggled her manicured hand in my face. Then I watched as she turned and sashayed away. That happened a lot during the relationship, not just after the fact. But every time, Carlos sweet-talked me back off the ledge.
“Baby, she’s lying. You can’t believe nothing these chicas say.” The pleading, the begging, and the puppy dog eyes. I somehow managed to take him back every time.
“No, it wasn’t like that! I gave her a kiss on the cheek.” He would always hunch his shoulders up like I was attacking him when I accused him. “You didn’t see what you thought you saw.” Toxic screaming matches followed pretty quickly after that. Some involved me throwing plates at his head. Blame it on my hot Spanish blood.
“Estúpido!” So the cycle continued where I cried and Carlos would wine and dine me right out of my clothes. Things would go back to being good for a few months. Like nothing happened.
“When you finish med school, you and I can get married. We can have a family.” The guy was a compulsive liar and fed lies like cotton candy to every woman he met.
Then I would inevitably hear through the grapevine that he was together with other girls. The last straw was when I caught him red-handed. I walked into the bedroom. I had to adjust my eyes at first. It was as if they didn’t want to absorb what they were witnessing. A slender girl riding on top of him, moaning in the middle of the act. In our bedroom. My heart fell apart right then and there. Our sheets soiled by this heifer. Cheated on more times than I could remember.
I let out a deep sigh at the memory. Carlos, with his swarthy looks, was one that my brother actually approved of. And he didn’t approve of many. So I left. Packed right in the middle of the night.
“Don’t leave! We can work this out! It’s not a big deal, my heart is with you.”
The texts and phone calls came for weeks, trying to win me back. And that was how I ended up living at the other end of my brother’s house. My brother got on my nerves sometimes so I thought it best to get my own place in due course.
“I feel responsible,” Palo said when I wept in his arms. “You should come live with me for a while ’till you get back on your feet.”
I wasn’t going to live with my parents. I wanted peace and quiet to study. They were never quiet over there. After that, let’s just say the next time I saw Carlos out he had a black eye. My brother Palo had fixed him up and told him to stop calling me. For the most part, he was protective over me.
“I want you to finish medical school. That’s what you wanted to do. Follow your dreams,” he told me.
That was why my room consisted mostly of medical books. Wall to wall in fact. Amongst some other crowd favorites when I had time to read them. Attending University of California’s medical school left me very few hours for hobbies. But when I had time to party, it was on. I’d watched three of my loved ones pass on because of heart complications – misdiagnosed. In a lot of ways, my aspiration to be a heart surgeon stemmed from this. I wanted to be the one giving the right diagnosis. To walk in and tell the family.
“He’s going to pull through. He made it.” Not the dreaded doom and gloom like when my Uncle passed away. I would never forget the day. The doctor pulled down his teal mask with a grim face.
“Unfortunately, your Uncle didn’t make it. We did our best.” No. I didn’t want to hear that anymore. I wanted to save lives. To help people. My family members weren’t helping themselves though. They ate all sorts of heavy, rich, Puerto Rican foods. Part of my culture, no running from that with all our large family gatherings.
I happened to be the pioneering one in my family. The first one to go to college, a foreign concept to my extended family. They didn’t understand why I couldn’t be at every family gathering and doing things with them at every turn. I was looking forward to letting loose with my friends.
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Also By Hope Stone
Outlaw Souls MC Romance Series:
Book 1: Ryder
Book 2: Pin
Book 3: Trainer
Book 4: Blade
Book 5: Diego
Book 6: Moves
Check out my first series of short stories which are now available in Audiobook format as well! These books can be read as stand alone stories in any order.
Book 1: Curvy Obsession (eBook) (Audiobook)
Book 2: His Obsession, Her Curves (eBook) (Audiobook)
Book 3: Billionaire’s Party Planner (eBook) (Audiobook)
Book 4: Unforgettable Curves (eBook) (Audiobook)
Book 5: Undeniable Attraction (eBook) (Audiobook)
Book 6: Curves On Fire (eBook) (Audiobook)
Book 7: Doctors Orders (eBook)
Boxset (Books 1-3): Insta Love Alpha Males Boxset 1 (eBook) (Audiobook)
Boxset (Books 4-6): Insta Love Alpha Males Boxset 2 (eBook) (Audiobook)
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About The Author
Hope Stone is a contemporary romance author who loves writing hot and steamy, but also emotion-filled stories with twists and turns that keep readers guessing. Her books revolve around possessive alpha men who love protecting their sexy and sassy heroines. She also wrote this section in 3rd person in hopes that you might think she’s more important than she really is. How about we stop this charade and get to the juicy stuff?
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