Page 3 of My Three S**y Bikers

“Yeah, I won’t be working over the summer. I’ll be traveling. I’ll fill you in, the next time I’m here.”

My dad nodded, but then there was something strange about the way the pair of them were behaving and as Drake’s kiss lingered on my lips to say goodbye, I felt as if I were in a room of secrets.

As soon as he walked out and shut the door, Mom revealed the problem. “Your dad’s leaving us. He has a girlfriend and is moving in with her.”

I felt as if the room were closing in, and I couldn’t breathe.

Why was everyone leaving?

“Carol, we agreed to sit down and tell her,” Dad said as he spun to face her.

What?

Then they started arguing as they always did, so I ran out onto the driveway. I stopped at the vacant spot Drake’s car had once filled.

Drake wasn’t saying, see you later. He was saying goodbye.

Was he no longer going to Harvard?

Had he really given up all his dreams and hard work for the last year years to spend time with his dad, to get to know him?

Why couldn’t he do both?Search for his dad and go to college.

“Melinda, come in, so we can sit and talk about this as a family,” Dad said as he tugged at my arm, trying to drag me back inside.

The tears blurred my vision, but I was beyond caring, beyond noticing. I shrugged off Dad’s touch. The depth of my pain wasn’t about him leaving. I needed to tell Drake the secret I’d kept, face-to-face, for us to discuss our next steps. But the opportunity had slipped through my fingers like sand, and now I was left wondering, would it even matter to him anymore?

My dad was talking as I reentered the house. I wasn’t listening to a word since I couldn’t stop crying. I wasn’t an idiot. They no longer had meals together. Nor went to family events. The only time they talked was when they argued, but I couldn’t care about them.

I didn’t.

I had to talk to Drake.

And as soon as Dad finished with whatever he had to say, I had to find him.

1

MELINDA

FOURTEEN MONTHS LATER…

“Fuck!”

I had twenty dollars on me, and my beat-up Ford, which should have died on me a hundred miles ago, was running out of gas.

“Please, don’t do this. Please…” I begged it as I saw the gauge dropping while I drove and I hadn’t reached my final destination. I felt a lump in my throat at the idea of having to spend money I couldn’t afford to spend.

I was in Fairmont when my BFF, Bridget, told me about the cleaner’s job in Queen’s Bay Inn. She was waiting tables, and a diner had said that if she needed a change of scenery, she should head down there. She had a reason to stay in town, but I didn’t. Besides, the job sounded great because I could stay in one of the rooms, so I could earn and not have to worry about rent. It was a win-win situation.

I’d thought the gas I had in the car could get me as far as Shady Oaks, but as the orange indicator flashed telling me otherwise, I knew it wouldn’t take me that far. The money I had on me had to last me until my next paycheck in two weeks.

As a going away present, Bridget had bought me enough food and supplies to last me until payday. I lied and told her that I had a couple of hundred bucks on me, because I knew she had already gone out of her way to buy the food and necessities. Bridget was a single mom going to community college. I wouldn’t have even let her buy the supplies for me if I weren’t desperate.

“You shouldn’t have brought all this, I’ll be okay!” I squeezed her even tighter. The idea of leaving Fairmont scared me, but I’d been kicked out of my apartment, and I couldn’t be a burden to her anymore. She’d taken me in like a stray cat.

“No, you won’t. You have no place to stay, and I know how much stuff you have. This Ford is the most expensive thing you own.”

And it’s falling apart!

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