Page 79 of The Girlfriend's Guide to Dating a Biker
“Plus,” she added with a hint of mischief in her eyes despite her exhaustion, “anyone who makes a movie spreadsheet to help a stranger through chemo has to be special.”
I felt my cheeks heat. “I told you, that spreadsheet was nothing.”
“It’s everything on my bad days.” She squeezed my hand.
Jake stepped in then, his presence filling the cubicle. The gentle way he touched his mum’s hand when he reached her contrasted sharply with the tension thrumming through him.
“Your tests came back clear,” he told her. “No heart attack. But they want to keep you overnight for observation.”
“I want to go home?—”
“You’re staying.” His tone left no room for argument. “And then you’re coming to my place until we lock this shit down.”
The way he said “lock this shit down” was loaded with meaning. His mum must have heard it too because she gripped his hand harder.
“Jake—”
“It’s handled, Mum.” His voice gentled but kept its determination. “Let me handle it.”
Hours passed in that strange hospital time-warp where minutes feel like hours. I made coffee runs, watched over Jake’s mum when he was out of the room, and tried to process what it meant that a rival club would target someone’s sick mother to send a message.
Each time Jake’s phone buzzed, his mood shifted. Plans were being made. Retaliation coordinated. I didn’t hear the details and didn’t want to. Some things were safer not knowing.
What I did know was this: when Jake finally sat beside his sleeping mum, his hand finding mine in the darkness, I felt the weight of what being with him might mean. The danger. The complexity. The knowing that at times, this kind of relationship means watching someone you care about ride off to handle things you can’t think too hard about.
Watching him with his mum and seeing how the club rallied around one of their own let me glimpse a part of his life I’d only guessed at. I’d read about this kind of loyalty in forums and articles and the occasional unhinged Reddit thread. About how motorcycle clubs operated like family, how they showed up without question when one of theirs was hurting.
Seeing it up close made it real to me. It was bigger than I’d imagined. More intense, more layered, more emotionally massive than anything I thought I’d understood from my research.
I didn’t know what the risk of being with a biker was yet. But I couldn’t ignore the way this world wrapped around its people like armour. And a part of me ached for that kind of loyalty and safety.
UPDATE (1:22 a.m.): Jake found me and his mum talking, and the look in his eyes when he saw me with her . . . I may need a new spreadsheet just to process that.
P.S. To the nurse who pretended not to see me sneak past the “family only” signs: your kindness means more than you know.
P.P.S. To my steady supply of emergency Tim Tams: you’ve served me well today. Your sacrifice in the name of emotional stability has been noted in my “Comfort Food Statistics” spreadsheet.
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JAKE
April 25
My mother’s face was pale against the hospital pillows. Eden was sitting with her, reading a book while Mum drifted in and out of sleep. I was in the middle of a conversation with Scott, my president; Griff, our VP; and Sarah, but I was struggling to give them all my attention because Eden was stealing it. Seeing her care for my mother tonight was making me feel shit I’d never felt in my life. But then, Eden made me feel unfamiliar things from the very first day I’d laid eyes on her, so I wasn’t surprised.
“My contact confirmed it,” Sarah said, her voice pitched low in the hospital corridor, drawing me back to the conversation. “Black Deeds have been watching King’s men for weeks, documenting schedules, planning entry points. Rage wants King’s coke territory.”
Sarah’s intel was a punch to the gut. Black Deeds weren’t just making moves against us. They were planning to go after the Sydney chapter too. The weapons stockpile we’d been tracking suddenly made brutal sense.
Rage was the new president of the Black Deeds Brisbane chapter, and he was an absolute fucking nightmare. He was ruthless with a reckless edge that’d already gotten five of his men killed in six months. The guy had a god complex. Thought he was untouchable. But he was gonna learn real quick what happens when you fuck with Storm, especially once King, the Sydney Storm president, got wind of this shit.
Scott’s jaw tightened. “King needs to know.”
Sarah nodded. “Axe is briefing him now.”
Axe was her Stone Security colleague as well as King’s brother, and the guy who sent Sarah to work with us on this. If not for her military training in cyber operations and strategic intel analysis, we wouldn’t have the insight we did now.
