Chapter 8 - Rebecca
Four days have passed since we arrived at the Outlaw Order clubhouse.
Four days of checking vital signs, changing bandages, administering medication, and watching James grow stronger hour by hour.
Four days of learning a new rhythm to my days, so different from the structured hospital shifts I'm used to.
Four days of becoming part of something I never imagined.
The morning sun filters through thin curtains as I sip coffee in the clubhouse kitchen. It's early—most of the MC members are still asleep—but I've always been an early riser. The quiet gives me time to think, to process the whirlwind my life has become.
James is recovering well. Yesterday, Dice and Maddie helped move him from the makeshift infirmary to one of the upstairs rooms, a significant milestone in his recovery.
He can walk short distances now, though the pain still limits him.
The infection we feared never materialized, thanks to aggressive antibiotics and careful wound care.
I should feel professionally satisfied. My patient is healing. But my feelings are far from professional, and that terrifies me.
"Morning, sunshine," Maddie's voice breaks into my thoughts as she enters the kitchen. Despite the early hour, she looks fully alert, dressed in jeans and a tank top that reveals intricate tattoos along her arms.
"Morning," I reply, sliding a mug her way. "Coffee's fresh."
"You're a saint," she says, pouring herself a cup. "Sleep okay?"
I nod. "Better than expected."
In truth, I've grown comfortable in the small room they've given me. It's sparse but clean, with a decent bed and a small bathroom attached. More importantly, it's become mine in a way—a safe space in this unfamiliar world.
"James was asking for you last night," Maddie says casually, though her eyes are watchful over her coffee mug. "After you'd already gone to bed."
"Oh?" I try to keep my voice neutral. "Did he need something for pain?"
She smirks. "I don't think it was medical attention he was looking for."
Heat rises to my cheeks, and I focus intently on my coffee. Maddie laughs, the sound warm and genuine.
"You know, for someone who cut a man open and stitched him back together during a prison riot, you blush awfully easy."
"Occupational hazard," I mutter. "Medical training doesn't prepare you for... whatever this is."
"This," she says, gesturing vaguely with her mug, "is life. Messy, unexpected, occasionally wonderful life."
Over the past days, Maddie and I have developed an unlikely friendship. Despite our different backgrounds, there's something about her direct nature that I find refreshing. She doesn't pretend or posture. What you see is what you get.
"Speaking of life," I say, deciding to broach the subject that's been weighing on me, "I need to figure out what mine looks like now."
Maddie's expression sobers. "You mean after all this?"
"Yeah. I can't hide in an outlaw motorcycle clubhouse forever."
"Why not?" she counters. "Worked for me."
I raise an eyebrow. "You live here?"
"Not exactly. But all this grows on you."
"I'm a nurse," I remind her. "With a license, an apartment, student loans, a mother who worries. I had a life before all this."
"And you can have a life after," she says simply. "Just might look different than you planned."
Before I can respond, other club members begin filtering into the kitchen. The quiet moment dissolves as the day officially begins.
Breakfast at the Outlaw Order clubhouse is a surprisingly domestic affair.
One of the older members, Blade, makes pancakes while others set the table.
I've learned that meals are communal here.
Everyone eats together, everyone contributes somehow.
It's oddly familial for a group of leather-clad outlaws.
I find myself helping, setting out plates, pouring juice. It's become part of my routine, as natural as checking James's bandages or taking his temperature.
"How's our patient today?" asks Amy, one of the members' girlfriends, as she helps me carry food to the table. She's become a friend over the past days, showing me around, explaining club dynamics.
"Better," I say. "Moving around more. The wound is healing well."
"Good. Dice has been worried sick, though he'd never admit it."
I glance across the room where Dice stands talking with another member. Despite his tough exterior, I've seen the deep concern he has for his brother—the way he checks in constantly, how he watches James when he thinks no one's looking.
"They're close," I observe.
"More than close," Amy says. "Those two against the world, from what I hear. Until Dice found the club, anyway." She smiles. "And now you're part of the story too."
Her words catch me off guard. Am I part of the story? Or just a temporary character who exits once the crisis passes?
Breakfast unfolds with the casual chaos I've come to expect.
Multiple conversations happening at once, good-natured arguments, inside jokes I'm slowly beginning to understand.
I find myself seated between Amy and another club girlfriend, Kelly, who keeps me laughing with stories about her first days around the MC.
I look around the table, at these people who were strangers a week ago.
They've welcomed me without question, made space for me in their world.
I've learned their names, their relationships, bits of their stories.
They're not the criminals I imagined from TV shows or movies.
They're people—complex, loyal, sometimes dangerous, but fundamentally human.
A plate appears in front of James's empty chair. "Someone should take this up to him," Blade says, glancing around.
"I'll go," I volunteer, perhaps too quickly. Several knowing looks are exchanged around the table, but no one comments as I take the plate and head upstairs.
I promised James yesterday I'd visit after lunch but seeing him at breakfast seems like a natural excuse. As I climb the stairs, I rehearse casual conversation in my head, trying to ignore the flutter in my stomach.
At his door, I pause, balancing the plate in one hand as I knock with the other. There's movement inside, then the door swings open.
James stands before me, shirtless, his muscled torso on full display except for the bandage covering his wound. His skin glistens slightly with sweat, as if he's been exercising despite my explicit instructions not to. His dark hair is tousled, his expression brightening when he sees me.
"Rebecca," he says, my name sounding different in his voice than anyone else's.
I try to respond, but words fail me. My eyes trace the tattoos decorating his chest and arms, the defined muscles of his abdomen, the trail of dark hair disappearing beneath the waistband of his jeans.
I've seen him without a shirt before, of course.
I've treated his wound, changed his bandages, but this is different.
There's nothing clinical about the way I'm looking at him now.
"Breakfast," I finally manage, lifting the plate slightly. "I thought you might be hungry."
"Starving," he says, stepping back. "Come in."
I enter his room, similar to mine but larger, with a small sitting area in addition to the bed. He's made it his own already—clothes neatly folded, a few books on the nightstand, the window cracked open to let in fresh air.
"You've been exercising," I say, setting the plate on a small table. "That's not advisable yet."
He shrugs, one hand covering the bandage protectively. "Just some light stretching. Going crazy lying around all day."
"You'll go even crazier if you tear those stitches again," I counter, but there's no heat in my voice. I understand his restlessness all too well.
He gestures to the couch. "Join me?"
I sit, leaving space between us. He settles on the other end, still favoring his injured side.
"Thank you," he says, nodding to the food. "For this, and... everything else."
"Just doing my job," I say automatically, then wince. It's the same line I've been using since the prison, and we both know it stopped being true days ago.
"Are you leaving?" he asks abruptly.
The question catches me off guard. "What?"
"Are you leaving?" he repeats, his eyes intent on mine. "Because I need to know if I should ask you to stay."
My heart stutters in my chest. "Why would you ask me that right from the start?"
"Because I need to know," he says simply. "I want you to stay, Rebecca. I'm sure you could find your place here."
The directness of his statement leaves me momentarily speechless. "Are you really staying?" I finally ask. "I thought you wouldn't do well with following the orders of an MC."
"I thought so too," he admits. "But maybe it's time to settle down. Build roots where my brother and best friend are."
"Even if I stayed, what would I do here?" I ask, voicing the practical concern that's been nagging at me.
"You'd find something," he says confidently. "Maybe become the official nurse of the Outlaw Order MC. God knows they could use one."
I can't help but laugh. "I never expected anything like this."
"Neither did I," he says, his expression growing serious. "And if you want to go, I respect that. But I'd love to have you by my side."
"Why?" The question is barely a whisper.
"Because of this," he says, and then he's moving across the space between us, his hand cupping my face as his lips find mine.
The kiss is nothing like I imagined, and I have imagined it, in quiet moments when I allowed myself the indulgence.
It's not gentle or tentative. It's passionate, almost desperate, a claiming.
His mouth is hot and insistent against mine, breaking through every professional boundary I've tried to maintain.
I respond instinctively, my hands finding his shoulders, careful of his injury even as desire clouds my thinking. He tastes like mint and something uniquely him, and I want more.
When we finally break apart, we're both breathing hard.