The Problem with Saying Yes to After-Work Drinks （Or Jake’s Guide to Handling DevOps）
Pro tip: When Chris from DevOps asks for help debugging his dumpster fire of a codebase and offers to buy you a drink after to say thanks, maybe check which bar he’s planning to take you to.
Me
Somehow just agreed to go for a drink with Chris from DevOps after helping him untangle his disaster-code.
Megan
The guy who can’t figure out basic security protocols?
Me
Yeah
Megan
Wait. Why’s he buying you a drink? Tell me this isn’t some weird attempt at a date.
Me
Yes, I always reward code support with emotionally complicated beverages
Megan
This feels like a trap.
Me
It’s just a thank-you drink.
Megan
That’s what they all say.
Me
At least HE communicates.
We ended up at this new bar in The Valley.
And because the universe loves drama, guess whose bike was parked out front?
Not that I was looking. Not that I’d memorised his exact Harley.
Not that I’d spent all day thinking about him, wondering why he couldn’t send even just one text after I saw him with the blonde this morning.
The live band was belting out an AC/DC cover that made the walls shake when we walked in. The guitarist was absolutely shredding “Back in Black”, a song I only knew thanks to my dad’s obsession with classic Aussie rock and his conviction that no child of his would grow up musically ignorant.
I registered two things simultaneously: Jake at the bar with his mates, and the blonde sitting next to him. My heart did this stupid thing where it tried to climb into my throat while also dropping into my stomach.
Oh, and let’s not forget I was still wearing the same “I code like a girl, try to keep up” shirt from this morning.
I’d attempted some minor hair triage before heading out—read: I yanked the bun higher, finger-fluffed some strands, and hoped for the best. But it was still giving “woke up in a panic and debugged my feelings all day” energy.
Meanwhile, she looked like a biker babe sipping vodka with her biker entourage.
I focused very hard on what Chris was saying about blockchain integration (seriously, why are DevOps guys obsessed with crypto?) while being acutely aware of eyes burning into me from across the room.
I’d met Jake’s gaze for a moment when I walked in, just long enough to feel it burn like a touch, and I hadn’t looked back since.
He’d lost the right to those looks somewhere between ignoring my texts for three days and riding off with the blonde this morning.
The band shifted to a Guns N Roses song, and Chris’s face lit up. “Want to dance?”
My first instinct was no. But then I caught a glimpse of the blonde touching Jake’s arm again, and a sharp painful feeling twisted in my chest, an emotion I wasn’t ready to name because naming it would make it real. “Sure.”
Chris turned out to be a terrible dancer, but I didn’t care. The music was good, and for a moment I let myself forget about everything except the rhythm. Until a presence behind me made every nerve ending in my body light up.
“Mind if I cut in?” Jake’s voice was quiet thunder and warning bells. He asked like a man who never asked twice. Life refusal wasn’t even on the table.
Chris took a step back. “We were just?—”
“Leaving.” Jake didn’t even look at him. His eyes were fixed on me, dark with something that made heat pool low in my belly. “Aren’t you, mate?”
Chris looked like he wanted to argue, but one glance at Jake’s face and he was convinced otherwise. With an awkward smile at me, he said, “Right. Yeah. I’ll, uh, see you Monday.”
He vanished into the crowd like a man who’d just escaped a bar fight he didn’t sign up for.
I should have been annoyed at Jake’s high-handedness.
Instead, I was torn between wanting to shove him and kiss him, between the need to scream and the need to feel his hands on me again.
My body was a traitor. My heart was an idiot.
And my pride was hanging by a thread, eyeing the self-destruct button.
“You don’t get to disappear for days and then act like this.”
He clenched his jaw. “Eden.”
“Three days, Jake. Three days of nothing. Not even a text update.”
A look of regret flashed in his eyes as his hands settled on my hips, drawing me closer despite my resistance. “I’m sorry.”
“That’s it? You’re sorry?”
“I should have texted.”
One of his hands slipped beneath the loose hem of my half-tucked shirt and his fingers brushed my skin like he had every right to.
Like he hadn’t ghosted me. I hated how his touch messed with my determination to make him understand how he’d made me feel.
How easy it would be to lean in, let go, and lose myself in him.
“I’ve been out of town and just got back this morning,” he said as his thumb traced circles over my skin. “But you’re right, I should have let you know.”
“Yes, you should have. And maybe you should explain why that blonde keeps touching you every time I see her.”
My voice didn’t waver, surprising me. This wasn’t the usual Eden, the one who let Tony from my last job give vague excuses about why he was accessing my work at 2 a.m., or who accepted Mark from UX’s flimsy explanation about why he presented my code as his own work.
The Eden who always swallowed her doubts because making waves felt harder than pretending everything was fine.
No, this was someone new. Someone who’d spent too many nights updating spreadsheets tracking men’s dodgy behaviour while telling herself she was probably just being paranoid. Someone who’d finally learned that those instincts she kept ignoring usually turned out to be right.
Jake’s hands stilled on my hips as he frowned. “Sarah?”
“Oh, she has a name. Fantastic.” The sarcasm felt foreign on my tongue, but also strangely satisfying. I was finally saying all the things I usually kept locked in carefully colour-coded cells of my “Reasons I Should Have Spoken Up Sooner” spreadsheet.
“Eden.” His voice dipped into that register that made it statistically harder for me to make rational decisions. “Sarah works with the club.”
A disbelieving laugh escaped me, because yep, gone was the girl who used to accept vague non-answers from tech bros who thought they could dazzle me with buzzwords and empty explanations.
“That’s not an answer, Jake. That’s a deflection.
And I’ve had enough of those in my life to last several software development cycles. ”
His eyebrows lifted at my tone, but I wasn’t done.
“How does she work with the club?” The possessive way she’d touched him earlier flashed through my mind, along with every other time I’d seen them together. “Because from where I’m standing, it looks like she works with you in particularly close ways.”
I held his gaze, refusing to back down. I’d let too many guys dodge direct questions with indirect answers. I was done being the girl who settled for partial explanations and maybes.
His expression shifted, a flash of realisation, followed by what looked like genuine regret. “She’s helping the club with shit I can’t talk about. And yeah, we had a thing. It ended a month ago. Before I met you.”
The confirmation hit harder than I expected, like finding a critical error in code I thought was clean. “A thing?”
“Nothing serious. Friends with benefits.”
His eyes held mine, intense and honest, and my heart, who was clearly running on corrupted script, misfired like someone had hit refresh on a feeling I was trying to ignore.
“It’s done,” he continued. “It was over before that first day we met.”
I tried to step back, needing space to process, but his hands kept me close.
The heat of him, the solid strength of his grip, made it hard to hold onto my resolve.
But I forced my feelings out anyway. “She doesn’t seem to think it’s done.
The touching, the way she looks at you—” I took a breath, steadying myself.
“I’ve made too many excuses for men who didn’t deserve them, Jake. I won’t do it again. Not even for you.”
He didn’t respond straight away, and for a second, I wondered if he wasn’t the guy I thought. Maybe speaking up would push him away.
But then his hand came up, curved around my neck, and his thumb brushed over the frantic beat of my pulse like he was trying to soothe it.
“I didn’t see it. I’ve been too buried in club shit and too focused on you to pay attention to what she’s been doing.
But you’re right. I should’ve shut it down weeks ago. ”
The edge in his voice, the leashed power in his touch, affected me as I fought to stay focused on the conversation.
“I’ll handle it.” The growl in his words held absolute authority. “I’ll make sure she understands exactly where things stand.” His grip tightened, just enough to kick my heartbeat into error mode. “That I’m with you now.”
“Are you?” I challenged. “With me?”
Possession blazed in his eyes, hot enough to brand me as his own.
“What do you think this is, Eden? You think I let just anyone get under my skin like you have? That I introduce random women to my mum?” His grip turned as possessive as his stare.
“That I get this fuckin’ crazy watching them dance with other men? ”
There was no excuse for the way my body responded to that. None. But apparently my hormones hadn’t gotten the memo that we were still pissed.
“Then why didn’t you text? Why?—”
“Because I fucked up.” His gruff honesty cut straight through me.
“I’ve spent years keeping club life separate from everything else.
It’s safer that way. I thought I was keeping you at a distance to protect you.
” He looked at me, raw and exposed. “But the truth is, that was bullshit I was telling myself. I can’t fucking stop thinking about you.
You make me want more, and I didn’t know what the hell to do with that.
” He pulled me closer. “I’m not good at this.
At relationships. But I want to try with you.
I’m sorry I left you hanging. That won’t ever happen again.
You deserve so much more than silence and men who make excuses. ”
The vulnerability in his admission silenced the noise in my head. This was Jake laying his fears bare, offering me a piece of himself no one else got to see.
I reached up and pressed my palm to his chest, feeling his heart thunder beneath my touch. “Thank you for not bullshitting me. You have no idea how many men would’ve turned this into gaslighting 101 or fed me some excuse.”
His hand covered mine. “I told you; you deserve better than that.”
“I do.” I looked up at him, letting him see my own vulnerability. “I want more too, Jake. Even though it terrifies me. Even though I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. You’re not like anyone I’ve ever dated. And that’s the best and scariest part. I don’t know what it means to date a biker.”
The heat that flared in his eyes could have scorched the air between us. “Let me show you.”
His mouth claimed mine and he kissed me like we were the only people in this bar. By the time the kiss ended, my arms were around him and my heart was all but given to him. I was maybe walking into fire with this man, but I was powerless to stop myself.
When we broke apart, his eyes held mine with fierce intensity. “Come home with me.”
I nodded, no hesitation.
He took my hand, fingers intertwining with mine, and led me toward the exit. Sarah was still at the bar, but this time when I caught her eye, I didn’t feel threatened. Because Jake’s grip on my hand said everything about where he stood.
Current status : Trying to remember what life even is.
Jake has destroyed my ability to think, breathe properly, and retain information.
After he gave me no less than three orgasms (including one that probably had Mrs Primrose updating her romance novel research with a new category titled “Ways to Make Your Neighbour Scream at Ungodly Hours of the Night”), I’m pretty sure I’ve forgotten how to code.
Someone should probably warn Johnson that his disaster patches might have to wait until I remember what a semicolon is.
Though honestly? Worth it. Especially the part where Jake showed me just how much I’ve gotten under his skin. Multiple times. In multiple positions. My thighs may never recover, and I’m definitely not mad about it.
Also, can we talk about how Jake saying “I like this side of you, darlin’” basically detonated every last functioning neuron I had?
He said it while kissing his way down my body, which was already enough to fry my cognitive functions.
But when I managed to gather enough brain cells to ask which side he meant (because apparently even mid-foreplay I need clarification), he lifted his face from where he’d been doing sinful things between my thighs, found my eyes, and undid me completely: “This side with fire who calls me on my bullshit.”
No man has ever made standing up for myself sound so sexy.
Any time I’ve had the courage to call a guy out, he’s turned my words back on me and made me feel like Ihad no right to a boundary.
But Jake? Jake rewards it with orgasms. I’m thinking about creating a new spreadsheet called “Reasons Why Dating a Biker Ruins You For All Other Men” as my service to women worldwide.
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