Page 22 of Claimed By My Biker Daddies

Over the year I also learn the rhythm of their world, not from movies and not from anyone’s guesses.

The Black Jackals do not perform chaos.

They run on rules printed above the lodge door like liturgy.

No lies. No abandonment. No harm to women or children.

They run on early mornings with bikes idling in a line and mugs set on the rail so steam lifts against the frost.

They run on loyalty that is quiet until it needs to be loud.

They are not saints and they do not pretend to be, although one of them carries the name and all the weight that comes with it.

They handle things that cannot be handled by calling the police, and they feed their neighbors when the power lines fall.

They drink black coffee as a sacrament and keep the old hens as if Cleopatra and her legion are a separate government with veto power.

I clean the counter like a person restoring order to a coastline.

The rosemary is sulking in its cracked clay.

I rescue it gently, shake loose soil into a mixing bowl, and find an old enamel canister with a missing lid that will do for a new home.

Fresh potting mix, a pinch of coffee grounds, two fingers to tamp the roots, a slow pour of water until the surface goes dark and glossy.

“You and me both,” I tell it, tying a bit of twine around the canister like a bandage.

The catering app pings.

Holiday delivery, a couple hours out of the city, good pay, rush.

I accept because work is church and because I want the sound of my knives more than the sound of anyone’s opinions.

The pickup is clean. The menu is mine.

The client is anonymous through the app, the way it goes when an event planner farms out a job, so I load the insulated carriers, slide the trays into place like children in their beds, tuck the stollen into a basket lined with a red towel, and tell the cold to wait for me.

By mid afternoon the sky has shifted from pewter to steel.

The snow is not dramatic yet.

It hums at the edges like a conversation the city has decided to have without me.

I sing to myself as I drive north on roads that remember what winter used to feel like, old Dean Martin numbers I learned kneading dough on sleepless nights.

My hands move on the wheel, and I try not to think about two hands that know how to fix a generator and another that knows how to soothe a crying child and a third that knows how to press a rosary into a palm and make it feel like penance and permission at the same time.

North Hollow Road curves under the pines.

The GPS flips from bossy to blank where the tall trees harden the air.

The lodge appears the way it did the first time, out of a line of trees and then suddenly all at once, a dark body in snow light.

Tonight the whole place is wrapped in garlands and stitched with gold from the porch lanterns.

I pull up and watch my own breath leave my face and disappear.

My heart stumbles like it has forgotten steps it learned and rehearsed in the city where nothing I want feels allowed.