Something I intended to sell should I have needed to.
Now I didn’t and would be able to use it (or most of it) when I moved into Tyra’s house.
More lucky.
“See the asshole left you with somethin’,” Joker muttered.
“Nickel,” I snapped.
He looked at me, ignored my snap, and stated, “Thinkin’ we need more than a coupla trucks.”
“That would be useful,” I confirmed. “I also have a dining room set that it would be great if you retrieved from my dad’s storage unit.”
“We’ll take care a’ that,” he stated, and instead of nodding, shaking my hand, wishing me a good night, handing me my son, and walking out the door, he walked toward my kitchen, around the bar, and to the fridge. He then asked, “Thoughts on dinner?”
I stood where I was and stared at him. Then I stared at the fridge door when he mostly disappeared behind it.
I was still staring when he straightened, looked down at Travis, who was studying the wonders of the inside of the fridge with rapt baby attention, and asked, “Spaghetti?”
Travis looked up at him and replied, “Guh.”
“Yep. Sounds good to me,” Joker replied, disappeared behind the fridge door and came back out with a package of hamburger meat. His eyes came to me. “Skillet?”
“Uh…”
“Dah!” Travis declared.
Joker looked to him then at me. “When does he eat?”
“Now.”
“You do him. I’ll do spaghetti.”
Okay.
What was happening?
“Um… Joker—”
“Drop your bag, Butterfly, and get your kid,” he ordered.
“Are you having dinner with me?” I asked.
“Yeah, after I cook it,” he answered.
I didn’t know what to make of that so I asked, “Why?”
“Why not?” he asked back.
I had no answer to that.
Fortunately, he gave me more.
“I’m here. It’s dinnertime. You need to eat. I need to eat. You feed your kid. I’ll make shit to feed you.”
I liked the idea of dinner with Joker. What I wasn’t so sure about was why Joker wanted to have dinner with me.
Maybe he was just being friendly.
Maybe he was just hungry.
I didn’t ask.
Instead, I shared, “I think the tally now is eighty-five cents.”
He shook his head and then he gently shook my son as a message to me.
“Get your kid, Carrie.”
Carrie.
Three people called me that.
But it started with Althea.
When she was little, she couldn’t say Carissa and instead said Cah-ree-ree which morphed into Carrie.
My parents called me that back then too.
When we lost Althea, they stopped.
No one had ever shortened my name to Carrie again. In fact, except for calling me “honey” sometimes, “beautiful” others, and “baby” when we were having sex, when he stopped calling me Riss ages ago for whatever reason, Aaron had had no other sweet nothings or cute nicknames for me.
The return of Carrie should have brought up bad memories. Maybe even hurt.
But it didn’t.
No, I liked Joker calling me Carrie.
“Babe, kid,” he said impatiently.
I jumped to, got rid of Travis’s bag and my purse, moved into the kitchen, and grabbed my son.
This commenced both Joker and I moving around, me putting Travis in his highchair and getting his baby food ready and Joker taking off his jacket, tossing it on a stool, then opening and closing cupboards, grabbing stuff, and starting to get our dinner ready.
I pulled the highchair around to the stools, sat on one, and started feeding my son.
I did it while also watching Joker. So I saw him season the browning meat with salt, pepper, and dried basil. I also saw him peruse my meager spice collection like he was looking for something.
“What do you need?” I asked.
“Red pepper flakes,” he answered.
“I don’t have those.”
He turned to me. “Don’t like a kick?”
“I do. I just…” I shrugged. “Actually, I just eat what I eat as long as it’s fast. I don’t spend time on it because I don’t have that time or the energy.”
There was that, of course, but also dried red pepper flakes cost money and were unnecessary, thus they were not in my cupboard.
His jaw flexed and he shut the door on the spices.
I concentrated on feeding Travis, who was banging his fists, one that had a set of humongous plastic keys in it, against the highchair tray.
But I did this talking.
Or, maybe, semi-interrogating.
“You know how to cook?”
“Yeah.”
“Self-taught?”
“Learn or earn.”
I looked to him, loaded baby spoon in the air. “Learn or earn?”
He kept his eyes to the spoon he was using to push around the meat. “Learn or earn my dad bein’ pissed. He liked his food. I learned to make what he liked ’cause I wasn’t big on the consequences.”
I drew in breath to calm the tumult of feelings his disclosure caused and forced my tone to nonchalant, like I was asking the weather, when I noted, “So, no mom, and your dad wasn’t all that great either.”
“Hitler wasn’t all that great. My dad was a dick.”
My gaze shot to him. He must have felt my horror because he looked at me.
“Relax, Butterfly. It’s a joke.” He held my gaze. “But my dad was a dick.”
I nodded, thinking he didn’t want me to make a big deal of it, even though it was a very big deal, so I looked back to Travis.
Only then did I say softly, “I’m sorry, Joker.”
Joker didn’t reply.
Okay.
He was being forthcoming. He wasn’t avoiding me. In fact, he was doing the opposite. He also seemed taken with Travis. Not many men (I assumed, I hadn’t tested this theory) wanted to hang with single mothers and their babies. They certainly didn’t claim said babies at every given opportunity. Not if they only intended to be friends. Or, essentially, bum a meal.
And he was calling me Carrie.
Hope flared and I made a decision.
It was time to explore.
I cleared my throat and shoved strained peas into my boy’s mouth.
He spit them out, I scooped them up and shoved them back in, saying ultra-casually, “So, that pretty brunette you were with on Saturday. Is that your girlfriend?”
“Stacy?”
Her name was Stacy.
Ulk.
“I wasn’t introduced.”
Travis banged the keys against the tray.
“Not a girlfriend.”
My heart leaped.
Joker continued, “Decent woman. Until she gets slaughtered. Then decent goes out the window seein’ as she has no problem gettin’ behind a wheel when she’s shitfaced. She got that way Saturday, knew that shit would go down, so I took her home.”
The hope started burning so bright I didn’t check it when my head snapped up and I asked, “That’s it?”
Joker looked from the hamburger to me.
“That’s it, Carrie,” he said gently.
He said it gently.
And he was looking at me in a way that told me he wanted me to believe those words.
“Oh,” I whispered.
I said no more.
Joker didn’t either.
But we stared at each other across my kitchen and the new way he started looking at me made my skin start tingling.
“Moo mah!” Travis cried.
My head jerked down to him. “What, baby?”
He banged the keys against the tray. “Gah!”
“Did you just say ‘moo mah?’” I asked, meaning, did my son just call me Mommy?
He banged the keys and kicked out
his feet.
He wanted more peas.
Well, he didn’t want more peas. He wanted to be done with peas so we could get to the peaches.
I gave him more peas but after I did, I looked back to Joker, and I knew when I did, I was smiling brilliantly.
“I think that was my first Mommy,” I shared with glee.
“Sounded like that to me,” Joker agreed.
But I was staring at him feeling even more glee.
Because for the first time since I’d met him, he was grinning.
He wasn’t biker handsome.
No.
He was biker amazing.
I wanted to get up and jump up and down, for a number of reasons.
Instead, I shared, “I think that’s early.”
“Kid’s a genius.”
I smiled bigger.
“He’s gonna say somethin’ else, you don’t fill his belly,” Joker warned.
I looked down at an irate Travis. “Sorry, googly-foogly.”
“Bah, bah, bah!” he snapped.
I grinned at him and gave him more peas.
Joker opened a cupboard and grabbed a box of spaghetti.
And I sat on my stool, in my dinky apartment filled with its magnificent furniture, yet again experiencing something new. Another something I hadn’t felt before Joker rode up the shoulder of I-25 and into my life.
Normal.
Average.
A woman feeding her child while a man worked in her kitchen to feed them.
The way it should be.
The way I’d always wanted it to be.
The only thing I really wanted for me.
And my baby.
* * *
I sat on my couch, feet up in the seat, knees to chest, arms around my calves, eyes on the TV, nervous as could be.
This was because my son had a belly full of baby food and formula, and not long after, decided to call it a night.
He was in his crib in my room.
And I had a belly full of spaghetti Joker served me, and not long after, he decided we were going to watch TV.
So we were sitting on my couch, watching TV.
During dinner, conversation hadn’t been free-flowing, mostly because Travis curtailed it, as was his wont. But things had been pretty easy.
Until Joker had invited himself to camp out in front of the television and then did just that.
I’d gotten Travis down and joined Joker.
Now I didn’t know what to do.
Men could be friends with women, this was true (though I had no men friends, still, it was true, I’d seen it on TV).
But could bikers be friends with women? Were they the kind of guys who hung out for dinner and TV just because?
It was my understanding, though it hadn’t been confirmed, that Joker lived at the Compound. And he didn’t have a TV in his room. There was one behind the bar in the common area, but not in his room.
Maybe he just wanted a comfy space to lounge. A change of scenery.
Or maybe he liked me.
But lounging, he was doing. Feet up. Boots still on. Ankles crossed. Heels resting on my coffee table. He was slouched down, not far from me, arms out and resting on the back of the couch. His hand was so close to my shoulder, it felt like it was hovering there, aimed to strike.
This meant I was so wound up, so unsure, so nervous, I didn’t even know what we were watching.
Actually, to all that, I was also trying to control my mouth from opening and asking what was happening at the same time control my body from hurling itself in his arms.
In other words, I was a wreck.
What I should do was ask.
I liked him.
He was (maybe) giving indications he liked me.
I should know. I should be a big girl and put it out there. Just grab the remote, hit mute, turn to him and say the words, “Joker, what’s happening here?”
Easy.
So why couldn’t I do it?
I swallowed.
Then I bit my lip.
After that, I took a deep breath.
It stuck in my throat when Joker’s hand, poised to strike, struck.
It did this by capturing a lock of my hair then twirling it around his finger.
I forced myself to breathe and do it steadily so he wouldn’t hear me hyperventilating.
Okay, that felt nice.
Okay, did male friends of females twirl hair around their fingers?
No.
They couldn’t.
Could they?
Afraid to move so I didn’t lose his fingers playing with my hair, I slid my eyes to the side. I couldn’t see him fully but I could see he had his attention on the TV.
Okay, now, what did that mean?
I had to know. I couldn’t sit there a moment longer and not know.
“Joker?” I called and immediately cleared my throat because it came out croaky.
“Yeah, baby?” he asked distractedly.
But I froze.
Okay, male friends did not call females baby. Not the warm, intimate, albeit distracted, way he just said it.
I felt a tug on my hair and that tug, no matter how light, shot straight over my scalp, sizzled down my neck, and exploded at the heart of me.
“Carrie?”
Slowly, I turned my head and saw him looking at me.
He looked relaxed. He looked comfortable. He looked at home.
He looked amazing.
“What you need, Butterfly?” he muttered.
I knew what I needed.
I didn’t tell him.
Not verbally.
I dropped my feet, twisted, planted a hand in the couch and launched myself into his arms.
Those arms closed around me, and right before my mouth would hit his, fear saturated me when he seemed to be coming up out of the couch like he intended to push me away.
But he wasn’t.
He was coming toward me so he could skate his arm down my back, over my bottom, to hook around the backs of my knees. He curled his other arm around my back as he dragged me across his lap then dropped to his side, taking me to my back in the couch.
And it was his mouth that hit mine.
The second I had it, I wasted no time. I opened my lips in invitation and drove my fingers in his hair.
It was thick, springy, thrilling.
His tongue swept into my mouth.
I had it back.
Thank God, I had him back.
I held his head to me as I pressed up and he kept kissing me.
He shifted so my thighs were no longer draped over his lap, stretching out beside me and also on me.
And he kept kissing me.
I rolled into him, pressing my body the length of his, keeping a hand firm in his hair so he wouldn’t leave me as I trailed the other hand down his back.
And he kept kissing me.
He yanked my shirt from my jeans and dove right in, his rough calluses grating up my skin, causing shivers to erupt along their path, a path that took him up my side.
I pressed closer.
Joker kept kissing me.
Then up my ribs.
I held tighter.
Joker kept kissing me.
To under my breast.
I went still.
Joker swept his thumb along skin, the very tip a whisper against the curve of the underside of my breast.
I whimpered.
A cell phone rang.
Joker broke the kiss but didn’t pull away.
He shoved his face in my neck.
I didn’t even try to hold back my whispered plea.
“No, no, no.”
“Shit, shit, fuck,” he growled.
“Joker?” I called tremulously.
He lifted his head and I held him even tighter as he shifted his hand out of my shirt and reached to his back pocket for his phone.
I was holding him tighter because I liked him on me. I liked what we’d been doing. And I didn’t want him to
let me go or what we’d been doing to stop.
But mostly, I was holding him tighter because he was looking me in the eyes and his were not blunt steel.
They were a sheet of blazing molten steel.
“Hang tight, Carrie,” he murmured before he turned his head, looked at the phone, and clenched his jaw. I heard a beep, the phone was at his ear, and he said, “Bad fuckin’ timing.”
I closed my eyes.
But I didn’t let him go.
I opened them when he said, “I didn’t forget. But I got two hours before I gotta be there.”
I watched. He listened.
Then he grunted, “Fuckin’ Valenzuela.”
Valenzuela?
“Yeah. I’m at Carrie’s. It’ll take me twenty.” Pause and then, “Carissa.” Another pause before, “Right. Later.”
I heard a beep and he looked at me.
“You have to go,” I said quietly.
“Have to bein’ the operative words.”
Wow, that was sweet.
I smiled.
His eyes dropped to my mouth and he made a sound like a groan.
That made me quit smiling and blurt, “What’s happening here, Joker?”
His eyes came back to mine. “You like Mexican?”
My head jerked on the couch.
“Uh… yes.”
“You work tomorrow?”
I nodded. “Day shift.”
“Right, what’s happenin’ here is, tomorrow, Travis is in a high chair at Las Delicias while I feed you the best burritos chicharrones in Denver.”
I melted underneath him.
A date.
He was asking me (and Travis!) out on a date.
I could wear my tube top!
Suddenly, I stopped melting.
“Chicharrones are essentially fried hunks of bacon fat,” I shared.
“So?”
“Well,” I proceeded cautiously and a little mortifyingly, “I haven’t lost the last of the baby fifteen.”
“And I like it,” he announced.
I blinked.
“So in an effort to keep it as I like it, you get chicharrones,” he finished.
I loved chicharrones.
I mean, they were essentially bacon and everything even minutely bacon was amazing.
I loved it more he liked me as just me.
“Okay,” I agreed, beginning to melt again. But the melting stopped when I remembered. “Oh no. After work I have to go meet my new attorney.”
“Burritos after I take you to meet your attorney.”
After he took me.