And again I was goo.
“Travis needs breakfast and bath. I need a shower. And then—” I began.
“Got the first two covered, you take care a’ you.”
The idea of a shower that wasn’t necessarily quick for the purpose of getting clean and getting out so I could rescue my child from his secure place in a jumper seat or because I had a million things to do when my son wasn’t with me was a promise of heaven.
“His baby tub is in—” I started.
“Get me what I need, Carrie, then I got it.”
I tipped my head. “You sure?”
“Been a few years, but you’re not gonna be on the moon. I run into problems, I know where to find you.”
In the shower.
I felt goose bumps spread on my skin.
Then I nodded.
After that, I got him what he needed and gave instructions on how to make Travis’s cereal and do his bath. Then I laid out a new diaper and my boy’s clothes for the day, got my own stuff, and hit the shower.
I didn’t luxuriate in it. I didn’t hurry.
But I’d been right.
Knowing Travis was in good hands and I could just take care of me was heaven.
* * *
“It looks… interesting,” I said, struggling with Travis in my arms. We were in the bowels of the garage at Ride, and Travis wanted not to be in my arms but crawling all over the new and interesting things around him while charming the pants off of all the men working.
It was after we ran the errand of picking up my car. It was after Joker treated me to a big breakfast. A breakfast that was yummy and filling, but punctuated with me calling Angie with my report as well as me contacting my landlord to give him notice that I was moving out.
Angie made note of the Aaron visit and did it with glee, knowing like I did that they were worried.
My landlord informed me my notice was not one but two weeks, but regardless, the first of the month was coming up and I had to pay the whole month, or when I vacated, I’d sacrifice my security deposit.
This wasn’t the greatest news, and when I shared it with Joker, it didn’t make him look happy either.
But he had no verbal response and I decided to figure it out later, not wanting to ask Tyra and Tack to wait a month but also not wanting to lose my shot at that house.
We now were at Ride, looking at Joker’s “build.”
But to me, it seemed like a bunch of scrap metal laid out on a garage floor. There were shapes. I just wasn’t a car person so I couldn’t put them together.
Joker sauntered to the wall, where there were a number of holders jutting out where you’d put papers and files. He pulled a folder out of one and came back.
He flipped it open and turned it to me.
“This is what it’s gonna be.”
I stared because in the file was a sketch of the coolest car I’d ever seen. There were subtle hints of color shaded on it (canary yellow and fiery red). But it was the lines forming Joker’s vision that enthralled me.
“Did you draw that?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
I looked up at him, surprised and also humbled by what appeared to be a remarkable talent.
“That’s, well… it’s totally amazing.”
He flipped the file his way and looked at it. “Not my best. Not my worst.”
If it wasn’t his best, I wanted to see his best.
“Would you show me more?” I asked and his eyes came to me.
“You’re interested, yeah,” he answered casually.
“I’m interested,” I said softly.
This time, Joker stared at me and I watched, standing as still as I could with Travis fighting my hold, doing it mesmerized.
Again, the steel of his eyes was not a guard against me. Those eyes were working, and I knew down deep they were working in a good direction.
But he said nothing.
“If it’s private,” I said quickly, “you don’t have to share it with me.”
“Sell this shit, Carrie. Not private.”
I nodded.
He flipped the folder closed.
“Can I look at it again?” I requested.
His attention came back to me before he flipped it open and I again looked at it.
It really was amazing. I could see it framed. The car was probably going to be fabulous, but the sketch was a thing of beauty.
But suddenly, looking at it, something struck me. I cocked my head and kept looking, that something tugging at me.
“Just a car, babe,” Joker muttered before I could get a lock on that thing.
I looked again to him. “You’re very talented. I mean, really. If whoever eventually owns the car doesn’t own that sketch, you should frame it and sell it.”
That got me smoldering steel, a look I could read, a look that I lost when Joker got close, bent in, and touched his lips to mine.
They immediately dug in, pushing hard, scraping my bottom lip against my teeth because Travis got upset, screeched, and hit both our cheeks with his baby fists.
Joker broke away and I looked to Travis, noting, “He needs to roam free.”
“He can roam free in the office. It’s practically child-proof,” I heard Tyra say.
I turned in the direction of her voice to see her walking toward us. “Hey.”
“Hi, honey,” she said as she stopped close. She looked to Travis, lifting her hands. “Hey, cutie. You wanna wreak havoc in Auntie Ty-Ty’s office?”
Travis lifted his arms, launched his baby body her way, doing this shrieking.
That meant yes.
She caught him and said to Joker and me, “Take your time. We’ll be close.”
Without another word, on her sexy heels with her tight skirt and lovely blouse that didn’t seem to fit in with a garage, she strutted away, up some steps, and disappeared through a door with my baby.
“Got more sketches in my room.”
I looked back to Joker.
Sketches in his room.
I wanted to see sketches.
I more hoped that Tyra would look after my son for a half an hour while Joker took me to his room on the pretense of showing me sketches but in reality to make out with me.
“Awesome,” I whispered.
The whiskers around his mouth twitched as he threw an arm around my shoulders and guided me out of the bay, heading us toward the Compound.
* * *
Joker did not make out with me.
He showed me sketches.
He was right. Some were better than the one I saw, some not quite as astounding.
But they all were stunning.
* * *
I stood beside Travis’s crib, looking down at him, waiting for nothing.
And he was finally giving me nothing after an unusual hour where he had trouble falling asleep.
It might have been our busy day and the fact he’d had to nap in places that were unfamiliar that made him have trouble finding nighttime sleep.
It might have been that he clearly liked Joker and didn’t want to fall asleep when he had his new biker buddy around.
Whatever it was, he was down and I could finally join Joker in the living room.
I left my bedroom, swinging the door so it was open by a crack to drown out the light but I could still hear him if I needed to.
I moved into the living room, announcing in a hushed voice, “He’s down.”
“That took a while,” Joker noted.
“It did,” I agreed.
“That usual?” he asked as I rounded the couch.
“No… oh!” I cried out because I got close and Joker’s hands shot out and caught me at the hips.
I fell into him as he guided the fall, my bottom toward his lap.
It was a busy day but not an exhausting one. Still, I didn’t mind ending it by stretching out on top of Joker on my couch and watching TV.
However, I found in short order that I wasn’t going to stretch out on top of Joker and watch TV.
>
Joker was going to stretch out on top of me, and I had a feeling from the look in his eyes that, although the TV was on, we would not be watching it.
It was a feeling that made me happy.
When I was on my back in the couch and he was pressed the length of my side, I looked into his eyes, feeling the pulse beat hard in my neck.
“Hey,” he whispered.
Oh.
Wow.
“Hey,” I whispered back.
He curled his fingers around the side of my neck and slid them up to my jaw.
“You good?” he asked.
I swallowed. Then I nodded.
“Wanna be better?”
My belly did a somersault.
Oh yes. I definitely wanted to be better.
I pressed a hand to his chest and breathed, “Yes.”
He dipped his head and I held my breath as he held my eyes and glided the side of his nose along the side of mine.
Oh.
Wow.
“So fuckin’ pretty,” he murmured.
“Joker,” I replied huskily.
He rubbed his thumb along my cheek and continued to stare into my eyes.
I squirmed a little bit.
“What you want, Butterfly?”
He was making me ask.
Why was that so arousing?
“I want you to kiss me.”
He did another nose glide and kept hold on my eyes as he added the tip of his tongue sliding along my lips.
That already made me better. So much better, a whimper slithered up my throat.
Instantly, his gaze fired, he slanted his head, and he kissed me.
I rounded him with my arms, pressed up, and kissed him back.
This commenced a make-out session on my couch that included some lovely groping, and for me, lots of shivers, melting, and whimpering.
Joker again had his hand up my top and he did the thumb slide at the underside of my breast, sweeping up to take in the side, and that felt so good, I was done making out.
I wanted more.
I didn’t have my head together to know how much more, but I did know I wanted him to stop teasing and at least slide into second base.
I also didn’t know how to tell him that, but my body did and it didn’t delay. On a deep mew, I freed my leg from its tangle with his, rounded his thigh with my calf, and slid the most intimate part of me against its hard length.
The minute I did, his hand came out of my top. He twisted his arm behind him to hook his fingers around the back of my knee, holding it there, but he also broke the kiss.
“Okay. We’re done.”
At his surprising declaration, I blinked right before I tightened my hold on him.
“What?” I asked.
“Carrie,” he said gently as I forced myself to focus. “That offer, straight up, I wanna take it, right now, on your couch. But, gotta tell you, baby, that what this is isn’t that. It isn’t me fuckin’ you for the first time on your couch. I want what you’re offerin’, but I’m not gonna give it to you. Not that way. When we get there, you’ll get it the way you deserve. The right way for the girl you are.”
“I, um… I, well…”
I trailed off because I was still in the throes of a certain mood at the same time (slowly) processing what he said.
And it was incredibly lovely.
However, my certain mood was urging me to urge him to take things further on my couch.
“When Travis is with his dad and it’s you and me so I can focus on just you and you can give that back to me, we’ll go there,” Joker said. “Meantime, we’ll work up to it.”
“You’re very good at working up to it,” I told him, because he was.
Aaron and I had had our times. There was a period where those times were frequent and so good I didn’t know there could be better. Those times became infrequent and then they became not so good.
But just making out with Joker was better than any time with Aaron.
I stopped thinking of that and started falling back into that certain mood when I saw the humor in Joker’s eyes as he muttered, “I’ll keep you in check.”
“Well, okay,” I agreed, mostly because it didn’t seem I had a choice.
“Now we’ll watch TV.”
I wasn’t a huge TV watcher. I liked to read mysteries (though the odd romance here and there worked).
But right then I had absolutely no interest in TV.
Nevertheless, with no other option open to me, I said, “Okay.”
“Then I’m gonna go, Carrie. You need a good night’s sleep in your bed.”
I hadn’t really thought of it until then but the best night’s sleep I’d had in a long time was the night before on the couch. Or, more accurately, on Joker.
I didn’t share this.
Again not by choice, I said, “Okay.”
Joker didn’t move so I didn’t either. What we did was stare at each other, which made me feel strange and suddenly uncomfortable.
Until he said, “I like you.”
Of its own volition, my hand fisted in his shirt.
“In a way I wanna do this right,” he went on. “For you and for Travis.”
Okay, I could get on board with that.
“I like you too,” I told him shyly.
“Got that when you rubbed that heat against my thigh.”
I felt my face burst into a different kind of heat.
Then I felt Joker’s body start quaking and saw his mouth in a full blown smile.
“The pink is cute, Butterfly, but no need for it. That shit was hot.”
“Um… good,” I muttered.
“Cute and hot. Only bitch I know who can pull that shit off.”
That certain mood left me, as did my mortification, and I immediately started glaring. “First, Joker, I’m not a bitch. And second, our day was so nice I didn’t share my running tally, but I do believe you’ve racked up a debt of twenty dollars and seventy-five cents.”
“That’s the cute part,” he returned instantly.
“Stop flattering me at the same time irritating me.”
“Cute, hot, and can hold her own against a biker or a stick-up-his-ass suit, that also being cute and hot.”
I decided not to reply, just glare.
“You ready to watch TV?” he asked.
“Whatever,” I muttered.
He gave me another grin that I refused to acknowledge I liked, dipped his head, touched his mouth to mine, then let my leg go and shifted us so his back was against the back of the couch, I was tucked in front of him, and we were spooning facing the TV.
It felt lovely.
Which was annoying.
* * *
On my first break the next day, I went to the little square locker in the staff room at LeLane’s where I kept my purse.
The night before, Joker left my house around the time my eyelids started drooping. He did this guiding me to the door by my hand, giving me a soft kiss goodnight, then leaving.
Now I was back at work, Big Petey was at my place with Travis, and I was wondering what was next.
I was also hoping, since Joker and I exchanged numbers, that right then I’d find out what was next because I wanted whatever was next with Joker really badly.
As I extricated my purse, I bit my lip, wanting there to be a text or a voice message from him, even if it was just to say hey, which would tell me he was thinking of me. After what he said the night before about treating me like the girl he saw me to be, I didn’t want him to be one of those guys who played games in order to play it cool.
I got hold of my phone and hit the button at the bottom to illuminate the display.
There was a text that said, Get a break, call me. And on the top it decreed it was from Joker.
My heart got light and my thumb flew over the screen. In no time I’d dialed Joker’s number.
It rang three times before, “Yo, Butterfly.”
My heart got lighter.
“Hi,
Joker.”
“You’re up for it, I could hit your house tonight with Chinese takeaway.”
It was not an exaggeration to say that after the bills were paid, my budget for laundry, food, gas, and limited sundries was reached (as it always was), that at the end of the month I had six dollars and fifty-five cents to carry over to the next month. And if anything came up, which it did frequently, I had to use my credit card. As I could only pay the minimum monthly payment, the balance never went down and, alarmingly, nearly every month went up.
This hadn’t always been the case. In the beginning, when I had child support, I had some room to breathe. When I lost that, Dad had helped, but I’d stopped taking his money because it made me feel guilty. He was still working. When he had to go and help Gramma, he’d lucked out when his company transferred him. But he was paying a lady to watch Gram during the day; he didn’t need the added burden of me.
So things had grown tight to the point where I’d scaled back on absolutely everything that wasn’t Travis related.
There were no lunches at the mall. There was no Las Delicias. There was no Chinese takeaway. Not for me. Not for so long I didn’t remember the last time I had Chinese.
In other words, Chinese takeaway sounded great.
Joker bringing it to my house and eating it with me sounded better.
“That sounds perfect.”
“Six, your place?” he asked.
“Yes,” I answered.
“Text me what you like. I’m hittin’ Twin Dragon.”
“You got it.”
“Your day good?” he asked.
It wasn’t. It was just a day.
Now it was a good day.
I didn’t know if I should tell him that.
Then I decided I should tell him that.
“It was normal. It just got better.”
That got me silence and I worried I’d given too much too soon before he murmured, “Like that, Butterfly.”
Not too much too soon.
Phew!
“Right, gotta let you go,” he told me.
I didn’t want him to but I only had fifteen minutes and I needed some of it to freshen up in the bathroom.
“Me too.”
“Later, Carrie.”
“Later, but, um… Joker?”
“Yeah?”
I drew in breath.
Then I told him. “I hadn’t been in a restaurant for six months, which was the last time Dad came to visit. I haven’t had Chinese takeaway for longer than I can remember. And I love Mexican and Chinese.” I took in another breath through my nose and said, “Thank you for giving those to me. It means a lot.”