He did this taking in my hair, that was down and poofed out, I knew, because that was what happened when Joker played with it. And while we were lounging, Joker had been playing with it.
He also took in my cute top that was cream, mostly sheer, scoop necked, long sleeved, had little orange flowers on it with tiny green leaves and fit snugly over the tangerine cami I wore underneath. And he took in my beaten-up, faded green lowrider army pants that I got for a song at a thrift shop. They’d had a grease stain that I’d OxiCleaned, and now they were not beaten-up and stained gross but beaten-up and not-stained awesome.
It was not an outfit I would have worn in any of the years I was with him.
It was cute but it was edgy, not by choice, but because it was all I could afford.
I still liked it, and I liked it more now because it suited the new me.
Cute and edgy.
That was me.
Fortunately, before I had to prompt him to get his behind moving, he walked to me standing by the door.
It seemed he was going straight through the door but regrettably he stopped and looked down at me.
“We’re not done, Riss,” he said softly, his tone a tone I knew. It was the tone he used when he was trying to get something from me. Me to forgive him. Me to change into the dress he wanted me to wear to dinner with his parents and not the one I’d chosen. Me to come to bed so he could have sex with me.
The fact that he was using it now didn’t give me a good feeling.
“You and I will never be done,” he went on. “We both know that.”
He gave me the look with his interesting blue eyes that used to undo me but right then made me fight rolling my eyes before his perfectly formed lips twitched.
“Take care of yourself, honey,” he murmured, allowed his mouth to form a grin, then he walked through the door.
I shoved it closed behind him, locked it, turned to Joker and declared, “I would say it’s an understatement that it doesn’t excite me he’s found a different way to be annoying.”
Joker burst out laughing.
I watched him, liking it. I kept watching him, liking it more when Travis became mesmerized by Joker’s laughter before he decided to join in in his baby way by smacking his toy against Joker’s mouth.
Joker started chuckling and looked down at my son.
When he did, Travis went for the gusto by shoving the toy in his mouth at the same time he lurched up and tried to latch on to Joker’s mouth, thus slamming both his wet lips and the toy into Joker’s face.
“Come get your kid before he chews my lips off,” Joker said in a way garbled by toy and baby.
I did as not-quite-requested (but I decided to take it that way).
When I was again cuddling my son, I felt Joker’s hand on my hip and I lifted my eyes to his.
“You okay?” he asked quietly.
“He intends to be more annoying,” I replied.
“Got that,” Joker stated. “So, you okay?”
I sighed.
Then I said, “I got through the other ways he’s been annoying. I’ll get through this.”
Joker squeezed my hip. “Yeah, Carrie. You will.”
I grinned at him as I leaned up and kissed his stubbly jaw.
Travis conked me in the head with his toy.
This made me laugh and give my attention back to my son. Which started me putting that scene with Aaron out of my head and doing what I should have been able to do ten minutes ago.
Welcome my son home. Give him a full tour of the house. And ended the tour with spending time with both my boys—my baby one and my biker one—in my new safe, clean, pretty house.
*
“He’s gonna try to win you back.”
It was that night. Travis was asleep. It was late. It was after the news. After making love with Joker in my bed. The baby monitor I had in storage but hadn’t had to use in months since Travis had slept in the same room in the apartment with me was on, its red light lit, and it was on the nightstand on Joker’s side, where my biker put it.
“Sweetie,” I whispered but said no more.
When it happened with Aaron, I didn’t want to think of it.
But I knew it immediately.
Aaron was intensely competitive. I’d noticed it all the way back in high school. I’d always disliked it, and that was the only thing I didn’t bury but let show. We’d even fought about it more than once.
I first started noticing it when the team lost a football game and Aaron would react to it in a way that was a little scary.
And not only me but his mother, who pretty much let her husband do whatever he wanted, would get agitated when father or son would challenge each other to anything. It could be a board game or a tennis match. They’d go at it, and each other, with a viciousness that was frightening.
Aaron’s father would taunt him anytime Aaron made a mistake, and I hated that.
But not as much as Aaron’s behavior. Aaron would rub it in whenever he got one over on his dad. I hated that too. It was relentless, he kept at it to the point it was cruel, and I always thought it said ugly things about him.
Heck, about the both of them.
I had no idea if Aaron’s behavior changed a few weeks ago because he knew I had a good attorney or because he saw me walking to my apartment with Joker.
Or if one led into the other.
I just knew that the landscape of my life was changing in a variety of ways, including whatever changes Aaron saw fit to force on it by any means available.
And seeing his ex-wife with another man had an effect I wouldn’t have guessed, considering the way he’d treated me. But I probably should have.
And as usual, I didn’t like it.
“Gonna do whatever he can to get you, and he’s gonna run his current bitch through the wringer to do it,” Joker informed me.
I sighed, lifted my cheek from where I was resting it on Joker’s chest, and found his eyes through the shadows.
“He and I are done,” I declared.
“Heard a lot of what you said when Travis and me weren’t in the room, Butterfly, so I know you’re into me.” I grinned through the dark but Joker kept going. “That’s not what bothers me. That jackhole is gonna run his bitch through the wringer, and he’s gonna do the same with you and your boy. Man like him doesn’t give a fuck about anything… but winning.”