The touch was an assertion. Another command. He said he’d claimed me, and that was a physical demonstration I knew in that instant I had to understand, do it completely and also without question.
I suddenly found it hard to breathe.
“I don’t know where this will lead,” he stated. “You and me and your boy. I know what we got. I know I like what we got. I know I wanna keep that strong and make it stronger. Shit happens. I hope like fuck it happens to us, we’ll fight through to the other side. But I know this and you gotta know it too: No matter what happens, I will never, not ever, not fuckin’ ever, Carissa, regret ridin’ down that shoulder to help you and your boy. It’s the best decision I ever made in my life, and I know that in a way I know I’ll feel that until the day I fuckin’ die.”
His thumb was still on my cheek so he felt the silent tear that fell from my eye and collided with it.
“You scared a’ that?” he asked harshly.
“It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard,” I whispered huskily.
And it was. Excepting the first time I heard Travis cry, it absolutely was.
“Then you get me.” His voice was no longer harsh, but it was rough.
“I get you, sweetie.”
He pulled me down to kiss me.
That too was an assertion. Like his hand on me, his words to me, that moment in the dark in my bed, even with all we’d shared before, was the beginning and it was also an ending.
I was his, for certain, for sure, no matter what had gone before, it started right then.
I was Carson “Joker” Steele’s.
End of story.
He was mine too, but with a manly man biker, that was secondary. It went with the territory, hand in hand with him staking his claim.
This did not bother me. It didn’t trouble me. It didn’t annoy me.
It utterly thrilled me.
That might be wrong, but in that instant, for the first time in my life, I didn’t care if it was wrong. If it was wrong, I didn’t want to be right.
Joker shared all this with his mouth. He then broke the kiss, leaving me breathless, and tucked my face back into his neck.
“Now, baby, sleep,” he ordered thickly. “Even if you got the day off tomorrow, Travis’ll be up early and we got a day together with your boy in your new house. I don’t want you draggin’.”
I wanted to cry again. Cry with relief that life had brought this man to me. Cry with happiness that I’d made it through the thorny path that led away from him in high school but then led me right back.
I didn’t.
I snuggled closer, with my arm wrapped around him pulling him to me as I did, and I tipped my eyes over his throat to the red light lit on his nightstand. Where he’d put it. So, even though we slept cuddled, the baby monitor was still closer to him so he’d be sure to hear if Travis needed us.
Us.
Us.
That thought almost made me cry too.
But I didn’t.
Because it was done.
In that moment I knew it was finally over.
I’d lost Althea. I’d lost Mom. To deal with the pain and make sure I lost nothing else, I’d put blinders on, made my mistakes, and then my dream had died.
But now the loss was over.
The blinders were off.
And I had Travis.
Then I got Joker.
And he gave me Chaos.
So it was done.
I was done losing.
And in being done, eyes open, facing ahead, back straight, head in the game, I was ready to win.
Chapter Seventeen
A Biker Named Joker
Carissa
EARLY THE NEXT afternoon, I was wandering the living room/dining room area, bouncing my son, who was bawling.
Joker walked in from the kitchen with a fresh soda in his hand and I stopped, looked to him, still bouncing, and declared, “I don’t get it. He’s had his nap, it was shorter than normal, but that’s never a big thing with him. Still, he woke up fussy. He ate his food then was cranky. But he’s had his food, his diaper is clean, he’s been bathed. He can get grouchy his first day back from his dad’s, but not like this.” I looked down at Travis and finished on a mutter, “Maybe he’s not feeling well. He’s got another tooth coming in. Maybe that’s it.”
Travis had no answer, except to keep crying loudly.
My head came up when I felt Joker get close.
“New place, Butterfly,” he said over Travis’s blubbering. “This time, he’s got more to get used to. New room. New space. Away from his dad’s.”
This made sense, and I wondered why I hadn’t thought of that.
Joker set his can on the dining room table, pulled my boy out of my arms, and walked away, also bouncing him.
I watched as he bent to Travis’s toy basket and picked it up. Then I watched as he came back and dumped the entire thing across the floor behind the couch.
At that, Travis jumped slightly in his arms, shoved his fist in his mouth, stopped bawling, started sniveling, and gave Joker’s actions his complete attention seeing as Travis was always up for making a mess of pretty much anything.
Joker crouched down and planted Travis’s baby booty on the floor next to the toys. When he had my son down, on the other side of the toys he dropped to his hip and stretched out on his side, long jeans-covered legs out, feet bare, faded black tee drawn tight across his chest, his upper body rested on a forearm.
I kept watching as Joker picked up a blue giraffe and poked Travis in the belly with it.
Travis took his hand from his mouth and pumped both his fists in the air at his sides before he went after the giraffe.
Joker pulled it away then poked Travis in the belly with it again.
Travis went for it again but almost immediately lost interest in it, what with all the toys scattered across the floor. He bent forward and grasped a red donut ring.
“Giraffe’ll get lonely, kid,” Joker told him, poking him in the belly with it again.
On his hip, leaning into his hand on the ring, Travis’s head came up to look at Joker. He then pushed fully forward and crawled across the toys, dragging the ring with him, heading toward Joker. He pounded his hands, including the one with the ring, into Joker’s chest, and Joker fell on his back.
Travis emitted a little giggle before he carried the now forgotten donut with him to the best toy ever.