Ride Steady (Chaos #3)(14)

As this memory filtered through my head, at the end of it, I realized the man called Joker made no response.

“This is really nice!” I called as he disappeared in a crouch on the other side of my car. The other side of the car meaning right by the traffic.

That concerned me. It wasn’t going fast and I’d pulled so far over, my passenger side tires were in the turf and scrabble at the edge of the shoulder, but it was still dangerous.

He again didn’t respond so I yelled, “Please be careful!”

His deep voice came back. “I’m good.”

“Okay, but stay that way. Okay?” I shouted back.

Nothing from Joker.

I fell silent. Well, not really. I turned my attention to my tussle with my son and did my all to turn his attention from the biker he could no longer see but very much wanted to get to.

“He’s busy, baby, helping us out, fixing our car.”

Travis looked at me and shouted an annoyed, “Goo gah!” and then shoved the arm of Joker’s sunglasses in his mouth.

I balanced him on my hip and tried gently to take the sunglasses away so Travis didn’t get drool all over them or worse, break them.

Travis shrieked.

“We can’t thank Joker for his help by breaking his sunglasses,” I explained.

Travis yanked the sunglasses free from my tentative grip, and so they wouldn’t break, I let him. He then brandished them in the air with victorious glee for a couple of seconds before bringing them down and shoving the lens against his mouth whereupon he tongued it.

I sighed and looked to where Joker was working, even though I still couldn’t see him, and cautiously (but loudly, to be heard over the distance and traffic) shared, “Travis is drooling on your sunglasses.”

Joker straightened, lugging my tire with him and tossing it with a swing of his broad, leather-jacket-covered shoulders into the trunk (something he did one-handed, which was impressive), this making my entire car bounce frighteningly.

His eyes came to me. “Got about a dozen pairs. He f*cks those up, not a problem.”

Then he crouched down again.

I bit back my admonishment that he shouldn’t use the f-word. Aaron cursed all the time. I found it coarse, eventually annoying, and finally ended concerned he’d use that language around our son.

I had no idea if he did.

But he probably did.

Instead of focusing on that, I focused on the fact that Joker seemed really nice.

Not seemed, he just was.

All the people who passed me, not helping, but he stopped.

Now he was changing a tire and, except for the time my dad made me do it so he could be assured I’d know how if the time came to pass when I’d have to, I’d never done it again. But I knew it wasn’t a lot of fun.

He’d let Travis pull his whiskers, yank off his glasses, and even let slide the good possibility some baby he didn’t know would break them.

I looked to the glasses and knew they were expensive. They said LIBERTY on the side. They were attractive yet sturdy. I didn’t think he got them off a revolving rack.

And I didn’t want him to stop, help us, and lose his expensive glasses, even though he was very nice and didn’t seem to care.

“Please, baby boy, don’t break those glasses,” I whispered.

Like my eight-month-old understood me, he stopped licking the lens and shoved the glasses to me.

I grinned, murmured, “Thank you, my googly-foogly,” took the glasses and bent into him to blow on his neck.

He squealed with glee.

Since he liked that so much, like I always did, I did it again. Then again. And since I didn’t have anywhere else to put them, I shoved Joker’s sunglasses in my hair so I could adjust Travis in order to tickle him.

He squirmed in my arms and squealed louder.

Goodness, that sound was beautiful.

No better sound in the world.

Not one.

I kept playing with my boy, and in doing so, I was suddenly unconcerned I was standing on I-25 with a biker from a biker gang changing my tire, and that soon I’d be handing my baby off to my ex and Tory, so I wouldn’t have him for a whole week.

Right then, it was just Travis and me.

It had been just him and me for a year and a half, part of that time he was in my belly, the rest he was my entire world.

I’d wanted a family. After Althea died, I’d started wanting that and made it with my dolls, then my Barbies, then in my dreams.

That’s all I wanted. All I’d ever wanted.

A husband. A home. And lots of babies.

I didn’t care what it said about me that I didn’t want a career. That I didn’t dream of cruises or tiaras or being important, carrying a briefcase, getting up and going to a high powered job.

I wanted to do laundry.

I wanted to make cookies.

I wanted to have dinner ready for my husband and children when they got home.

I wanted to be a soccer mom (though, I didn’t want a minivan, I wanted something like Aaron’s Lexus SUV).

That’s all I wanted.

I wanted to be a good wife and a great mother.

And again, I did not care even a little bit what people thought that said about me.

My mom worked. She’d worked even before Althea died. She’d worked after too.

I didn’t mind that then. It made her happy.