Ride Steady(204)

So this wasn’t Lee’s deal.

It was Knight’s.

Which meant that woman had just disappeared, she did it safe, she’d do it clean. Knight was giving her a new life plus the knowledge her kid would be loved.

Joker drew in breath.

Then he looked at his boots and let it out.

*

Carissa sat next to him in his truck as they drove from the hospital.

“You know I love you?” she asked quietly.

“I know you love me, Carrie,” he answered the same way, squeezing her hand he held on his thigh.

She squeezed back.

They rode in silence.

She broke it with, “I want another one.”

“I know, Butterfly.”

“Soon,” she whispered.

He’d do soon. He would have planted one in her that night, but he’d been declared clean (something, for her, she’d already thought of, considering her ex had replaced her, and it was something that came as a matter of course through her care while having Travis) and she was now on the Pill.

“We’ll do soon,” he promised.

That got him another squeeze.

“You want Las Delicias?” he asked.

“I do, but that’s our family place, you, Travis, and me,” she answered, and he felt his chest get light. “Why don’t we get a burger or something?”

“Whatever you want, Carrie,” he muttered.

She squeezed his hand again.

He drove her to My Brother’s Bar for a burger.

And after, he took her to Dairy Queen for a Blizzard.

*

“Joke!”

He turned his head at Lenny’s call, and at what he saw, Joker muttered, “’Scuse me,” to the photographer he was talking to.

Then he smiled as he walked through the garage to Carissa, who was wearing a sweet tank with shiny shit stitched on the front, sweeter jeans, and the high-heeled black ankle boots he’d f*cked her in the night she keyed his father’s car.

She also had big hair, lots of makeup, and a huge, bright smile. The whole package meant Joker was fighting his dick getting hard as he made his way to her.

When she got close, she made that a more difficult struggle because she immediately wrapped her arms around him, pressed tight, and tipped her head back.

In return, he dipped his and slid his fingers into the back pockets of her jeans.

“I’m dressed as biker babe just in case Henry Gagnon happens to get a shot of me,” she announced. “I don’t want to let down the side.”

She couldn’t do that even if she was wearing that butt-ugly nightshirt he had thankfully not seen since he asked her to lose it.

“In other words, you couldn’t stay away,” he replied.

Her eyes sparkled as she pressed closer. “Wilde and Hay here to instigate their fabulous spread on my manly man biker and his brethren? No way.”

He grinned.

She kept talking.

“And I have two pieces of good news I had to share immediately,” she told him, saying the “two” and “immediately” on squeezes.

“Yeah?”

She launched in, “First, Megan called. She and Keith get to take Isadora home today.”

It had been just over two weeks since the decision had been made. They needed Isadora to gain weight, learn how to suck so she could feed, and have her blinders taken off.

Guess all that happened.

“Great news, Butterfly,” he murmured his understatement.

“Yes, amazing, and get this,” she went on. “Aaron called me.”

Joker’s body got tight.

“Say again?” he demanded.

She shook her head, still grinning. “I’ll say I was a little freaked when I saw his name on my phone, because he’s not supposed to call me unless there’s an emergency with Travis. There wasn’t. He’s fine.”

“So why did that f*ck call?” Joker bit out.

“Because,” she was still smiling, “he has a date!”

Joker frowned down at her. “And he thought you gave a f*ck about that because…?”

“Because Aaron asked that, instead of his mom and dad looking after Travis while he takes this woman out, maybe you and me would do it.”

It was then Joker stared down at her.

“I said yes, of course,” she continued. “He’s bringing him over tomorrow night.”