Ride Steady(52)

Linus’s lips turned down. “Mean a certain kind, son.”

“Know what you mean, and no.”

“You’re young,” he muttered.

He didn’t feel young, but he still was.

That didn’t change who he was and how he intended to live his life, and no good woman would be a part of that. But Linus didn’t need to know that.

“You’re at work,” Joker said. “I’ll leave you alone. But give me Mrs. Heely’s details, I’ll go ’round.”

“Sure thing,” Linus said, turning and inviting, “Come to the office. Gotta call Kam to get it.”

Joker followed him.

Linus spoke while he walked.

“Not shittin’ you, Car… I mean, Joker. Want your ass at my table. Kam’ll wanna see you too, and I want you to meet my kids.”

Joker made another decision.

“I’ll be there.”

Linus gave him another smile.

Ten minutes later, he left with Mrs. Heely’s address, Linus’s number in his phone, his in Linus’s, and after another back-pounding hug.

He rode off seeing Linus standing outside the bay, still smiling.

Joker didn’t smile.

But that didn’t mean he didn’t feel good.

*

“Oh my goodness gracious!” Mrs. Heely cried, her hands going straight up in front of her before she reached further, slapped them on either side of his head, and didn’t let go. “Carson!”

She’d just opened the door and, like Linus, she knew exactly who he was.

She shook his head side to side. “Oh my goodness gracious! Goodness! What a fantastic surprise! I can’t believe it! I simply can’t!”

“Yo, Mrs. Heely,” he greeted.

She dropped her hands and narrowed her eyes. “Yo? What kind of greeting is ‘yo,’ Carson Steele?” Before he could answer (not that he was going to), she kept at him. “And when was the last time you got a haircut? Or had a shave?”

“Like it like this,” he told her.

“You look scruffy,” she returned. “You’re a handsome boy. You shouldn’t hide it under all,” she circled her finger two inches from his face, “that.”

“You gonna let me in or make me stand outside your door for the next hour, ridin’ my ass?” he asked.

She rolled her eyes, pretending to be pissed even when she wasn’t. He knew. He saw her mouth quirk.

He also knew because she used to do that when she’d give him shit and mean it, but not.

He’d missed it, but he didn’t know that he had until right then.

“Your language. Always did my head in with your language. I blame your father.” She pierced him with a glare. “For a lot of things.”

He didn’t have a chance to say anything, she stepped aside.

“Get in here,” she ordered, waving her hand at him and moving inside. “If I knew you were coming, I’d have made cookies. Since I didn’t, you get Chips Ahoy or Oreos. I think I also have some Nilla Wafers.”

Fuck, but it felt good to know some things didn’t change.

“May have escaped you, darlin’, but I’m not eight anymore,” he muttered, coming in behind her and closing the door.

She whirled on him. “I’m not either. I still like my cookies.”

He stared at her.

She rolled her eyes again and flounced through the small living room to an even smaller kitchen.

Joker followed, not liking what he saw. Not that it was a pit, just that it was small. She’d filled it with stuff that was familiar to him, made it hers. But it wasn’t like the house she’d lived in that just was her, becoming that after she’d spent decades of her life living in it.

And there was no flag outside the door.

“Where’s the flag?” he asked carefully as he hit the kitchen.

“We have a clubhouse where all of us in God’s waiting room go to experience such thrills as bingo and movie night, with every movie they show being PG. I told them about the flag. They let me fly it out there,” she answered, grabbing all three brands of cookies, dumping them on the counter, and shuffling to the fridge to get out the goddamned milk.

He nearly smiled because the last glass of milk Joker drank, she’d poured it.

“Good you still got it in your sights,” he told her and she looked to him after pulling down a glass.