Ride Steady (Chaos, #3)(116)

“It’s not funny,” she snapped.

“It is,” he replied, still laughing.

“It is not,” she returned.

He quit laughing (slowly) and gave it to her.

“Thirty years or less, Butterfly, you’ll be at a time in your life when your house is empty and you got time on your hands you wanna fill with what you like doin’. This boy,” he hefted up Travis again, “might be married, have kids, maybe need his ma. You step in, regular or just so he can take his woman out for a Blizzard, you gonna make him pay?”

Her face told him his point was made but she still retorted, “Big Petey isn’t my father.”

“Big Petey is everyone’s father,” Joker shot back. “He likes it like that. He’s lived a long time to build that respect. He’s earned it and he should get it. Give it to him.”

She again told him without words he got in there but that didn’t mean she didn’t push it.

“He barely knows me.”

“Love and care don’t come with time. They just come. My old neighbor I told you about, Linus, took one look at me and knew I needed a good man in my life. He didn’t step in after he spent years gettin’ to know me. The minute he had my attention, he asked me over to watch a game. I needed that so much, I didn’t make him wait years before I went over and watched that game. Growin’ up, I had two safe places. His house and any time I was with another neighbor a’ mine, Mrs. Heely. And she didn’t give what she had to give to me after takin’ years to get to know me either.”

He bent in again, holding her son, touching her only with his forehead to hers, and he finished.

“I know you give good. And I know you like how it feels when you give it. You were in his position to do good, you’d jump at it. Put your feet in his shoes. Feel what he feels when he gives to you. Then let Pete have this.”

She held his eyes from up close and he saw hers get bright.

Travis slapped his cheek.

He watched her eyes smile.

“Okay, sweetie,” she whispered.

He bent in to kiss her and got another smack from Travis, so he made it unfortunately brief.

When he pulled away, he asked, “What’re you gonna feed me?”

She grinned. “Carnitas.”

With the drama over, he realized he could smell it. He also realized she hadn’t cooked anything for him but that pie. But from his experience of the pie, and what he could smell, he knew she was about to give him something else that was going to make him fall more in love with her.

“You do Travis, I’ll sort our dinner,” she ordered.

“Gotcha,” he muttered, moving to the cupboard with the baby food, fighting back a grin just thinking of Pete putting the money there.

“Gah, duh, buh, buh, buh, muh!” Travis placed his order when Joker opened the cupboard.

“Carson?” she called.

He twisted her way.

Then he stilled.

She said nothing. Just looked at him.

But the softness of her features. The warmth in her eyes. The way she held her body. She didn’t need to say anything.

That said it all.

Then her face got softer, her eyes warmer, and she pursed her lips slightly, making no noise, but blowing him a kiss.

After that she turned away.

Joker turned back to the cupboard and his voice was rougher than normal when he asked Travis, “What do you think, boy? Carrots?”

“Buh nuh,” Travis declined, and Joker looked at him to see him staring into the cupboard with serious baby face.

Joker smiled.

Then, his chest light, precious held in his arm, his boots on the floor of a kitchen in a house owned by good people and occupied by his dream, he picked sweet potato and beef.


Carissa

That Sunday, I stood in Joker’s room at the Compound in my boyfriend jeans, Converse, and the Ride tee I’d splurged on as a no-more-attorney’s-fee celebration (Speck, at the cash register in the store, tried to give it to me for free, I refused, we made a deal at forty percent off so it was a very small splurge).

I was staring around at the mess that had accumulated in what I’d thought was a short period of time since I last cleaned.

Travis was crawling through the debris, which was mostly dirty clothes, and thankfully no choking hazards like coins, having the time of his life.

We’d been headed to lunch, but on the way Joker had to stop to have a quick meeting with his brothers.

So there I was, facing what might not have been as colossal as the first challenge, but it was still a mess.

My body jerked when Joker surprisingly rounded the door much earlier than I expected, announcing, “Meet’s done, Butterfly.”

“That didn’t take long,” I noted.

“It was important, but there wasn’t much to say,” he replied, not coming to me, going straight to Travis, whereupon I watched him bend deep and gently pull the sock Travis was about to shove in his mouth out of his baby fist. “We don’t suck on socks, kid, dirty or otherwise.”

Travis, sitting on his booty, slammed his fists into his thighs and yelled, “Bah, jah, kah, lah!”

“Whatever,” Joker returned, grabbed him and lifted him up.

Travis squealed in protest, preferring the wonders of Joker’s floor to what I thought was far more wondrous, being in his arms.