Ride Steady (Chaos, #3)(69)

But I’d been right.

Knowing Travis was in good hands and I could just take care of me was heaven.

*

“It looks… interesting,” I said, struggling with Travis in my arms. We were in the bowels of the garage at Ride, and Travis wanted not to be in my arms but crawling all over the new and interesting things around him while charming the pants off of all the men working.

It was after we ran the errand of picking up my car. It was after Joker treated me to a big breakfast. A breakfast that was yummy and filling, but punctuated with me calling Angie with my report as well as me contacting my landlord to give him notice that I was moving out.

Angie made note of the Aaron visit and did it with glee, knowing like I did that they were worried.

My landlord informed me my notice was not one but two weeks, but regardless, the first of the month was coming up and I had to pay the whole month, or when I vacated, I’d sacrifice my security deposit.

This wasn’t the greatest news, and when I shared it with Joker, it didn’t make him look happy either.

But he had no verbal response and I decided to figure it out later, not wanting to ask Tyra and Tack to wait a month but also not wanting to lose my shot at that house.

We now were at Ride, looking at Joker’s “build.”

But to me, it seemed like a bunch of scrap metal laid out on a garage floor. There were shapes. I just wasn’t a car person so I couldn’t put them together.

Joker sauntered to the wall, where there were a number of holders jutting out where you’d put papers and files. He pulled a folder out of one and came back.

He flipped it open and turned it to me.

“This is what it’s gonna be.”

I stared because in the file was a sketch of the coolest car I’d ever seen. There were subtle hints of color shaded on it (canary yellow and fiery red). But it was the lines forming Joker’s vision that enthralled me.

“Did you draw that?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

I looked up at him, surprised and also humbled by what appeared to be a remarkable talent.

“That’s, well… it’s totally amazing.”

He flipped the file his way and looked at it. “Not my best. Not my worst.”

If it wasn’t his best, I wanted to see his best.

“Would you show me more?” I asked and his eyes came to me.

“You’re interested, yeah,” he answered casually.

“I’m interested,” I said softly.

This time, Joker stared at me and I watched, standing as still as I could with Travis fighting my hold, doing it mesmerized.

Again, the steel of his eyes was not a guard against me. Those eyes were working, and I knew down deep they were working in a good direction.

But he said nothing.

“If it’s private,” I said quickly, “you don’t have to share it with me.”

“Sell this shit, Carrie. Not private.”

I nodded.

He flipped the folder closed.

“Can I look at it again?” I requested.

His attention came back to me before he flipped it open and I again looked at it.

It really was amazing. I could see it framed. The car was probably going to be fabulous, but the sketch was a thing of beauty.

But suddenly, looking at it, something struck me. I cocked my head and kept looking, that something tugging at me.

“Just a car, babe,” Joker muttered before I could get a lock on that thing.

I looked again to him. “You’re very talented. I mean, really. If whoever eventually owns the car doesn’t own that sketch, you should frame it and sell it.”

That got me smoldering steel, a look I could read, a look that I lost when Joker got close, bent in, and touched his lips to mine.

They immediately dug in, pushing hard, scraping my bottom lip against my teeth because Travis got upset, screeched, and hit both our cheeks with his baby fists.

Joker broke away and I looked to Travis, noting, “He needs to roam free.”

“He can roam free in the office. It’s practically child-proof,” I heard Tyra say.

I turned in the direction of her voice to see her walking toward us. “Hey.”

“Hi, honey,” she said as she stopped close. She looked to Travis, lifting her hands. “Hey, cutie. You wanna wreak havoc in Auntie Ty-Ty’s office?”

Travis lifted his arms, launched his baby body her way, doing this shrieking.

That meant yes.

She caught him and said to Joker and me, “Take your time. We’ll be close.”

Without another word, on her sexy heels with her tight skirt and lovely blouse that didn’t seem to fit in with a garage, she strutted away, up some steps, and disappeared through a door with my baby.

“Got more sketches in my room.”

I looked back to Joker.

Sketches in his room.

I wanted to see sketches.

I more hoped that Tyra would look after my son for a half an hour while Joker took me to his room on the pretense of showing me sketches but in reality to make out with me.

“Awesome,” I whispered.

The whiskers around his mouth twitched as he threw an arm around my shoulders and guided me out of the bay, heading us toward the Compound.

*

Joker did not make out with me.

He showed me sketches.