Suddenly, I stopped melting.
“Chicharrones are essentially fried hunks of bacon fat,” I shared.
“So?”
“Well,” I proceeded cautiously and a little mortifyingly, “I haven’t lost the last of the baby fifteen.”
“And I like it,” he announced.
I blinked.
“So in an effort to keep it as I like it, you get chicharrones,” he finished.
I loved chicharrones.
I mean, they were essentially bacon and everything even minutely bacon was amazing.
I loved it more he liked me as just me.
“Okay,” I agreed, beginning to melt again. But the melting stopped when I remembered. “Oh no. After work I have to go meet my new attorney.”
“Burritos after I take you to meet your attorney.”
After he took me.
I smiled.
His eyes again dropped to my mouth.
Then his lips did and he kissed me, sweet but brief.
He lifted his head and said in a way I knew he didn’t want to say it, “Gotta go, Butterfly.”
My reply came out the same way. “Okay, Joker.”
He knifed off me but did it grabbing my hand and yanking me up with him so I was on my feet.
He didn’t let go of my hand as he pulled me to the stool. Only then did he release me so he could nab his jacket and shrug it on.
But he claimed my hand again when he took the four steps to the door. He pulled it open, turned to me, and pulled me in front of him.
I tipped my head back just in time for his hand to curl light around my jaw.
“When’s your appointment?” he asked.
“Six,” I answered.
“Distance to the office from here?”
“It’s closer to work.”
“Right. I’ll come and get Travis, pick you up at work, take you there, then dinner.”
“You’ll need Travis’s baby seat.”
“Leave it for Big Petey.”
I nodded.
His fingers pressed in and I automatically went up on my toes.
It was the right move since his head was bending toward me.
He touched his lips to mine, his whiskers brushing the skin they’d sensitized earlier, making my knees go weak so I had to reach out my hands and catch his T-shirt at his belly.
He ended the touch too soon but when he lifted his head, his rough thumb glided over my cheek as his steel eyes moved over my face.
“So fuckin’ pretty,” he murmured and it was a wonder my body didn’t jerk out of his hold so I could twirl with glee.
“Thank you for dinner,” I whispered and he looked into my eyes.
“No problem, Carrie.”
I smiled.
His thumb rubbed over my lower lip before the pads of his fingers dug in lightly and he let me go.
I was proud I held it together and stayed steady rather than losing his touch and teetering.
“Later, Butterfly,” he said.
“Later, Joker,” I replied.
He moved out the door but looked back, doing it over his leather clad shoulder, a sinister biker who had a light touch, a molten look, a way with babies, and a talented mouth.
I put one hand to the edge of the door and lifted the other one to do a quick wave.
His mouth quirked, he shook his head, then he looked away and disappeared around the door.
I wanted to watch him walking away.
I didn’t.
I closed the door, locked its three locks, turned my back to it, and smiled at my massive furniture.
Then I brought both hands up and clapped them together in front of me, softly but repeatedly.
After that, on a skip-hop launching me that way, I went to go check on my baby.
Joker
No, no, no.
With Carissa’s sweet plea playing in his head, Joker parked at the end of the line of three bikes, swung off his, and moved into the dark alley.
Halfway down, close to a Dumpster, he saw Speck, Boz, and Hop circling two whores.
All eyes were on him.
His eyes were on the whores. “Early night?”
“Heidi needs to talk to you,” Hop said, sounding impatient.
Then again, he would be. His old lady was fucking beautiful. And their new baby was a quarter of Hop’s world, the rest of that made up with his other two kids and his woman.
He did patrol like they all did.
Then he got his ass home.
Tonight wasn’t his night for patrol, though. He was there because he had a way with whores.
But these whores, or one of them, was Joker’s.
Joker looked to the blonde, jerked his head, stopped moving their way, turned, and retraced his steps.
He heard her heels following and gave her his side when he stopped and waited for her to get to him.
When she did, she got close.
“I’m fucked, Joke.”
“Babe, you’re a whore workin’ for Valenzuela. You pulled me from somethin’ I was seriously into doin’ to give that shit to me?”
“I’m pregnant.”
Joker clenched his teeth and looked to his boots.
“Benito is gonna freak,” she hissed.
He looked to her. “You know whose it is, or you get knocked up by a john?”
“No way a client. Protection only. It’s my boyfriend, Brent’s.”
“And Brent says…?” he prompted.
Her face went hard. “Brent says it isn’t his.”
“You sure it is?”
Her face went harder and her eyes turned to stone. “Yes,” she snapped.
“You keepin’ it?” he asked.
“Hardly,” she bit out.
“You’re tellin’ me this because…?”
“Gonna find a buyer.”
He stared.
“Which means I’ll be outta commission,” she stated. “Which means you’re gonna have to find some other stupid bitch to narc on Benito.”
Fuck.
“And don’t even bother askin’ me to stay close anyway,” she went on. “Benito found out I’m knocked up, he’d scrape me off and I’d be lucky he does that before he beats the shit outta me. So I’m takin’ off to avoid the beatin’ the shit outta me part. This’ll be a sweet gig. If I find buyers, heard they pay doctor’s bills. Pay for an apartment. Feed you. Get you clothes. And give you wads of cash.”
Allowing his lip to curl, he did it wondering if he would have been better off if his mother had sold him to some couple who was desperate for a baby.
The answer to that was probably.
“Doin’ you a solid by givin’ you a heads-up,” she told him.
“You couldn’t’ve shared this with Hop?”