Page 136 of Joker

“For what?” he asks immediately, voice sharpening just enough to cut through the shame trying to creep in. “Don’t you dare apologize to me.”

I squeeze my eyes shut tighter. “I should’ve called sooner.”

“No.” His voice is firm now. Unmovable. “You called when you could. That’s all that matters.”

My throat tightens so hard I can barely force the next words out. “I didn’t want you to think less of me.”

The silence on the other end of the line is immediate and heavy.

Then my father says, low and rough enough that I can hear the emotion under it despite how hard he’s trying to hold it together, “Raven, there is not a damn thing that man could’ve done to you that would make me think less of you.”

That one hits so hard I have to turn my face into Joker’s shoulder for a second just to survive it. He doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. Just lets me have the space and the contact both at once.

“Do you hear me?” my dad asks.

“Yes,” I whisper.

“Say it back.”

I let out a shaky breath. “You don’t think less of me.”

“Never.”

The certainty in that one word makes something inside me finally, finally unclench. Not all the way. Enough. I wipequickly at my face and try to get my breathing back under control.

My dad, because he knows me better than anybody and always has, doesn’t let the silence stretch too long before he shifts the conversation just enough to help me hold together. “You eating?”

I let out a watery little laugh despite myself. “Yes.”

“Sleeping?”

“More.”

“That’s not an answer.”

I glance sideways at Joker, who’s watching me with that same impossible steadiness, one forearm resting over his thigh, dark eyes tracking every tiny shift in my face like it matters. It shouldn’t comfort me this much.

It does.

“More than before,” I say honestly.

My dad hums low into the phone like he’s filing that away. “And Lexi?”

At that, something softer comes into my chest. “She’s good,” I tell him. “Really good, actually. She likes it here.” There’s a smile in my voice by the time I say the last part, and I know he hears it.

He goes quiet for a beat. Then, more carefully, “And him?”

My face heats instantly.

Joker’s mouth twitches like he knows exactly what question just got asked.

I hate both of them a little.

“He’s…” I glance at Joker again and immediately regret it because the look in his eyes makes my pulse kick hard. “He’s been good to us.”

That is the understatement of the century.

My dad snorts softly through the line like he knows it too. “He better be.”