Page 137 of Joker

I actually smile this time. “Daddy.”

“What?” he asks, not sounding sorry at all. “That boy told me you were his old lady like he was announcing weather.”

Joker’s shoulders shake once beside me. The asshole is laughing.

I shoot him a glare through tears.

He has the decency to look only mildly smug about it.

“I panicked,” I admit quietly into the phone. “At first.”

My dad hums again. “And then?”

I look down at my hand where it rests on the comforter between me and Joker. Then, without fully thinking about it, I let my pinky hook around his.

Tiny. Private. Automatic.

His hand turns immediately, curling around mine like he’s been waiting for an excuse.

My chest squeezes so hard it almost hurts. “And then he explained it,” I say softly.

My dad is quiet for a second too long. When he speaks again, his voice is lower. “He treating you right?”

The question should embarrass me. Instead, it makes my eyes burn all over again. Because no one has ever asked me that and meant it in the way he does.

Notis he providing?

Notis he behaving?

Notis he useful?

Treating me right.

As if I’m allowed to want that. As if I deserve it.

I look at Joker’s hand wrapped around mine. At the calluses.

The ink disappearing under his sleeve where his wrist bends.

The sheer steadiness of him.

“Yes,” I whisper.

My father exhales slowly through the phone. Not happy. Not fully. But accepting something he maybe already knew was true before I said it.

“Alright,” he says at last. That one word carries a thousand things inside it.

I hear:

I don’t love this.

I’m still your father.

I’m still watching him.

But I hear you.

And for now, that’s enough.