Page 222 of Joker

Raven nudges my shoulder immediately. “Language.”

I glance at her. “I was making a point.”

“You were cursing at a three-year-old.”

Lexi sniffs and leans back against me. “I’m almost four.”

I look down at her. “That changes absolutely nothing.”

That finally gets a real laugh out of Raven, warm and shaky and a little disbelieving, and something in my chest goes even tighter because I don’t know how one little girl calling me her dad and one woman wearing my patch on her skin can both happen in the same ten-minute stretch without the whole world physically collapsing under the weight of it.

Apparently it just does.

“Come on,” I tell Lexi, standing with her in my arms. “We’ll go let Gio know he’s tragically misinformed.”

Lexi nods with grave approval. “Okay.”

Raven falls into step beside us, still looking like she doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry or climb into my skin.

I get it. I’m pretty much in the same place. By the time we round back toward the firepit, Gio is standing near Dom and Kya with his arms crossed and the kind of look nine-year-old boys get when they’ve said something with confidence and don’t yet realize it’s about to bite them in the ass.

Dom sees us coming and squints. “Why’s my kid crying?” he asks.

“Because your kid’s a liar,” I tell him.

Kya snorts into her drink.

Gio straightens. “I’m not a liar.”

Lexi twists in my arms and points at him like she’s testifying in court. “You said your dad was the toughest superhero.”

“He is.”

“He is not.”

I glance at Dom. “Tell your boy the truth.”

Dom leans back in his chair, looking entirely too amused for a man who’s about to get publicly slandered by a toddler and me in the same breath.

“The truth,” he says, “is that I’d absolutely kick his ass.”

I bark out a laugh. “Keep dreaming, sweetheart.”

Kya almost chokes. Carter, who’s wandered close enough to hear that last part, actually laughs out loud. Even Logan, from the grill, turns and shakes his head like he’d like no part of this but absolutely isn’t leaving.

Lexi looks between us, deeply satisfied now that the adults have finally recognized the seriousness of the issue.

“There,” she says.

And just like that, the crisis is over.

She hops down out of my arms a second later and runs straight back to Amy and Casey like she didn’t just fundamentally alter the shape of my whole damn life with two words.

My dad.

I feel Raven’s eyes on me before she even touches me. When she does, it’s just her fingertips brushing the back of my hand. Small. Private. Enough.

I look at her.