Page 29 of Joker

She nods slowly, looking out the window again. “Lexi usually wakes up if the truck stops.”

“You want me to keep rolling?”

“If you can.”

“I can.”

That’s the thing about this drive. Most of what we say isn’t particularly personal. It’s logistics, observations, small pieces of conversation that don’t ask too much. But something about the restraint itself has started feeling intimate. The fact that neither of us is pushing harder than the other can handle means every little answer matters more.

I’ve driven with women before. Plenty. Usually with less clothing involved and more obvious motives on the table. This feels nothing like that. There’s no flirtation I can trust, no easy tension, no rules I recognize.

It’s just me, a woman running from something ugly, and her sleeping kid in the backseat while the dark presses in around the truck. And somehow that combination has my nerves a hell of a lot less settled than a bar fight ever does.

Raven surprises me again when she asks what part of Alabama the chapter sits near.

I tell her enough to orient her, not enough to hand over a map to the whole town. She doesn’t seem offended by that. If anything, she understands the limit immediately, which tells me she’s grown up around enough club business to know when details stop being casual.

“My dad said your chapter helped with the Savage Knights situation,” she says after a minute.

I glance at her. “That what he told you?”

Her mouth tightens slightly. “He doesn’t tell me much.”

That answer says more than the words do. Not because Grinder doesn’t trust her, but because he’s trying to protect her now by limiting what she carries. There’s history in that kind of decision. Complication too. Fathers and daughters don’t usually wind up on this side of club protection without a lot of regrets piled up between the lines.

“We handled what needed handling,” I say.

She studies my profile for a second, and I can feel it without looking. “That sounds like a very biker answer.”

“It is.”

“I’m noticing a theme.”

That almost gets another laugh out of me. “You noticing a lot over there?”

“I have to entertain myself somehow.”

“Brutal.”

“You’ll survive.”

I risk a glance at her and catch the faintest curve at the corner of her mouth before she looks away again.

There it is.

The woman under all the fear. Sharp. Dry. Not nearly as fragile as she looks. That should make this easier somehow. Instead, it just makes me more aware of how much I don’t know.

We ride in silence for a few more miles, but it doesn’t feel as loaded now. The radio murmurs low. Lexi breathes softly inthe backseat. Raven’s fingers tap once against her thigh, then go still. Outside, the road stretches and bends and opens into longer, emptier black.

Then a state trooper passes in the opposite lane.

I feel Raven react before I even see the cruiser disappear in the mirror. Her spine goes rigid. Not dramatic. Not enough that most people would catch it. But I’ve been cataloging her all night whether I want to admit that or not, so I notice.

I don’t comment. Neither does she. But a minute later her left hand is back on that bare ring finger, twisting skin where metal used to sit, and I know it’s not random.

I don’t know yet if the ex being connected means law enforcement or politics or one well-placed family with their hands in everything dirty. Could be all of it. But the way she reacts to cop cars makes one option more likely than the rest.

That settles something dark and mean in the center of my chest.