Page 31 of Joker

Entirely, comprehensively, inconveniently fucked.

I’ve seen beautiful women before. Been around them. Been inside them. This is not new territory in any broad sense. But this isn’t broad sense. This is one specific woman in my truck in the middle of the night, finally looking like herself after hours of fear and tension and careful conversation, and something about the reveal gets under my skin in a way I don’t appreciate.

Maybe it’s because the hair changes the whole shape of her. Maybe it’s because the disguise coming off feels private, and I’m suddenly too aware of the fact that I’m the only one here to see it. Maybe it’s because for the first time since I stepped into that room at the Louisiana chapter, I get a glimpse of the person underneath the situation.

Whatever it is, it’s a problem.

I keep my eyes on the road and say the first thing that comes to mind that isn’t wildly inappropriate. “Looks better.”

Smooth. Real smooth.

Beside me, she stills for half a beat, then lets out the smallest breath that might be a laugh if it had more air in it. “That’s a polite way to say the wig was awful.”

“It was real bad.”

This time she actually laughs, quiet and tired and surprised into it.

The sound hits me square in the chest. I grip the wheel a little tighter.

“Thank you,” she says after a second, still touching the ends of her hair like she can’t quite believe it’s free again. “I hated that thing.”

“I could tell.”

I chance a quick glance at her.

She’s looking down at the wig in her lap with open disgust, dark hair spilling over my sweatshirt and catching the faint dashboard light in blue-black streaks. Even exhausted and wrung out and hiding from God knows what, she is stunning enough to make a man stupid if he isn’t careful.

I have no intention of being stupid. That doesn’t mean I’m safe from it. “You don’t strike me as a blonde,” I say.

Her brows lift. “No?”

“No.”

“What do I strike you as?”

The question lands heavier than she probably means it to. Not flirtation exactly. More reflexive curiosity. But I still take a second too long to answer because anything honest is a bad idea.

Trouble, maybe.

Midnight.

A woman who probably used to walk into rooms like she owned them before some bastard taught her to make herself smaller. A lot of things.

Instead I say, “Somebody who shouldn’t have to hide.”

That one comes out before I can stop it. Silence settles between us again. Not awkward. Not exactly. Just full.

I can feel her looking at me, and I don’t turn my head because I’m not real interested in what my face might be giving away right now.

After a second she says quietly, “No. I probably shouldn’t.”

There’s enough in those four words to fill a room.

I let them sit.

A green sign flashes by overhead. A mile marker I clock automatically, filing our progress without thinking about it. I change lanes when the road opens, then settle back into the right with the mirrors giving me nothing I don’t want to see. Still clear. Still dark. Still ours for now.

Raven folds the wig carefully, more out of habit than affection, then stuffs it into the small tote at her feet. Whenshe straightens again, she leaves the cap off too. Good. The difference it makes is almost offensive.