Page 72 of Joker

Potential. The shape of something I should not be letting my mind even brush against.

And I know better than most what happens when you start building hope around a man.

So I look away first. I make myself move. I refill my coffee and focus on breathing and the scrape of mugs and the hum of the fridge and every practical thing I can anchor myself to while my chest does something traitorous and soft and deeply inconvenient.

By the time evening settles in, I’ve mostly gotten myself back under control.

Mostly.

Lexi is bathed, pajama’d, and beginning to wilt in that dramatic toddler way where she insists she’s not tired while actively falling over. Bunny is tucked under her arm, and I’m halfway down the hall toward our room when Joker steps out from the side entrance, cut still on, keys in one hand like he just came in from outside.

Lexi sees him immediately. “Joker!”

He looks up. “Hey, menace.”

“I’m sleepy.”

“That sounds like a you problem.”

She shakes her head, already reaching for him. “Carry me.”

I stop walking. Mostly because I’m too stunned to remember how.

Joker looks at her for one second, then at me. And there’s the tiniest flicker in his expression like he knows exactly how dangerous this is too.

Then he sighs dramatically and says, “You’re lucky I’m generous.” He takes her from me before I can argue, settling her against his shoulder with practiced ease that absolutely should not feel as natural as it does.

Lexi curls into him immediately, Bunny smashed between them, one tiny hand fisting in the leather at the shoulder of his cut.

And just like that, she’s done.

Safe. Settled. Home in a way that catches me completely off guard.

We walk the rest of the hall in silence.

Joker carrying my daughter.

Me beside him.

The whole thing so strangely domestic it almost feels unreal.

At my door, he pauses while I open it. Then he steps inside just far enough for me to pull back the blanket before lowering Lexi carefully onto the bed.

She barely stirs. Just sighs and rolls toward Bunny.

Joker steps back.

I turn toward him.

And for a second, neither of us says anything. There’s too much in the air. Too much awareness. Too much unsaid.

Then I hear myself ask, quieter than I intend, “How are you this good with her?”

His gaze stays on Lexi for a beat before it comes back to me. “She’s easy.”

The answer lands harder than it should.

Because Lexi is not easy. She’s wonderful. Funny. smart. sweet. But she is also anxious and clingy and hyperaware and carrying more than a child her age should ever have to.