Page 78 of Joker

I’d forgotten that until now. Or maybe I never forgot. Maybe I just shoved it somewhere deep enough that it stopped being useful to think about.

I carry Lexi down the hall while Raven walks beside me, quiet enough that I can feel her thinking but not saying any of it. At her room, she opens the door softly and pulls back the blanket. I lower the kid onto the bed carefully, easing Bunny back into her arms before I straighten.

Lexi doesn’t wake. Just sighs once and curls tighter around the stuffed rabbit.

I step back.

Raven tucks the blanket around her and turns toward me with that look again. The one like she doesn’t know what to do with me being useful in all the right places.

“This is becoming a habit,” she says softly.

I glance at the bed. “She’s small. No big deal.”

That gets me a quiet smile I absolutely did not earn.

Then Raven’s expression shifts, something more serious sliding into place beneath the tired softness. “She likes you.”

The words land in the room and stay there.

I don’t answer right away. Because yes, obviously. And because I know exactly why that’s dangerous.

“She’s a kid,” I say finally. “They pick people.”

Raven studies my face for a second too long. “You say that like it doesn’t mean anything.”

I lean one shoulder against the wall just inside the room, arms crossing without much thought. “Means she’s comfortable.”

“She’s not comfortable with everyone.”

That one gets through. Because I know she’s right.

I’ve seen it. The difference between Lexi being polite and Lexi settling. The difference between her taking direction fromone of the women and instinctively reaching toward me when she’s tired or uncertain or carrying a toy she wants fixed.

Raven glances at Lexi, then back at me. “I don’t think she’s been this…easy with anybody new in a long time.”

There’s too much trust in that sentence. Too much weight.

I should probably hand it back. Tell her not to read into it. Tell her kids are weird. Tell her it doesn’t mean anything beyond proximity and timing.

Instead I hear myself say, “She’s easy to like.”

Raven goes still.

Not because I’ve said anything outrageous. Because I’ve said something honest. And honesty has gotten harder to avoid around her.

Her gaze drops for half a second, and when it comes back up, there’s something new in it.

Warmth. Worry. Maybe both.

“Yeah,” she says quietly. “She is.”

I leave after that because staying would mean standing in a room too small for the amount of feeling suddenly crowding it.

I head outside, cutting around the far side of the clubhouse where the light from the porch doesn’t quite reach. The air is cooler now, night settled in fully, tree line dark and still around the property. Somewhere out front, voices carry from the main group of brothers drinking and talking shit near the bikes, but back here it’s quiet enough to hear my own breathing.

I lean against the wall and drag a hand over my face. The night smells like cut grass, smoke, gasoline, and summer humidity.

For a minute, I just stand there.