Scans the room. And says, “Where Joker?”
It starts small enough that I almost miss it.
Not because I’m not paying attention.
I’m always paying attention.
But because Lexi’s attachment to things has always come in clear, obvious forms. Bunny. A specific cup. A blanket she refused to sleep without for three months before abruptly deciding it offended her personally. Her preferences are usually loud and immediate and impossible to mistake.
This one sneaks up on me.
At first, it’s just little things. Small enough that I could probably explain them away if I wanted to. Which I do.
Desperately.
We’re in the common room midmorning, and Lexi is sitting on the floor with a handful of crayons and a coloring book someone found for her in one of the toy bins.
Jason is nearby with blocks, periodically wandering over to investigate her colors like he’s conducting some kind of deeply serious quality control check.
Emma is at the table helping Amy and Casey with something that looks suspiciously like homework despite the fact that neither of them seem remotely interested in it.
Mac is in and out of the kitchen, and the whole clubhouse is moving in that low, lived-in rhythm I’m still trying to get used to.
Lexi is humming to herself under her breath while she colors something purple that should not, under any known law of nature, be purple.
Then she looks up.
Scans the room.
And says, “Where Joker?”
I glance over automatically, like maybe he materialized somewhere without me noticing.
He didn’t.
“I don’t know, baby,” I say, adjusting where I’m sitting on the couch. “Probably busy.”
Lexi looks mildly offended by this answer. “Why?”
I blink. “Why is he busy?”
She nods.
“Because grown-ups do things during the day.”
That answer does not seem to satisfy her at all.
She goes back to coloring with the expression of a tiny person deeply disappointed in the poor scheduling decisions of adults everywhere.
I tell myself it means nothing.
He’s been around. He helped her with breakfast. He carried her inside that first night. Kids notice people who show up consistently.
That’s all this is.
Then, twenty minutes later, Joker walks through the room on his way to the kitchen and Lexi lights up like somebody switched on a lamp inside her.
Not dramatically.
She doesn’t jump up or squeal or do anything over-the-top. She just brightens.
Her whole little face changes in that quick, open way kids have before the world teaches them to hide too much. “Joker!”
He stops mid-stride and looks down at her from where she’s sprawled on the floor with crayons in one hand and Bunny trapped under her leg. “Yeah, kid?”
She immediately holds up the coloring book to show him a page that looks like a dinosaur lost a fight with a glitter factory.
He steps closer without hesitation, crouches down like it’s the most natural thing in the world, and studies the page with complete seriousness. “That’s a strong use of purple.”
Lexi nods solemnly. “He scary.”
Joker glances at me briefly, then back to her. “Purple helps.”
“That’s what I said,” she replies, like they’re both suffering under the burden of being the only logical people in the room.
I choke on a laugh.
Emma doesn’t even bother hiding hers.
Joker, to his credit, just nods once like this is all extremely valid. “Makes sense.” And then, because apparently we’ve all collectively agreed this man should be allowed to keep surprising me, he taps the page lightly and says, “Needs more teeth though.”
Lexi gasps. Like he just delivered life-changing artistic feedback.
She scrambles for the black crayon so fast she nearly knocks Bunny off her lap, and Joker catches the stuffed rabbit before it hits the floor without even looking like he meant to.
He hands it back to her automatically.
No big deal. No performance. Just…instinct. Something in my chest goes strangely tight.
Again.
He straightens, mutters something about coffee, and keeps moving toward the kitchen like he didn’t just casually alter the trajectory of my daughter’s dinosaur art forever.
Lexi watches him go. Then looks at me and says, “He funny.”
I don’t know what to do with the fact that I agree. So I say, “A little.”
She squints at me like I’ve insulted her judgment. Then she goes back to adding what appear to be combat-level fangs to her dinosaur.
It keeps happening after that.
In pieces. Moments. Tiny, impossible-to-ignore shifts that start stacking on top of each other until I can’t pretend they’re isolated anymore.
At lunch, she asks if Joker likes grilled cheese.
Later, while Emma is helping Amy and Casey settle some argument about markers and a notebook, Lexi walks up to me with Bunny tucked under one arm and a toy truck in her other hand and asks, “Can Joker fix this?”
I take the truck and turn it over. One wheel is crooked.
“Maybe,” I say.
“Can you ask him?”
I stare at her for a second too long. “Why me?”
She shrugs like that should be obvious. “Because.”
Excellent. Very useful.
That afternoon, when Joker comes in through the side door smelling like sunshine and motor oil and whatever outside work he’s been doing with the others, Lexi spots him from halfway across the room and trots straight over with the truck clutched in both hands.
No hesitation. No nerves. No fear. Just tiny determined steps and complete confidence.
“Joker,” she says, holding up the truck. “It’s broken.”
He stops and looks down at the toy like she just informed him of a national emergency. “That’s serious.”
“It won’t roll.”
He crouches immediately and takes the truck from her hands. “Let’s see.”
I’m standing near the kitchen doorway watching all of this happen like I’m somehow not involved, which is ridiculous because I am very involved in the way my entire nervous system is currently trying to process the sight in front of me.
Because Joker should not look this natural kneeling on the floor in his cut, giant hands carefully turning over a tiny red toy truck while my daughter watches him like he personally hangs the moon. And yet.
Here we are.
He pops the wheel back into place in less than thirty seconds, tests it once across the floor, then hands it back to her.
Lexi’s face transforms like he just rebuilt the thing from spare parts and prayer. “You fixed it!”
“I’m talented.”
She nods like this is a deeply established fact. “Thank you.”
“Anytime.”
Then, because apparently the universe enjoys testing me, she says, “Can you do my zipper too?”
I blink.
Joker blinks too, though only once.
Lexi has somehow managed to half-zip her hoodie wrong and trapped the fabric in itself. She turns around without waiting for an answer and lifts her arms slightly like this is now his problem.
And Joker just handles it.
No awkwardness. No fumbling. No hesitation.
He crouches again, carefully works the zipper free without yanking her around, and zips it up smooth. “There,” he says.
Lexi twists to look at the zipper, nods approvingly, then pats his shoulder like she’s rewarding a competent employee. “Good job.”
I laugh before I can stop myself. Full, startled, completely unplanned laughter that slips out and catches me off guard almost as much as it catches him.
Joker looks up at me from where he’s still crouched in front of her, one dark brow lifting slightly. And there it is again.
That dangerous, ridiculous thing that keeps happening between us when I least expect it.
That tiny, electric pause. That awareness.
That impossible sense that somehow, in the middle of this loud, chaotic clubhouse full of people, he and I keep finding these small suspended moments where the rest of the world blurs around the edges.
It only lasts a second.
Then Lexi says, “I’m tired.”
Joker deadpans, “What have you done today?”
Lexi plants both hands on her hips. “I colored.”
“Hell of a day.”
“I need carry.”
I open my mouth to tell her she can absolutely walk on her own two perfectly functioning legs.
Joker beats me to it. He stands in one smooth movement, hooks a hand under her arm, and lifts her onto his hip like he’s done it a thousand times instead of, as far as I know, never.
Lexi immediately settles in like she belongs there.
Just…melts.
One arm around his shoulder. Bunny dangling from one hand. Truck still clutched in the other.
No uncertainty. No tension. No little-body stiffness that would tell me she’s not fully comfortable.
Nothing.
She just settles. And my breath catches so hard I have to look away for a second.
Because that does something to me I absolutely do not have time for. Not even a little.
I tell myself it’s because I’m relieved.
Because my daughter feels safe. Because after everything she’s been through, after all the fear and confusion and change, seeing her trust someone this easily should be emotional.
And it is.
It absolutely is. But it’s not just that.
That would be easier.
No, there’s something else moving under it now. Something quieter. More dangerous.
I see it most clearly later that afternoon.
Lexi has roped Joker into sitting at one of the tables with a sticker book she found in the toy pile.
I don’t know how it happened exactly. One minute he was walking through the room on his way to somewhere else, and the next he’s seated in a chair far too small for the amount of man in it, while Lexi stands beside him issuing highly specific sticker-placement instructions like she’s directing a military operation.
“No, not there,” she says, leaning across the table. “There.”
Joker stares at the page. “That’s almost the same spot.”
“No, it’s not.”
He glances up at me across the room like he’s asking if this is real.
I am absolutely no help because I’m too busy trying not to smile. “She’s the boss,” I say.
He mutters something under his breath that I’m pretty sure is clearly, then moves the sticker exactly where she wants it.
Lexi beams.
And then, because the universe has apparently decided I need to suffer, she climbs into the chair beside him and leans against his arm while she flips to the next page.
Like it’s natural. Like it’s easy. Like she has already, somehow, started filing him into the category of people she trusts.
I stand in the doorway pretending I’m only there to refill my coffee.
I’m not.
I’m there because I can’t seem to make myself walk away from the sight.
Because something inside me is shifting and I don’t know how to stop it.
Because the man who looks like he should terrify small children is sitting at a clubhouse table patiently helping my daughter put glitter stickers on cartoon animals while she leans against him like he’s safe.
And worse than that?
He is.
That’s the part that undoes me. Not the visual. Not the sweetness of it. Not even the fact that he’s unexpectedly good at this.
It’s the fact that there is nothing performative in him.
No forced gentleness. No exaggerated softness because he knows I’m watching. No awkward self-consciousness.
He’s just…with her.
Present. Steady. Competent in all the tiny ways that matter. And because he isn’t making it a thing, it becomes one anyway.
I stay in the doorway too long.
Long enough that Joker glances up again and catches me staring.
Our eyes meet across the room.
He doesn’t smile. Doesn’t call attention to it. Doesn’t make it weird.
He just holds my gaze for one quiet second while Lexi babbles beside him about sticker priorities and bunny ears and whether trucks can have birthdays.
And something inside me shifts harder. Deeper. Enough that it almost scares me. Because I know exactly what this is starting to become.
Not love. Not anything that dramatic. Not yet.
But possibility.
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.
And somehow he sees none of that as difficult.
Just…her.
Something in my chest tightens painfully.
He shifts his weight, glances toward the hall like he’s already halfway back to whatever part of the night belongs to him, then says, “Get some sleep, Raven.”
Simple. Grounding. Like always.
I nod. “Night, Joker.”
“Night.” He leaves.
The door shuts softly behind him.
And I stand there for a long moment staring at it while my daughter sleeps in the bed and my pulse refuses to behave like I’m a grown woman with survival instincts and common sense.
Because for the first time since we got here, one thought settles in clean and undeniable.
He would be dangerous to want.