It’s warm. Clean. Safe. There’s #2
Because this is stupid. Because I could leave it on the handle. Because I could knock. Because I could wait until later and hand it to him in passing where it would feel less…deliberate.
But I’m already here.
Already holding it. Already aware of how ridiculous it would be to turn around now.
So I lift my hand to knock. And his door opens.
I freeze.
Joker steps into the hallway like he wasn’t expecting anyone to be there, and for one second, neither of us moves.
He’s fresh from the shower.
I know that immediately.
His hair is still damp, darker than it looked in the truck, pushed back just enough to show the sharp lines of his face.
A black T-shirt stretches across his shoulders, slightly clinging in places where the fabric hasn’t fully dried yet.
His jeans sit low on his hips like he pulled them on without thinking too much about it, and his cut is nowhere in sight yet, which means I caught him in that narrow window between shower and fully put together.
It’s…unfair.
There is no other word for it. Because the man already looks like trouble fully dressed and armed with attitude.
This version?
Rough. Unpolished. Quiet in a way that feels more dangerous than loud ever could.
And entirely too much for me to be standing here half-awake, barefoot, holding his sweatshirt like an offering I don’t understand.
His eyes drop to my hands. Take in the folded fabric. Then lift back to my face.
Understanding settles there immediately. Of course it does. He notices everything.
“I was going to give this back,” I say, because silence is worse and because I need to explain why I’m standing in his hallway like I don’t know what I’m doing. My voice sounds quieter than I expect. More uncertain.
I hate that.
Joker leans one shoulder against the doorframe, like he’s not in any hurry to take it. “You didn’t have to rush it.”
I blink. “I wasn’t—”
He lifts one brow slightly.
I stop.
Because I was.
Trying not to keep it. Trying not to let it become something it shouldn’t. Trying not to notice how much I didn’t want to hand it back.
My fingers tighten just slightly around the fabric before I extend it toward him anyway.
He looks at it. Doesn’t take it right away. “Keep it,” he says.
The words land softly. Too softly.
“That’s okay,” I say quickly. “I don’t need it now.”
“That wasn’t what I said.”
I look up at him.
His expression hasn’t changed much, but there’s something in his tone that makes it clear this isn’t a casual throwaway comment.
“I’m not going to freeze,” I tell him, trying to keep it light. “I have my own clothes.”
“Yeah,” he says. “And you had your own clothes earlier too.”
That stops me.
Because he’s not wrong. Because I didn’t take it because I needed it.
I took it because—
Because it made the drive easier. Because it felt steady. Because it smelled like something solid in a night where nothing else was.
I don’t say any of that. I just stand there holding the sweatshirt between us like it suddenly weighs too much.
Joker exhales quietly through his nose, then reaches out and finally takes it from my hands.
The loss of it is immediate.
Subtle. But there. Like something small just shifted out of place.
“That said,” he adds, folding it once more in his hands without looking at it, “you can grab it again if you need it.”
I don’t know why that matters.
It does.
It matters more than it should.
I nod once. “Okay.”
For a second, neither of us moves. The hallway is too quiet. The air between us feels too aware.
He’s close enough that I can still smell the soap from his shower, still see the faint dampness at the edge of his hairline, still notice the way his shoulders fill the space without effort.
This is a mistake.
Not him. Not this moment exactly. Just…standing here.
Letting it stretch. Letting it become something it shouldn’t.
“You should get some sleep,” he says finally.
The words break the tension cleanly.
Not dismissive. Not cold. Just…grounding.
I latch onto that immediately. “Yeah,” I say. “I will.”
I step back.
He straightens slightly from the doorframe.
I turn toward my room. And for one second, I almost reach for the sweatshirt again.
The instinct is so quick it barely registers. But it’s there. I ignore it.
I push my door open, step inside, and close it softly behind me before I can do something stupid like look back.
Once I’m alone again, the room feels just slightly different.
Still safe. Still quiet. Still warm. But missing something I have absolutely no business noticing.
I press my hand flat against the door for a second, grounding myself.
Then I push away from it and go back to the bed where Lexi is still asleep, Bunny tucked tight against her chest like nothing in the world has changed.
The folded blanket has slid halfway down her legs, and I move automatically to pull it back up, tucking it around her small body until she sighs and settles deeper into the mattress. Then I crawl into bed beside her.
The sheets are clean. The pillow smells like detergent instead of a man I’m trying not to think about.
The room is warm enough that I don’t need the extra blanket.
And for the first time in so long I don’t even know how to count it, I realize something that nearly cracks me open from the inside out.
I am not waiting for Cal’s key in the lock tonight. The thought hits me so hard I have to turn my face into the pillow to keep the sound that rises in my throat from waking Lexi. Because that has been the shape of my nights for so long.
Waiting. Always waiting. For the sound of his truck. For the front door. For the key turning. For the shift in the air that meant he was home and I needed to figure out which version of him was walking through the door this time.
Angry. Tired. Quiet. Too affectionate in that way that never felt safe.
Every night was a countdown to impact. Every night was bracing.
And tonight…
Tonight there is no key in the lock. No truck in the driveway I have to listen for. No footsteps I need to interpret before I decide how quickly to stand up or what expression to put on my face.
There is just the soft hum of the clubhouse around me, the distant thread of laughter still drifting somewhere through the walls, the occasional low rumble of a bike outside, and my daughter asleep beside me with her bunny clutched in her arms.
And maybe, if I let myself think about it, the faintest awareness of a man in the room next door who somehow feels less like a threat than the silence ever did in my own home.
That realization is too much.
My eyes burn instantly. I blink hard against it, pressing my face deeper into the pillow because if I start crying now, I’m not sure I’ll stop cleanly. But the tears never fully come.
Not because they aren’t there. Because something else gets there first. Exhaustion. Heavy and total and impossible to outrun any longer. It drags at me all at once, like my body finally believes it can let go just enough to collapse.
I curl one arm around Lexi’s warm little body and let my hand rest lightly over her stomach, grounding myself in the steady rise and fall of her breathing. Then I close my eyes.
And for the first time in a very, very long time, I sleep.
Not lightly. Not in those fractured, miserable little bursts where every creak in the house jerks me back awake with my heart in my throat.
I sleep. Even without the sweatshirt. Which, somehow, makes the fact that I wanted to keep it feel even more dangerous.
I sleep deep enough that I lose whole stretches of time. Long enough that when I finally wake again, it’s not because I’m panicking.
It’s because pale morning light is slipping through the curtains and Lexi is curled closer against me with Bunny smashed between us. I blink up at the ceiling, disoriented for one long second.
Then it hits me.
I slept for more than an hour at a time. And somehow, in this strange room inside a loud clubhouse full of dangerous men and women I barely know, that feels like the first real breath I’ve taken in months.