softly in front of me before I reached for my son in Aaron’s arms and said, “Hey there, Googly-Foogly.”
Travis twisted toward me, arms out, and I caught him, pulling him close, breathing in his scent, kissing the top of his head.
“Carissa, can we talk?” Aaron asked, and I looked up at him.
“Well—”
His eyes went beyond me. “Alone.”
I really wished he’d stop this.
I drew in breath and said, “Aaron, I don’t—”
“No,” Joker answered for me.
Aaron looked back at me. “Riss, I’m asking for ten minutes alone.”
“There’s really nothing you can say that Joker can’t hear,” I replied.
“As a courtesy,” he bit out. “Just ten minutes. You can’t give that to the father of your son?”
I studied him.
Someone was losing patience.
Darn.
I wasn’t feeling in a courteous mood. I had my son back. I had a biker who loved me. There was bonding to be done, TV to watch, and normal, easy, family stuff to be had.
Before I could get into it with Aaron, I felt Joker close.
I turned to him, and he had hands on Travis.
I looked into his eyes as he pulled my boy from my arms.
“Ten minutes, Carrie,” he muttered.
Then he turned to Aaron and lifted a hand.
Aaron glared at him as he shrugged Travis’s diaper bag off his shoulder before latching it onto Joker’s hand.
Joker took it, hooked it on his shoulder, and walked away, muttering to Travis, “Right, you got ten minutes to tell me all about your trip to your dad’s.”
“Jew jah kah.”
I blinked because that sounded kind of somewhat like Joker.
“Carissa,” Aaron called, and I started before I looked to him to see he was inside, the door closed behind him.
I sighed.
“What would you like to talk about?” I asked.
His eyes went to the hall, and his voice was quiet when he stated, “There’s another five hundred dollars in Travis’s bag.”
I tried to force gratitude into my “Thank you.”
“I’m assuming,” he continued, “since Steele’s still here that you haven’t thought on things.”
I really needed to get this through to him.
So I clasped my hands in front of me in a physical effort to demonstrate my sincerity and held his eyes. “I’m sorry. I really am. But, Aaron, please believe me when I tell you there was nothing to think about.”
His mouth got tight.
I took a small step toward him, wanting him to believe I was being genuine (because I was) but not wanting to get too close.
“This is…it’s…” I struggled to find words before I found them. “It’s very nice. It means a lot that you’re thinking of Travis and want to give him a family. But families come in a lot of different ways, and now he’s got a big one. You and your parents. Me and Joker and our friends.”
“Yes, I want to give our son his family, but you’re missing the fact that I also want my wife back,” he returned.
“I think I’ve responded to that, Aaron,” I told him.
“I got rid of Tory for you,” he snapped.
Got rid of?
I pressed my lips together, chanting in my head, do not get mad, do not get mad, do not get mad.
I got a hold on it and said carefully, “I’m sorry you’ve broken up. That must be hard.”
He threw up his hands and hissed, “What do you want? She’s gone. She was a mistake. I don’t even know what I was thinking. But it’s done. I’m giving you money. I’m being cool about that fucking guy. Do you want me on my knees? Do you want me to beg? Do you want an apology in skywriting? What the fuck do you want?”
“I told you what I want, Aaron,” I reminded him, trying to do it calmly.
He leaned toward me. “This is the best thing for our son. For us. For you.”
I held my ground and his gaze when I replied, “I think I know better what’s best for me.”
“Yes?” He leaned back, throwing a hand toward the hall. “And he’s it? Carson fucking Steele. High school loner. High school loser. Biker gang member. What kind of life is he going to give you, Carissa?”
He was going too far, saying those things about Joker.
I knew I shouldn’t engage. I knew it.
But I did anyway.
“He won’t cheat on me, for one,” I replied, and Aaron’s eyes narrowed. “He loves me, for another, really, truly, in the sense that it’s genuine. In the sense that I believe in it…totally. In the sense that I believe in it in a way I know in my heart of hearts