like girls and boys, but everyone. They hugged me and said they didn’t care. For the first time in my life, I started thinking maybe I’d finally found a home and people who loved me.” He felt Gio’s hand in his hair, and Joker closed his eyes. “When I turned sixteen, I discovered I’d been right the first time.”
“What happened?” Gio’s voice was hushed and shaky, as if he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
“When I was sixteen, Magnolia climbed into bed with me one night and tried to have sex with me while Thatcher masturbated. I managed to shove her off the bed, grab my backpack, and run the hell out of there. It wasn’t until I got to Jack’s house that I realized I wasn’t wearing any shoes.”
The room filled with silence, and Joker opened his eyes. He turned his head, staring at Gio, who was deadly still. He opened his mouth to say something when Gio shot up out of bed. Joker bolted upright.
“Gio?”
“Where are they now? I will fucking murder them!”
“As sweet as your offer to commit homicide on my behalf is, they got what they deserved. Someone hacked into a storage facility where they happened to have a unit. It was shortly broken into, and that very night the cops got an anonymous tip about the child porn Magnolia and Thatcher were hiding.”
Gio turned, his fists balled at his sides and his eyes narrowed. “I have connections, you know. Accidents happen.”
“All right there, Punisher.” Joker patted the mattress. “Get back here.”
With a grumble, Gio climbed back under the covers. He was practically thrumming with unsettled energy. Considering how calm and collected Gio always was, Joker was pretty positive that if he asked Gio to rain down retribution on his behalf, Gio wouldn’t so much as hesitate. He’d be on his fancy phone, calling in all kinds of favors like he was some kind of mafia don. Who knew Gio had a dark side to him? Wanting to ease Gio’s anger, Joker tugged him close, smiling when Gio shifted and moved down so he could lay his head on Joker’s shoulder.
“Before they went to prison, I spent every minute I could with Jack. His mother got suspicious and even dropped by the house on the pretense of meeting the foster parents of her son’s best friend. I could tell she was confused, but my guess is some kind of real motherly instinct kicked in, and when she got back, she told me I could stay over whenever I wanted. I moved in with them after that.”
“What did those monsters say?”
“They couldn’t say a word, and they knew it. I just wanted to be as far away from them as possible. When the Army recruiters came to our school, I talked at length with them. I thought real hard about it. Jack had the chance to do something great with his life, but what the hell was I going to do? My grades weren’t good enough for any kind of scholarship. I had no support system other than Jack and his family, and there was only so much they could do when they weren’t my legal guardians. I wanted to do something with my life, get away from all the shit I’d grown up around. So I talked about it with Jack and told him I was going to join the Army. I never expected him to join up with me. His family wasn’t happy, but they accepted his decision.”
The room went silent again, but this time it was a comfortable silence. Joker rubbed his cheek against Gio’s hair, wondering how the hell he’d ended up here. When had this happened? When had he gone from disliking the guy purely on principle to lying in bed with him smelling his shampoo while Chip snored at their feet?
“I just want you to know that I’m in awe of you.”
“Of me?” Joker frowned. “What for?”
“You’ve been through so much hardship in your life, and you could have given up, but you didn’t. You kept going; you found yourself a new family, one worthy of you. You pushed yourself and became a Green Beret, risked your life for others, for your country, and even after everything you lost, you came home and built an amazing career for yourself. You’re an inspiration, Sacha Wilder.”
Joker didn’t know what to say. No one had ever said anything like that to him. Yeah, life had dealt him a shit hand, but he’d done what