Joker shifted a little from foot to foot as I wrapped the tape around his thumb. His skin was soft in places where I touched him, his calluses rough in others. I patched him up slowly, carefully, feeling his pulse flutter under my thumb.
I glanced up and couldn’t bite back a slight smirk of my own. He’d been trying to get a rise out of me, and look how easy it was for me to turn that around and get a rise out of him. At my expression, Joker exhaled hard through his nose and his eyes flashed with anger.
Heat rushed through me despite myself—he was really sexy when he was riled up. All huffy and frustrated, a little fidgety. Couldn’t help but wonder if he was the same way in different circumstances. If I pushed him up against the bathroom counter, rubbed my hand over his cock through his jeans, would be react with the same twitchy, responsive irritation? Fuck—I shoved the thought from my mind. I seriously needed to get laid if that’s immediately where my mind went.
I finished wrapping his thumb. “Too tight?” I asked.
“Nah, it’s good,” Joker said, drawing his hand out of my grasp and examining the bandaging job. His expression softened slightly. “Thanks.”
He seemed genuine, which surprised me. I’d expected him to make some bullshit crack about my medical abilities, but he really sounded… grateful. It was a weird pivot from the snarky asshole I was used to dealing with. Hell, the snarky asshole he’d been just a minute ago.
“Sure,” I said. “It’s not a problem.”
Weirdly, I meant it.
Now would be the time for both of us to leave the bathroom and rejoin the party. But I wanted to poke more at this version of Joker—this slightly softer, more open version. Because who the fuck knew when I’d see him like this again? Likely never. With any luck, really, I wouldn’t be seeing much of him at all.
I nodded toward the hunk of wood balanced precariously on the edge of the sink. “This what you were working on when you sliced open your thumb?”
“Yeah, it’s nothing,” Joker muttered.
He went to grab it, but I was faster, snatching it off the sink. It was a carving. It clearly wasn’t finished, but the silhouette of a dog was visible. And it was detailed, too, with big ears, and long elegant legs that made the dog look like she was bounding forward. It looked a lot like Blade and Logan’s dog, Gretel.
“You carved this?”
“Yeah,” Joker said after a pause. “Just keeps my hands occupied.”
He frowned, like he was bracing himself. For what, I wasn’t sure. Did he think I was going to talk smack? That was his specialty, not mine.
“It’s great,” I said. “Really impressive. I’ve got a background in carpentry, but not woodworking. But I know it’s not easy.”
Joker still looked a little guarded, like he was waiting for some sort of qualification to the compliment.
“How’d you learn to do this?” I asked.
Joker shifted his weight again and allowed himself to look almost a little pleased. “It’s just a hobby. Started when I was a kid and just never quit, I guess.”
Jeez. If he was this good just from screwing around, he really had a talent. There weren’t a lot of good woodworkers out there anymore—he could make a killing as a wood turner, or a cabinet maker, with that level of natural skill.
“You ever think about taking a course or something?” I asked. “With a few certifications, you could really turn this into a moneymaker.”
It was like a switch flipped in Joker. He rolled his eyes, snorted, and snatched the carving out of my hand. “Not everything’s about money. And I don’t need no fuckin’ class.”
His frown deepened even as he cut his gaze away from mine.
I pushed down the little flare of heat that ran through me again. When he got all riled up like that, some of the control slipped out of his voice—it went a little deeper, a little rough around the edges, and I couldn’t deny the thrill it sent through me. But at the same time, I was frustrated. We’d been having a normal conversation, even getting to know each other a little—and then just like that his defenses had come slamming back up. What was his problem?
“That’s not what I meant,” I said, but the damage had been done.
Joker sucked his teeth then shouldered the bathroom door open and walked back out. And before I even thought about it, I was following him. There was no reason for me to follow—if he wanted to act like an asshole, the best thing I could do was ignore it. That’d proven to work. But I didn’t want him to think I was the one being an asshole, especially about something that was clearly important to him.
“Will you stop?” I asked as I followed him through the clubhouse. Joker stomped through the back door to the porch again, and nearly swung the door into my face.
Undeterred, I pushed back onto the porch.
“Why are you even here, anyway?” Joker snapped. “You’re not a club member. You’re just the guy who fixed the bakery.”
And you know what? Fuck that. I’d thought I’d seen something in Joker, however briefly. But as soon as I’d pressed some unknown button, he’d flipped and gone back to being an asshole. If Dawson were here, he’d be laughing his ass off at me. It always went like this. I was wasting my time trying to see if there was something beyond Joker’s cocky exterior. Dawson was always telling me: “When people show you who they are, trust them.” And yet I still couldn’t help but think there was something Joker wasn’t showing me.
But if I kept looking for something that wasn’t there, I was just going to end up hurt.
3
Joker
“You’re not a club member. You’re just the guy who fixed the bakery,” I snapped, and then cringed as I watched Brennan stop dead in the doorway to the back porch.
As usual, my anger had bypassed my brain-to-mouth filter. And to my shock, Brennan actually looked hurt. But… was I wrong? He wasn’t really a friend of the club—he’d just been hired to help out.
I didn’t mean to make him feel bad, though. I just didn’t want him to pry anymore into my life. There was no fuckin’ way I could pull off an actual woodworking class. That required all sorts of shit—math, for starters. And probably a textbook. How the fuck was I supposed to take a real class? Reading? Writing? Math? I couldn’t do any of that shit—I worked with my hands. And I intended to keep it that way. That was the other great thing about the club. I always had a place to live, and a way to make a decent living, be it in the bar or the garage. I knew how hard it’d be for someone with my brain and lack of education to get ahead in this world otherwise.
Brennan opened his mouth like he was about to respond, but before he could, Blade cut in. “He’s here because I invited him.”
Fuck. I pressed my lips together hard. I hadn’t intended for Blade to hear my little dig.
I respected Blade—liked him, too—but it wasn’t the same having him as president. I missed Ankh. Ankh was the father I’d always wished my own dad had been. He listened to me, really listened, and didn’t judge me. He made me feel accepted. Like I really belonged with the club. And it wasn’t that Blade didn’t accept me. He was a good president, and the club was doing well under his leadership, but it just… It wasn’t the same. I couldn’t open up to him as easily as I could Ankh.