Page 114 of Joker

“Coffee,” I repeat. “Seems useful.”

And just like that, I watch her entire expression shift from panic to confusion. Which is honestly an improvement.

She stares at me for a second, then says, “Yes?”

I nod once. “Thought so.”

She watches me pull on a shirt and reach for my cut, still looking a little dazed by how aggressively normal I’m being about this.

Good. Because the truth is, I don’t know how else to be.

Last night mattered. That doesn’t mean I’m going to start acting like she’s fragile in the morning.

I pause at the door and glance back at her.

She’s still sitting on the edge of the bed with the sheet pooled in her lap and that same vulnerable, uncertain look trying to creep back in around the edges.

So I give her the one thing I know she needs most.

Something steady. Something practical. Something normal.

“Get dressed, angel,” I say. “I’ll check on Lexi.”

Her whole body stills. Just for a second. Her eyes lift to mine. There it is. The first hit of it.

Angel.

Not babe. Not baby. Not some lazy, interchangeable shit I could hand to anybody.

Angel.

And judging by the way her throat moves when she swallows, she feels the difference.

Good. Because I mean it.

I don’t wait for her to answer.

If I stay in this room another minute, I’m dragging her right back into bed and to hell with breakfast.

So I step into the hall and shut the door behind me.

The downstairs hallway is quiet this early. A couple brothers are already outside near the bikes, low voices drifting in through the cracked back door, but most of the clubhouse is still waking up slow.

I pass the open door of the room Amy and Casey commandeered for their “sleepover,” which apparently involved every blanket in a five-mile radius.

I stop in the doorway and take in the scene.

Lexi is out cold in the middle of a blanket nest, Bunny tucked under her chin, one arm thrown over Amy’s leg like she passed out mid-conversation. Casey is upside down at the other end of the bed like a tiny feral possum. Gio is on the floor with one pillow over his face, probably because the girls talked too much and he’d rather die than admit it bothered him.

Jason’s curled up in the small kid cot someone dragged in, still asleep hard enough that he probably wouldn’t wake up if the room caught fire.

It’s ridiculous. And weirdly fucking adorable.

Amy cracks one eye open when she notices me in the doorway.

“You’re loud,” she whispers.

I raise a brow. “I’m standing still.”