Page 23 of Joker

I twist in the passenger seat and look back at her.

She’s already half-curled against the seat, little sneakers kicked forward, bunny tucked tight beneath one arm like she thinks somebody might steal it if she loosens her grip. The overhead glow from the dash and the passing wash of distant streetlights catch on her face in flashes, enough to show me the smudged exhaustion under her eyes and the way she’s fighting it because she doesn’t want to miss anything.

My heart squeezes. “Yeah, baby?”

Her fingers stroke one of Bunny’s floppy ears. “Can I go sleep?”

I smile before I can stop myself, the expression small but real. “You can sleep whenever you want.”

She nods solemnly like I’ve given her formal permission for something very serious, then looks toward the front of the truck instead of settling down right away.

At first, I think she’s just checking to make sure we’re still moving.

Then she says, “What’s your name?”

For half a second, I don’t realize she’s talking to him.

Then Joker glances into the rearview mirror, and his eyes meet Lexi’s there.

Something about that image catches me unexpectedly. Him up front, all rough edges and heavy shoulders and rings wrapped around the steering wheel. Lexi in the back, small and watchful and wrapped around Bunny like she’s made of nerves and stubbornness. The two of them look so completely mismatched that the scene almost doesn’t make sense.

Still, he answers her. “Joker.”

Lexi blinks once. Then she says, with all the solemn curiosity in the world, “Does that mean you’re funny?”

For the first time since I’ve met him, he looks completely dumbfounded. Not thrown in a dangerous way. Not irritated. Just…caught off guard.

I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling, because I’m not sure whether laughing would make things worse or better.

Joker glances at me for a second, then back to the road. “That depends.”

“On what?” Lexi asks.

“On whether or not you’re hard to impress.”

She thinks about that for a beat. “Can you tell me a joke?”

That one almost does me in. Because of all the possible directions this interaction could’ve gone in, Lexi immediately deciding his road name means he owes her entertainment was not on my list.

I shift in the seat and risk a look at him.

His hands stay steady on the wheel, but there’s a split second where I can practically see him trying to process how exactly he ended up in a truck in the middle of the night being asked for child-appropriate stand-up material by a three-year-old with a death grip on a stuffed rabbit.

Then, to my absolute shock, he says, “Alright.”

Lexi perks up in the backseat.

Joker clears his throat like he’s about to address a room full of shareholders instead of a toddler. “What kind of bear has no teeth?”

There’s a pause.

Lexi’s brow furrows so hard it nearly disappears beneath her bangs. She looks at me like maybe I know the answer, then back at him. “What?”

“A gummy bear.”

There’s one long second of silence.

Then Lexi giggles. The sound is bright and sleepy and so achingly normal that it catches somewhere low in my chest and twists.