Page 83 of Joker

I feel it. Every inch. The heat of him. The steady presence. The way my body reacts before my brain can catch up.

It’s becoming impossible to ignore.

“You watch everything,” he says suddenly.

I blink. “What?”

“Doors,” he says. “Windows. Who’s coming and going. Where the exits are.”

My pulse stutters. I didn’t realize he noticed that. “Habit,” I say carefully.

“Not just habit.”

The way he says it makes my chest tighten. He’s not guessing. He knows. Too much.

“It’s…hard to unlearn,” I admit.

His gaze softens just enough to make it worse. “You don’t have to do it here,” he says.

That does something to me. Something sharp. Something dangerously close to breaking. Because he’s not telling me I’m overreacting. He’s not telling me to relax. He’s not telling me I’m safe in that careless, dismissive way people do when they don’t understand what safety actually costs.

He’s telling me I can keep the parts of myself that survived. That I don’t have to let them go to deserve being here.

I look away first. Because I can’t hold his gaze through that. Not when it feels like he just reached into something I’ve been holding tight and named it without asking.

“That’s…not something most people say,” I manage.

“I’m not most people.”

No.

He isn’t. That’s the problem. The realization settles heavy and undeniable in my chest. Because this, whatever this is between us, is no longer subtle. It’s not something I can brush off or pretend is just proximity or circumstance.

It’s real.

And it’s building. And I don’t have the space in my life for something like this.

Not now. Maybe not ever.

The door behind us opens again. The moment breaks. Voices spill out onto the porch, laughter and movement and the return of the world we just stepped outside of.

Joker steps back. Not far. Just enough. But the shift is immediate.

Not gone.

Just…contained again.

A woman I vaguely recognize from earlier, one of the club girls, moves past me like I’m not there and goes straight to him.

Too close. Too familiar.

Her hand slides up his arm, fingernails dragging lightly over the leather of his cut like she’s done it a hundred times before.

“Where you been hiding?” she asks, voice low, suggestive.

My stomach turns. I don’t know why. I shouldn’t care. I shouldn’t feel anything at all.

Joker doesn’t react much. Doesn’t lean into it. Doesn’t push her away either. Just stands there, eyes flicking to me for half a second before settling back on her.