Page 92 of Joker

“One drink?” Mac repeats, offended. “That’s not how any of this works.”

“It is if we want her to actually come.”

Mac considers that, then sighs dramatically. “Fine. One drink to start.”

Lexi is still looking at me.

Amy and Casey are waiting.

Emma looks completely certain I’m going to cave.

And maybe I’m more tired than I realize, because instead of saying no again, I hear myself say, “One drink.”

The women light up like they just won something. Which, apparently, they did.

Lexi cheers softly, then throws both arms around my neck. “You can have fun,” she whispers, like she’s granting permission.

I laugh before I can stop it and hug her back tightly enough to make my chest ache. “Thank you, baby.”

She wriggles free and holds Bunny up to me. “He says have fun too.”

“Very generous of him.”

Amy takes Lexi’s hand. Casey appears at her shoulder a second later carrying a stack of pillows like she’s planning for a natural disaster instead of a movie night. Gio trails behind them already looking resigned. Jason remains asleep on Kya’s shoulder, entirely unbothered by any of it.

The girls disappear down the hall with Lexi in tow, Bunny bouncing against her side, and for one brief, painful moment I just stand there listening to the little echo of her laughter as it fades.

Then the room goes quiet around me. Too quiet.

Emma notices immediately. “You can still change your mind,” she says.

I look toward the hallway where Lexi vanished. “No.”

“Good.”

Mac claps her hands once. “Then let’s make you look less like you’re attending your own arraignment.”

I would protest, but I’m outnumbered and, more dangerously, a small part of me is curious what slightly normal might feel like after everything else.

That’s how I end up half an hour later in a pair of jeans that fit better than the ones I traveled in, a soft black top Emma pressed into my hands after declaring my current shirt “criminally depressing,” and a little more mascara than I would’ve chosen on my own because Mac refused to let me leave the room without it.

Not a lot. Just enough to make me look like I slept more than I did.

My hair is down. Long, dark, impossible to ignore. For one strange second, standing in front of the small mirror before we head downstairs, I almost don’t recognize the woman looking back. Not because she looks dramatically different. Because she looks like someone who might still belong to herself.

That thought sits in my chest as I walk toward the main room.

The clubhouse tonight is loud in the best possible way.

Music rolls through the common room, bass low and steady under the scrape of boots and the clink of bottles. Someone’s dragged a couple tables back to make more space, which means there’s dancing near the center of the room, though dancing might be generous for what at least two of the brothers are doing. Laughter rises and falls in waves. The bar is busy. The couches are full. Men in cuts and women in property jackets or jeans and fitted tops move through the room like they’ve been doing this together forever.

It should feel overwhelming. Instead, it feels…normal. Not my normal. Not anything I would’ve called normal a year ago. But a version of it I can understand.

A living room, just louder. A family gathering, just rougher around the edges. The women fold me into it without ceremony.

I barely make it fully into the common room before another woman steps in from the hallway and changes the energy around the group.

She’s beautiful in a sharp, dangerous kind of way, all dark eyes, confidence, and attitude that feels less effortless than hard-earned. She’s wearing fitted jeans, boots, and a black tank that shows off ink and muscle in equal measure, and the way she carries herself reminds me immediately of the men here.