He turned to me. “Don’t like a kick?”

“I do. I just…” I shrugged. “Actually, I just eat what I eat as long as it’s fast. I don’t spend time on it because I don’t have that time or the energy.”

There was that, of course, but also dried red pepper flakes cost money and were unnecessary, thus they were not in my cupboard.

His jaw flexed and he shut the door on the spices.

I concentrated on feeding Travis, who was banging his fists, one that had a set of humongous plastic keys in it, against the highchair tray.

But I did this talking.

Or, maybe, semi-interrogating.

“You know how to cook?”

“Yeah.”

“Self-taught?”

“Learn or earn.”

I looked to him, loaded baby spoon in the air. “Learn or earn?”

He kept his eyes to the spoon he was using to push around the meat. “Learn or earn my dad bein’ pissed. He liked his food. I learned to make what he liked ’cause I wasn’t big on the consequences.”

I drew in breath to calm the tumult of feelings his disclosure caused and forced my tone to nonchalant, like I was asking the weather, when I noted, “So, no mom, and your dad wasn’t all that great either.”

“Hitler wasn’t all that great. My dad was a dick.”

My gaze shot to him. He must have felt my horror because he looked at me.

“Relax, Butterfly. It’s a joke.” He held my gaze. “But my dad was a dick.”

I nodded, thinking he didn’t want me to make a big deal of it, even though it was a very big deal, so I looked back to Travis.

Only then did I say softly, “I’m sorry, Joker.”

Joker didn’t reply.

Okay.

He was being forthcoming. He wasn’t avoiding me. In fact, he was doing the opposite. He also seemed taken with Travis. Not many men (I assumed, I hadn’t tested this theory) wanted to hang with single mothers and their babies. They certainly didn’t claim said babies at every given opportunity. Not if they only intended to be friends. Or, essentially, bum a meal.

And he was calling me Carrie.

Hope flared and I made a decision.

It was time to explore.

I cleared my throat and shoved strained peas into my boy’s mouth.

He spit them out, I scooped them up and shoved them back in, saying ultra-casually, “So, that pretty brunette you were with on Saturday. Is that your girlfriend?”

“Stacy?”

Her name was Stacy.

Ulk.

“I wasn’t introduced.”

Travis banged the keys against the tray.

“Not a girlfriend.”

My heart leaped.

Joker continued, “Decent woman. Until she gets slaughtered. Then decent goes out the window seein’ as she has no problem gettin’ behind a wheel when she’s shitfaced. She got that way Saturday, knew that shit would go down, so I took her home.”