Okay, he’d picked me up from work, brought my son with him, and we’d started our time at an attorney’s office talking about battling my ex, so it wasn’t a normal date, but it was still a proper one.

This made me happy.

Travis was snug in his seat behind us, babbling at nothing, and I was watching Denver slide by and smelling new car smell.

“So, you didn’t get pine,” I remarked.

“Say again?”

“Your car. It’s obviously just been cleaned and you got new car smell,” I said. “Not pine.”

“I got new car smell ’cause this isn’t a clean car. It’s a new car. Bought this truck today.”

I went still.

But only for a moment.

Then I woodenly turned my head his way.

He had a bike. That I knew.

But that day he had a date with a single mom who had a baby with a car seat.

So now he had a dual-cab truck.

Joker stopped at a red light and looked at me.

And when he did, I watched by the lights of a Denver city night as his face got soft.

It was a vision of beauty.

“Like a whole lot the way you’re lookin’ at me, Butterfly,” he said softly. “But I got a bike and we don’t live in Arizona. We can get weather. Used to be, weather was bad, I needed to get somewhere, I had to borrow someone else’s vehicle. That gets old. I had to get you and your boy to dinner, but that doesn’t mean the time wasn’t ripe.”

I heard it all, but most especially the I had to get you and your boy to dinner part, so I just smiled at him brightly.

He shook his head, looked forward, and we went when the light was green.

He drove and, while he did, I wanted to hold his hand. I wasn’t sure we were at that place but I was sure I wanted to do it and badly.

The problem was, he drove with his wrist, that wrist being the right one draped over the steering wheel. Therefore, I couldn’t grab his hand.

Also, I had some concerns about this since the truck was large and probably more easily maneuvered if his fingers were wrapped around the steering wheel.

I didn’t say anything since he promptly wrapped them around said wheel in order to parallel park outside Las Delicias.

We went in. We got one of their side half-oval booths. They gave us a high chair. We ordered. I gave Travis his pears then some Cheerios for him to play with, eat, and toss around. Finally, Joker and I ate.

All day, I’d been looking forward to this like it was Christmas Eve.

But I hadn’t been on a first date since Aaron took me miniature golfing over a decade ago.