“That’s twenty cents,” I returned.

“Hunh?” he grunted.

“Regular curse words are a nickel,” I told him. “Bad curse words are a dime. Everyone knows the f-word is a bad one and since, starting now, you’re paying me every time you curse, that’s twenty cents you owe me.” I shook my hair, bandana and all. “I’ll give it to charity or something. The way you cuss, we’ll probably be able to build a homeless shelter in a week.”

He didn’t look any less unhappy when I finished talking but he did take two steps toward me.

“Carissa, what are you doin’ in my room?”

It was the day after my kiss with Joker. A day where I thought of nothing but Joker… and that kiss. A day and a sleepless night where I thought long and hard about it and made a decision.

I wanted more.

There were a variety of reasons for this.

He was handsome. He wasn’t my type, but really, who knew what my type was? All I’d had was Aaron, and I’d found Aaron was definitely the wrong type for me.

So maybe Joker was my type.

He was also nice. Sure, he cursed constantly and in the beginning he’d seemed thoughtless about my pie, but he and his friends had done a variety of good things for me, all of them huge. But it started with him, which meant he started it.

Further, once he’d prowled out after our kiss, I’d seen the pie plate in his room on his nightstand.

The empty pie plate.

So he had liked my pie.

And last, there was that kiss.

Truthfully, the rest could go away and the kiss could remain and it was so good, I’d still want more.

He acted like he could take me or leave me, but even if I’d only ever kissed Aaron, I’d kissed him a lot and we’d never (not ever) shared a kiss like that.

I didn’t know what was holding Joker back. I may only have had Aaron as experience but there was no way to miss Joker had been into that kiss. A woman throws herself in your arms and you don’t want that, you push her away. You don’t stick your tongue in her mouth, redefine her world, and shuffle her straight to your bed.

He liked it as much as me.

But I didn’t care what was holding him back. I was just going to do whatever I could to put a stop to it.