Joker didn’t do this. He didn’t share.

He looked to High.

High didn’t share either. High was a hard motherfucker who kept himself to himself.

But High had once laid it out to Joker over vodka and brotherhood that home was no good. It made him miserable. And worse, he was worried the mask was slipping and his kids could read it.

Joker had been shocked as shit when the man shared. He’d also felt grateful. His brother giving him that said a lot about how he felt about Joker, and Joker didn’t miss any of it.

And he’d decided it was time to do this.

So he said, “I’m not that guy.”

“What guy?” High asked.

“The guy she needs,” Joker answered.

“How do you know?” Shy asked.

Joker looked to him. “Because I don’t like butterflies. They’re beautiful, but they’re delicate, and I don’t got it in me to handle anything with care.”

“Maybe you’re wrong,” High noted.

“And maybe I got a life that proves I’m right,” Joker returned.

“You can’t know unless you try,” Tabby put in.

“And chew her up in the meantime?” Joker asked and shook his head. “She doesn’t need that shit.”

None of them had an answer to that and he knew why.

They knew he was right.

“She’s home safe,” Tabby told him. “She texted me when she got there. But before she took off, she went for a ride with Snapper.”

Fuck.

Joker clenched his teeth, pushing the thought of Carissa wrapped around his brother on his bike to the back of his mind, where, for her sake, he’d put their fucking unbelievable kiss—and the fact she’d laid that on him, not the other way around—doing that hoping like fuck, if she wanted to find a man to get her off, she took that shit off Chaos.

“Good to know she’s safe,” he muttered, tipping his chin to them and moving away.

No one stopped him so he went to his room, took off his clothes, and fell into bed.

He laid in bed and as he did it, he smelled the fading scent of fabric softener on his sheets.

So he did it thinking of Carissa.

And he didn’t sleep.

* * *

The next day, Joker rode his bike onto the cement that made up the forecourt of the two-bay garage. The place was a mess, cars everywhere, tires stacked all around, the large square-paned windows of the office dirty, one cracked and held together with tape. He saw the doors of both bays up, cars in each, men working on them.

Taking it in, Joker knew it wasn’t rundown because it was rundown. It was rundown because they had so much work, they didn’t have time to straighten it up.

He liked this.