I hoped it was about to get better.

I just knew (like the night before) I’d have the novel feeling of going to bed looking forward to the next day.

And I was thinking all this when Joker took the last step and rounded the stairwell with me on his heels.

Suddenly I crashed right into his back because he’d stopped.

“Is everything—?”

“Company,” he growled.

His dire tone made me look around him and that was when my heart stopped beating.

Aaron, still in one of his fabulous work suits, was standing at the railing outside my door. He was bent to it, hands curled around it, but his head was turned and his eyes were to us.

I stood unmoving.

Surprisingly, this wasn’t because I thought a visit from Aaron at my apartment that he hadn’t been to for months and months was a bad omen (I did, and Tory, if you can believe, did the Travis swap with me when they returned him, and Aaron never came to my door when I brought him to them).

No, I did it because I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

No again.

I couldn’t believe how what I was seeing had changed.

Aaron was handsome. He’d been a handsome young man who’d turned into an exceptionally handsome adult. He had dark hair that was thick and shiny and healthy. He had unusual colored blue eyes that were sharp and interesting. He had a strong jaw, a high forehead, and beautiful lips. And he was tall, slim, and lean, with nice broad shoulders.

He wore a suit amazingly.

I’d never tired of looking at him. Even when I wondered at some of the mean things he did or said in high school. Even when I was turning a blind eye to the things he did to me. It didn’t matter what turmoil my thoughts were in that I was pretending didn’t exist, I’d take one look at him and again fall in love.

But right then, he wasn’t close but I saw him standing there, confident, his bearing holding authority, and he did nothing for me.

He seemed bland. Bland and ordinary. An attractive stranger in a really nice suit. You might look at him twice, but once he was out of sight, he’d be out of mind.

Or at least my mind.

It was gone.

Like magic.

But something else was there.

And after all these years and all that had happened, that was magical too.

What it was was fury.

He hadn’t seen me in months and he thought he could show at my home on a Wednesday evening out of the blue?

Not likely.

And he needed to know that.

Immediately.

I stormed around Joker in order to bear down on Aaron and share my thoughts.

I didn’t get far because Joker caught my hand.

“Steady, Butterfly,” he muttered.

I drew in breath and looked up at him. He lifted his brows.

I watched the brow lift realizing he was right. I didn’t need to go off half-cocked on the walkway.

I could do it in my living room.

I nodded and whispered, “Steady.”

Steady.

That was what I needed. In a life that had felt out of control from the moment my parents’ friends crushed my baby sister in our driveway until a few days ago, through my own fault but sometimes not, I had not had steady.

I needed steady.

I was getting there.

And Aaron wasn’t going to take that from me.

Joker carrying Travis the diaper bag, and holding my hand, we walked to Aaron.

“This is a surprise,” I said when we got close.

Aaron was staring at Joker.

“Would you like to say hello to your son’s mother?” I asked.

“Do I know you?” Aaron asked Joker, his gaze intensifying.

“No, you don’t,” I answered curtly before Joker could. “This is a friend of mine. Now, I’m sorry, did I miss a call or text telling me you’d be visiting? Something our custody agreement, by the way, notes specifically I should expect.”

Aaron finally stopped examining Joker and looked to me. “No.”

“Is there something I can help you with?” I offered.

“We could not do this on the walkway, Carissa. That’d help,” Aaron replied.

“I’m afraid I’m not a big fan of you being in my home,” I returned.

“Carrie,” Joker said low.

I jerked my head back to look up at him.

He shook his head once.

I understood what he was communicating to me.

We were filing a motion and I had to be a good girl, not a jerkface like Aaron. I didn’t need to give him any ammunition like he’d been handing me.

“Come in,” I mumbled, letting Joker’s hand go to dig in my purse. I got my keys and let us in.

I moved around turning on lights, and when I was done, I saw Aaron just inside the closed door, Joker with Travis asleep on his chest by the bar.

“Can I hold my son?” Aaron asked Joker.

Joker looked right to me.

When he did, my only thought was, honest to goodness, I could love that man.

“It’s okay,” I said quietly.

Joker didn’t look like he liked it, but he moved to Aaron and transferred a still-mostly-asleep-but-blinking Travis into Aaron’s arms.

“Hey, buddy. Hey, my little guy,” Aaron cooed when he got his son.

I watched him do this and it happened again.

I used to hate that. I’d hated that he loved Travis that much. I’d hated that he was (probably) a good father. I’d hated that he didn’t give all that to Travis and me.

But right then I didn’t hate it.

I didn’t care about it at all.

Because Joker fed my son his carrots and carried him up the stairs. And further, he let him lick his beard, pull his hair, and a lot more. He liked doing it too.

And now Travis also had Big Petey. And Tyra. And Elvira.

Not just me. No longer just me and a grandpa a state away.

My son had more.

We didn’t need Aaron.

Travis and I were building our own family.

“I can imagine this is nice for you, Aaron, having a moment with your child outside our normal schedule,” I remarked. “But it’s late, he needs his crib, I worked today, and I’m tired. So if you’ve come by for that, please wrap it up so we can get on with our night.”

My ex-husband settled our son to his shoulder and looked at me.

Yes, interesting blue eyes.

But just interesting.

“I deserved that,” he said softly.

I felt the banked fire in my belly start to rage.

He was never nice to me. These days, he was never anything to me.

I held back the fire and replied, “I see. You know about Gustafson, Howard and Pierce.”

Aaron let a flinch show. “The attorney community is—”