“I don’t spend my time with the high school loser grown up to be whatever the fuck he is now, but just looking at him, I know it’s no good,” Aaron shot back.

Oh no.

Absolutely not!

“No, you spend your time with a woman who has no problem sleeping with a married man,” I returned sharply. “A married man who had a pregnant wife. Then accepting that man’s ring after he scraped off that pregnant wife while she was still pregnant. A woman who stands by watching her man make the mother of his son’s life a misery. She’s shown signs of humanity recently, Aaron. But don’t you dare think you can compare when Joker wipes the floor with her.”

He looked furious but he didn’t volley.

Instead, he reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. Walking to the coffee table we bought together for the home we were supposed to share for eternity, he opened his wallet, took out a bunch of bills and dropped them on the table.

He then turned to me, “I know you like your clothes. You need to look nice for your loser, use that.” He pointed to the bills. “Don’t sell my rings.”

I couldn’t imagine why he cared one little bit about those rings. He’d never cared before.

But I couldn’t think on that. I had to think about the fact that my head was about to explode with the pressure of mounting fury the likes I’d never experienced.

“For your information,” I hissed. “When I sell all that stuff, I’ll be using it to pay off my old attorney’s bills. It’d be lovely to have a few new tops and some shoes that are cute that aren’t made of plastic. But Joker likes me as I am. He doesn’t need me in two-hundred-dollar sandals. He takes me as I come.”

“He wouldn’t, seeing as Joker, whatever the fuck the deal is with that shit, the guy’s name is fucking Carson, probably doesn’t know shoes can cost two hundred dollars.”

“I suspect that his motorcycle boots don’t come cheap,” I retorted.

Aaron’s lip curled as he asked derisively, “Motorcycle boots? Seriously?”

I had my reply on the tip of my tongue but didn’t get to say it because Joker said from the mouth of the hall. “You’re done, friend. Leave.”

I looked to him to see he still had Travis and now Travis had a toy he was shoving in his mouth.

Even as angry as I was, it wasn’t lost on me that Joker looked fabulous with my son in his arms.

This made me wonder what he would look like if he held our child in his arms.

Probably the same. No more. No less.

Simply fabulous.

“I’m not your friend,” Aaron ground out.

“No, you’re not,” Joker returned.

There was silence. This stretched. There was hostility in the air. It built.

When I was about to put a stop to it by walking to the door and opening it, Aaron asked a strange question.

And he asked it to Joker.

“Do you think you can beat me?”

I felt my breath catch, understanding the question and not liking it one… little… bit.

Joker also understood the question.

Completely.

This was why he answered, “You lost way before I entered the picture.”

“Gentlemen—” I began.

“We’ll see,” Aaron spoke over me, his gaze intent, irate, and locked on Joker.

Joker shook his head, his lips curved up, and he muttered, “Whatever.”

“We’re done,” I announced, walking to the door, opening it and looking to Aaron. “If you wouldn’t mind…”

Aaron tore his gaze from Joker and looked at me. He then studied me for a moment that went on too long.

He did this taking in my hair, that was down and poofed out, I knew, because that was what happened when Joker played with it. And while we were lounging, Joker had been playing with it.

He also took in my cute top that was cream, mostly sheer, scoop necked, long sleeved, had little orange flowers on it with tiny green leaves and fit snugly over the tangerine cami I wore underneath. And he took in my beaten-up, faded green lowrider army pants that I got for a song at a thrift shop. They’d had a grease stain that I’d OxiCleaned, and now they were not beaten-up and stained gross but beaten-up and not-stained awesome.

It was not an outfit I would have worn in any of the years I was with him.

It was cute but it was edgy, not by choice, but because it was all I could afford.

I still liked it, and I liked it more now because it suited the new me.

Cute and edgy.

That was me.

Fortunately, before I had to prompt him to get his behind moving, he walked to me standing by the door.

It seemed he was going straight through the door but regrettably he stopped and looked down at me.

“We’re not done, Riss,” he said softly, his tone a tone I knew. It was the tone he used when he was trying to get something from me. Me to forgive him. Me to change into the dress he wanted me to wear to dinner with his parents and not the one I’d chosen. Me to come to bed so he could have sex with me.

The fact that he was using it now didn’t give me a good feeling.

“You and I will never be done,” he went on. “We both know that.”

He gave me the look with his interesting blue eyes that used to undo me but right then made me fight rolling my eyes before his perfectly formed lips twitched.

“Take care of yourself, honey,” he murmured, allowed his mouth to form a grin, then he walked through the door.

I shoved it closed behind him, locked it, turned to Joker and declared, “I would say it’s an understatement that it doesn’t excite me he’s found a different way to be annoying.”

Joker burst out laughing.

I watched him, liking it. I kept watching him, liking it more when Travis became mesmerized by Joker’s laughter before he decided to join in in his baby way by smacking his toy against Joker’s mouth.

Joker started chuckling and looked down at my son.

When he did, Travis went for the gusto by shoving the toy in his mouth at the same time he lurched up and tried to latch on to Joker’s mouth, thus slamming both his wet lips and the toy into Joker’s face.

“Come get your kid before he chews my lips off,” Joker said in a way garbled by toy and baby.

I did as not-quite-requested (but I decided to take it that way).

When I was again cuddling my son, I felt Joker’s hand on my hip and I lifted my eyes to his.

“You okay?” he asked quietly.

“He intends to be more annoying,” I replied.