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"Oh, thank fuck," Jo sighed, clasping a hand to her chest. "I don’t think I realized how much he was bothering me until you said something."
"You have to deal with that a lot?" I asked her. She nodded, and started to walk – I followed her, keeping pace with her, glad to have some time with her outside of the confines of the club. It was quieter here, and more intimate, somehow – my mind briefly flashed back to the image of her and Avda in the car, and I brushed it off. I wasn’t meant to know about that. I wasn’t going to bring it up, I knew she would have freaked if she found out I had seen her like that, even if the sight of it had well and truly burned itself into my brain.
"Yeah, guys get it into their heads that just because I’m polite to them, I’m into them," she explained, shaking her head. "Drives me crazy. It’s so common, every girl I know who’s done bartending in New Ruska has had at least a few of them."
"That’s crazy," I muttered. I wondered how many of them had had to make their way home, shooting looks over the shoulders, worried that they were being stalked by someone who wanted nothing more than to get them on their own.
"Yeah, it’s way too normal," she agreed, slipping her hands into her pockets. "I hate to think about what it’s going to be like for Kyra, when she grows up..."
"Kyra?"
"My daughter," she replied, her lips curling up into a proud smile when she spoke her name. It was obvious how much she adored her, just from the way she reacted when her daughter came up; hearing her speak like that about her, made me happy. I hadn’t had the easiest time with my own family, with my mother and my sister, and sometimes, I wondered if it would have been easier for them if I had just kept my distance, but I tried not to let it get to me.
"How old is she?" I wondered.
"She’s just about to turn six," she gushed. "I have a whole basketball-themed party planned for her..."
"Oh, she likes basketball?"
"She’s obsessed with it," she replied, shaking her head fondly. "I don’t think there’s anything in the world she would rather do than go out and shoot some hoops."
"She’s five, how the hell does she reach them?" I laughed, and she shrugged.
"Hey, she’s got a strong arm on her, what can I say?" she remarked.
"You still with her father?" I asked, doing my best to keep my voice casual, though I was sure she would be able to see right through it.
"It’s...kind of complicated," she replied. "I guess...no. He’s not really been a big part of her life until now."
"I bet you don’t even need him around," I remarked. "You’re a great mom, I can tell."
She shot a look at me out of the corner of her eye.
"You only just found out I have a daughter," she pointed out, laughing.
"Yeah, but you’re so sweet," I replied. "And so accepting. I don’t think there are many things your daughter could tell you that you wouldn’t support, that’s not the case for a lot of people, you know..."
"You sound like you’re talking from experience," she remarked, as we turned the corner onto a quiet street.
"Maybe in some ways," I admitted. I was surprising myself with how vulnerable I felt I could be with this woman; normally, I would have done everything in my power to cover up those parts of me that were vulnerable, those parts of me that might have been too much for her to take in, but I knew she wasn’t going to try and turn around and use them against me. I knew she wasn’t that kind of person. And the way I felt safe around her, so sure I could trust her...yeah, it was pulling things out of me I would never have thought to share.
"You know you can talk to me about that, right?" she remarked, and I turned to her.
"You’re always so accepting," I told her. "Your daughter’s really lucky to have that kind of trait in a parent..."
She shrugged, shaking her head.
"Shit, I figured that the best way to go about raising her was to do the direct opposite of everything my parents did with me," she replied, laughing slightly.
"Oh, they weren’t...?"
"They kicked me out when they found out I was pregnant," she replied, her voice dropping. "I...I came to them looking for support, but they just treated me like this whore, like this slut who they couldn’t have associated with the family. I always knew they were old-fashioned, but I didn’t figure it went as deep as that..."
"That’s fucked," I muttered. "They didn’t try to support you? Or your daughter?"
"They didn’t want anything to do with us after I told them I was keeping the baby," she replied. "And even if I hadn’t...I don’t think I would have been able to repair that relationship, you know? I had seen something in them that I’d never expected to see, and you can’t just go back on that. You can’t just pretend like you don’t notice it. The kind of people who would be willing to do that to me when I needed them most, they’re not the kind of people I want near me or my daughter anyway."
"See, I told you," I pointed out. "Good Mom. I knew it."
