Page 82 of Joker

He exhales slowly, looking out over the yard now instead of at me. “Things changed,” he says. “Or maybe they didn’t. Maybe we just saw them clearer the longer we stayed.” His fingers tap once against the railing. “Club wasn’t what we signed up for. Lines got crossed. Then crossed again.”

There’s a quiet intensity in his voice now. Controlled. But there.

“So you left.”

“Yeah.”

“That doesn’t sound simple.”

“It wasn’t.”

I study him for a second. The set of his shoulders. The tension that’s settled into him without him seeming to notice.

“Most people don’t walk away from something like that easily,” I say.

“They don’t.”

“But you did.”

His gaze shifts back to me. “Because we had somewhere to go,” he says.

“Here?”

“Yeah.”

The word lands heavier than it should. Because I hear what he’s not saying. That this place wasn’t just another club. It was…something else.

Something earned. Something chosen.

“Logan took you in,” I say.

He nods once. “Gave us a shot.”

“And the others?”

“Shadow and Blaze,” he says, like that explains everything. “They’re as close to blood as I’ll ever get.”

Something in my chest tightens at that. Not because of the words. Because of the way he says them.

Like it’s enough. Like it has to be.

“And Cobra and Hammer?” I ask.

“Same,” he says. “Just took them a little longer to land in the right place.”

I nod slowly, absorbing it. The weight of it. The quiet loyalty threaded through everything he’s said.

“You found your family here,” I say.

His eyes hold mine for a second longer than usual. “Something like that.”

There’s more in that answer.

I don’t push. Not when he’s already given me more than I expected. Not when I can feel the shift between us, the conversation moving from surface-level to something deeper without either of us quite acknowledging it out loud. The air feels different now.

Thicker.

He steps closer. Not intentionally, I don’t think. Just…naturally. Like the space between us keeps shrinking without either of us making a conscious decision to close it.