Page 223 of Joker

She still looks dazed. “Did she…” she starts.

“Yeah,” I say.

Her throat works.

“She did.”

Neither of us says anything else because there’s nothing to say that wouldn’t rip the whole moment open too wide to survive it in front of everybody.

So I just turn my hand over and lace my fingers through hers. She squeezes once. That’s enough.

Later, after the kids have been fed twice because apparently barbecue nights turn all of them into bottomless pits, after the sky has gone black overhead and the bonfire’s burning bright enough to throw sparks into the night, the brothers end up gathered in a loose half-circle around the flames.

Beer bottles. Boots stretched out. Shoulders loose in that rare, hard-earned way they get only when everyone who matters is safe and nearby.

I’m in one of the old chairs with Raven tucked into the one beside mine and my arm draped over the back of it because I need some kind of physical point of contact with her after tonight or I’m gonna start acting like a psycho.

Lexi is sprawled asleep with Bunny in her lap across Emma and Kya’s legs along with Jason, who passed out mid-marshmallow and had to be rescued from face-planting into a paper plate.

Dom, because he lacks self-preservation, decides to start shit. “You were full of it earlier,” he says, lifting his beer toward me. “You could never take me.”

I don’t even look at him. “In a fight?”

He nods.

“Absolutely would.”

He snorts. “That confidence is embarrassing.”

“It’s not confidence if it’s fact.”

Blaze, already halfway drunk and therefore useless, points between us like he’s moderating a sporting event. “I’d pay real money for this.”

Kya cuts in without missing a beat. “I’d put money on Joker.”

Dom looks personally betrayed. “Wow.”

She shrugs. “You’re hot when you’re arrogant, but he’d still wreck you.”

That gets enough laughter around the fire that even Dom has to grin into his beer a little.

“I hate all of you,” he mutters.

“Mutual,” I tell him.

That’s about the point Logan clears his throat. Not loudly. Not theatrically.

Still enough to cut through the noise because when the president of an MC decides he’s speaking, people tend to shut up and listen unless they’re actively interested in getting hit with something.

Mac is sitting on the arm of his chair, one of his hands wrapped around her thigh in that unconscious, possessive way he gets whenever she’s close enough to touch.

He looks around the fire once, grin already tugging at his mouth. Then he says, “Since all you assholes are already here, figured I’d save us repeating this conversation six times.”

That gets everybody’s attention.

Mine included.

Logan lifts his beer slightly. “Mac’s pregnant.”