The offer is tempting. So tempting. But reality crashes back in and I shake my head.
"I can't leave my car here."
"I'll bring you back for it tomorrow."
"No, I need it. In case of emergency." I take a breath. This is the part I've been avoiding. The part that makes everything more complicated. "I have a daughter."
Danny's eyes go wide. Actually wide. It's the most surprise I've ever seen on his face.
"You have a daughter," he repeats slowly. Like he needs to hear it again to believe it.
"Yeah. She's three. Daisy." Just saying her name makes my chest ache. "She's with someone right now, but if something happens, if she gets sick or scared or needs me, I have to be able to get to her immediately. I can't leave my car here."
He's still staring at me. Processing. I can practically see him recalculating everything he thought he knew about me.
"A daughter," he says again. "You're a mom."
"Is that... is that a problem?"
"No. No, it's just..." He runs a hand over his head. "I didn't know. You never mentioned—"
"We've had exactly two conversations, Danny. One where you saved me from a creep, and one where I cleaned your wounds. Not a lot of time for life stories."
"Right. Yeah. You're right." He's flustered. I've never seen him flustered before. It's almost endearing. "A three-year-old. That's... that's really young."
"It is."
"And you're doing this alone? The father—"
"Left when she was one. Sends money sometimes. Not enough to matter." The familiar bitterness creeps into my voice. "It's just us. Has been for two years."
"That's why you work here. Why you take this shitty job cleaning up blood for minimum wage."
"It's good money for only a few nights a week. And I can't exactly put 'underground fighting ring cleaner' on a resume for a day job." I shrug. "I do what I have to do. For her."
"She's lucky to have you."
Chapter 7 - Bruiser
A daughter.
She has a three-year-old daughter.
The information keeps bouncing around my skull like it can't find a place to land. I stare at Joanna and suddenly so much makes sense. The exhaustion in her eyes. The way she works harder than anyone else. The way she moves through the world, like she's constantly aware of needing to get home safe.
Not just for herself. For her kid.
For Daisy.
I can't believe I never asked. Never even thought to ask. But why would I? Kids aren't part of my world. Never have been. I don't do families or domesticity or any of the shit that normal people build their lives around.
I always believed I'd never have kids. That it wouldn't be fair to them to have a father like me. What kind of man brings a child into the world knowing he's one bad day away from catching another assault charge? Knowing that violence lives in his bones the way other people have eye color or height?
No kid deserves that.
But looking at Joanna, at the fierce way she talks about doing what she has to do, the way her whole body language changes when she says her daughter's name, I realize some kids get lucky anyway. Some kids get mothers who'd walk through fire for them.
"She's lucky to have you," I say, and I mean it more than she probably realizes.
