Page 23 of The Ones We Fight For

“There’s no point in arguing with her. She’s bullied me into going to her house for dinner three times this week. Shall we get started on your shopping list, then?”

“Shopping list… right.” Walker grimaced. “And if I was just going to randomly look up recipes on my phone and go off that?”

“You don’t have a list?” Piper's mouth fell open, as if her uncle’s lack of preparation was an egregious and personal offense against her.

“Well, maybe you are the one who should have made one, considering this is your punishment,” Walker took on a mock-parental tone, pointing at his niece sternly.

Talia gestured to the two guest chairs in front of her desk. “I’ve got paper and writing utensils. Take a seat, and we’ll plan all of this out.”

???

A half-hour of bickering later, they had their list, complete with Piper’s meal schedule. After Walker’s adamant monologue that Pop-Tarts were their own food group and a brief spat over whether or not they should buy a coffee maker that didn’t look like a time machine, of which Talia had been the tie breaker—no, Walker, you don’t need a new one, just read the directions—Talia was feeling more comfortable in her friendship with Walker. He was surprisingly funny, and she actually found his random sparks of spontaneity intriguing. Prior to the accident, she imagined that there probably wasn’t a more fly-by-the-seat-of-their-pants person than Walker Hartrick. His brand of random decision-making was something she was missing in her life. The most spontaneous thing she’d ever done was move from New York, and that had still been an agonizing decision for her, despite having no real reason to stay.

After her engagement fell through, Talia knew how things would play out. Her friends would feel the need to choose sides or feel obligated to trash on her ex, Clifford, in her presence, and that wasn’t how she wanted things to go down. It was no one’s fault that they didn’t work out, but she couldn’t very well be around him nursing her broken heart after three years of wasted time, nor could she allow the friends they had made together to feel like they couldn’t be in his life. So, she had done the logical, practical thing and spared everyone from the drama of the aftermath. Even her brief respite into spontaneity had been a clear and calculated risk. Walker seemed to be the type of person who took risks and went on adventures at the drop of a hat.

In the end, Talia was surprised by how easy it was to up and leave everything. Her friendships had been mostly surface-level, a fact she only realized because of Amala, and now Walker, who was already weaseling his way deeper into her life than her friends in NYC ever did. She had hated every second she spent working at Braxton, Bell, and Whitman Attorneys at Law, despite being good at her job, and her mother passed away over a year before everything went to shit. If her mom were still alive, it would have been reason enough to stay, but after she passed, the only person tying Talia to the city was Clifford. And after much debate, he had decided that his life would no longer include her.

Despite the gut punch of knowing that she wasn’t enough, Talia couldn’t blame Cliff, couldn’t even find it in herself to hate him. It would have been nice to have something to despise him for, but occasionally leaving the toilet seat up in their apartment or putting the empty milk jug back in the fridge did not constitute reason enough to hate him. It was too bad he didn’t cheat on her with one of her friends or have some other irreparable flaw that she could declare as the real reason for their breakup.

Cliff had their whole life planned out for them from the second they met. That extreme amount of stability was what had attracted Talia to him in the first place. She and her mom had scrambled to make ends meet when she was younger, and she craved the kind of life that Clifford had—perfect on and off paper. It hadn’t been a particularly exciting relationship, but she had loved him.

Walker was the definition of not her type, and Talia was fully planning on clinging to that knowledge so as not to be distracted by his charm and devil-may-care intrigue. There would be no falling in love with Walker Hartrick, because Talia had always been into men who had all of their ducks in a row. Cliff had his ducks in a row, and so would any future men in her life.

“Should we do this?” Walker stood abruptly from his chair, tearing Talia away from her thoughts. “I kind of feel like I could take on the world now that I have a list.”

“Calm down, Han Solo,” Talia chided, getting up from her own seat. “We have to prevent you from impulse buying, so we’re going to the produce section first.”

“Hey, I am not impulsive!” The ever-present scowl reappeared on Walker’s face, and he folded his arms. An urge to do something or say something to bring back his smile welled up inside Talia.

“Yes, you are,” Piper deadpanned.

“I have a retirement fund, and I regularly go to the dentist!” Walker stated with confidence.

“I’m glad. You’re going to need to continue doing both those things so you can keep frivolously eating Pop-Tarts till you’re old and gray.” Talia set her hands on Walker’s back and shoved him out of her office to get the ball rolling, trying to smother the sharp breath she took when she touched him again.

Eager to jump subjects in her thoughts right over Walker’s body, Talia turned to Piper and loudly declared that she would get the cart before shuffling off to do so.For the rest of their time in the store, Talia focused all her energy on training Walker how to shop and directed most of the personal questions to Piper. Now that Piper wasn’t spewing every drunken thought that came to her mind, she worked as a nice buffer. Talia gleaned all new information on Walker from the tiny morsels he gave while commenting on Piper’s responses. Telling herself repeatedly that the lack of conversation with Walker was just due to their new friendship and testing out the waters, Talia hoarded a list of her own in the back of her head: things she was desperate to know about Walker Hartrick.

The entire time they shopped together, Talia had to stop herself from revealing all her secrets and telling her entire life story. What was it about Walker that made her feel like she had known him her entire life but could simultaneously never know enough about him? She didn’t like being out of control, and she would be damned if he was the one to make her lose it. Everything about him felt equal parts exhilarating, terrifying, and frustrating. He was a thrill she couldn’t quite ignore.

Chapter 8

Walker

The bright lighting above the mirror in Cole’s master bathroom cast Walker’s face in a glow that almost made him look refreshed, save for the dark circles under his eyes. He scrutinized his reflection and button-down shirt and tilted his head to run a hand along his newly trimmed beard. He reminded himself, yet again, that it was his bathroom now. There was no reason he should feel like an intruder for being in there, nor should he be so incrediblyanal about not leaving any hair behind. He must have checked the sink four times before deciding that it was clean enough that Paisley wasn’t going to turn over in her grave to yell at him about leaving his “face pubes” everywhere. It was what she had always called Walker’s facial hair from the time he had started growing it in high school because she knew he hated it. The car accident was probably the one and only time in Paisley’s life where she didn’t have the upper hand.

Walker muttered a curse under his breath, changing his anger’s course toward his sister-in-law and the powers that be. Paisley should have told God that he could shove it. That she and Cole were staying with their family, right where they belonged. It felt good for a moment to blame someone for their deaths now that he couldn’t blame Talia. He’d already spent so much of his time hoping Jeff Cohen was enjoying hell that blaming someone new felt less taxing.

It was the oddest thing after they were gone—the things Walker expected to remember of them weren’t what came to mind. Of course there were the good memories, the fond recollections of the types of people Cole and Paisley were, but then there were the little things Walker never would have imagined mattered. The realization that his sister-in-law was never going to insult his facial hair ever again knocked the wind out of him like a punch to the stomach. His brother wouldn’t hound him about settling down anymore. No one would be bringing up the one girl Walker brought to family dinner more than once purely because he was bored and didn’t feel like eating takeout again. Cole had taken it as a sign that Walker was finally getting serious about someone, so Walker had made sure to not make that same mistake twice. Girls came to dinner once, but after that, they never lasted long enough to leave a permanent impression on his family.

That specific girl, if he recalled correctly, ignored Cooper’s questions so many times at the table that Walker found it reason enough to dump her. His nephew was only five at the time, so the questions were a little repetitive and annoying, but Walker always managed to find the time to answer each and every one. Cooper’s curiosity was integral to his personality, and his investigative nature was definitely going to take him places in life (whether that be the FBI or a jail cell). If Walker was going to break his lone ranger routine, then it sure as hell wouldn’t be with a woman who dulled the sparkle in his nephew’s eyes. Once that light was gone, it was hard to get back, and Walker was determined to fight tooth and nail to make sure it would never be snuffed out of any of Cole’s kids.

The last time Walker wore a collared shirt was when he interviewed for his current job. He had half a mind to take it off and replace it with his normal casual wear so it didn’t seem like he was trying too hard. Amala was the first person to invite him and the kids over for dinner since Cole and Paisley died, and Walker wanted to make a good impression. One that would get Amala to invite them back. He’d been shut out from most of the world, holed up in the house for so long, that loneliness had become a constant. To say he was hard-up for adult conversation would be an understatement.

The friends Walker had before his life became chock-full of responsibilities were like him: living in bachelor pads, dating around, and enjoying a detached lifestyle. It wasn’t like he expected them to host a dinner party that included five kids, but to have someone, anyone, care about whether his family was eating properly was nice. Plus, Amala was pregnant and already had one daughter, so she had to know something about the whole parenting thing. He ought to pick her brain.

As he made his way downstairs, straightening his shirt against his torso to rid any wrinkles—he wasn’t fancy enough to get out the iron—Walker caught one look at Carter and pointed toward the staircase, shaking his head.

“Go change.”

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