Page 37 of The Ones We Fight For

“Cliff for short.”

“‘Cliff’ as in I want to throw myself off of one? Terrible name. That’s where you went wrong.” Talia socked Walker in the shoulder, and he flinched, the devious grin not leaving his face. “I maintain that Clifford is like naming your kid Todd.”

“What’s wrong with the name Todd?”

“Nothing if you like to drink warm milk at night and get giant stuffed bears, or in Clifford’s case, a big red dog, for each of your birthdays because what Clifford doesn’t know is that what you really want is good sex for once in your life.” Walker flashed his teeth cockily.

“You’re literally named after a device people have to use when they throw out their hip.”

“I’m more interested in how they threw out their hip.” Walker winked, and Talia’s fist flew out to hit him again. “Ow!”

“No one threw out their hip in the book you ghostwrote so far,” she mused. Walker jolted up from his spot on the couch, looking around her living room, his head jerking from left to right. “Jesus, where’s the fire?”

“In your trash can when I find the book and burn it,” he retorted. “Where is it?”

“I’m not telling you.”

“Talia, I looked up which book it was last night, and it’s the creepy Bob the Builder one. If you ever dated anyone like that, I would require you to get a state-of-the-art security system!” Walker threw up his hands in frustration and started pacing the room, looking through a basket of blankets next to the couch.

“At least he didn’t name his penis ‘the hammer’ or something,” Talia teased, the tail end of her statement cut off by her own laughter.

“Fuck. I hate you. Can you just stop reading it? Please?”

“Why does it bug you so much?” Talia furrowed her brow.

“Because… it just does, okay! There’s no way you’re enjoying it. You’re just going to use it to make fun of me.” Walker raked a hand through his hair, and Talia followed the motion, watching the muscles in his forearm flex with the movement.

“Okay, fine. If you want to know my honest opinion—”

“I don’t! I don’t want to know, Tal. I already know that I don’t know anything about what I’m writing, okay? You’ve been engaged before. I haven’t even dated anyone for more than three months. What I write is just a job. I know the sex scenes are lackluster and the romance of it all is bogus—I don’t need you to tell me that.” He slumped into the spot next to her and massaged his temples.

“That’s not at all what I was going to say. The plot isn’t great, but the writing is. You didn’t come up with the plot. The main characters are problematic, sure, but the sex scenes are… not. I would have tossed the book to the side after the first time the contractor purposefully broke one of her pipes if the writing wasn’t good. And… wow, I’m now realizing how dirty that sounded. Was that the point?” Talia gaped at him, and Walker burst into laughter, falling back against the cushions.

“No…” he gasped through his laughter. “But I remember thinking the same thing. I mean, the guy was a contractor, not a plumber, so why was that even his first choice of things to break? I actually suggested that the tagline be ‘he broke her pipes until she broke his.’”

Talia broke into unhinged laughter, not caring about how much it hurt her face. Walker wheezed as he tried to continue the story. “The other… the other author on the job who had been corresponding with me about how ridiculous the book was did an actual spit take during our Zoom meeting. Our supervisor ended the call early because we wouldn’t stop with the pipe jokes.”

“You’re a literal child,” Talia giggled until they both gained enough air to calm down. That is, until she thought of a new marketing scheme. “Is the tagline to your new book going to be ‘Brother, May I?’”

“Fuck,” Walker let out another puff of laughter and wiped under his watering eyes. “I was workshopping something to have to do with sister wives, but that is so much better.”

Talia’s laughter died down, and she looked at Walker seriously. “Do you ever… think about writing your own book? One you would want to take credit for?”

“I—yes, I do. I just always… I don’t know, I have lots of ideas, but the problem is, I can only get a few pages in before the idea seems far-fetched or out of reach.” Walker looked away in embarrassment, which only made her more curious.

“Why do you say that?”

“Because I don’t understand the topic I’m writing on. Not personally, at least, just from my brother and Paisley,” Walker explained.

“So, they’re romance novels, then?” Talia pried.

“I… yeah, I guess so.”

“Walker?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re a bit of a romantic, aren’t you?” Talia smiled. She hadn’t meant to poke fun at him, but the watercolor pink that splashed onto his cheeks was worth it.

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