Page 62 of The Ones We Fight For

Clifford looked back and forth between them, massaging the spot on his arm that was bound to be bruised later. After Walker’s admission, he seemed to believe the story. It was either that, or the guy was too confused by the conversation to throw any more unskilled punches. Walker had no idea how much of what he and Talia had said Cliff had heard, since Walker only noticed his presence after being punched in the face. While it wasn't hard enough to break Walker’s nose, it was enough to break his attention off Talia for a few moments while he tried to get his head on straight again.

“I’m doing the right thing,” Walker mumbled a half-hearted response.

“No, you’re not. You won’t even consider how I feel about it. You’re just passing me off. I’m not anyone’s property, Walker.” Talia was fuming, unperturbed by Cliff still standing between them like a doe-eyed child between two parents fighting.

Walker scoffed, shaking his head. “Like anyone could ever tell you what to do, Tal. If anyone is property here, it’s me.” Talia opened her mouth to say something, but he steamrolled on. “I will ruin you. I’m right about this. I know I am. And I know you’re pissed at me. I should never have said anything, but please just promise me you’ll still be there for them. They need you.” He looked over to where his nieces and nephews were standing, stock-still on the edge of the parking lot.

“Why would you assume that I would ditch them? The world doesn’t revolve around you!” In the time Walker had known her, even after he had accused her of drunk driving and trying to kill him on his motorcycle, Talia had never seemed so offended. She escalated louder, and he closed his eyes, tilting his face toward the sky to feel the sting of her words as he allowed the rain to pelt him. “I can’t even believe you right now. You’re just going to decide this for the both of us? Ask me what I want, Walker!”

He wanted to ask her, wanted to know if she felt even remotelythe same about him, but he knew it wouldn't make a difference. In the end, he was fighting for his family. She was right: the world didn't revolve around him. It revolved around the five kids he was responsible for, and they deserved to be loved by someone like Talia. If he crossed over the line of friendship, someday she would resent him, and that would impact her relationship with them, whether she wanted to admit it or not. It would do no good to know if she felt the same. If she didn’t love him back, he would be crushed. If she did, he would want what he could never have.

“No,” Walker decided. He swallowed every declaration of love he wanted to say. “It won’t change anything.”

The only sound for a long time was the rain beating against Talia’s car. Clifford took his place beside Talia, his arm stretching to drape over her shoulders for comfort. A pang of jealousy squeezed Walker’s heart, but he knew he had no right to it. He shoved down the feeling, burying it under the responsibility to Cole and Paisley. He was the one who didn’t belong, not Cliff.

“I need some space,” Talia finally spoke up, a mere whisper. Walker’s pupils snapped wide with panic, and she stepped forward, closing the gap between them. Her hand found his shoulder, her warmth burning through his two layers of wet clothing. “From you, not from them. I’ll help you grocery shop, plan, and pick up like I always do. I’m not giving up my time with any of them. They’re family to me, and I love them, but I need some time away from our friendship for a little while. To think.”

“Okay.” Walker’s throat burned with emotion, his insides feeling as though he’d been shot straight through the heart. Biting back the tears that wanted to flood his eyes, he nodded in agreement and curled his teeth over his lips as he looked away. “That makes sense. That’ll be good. For both of us.”

It was a lie. At that moment, Walker thought he might simply cease to exist. He’d managed life without Talia before, and yet, the idea of her absence now, even just as his friend, felt like his very soul was being ripped from his body.

“I’ll see you on Saturday at the store. I’ll make a list of meals,” she said, her voice going cold.

“No, um… I can make the list, no worries.” He took a few steps backward. His arm, along with the rest of his body, felt heavy with regret as he raised one hand in a stiff wave. A single hot tear rolled down his face, and he didn’t bother to wipe it away. The rain wasn't punishing him, after all. It was helping him hide the pain from her.

“I’ll see you then.” The words barely crept up his dry throat as he fought the urge to run back to her, cup her face in his hands, and beg her to love him back right in front of her ex-fiancé. He wanted to risk it all, to kiss her until the world fell apart around them. Instead he found what little strength he had left and forcibly turned away, fixing his attention across the way.

For them, you will deny yourself.

He’d obliterate his own heart a thousand times over before he’d ever allow theirs to suffer again.

Chapter 23

Talia

Two people were making out on her TV screen. Heavily. Talia groaned and hunched over to grab the remote. She had started the movie thirty minutes before and hadn’t paid a drop of attention to the plot, characters, or lead-up to the moment where the main characters had apparently decided that clothes were for chumps and ripped each other’s shirts clean down the middle. She couldn’t decide if she would find that hot or annoying in reality. Was ruining a shirt really worth the two seconds they’d saved? And how many shirts did the actors destroy before the director decided they’d done enough takes?

The display screen blared back at her, a reminder that she hadmade the poor decision to even watch Contracted Love to begin with. The trashy moviewas doing nothing to lift her spirits. She had originally deemed it a compromise between the side of her that wanted to reread the bookand the more rational side of her that knew that was a terrible idea. Either way, she hadn’t been focusing on the movie. Her mind was hell-bent on a torture consisting only of replays of everything that had gone down that night.

For starters, she had gotten nowhere with Cliff. Thanks to Walker’s timely appearance and his feelings confession—or, rather, the confession that he regularly thought about sleeping with her, which, while flattering, didn’t outright equal love—Talia was permanently stuck in limbo. Her feelings toward Walker were more solid than some vague admission of sexual tension. He was her person. But even if she did want to finally verbalize what she had been keeping mostly to herself, Walker would refuse to listen. That alone hurt more than any old wounds Clifford could bring up.

The fact that Talia had known it was a bad idea to fall for Walker from the get-go simultaneously pissed her off and made her feel worthless. She’d been bamboozled by her own damn self. How could she be so stupid? He was never going to let her in as anything more than a friend, and yet she had still fallen head over heels like a self-sabotaging idiot.

You did this to yourself, Talia thought. This is your fault.

Lack of control always made her hands tremble, and hers were shaking like a leaf. It wasn’t quite as bad as the day she found out she couldn’t have children, but it was still the same feeling she had high-tailed it out of New York to get away from. Grief and self-hatred were catching up to her again, and she couldn’t shake the feeling that this longing for a man she couldn’t have was going to be permanent, just like her medical condition and her mother’s death. Learning how to unlove Walker wasn’t something she could stick on a to-do list and mark off when it was done. She had to somehow train her heart to stop beating out of sync in Walker’s presence, had to stop stocking specialty Pop-Tarts for him to try out at Lydia’s, and she definitely had to stop reading his books.

Beyond everything with Walker’s impossibility was the looming reminder of the man who was a possibility. The one who blatantly asked for her to come back to New York with him. The one with no surprises.

The one who never made her feel like her heart was in freefall.

The one who never made her laugh uncontrollably.

The one who was… boring.

Would Cliff lay down his life for his family without hesitation like Walker would? A pang of regret for calling Walker selfish took up residence in Talia’s brain, another gnawing ache of remorse. He was so blatantly the opposite. The fact that he was denying the obvious attraction they had toward each other just for the sake of his family proved his devotion to everyone. Everyone but her. She had mistakenly thought she was a part of their family, but maybe she was just a means to an end, nothing more. Or maybe she really was just there for the kids. She’d had the unfounded belief that for once in her life, she could have it all: a big family and the kind of love that lasted past the grave—and had acted out of childish anger when it was snatched from her grasp. Her mother would be disappointed in her.

Her request for space was a forced and half-hearted one, but Talia didn’t regret it. Her mother always said “time is the wisest counselor of all.” Lydia had whispered the words of advice enough that Talia could recognize when she needed to take a step back. Tensions were high. She needed to cool off and regroup before she said anything else she would later regret. Nursing a broken heart after giving it to someone who never asked for it in the first place wasn’t going to come easy. It would have been easier if Walker had flat-out said he felt nothing for her. Knowing that he had thought about taking her for a roll in the sheets just made everything worse.

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