Page 114 of The Ones We Fight For

“Thought it would be fun,” she winced, waddling over to Roscoe as he catapulted from his seat to help her. “You’re not very good at charades, though.”

“Let’s just get you in the car, you party animal.” Roscoe helped his wife walk to the front door, which Walker held wide open for them.

“I’m getting a baby brother!” Jayla bunny-hopped up after her parents, her arms flailing with excitement.

“Sweetie, we need you to go with Aunt Tal, okay?” Roscoe looked up at Talia to confirm. She opened her mouth, but Walker cut in before she could agree.

“Just go, Roscoe, we’ll meet you at the hospital,” Walker said, pointing out the door. “Go have a baby!”

Chapter 42

Walker

The chairs in the waiting room were uncomfortable, rigid-backed and too small for Walker’s large body. Waiting was exhausting, especially with two kids, one preteen, and three teenagers in tow. Talia was back in the delivery room with Amala, so all that was left for Walker to do was sit and wait. Pearl, Carter, and Piper all had their phones out, locked into their screens as they wasted the hours away. Jayla and Cooper were hunched over one of those children’s Highlights magazines that haunted waiting rooms, open to a hidden-objects puzzle that they pointed at excitedly when they found something. Colin was enamored with a chart he was building on graph paper, carefully drawing lines with a ruler and intently filling in boxes before he crumpled it into a ball and started all over again. He seemed a bit more on edge than usual lately, but Walker couldn’t pry any information out of him despite Colin usually being a wealth of information. Walker had already made a physical note to himself in his planner to sic Carter on him later since Carter seemed to be the only one who could get his brother to dole out his feelings.

After flipping through the calendar notes for the next month, adding scheduled days for him and Talia to grocery shop, and organizing an entire family road trip to visit Colin at Johns Hopkins University that worked around everyone’s schedule, there was nothing else for Walker to do. He took a hint from the older kids and pulled out his phone, flipping through his social media pages that he never checked. He had already stalked Talia’s pages within an inch of their life, but he did so again, tapping on the picture of her with her mother on Mother’s Day a few years ago. Lydia had a kind face and eyes that seemed capable of both reprimand and love. If Walker could thank anyone for helping Talia become the wonderful person she was, it would be Lydia.

Another hour passed with no word of how Amala was doing, and Walker felt the rising panic of one of his episodes starting to pull him under. The anxiety screamed at him that there was something wrong, that he would lose another person he loved. Curling his toes to better feel the ground under his feet, he breathed in and out slowly to keep the panic at bay.

Amala is okay. The baby is fine. Amala is okay. The baby is fine, Walker chanted in his head. His therapist’s voice came next. Find something relaxing to do.

Walker opened a new tab in his search engine and typed inthe first thing that came to mind—engagement rings. He was met with an onslaught of pictures that normally would have felt overwhelming. They didn’t. Scrolling through different styles, he clicked on a simple-looking ring, just a thin gold band with one circular-cut diamond. It screamed Talia, wearable with heels and a dress or a sweater and a ponytail. He hit the Add to Cart button before even thinking twice about it.

“He’s here!” Talia burst through the swinging doors into the waiting room, and Walker snapped his head up from his phone, shoving it quickly into his pocket. “We can only have a few people in the room at once. So, Jayla and Walker, do you want to go first?”

“He’s okay?” Walker asked, hopping up from his seat, the anxiety of possible loss still vibrating in his veins.

Talia gave him a knowing smile and set a comforting hand on his shoulder when she made it to his side. “He’s beautiful.”

“Amala?”

“She’s tired, but happy.”

The tension in his shoulders slackened a little.

They made their way down the hall, Talia’s hand laced in Walker’s and Jayla’s pigtail puffs bobbing as she practically bounced off the walls in excitement. Walker tapped the fingers of his free hand against his thigh, still worried. Until he could see with his own eyes that both Amala and the baby were okay, the pit in his stomach wasn’t going to go away. He believed Talia when she said they were okay, but his mind had already irrationally jumped to the idea of something tragic happening in the time it took Talia to leave Amala’s bedside to retrieve him and Jayla.

The door to Room 215 was closed when they arrived, and Walker swallowed in preparation. Talia knocked and received a lofty response from Roscoe inside.

“Come in.”

When Walker’s eyes landed on Amala, relief washed over him.She was okay. They were okay. Amala looked thoroughly depleted, laying in her upright hospital bed with a tiny bundle in her arms, but she had a smile on her face that made her look as though she was glowing from within.

Newborns were so little. So fragile-looking. Walker remembered that being his first thought when he held Colin in his arms eighteen years ago, and then each and every time a new kid came into the fold after. Pearl was a week old when he finally got to meet her, but she was just as small, with slender fingers and a strong grip. Amala’s and Roscoe’s son was no different, all pudgy and wrinkly, but so peacefully asleep on his mom’s chest that it was one of the most adorable things Walker had ever witnessed.

“Jayla, do you want to meet your brother?” Amala asked, patting the sliver of space beside her. “Come sit with me.”

Roscoe picked up his daughter and set her on the bed with her mom. Jayla was always a giant ball of sunshine, but her grin was even bigger and brighter than usual. Walker held Talia’s hand still, hovering beside the bed as he watched Jayla croon over her baby brother. She was going to be a fantastic older sister. Hell, if her brother was ever in trouble, Jayla would come out swinging, just like she did for Cooper.

“Walker, do you want to hold him?” Amala asked after a while.

“May I?” Walker stepped forward hesitantly as she nodded.

Roscoe scooped the baby out of his daughter’s hands and neatly transferred him into the crook of Walker’s cradled arms. The warm blanket revealed a sleeping newborn whose little eyelids were firmly shut, one pudgy hand escaping the confinements of his swaddle. Walker’s eyes watered as he smiled down at the baby and placed an index finger near his little palm. The petite fingers twitched before they latched onto Walker.

“He’s perfect,” Walker murmured.

“Do you want to tell him?” Amala pointed to her husband, and Walker lifted his head in confusion as Roscoe patted his back with a wide grin.

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