Page 16 of The Ones We Fight For

Walker

Walker jolted awake with a gasp, whacking his head on the half-wall he was leaning against outside of Piper’s room. Shirt soaked through and sticking to his chest, he looked down at himself, shaking his head. If the memory of the dream wasn’t enough, the wet spot on his sweatpants was proof.

Fuck. What are you, sixteen?

He had only touched Talia once. Once. And it had been to stop her from eating shit after he ran into her like a freight train to avoid Piper’s nasty, chunky bile. Walker decided to dwell on Piper’s vomit to cool his body’s recollection of his fingers pressed into the warmth of Talia’s back. He pictured Piper upchucking stale beer on repeat. It worked, and also made his stomach a bit queasy, until his brain reverted to how Talia looked bent over the kitchen sink, rubbing soap into her hands with her ass pointed at him like a homing beacon.

“Fuck, seriously?” Walker hissed, feeling his groin tighten again. His bones snapped and cracked as he hopped to his feet, taking a cue from his dick to be entirely too stiff. His back was definitely going to be tweaked all day.

Nope, you’re definitely not sixteen anymore.

The word “sleep” was giving too much credit to what he’d actually done the night before. Between waking up at the slightest sound from Piper’s room and his invasive and unwarranted thoughts about Talia, Walker only managed to get a few hours of shut-eye. He had checked Piper’s pulse so many times in the middle of the night that it bordered on insane. He had never once checked in on his dad after a long night of drinking, and Walker couldn’t imagine Piper was that shitfaced, but it didn’t matter. The impulse to continually make sure Piper was on her side so she wouldn’t choke on her own vomit was so over-the-top that the second Walker heard any movement in her room, it had him launching up from his spot on the floor in a panic and barging in to verify she wasn’t dead. Cole and Paisley were counting on him to make sure their kids were okay, and so far he was doing a bang-up job. He needed to do better. Be better.

At least he hadn’t been haunted by his recurring nightmare. Drowning every night was beyond exhausting.

Making his way to his room, Walker changed into clothes that didn’t reek of lust and massive amounts of stress. He threw his clothes into the hamper and covered them with the towel from his shower the night before, hiding the evidence of his body’s release. Normally, a sex dream wouldn’t have been such a big deal, and he would have found it a nice respite from his nieces and nephews killing him with adolescent chaos, but having those thoughts about Talia Cohen just made him feel extreme amounts of guilt. Here he was, taking care of—and doing a shitty job at—raising Cole and Paisley’s kids while simultaneously thinking about sleeping with the daughter of the guy that had killed them both.

Assuring himself that his lack of sexual activity and masturbation since his brother’s death had caused last night’s incident, Walker took a few deep breaths and added having a go at himself to his daily to-do list so he didn’t end up in a padded room with no doors or windows. Dating was not an option. He simply didn’t have the time and needed to focus on the one thing that did matter: getting his nieces and nephews through this nightmare.

It was 6:30 a.m., and although it was a Saturday and the rest of the kids were sleeping in, it was as good a time as any for Walker to start on all of the hard discussions he would have to deal with that day. Piper needed some sort of punishment for lying to him. What frustrated Walker to no end wasn’t that Piper drank—he could understand the impulse to drown her problems in alcohol and had thought about it a few times himself—but that she didn't call him when she needed a ride. Whatever punishment he came up with had to be severe enough to make her understand that her behavior was unacceptable but also mild enough that, if she did do it again, she would at least call him.

As Walker opened the door to Piper’s room, water and ibuprofen in hand, he flicked on the lights and received a groan from the heap of blankets on the bed. Amused, he made his way over to Piper and ripped the comforter off to let the chill of the morning shock her awake. Her eyes squinted up at the light, hand flying to her head as her very first hangover made its debut.

“Good morning, sunshine!” Walker said in a cheery voice that was intentionally louder than necessary.

“Walker! Please…” Piper winced. “Why are you screaming?”

“Screaming, huh? That is probably what I should be doing considering someone decided to have a little rebellious outing last night.” Walker crossed his arms over his chest and stared down at his niece with eyebrows raised.

“I… I’m sorry.” Piper sat up, body swaying a little, no doubt from the onslaught of overstimulating senses and nausea.

“Mind telling me what, if anything, was going through your head?” Walker sat on the edge of the bed and held out the glass and pills to Piper. She took them and downed both, a trail of water running down the corner of her mouth when she lowered the glass.

“I was just… I don’t know. Harden wanted me to go and said that he would make sure I was safe. He said the best thing for me to do would be to let loose a little bit, and I thought he was right?” Piper shrugged her shoulders, red eyes heavy with regret.

“Harden,” Walker said in an icy tone that gave the kid’s name the amount of hatred it deserved, “is a douche. He doesn't deserve you and suggesting you should lose yourself in alcohol or drugs is quite possibly the worst advice to ever be given.”

“I didn’t do drugs!” Piper said quickly.

“And thank God for that, but—Piper.” Walker looked at his niece sternly, with all the sympathy he could muster. “It’s not the same for us as it is for other people. Our family has a history of alcoholism, which means that we have to be more careful. We don’t have the luxury of throwing caution to the wind. You might find that you don’t crave that feeling, but do you really want to continue to find out? Once was enough for me to know that I do crave it and that if I ever tested my limits with it again, it would send me down a path that would not be good for me. Your dad was the same way. It’s why we never drank. It’s not because we didn’t want to have fun, or we were sticks in the mud, it’s because we knew we both had addictive personalities and neither one of us wanted to turn out like your grandpa.”

“And I guess it's probably also why you made sure no one brought wine to their funeral. I thought it was just because of how they,” Piper gulped, “how they died.”

“I suppose it was both.” Walker nodded. “That, and I was worried your grandfather would over-indulge.”

“He showed up drunk anyway,” Piper pointed out.

“Yeah, but at least I wasn’t enabling him.”

Walker had at least been able to make sure none of the kids saw when he had to kick his own father out of the wake for bringing a flask. When Dennis Hartrick showed up to the funeral, Walker caught the familiar smell of alcohol on his breath, but he hoped his father would sober up by the time they moved everything to the house. That had been wishful thinking. Walker could still picture the look on his father’s face when he made him leave after catching him sipping out of a flask as he stared at the family photos on the dining room wall. Cole was Dennis’ son, and he needed to grieve, too, but not at the cost of hurting his grandchildren even more than they already were. Dennis practically begged to stay, but when Walker’s stipulation to stay involved ditching the prized leather flask in his coat pocket, he left without protest. If there was one thing Walker could count on, it was his father choosing alcohol over his family. Every time.

“I can’t afford to let alcohol into my life right now. Not when I have all of you to worry about. I’m sorry I didn’t realize you were struggling so much, Piper, but you can’t lie to me again. You scared the shit out of me last night. If anything like this ever happens again, you need to call me. If Talia hadn’t picked you up, you could have been hit by a car or passed out in a ditch somewhere, and I would have had no clue. You can always call me, Piper. I don’t care if you’re strung out on drugs, if you’ve robbed a bank, or if you killed someone. Please, just call me.”

“I’m sorry,” Piper sniffled, tears starting to form in her eyes. “I didn’t want to be a burden. I was embarrassed, and I… didn’t want to add to all the stuff you have to do now. I knew it was a bad idea the second I lied to you, but I just wanted to stop thinking for a little bit. I’m so tired of thinking about them constantly.” Her voice broke and more tears spilled down her face. “And then everything went to shit like I knew it would, and I just wanted to pretend it didn’t happen.”

“Piper.” Walker set his hand on her shoulder, trying to hold it together himself. “None of you are a burden. I would drive across the country in the middle of the night to come get you if you needed me to. But when you're feeling that low, I need you to tell me. I’m trying really hard, but I’m not a mind reader. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing most of the time. All of this is… it’s a lot, and I need to know without a shadow of a doubt that you’re safe. We can’t lose you, too. I can’t lose you.”

Piper sucked in a shaky breath and bobbed her head. “I’m sorry. I’ll be more careful. I’ll be safe.”

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