Page 25 of The Ones We Fight For

When Walker pulled up to the curb outside of Amala’s house, he threw the car in park and sucked in a deep breath, releasing it slowly as he closed his eyes.

“Can we just relax and have fun tonight? Do we think we can handle that?” Walker turned to look around the cab of the car, witnessing several heads bobbing in agreement. He turned to Colin in the passenger seat, staring out the window with a stony expression. “Colin? Think you can remove the shitty look on your face for a few hours and enjoy some food that doesn’t involve me ruining another pan and burning dinner?”

The joke worked, and Colin cracked a slight smile, concedingwith a bob of his head. Everyone piled out of the car, and Walker sent up a silent prayer to Cole and Paisley to appeal to God on his behalf so they could have a pleasant, drama-free evening. He felt there needed to be a third party involved in his conversation with God considering the inappropriate thoughts he was bound to have about Talia thatthe big man in the sky would certainly not approve of. Paisley could talk a sleazy used car salesman into buying the car he was supposed to be selling her, so Walker was sure she could convince God that he wasn’t that bad of a guy.

When they made it to the front door, Walker flattened his shirt again, cursing himself for not using an iron earlier. He raised his fist to the front door. Before his knuckles even made contact, the door whipped open by itself. Walker stared into the empty doorway in confusion until he noticed the tiny girl, no more than four feet tall with poofy space buns atop her head, standing below him with a wild look about her.

“Finally! I’ve been waiting! You’re a whole two minutes late!” The girl reached out and latched onto Cooper’s arm, yanking him inside. The rest of the kids exchanged a mutual glance of amusement and followed in after their brother. Given the girl’s immediate recognition of Cooper, Walker figured she must be Amala's daughter, as if the attitude and the resemblance wasn’t a dead giveaway to begin with. “Come on! Everyone’s on the back porch.”

They obeyed the girl’s commands without question, following her through a sliding glass door onto a small wooden deck with a glass table, a dark green umbrella slotted into the hole in the center. The deck looked older but also freshly stained, judging by the bucket of wood finish perched on the edge of the railing. A large willow tree with a rope swing hanging from one of the thicker branches shaded one side of the yard. On the other side was a play structure that looked homemade, a bunch of nailed-together two-by-fours with a metal slide, complete with a sand pit. A family lived here.

Talia, Amala, and a tall man Walker assumed was Amala’s husband were already seated around the table. The man looked extremely familiar, but Walker couldn’t exactly place him.

“Did my daughter introduce herself, or did she just boss everyone around?” Amala stood up from her chair with a reprimanding glare in her daughter’s direction. On cue, the tiny spitfire curtsied dramatically.

“Hi, I'm Jayla. Coop already knows me. Don’t you, Coop?” Jayla smacked Cooper’s back like he was an old friend, and Walker attempted to hold in his laughter when his nephew flinched.

“We both have Mrs. Rensie,” Cooper affirmed quietly, looking terrified to contradict anything that came out of Jayla’s mouth.

“It’s nice to meet you, Jayla. I’m Walker.” He crouched down to her height to make eye contact and pointed to the rest of the kids. “That’s Colin, Piper, Carter and Pearl.”

“Oh, I know,” Jayla said confidently. Walker couldn’t help the smile that broke out on his face. “Cooper talks about his siblings a lot. You guys are all named after the first letters of your parents’ names, right? The girls are all ‘P’s and the boys are all ‘C’s?”

“How did I not notice that before?” Talia mused.

“It’s very annoying when you’re trying to call out people’s names and they start with the same letters.” Walker stood up from his crouched position and automatically took his seat next to Talia, drawn to her like a magnet. “I take it Amala accepted your proposal?” Walker smiled, noticing the manila envelope sitting in front of her.

“She did!” Amala’s husband spoke up and stuck out his hand. “I’m Roscoe, and I believe we’ve met before.” Walker shook his hand, hoping there wouldn’t be a pop quiz on where they knew each other from. “Don’t sweat it, I’m not expecting you to remember. Probably don’t want to remember anyway. I sure as hell don’t. I’m a police officer.”

“Oh,” Walker choked, the memory coming back in an unpleasant flash.

Roscoe was the one who showed up at Walker’s apartment to deliver the news about Cole and Paisley. When Walker had originally opened the door, he thought Roscoe was there because the downstairs neighbor was a crotchety old man who frequently called the cops when Walker’s TV was a notch too loud or if he so much as dropped a broom in his kitchen. He only vaguely remembered the life-shattering conversation that ended with his fist punching a hole through the drywall next to his front door and collapsing to the ground in a crumpled heap. It was like some sort of sick joke.

Walker wasn’t sure how Roscoe managed to get him off the floor, into his patrol vehicle, and over to Cole’s house so that they could break all his nieces’ and nephews’ hearts. He recalled there being some sort of pep talk, but the only part he remembered was Roscoe saying “they need you.” In the end, that was all the ammunition Walker needed. He got everyone through day one with sheer willpower and tunnel vision.

“Beer?” Roscoe offered, holding up his own bottle.

“Walker doesn’t drink, either,” Talia answered for him.

“Fair enough. Tastes like piss water anyway ‘cause Amala got the wrong kind.” Roscoe shrugged, took a swig, and grimaced in disgust.

“Well, we never buy beer! Plus, the new girl we just hired at the store was giving me the evil eye for buying it while pregnant. She apparently thought I was going to sit in the parking lot on my break chugging a six pack!” Amala laughed.

“I mean, you did devour that strawberry milk I brought you the other day,” Talia pointed out.

“Strawberry milk is definitely a gateway drug,” Walker tacked on.

“You know, I tried to get her addiction under control before we got married, but I guess flavored milk is more important than me,” Roscoe jumped in, sighing like his wife’s fondness for lactose was the worst thing that could possibly happen to a marriage. “You guys want soda?”

Roscoe gestured to the remaining teenagers left on the deck while Pearl and Cooper were dragged away to the sand pit and wooden play structure in the backyard by the formidable Jayla. Walker leaned back in his chair, hands laced behind his head as he took everything in. Piper and Talia were giggling over something on Piper’s phone. Roscoe gave his wife a teasing smack on the lips before dumping his beer over the side of the deck. Amala rolled her eyes at her husband then took a seat on his lap at the table, reminding Walker a little of the kind of marriage Cole and Paisley had, playful and adoring.

It was easy how everything fell into place. Out of everyone at the table, Roscoe had seen Walker at his worst, and yet Walker felt no judgment from the man. Instead, there was a quiet respect behind Roscoe’s eyes. A silent conversation between the two of them that said they needed you and you were there and I’m trying. Walker gavehim a microscopic nod of his head, and for the first time since the accident, breathing didn’t feel like an Olympic event.

Chapter 9

Walker

Dinner was phenomenal. It was the kind of next-level cooking that Walker could only dream of doing himself. He’d only had jambalaya one other time, and it was nothing compared to the out-of-body experience he’d had eating Amala’s. Piper hit up the chef for the recipe two bites in, and the prospect of eating the jambalaya again was already making Walker salivate.

---