Page 31 of The Ones We Fight For

Talia glared at him. “You’re an asshole! You let me just be embarrassed about the fact that I’m reading this, and you’re the one who wrote it?”

“I only wrote two of the sex scenes and like three-fifths of the book!” Walker held up his hands in defense.

“That’s basically the whole book! Why didn’t you say anything? You just weren’t going to tell me that you wrote the freaking book I’m reading?” Talia wasn’t sure why she was so angry about the whole thing, but she was. She hated not being the person in the know. Here she was, trying not to think about Walker in a sexual way, and he had written the smut she was reading. Un-freaking believable.

“I didn’t want you to know.” Walker looked away, playing with his hands.

“Why? Worried I’m gonna judge your ability to write?” Talia asked sarcastically as Amala sat back, watching the encounter with a sly smile pulling at the corner of her lips as she sucked heartily on the straw of her near-empty drink.

“Yes.” Walker nodded and reached forward to close his laptop, which Talia was attempting to read again. “I would prefer if you didn’t get to critique my writing.”

“Oh.” Talia fell silent, unsure what to say. Her mind raced, trying to recall what she had read of the book so far. Midway through the book, there had already been two sex scenes. She was suddenly itching to go home and finish it, and possibly go back and reread certain portions.

“See! You’re already trying to figure out which sex scenes I wrote, and that’s too much pressure!” Walker buried his face in his hands.

“I’m not! I’ll stop reading it right now if you want me to,” Talia lied. She would definitely be finishing and generally overanalyzing the crap out of the book later.

“No, you won’t.” Walker sighed. “Just… keep your opinion of my writing to yourself, okay? I don’t want to know how bad you think it is.”

“Well, I’m reading it, aren’t I? I would have put it down if I didn’t think it was worth going on,” Talia argued.

“You’re reading it ‘cause you enjoyed the movie and that’s it.”

“I’ve never seen the movie.”

“Then you’re reading it ‘cause the price was like two dollars,” Walker rebutted.

“It was ten ninety-nine, and I’m frugal! I don’t go spending my money on random things I think I won’t enjoy.”

Walker locked Talia into an unblinking staredown as if he could intimidate her into sudden illiteracy, his jaw twitching in stubborn irritation. The joke was on him, though, because she thought that out of the two of them, she was the more intimidating one. The silence between them was loud. Neither of them had to say anything to know what war they were waging, but Talia refused to back down first. She was going to read every single word of Contracted Love if it was the last thing she ever did. Amala’s cell ringing was eventually what pulled them out of their fixation, and thank God, or they mighthave both grown old and gray before ever reaching a conclusion to their stalemate.

When Amala picked up the call, her face drained of color. Walker’s body went rigid beside Talia, a predisposition for bad news she recognized in herself.

“I’ll be right there,” Amala muttered and hung up. Their argument forgotten, Talia leaned forward in concern, Walker doing the same as Amala let out a long, frustrated sigh. “My kid punched another kid in the face.”

“Oh, Jesus!” Walker let out a puff of air in relief with a short laugh. “I take it you need a ride, then?”

“Yes, please drop me off at the school so that I can read my kid the riot act,” Amala said grumpily.

“Could always be worse. Your kid could be doing the drunk walk along the side of the street or forging your signature to skip school,” Walker pointed out.

“My kid is eight.” Amala rolled her eyes.

A second later, Walker’s phone rang, and he looked at the caller ID, blinking in surprise.

“It’s Archwood Elementary,” he said to Amala before tapping the answer button and putting the phone to his ear. “Walker Hartrick. Mm-hmm. Yep, be there shortly.”

“I thought our kids liked each other.” Amala furrowed her brow in confusion.

“They do,” Talia reasoned. “They both seemed perfectly content to hang out with each other at your house the other day.”

“Right… well, they didn’t say Jayla punched Coop, so I don’t know what’s going on. All they said was they need me to come down to the office to discuss ‘an incident,’” Walker said, holding his fingers up in a pair of air quotes.

“Only one way to find out what happened.” Amala rose from her seat and walked over to the trash can, tossing the remnants of her caramel-soaked frap inside.

“Um, I can… wait here?” Talia asked, wondering how far her walk home was from the coffee shop. It had to be at least a few miles.

“Come with us? Might as well. It’s not like you haven’t dealt with Hartrick family issues before.” Walker gave her a half-hearted smile, and Talia couldn’t help herself but to nod yes.

---