Page 41 of The Ones We Fight For

Talia didn’t laugh at the joke, just gave Walker a slight smile. She noticed things that Harper did not, such as the reason he was so attached to his favorite mug. The printed picture on the outside, slightly faded after hundreds of washes, was of Walker and his brother when they were younger. Cole won the customized mug online when he was sixteen and they were still broke. It was the best birthday gift Walker had ever received, even after Cole and Paisley's interior design business took off and they bought him more extravagant gifts. It was a time in his life he wasn’t expecting to get any gifts other than the donut Cole would always scrounge up a dollar for as a makeshift cake. After all these years, Walker still preferred a donut to cake. It was partially because of nostalgia and partially because maple bars were the shit.

Shoving two slices of bread into the toaster, Walker sipped from his mug and started to prepare eggs. They were supposed to be fried eggs, but because his ability to flip an egg without breaking the yolk was normally a fifty-fifty chance without thoughts of Cole or Talia, they all ended up scrambled. He’d utterly failed in his attempt to daydream about Harper instead.

Walker could barely look at another woman if Talia was standing in the vicinity. The loose ponytail with flyaway strands framing her face and the tight black workout pants she’d shown up in that day didn’t help. He wouldn’t have been able to notice if Mila Kunis came riding into the room on a freaking unicorn with Talia constantly applying chapstick to her full lips like a hot slow motion scene from a movie.

If her lips are always that chapped, you could help her with that. Dammit. The cold shower lasted a total of a half-hour. That might be a new record for you.

The toaster popped, and Walker jumped to attention, his daydream rudely interrupted by what turned out to be, upon quick examination, slightly undercooked toast. If he slid the lever down again, the bread was going to inevitably end up burnt like it was every time he attempted a second round. How he could even manage to fuck up toast, he wasn’t sure. Sliding in more slices to accommodate the sheer amount of children in the house, he decided undercooked was the lesser of two evils and opened the fridge to pull out a few avocados. Talia taught him a way to remove an avocado peel like a banana, but every time he attempted it, it looked like a rat had chewed up the husk. Learning from his past mistakes, he opted for his normal spoon-and-gauge technique.

Cooper was the first to come down the stairs, rubbing the sleep out of his green eyes as he sat down at the island. Walker automatically slid a plate with buttered toast topped with scrambled eggs and avocado across the counter. Because he was fancy, Walker had even cracked a little salt and pepper over the top of it. Gordon Ramsay would be so proud. Or he would scream at Walker for overcooking the eggs and undercooking the toast, but who the hell cared? Cooper happily chewing away on his breakfast was proof it was at least edible.

One by one, ending with Carter as usual, all of the Hartrick siblings bounded down the stairs in their various moods. Carter and Piper had their first therapy sessions later, and their attitudes toward that fact were night and day. Piper was buzzing with nervous excitement, while Carter gave off a level of doom and gloom that said going to therapy was the equivalent to ripping off a few toenails and he’d rather go the toenail route.

“All right, Carter, I pick you up from school at two forty five, so make sure to actually be at school, hm?” Walker made the accusation clear, but Carter just bobbed his head silently and stuffed the last bit of his breakfast, which seemed to have been universally accepted by everyone, into his mouth. “Piper, Talia’s going to pick you up at two-thirty for yours.”

“You’re not picking her up?” Cooper asked.

“I have a meeting at the same time,” Walker replied. He technically only had a meeting because he knew he would be free during that time period, but it was a good excuse. He and Talia had specifically planned for Talia to take Piper, deciding that between the two of them, the questions about how well Piper’s first session went would be best coming from Talia, the same way Walker, no matter how unprepared he felt for the conversation, was the best person to discuss Carter’s therapy session with him. Unless it was urgent, he and Talia planned to reconvene the following morning to debrief.

“When I go to mine next week, can Talia take me, too?” Pearl’s hopeful tone made Walker smile behind his own breakfast. Always concerned about the feelings of others, Pearl quickly added, “No offense, Uncle Walker.”

“None taken. I’m sure she would be happy to take you.”

Talia had already agreed to take Pearl. It was in the schedule on their shared calendar, categorized as the color purple to offset his tasks, which were olive green. Amala was bright yellow and Roscoe blue for the times that they planned to pick Cooper up from school and drop him off on their way back to their house.

Wednesdays were the most chaotic day of the week. It had taken Walker and Talia a full hour to figure out the logistics when they were in their planning stage. While Cooper had therapy, Carter would be at basketball practice (he had agreed to start up again because Roscoe was an assistant coach), Colin would be at mathletes, and Talia would pick up Pearl and Piper for a girls’ night, which could only be on Wednesday due to the girls’ conflicting schedules. The white board was on display with every appointment, practice, club, work meeting, and dinner night in their future written in Talia’s neat script, a silly little reminder of her that Walker looked at more often than not just to remember that she had written it.

“I’m not going to be back today until late.” Colin shut the dishwasher and shifted his feet awkwardly.

“Where are you going?” Walker narrowed his eyes to slits and pulled his phone out to put it in the calendar.

“I’m tutoring someone for her science and math finals,” Colin said plainly.

“Her?” Carter chimed in, a boyish glint behind his dark brown eyes.

Walker had to admit, he was a little curious, too. Colin had one past girlfriend in the entirety of his high school career, a mouse of a girl who barely spoke a word unless it was about something school-related. As if it were a solvable math equation, they had broken up by mutually deciding that the relationship was only beneficial academically and moved on. It was some next-level Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory behavior. Sometimes, Walker thought Colin was too smart for his own good. When his nephew did find someone, he hoped they would be Colin’s exact opposite. Anyone who could pull the kid out of his comfort zone had Walker’s instant approval as long as the relationship didn’t involve copious amounts of illicit drugs.

“Yes, her,” Colin glared at his brother, seeing exactly where Carter’s inquiries were headed before they got there. “She’s not my type.”

“So she’s not boring?” Carter cocked his head, one textured ringlet atop his head flopping to the side. Colin ignored him, pulling out his phone and tapping around. Carter looked amused yet determined to get under Colin’s skin. “Who is it? You can tell me. Or are you worried that they’re going to be more interested in me than you? Is the problem that she is a she? I’ll support you either way. I have this dude on my basketball team that’s super nerdy like you, maybe—”

“I’m not interested in her because high school relationships are pointless. We have virtually nothing in common other than my desire to make a few bucks and her desire to not fail her finals. Scarlett just wants help in school. That’s it.” Colin’s tone declared an end to the discussion, but Piper cut in anyway.

“Scarlett Wallace? As in crazy good at soccer, red hair—”

“Body of a freaking goddess?” Carter interrupted.

Colin groaned. “Why do I tell you anything? Her body is of no interest to me or you.”

“You seem awfully protective of this girl you supposedly don’t like.”

“Carter,” Walker warned. “Reign in the raging hormones, kid. If we could not objectify women first thing in the morning, that would be swell.” Considering Walker had objectified Talia that very morning, stroking himself to a lingering erotic dream, he was the epitome of a hypocrite. His own hormones had decided vacations were for chumps and had been holding him hostage now for months.

“So he can objectify them any other time?” Pearl inserted herself into the conversation, swiping her jet-black bangs out of her face and adjusting the circular framed glasses on her nose. The glasses coupled with her long eyelashes almost made her look like a cartoon character, doe-eyed and innocent. Unlike Colin’s reading glasses and blond hair, which were always firmly in place, Pearl’s frames frequently slipped down the bridge of her nose, and she spent a lot of time in the mirror messing with her pin-straight hair to give it a wave.

Walker sighed and turned to look at his youngest niece, an apology already written on his tongue for Carter’s behavior (and, secretly, his own). “No, he can’t.” He twisted his torso to give Carter a more direct warning. “You can’t.”

“No one is objectifying anyone,” Colin grumbled. “This is strictly a school-sanctioned event. Scarlett is paying me to help her. It’s a job.” He folded his arms over his chest, giving the conversation an air of finality.

---