Page 96 of The Ones We Fight For

“You should probably do it before you chicken out,” Carter teased, receiving bobs of heads all around the table.

“But just to make sure, you all are fine with this?” Walker glanced around the kids’ faces again to double-check.

Piper got up from the table and shooed him—actually shooed him—out of his seat while gesturing for only Carter and Colin to follow her and Walker out into the foyer. “Colin, Carter and I are fully capable of taking care of Pearl and Coop for a night. See you tomorrow.”

“Okay, I don’t like the insinuation. I’m just going to go talk to her,” Walker said. He was definitely hoping that turned out to be a lie, because he had been craving Talia’s body for months.

“Mm-hmm, sure.” Carter chortled.

“Do you need to borrow my duffle as an overnight bag? It has tons of pockets,” Colin offered. Walker felt his face start to heat up.

“Uh, no. Nope! That’s not necessary. Thanks, though. I’m not packing a bag. That’s—”

“Do you need protection?” Piper asked.

“Protection? From what, my own feelings?” Walker stared at her in defiance.

“Condoms,” Colin explained unnecessarily.

“I know what she meant, I’m just not entertaining this conversation,” Walker said. “I am your guardian, not the other way around. I know what safe sex is.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll give you some of mine for the cause,” Carter said.

“I do not fucking need your condoms, Carter! Jesus Christ.” Walker raked through the mess atop his head with a flustered hand.

“There aren’t any left, anyway,” Colin said. Everyone turned to him with equally aghast facial expressions.

“Why exactly aren’t there any left?” Carter’s eyebrows lifted. “I didn’t use them.”

“I’ll buy you another box.” Colin shrugged.

“Okay, wow.” Walker massaged his temples. “We will address that later. For now, everyone get away from me.” He marched toward the stairs and batted the air behind him as if the teenagers were going to follow him around to further explain the birds and the bees. Halfway up the stairs, Carter shouted after Walker in a suggestive tone.

“Whatcha doin’? Getting an overnight bag?”

Ignoring the echoes of laughter with a smiling shake of his head, Walker made his way to his bedroom and slipped a toothbrush, toothpaste, solid cologne, deodorant, and six of his own condoms into his jacket pocket. He hadn’t been back to his apartment in almost a year, but most of his stuff was still there. Packing clothes wasn’t necessary when he could just root through his old closet later. His current closet still contained mostly Cole and Paisley’s clothes. At some point, he would have to claim the space as his own, but for the time being, his procrastination ended up working in his favor.

If things went well, Walker was hoping to end up at his apartment or Talia’s house. If he really needed clothes that badly, they could swing by his apartment to grab some. Either way, he’d be damned to walk down the stairs with an overnight bag, his perceptive family, and one apparent extremely sexually active nephew, lying in wait for him like vultures.

Who the hell is Colin sleeping with? Walker thought. There were at least twenty condoms in Carter’s box the last time he had checked. Twenty!

Pulling out his phone as he walked back down the stairs with pockets full of hopeful toiletries, Walker managed to make it to the door before being accosted by the triplets again.

“Have fun!” Carter said cheerily.

“You’ll call me if anything happens.” Firmly ignoring Carter, Walker pointed to his phone. “And I mean anything. If someone so much as stubs their toe, I want to know about it. Make sure Pearl and Cooper are in bed by nine-thirty. It’s a school night, and Coop has a social studies test tomorrow. I’ll probably be back tonight anyway.”

“No, you won’t,” Piper said in a singsong voice. Walker glared at her and turned toward Colin.

“I can get everyone to school tomorrow. Don’t worry about it.” Colin passed the keys to his Audi over to Walker, clearly having already thought through needing the minivan to lug all of his siblings around. Or maybe it was just that Colin was apparently always thinking about the logistics of getting laid (see: twenty missing condoms).

“Thank you.” Walker twisted the knob to the front door. “I’ll see you… at some point,” he finished lamely, already halfway to the Audi Colin had gotten for his seventeenth birthday when he called back over his shoulder.

After depositing all of his toiletries in the backseat, Walker nervously tapped his fingers against the wheel the entire way to Talia’s house while he formulated a speech in his head. He was either going to burst at the seams with hope or vomit—one of the two.

Hi, so… what do you think about possibly… maybe… going steady with me? Going steady? Why the fuck do you sound like a Pleasantville high schooler or one of those Duggar siblings?

Hey, Talia. I would like it very much if you’d be my main squeeze. Fuck, this is getting worse by the second. Who even are you?

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