“A year,” Maze said, at the exact same time Jace said, “A week.”
Awkward silence.
“He means a year,” Maze said, her nose wrinkling.
Jace smiled easily. “Right. How time flies . . .”
Sammie let out a stream of cheerful baby garble, and Walker suddenly felt almost cheerful too. Because if Jace was really Maze’s boyfriend, Walker would eat his own shorts.
Dillon came into the kitchen, followed by a parade of Roly and Poly trotting along behind him, all three looking surprised to find the room full.
Roly and Poly immediately circled Sammie, sniffing at her—probably because she smelled like banana and had Cheerios stuck to her pants.
“What’s for dinner?” Dillon asked.
“Whatever you’re cooking yourself,” Walker said.
Dillon laughed. “Like Caitlin would let me cook in her kitchen.”
“Piz!” Sammie yelled.
Roly and Poly both squealed in terror, eyes bugging out as they turned tail and ran out of the room as fast as they could, which, due to the fact that they couldn’t get purchase on the linoleum floor with their paws, wasn’t all that fast. Roly—or was it Poly?—fell over like a tipped cow, legs straight up in the air.
Walker scooped up and righted the little guy and got a snort for a thank-you.
“She means pizza,” Heather translated for Sammie. “It’s the only food she approves of. Nobody judge me, all right? You’ll see when you have kids, this gig is not for the faint of heart.”
Dillon took in Sammie with her wild hair, banana-streaked face, and sticky hands and grimaced. Walker was surprised he didn’t go running out of the room like his “babies” had.
“You’re not going to have kids?” Heather asked Dillon.
“Of course we are,” Caitlin said. “We can’t wait. It’s on our life list.”
“Maybe just not any time soon,” Dillon said.
Caitlin blinked in surprise, and the silence fell as hard as Roly just had.
Heather turned awkwardly to Maze. “What about you and Jace?”
Maze looked like she might be allergic to the question, but Jace came through for her, giving an easy laugh as he gently squeezed her in a one-armed hug. “She’s shy about it because she’s been to one of my family dinners. Five siblings, lots of bickering. It’d send anyone running screaming into the night.”
The thing about getting to know someone when you were kids was that you got to know them on a level you couldn’t easily achieve as adults. Add in ugly childhoods and a shockingly traumatic event that forever changed your lives, and the connection deepened whether you liked it or not. Walker knew Maze. She was as tough as they came. Nothing scared her.
“I’m sorry,” Caitlin said, shaking her head. “But . . .” She looked at Dillon. “‘Not any time soon’?”
“We’re a little busy right now, don’t you think?”
“Only until the wedding.”
Dillon looked pained. “Maybe this is a topic for another time. Without an audience.”
Caitlin nodded, but looked deeply unsettled. She tried to recover, though, Walker could tell. She turned to Sammie, smiled, and opened her arms.
Sammie ran right at her, and Caitlin beamed—until Sammie passed her by and leaped at Walker, crashing into his legs, giving him a fiercely intense command in baby speak, using both her voice and gimme hands.
Caitlin sighed.
“She’ll come around,” Heather promised.
Walker gave in to the demands of the cutest little tyrant on the planet and scooped her into his arms.
Sammie sweetly patted his cheeks with her sticky hands.
Two-plus years ago he’d stopped in on Heather and found her pregnant, exhausted, and clearly at the end of her rope. He’d ended up staying a few days, filling her fridge and cabinets with food, taking care of things while she caught up on sleep. He’d continued to visit whenever he could, sometimes just being an extra adult in a very tiny and very overwhelmed apartment.
So yeah, Sammie felt comfortable around him and vice versa. She gave a sigh and laid her head on his shoulder, smelling like bananas and hopes and dreams. He rarely allowed himself the luxury of hopes and dreams—hadn’t for a long, long time. But he found himself pulling her tiny body to his, dropping his jaw to the top of her head, and closing his eyes just for a beat, wondering what it might be like to have kids of his own and be a positive force in their lives in a way he’d never had himself.
MAZE WATCHED SAMMIE completely melt against Walker and felt herself react to the look on his face, a soft expression she’d never seen on him before. “She knows you,” she said, doing her best to keep the jealously out of her voice.
He didn’t respond. Maybe because Sammie had gone back to playfully patting his face with her chubby hands, specifically his mouth. Maze would bet her last dollar that little Sammie was enjoying the feel of his scruffy jaw, or maybe the game he made out of pretending to bite her fingers so she’d squeal in delight.
Tired of waiting for the answer he was clearly not going to give her, Maze turned to Heather for an explanation.
“I couldn’t have made it these past few years without him,” Heather said. “He’d somehow just magically show up when I needed something. Money, a shoulder to cry on, someone to talk me off the ledge.”
Caitlin looked as devastated as Maze felt. “But . . . I called, I texted, I emailed . . . you’d gone dark and I couldn’t reach you at all. I finally got the gist—you didn’t want contact. But I swear, if I’d known, I’d have been there in a heartbeat, no matter what.”
Maze took Heather’s hand. “I didn’t call, text, or email, and that’s on me. But if I’d been able to get out of my own way enough to hear what was going on in your life, I’d have been there too.”
“It’s not on you, not on either of you.” Heather shook her head. “I couldn’t . . . I couldn’t tell either of you. I’d made a huge mess out of my life, and it all fell apart, completely. I was ashamed and needed to handle it on my own. But the truth is, I wasn’t handling it. I was sinking. And then Walker just showed up one day and did his usual strong, silent thing, taking care of whatever needed to be taken care of, whether I wanted help or not.”
Cat looked at Walker. “You should’ve told me.”
“No,” Heather said quickly. “I made him promise on Michael’s grave that he wouldn’t. I’m sorry, I really am, but I needed to grow up—without you guys at my back, fixing my mistakes.”
Maze hated that Heather had been so alone. Hated even more that it had happened because she had been selfishly down her own rabbit hole. “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I failed you. I won’t let that happen again.”
“We won’t let that happen again,” Caitlin said firmly.
Heather nodded, eyes suspiciously bright. “Me either.”
Cat turned on Walker and punched him in the arm. “Ow!” she said, shaking out her hand. “Dammit. You’re a brick wall.”
“I taught you how to hit,” he told her. “You can’t tuck your thumb in like that. And set your feet and put your weight into it.”