𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗽𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗿𝗲𝗲
𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘨𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘨𝘦𝘵𝘴 𝘵𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩
━━━━━━ † ━━━━━━
The alarm Jules had set on her phone was supposed to wake her in fifteen minutes time. But apparently alarms weren't needed when you lived in a house full of boys under the age of eighteen.
There wasn't a lot of detectable conversation through the walls. It sounded like some of the boys were arguing. There was something about a leather jacket. Doors kept opening and closing.
A long groan escaped her lips as Jules slid out of her bed, unable to take it any longer. She twisted the handle and yanked her bedroom door open, "Do you boys ever shut up?"
Jordan was standing in front of Jackie, filming her whilst Lee and Isaac argued over their heads. Their doors slammed as Jackie continued picking up a ton of Jenga blocks that Jules assumed belonged to Benny.
"Hey." Jackie sighed as she realised Lee had gone into the bathroom without her knowing, "Guys, I need to use the shower too!"
"You should try the one downstairs, there shouldn't be anyone down there." Jordan told the younger Howard.
Jackie grabbed her washbag from the floor, "Thanks."
Jules watched her head down the stairs as Jordan's camera followed her. Once she'd disappeared from his view he flicked the camera up to Jules. She scowled at the young boy, "I won't hesitate to throw that camera out the window."
Jordan brought the camera down, pointing its lens to the floor. Jules gave him a smile that told him she wasn't to be messed with, before slamming her door shut.
━━━━━━ † ━━━━━━
The ride to school had been less chaotic than usual because Kiara had offered to pick Jules up. Jackie had also had her friends, Grace and Skylar, drive her to school. It was nice to see her younger sister having friends that didn't include Cole and his posse. Jules didn't trust them.
After her first two classes of the day, Jules was heading towards her locker. She spotted Jackie with her friends down the hallway. Jackie was wearing a dirty brown cap which in no way matched or even complimented her outfit.
Jules became suspicious, watching as her sister turned the corner. She could've sworn there was a strip of orange admist the thick raven coloured strands. Maybe it was just the cap.
She ignored her curiosity and opened up her locker. She hadn't realised Alex was walking towards her, "Hey, Jules."
"Oh, hey." She responded as she placed some books inside.
Jules hadn't really spoken to Alex since she'd said what she had in the stables. There was something inside her that wanted to keep everybody a good distance away from her. Like an invisible pole where she was at one end and they were being pushed away with the other. She wasn't sure why.
"This your locker?" Alex questioned, but by the look on his face he immediately regretted it.
"No, I just like to break into other peoples and steal their textbooks." Jules quipped with a straight face.
He froze for a moment, unsure how to respond until he realised she was joking. Alex let out an awkward laugh before throwing a clumsy pointer finger towards some other lockers, "I'm right over there so... if you need anything..."
Jules noticed a book clutched in his hand, "What're you reading?"
"Oh, Fellowship of the Ring." Alex replied, "Do you know it?"
"Yeah, I haven't read it though." She said, rifling through her locker, not looking at him. But Alex was okay with that because at least she was talking to him, and he really liked that. "I've seen the movies."
"The books are so much better." He told her.
Jules turned her attention to Alex, "Really?"
He nodded, "Yeah. Do you wanna borrow it?"
"Sure, that'd be great." She readjusted her bag strap on her shoulder. Her eyes analysed the book in his hand. It's edges and cover were pristine, it looked well cared for, maybe even new. And the bookmark was jammed in halfway, "After you've finished with it."
"Oh, I've already read it." Alex said, he offered it to her, "Here."
Jules denied his offer, "No, you finish it first. No great story ends in the middle."
Alex was somewhat surprised by that quick spout of inspiration. It's like she had provided him with a dose of wisdom. The more he spoke to Jules, the more he liked her. He was starting to think she felt the same way, until she slammed her locker door shut and walked away with a simple monotone, "Bye."
━━━━━━ † ━━━━━━
Jules was sitting opposite Alex as everyone, bar Cole and Jackie, ate dinner around the Walter dining table. It was silent amongst them all. Only the sounds of cutlery on plates could be heard.
Apparently there had been a bet of some kind placed on Jackie. Jules was unsure what it was because all of the Walter boys were keeping silent. But she was even more concerned that her sister wasn't here right now, and neither was the misbehaved blonde named Cole.
Around four minutes later, a door opened and closed and Cole's voice appeared before he did, "Is there anything left? Cause I am starving."
He entered the room, grabbing at a chicken leg from the table. Jackie followed in after him and headed towards Jules, who was looking at her with concern in her eyes.
"Hey, you know you're supposed to call if you're running late, right?" George told his son, "I mean that's the whole reason you have a phone."
"Where have you guys been?" Katherine asked.
"We, uh, went to the watering hole." Cole said through a mouthful of chicken, "Lost track of time."
Jules' eyebrows pulled together as she looked between Cole and her sister. The watering hole sounded like one of those places people go to make out. If Cole had even touched her sister, she'd poke his eyes out with the fork she was currently holding far too tightly.
"Listen, I--"
"Jackie, excuse me." George interrupted her, "Hey, Cole, you know anything about a bet with Isaac this morning?"
"No." He shook his head, more interested in his food, "No, doesn't ring a bell."
"I didn't get that?" George narrowed his eyes.
"Seriously, Cole?" Katherine frowned.
"It was a joke, okay?" Cole said, "It's only a bit of hair bleach."
Jules nearly flew out of her seat. Her eyes were wide as she moved behind Jackie to pull a strand of her bun out of the back of the cap she was still wearing, "You bleached her hair?!"
Alex could see how concerned and upset Jules was and despite what she had said to him in the stables, he wanted to help, "Maybe ask Jordan what he's got on camera."
"Dude, seriously?" Lee frowned at Alex.
"What the hell?" Isaac scowled.
Jordan turned to his brother, "You just had to bring me into it, didn't you."
"Jackie, I don't even know what to say, I'm so sorry--"
Jackie cut Katherine off, "I have to go fix my hair."
"Can I at least help?" She offered.
"No, thank you." Jackie stormed off towards the stairs.
Jules let out a breath, her eyes disappointingly glancing around the table of pissed off teenagers before meeting Katherine's, "I'll go check on her."
And with that, she left the table. Jules was angry. These two lovely adults had given her and her sister a home, whilst raising a handful of boys and yet those boys couldn't even last a week without doing something stupid. What had they ever done to them?
"Why didn't you tell me about the prank?" Jules asked as she walked into Jackie's bedroom.
Jackie took off the cap, revealing streaks of orange amongst the black, "Because look at it. It's a disaster."
Jules walked closer to her sister, gently picking up pieces of the hair to examine it, "Want me to replace their toothpaste with shaving cream?"
A smile revealed itself on Jackie's lips, "No, it's okay. Let's just sort this out."
Jules held out her hand for the box dye Jackie had bought, "Come on then."
━━━━━━ † ━━━━━━
The next morning, Jackie seemed to be in a slightly better mood now that her hair was back to normal. Jules, however, was still annoyed at the boys involved in the prank.
As Jules joined the kitchen to get some breakfast, Katherine was already having a conversation with Jackie, Alex, Nathan, Lee, Isaac and Jordan, who were dotted around the room, eating.
"I'm thinking that now that there's three girls in the house, the downstairs bathroom is just for Jules, Jackie and Parker." Katherine told them all.
"That's Benny's." Jordan stated.
"And Benny." Katherine added, "Jules, Jackie, Parker and Benny."
"They just got here and they get their own rooms and own bathroom?" Lee frowned, clearly not happy with the situation.
Katherine turned to Lee, "Excuse me?"
"Maybe because we're not the ones putting bleach into peoples shampoo." Jules scowled at Lee.
His frown deepened, "That wasn't even me."
"Reroll the tapes, Jordan." Jules said, "Then we'll see everyone who was involved."
"Why does everyone keep bringing me into this?" Jordan scoffed into his breakfast.
Lee glared at Jules, "You can't just go around accusing everyone."
"You put bleach in the shampoo!" Jules frowned, "You could've blinded someone."
Lee pushed himself up, rushing to the back door, "Screw this."
"Screw you." Jules stormed off out of the front door.
"What just happened?" Katherine asked, bewildered. Alex jumped off his stool and rushed after Jules.
She was sitting on the steps of the porch. The wind gently blew against the exposed parts of her skin and through her long, dark hair. It was so beautiful outside, and peaceful. It was probably the only thing she liked about living here.
A body sat beside her, "You okay?"
"Why are the male species so... immature?" Jules scowled.
"We're not all like that." Alex told her, causing her to raise an eyebrow. He exhaled, "I know, majority of my family are, but a few of us are good."
Jules ran a hand over her face, "I don't think I can live in this house much longer. They're driving me insane."
"I know that feeling." Alex sighed. It was silent for a moment before he got up from the steps and stood in front of her, "Can I show you something?"
She raised her eyes to look up at him, "Depends."
"I'm not gonna prank you, if that's what you're thinking." He told her, "I like to think I'm one of the mature ones in the family."
Jules almost cracked a smile. She pushed herself up, "Lead the way."
Alex led Jules into the stables, where he climbed up some wooden ladders until he disappeared. His head poked out over the top of them, "Come on up."
She was hesitant. Then she decided it was better in here than inside that house, so she headed up. Jules' eyes widened slightly as she took in her surroundings.
"What is this?" She asked, staring at the tables with games on, chairs with blankets draped over them, little rugs on the wooden floor, and cabinets and desks holding stationery.
"The loft." Alex told her, "I come up here sometimes when it all gets to be too much in there."
He wandered over to one of the desks and began to rifle through its cupboards. Jules remained in the same spot, looking around her. It was really nice that he'd brought her up here to get away from everyone else. Maybe he wasn't as bad as the others.
"Thank you, for what you did for Jackie yesterday." Jules spoke, "Danny told me this morning that your brothers are freezing you out because of it. Is that normal?"
"Ah, yeah. It's a whole thing about snitching." He told her, pulling a book from one of the cupboards, "Here. It's not part of the trilogy but you should read this one first."
Jules glanced down at the book, taking it from Alex's hand. It was similar in style to the one he'd been reading at school but this one was called The Hobbit. A warm feeling appeared in her stomach but she dismissed it, letting her eyes trail to the pillar Alex was leaning against. It had tons of handwritten things on it.
"What's this?" She asked.
"Oh, we don't do it so much anymore but we all used to record our heights on our birthdays." He told her, "Let's add you."
Jules tutted followed by a playful shrug, "It's not my birthday."
"Oh, come on." Alex persuaded.
She shook her head, knowing this was ridiculous, but agreed, "Fine."
He took a hold of her arms and gently placed her against the pillar, "Pick a colour."
Jules exhaled, "Pink."
Alex took the pink felt tip pen from the string it was hanging on. His right hand briefly grasped her waist, shifting her slightly to the left so she was at the right spot. As her eyes flicked upwards, they met his. He was staring at the wall but he was so close to her.
That warm feeling reappeared but this time it felt like the beginning of a fire. Like a match that had just started to grow its flame. She could see his freckles scattered across his cheeks, the rose colour of his lips, the green flecks in his eyes as they shifted.
When he was done writing his eyes fell down to hers. Jules ducked out to her left, creating a distance between them. Alex placed the pen back, "Now that you're an official member of the loft, let me show you why it's so awesome."
He took the book from her hand and threw it over the edge of the loft, letting it land down in the dirt. Then he balanced himself on a beam with no railing. Jules furrowed her brows, "What are you doing?"
"I'm just doing... this!" And with that he jumped forward and dropped. Jules rushed to the railing to see him land in a pile of hay. He pushed himself up, "Okay, you're turn."
"Uh, no." Jules shook her head, "I'll just take the normal route."
Alex blocked the bottom of the ladders, "Have a little fun, Jules."
She narrowed her eyes at him, "Are you saying I'm not fun?"
"Well, I don't see you jumping off a beam into some hay, so..." He teased.
Jules crossed her arms. She didn't want to give him the satisfaction of doing as he'd told her, but she also didn't want him saying that she wasn't fun, because she was. She was sure of it.
It also looked like Alex wasn't moving from the ladders. Jules sighed, letting her arms unfold. She wandered to the beam, "If I break a bone, you're tending to my every whim until I'm healed."
He broke into a smile, "Sure, fine."
Jules took in a deep breath, prepared herself as best as she could before she let herself drop from the beam. Her body flew then hit into the hay. She didn't dare open her eyes, "Did I break my neck?"
"No." Alex continued to smile, "You're good."
"Thank God." Jules opened her eyes and climbed out of the hay. She brushed herself off, "Because Katherine would've broken yours too."
She continued to get the hay off her clothing. Alex noticed a long piece sticking out of her hair, "Oh, here."
He moved close to her, gently plucking the straw out of her strands. Their eyes connected and that feeling Jules felt against the pillar was back. She quickly distinguished it, drawing her gaze away.
"What are you doing?" A voice interrupted the two.
Alex turned to Cole, "Showing her the loft."
Jules hadn't seen Cole since he'd returned home with her sister last night. When it was revealed that Cole was involved with Jackie's bet Jules' hate for the older Walter had grown. He was really beginning to get on her nerves.
"You owe my sister an apology." Jules glared at the blonde as Alex picked up the book he'd thrown down from the loft.
"Do I?" He questioned with a cocky grin, "Well, I'll be sure to tell her."
"You bleached her hair." She frowned.
"She bleached her hair." Cole insisted, "And anyway, don't you city type dye your hair all the time?"
"God, you're insufferable." Jules shook her head.
Alex was beginning to feel uncomfortable. With the events that had taken place in summer when Cole had made out with the girl Alex had been in love with, he wasn't ready to see that happen again. Alex, although unsure what it was, could see something between Jules and Cole, and he couldn't go through that again.
He held the book out to her and she took it, "Jules, I'll, uh, see you later, okay?"
Alex left the stables. Jules wasn't sure why he'd just left her there but it must've been something to do with Cole. She was about to go after Alex to ask but Cole grabbed her arm to stop her, "Stay away from my brother."
Jules frowned, pulling her arm from his grasp, "Is that a threat?"
"It's a warning." Cole stated.
She glared at him with a new sensation of malice in her eyes, "Then you stay the hell away from my sister."
Jules tore her gaze from him and stormed out of the stables. There was another fire burning within Jules, but this time it was from spite. If Cole wanted to threaten her then he'd better be ready for her retaliation. Even if that involved Alex.