Page 5 of My Return to the Walter Boys (My Life with the Walter Boys #2)
She huffed but hung her head. “That it’s only acceptable in certain contact sports and if someone is trying to kidnap me.”
“That’s your second warning. If it happens again, you’ll be grounded. And, Jordan? You need to eat more than potatoes for dinner. Put something healthy on your plate.”
Once everyone else had food, I served myself and spent a few minutes talking with Will and Haley, who I hadn’t seen since the wedding.
The newlyweds had purchased their first home two weeks ago—a fixer-upper ranch on the outskirts of town—and they had all sorts of plans for how to renovate it.
When the conversation turned into a debate on granite verses quartz countertops, I made my excuses and escaped outside.
It was late enough in the evening that the setting sun had chased away the heat of the day, leaving behind a comfortable coolness and a streak of purple clouds across the sky.
The air here smelled how I always imagined summer should—a mix of barbecue and chlorine and freshly cut grass.
It was a vast improvement over New York’s standard bouquet of piss on hot pavement and rotting garbage.
For a moment, I stood in place and took everything in, and it was only the sound of someone calling my name that finally broke me from my reverie.
“Hellooo, earth to Jackie.”
Across the deck, Isaac, Lee, Alex, Kim, and Nathan were sitting at the patio table.
Something about the scene looked wrong, like someone had photoshopped out a part of the picture.
That was when I realized it was because the eldest set of Walter twins was missing.
My ribs grew tight as I thought of Danny.
We’d spent the entire summer together, so his absence was disquieting, but he’d decided to stay behind in New York to pursue acting, and I couldn’t begrudge him chasing his dreams.
Alex raised a brow at me, then pushed out the empty chair at his side. “Plan on standing there all night, or are you going to join us?”
A hand wrapped around my wrist.
“No, come sit with me,” Parker said and tugged me toward the lawn. “I haven’t finished telling you about my summer.”
Her smile was too innocent to be trustworthy, but I couldn’t face Alex and Kim yet, not when what happened this afternoon was fresh in my mind.
After sending an apologetic smile in Alex’s direction, I let Parker lead me over to a picnic table where the younger kids were eating, and Zack and Benny watched with rapt attention as she directed me to a specific spot on the bench.
Jack was intently focused on his food, but it was obvious something was up since his twin was missing.
Knowing Jordan, he was probably lurking nearby with their camera, hoping to catch whatever action arose.
Following a cursory look under the table (I’d play along provided their plan didn’t involve another encounter with Rumple, Jordan’s corn snake), I sat down and braced myself for whatever was coming.
I didn’t have to wait long.
Parker tried to distract me with outrageous stories about her week at summer camp, but the Walters didn’t do subtle, and I noticed Jack nod out of the corner of my eye.
His signal triggered a strange sputtering noise, and a split second later, a stream of water blasted me in the back.
I screamed, more because of the cold temperature than the surprise of the attack, and the kids shrieked with laughter.
Hidden in the bushes behind me was a sprinkler, and it sprayed me once more before I could scramble away from the table and out of range.
“What’s going on?” Nathan stood at the edge of the deck, a frown marring his face. Nobody responded, but it only took him a second to survey the scene and figure out what had happened. He snatched a towel off one of the pool chairs and rushed down the steps. “Jackie, are you all right?”
“I’m good,” I said, taking the proffered towel and wrapping it around my shoulders.
My answer must not have appeased Nathan, because he rounded on his siblings with a scowl. “What the hell is wrong with you guys?”
“Lighten up, Nate. It was just a welcome-back joke,” Jordan explained as he emerged from the bushes, camera in hand. His accomplices snickered. “I caught the whole thing. Who wants to see?”
The expression on Nathan’s face warned of an imminent explosion, so I placed a hand on his arm in an effort to calm him down. “Hey, it’s okay. I promise.”
“It’s not okay,” he snapped, still glaring at his younger brothers and sister, all of whom had crowded around Jordan to watch their ambush play out on screen. “You’ve been home for less than three hours and they’ve already—”
“Nathan.” I threw him a look, and in a much lower voice, I added, “Nobody did anything I didn’t allow to happen.”
He opened his mouth to argue, then paused as my words sank in. Understanding flickered in his eyes shortly afterward. “Oh! So you let them…”
I nodded. “Yeah, it’s not a big deal.”
And it truly wasn’t.
Old me would have insisted on drying my hair and changing, but I’d come a long way from my first meeting the Walter kids when Zack and Benny tackled me into the pool.
Dry clothes were never a guarantee in the Walter household.
Sometime between being thrown into a freezing cold swimming hole, getting caught in the rain on multiple occasions, and surprise squirt gun attacks, I’d learned that a little bit of water never hurt.
After all, what was a little bit of H2O in comparison to the smiles on their faces?