Ten Steps Back

Chapter One: Crickets

Water streamed down Alex's face from the hose Rachel still had pointed at the door. He'd had enough sense to step aside because Rachel certainly wasn't moving. She had laughed herself to tears the second her brother's scowl turned to an icy shock and wasn't showing signs of stopping anytime soon. Now, as he stared her down like a cat forced into a bath, I didn't see what Rachel found funny. Alex had always rubbed me the wrong way, and I especially disliked it when he glared at people like that. It was a look that promised a revenge he never actually delivered. I couldn't help but feel unsettled by it even if his sisters thought it was incredibly funny.

"Hi Lex," Camden choked out, actual tears in her eyes. She tried desperately to stop laughing long enough to talk. "How ya- How you doing?"

He continued to glare fiercely, running a hand down his face and releasing a layer of water onto the dirt. It was meant to be an intimidating reply if the set of his brow meant anything, but it just sent Rachel further into her own laughing fit.

"Shut up, Rachel," Alex muttered. His angry eyes found mine, and I raised a brow in question. Alex tried to challenge me often, but I knew he was cautious enough to avoid going through with it. As always, he dropped my gaze pretty quickly, giving his attention instead to his siblings scattered around the yard. "What the hell are you all doing?"

It was a valid question. Rachel was still blasting water into the ground, and both Camden and Jerome were soaked to the bone, though far less angry about it than Alex was. Jerome had laid himself out across Jacob like a rug directly in the sunlight. He was happy as a clam much to his twin's disdain because Jacob himself was now covered in dirt and water. Altogether, the Weston kids looked like a damn mess today, and I, the sole observer, was facing his blame for it.

"Relax asshole, we're just fucking around." Rachel finally composed a sentence just to insult her brother.

Lex gave a pointed look to the twins in the corner. He bit out, "Fucking around? We have company coming over in twenty minutes and those two look like a bunch of mud fighters. Aren't you supposed to be watching them?"

That part was directed at me, but I only shrugged. "I don't technically have to watch them, they're just entertaining, so no."

"Of course," he sighed.

Alex pinched the bridge of his nose as he walked back inside. He returned a second later with four towels, tossing three of them to Camden and the twins before using the fourth on his own soaked abdomen. Rachel clearly wanted to laugh again, but he got to her before she could.

"Get inside," Alex grunted. "I'm serious. You all need to get cleaned up now."

"Aw, Lex, don't be so stuck up. Learn how to have fun." Camden patted his shoulder as she walked inside. Jerome was next to go after Jacob shoved him into the dirt, and Rachel was the last. Once the hose was turned off and vaguely back in its place, she was gone and then it was just Alex and I in the yard. He shook his head in frustration, looking me over briefly before asking, "Are you staying?"

Technically, I didn't have a position in the pack anymore. At one point, I was next in line to be Beta, but then life got in the way, and I was lucky to just be here at all now. My sister would be taking the position instead, and part of that position was joining the alpha family when they were doing business. Margret and Jack loved me though. If I wanted to stay and eat, they would let me, something I think really got on Alex's nerves. The kid had a superiority complex that needed to be straightened out and as rude as it might've been to say, I was really glad he wasn't our next alpha. The Luna had popped out two huge men before her most annoying kid, so I would never have to treat him like my leader. I did, however, have to treat him like a person when we were forced to interact.