Jackie Howard has recently lost her entire family in a car accident. In the wake of this tragedy, she is moving to Colorado to finish out the school year and live with her mother’s childhood friend, Katherine Walter, and her family. On the plane, Katherine admits that she feels some trepidation about bringing Jackie home to her family and reveals that she has 12 children. Trying not to panic, Jackie asks Katherine to tell her about the children so that she can prepare.

As Katherine runs through her list of children and pertinent information about them, Jackie realizes that all 12 Walter children are boys. Because she attended an all-girls private school for her entire life, this news only makes Jackie more anxious. When Jackie and Katherine arrive, Katherine’s husband, George, greets them. As they drive home, Jackie stares out the window at the foreign surroundings, noting that the landscape is beautiful but sparse.

The Walters live on a sprawling ranch in a house that looks like “three homes put together” (12). Before exiting the car, George tries to reassure Jackie, telling her not to let the boys scare her. George gets out of the car and Jackie waits a moment alone. As her anxiety mounts, scenes of the car accident that killed both of her parents and her older sister, Lucy, begin flashing in her mind.

Katherine waves Jackie over to the family’s pool, where she sees a gaggle of boys splashing around. The Walter kids look at her like she is a “foreigner invading” (14). Jackie introduces herself and makes eye contact with one of the older sons, Cole, whom she immediately notices is attractive. Cole asks where she is going to stay and states flatly that he will not be sharing his room. Katherine states that Jackie will be staying in her studio, which prompts a chorus of disapproval.

After telling Cole to help Jackie begin moving in her boxes, George and Katherine go inside, leaving Jackie alone with the Walter children. As she turns to go wait in the garage for Cole to help her move her stuff, the eldest son, Will, appears and introduces himself to Jackie, shaking her hand. He tells her that he no longer lives at home but tells her that she can reach out to him if she ever needs anything.

Will proceeds to introduce each of his siblings individually, referring to Cole as “an ass” (17) and then running through the rest of the kids: Danny, Cole’s twin, Isaac and Lee, their biological cousins, Alex, Nathan, another set of twins, Jack and Jordan. When Will introduces Parker, Jackie realizes that Parker is a girl, initially assuming she was another boy based on her name and boyish appearance. Will offers to begin unloading her things from the truck. As the rest of the Walter children go back to swimming, only Cole remains, who gives Jackie another smirk and finally leads her inside to her room.

Cole apologizes for his and his siblings’ unenthusiastic reaction to her coming to live with them, explaining that they were taken by surprise. Trying to make conversation, Cole states that he knows Jackie is from New York, but Jackie is relieved to learn that Cole and his siblings do not know anything about the tragic circumstances surrounding her arrival in Colorado.

Cole and Jackie brush hands as they try to find the light switch in Jackie’s room at the same time, sending a “pulse” (23) down Jackie’s arm. Jackie’s room, Katherine’s former studio, is covered in brightly painted murals and art supplies. Will arrives with the first pieces of Jackie’s luggage, and he and Cole leave Jackie alone to change before dinner.

Dinner at the Walter home is hectic, and Jackie likes how “lived in” (27) the home feels. Amidst the whirlwind of the family, Jackie notices one boy quietly playing a guitar, somehow able to focus despite the chaos. She remembers that this is Nathan, the 14-year-old. During the prayer before dinner, Jackie feels something brush against her leg and screams when she realizes that it is a snake. The table erupts into chaos as Jackie throws the snake onto the table, spilling the bowl of spaghetti and meatballs and covering everyone in sauce.

Jackie showers after dinner, and when she returns to her room wearing her towel, she finds Cole waiting for her on her bed. He is eating Chinese takeout and offers her a carton, telling her that he will close his eyes so that she can change. Jackie kicks him out while she changes and then they sit together on her bed eating. Cole tells Jackie that the scene at dinner is not altogether unusual, and that the snake belongs to Jordan. At this, Jordan and his twin, Jack, burst into the room, reminding Cole that no one is allowed to be in a room with Jackie with the door closed, and that they want to use Jackie as their newest film subject matter. Jackie declines, and then Danny, Cole’s twin, appears at the door, telling Cole that a girl named Erin is there to see him.

Cole ushers everyone out of Jackie’s room. Before he leaves, he tells her that tomorrow will be easier and that he will see her in the morning before school. This reminds Jackie of her anxiety about starting at a public school for the first time in her life.

When Cole leaves, Jackie hears Cole and Erin talking on the front porch, right below her window. Erin asks Cole if they are “still on” (37) for that night, and when Cole declines to hang out, she states that she misses him. Erin leaves, and Jackie watches Cole walk off the porch and out toward a small shed. Cole unlatches the door and closes it behind him, and Jackie wonders what he is doing inside.

Jackie jolts awake from a recurrent nightmare about her family’s car accident, an event she was not present for as she was home sick with the flu.

Ever since the accident, Jackie has dreamt of her family every night, made worse by the fact that their deaths were highly publicized in the media due to Jackie’s father being the CEO of a prestigious investment firm in New York City.

Knowing she will be unable to fall asleep again, Jackie gets dressed for an early-morning run. George, Will, and Cole greet her on the front porch, all three dressed for ranch chores. Cole tells her that Nathan also runs in the morning, and Jackie decides to run with him. When Nathan arrives, Jackie apologizes for the scene at dinner the night before, and Nathan tells her not to worry about it.

When Jackie arrives at Valley View High, she realizes how much smaller her boarding school in the city was, which instantly makes Jackie yearn for the familiarity of home and her best friend and roommate, Sammy. As she walks inside with Nathan and Cole, a different girl from the night before flings her arms around Cole’s neck and kisses him. Cole wishes Jackie good luck on her first day before walking off with the girl. Nathan laughs when Jackie asks if Olivia is Cole’s girlfriend, explaining that “Cole doesn’t date” (52) and that he prefers to just have casual relationships with multiple girls at a time.

Nathan helps Jackie find her first class, anatomy, which she learns she shares with Alex. When Nathan asks Alex if Jackie can sit with him, Alex is initially uncertain, especially when a blonde girl from the back of the room begins to laugh. Jackie notices Alex’s attention latching onto the girl, and he waits another moment before saying that Jackie can sit with him.

Alex shows Jackie the book he was reading when they came in, The Fellowship of the Ring, by J. R. R. Tolkien. As they talk, Jackie notices that Alex looks remarkably like Cole and becomes embarrassed when she realizes she has been staring at him. By the end of the class period, she feels like she and Alex have become friends, and she notices the blonde girl from the back of the class glaring at her.

Later, Jackie realizes that she and Cole are in the same advanced calculus class. Jackie blanches when Cole puts his arm around her and offers to take her to lunch. Cole guides her through the food line and invites her to sit at his table.

Jackie is relieved to see the Walter family ranch again after a busy first day at school. Katherine tells Jackie that the rest of her things have arrived and that she can start unpacking before dinner is ready. Katherine instructs Danny to help Jackie move the boxes up to her room, which he does in silence. When Jackie thanks him for his help, he only nods. As he turns to leave, he knocks over a box of books containing Jackie’s collection of Shakespeare plays. He admits that he, too, likes drama and plays, and Jackie is relieved to have found more common ground with another Walter boy.

After dinner, Jackie calls her best friend, Sammy. Sammy asks if there are “any hotties” (67) among the Walter boys, and even as Jackie’s mind wanders to her thoughts about Cole and Alex, she feels guilty for thinking about boys when her family is gone. Jackie tries to change the subject, but Sammy is persistent until Jackie finally admits that she finds Cole attractive.

When Jackie heads downstairs in the morning to run with Nathan, she is surprised to find Olivia sneaking out of Cole’s bedroom. When Jackie asks Nathan about this, Nathan admits that Cole has not always been like this. He shares that last year, Cole broke his leg during a football game and as a result lost his scholarship, prompting a change in his personality and interests.

After her shower, Jackie finds that both her clothes and her towel are missing, prompting her to take down the shower curtain so that she can make her way back to her room. When she exits the bathroom, Jack and Jordan are there waiting with their video camera, attempting to capture a naked Jackie on film running back to her room.

Jackie befriends two girls in her art class named Riley and Heather. It becomes clear that the girls know about Jackie’s tragic family situation and are intrigued that she appears to be friends with the Walter boys. They pepper Jackie with questions about the boys, Cole specifically, claiming that Cole does not invite “just any girl” (76) to sit with him at lunch. They invite Jackie to sit with them at lunch, and Jackie agrees.

Cole walks Jackie to lunch again and is surprised when Jackie begins walking toward Riley and Heather’s table. He makes her promise to sit with him tomorrow. Heather and Riley’s eyes are wide when they see Cole walk Jackie over and exclaim that “the god of all guys” (78) is flirting with her. Riley and Heather continue discussing Cole while introducing Jackie to their friends, Skylar and Kim. Kim states that she already knows about Jackie because she lives with Kim’s friend Alex Walter.

Jackie asks what exactly makes Cole so special and thinks to herself that she cannot become involved with Cole because of her family tragedy. Anything outside of that goal would be nothing but a distraction.

After school the next day, Jackie continues unpacking her belongings, determined to settle in.

Eventually, there is only one item left: a framed photo of her and her mother. She reflects on her complex relationship with her parents. Her father’s success pushed Jackie to try and be equally successful, and she was top of her class in school and headed multiple clubs. In contrast to Jackie’s orderly and forward-thinking mindset, her mother was “spontaneous and carefree” (88), qualities that caused tension between the two.

Alex interrupts Jackie’s musings by coming into her room to tell her that dinner is ready. Before he leaves, Jackie hands him her copy of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, reminding him of their book-swap agreement.

At dinner, Katherine asks her children which of them destroyed the shower curtain. Jackie admits to tearing down the shower curtain and weighs whether to tell Katherine and George the whole truth. Ultimately, she decides to tell them about Isaac taking her clothes and towel. George asks if anyone else can verify either story and Jackie realizes that no one is going to come to her defense. Before leaving the table, Jackie tells Katherine to look at Jack and Jordan’s video camera footage to determine the truth.

Katherine comes to Jackie’s room later that night to apologize for the boys’ behavior, telling her that she looked through the camera footage and discovered Isaac had picked the lock on the bathroom door before stealing her towel and clothing. Jackie hears music coming from Nathan’s room and decides to confront him about not sticking up for her. Nathan admits that the kids all have a pact to never tell on one another. Nathan assures Jackie that Isaac and the others should only be mad at her for about a week and promises to try and speak to them on her behalf. As she leaves his room, Jackie realizes that in order to survive her time with the Walters, she will need to learn how to live within the boundaries of their rules.

When she gets back to her room, Cole is inside waiting for her, looking at a picture of Jackie and her sister, Lucy. Jackie thinks about her sister, less than a year older than her but someone Jackie always looked up to. She thinks about how “flawless” (97) Lucy was, how naturally everything seemed to come to her. Jackie concluded that if she could be as successful as her father, her mother might start to love her the way she loved Lucy. Jackie cites this realization as the beginning of her pursuit of perfection, the start of her obsessively planning out the rest of her life to produce a perfect outcome.

Cole says he wanted to check on Jackie after dinner, and Jackie explains that she did not know about the Walter boys’ pact. Cole assures her that he would have done the same thing in her position.