Giselle frowned at the sound of the bell constantly ringing throughout the house and rushed to see who was that impatient person who could not even wait for a moment.

Opening her mouth to argue once she unlocked the door, she gaped at the most unlikely pair she had expected to be there.

"Hi Isabella," she said, crouching down to give her favourite kid a high-five before turning to her crush, "H-hi Jace, what are you both doing here? S-sorry, I mean c-come in, first," she ushered them in, cursing herself internally for stuttering.

"Is Luke here? Or even Aunt Joey?" Jace asked quickly, making Giselle nod.

"L-luke's not here, he went to the store to get some stuff. But mom's here. She's in the backyard, s-she wants to make a swimming pool there now, it seems," Giselle explained, her voice shaking as she spoke to him.

"Thanks, I'll go speak to her now. Uh, Giselle, could you take care of Isabella till then?" he asked hesitantly.

Giselle nodded, a sweet smile on her face making Jace give her a grateful look as he walked to the backyard.

"So Isabella, want to help me bake some cookies?" she asked with a smile on her face as she kept the little girl's backpack on the couch and left her to the kitchen.

----

Two hours and a playful food fight later, Giselle and Isabelle emerged from the kitchen, trays of cookies in hand and their heads covered with flour.

A frown covered Giselle's face as she sensed the tense atmosphere between her mother, her brother and Jace. Setting the cookies on the table, she held Isabelle's hand as they sat next to her mother.

"Is everything alright?" she asked hesitantly, her eyes flitting to each of them, lasting slightly longer on Jace.

Her mother seemed to have recovered first from the conversation the three of them just had.

"Yes, everything is just. Jace and Isabella will be staying over her for a while. Giselle, can you please prepare the guestroom for them?"

Giselle nodded, confusion evident in her face. Her mother gave her a look that told her that everything will be explained to her later.

Isabella grinned. "We are staying here? Does that mean we can make cookies everyday? Giselle, can we? Please say we can, please!"

Giselle smiled at the young girl, answering, " Of course we can. Do you want to help me prepare the guestroom first?"

The little girl nodded and they both went off once again. Jace's heart felt like it was going to burst. He knew that his sister was close to Giselle but seeing them together, having fun and laughing together, it gave him hope. Hope for something he wasn't sure could happen.

Jace turned back to Joey, Giselle's mother, as he watched the pair leave. "Thank you so much for doing this! I really don't know what to say. I just–I'm so grateful that you let us stay here."

"Jace, you are like a son to me. I would never not help you, especially after what is happening in your house. You don't need to thank me, alright?" Joey said lovingly.

Jace nodded. "I promise, just two months, and then you can do whatever you want with them."

Luke grinned. "Why two months? You can stay much longer if you want. I mean, come on, we will have so much of fun and Mom won't mind. Right, Mom?

A smile appeared on Joey's face as she thought about it. "Of course not. Jace, you can stay here for as long as you want. But they'll pay for what they did to both of you. I'll make sure of that."

----

"So, what happened?" Giselle asked curiously at the end of the day, as she sat perched on the side of her mother's bed.

As she listened to her mother tell her everything, her eyes widened in shock.

"If his parents are so horrible, why aren't you putting them in jail? You are a police officer, mom! You can definitely do that," Giselle demanded.

Her mother shook her head. "Jace doesn't want Isabella to get separated from him, not now. He is going to turn eighteen in two months. Once he does, he can become Giselle's legal guardian. That way, if he inform the authorities then, they can't separate him and Giselle. He is a smart boy, and I truly hope everything turns out well for him," her mother stated.

Giselle frowned. "But what if his parents come here and demand to take them back? Technically, they are still Jace and Isabella's legal guardians, aren't they?"

Joey raised an eyebrow, a smirk on her face. "What do you take me for, sweetheart? They will try to come and take their children, I know that. And when they do come, I'll be ready for them."

-----

School started a few days after that and it had hardly been two weeks after Jace and Isabella became the new members of their family.

Giselle sat on her desk, tearing out a few pieces of blank paper from her notebook and crushing them into balls before tossing them into the bin. So far, she had managed to have a successful aim the entire time but she felt as though the constant chattering of her best friend, Sam, was going to change that.

"So, have you told him yet? I don't know how you could even wait so many years to tell him. Whenever I have a crush, I tell them, like, within a week. And you, you have been waiting for years and you still never told him. Honestly, chipmunk, he is living in the same house as you now. If you don't tell him now, I don't know when you will ever tell him," she rambled on, making Giselle stop her little game and widen her eyes at her friend.

"Shh! Tiger, stop it! You know that no one here must ever find out about how I feel for him. They'll make both of our lives miserable!" Giselle reprimanded.

"But you need to tell him something! You can't just stay all quiet and not tell him about your feelings."

"Not now. Not while he is going through so much," Giselle said, shaking her head.

"Well, you know... If he is going through so much, you can go to him and, you know, help him and maybe then, he'll fall crazily in love with you just like how you love him," Sam suggested, making Giselle groan.

"I wish," Giselle whispered as the strings of her heart got tugged.

If only that could ever happen.