Page 101 of Could Have Been Us
“Okay.”
She heads down the hall, and I let out a sigh. “Let’s see what mess we have to clean up in her room. If we can get her settled, I can go talk to my mother.”
Jack nods. “All right.”
I walk over to what has been Oliver’s room, which was Amelia’s room before that, and open the door. God only knows how my brother left it.
When I enter, I’m both impressed and overwhelmed. It’s clean and changed as well. It did have a pink comforter with butterflies all over it. Now, it has teal bedding. There is a bookcase that wasn’t there before that is filled with books I didn’t own a week ago. It seems my brothers—or Jessica—were hard at work while we were gone.
There’s a note on the side table.
I’m sorry. I love you, and I’m here if you both need me. -Gray
Jack comes to stand behind me and rests his hand on my back. “Oliver?”
I shake my head and hand him the note.
Jack kisses my temple. “He’s a hothead who needed to calm himself.”
“I still worry he’ll see me as Yvonne.”
“Impossible. You’re nothing like her, and we all know it.”
I turn in his arms, resting my head on his chest. “In my head I know it too, but my heart says something different.”
“If Grayson thought it for one second, he’d have a line of people ready to punch him in the face. I’d be first, then your brothers would be behind me.”
I smile. “I guess, and it was sweet of him to do this.”
“It was. He loves you, Stella. They all do. You’re the heart of your family.”
“Jack? Stella?” Kinsley calls from the hallway, and he lets me go.
“In here!”
She enters the room and gasps. “Wow.”
“My brothers were busy while we were in Georgia,” I explain.
Kinsley walks around, looking at the bookcase. “Did you read all these?”
Jack snorts a laugh. “Stella? She’s more of a movie girl.”
“But you have a lot of novels here.”
“They’re all new. I guess they got a mix of things? I can imagine the fools in a bookstore trying to pick them out,” I say with a grin. “Or my sister-in-law handled it, which is most likely the case.”
She looks at the desk and picks up a butterfly.
“That was my niece Amelia’s,” I explain. “Grayson, who is Jack’s best friend, has a daughter. She’s almost five, her birthday is coming up. She stayed here a lot before my brother got married.”
Kinsley looks at the silk wings, rubbing her thumb against one. “I . . . there’s a lot of you guys.”
Jack steps forward. “There are a lot of Parkerson siblings and family, so it can feel a bit overwhelming in the beginning. But Stella and I mean it, you don’t have to meet any of them if you don’t want. We’re not trying to force you into a family, we know you have your dad.”
I have already let all of my brothers know that they are absolutely not to come to my house. I explained what our plan was, and everyone promised they would respect it.
Oliver was the hardest to get to understand, but in the end, he gave me his word.
