Ripe: A Stepbrother Pregnancy Romance (20 page)

“Well where are you going?”

“Far away from you,” Elise remarked, not bothering to mask the sarcasm in her tone as she wrapped a dish up with bubble wrap and placed it in the open box on the table.

Jesse sighed and wracked his fingers through his hair. The last thing he wanted was to fuel her fire even further by engaging her in an argument, but she wasn’t really giving him any other choice.

“Elise, we need to talk about this. You can’t just up and—”

“We have nothing left to talk about,” Elise interrupted, meeting eyes with Jesse. “I have a responsibility to take care of my son, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do. It’s what I’ve always done.”

“Do you honestly think I’m just going to sit back and let you take him away from me?” Jesse shook his head in disbelief. “Come on, Elise, you’re smarter than that.”

“Oh please! How dare you stand there and act like I have any other choice here! This is your fault, Jesse. You did this. All I’m trying to do is exactly what you made me do seven years ago. For Isaiah’s sake, I have to pick up the pieces and move on. I can’t just let this ruin me.”

Jesse stood behind Elise, watching as she regained her composure and continued to pack. He’d come prepared with a longwinded speech about how he planned on fixing things, but he knew now that she would never go for it.

“So that’s it, then?” he questioned after awhile, breaking through the thick barrier of silence that settled over them. “You’re just going to take him away? We’ve bonded, Elise. He loves me. Can’t you see that? And I love him. I love yo—”

“Don’t!” Elise interrupted, swiveling around to face him as she tried to rub away the tension building near her temples. “And to answer your question, telling him what happened to his latest playmate is pretty low on my list of priorities right now, you know, considering I need to figure out how I’m going to keep him fed and sheltered until I secure another job.”

Silence blanketed them again, and Elise was sure that Jesse was quietly formulating a plan to use all of this to his advantage. If she and Isaiah didn’t leave soon, it would only be a matter of time before she got another letter in the mail from his attorney, this time informing her that Jesse was fighting her for custody and that she was forbidden from leaving the state until the suit was settled.

“Mommy!” Isaiah called out from the bathroom. “I need a towel!”

Elise turned to go tend to him, silently praying that Jesse wouldn’t follow. Unfortunately, she wasn’t that lucky.

“Elise,” Jesse said, reaching out to grab hold of her arm. “Why don’t you and Isaiah move in with me?”

“
What?
” Elise shook herself free from his grasp. She couldn’t help but laugh. There was no way he could be stupid enough to believe she’d actually entertain the idea.

“Why not?” Jesse questioned, speaking rapidly. “Look, I have a confession to make. This place I just bought? I bought it for you and Isaiah. It’s huge, and right on the water, and obviously you could have your own room. You wouldn’t have to pay me a dime either. I wouldn’t let you. It’s the perfect solution. At least until you figure out your next move.”

“A
perfect solution?
” Elise laughed once more. “Jesse, ever since you came back here, my life has been nothing but complicated. What makes you think I would move in with you? Are you out of your mind?”

“No, actually, I’m not. What I am is realistic. Tell me, do you honestly have any other options? Because if you do—”

“MOMMY!” Isaiah yelled, becoming increasingly more irritated.

“I need to get him to bed,” Elise said, ignoring Jesse’s question and continuing down the hall. “Do me a favor and don’t be here when I get back.”

Elise entered the bathroom to find Isaiah standing in the middle of it dripping water onto the tile. She quickly wrapped him up with a towel, reaching out to escort him into his bedroom.

“But I’m not sleepy!” Isaiah announced when his mother helped him into his pajamas. “The sun is still out!”

“It won’t be soon,” Elise reasoned.

“Is Jesse still here?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Elise said, eager to get off the subject of Jesse.

“I love him.” Isaiah announced. “He’s really nice.”

Elise sighed and pulled his covers up over him, tucking them snuggly under his chin.
I thought that once myself,
she thought, not realizing that she’d voiced it out loud until Isaiah questioned her on what she meant.

“Nothing sweetie,” Elise said, giving him a quick peck on the forehead.

When Elise reentered the kitchen, she wasn’t even remotely surprised to find Jesse still sitting at the table. “I distinctively remember telling you not to be here when I got back,” she whispered, not wanting Isaiah to hear her.

“I know…but you never really answered my question.”

“That’s because it’s ridiculous. It would never work.”

“Elise, come on,” Jesse urged. “I’d take care of everything, and like I said, you’d have your own room and plenty of space to yourself. I promise I wouldn’t get in the middle of your time with Isaiah. These changes at Stone have me working my ass off anyway. I’ll barely even be there.”

“It wouldn’t work,” Elise said again, this time more firmly.

“Why not? Give me one good reason and I’ll leave.”

After a brief bout of silence, Elise met eyes with him and stated the obvious. “Because it’s you and me. We don’t work. We never have.”

Jesse had come prepared with a rebuttal for just about every reason he thought Elise would throw at him, but he didn’t have one for that. He was speechless as she walked over to the door and held it open for him. When she finally got him to leave, she retreated into her living room and stretched out on the couch, staring up at the ceiling as she willed herself not to go after him.

Of all the options for her and Isaiah’s survival that she could come up with, which were immediately few and in between, nothing sounded quite as good as what she’d just turned down.

Chapter Thirty-Two

“Isaiah, honey, why don’t you go play outside?” Elise suggested as she stirred the pot of chili she was preparing.

Isaiah did as he was told, grabbing up his scooter on his way out of Deanna’s kitchen. It was her last night in town, and Elise had volunteered to cook her a meal before she left. It was unknown when they would be seeing each other again, and she was determined to make their last night together a special one.

“Elise, that smells amazing,” Deanna said as she entered the kitchen. “Need any help?”

“Don’t be silly,” Elise said as she looked over her shoulder and smiled. “Deanna, you’ve done so much for me these past few years. The least I can do is make you dinner. All I want you to do is sit down and relax.”

“Well, thank you,” Deanna said. “You know how much I love your cooking.”

“This is my dad’s recipe,” Elise admitted. “But it’s always been one of my favorites, too.”

“I’m sure he’s happy you’re coming home,” Deanna said, studying Elise for a reaction as she spoke.

Elise reached for the oven mitts on the counter, pulling a loaf of cornbread from the oven. She purposely turned her back to Deanna, not wanting her friend to see the uncertainty on her face. She had yet to call her father and make arrangements to move back home, but she didn’t want to put a strain in their night by telling her so.

“Elise, is everything all right?”

Elise started to respond, but Isaiah let out a blood-curdling scream from outside before she could. She rushed out to find him curled up on the front sidewalk with two bloody knees.

“Isaiah, what happened?” Elise urged, frantically searching his body for any other injuries. “What’s wrong?”

Isaiah didn’t answer. He continued screaming, pulling back his knees as his mother attempted to inspect them. They were blood red and skinned, but luckily nothing was broken.

Elise immediately snapped into action, guiding Isaiah into the bathroom and grabbing up the first aid kit under the sink.

“Here, put this on them,” Deanna said, handing Elise two icepacks from her freezer.

Elise returned to the kitchen to finish cooking after bandaging Isaiah up and putting on a show for him in the living room. “Thank god it’s not bad,” she commented, glancing over at Deanna. “The last thing I need right now is a ridiculously expensive trip to the ER.”

“Yeah, that would have been a disaster,” Deanna noted, nodding in agreement. “Speaking hypothetically though. What
would
you have done if it had been more serious? Elise, I know you hate the idea of going on Medicaid, but this right here is why it’s necessary. Have you gone down to the Department of Human Services? Maybe you can—”

“No,” Elise interrupted. “I won’t be put on the system, you know that. Once there’s record of you in there…it follows you for life. I’m already a young mom. I don’t need that stigma attached to me as well.”

“Well maybe Jesse could help you pay for insurance, then,” Deanna offered, treading lightly so as not to upset her.

“Jesse?” Elise laughed and shook her head at the mention of his name. “Not a chance, but since you brought him up, you’re so not going to believe what he asked me the other day…”

“Uh-oh.”

“Yep, get this—he just bought this beachfront house, and he wants me and Isaiah to
move in
with him,” Elise explained, looking over at her friend for her opinion. “Can you believe that? He said I could have my own room, and that he’ll hardly ever be there because of work, but I’m not buying it…”

“Oh,” Deanna said after a few seconds of thinking it over. Honestly, she didn’t think it sounded like the worst idea given Elise’s current situation, but she definitely wasn’t about to say that. “Well…are you going to do it?”

“Are you kidding?” Elise laughed as if she’d been told a joke, but Deanna didn’t laugh in return. “Deanna, why would I do something like that? I mean…this is Jesse we’re talking about. Even if it is the perfect solution, it would never work.”

“Well, why not?” Deanna pressed. In her opinion, it sounded like Elise really wanted to move in with Jesse. She just didn’t want to admit it because the implications attached to doing so would mean she didn’t hate him anywhere near as much as she claimed to.

“Oh come on. Look at my life, Deanna. Hasn’t Jesse already fucked it up enough already? I’d have to be the biggest fool in the world to walk right into his next game of cat and mouse…”

“I don’t know…”

“What?” Elise pressed. “So you think I
should
move in with him, is that what you’re getting at here?”

“No,” Deanna said. “I think it should be your decision, but I do think that you should at least consider it until you get back on your feet again. Here’s something. Have you tried making a list of the pros and cons?”

Elise smirked. Deanna knew her too well. “I have,” she admitted.

“Okay, and so what are the pros, then?”

“Well, for starters, Isaiah adores Jesse…and he
is
his father.” Elise made sure to whisper that last part. “And of course, it would make things a lot easier on me until I found a job…”

“Alright, and the cons?”

“Uh, honestly, there are way too many to even list. This
is
Jesse, after all. I really don’t like the idea of being dependent on him financially, or not having any privacy. As big as he paints this house to be, the idea of living with him again makes me nervous.”