Ripe: A Stepbrother Pregnancy Romance (26 page)

“Forget it,” Elise finally said, exhaling a deep sigh. She rolled her eyes and turned back towards the stairs. “I’ll just take him with me.”

“Just…wait,” Jesse called out reluctantly. “It’s fine. Of course I’ll watch him.”

“Well I don’t need you to do me any favors, Jesse. If it’s really so much of a chore for you, then you don’t have to. I just thought you might want to spend time with him before he’s back in school all day. I’m fine with taking him with me.”

“Who said anything about it being a chore? He’s my son. Of course I want to spend time with him. I just…nothing. It’s just been a long day all right? Run whatever errand you need to run tomorrow. I don’t have a problem watching him.”

Elise thanked him and hesitated for a few more seconds before heading up to her bedroom. That evening, as she lay awake in bed, she could feel a lump of resentment forming in the pit of her stomach, but she couldn’t quite identify the source.

Chapter Forty-one

Jesse was in the kitchen getting Isaiah a snack when he looked up to see Elise walking inside. At first, he didn’t even recognize her, but his jaw dropped as soon as she sauntered through the front door. The stunning beauty before him looked exactly the way she had in their youth.

When she’d gotten dressed that morning, Elise put in a little extra effort by putting on a pair of heels and some make-up, two things she seldom ever did. She was hoping her new hair would complete the look, making her look more her age, and damn if it didn’t do the trick.

A few drops of drool gathered on Jesse’s bottom lip as he stared at Elise like a deer in headlights. Noticing that he’d spilled some of the juice he was pouring, she grabbed up a wad of paper towels and began assisting him with cleaning up the mess. When she met eyes with him, she saw that he was still looking at her and her cheeks immediately flushed of color under the heat of his gaze.

“Jesse?” Elise questioned, waving a hand in front of his face.

Jesse was still at a loss for words. He couldn’t stand this a second longer. The idea that Elise has spent the morning looking like
that
with someone other than him left him feeling more furious than he thought anything ever could.

“Dammit, Elise…” Jesse spoke up, immediately regretting his choice of words. He hadn’t meant to say them out loud.

Elise knit her eyebrows together in confusion. Just when she was about to ask him what was wrong, the doorbell rang, pulling her attention away from him.

Karen did a double take when a very different Elise than the one she’d met the other day greeted her instead of Jesse. "Um,” she managed, craning her neck to look inside the house. “Is Jesse here?”

Elise rolled her eyes and stepped away from the doorway, nodding for Jesse take over. Based on the surprised look on his face, it was obvious that he hadn’t been expecting a visitor. He hesitated before stepping forward. “Uh…hey, Karen. Did you say you were dropping by? I wasn’t expecting you…”

“Nope,” Karen spoke up in her usual nauseatingly cheerful tone. She entered the house, clicking her heels against the tile as she moved in closer to Jesse. “I’m just on my way to my parents for Labor Day weekend, but I wanted to say goodbye to you in person after what happened between us the other night…”

Elise felt sick to her stomach, and it only got worse when Isaiah ran in from the backyard to see who was at the door. When he saw a woman that he didn’t recognize standing in close proximity to his father, he rushed over to make his presence known, wrapping his arms around Jesse’s stomach as Karen gave him an annoyed glare that screamed:
‘Get lost, twerp’
.

“Is this your son?” Karen asked Jesse, bending so that she was at eye level with Isaiah.

Elise had to give her one thing. She was certainly good at going through the motions.

“Well aren’t you just as cute as a button!” Karen exclaimed. “What’s your name?”

“Isaiah.”

“Well, Isaiah, you’re even cuter than your daddy, if that’s even possible. How old are you?”

“I just turned seven!”

“Wow, well aren’t you big for your age! I was guessing ten!” Karen gasped, pretending to be stunned. She stood up to face Jesse again, but Isaiah wasn’t about to let her off the hook that easily.

“Not yet, but my daddy said I could get a pet on my tenth birthday!”

“That’s nice,” Karen said, but before she could say anything else, Isaiah began to list off all the animals he was considering, most of which weren’t suitable pets.

Elise stood up and stole a glance at Karen’s face from her spot in the kitchen, smirking when she noticed that the woman appeared drained by Isaiah’s nonstop banter.

“Would you mind if I borrowed that book you were telling me about?” Karen said, turning towards Jesse and cutting Isaiah off in midsentence. “I’m going to be on the beach all weekend and I could use something good to read.”

“Oh, right. One sec, I’ll go grab it.”

When Jesse disappeared down the hall towards his office, Karen took notice of Elise in the doorway and an extremely awkward silence settled over them. Both of them tried their best to act as though they weren’t aware of the other, but it was a lot easier said than done.

“Isaiah, I bet you like candy, don’t you?” Karen questioned, breaking through the silence.

Isaiah had grown bored of listing off animals and was now staring up at Karen with wide eyes, trying his best to gauge just who she was to his father.

“I love it!” Isaiah said, perking up at the mention.

“Well guess what…” Karen rummaged around in her designer purse and pulled out a large candy bar. “I brought this just for you!”

Elise took one look at the chocolate and walked over to retrieve it.  “You have to have lunch first, Isaiah,” she told her son as she examined the label for anything he might be allergic to.

Isaiah protested, proceeding to pout over not getting his way.

When Karen thought Elise wasn’t looking, she pointed down the hall towards Jesse’s office. “Maybe your daddy won’t mind.”

“Excuse me?” Elise spat, whipping around to face her. “Did you really just tell my son to ask
Jesse
for something I told him he couldn’t have?”

Karen shook her head.

“Yes you did,” Elise said, taking a step forward to confront the woman. “I heard you, and guess what? That’s not how things work around here. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t encourage my son to undermine me.”

Karen snickered. “You know, despite whatever impression you might be under, you aren’t Isaiah’s
only
parent. Jesse is allowed to have input too, isn’t he?”

Enough was enough. Elise reached down to cover Isaiah’s ears in preparation of what she was about to say next. “Listen, bitch, you’re way out of line,” she began, pointing a finger in Karen’s face.

Elise didn’t get a chance to complete her thought before Jesse reemerged and took notice of the tension that was building between the two women. “What’s going on?” he questioned, glancing back and fourth between the both of them.

“Daddy, tell mommy I can have that candy before lunch!” Isaiah whined, pointing to the chocolate. He frowned and poked out his bottom lip in desperation.

Jesse hesitated. He could tell by the way Isaiah was asking that Elise had already told him no. “Sorry buddy, but your mom is right. You have to have lunch first.” He eyed the candy and then looked over at Elise. Her anger radiated off of her. “Okay, seriously. What’s going on? I left for about a minute at best…”

“What’s going on? I don’t appreciate your little girlfriend disrespecting me in front of my son. That's
‘what’s going on’
.”

“Oh please,” Karen said, putting fourth her version of events with a slight roll of her eyes. “She’s overreacting. All I did was offer Isaiah the candy I brought for him, and when she said no, I told him to ask you. I didn’t think she’d completely flip shit on—”

“Don’t you dare say that word in front of my—”

“Karen, could I talk to you for a minute?” Jesse asked, nodding at the front door. Despite the fleeting nature of his words, both women could hear the irritation in his tone as clear as day.

He wasn’t happy.

Karen hesitated before making her way outside and Jesse closed the door behind them, leading her onto the beach far away from Elise.

“Look, Jesse, I’m sorry about that.” Karen smiled, trying her very best to make light of the situation. “I guess I just didn’t realize how uptight she was. It really bugged me when she acted like you didn’t have any say in your son’s life.”

“Uptight? That’s the mother of my child, Karen. I don’t appreciate you saying stuff like that.”

“Oh come on. You saw how rude she was being to me, didn’t you? Do you really think I deserved that?”

“She wasn’t being rude.”

A brief look of hurt passed over Karen’s expression at the idea that Jesse was siding with Elise instead of her. “You weren’t in the room for the worst of it! She called me a bitch, Jesse! Right to my face!”

“Yeah, well, it’s not your place to undermine her when it comes to decisions about Isaiah. She said he could have the candy after lunch. You had no right to take her up on that point.”

Karen looked like a fish out of water. “Well if she had just been a little nicer about it, maybe I wouldn’t have—”

“Karen,” Jesse interrupted. “I’m sorry, but this isn’t going to work out.”

“What?” Karen stared at him in shock. “Jesse, come on. This isn’t that big of a deal. It was just a minor misunderstanding.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t take things that affect my son and his mother lightly.”

“Isaiah is fine, Jesse.”

“And what about Elise?”

“What about her?” Karen questioned, not bothering to mask the annoyance in her tone.

“Once again, she’s the mother of my child, and I don’t appreciate you disrespecting her. Look, this arrangement we have isn’t perfect by any means, but it was going fine until…” Jesse trailed off, seeming to think better of what he was going to say. Things had been tense between him and Elise for days, but this little dispute certainly hadn’t helped matters any.

“Are you seriously going to end this because
she’s
a little unhappy?” Karen nodded towards the house. “You know, it’s becoming pretty obvious to me that you still have feelings for her.”

Jesse took a step back in the sand. He could tell that Karen was trying to coerce him into an argument and he wasn’t interested in entertaining her any further. He had never meant for things to get this out of hand with her. She was supposed to be a distraction. Now all he felt was terrible for stringing her along for as long as he had. 

“Karen, I’m sorry,” Jesse said as he walked away from her. “But it’s just not going to work out between us.”

Chapter Forty-Two

Elise stood in the middle of her room assessing her unpacked boxes and silently trying to figure out how long it would take her to move everything out. She had no idea where she would go, but the volcano that had just erupted made it very clear that she could no longer stay there.

Jesse reentered the house and walked upstairs to find Isaiah standing in the doorway of Elise’s bedroom. He couldn’t see what she was doing, but it was obvious from the loud noises that were coming from inside the room that she was doing something that required force. He walked inside to find her throwing her clothing into an open box on the floor.

“What the hell?” Jesse spoke up. He chose his next words carefully, not wanting to send Isaiah into a tantrum at the notion of moving out. “Elise, are you serious right now?”