Ripe: A Stepbrother Pregnancy Romance (27 page)

“Jesse, this isn’t working out,” Elise told him, looking over at Isaiah and then back at him. “We need to talk…privately.”

When Isaiah announced that he was hungry, Elise rushed to give him lunch so that she and Jesse could resume their conversation alone. She needed to find a way to calm down. Karen had really worked her nerves, but she didn’t want to transfer that frustration onto Jesse and seem jealous in the process. She also needed to take a minute to gather her thoughts and formulate a plan. Jesse knew how desperate her situation was. She couldn’t say she was moving out without telling him where she and Isaiah intended to go. First, she had to
have
some place to go.

This situation was exactly why Elise had stressed that she and Jesse need to establish a clearer set of boundaries when it came to the issue of dating. Whether Jesse knew Karen was dropping by or not, one of the first things Elise noticed when she sauntered through his front door was just how confused it made Isaiah, and she immediately felt guilty for putting him in that position. Regardless of whether she had a backup plan or not, she couldn’t let it happen again.

“Isaiah, I want you to go in your room and rest,” Elise said after he was finished eating, wiping the residual peanut butter and jelly from his face as she silently prepared herself to go speak with Jesse. “You don’t have to nap if you don’t feel like it, but at least sit quietly in your bed and read books.”

Isaiah started to protest the point, but he seemed to think better of it when he saw the serious look on his mother’s face. With that, he pursed his lips in a silent pout, sliding off of his stool and sulking up the stairs to his bedroom.

Elise searched for Jesse, and she found him in her bedroom sitting on her bed. He looked up when she entered and the palpable hurt in his eyes made her flinch.

“Sorry it look so long,” Elise mumbled. “It seems like Isaiah eats slower and slower these days.”

Jesse didn’t say anything. Instead he gestured towards the boxes that surrounded them, getting right to the point. “So, when are you leaving?”

Elise sighed and rubbed her temples. “Jesse, come on. This isn’t working anymore and you know it.”

“We can make it work.”

“Right.” Elise gave him an incredulously look. “Look, as much as it pains me to admit this, Karen isn’t in the wrong for having a problem with us living under the same roof. There isn’t a woman on the face of the earth that would just blindly accept her boyfriend cohabitating with his ex.”

“Karen’s gone,” Jesse stated flatly.

Elise was about to say something else, but she snapped her lips shut and slowly inspected Jesse’s face for any signs of an explanation. She couldn’t tell whether or not he was angry with her.

“Jesse,” Elise said in a guarded voice. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for that to happen…are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” Jesse said, waving a hand in the air. “It’s not like we were dating or anything. She was just someone I was distracting myself with. It wasn’t serious and I never intended for it to be. I can’t be with any woman who doesn’t respect this.” He waved a finger between himself and Elise as he struggled to make his point as clearly as possible. “You being here with Isaiah…that’s what’s really important to me. That’s what truly matters.”

Elise fidgeted with her hands. “Still,” she said after awhile of thinking it over. “What’s going to happen next time? You know, when you find someone you
are
serious about? That’s exactly why I wanted to discuss this upfront. Seriously, Jesse, what if Karen had been the one? What if she convinced you to kick us to the curb? Where would that leave us?”

“That won’t ever happen,” Jesse stated easily.

Elise sighed and shook her head in frustration. “You can’t know that, Jesse. Sometimes feelings are really strong. They can be polarizing.”

“Are we even talking about me here anymore?” Jesse questioned, narrowing his eyes at her. “Because it kinda sounds like we’re not.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Oh come on. I know about your little
secret.
”

Elise stared at Jesse in silence as she struggled to understand what he was talking about.

“How?” Elise finally asked. “How do you know? Have you been snooping through my computer?”

“No,” Jesse said. “I overheard you talking to Deanna about him on the phone.”

“Him?” Elise frowned. “First of all, what gives you the right to spy on me?”

“Don’t change the subject.”

“I’m not changing the subject! I barely even know what you’re talking about here, but regardless, I have a right to keep certain things to myself.”

“Not when they affect me and Isaiah. Look, I was open with you about Karen wasn’t I? Don’t I deserve the same courtesy? Unlike you, I wouldn’t sit around waiting until I was in deep with someone before I came clean to you about it. Don’t be a hypocrite, Elise.”

Elise was getting more and more confused with every word that left Jesse’s mouth. “Okay, now I really don’t know what you’re talking about,” she admitted. “For starters, how am I being a hypocrite?”

“You have no right to act like I committed some horrendous crime by seeing Karen when you’ve been sneaking around with someone yourself.

“
What?
”

“You’re seeing someone,” Jesse stated again. Only now he wasn’t so sure. “Right?”

Elise laughed out loud. “Jesus,” she breathed, wracking her hand through her hair. “Just what conversation were you listening in on, exactly?”

“I heard you tell Deanna about some guy who was making you feel amazing about yourself again…”

Elise had no real recollection of what Jesse was talking about, but she certainly wasn’t seeing anyone. She was pretty sure she’d remember reaping the benefits of
that.

“Well, I don’t remember that, but you must have misunderstood,” Elise said. “The only thing I was talking to Deanna about was how I’m going back to school.”

Chapter Forty-Three

Even though Elise had been hesitant to share that she was going back to school with Jesse, she felt good when she saw the look of joy that spread across his face.

“Wait…seriously?”

“Yes,” Elise admitted, feeling her mouth curl into a slight smile. “I wanted to wait to tell you until Isaiah was back in school, but I met with the Dean at Salisbury a couple days ago and everything’s been finalized. I’m starting in the fall.”

“Elise, that’s amazing!”

Elise’s heart fluttered. It had been awhile since someone other than Deanna seemed genuinely proud of her, and for the first time in days, the tension between her and Jesse dissipated.

“So…are we okay then?” Jesse finally found it in himself to ask.

“Yes,” Elise relented. “But we still have an issue to discuss here.”

“I told you, Karen’s long gone.”

“Yeah, but trust me, you’re a great guy and there will be other Karen’s. We need to discuss how we’re going to handle that when it happens. I don’t want to be blindsided again.”

It took everything in Jesse not to convey his true feelings as he and Elise met eyes. She really was beautiful, and he was sure that everything he was thinking was written clearly across his face.

“Jesse?”

“Sorry,” Jesse said, suddenly realizing that he hadn’t heard a word she’d uttered.

“What do you think we should do? Should we sit Isaiah down and have a talk with him about it?”

“Oh, uh…” Jesse had no idea what she was referring to by ‘it’, but if it had to do with them dating other people, he definitely wasn’t interested. “I really don’t know if that’s the best idea just yet.”

“Really? Are you sure? Because he’s a smart kid and I think it would be best if we–”

“Elise, I really don’t want to go there,” Jesse said. “And I’d appreciate it if you’d finally unpack those boxes. This is your home. I want you to feel like it.”

Elise looked down at the boxes that surrounded her. “I will Jesse. I just…I need to…”

“You need to trust me.”

“You know that’s not easy for me. You hold all the power here and you know it. At any given moment, you could completely change your mind about this arrangement. What happens then?”

Elise’s insecurity frustrated Jesse. How many times did he have to tell her just how important she and Isaiah were to him before she understood that there wasn’t a single person capable of coming between them?

The way Jesse was staring at Elise made her feel on guard. She could tell that the conversation was about to take a turn in the other direction. A direction she didn’t feel prepared to deal with. No matter how many days passed, she couldn’t pretend not to remember that she and Jesse had slept together. Even if she could, the absence of her period wouldn’t allow it.

“You’re wrong,” Jesse insisted. “I don’t have the power here, Elise. You do. Just a few minutes ago you were about to walk out of here with my son and I wouldn’t have been able to do a damn thing about it. If that isn’t power, I don’t know what is.”

Elise looked down at her hands. “Things happen, Jesse. Women like Karen happen.”

“I told you. She meant nothing.”

“Jesse, come on. I saw you two together. I saw the way she looked at you. It meant something, or at least it did to her.”

“No it didn’t,” Jesse insisted. “Elise, I swear to you. I don’t have feelings for her. I never did. It was just about sex with her, that’s it. It only ever happened once and I regretted it immediately.”

Elise recoiled at that bit of information. It was far more than she needed to hear. She didn’t want to fathom the thought of Jesse being with another woman in that way.

“If it wasn’t serious, then why were you seeing her?” Elise spoke up, asking the obvious question.

“Do you want me to be honest?”

“Obviously.”

Jesse let go of the last of his resolve, looking Elise straight in the eye. “Elise, that night at your apartment…” He paused, allowing her to bask in the reminder of their heated encounter. When she nodded, he continued. “That happened for a reason, didn’t it? I thought we were starting to come together again, but then everything happened at Stone, and you moved in, and when I overheard you telling Deanna you’d met someone…”

“So since you thought I was seeing someone, you decided that you needed to be too?” Elise finished for him, completing his thought.

Jesse clenched his jaw and hesitated for a moment before nodding. Being with Karen was an idiotic idea, but it sounded even more idiotic when Elise relayed it back to him.

Elise sighed and took a seat beside Jesse on her bed. She’d been avoiding making eye contact with him, but when a thought occurred to her, she turned to face him. “Is that why you were being so cold with me all of a sudden? Because you thought I was dating someone?”

“Yeah,” Jesse admitted, visibly embarrassed that Elise had called him out on his behavior. “It…forced me to admit something to myself that I’ve been avoiding.”

“And what’s that?”

Jesse hesitated, appearing unsure as to whether or not he wanted to divulge any further. “It forced me to admit that I’m not over you, Elise. When I thought you had met someone I…I don’t know. It was more than I could handle.”

Elise’s heart slowed to a dull thump behind her ears. Jesse was saying everything she thought she wanted to hear in his absence, but now all she felt was numb to it. She forced herself to react, but her emotions wouldn’t cooperate.