Ripe: A Stepbrother Pregnancy Romance (28 page)

Elise’s silence troubled Jesse. As hard as he tried, he couldn’t gauge her reaction by the look on her face. He started to say something, attempting to backtrack a bit in case his choice of words had scared her, but a flood of emotion came pouring out of her before he could.

“I never stopped hoping you’d come back, you know? Every day for seven years, I hoped…but at the end of so many of those days, all I had was Isaiah. He was my rock, Jesse. He was everything you weren’t, and I—”

“I came back, Elise,” Jesse interrupted, feeling his desperation leak its way into his tone. “I’m here now, aren’t I?”

A thick air of silence blanketed over them as they each waited for what the other had to say next. The only sound heard, however, was the shrill ring of Jesse’s cell phone. There was a situation at Stone and they needed him there to diffuse it right away.

Bad timing didn’t even begin to cover it.

“I have to go,” Jesse whispered, reaching out to graze his hand against Elise’s face. “But I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Chapter Forty-Four

The situation at Stone was more serious than Jesse had anticipated. One of the firm’s biggest cases, a class action settlement with a large tech company, had hit a few major snags and it took hours for him to get everything sorted out.

Isaiah and Elise were fast asleep by the time Jesse returned home, and he was too exhausted to do anything other than climb into bed himself.

Jesse awoke the following morning to the sound of Isaiah screaming at the top of his lungs. After taking a few seconds rub the sleep from his eyes, he threw off his blankets and rushed into the bathroom. There, Isaiah sat in front of Elise, who was running a brush through his unruly curls as he bathed.

“Maybe it’s time for a haircut,” Jesse suggested.

“No way,” Elise said, glancing up at him like he was insane. Isaiah’s hair was one of his best features, not to mention one of the only things he’d inherited from her instead of his father.

Elise wasn’t acting like herself. She’d stopped talking to Isaiah as soon as Jesse had made his presence known, and she could barely even look him in the eye.

“What time are you going?” Jesse questioned. He was referring to the carnival Isaiah wouldn’t stop talking about, and he studied Elise’s face as he posed the question. It was obvious that she’d heard him, but she refused to meet his gaze.

“We’re leaving in about a half-hour,” Elise answered, focusing her attention on pulling Isaiah out of the tub and draining the water. She handed him a towel and instructed him to go put on the clothes on his bed.

“Are you coming, Daddy?”

Jesse’s studied Elise’s expression for some sign as to whether or not she wanted him to join them. When Isaiah’s question remained unanswered, she looked up at Jesse and saw that he was staring at her.

“Isaiah,” Jesse spoke up, keeping his eyes trained on Elise’s. “It seems like mommy is ready to leave now…”

“You can come,” Elise interrupted, although her tone gave very little in the way of how she actually felt about it. “We’ll wait.

Jesse hurried to get dressed, and when he was finally ready, he met Elise and Isaiah in the foyer. As they made the short trip across town to the carnival grounds, he glanced away from the road to look at her a few rimes, trying his best to decipher her body language. It didn’t confirm that she was uncomfortable with his presence, but she was still being far too quiet for comfort.

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah, it’s just…”

“What?” Jesse pushed, feeling almost afraid of her response. He was sure she had more to say about their conversation from the previous night, but he knew she wouldn’t breach the subject in front of Isaiah.

“I guess I just have a case of the blues about Isaiah going back to school next week. I know that probably sounds ridiculous, but it seems like this summer just flew by.”

“Elise, that’s not ridiculous at all,” Jesse assured her. Deep down, he felt relieved to hear that her peculiar behavior had nothing to do with him for once. “In fact, I’m sure you’re not the only mother who feels that way.

Seeming comforted by the fact that she’d finally got her feelings off her chest, Elise’s demeanor quickly softened. For the rest of the drive, she was talkative and relaxed. Today was Isaiah’s day, and she wanted to make it count. Lucky for her, Jesse had no problem when it came to indulging their son. He let Isaiah go on whatever ride he wanted as long as it was age appropriate, and they checked out every exhibit too. It was a rewarding experience, but an exhausting one nonetheless, and it didn’t take very long before both he and Elise had to stop to catch their breath.

“Can I play?” Isaiah questioned.

They were standing in front of the booth for a ring tossing game, and the wall of prizes immediately caught his eye.

“Five dollars for three tries at a prize!” the teenage carnival worker spoke up in a tone that was anything but enthusiastic.

Elise exchanged a look with Jesse. “What rip off,”  she whispered.

“Yeah, but it'll keep him occupied while we get a minute of peace,” Jesse reasoned, pulling out his wallet.

“Good point,” Elise agreed with a smile.

It took everything in Jesse not to stare at Elise. She looked so beautiful standing beneath the soft glow of neon lights above them. He looked over at her several times as Isaiah began his game, but she kept her gaze focused on the booth and didn’t seem to notice.

Isaiah squandered his first attempt, followed by his second.

When Elise’s hand brushed up against Jesse’s, his breath caught in his throat. When he looked up, he caught her stealing a glance at him, but she quickly looked away when she saw that he’d noticed. Taking the leap, he casually stroked the small of her back with his index finger, and the second or two it took for her to react felt like an eternity.

Neither Jesse nor Elise offered any verbal commentary on the intimate gesture as their vibrant scenery engulfed them. Without a word, she intertwined her fingers with his, and there they stood until their son broke between them with a high-pitched cry of joy.

“I won! I won!”

Jesse and Elise spoke up at the same time, complimenting Isaiah on his good work and regaining their composure long enough to watch him accept his prize: an overstuffed elephant that would be nothing but annoying to drag around the carnival for the rest of the night.

Elise looked down at her son and noticed right away that his eyes were becoming heavy lidded. He was long overdue for a nap, but she had one more errand she really needed to run while she was on this side of town.

“Do you mind if we make a quick stop on the way home?”  Elise asked Jesse as they approached his car in the parking lot. “I just need to run into Macy’s. I ordered some school shoes for Isaiah online and they’re waiting to be picked up.”

“Not at all,” Jesse said, opening the back door and allowing Isaiah to hop in. He glanced down at his worn-in sneakers in the process and grimaced. He really was in dyer need of a new pair.

Chapter Forty-Five

Isaiah was exhausted and it showed. He tried many tactics to keep himself awake as his mother dragged him through the department store, one of which included touching everything he laid eyes on.

“How about I push you in the cart?” Jesse offered, taking note of Elise’s short fuse.

Isaiah agreed and Elise offered him a fleeting look of gratitude. Now she could make her way to the customer service desk without him running in every direction but the one she needed to go in.

After she picked up her order, Isaiah reminded Elise that she’d promised to buy him new pajamas as well. She knew it was only a matter of time before he became tired of his Superman ones.

“I’m gonna hit the bathroom,” Jesse said with a yawn, taking notice of how busy the store was becoming. It
was
Labor day weekend, after all, and that meant one thing and one thing only: sales. “I’ll meet you in the car since I’ll probably be done before you.”

Elise agreed, and by the time she made it back to the car, Jesse was fast asleep against the window. When he heard her buckling Isaiah in, he stretched and opened his eyes.

“Sorry we took so long. It’s a holiday weekend, so of course they only had two employees working the entire store.”

“No problem,” Jesse said as he pulled out of the mall and back onto the road, rolling down the window to let in the cool breeze that lapped in from the coast.

A half-hour later, Jesse pulled into the driveway and glanced back at Isaiah in his rearview mirror.  “I’ll carry him,” he offered, interrupting Elise’s silent deliberation as to whether or not she should wake him.

When Jesse emerged from his son’s bedroom, he found Elise in the living room flipping through a magazine. He wanted to remind her that they’d yet to finish the conversation they’d started the previous night, but he didn’t want to risk saying something that would mess up the day they just spent together. Instead, he took a seat across from her, making his presence known.

“Oh, I didn’t think you were staying up,” Elise said when she took notice of Jesse’s presence, shifting to make room for him. Her eyes remained glued on her magazine, but all her other senses were acutely aware of the fact that he was just a few mere inches away from her. When she finally found it in herself to look up at him, she wasn’t surprised to find that he was looking at her too.

“Twenty kinky ways to spice up your sex life, huh?” Jesse joked, nodding at the front of the magazine. “They really don’t make those things with guys in mind, do they?”

Elise laughed at the comment, feeling mildly embarrassed, but it was just what they needed to break through the tension in the room. When she leaned back and flipped the magazine shut, she no longer felt awkward.

“Isaiah had a blast today,” Elise said, looking down at her hands. “It was…nice.”

Jesse nodded in agreement, reaching out to touch her leg.

Elise was well aware of what the gesture was communicating, and she wasn’t surprised when she looked up to find Jesse’s face just a few inches away from hers. Her lips eagerly responded to his as he kissed her, allowing unspoken emotions to erupt between them as their tongues tangled in a lucid embrace.

In no time at all, Jesse’s hand moved from caressing Elise’s face to her abdomen. When his fingers came into contact with the bare patch of flesh where her tank top had ridden up her midriff, she felt a surge of emotions overcome her. After a few desperate attempts, she finally succeeded in breaking away from him.

“What’s the matter?” Jesse questioned with bated breath. He needed this. Badly.

“Jesse,” Elise gasped, pressing her forehead against his chest. “We have to stop. What if Isaiah were to…”

“He’s asleep,” Jesse chimed in, nibbling at her neck. “Relax. I need this, Elise, and I know you need it too…”

An involuntary moan escaped Elise’s mouth. “Yeah, but he could wake up at any given moment.  What if he came down and found us like this?”

“We can go into the bedroom then. We’ll lock the door.”

“Jesse, no.” Elise shook her head and moved away from him, refusing to meet his gaze. “This isn’t right. We can’t do this.”

“Why not?” Jesse pressed, not being able to hide the irritation in his tone. “Elise, I know how you feel about me. Come on. You’ve never been very good at hiding your feelings from me. We have a second chance to make things right here. Why won’t you let yourself take it?”

Elise thought his words over for a moment before shaking her head and speaking more firmly. “I can’t do this. I…I think it would be best if we just stayed friends.”