She was surprised Oscar didn't follow her into the daycare, but she supposed he had had enough pushing for the day. When Elise entered the car again, he was on the phone with someone speaking in Spanish. She didn't understand too much of what he was saying, she picked up on 'drop' and 'Cesar' but that was about it.

He drove off when she got in the car, and she didn't say anything until he got off the phone. "Cesar is a Santos?" Elise couldn't help but ask, looking over at her ex with a frown.

Oscar pocketed the phone, "What they say in the daycare?"

Elise scowled and rolled her eyes, "You answer my question first." She told him.

Oscar raised a brow at her and continued driving. "What are you doing today?"

"Spooky." Elise snapped. "You know what? Just let me out of the car." She didn't have time for this, and she didn't care to play the tit for tat game with him. They were too grown for it. It was annoying.

"I'm not letting you out of the car just because I won't answer a few of your silly questions." Oscar said with a roll of his eyes.

"Cesar being in that gang isn't silly." Elise snapped at him. "You're an idiot, that's what you are." She hissed at him.

"Cesar is none of your business!" Oscar yelled at her. "What I do with my brother is my business Elise. You and me? We have a kid together. She's OUR business."

Her teeth gritted together, "I don't know what the hell happened over these past two years, you never gave me that luxury because you decided we were done. But I cannot stress to you enough, that I am not one of your boys, or your whores." Elise hissed as she glared at him. "You better watch who the hell you're talking to." There it was, that fiery attitude that never really died down, it was just over the course of the last two years, she and Oscar weren't together, and he's normally the one who brought that side out in her. Although there was that time some months ago when some idiot made a comment about Olivia and she had to put him in his place. Oscar would've put a hole in his chest if he had known.

Oscar pulled into a Starbucks drive-thru. He grabbed her chin and forced her to look at him. Elise stared at him with a hard expression, refusing to back down.

"Welcome to Starbucks, what can I get you?"

"Let me get two strawberry lemonades." He continued to stare at her, not releasing her chin just yet.

"Is that going to be all?"

"Yeah." He was instructed to pull forward in the drive thru. Oscar smirked at her and she raised a brow.

"Let me go, Spook." Elise murmured.

He thumbed the bottom of her lip and she was tempted to bite his thumb just for fucking with her.

"I aint never letting you go again." Oscar said, and her breath caught in her throat. He released her chin, and she gulped down a lump in her throat as she turned to look out the window.

"You can't say shit like that." Elise told him quietly as he paid for the drinks, handing her one when it was given to him.

"Why not? What if I meant it?" Oscar asked as he pulled out of the drive-thru.

"Because you may have meant it, but I'm not ready to get hurt by you again, Spooky." Elise said as she looked over at him.

"And I ain't ready to forgive you just yet for keeping her away from me either." Oscar said in return. "Guess we got some shit to work on, huh?" He asked.

Elise gulped down another lump in her throat and she blinked a few times as she sipped from the cup.

Oscar sighed quietly, "Look… Cesar needs this. I can't explain it, but he needs to toughen up. I can't always be there to protect him. And this way, he has everyone's protection."

"He was protected by affiliation of just being your brother." Elise muttered. Not that she liked Oscar being in the gang either, but she hated the idea of Cesar being in it even more.

"This way, they're not only scared of me, they're scared of him too." Oscar went on to explain to her.

"They shouldn't be scared of either of you." Elise pointed out to him quietly.

"Why? Just because you aint?" He asked her in return.

Elise scoffed, "Because you're a human being, Oscar. You shouldn't have to do this to make money." She muttered.

Oscar chuckled, "We'll agree to disagree." He replied as he took a sip from his own drink. He continued driving, slowing down when he noticed a foursome group of teens walking. He rolled her window down. "Ayo Lil Spooky."

Cesar paused and looked over at the car, he grinned at the sight of Elise. "Hey Elise." He said, relaxing at the sight of her. Because whenever Elise was around, he remembered Oscar always being on good behavior.

"Hey Cesar. Who's your friends?" Elise asked, noticing the female and the two boys.

"Uh… Monse, Ruby, and Jamal." He pointed them out one by one. "I think you know Ruby."

Elise raised an eyebrow, looking at the shortest male out of the bunch, noticing that he did look slightly familiar. But she wondered if he had just seen him around. The neighborhood was small, but Elise tended to stay on her end.

"Yall headed to school?" Oscar asked them and while Cesar nodded, the other three friends seemed paralyzed with fear. Elise couldn't help but chuckle. "You get my text?" He asked his brother then.

Cesar sighed but nodded his head.

"Aight good." Oscar replied.

Elise scowled over at him and her eyes. "Your brother is an idiot." She whispered to Cesar, who breathed out a small laugh but quickly sobered up when he noticed the look on Oscar's face. "Anyway, have a good day at school. You should come and meet Livie soon."

Cesar immediately perked up, "Oscar said he had a kid and I guess I didn't put two and two together when I saw the car seat in the back of your car." He said with a laugh. "I can't wait to meet her." He said as he stepped back from the vehicle. "Didn't know you and him were capable of producing a spawn." He joked.

Elise let out a laugh, "Stranger things have happened, kid." She said before she looked over at Oscar who was staring at her as she spoke.

"Get to school Cesar." Oscar told his brother. Cesar nodded and went to walk back over to his friends. Oscar watched them walk off, "You never told me what you had planned today." He told Elise.

Elise shrugged, "Not much, I was going to go home and start looking at jobs."

He nodded in acknowledgement, "Where you trying to work?"

"I don't know… anywhere right now, I gotta have money to be able to live on my own." Elise sipped the drink more. "Back up in San Francisco, I had this one bedroom apartment… it wasn't even an apartment really, it was a studio that had this pull-out bed. I made ends meet by working at the campus store. They paid nine dollars and hour." She explained to Cesar as she looked out at the houses they passed. "I mean it wasn't a lot, but…" She trailed off with a slight shrug of her shoulders.

Oscar nodded in understanding, she raised an eyebrow when they pulled into the driveway of his home. "You should try that restaurant down on 25th street, I think they're hiring." He told his ex as he stepped out of the vehicle. He started walking up to the house, but paused when he noticed her lack of movement and he turned and gave her a deadpanned look. "Get out of the car, Elise."

Elise raised an eyebrow at him. "Why? Why do I have to go in there? You could've took me home." She pointed out to him and crossed her arms over her chest.

Oscar stared at her, standing there a little longer as if expecting her to relent. He scowled when she didn't, clearing his throat as he walked over to the passenger side of the car, he opened the door. "Get out of the car, Elise." He repeated.

Elise blinked, "Go to hell, Oscar." She replied.

Oscar stared at her, licking his bottom lip, before he reached inside. Elise blanched leaning back, and when he grabbed her around her waist and physically pulled her out of the vehicle, she shrieked.

"Put me down Spooky!" She exclaimed. Her protests went ignored as he promptly threw her over his shoulder and carried her in the house. Even upside down, Elise could see the neighbors staring at him and she kicked her legs frustratedly. "Oscar Diaz!"

He dropped her on the couch, and she breathed in and out, full of frustration and a tad bit of embarrassment. She fixed her hair and glared up at him Oscar chuckled as he watched her, before he moved to grab a cigarette off the kitchen table and lit it. "So angry… so tiny."

Elise rolled her eyes, remembering that same comment he made years ago when they met in ninth grade. He had been playing ball with his friends at school, she was walking with her friends. Then the ball was being thrown and just narrowly missed her face. She blooped out on them, and that was the comment he gave her. So angry… so tiny.

"Remember after that day? I saw you again… couldn't leave you alone." Oscar said as he lit the cigarette.

"Didn't even know each other and yet you still managed to get on my last nerve." Elise mused to her ex as she crossed her arms over her chest stubbornly.

Oscar chuckled again, "Keep that attitude hermosa."

Elise flickered her gaze up to him, shifting a bit uncomfortably on the couch. She had been on that couch before. Hell they had, had sex on that same couch before. Her cheeks got hot as she thought about it. She bit her bottom lip, and when she risked a glance in Oscar's direction, he was staring at her and seemed to be getting the same memories.

Oscar cleared his throat and went to stand up from the chair he had sat in. "Want some breakfast?" He decided to ask, anything to distract him, as he made his way into the kitchen.

Elise rubbed at the back of her neck and nodded. "Yeah… Yeah." She had answered.

"I'll make us something real quick." He replied, walking back in the living room, he tossed her a bag of weed and a rello. "Roll us up one." He instructed, before disappearing back in the kitchen…

"Roll us up one." Oscar said as he walked in the living room and sat down on the couch next to Elise. They had just got out of school and Oscar had drove them back to his place. Cesar was still in school for a couple of hours, so they had that little while to themselves before Oscar had to go pick him up.

Elise looked up from writing in her notebook, and she looked over at him. "I gotta finish this, I don't wanna be doing this all night." She told him with a small sigh.

Oscar scoffed, taking the notebook and pen from her. He began going through the book, and it took Elise another moment to notice that he was doing her homework for her. "I said… roll us up one." He told her. Elise knew Oscar would have no problem flying through the homework. He was smart, he never liked to let on that he was. But Oscar knew books, his grades were immaculate.

So Elise did as she was told, unrolling the rello and emptying out the guts of it. She opened the bag of weed, going to put piece by piece inside the rello.

"Dad called today." Oscar said after a few moments of silence. Elise paused and looked at him, but he continued to look at the notebook as he wrote. "I answered it." He gulped down a lump in a throat.

"Are you… okay?" Elise asked him quietly. She knew his dad was a touchy subject.

"I mean I'm aight-"

"Oscar…" Elise interrupted him, and she watched as his shoulders slump. "It's okay to not be okay." Whenever he talked about his father, it was never really a good talk. He rarely brought the man up at all. She vividly remembered about 2 months after they first started dating, he showed up at her bedroom window looking more than distraught after a rough conversation with him.

"We didn't argue this time… I just kind of listened to him as he made these bullshit apologies. I'm just tired of hearing it Elise… Then he told me they're thinking about extending his sentence." Oscar said, he rubbed a hand over his face harshly.

"Why do you keep answering his calls? You don't have to." Elise said with a frown as she touched his shoulder.

"He's my father." Oscar insisted as if that was reason enough.

"And talking to him makes you miserable, baby…" Elise said quietly, grabbing the pen from him, she sat it down. She then turned his head to face her. "He's the adult, you don't owe him anything, not even an answer of the phone." She said gently. Oscar let out a quiet breath, closing his eyes, unable to look at her. "Baby look at me."

After a moment of resistance, he opened his eyes. "Not a damn thing." Elise repeated quietly. She leaned down and pressed a gentle kiss to his lips. "I love you." She whispered.

He smiled at her, a genuine smile that was full of love and warmth. He didn't say it though. She never pressured him to. She smiled in return and handed him the blunt, they spent the next hour smoking and listening to music…

"Made us a breakfast sandwich… you still like tomatoes on yours?" Oscar asked her curiously as he sat the plates down.

Elise looked down at the sandwiches, on fancier bread than the regular white bread that she was used to. She smirked slightly, that was Oscar. Only his close people knew he cooked. He didn't have the normal ingredients stocked in his home, nah… he liked the more expensive stuff. "Yeah."

Oscar grinned, "Aight." He took the blunt from her and lit it, inhaling it as he watched her. "What you thinking about?" He couldn't help but ask.

Elise smiled slightly and her cheeks flushed. "You."

Oscar was silent then, staring at her and he got that look on his face again. The one she knew well, he then smiled and handed her the blunt.