Beautiful Mistakes

by Sam Mariano

  "Then you like the movies because you believe in healing after cheating?"

  "Oh, hell no," she said, her eyebrows rising. "Once you cheat on me and I find out about it, your ass better leave. I think it’s stupid to take back a known cheater. He doesn't love you and you aren't going to trust him, so why waste everybody's time?"

  "You can earn trust back with time and effort," he said reasonably.

  "I’m not that forgiving," she disagreed. "Once someone cheats on me, they don't get a second chance."

  "Jack's never cheated on you?" he asked, not looking even remotely convinced.

  "Not that I know of," she said vaguely. "He's flirted, but… he might be out cheating on me right now, for all I know. I don't really care to be perfectly honest."

  "Then you're a hypocrite," Matt stated.

  "I am not," she said, frowning.

  "Yes, you are. If you don't care if he cheats on you, you don't care about him. You just said that you basically think it's idiotic to be with someone you don't care about."

  She thought for a second. "Well, yes, when there is someone else that you want to be with…"

  "And there's no one else's company that you enjoy more than Jack's?" he asked a touch sarcastically.

  Julie stared at him for a second, her eyes catching on those warm brown eyes of his, and she realized as if waking from a stupor that she had spent the better part of two days in that man's company. Another thing she noticed, although she had never admitted it before, was the way she would carefully pick out her outfit on days she was coming to babysit, picking the most flattering ones to wear. She told herself that particular morning that she had done it in case Jack came creeping in before she left so he could see her looking completely adorable to go see someone else. But deep down, she suspected it wasn't Jack she was thinking about when she picked out her cute little outfits.

  And while she had forgotten the awkwardness in the midst of their conversation, there was probably a reason she felt uncomfortable watching a movie in which the help develops a fascination with the man of the house.

  "I should go," she realized, raising herself from her comfortable spot on the sofa.

  "Don't leave," he said automatically, lightly grabbing her wrist to stop her.

  "Shit," she muttered under her breath as she felt tingles spread through her body at his touch.

  He held her wrist for just a moment longer than he should have, then he attempted a casual smile. "We could watch the movie a second time and see if you like it or not."

  "That…is probably a very bad idea," she answered honestly.

  "Why?" he asked, even though she suspected he already knew.

  At first she wasn't sure how to respond without admitting what neither of them should, but then she smiled a self-deprecating smile and said, "Because I should go home to butcher boy."

  With that, she stood up, straightening her T-shirt a bit, but before she could walk away to approach the DVD player Matt stood up, and he stood maybe three inches from her, so close that she could smell his manly scent mixed with the remnants of the cologne he had put on that day.

  Her mouth went dry, but her mind told her it was time to go.

  "I'm sorry," he said quietly, lightly touching her on the arm before stepping away, moving purposefully toward the DVD player to take the movie out.

  Julie swallowed and tried to breathe properly, scolding herself for her stupid, pointless behavior, berating herself for being so foolish as to make something out of nothing.

  "It’s fine. You really don't have to be sorry," she said, turning on her heel toward Matt's back. All she wanted at that point was to diffuse the situation; she liked her job and didn’t want to lose it over a stupid little attraction.

  "I am, though. I don't want you to think I'm some lecherous cheater. I've never cheated, and I did not mean to… make you uncomfortable."

  "You didn't make me uncomfortable," she said awkwardly.

  "I like you, I like your company," he said, as if trying to explain himself. "I didn't…intend on trying to make a move on you or anything."

  "You didn't make a move on me," she reasoned.

  "Trust me, I wanted to," he stated.

  Despite her best intentions, she blushed and felt a little flattered. "Oh.”

  He placed the disc back into the case and held it out to her.

  Julie told herself to take the movie, smile politely, and leave the house as fast as she could without being obvious.

  But she didn't take it. She just looked up into his brown eyes, something she knew she shouldn't do. There was something there, something that compelled her to stay when she knew she needed to leave.

  "I'm sorry," she said very quietly.

  He frowned a little. "For what?"

  "For this," she said, leaning forward and tilting her head to the side, placing just a soft, passionless kiss on the corner of his mouth.

  "Don't tease me," he said lowly, grabbing her around the waist and drawing her up against his body.

  Julie felt her heart leap in her chest and her blood race through her veins, leaving a trail of wicked sensation in her lower regions as he pulled her body even closer to his and slanted his mouth over hers, giving her a more passionate, heated kiss that made her toes curl and her fingers clamp around his shoulders, holding him where he was.

  "I…should go," she managed when the kiss ended, her face an inch from his, her lips a breath away from his.

  "Back to butcher boy?" he asked, not moving, lingering close.

  "No, just away from this," she answered honestly.

  He smiled, and it made her heart sink in a funny way. "What is 'this'?"

  She considered for a split second, then she quoted him. "Lust. Longing. Attraction."

  "That's not what you said when Griet did it."'

  "But I'm not going to go sleep with my distraction," she said, then realized what she said. "I mean… not that…he's my distraction."

  But Matt just smiled, backing away, and attempted to restore some of the playfulness of earlier. "Fine, leave me."

  "I'm not leaving you," she said, not liking to hear it worded that way.

  Like clockwork, her cell phone started ringing and her cell phone read "Jack."

  "Butcher boy calls," he said, glancing at her phone.

  Julie looked with unconcealed dread at her cell phone, but she didn't answer it, just forced herself to take a step back from Matt.

  "I will see you tomorrow," she said, looking around for her messenger bag, finally finding it and slipping the DVD into it. "So…good night, and I really hope that this doesn't make things awkward between us."

  He shook his head. "It won't."

  Her phone chimed, alerting her to a new voicemail.

  Julie managed a half smile and walked to the door, even getting her hand on the doorknob before she came to a stop. Pausing, she stared at her hand on the knob for approximately two seconds, then she turned around.

  "Oh, what the hell?" she said, dropping her messenger bag in the floor and closing the distance between herself and Matt, wrapping her arms around him and kissing him as passionately as he had kissed her.

  Matt pulled her close and walked her backward toward the couch, never letting her go as he eased her back on the sofa and started unbuttoning her shirt at the same time.

  "Matt," she said, tilting her head back as his hand crept inside her shirt, inside her bra and cupped her breast in his warm hand.

  "Hm?" he murmured, kissing her neck, her ears.

  "Do you love her?" she asked, feeling like she needed to know, even at the risk of killing the mood.

  He paused just long enough to look into her eyes. "No."

  Julie met his eyes and quickly searched his gaze, just to make sure he was telling her the truth, that she hadn't read the situation wrong.

  Satisfied with what she saw, she nodded, giving him her consent to keep going.

  ---

  Julie didn't allow herself to think about what had
happened between them or what it might mean; she just went to sleep in Matt's arms right there on the couch.

  She slept well until all of a sudden she awoke to a large hand caressing her breast, Matt's mouth on her neck, and his knee pushing between her legs.

  She smiled with her eyes still closed and opened her legs for him, gasping when she felt the length of him slide inside of her.

  "Good morning," he said, running his hand down her thigh and pushing himself more deeply inside of her.

  Gasping and wrapping her arms around his neck, she managed, "Good morning."

  After a quick but satisfying round, Matt kissed her and told her he had to go get ready for work. Julie rolled over to the best of her ability on the sofa and went back to sleep until Matt came down with Anna and sat her down on the couch with Julie.

  "Nana!" Anna said, hugging Julie around the neck.

  Julie smiled and opened her eyes. "Hey, munchkin. Are you up already?"

  "I have to be going, but I will see you girls at about 6:30," he said, leaning in and giving Anna a kiss on the forehead, and giving Julie's shoulder a little stroke. "Any requests for dinner? I could bring take-out."

  "You don't have to buy dinner," she said. "You did last night."

  "We could go out," he suggested. "Have you been to the Cheesecake Factory?"

  "No, and we're not going there. If anything, bring me home some Chinese. Sweet and sour chicken is always a hit."

  "Chinese it is," he said, offering her a smile.

  She smiled back, wishing she could give him a kiss, but not wanting to in front of Anna. Instead she settled for an intimate smile and a little wave before he walked out the door.

  Unfortunately, with Matt gone, the love nest was empty, leaving only Julie to think about what she had done.

  What would come of it? She had planted herself right in the center of a very bad situation. Not only had she slept with her employer, but she slept with her married employer. Sure, right now he was bringing home dinner, offering to take her to the Cheesecake Factory and waking her up with the birds for a quickie before work, but what would happen once Emma came home? When she returned from New York, what would Matt do?

  He could stop sleeping with Julie and act like it never happened. He could leave Emma. He could try to persuade Julie to just be his mistress for a time, to wait and see.

  Would she want to do that? She had just cheated on Jack twice in about 8 hours, and she was sure he had probably done the same thing to her the night he hadn't called her or returned to the apartment. Even as she thought about it, he was probably assuming she had stayed out all night just to get back at him, and she was sure he would never guess what she had actually done.

  Her conscience told her she should probably feel pretty bad about what had happened between them, it being adultery and everything, but all she had to do was think about his crooked smile or the way his lips felt on hers, and she just broke into a helpless smile. Emma was a pretty hideous human being anyway, and she hadn't called home once while Julie was there to check on Matt or Anna.

  Not that that made it okay….

  What would she do now? She was probably going to have to leave Jack, because she certainly wasn't going to go on sleeping with them both.

  But would Matt stop sleeping with Emma? That was an uncomfortable thought, and she was sure that there was no delicate way of broaching the subject… Honestly, she wasn't sure she wanted to know.

  But she wasn't going to have a place to live if she left Jack. She only had about $280 in her bank account, because she spent all the money she had on books and tuition, then that $57 she spent to buy a few new shirts for the school year. She was virtually broke. She would have money once she got paid for that weekend, but would she even get paid now? If Emma found out, she wasn't likely to pay the nanny for being her husband's whore in her absence.

  What had she gotten herself into?

  She was going to lose her job, too. She would be jobless, homeless, and only possibly have a boyfriend if Matt didn't change his mind and go back to his wife, who would more than likely just forgive him and go back to ignoring him.

  Well, hell. What a mess she had gotten herself into.

  Julie finally got around to listening to Jack's voicemail, but it was nothing too winning. He just said he was home, he was sorry about everything, and he told her to give him a call. He ended it by telling her he loved her.

  Julie didn't feel bad about cheating on Jack. Not even a little bit. She didn't love him and she didn't believe he loved her, either.

  By the time Matt got home, she was confident that she had gone over every possibility of what could come of their night together. She was secretly afraid that her "nothing" theory would prove true, that he would come home wallowing in remorse and tell her he had made a terrible mistake.

  She would really feel like crap if she only got to be his mistake.

  But when he came walking through the door and the smile he gave her was warm and inviting, she felt herself expel a sigh of relief.

  "Hey," she said, shifting Anna on her knee.

  "Hey," he said with an intimate smile, making her warm all over. Then after setting the plastic bag he was holding down on a counter, he came over and sat down on the couch, leaning in and giving Anna a hug, putting his hand on Julie's thigh in the process and giving her a little squeeze.

  She felt a funny little flip in the vicinity of her stomach and her smile widened.

  "How are my girls?" he asked.

  Something about being referred to as one of "his girls" also seemed to excite her stomach, as it did another flip.

  "Well," she said, trying to think of her job, "this little girl here decided her nap only needed to be ten minutes long today," Julie stated, raising her eyebrows at Anna, who just smiled back at her.

  "Good," he said. "She'll be going to bed soon then," he said, looking up at Julie with some of that lust, longing and attraction in his eyes.

  "Very soon, I think," Julie said coyly.

  "Do you have to leave?"

  Not wanting to think about that, Julie shook her head. "Nope, not yet."

  "Good," he said simply, removing his hand from her thigh and standing up. "I brought dinner."

  "Yummy," Julie said, standing up and putting Anna on her hip. "Anything she'll eat, or should I fix her something?"

  "I doubt she'll eat any of this, why don't you just get her some Cheerios or some cheese and crackers," Matt suggested.

  Julie hauled Anna over to the cupboard where they picked out her dinner, then she got her situated at her high chair, but Anna was already starting to get crabby, squealing and throwing her Cheerios on the ground.

  "Hey, that's not nice," Julie said, getting, leaning down to pick up her mess. "You eat those."

  Anna frowned and let out a shriek, hitting the Cheerios on her tray.

  "Ignore Miss Crabby Pants," Matt advised. "Eat your dinner, then we'll put her to bed."

  "Yes, sir," Julie said a touch mockingly, smiling across the table.

  They finished their Chinese in record time, and while Julie was finishing hers, Matt already had Anna scooped up and on her way to bed.

  Julie took it upon herself to clear the table while Matt put Anna to bed, throwing away the garbage, cleaning up Anna's mess, wiping off the high chair and putting what was left of her milk back in the fridge.

  While she wiped everything down her thoughts strayed back to his simple question, "Do you have to leave?"

  Where would she go when she left? Back to Jack's, yes, but not back to his bed, so where would she actually go? She had carefully avoided talking to him at all that day, but she realized that by sleeping with Matt, she was completely screwed, because she would have nowhere to live and no job probably within about a week. Maybe if she didn't tell Jack, if she just went back and acted like nothing had happened… But Matt seemed to think she was going to be sleeping with him again, so if she did…

  Well, she was kind of stuck. She had not
carefully thought out her actions, she just… acted, and now she had to pay for it.

  "What's that pensive look for?" Matt asked, startling her out of her thoughts.

  "Oh, I—Nothing. I was just thinking."

  "What were you thinking about?"

  "Probably not something you'd care to know," she answered honestly. "Definitely not something you're dying to talk about."

  "Oh man," he said. "Go ahead, let’s get it over with."

  Julie shook her head, reaching up and brushing his hair behind his ear. "Now's not the time," she said.

  He smiled, capturing her hand. "Then what is it time for?" he asked.

  Julie smiled, tugging him close. "You know the answer to that, Mr. Turner."

  Matt pulled her up close to him, kissing her for a moment. "Come to the red room," he said, his hands already unbuttoning her jeans.

  "Hm?" she murmured, eyes closed, already getting caught up in his kisses, the feel of his hand moving between her legs.

  "The guest room," he said, lightly tugging her back down the hall.

  She was unbuttoning his slacks, kissing him feverishly as his finger delved into the wetness between her legs. "Matt," she gasped.

  "The guest room," he repeated more urgently.

  "Right, the guest room," she said.

  "It's bigger than the couch," he reasoned.

  "Any flat surface will suffice," she stated, peeling his shirt off him and backing him into his own guest room.

  "That's what I like to hear," he said, pulling her inside and closing the door behind him.

  ---

  They spent as much of the weekend as they could in their little love nest, completely apart from the rest of the world. They made love seven times in three days, then squeezed in one more time in his office chair, only to be interrupted when Julie was close to climaxing by the ringing phone on his desk.

  Matt paused mid-thrust. "Shit."

  "No," Julie pleaded, gripping his shoulders and arching toward him.

  "Fuck," he said, when he read the caller ID. "It's her," he said.

  "Of course it is," Julie said, hiding her face in his shoulder and murmuring for him to answer it.

  Still joined with her, he tried to steady his breathing and answer in a casual voice, "Hello."