by Sam Mariano
Not a good plan.
However, Matt didn't seem to need any prodding. At her silence, he continued, "I asked her if we could just… take a break. Maybe spend some time apart. I've never wanted to leave her before, but I'm just so…damn unhappy."
She would not sympathize. She refused. Instead, she held her tongue and tried to keep her face free of expression.
"Anyway, she figured I wanted to leave so I could try to come after you—she knows I've always wanted more kids, and she didn't really even want one, so being pregnant would be more motivation for me to leave an already unhappy marriage. Well, knowing that Anna is the way to get to me, she informed me that she got a permanent job offer in New York, and if I wanted to 'take a break' then she was going to take the job, and she and Anna were going to be moving there within the month."
Despite her vow not to sympathize, she still managed to find herself astounded yet again at what a bitch Emma could be. It was like she shouldn't even be surprised anymore, but still she was.
"If she doesn't even want kids and you do, why should she take Anna?" Julie replied.
"Because it would hurt me," he said simply.
Before Julie had a chance to reply, she heard a key in the lock and then the door opened and Aaron walked inside, stopping and scowling as he saw Matt standing in his living room.
"What are you doing here?" Aaron asked, looking at the clock.
"Picking up my daughter," Matt responded.
"Aren't you a little early?"
Shrugging, Matt said, "I got done with work early."
Bending down, Julie let Anna down and began to quickly think up reassurances to feed Aaron, but to her surprise, before she could say anything, Matt did.
"Don't worry, Aaron, I just got here literally less than a minute ago. Anna wanted to show me a picture she colored before we left, so Julie reluctantly let me inside to see the picture. We were just on our way out."
Since that speech was entirely untrue, Julie could only stare at Matt, trying not to lookn shocked.
Nodding, Aaron said, "Okay, well… you should probably go."
"Anna, give Uncle Aaron a hug," Matt said.
Anna went over to give Aaron a hug goodbye, and as she did, Matt offered Julie the slightest of smiles.
For a split second, she remembered the side of him she had liked once upon a time, and in that moment she wondered if his circumstances really did just suck so much that that's why he had turned into a complete asshole.
It wasn't her problem, however, so she immediately dismissed the thought and walked over to Aaron, allowing him to wrap an arm around her waist.
"Are you hungry yet?" Aaron asked her as Anna made her way over to her father.
"For cheesecake," Julie replied with a smile.
Matt picked up Anna's tote and said, "Thank you for watching her on such short notice."
"No problem," Julie replied with a small nod.
Lifting Anna onto his hip and sighing as he slid the tote on his shoulder, he said, "Don't laugh because I look very feminine right now."
Julie chuckled a little, shaking her head.
Matt nodded, inclining his head briefly, and then he was out the door.
Aaron sighed. "He beat me here."
"Barely," Julie replied.
"Oh well. He behaved?"
Thinking about the conversation they had about Matt's marriage, she figured that "acting human" probably wasn't under the heading of good behavior for Aaron—not when it came to Matt, anyway—but then she thought about the way Matt had deliberately not caused a fight when he could have.
Nodding, she said, "Yep, very well behaved."
"Good." His grip tightened slightly and he smiled a little. "You ready to go?"
"I sure am," Julie said, grabbing her jacket and slipping it on, then picking up her purse.
"I kind of figured he’d be an asshole if he got here before me," Aaron replied.
Chuckling, Julie said, "He's not all super-villain; sometimes he's a normal person."
"Rarely," Aaron said, rolling his eyes.
Offering a smile, Julie said, "Let's not talk about him. Alyssa wants some cheesecake."
Aaron smiled and nodded, leaning in to give her a little kiss. "Good idea."
"I'm full of them," she replied with a cheeky grin.
"Well, I don't know about that…"
"No, it's true. For instance, do you remember when those long, hippie-like skirts were in? Definitely my idea."
Groaning, Aaron pulled open the door and gestured for her to go through. "I don't have to listen to you talk about clothes, do I?"
"Okay, we can talk about hair," she replied brightly, stepping across the threshold with a big smile on her face.
Topic averted, Aaron closed the door behind them and they left for dinner, all thoughts and discussions about Matt neatly brushed aside.
Chapter Twenty Seven-
The next month was crazy.
Aaron bought the condo, so he was doing paperwork and packing for the move. His one friend was still living with the wife he was getting a divorce from—some kind of argument about their lease—so he practically invited himself over to help Aaron move stuff from the apartment to the condo since Julie wasn't allowed to do any of the lifting.
Aaron's friend's name was Steve, a blonde haired man of reasonable attractiveness with a really winning dimple in his right cheek. He was a little taller than Aaron, and he spent some time in the gym so he had no problem helping Aaron with the stuff.
Since Julie felt almost completely useless—being 7 months pregnant did not make a person useful at all—she made some lemonade and some sandwiches for Aaron and Steve so they could eat when they took breaks.
"You need to learn to throw stuff away," Steve stated as he sat down at their new island, moving one of the boxes so he could sit his drink down.
Smiling, Aaron said, "I throw stuff away—tell Julie. Thank God she never had to live on campus, because there's no way she could have had a roommate."
"Are you calling me a packrat?" Julie asked as she sat the paper plates down in front of both men.
"Without a doubt," Aaron replied, picking up the sandwich and offering her a smile.
"I disagree. It's not my fault that we have to move the entire contents of our apartment here. As it is I've had to buy some new stuff."
"A toy box and a bookshelf for the baby doesn't count," Aaron stated. "We've never had a baby before.”
Rolling her eyes, Julie said, "Whatever, the point is we needed stuff to fill the house up anyway."
"Ah, trust me, I don't mind," Steve replied. "If it gets me out of the house, I will help you move it all back to the other apartment and then back here again."
Grinning, Aaron said in a rather insensitive manner, "Shelby has always been a pain in your ass; I don't know why you ever got married in the first place."
Rolling his eyes, Steve said, "I don't know."
Julie waited for more, but apparently "I don't know" was his entire reason and explanation for marrying the "Shelby" person he was apparently divorcing.
And Aaron nodded, seemingly accepting it as a perfectly valid argument.
Man-talk didn't make any sense to Julie.
"I'll just be glad when I can get the hell out of the apartment. I couldn't believe that she was so petty that she had to pitch a fit about the lease of all things. She says she doesn't want to be stuck with the lease, but she's the one that wanted the apartment—I hated the damn thing from the time we signed the papers."
"Well, why did you get it if you both didn't like it?" Julie asked casually. "There are plenty of apartments in this city, it doesn't seem that hard to keep looking."
"Because it was the one she wanted and the schools were decent so she wouldn't be as worried about Trent."
"Your son?"
Steve shook his head. "Step son. Shelby was married once before, right out of high school. It lasted 8 months, but she was pregnant when they got married, so…"<
br />
"Oh, I see. Did you guys have any kids together?"
Shaking his head, Steve said, "Nope. We wanted to wait a few years. I guess it's a good thing we did."
Nodding her agreement, Julie said, "Divorce is always so much uglier when there are kids involved."
The buzzer went off and Julie sat down the pitcher of lemonade, saying, "I'll get it."
Frowning, Aaron jumped up, "No, I'll get it. We haven't even moved in yet, who would come here?"
"Oh, I'm sorry," she said, shaking her head. "It's Leigh, I told her to come by."
"Why?" he asked, confused.
"Well, when I was packing up I found a whole box of old magazines and stuff that I had been holding onto—" Pausing, she buzzed Leigh up—"and Leigh told me last week at work if I had any magazines lying around the house to give them to her because at her other job—I don't know, they're sending magazines to soldiers so they have something to read. I don't really know, but I told Leigh that I would look and I told her we were moving stuff over here today… you don't mind, do you?"
Shrugging, he said, "No, I guess not. I just didn't realize Leigh would be coming over. I thought she would be uncomfortable."
"She's been getting better," Julie told him more quietly. "I mean, she isn't bursting with friendship or anything, but... I think it's because at her other job she's getting a lot more attention—probably just because she's not so visibly hung up on you there. Leigh's a pretty girl, it really doesn't make sense that she hasn't had more suitors. Anyway, I guess a few of the guys there just lavish attention on her—she told me the other day one of them even tried to kiss her. I think the attention is making her ease up on her resentment toward me. She's finally discovering the other fish that are just swimming all over the city."
"Really?" he asked, looking totally surprised. "I knew nothing about this."
Nodding, Julie said happily, "The one guy—not the one that tried to kiss her, but a different one—even asked her out. She told him no, but last I heard she was considering just going out once to see. Since it's just a part-time job she isn't worried about dating a co-worker."
Aaron looked dumb-founded. "I can't believe… that I've missed all of this. I mean, it was just a little over a month ago that she… wow."
Grinning, Julie winked, tugged lightly on the collar of his shirt and said, "What can I say; when I'm right, I'm right."
"I guess so," he replied.
Her smile relaxed a little and she said knowingly, "How’s your ego doing?"
He looked just startled enough that she assumed she hit the nail on the head, but he replied, "It’s fine. It's good that Leigh… got over me so fast."
Julie merely smiled at him, then she went to answer the light knock on the door.
As Julie pulled the door open, she offered a friendly smile at Leigh. "Hey, I'm so glad you could come."
Leigh offered a smile and said, "Yeah, no problem. You have the magazines?"
"Yeah," Julie said, distracted by the sight of Leigh's legs beneath her jacket. Leigh was wearing a quite short mini-skirt with a pair of low heels. "You look nice," she remarked.
Glancing down at herself, Leigh said, "Oh, thanks. I borrowed it from Danielle. I'm always cautious about borrowing things from her, but… I figured what the hell, right?"
"Are you off today?"
"Yeah," she replied. Then, off-handedly, she said, "Hey Aaron."
"Hey," he replied, nodding, but Julie noticed—and forced herself not to be even slightly jealous—that Aaron's gaze wandered over Leigh as if he was seeing her for the first time in his life.
Since everything had blown up a little over a month earlier, Leigh had changed. Before she had been friendly, but reserved in her own looks. She wore a t-shirt and jeans to work every single day, she wore her glasses to hide her face and her hair pulled back in a boring pony tail so she didn't have to bother with it.
Since the day she had told Aaron that she had an interview at another job and she needed a change, she had definitely been following through with the changes. Even though she only worked weekends at her other job, apparently the entire kitchen was male, and even though she had walked in wearing her jeans and her glasses and her pony tail, there had been a couple guys there who saw the promise of what she might look like if the thought occurred to her to try. Within two weekends at her second job, Leigh went out and bought a few new outfits, she got highlights in her hair, and she started wearing contacts.
The Leigh that came walking through Julie's kitchen in a pair of heels and a short skirt didn't look anything like the more timid version of herself that wore jeans and tennis shoes and lacked the confidence to "own a room."
Leigh's confidence, strangely, had been shooting up since Aaron finally rejected her once and for all.
"Leigh has legs," Aaron stated quietly to Julie, as if it surprised him.
"Indeed, she has two of them," Julie replied, looking amused.
Steve, who had been in the middle of chewing, stopped dead when Leigh came walking in, and he kind of just stared rudely for a moment. Then he swallowed, jumped to his feet and offered a smile.
"Hello," he said.
Raising an eyebrow, she offered a small smile and said, "Hello. Is this the box?"
"What box?" he asked.
"No," Julie replied, jumping in. "This is not the box. Hold on, I marked it. Let me just look over here."
Since no one was introducing them, Steve took it upon himself to say, "My name's Steve, I'm a friend of Aaron's. Are you Julie's sister?"
Chuckling, Leigh said, "No, I'm not. I'm… a friend of theirs."
"Ah… and do you have a name?" he asked a little playfully.
Smiling, she said, "Yeah." But she didn't say anything else for a moment, just giving him a cheeky grin.
He smiled back, saying, "Am I supposed to guess?"
"If you're a good guesser," she answered.
"I'm a terrible guesser," he informed her gravely.
"Ah, well, then I guess I'll take pity on you. My name's Leigh."
"Leigh," he said, smiling and offering his hand to shake. "It's very nice to meet you."
She shook his hand and nodded, then she let go and turned around to face Julie. "Find it?"
"Yep," Julie said, nodding. "Right here it is. It's kind of heavy though, Aaron, why don't you carry it down for her?"
"I got it," Steve said promptly. "Which box?"
"Well, you certainly are helpful," Leigh told him, smiling slightly.
"Can't make ladies carry around heavy boxes," he returned easily.
"How very chivalrous of you," she noted.
"Some still are," he replied, easily lifting the box.
"Well, I will show you the way to my car. Julie, thanks for the magazines. Aaron, I'll see you at work."
"Yeah, see you there," he said, frowning slightly.
Julie laughed to herself a little as Steve walked in front of Leigh so that he could hoist the box under one arm and still hold open the door for Leigh to walk through first.
It was a moment before Aaron, still frowning, said, "Should Steve be trying to hit on Leigh when he isn't even divorced yet? I mean… she doesn't need complications like that in her life."
Smiling patiently, Julie assured him, "Honey, Leigh can take care of herself. In case you haven't noticed, she has been on a path of self-discovery lately. If she doesn't want to deal with him, she knows there are other guys out there."
"But…"
"No," she said, shaking her head. "She's fine.”
"It's so… weird to see Leigh…"
Thinking she understood, Julie said, "Yeah, she's somehow blossomed. I mean, there's no denying she's prettier with her contacts, and I think the confidence that the guys at the restaurant have been giving her—”
"No, I don't mean the changes she's made, just… Leigh's never dated or anything like that in front of me. I guess I always thought of her as an asexual being."
Unsure of his response to the who
le situation, she asked evenly, "You don't like it that she's blossoming?"
In the logical side of her mind, she figured it was just his ego taking a little hit, but her less rational side was about to fly into a panic—he had just seen Leigh for the first time—really seen her—and he was going to change his mind! He was going to realize he did have feelings for her, he had just been ignoring them like he tried desperately to ignore his attraction to Julie, but in the end he lost that battle, and he would lose this one, too, and he would leave Julie for Leigh! They would have a fairy tale ending and she would be left pregnant and alone again!
Pulling her from her senseless panic, Aaron shook his head bemusedly and said, "I guess I just realized what it would be like to have a little sister. I kind of want to… pull Steve aside and give him one of those, 'If you hurt her, I will rip your face off' conversations that would probably not help our friendship."
At that comment, she allowed herself to breathe again. "You have a little sister," Julie said with a smile.
"Oh. Right. Well, yeah… but I was never that protective over her."
Shrugging, Julie said, "It makes sense. Leigh has been your best friend for years."
"Yeah… it really doesn't feel like she is lately though. I guess the change was inevitable unless we stayed in the unhealthy situation."
Julie smiled a little and she said, "It's like we're all finally growing up."
Aaron chuckled a little, shaking his head ironically, "We should be grown up by now, shouldn't we?"
"Eh, our generation is in no rush to grow up. I think as long as you grow up by the time you reach about 30, you're not really behind anymore."
"Well, if we've got it all figured out already, what are we going to do for the next 50 years?"
"Well, our next challenge will be parenting. I've been told that we should be kept pretty occupied trying to figure that whole mess out for the next 20 years or so. Then Alyssa will be dating, so we'll have to adjust to that protective, no-man-is-good-enough stuff all over again."
"I thought I told you already that Alyssa is never allowed to date."
"Well, yes, we covered that men are evil and we have to keep them away from our little girl as long as possible, but realistically speaking that will stop working by the time she's in middle school."
