Beautiful Mistakes

by Sam Mariano

  Lovely, she thought ironically as she drifted off to sleep.

  ---

  Since Julie wasn't exactly a sound sleeper, she was brought from her restful sleep when she heard a slight commotion near the doorway and a muttered, "Fuck."

  Her eyes opened, and she registered that either Aaron was home or she was being burglarized. Looking to the window to see what time of night it might be, she saw that it was still dark.

  Another noise behind her almost made her turn around, but then she could hear someone walking closer to the bed, and she felt the bed sag under the weight of another person.

  Surely a burglar wouldn't take the time to crawl into bed with her.

  Then she wondered if he had even noticed she was in his bed. It seemed obvious, but there were a lot of blankets, and he hadn't growled at her to get out or anything, so maybe…

  Before she could think about it anymore, she felt Aaron moving around, trying to get comfortable, and then without warning an arm came from out of nowhere and wrapped itself around her.

  Her eyes bugging out in the darkness, she wasn't sure if she should let him know she was awake or play at sleeping. His arm was around her body. There had to be some mistake. She could actually feel his wrist dangerously close to her breast, and for one horrified moment she wondered if he thought she was someone else.

  Then her wits returned and she realized he couldn't possibly think she was anyone else, because no one else lived there.

  Then he sighed a little, and she caught an old familiar scent: alcohol.

  He was drunk.

  His arm was around her and he didn't care if she slept in his bed because he was drunk.

  "Aaron?" she murmured quietly in the dark.

  "Hmm?" he responded.

  Well, now what was she supposed to say?

  "Um… is everything okay?" she asked.

  "Do you really care?" he asked, but there was almost amusement in his voice.

  Frowning slightly, she realized she wasn't lying when she said, "Yes."

  He waited a moment before his grip on her strangely tightened a little bit, pulling her back a little closer into his embrace. "I'm fine."

  "Are you drunk?" she asked, even though she knew he must be.

  "Just a little bit," he told her.

  Silently, she disagreed. Any amount of alcohol that got him that close to her could not possibly be just a little bit.

  "Do you know where you are?" she asked him.

  Chuckling low in her ear, she attempted to ignore the goose bumps that rose up on her skin as he whispered, "My apartment?"

  "Yep," she responded just an octave too high. "And do you know who I am?"

  "Julie Kingsley," he responded, his voice still slightly amused, but so quietly and so close to her damn ear that she was tempted to stop asking him things.

  "Okay," she said. "I was just making sure you were…okay."

  "Don't see why you care," he answered. "I am the biggest asshole in the world to you," he said, yawning.

  This was true, she conceded. But… in all fairness, she wasn't doing very good things, and when he used to actually speak to her he had told her that it wasn't her he disliked, but the things she did.

  "You think I'm a bad person," she said, and it wasn't a question.

  "No," he responded.

  "But I do bad things," she said, narrowing it down a little.

  "Yes. But everybody does bad things."

  Smiling wryly in the dark, she thought about that for a moment. He had a point, of course. Everybody did bad things, but as Julie thought over the bad things she had done recently –from living in a loveless relationship with Jack to moving in with her married lover and getting knocked up—she thought she probably did more than her fair share of bad in too short a time.

  Then again, there were people like Jack who could do all that in one night.

  "But not everybody gets knocked up by a married man, and that's why you hate me, right? You think I'm an adulteress, which I guess I am, and a whore, which I'm really not."

  "I don't think you're a whore," he disagreed. "I think you fucked up with Matt, but… maybe it wasn't on purpose. Sometimes I have to try too hard to not like you, and that's…not good," he said, his sentence trailing off as he yawned again.

  Honestly, that news made her brighten a little. "Really? So it doesn't just come natural to you, like breathing or blinking?"

  "No," he responded. "It's a learned behavior. Some kind of conditioning—I don't remember, I took psychology too long ago."

  "Classical?" she guessed.

  "Maybe. I'm too…tired and drunk to keep talking to you right now."

  "But I like you this way," she blurted. "I don't feel like you hate me so much."

  "Then I need to stop talking," he stated.

  Frowning in the dark, she glanced back at him over her shoulder. "That's not very nice."

  Then he did the strangest thing; he smiled a little and leaned forward, kissing her on the forehead, then he rested his head back on the pillow and said, "Good night, Julie."

  She was startled, but she didn't want him to go to sleep. He had spoken to her more in that few minutes than he had in the whole past week, and he was actually being nice to her, too. Well, for the most part.

  "Aaron?"

  Groaning a little, he muttered, "Yes Julie?" into the pillow.

  "If you know all people do bad things and you don't think I'm an evil whore, why is it that you have to hate me?"

  "Because."

  Rolling her eyes, she said, "That's not a reason."

  "Ask your earrings," he muttered.

  Flushing a little, she refused to be lied to. "No, you didn't seem to like me before I took the earrings."

  "I was forgetting."

  She waited for him to finish his thought, but that seemed to be all he was saying.

  "Forgetting what?" she prompted.

  "Everything," he groaned. "Would you please let me go to sleep before I smother your ass with a pillow?"

  Smiling slightly, she said a little sarcastically, "My ass isn't talking."

  His arm left her then, and for a moment she felt bereft, wishing she would have kept her big mouth shut. Even if it was only because he was drunk and it didn’t mean a thing, it was nice to have someone cuddle her.

  Then she felt Aaron's hand lightly skim her hip and curve around her butt, and she was too shocked to register what had just happened.

  "Nope," he said, his arm snaking back up to wrap around her torso, resting just where it had been before, under her breast. "It doesn't seem to be talking."

  Startled, she let a chuckle slip out.

  She was speechless.

  "Ah, now I know how to make you shut up," he said smugly after a few more seconds of silence.

  "Possibly," she returned. "But if you were sober you would never do that, so unless you make a habit of getting drunk, I don't think I have to worry about that."

  "True," he agreed easily.

  For a minute, Julie just enjoyed the silence, and even the feel of someone's arm around her. She hadn't realized she had missed being held, but she was pretty content to have Aaron's arms around her, and since she knew Aaron hated her, she figured enjoying his embrace must mean she was pretty starved for affection.

  Too bad she was so bad at dating.

  She could just seek out a boyfriend so she could enjoy the feeling of a man's arms around her every night.

  However, she seemed to suck at finding good men, so she concluded that she would have to just take Aaron's drunken half-embrace and run with it, enjoying it for the one evening she had it.

  "Can I ask you something without making you grumpy?"

  "No," he replied, but his tone wasn't severe, so she took it as an affirmative.

  "The girl at the café tonight…"

  "Don't ask," he said, not letting her get up her nerve to finish the question. "She doesn't exist to me anymore; don't ask about her."

  "I was just going
to say… for once, I felt like there was someone in the room you hated more than me."

  "Maybe there was," he returned. "Now quit talking and go to sleep before I grab your ass again."

  Strangely, the way he said it made her not want to obey, but she shrugged that off since she had been celibate for a while, and that was most likely why.

  Plus, there was something about hatred between two people… if she hated him too, there would actually be passion between them.

  As it was, there was one-sided hatred, and so there must only be one-sided passion of any kind.

  Then she frowned. "Aaron, I just realized something."

  Sighing, he said, "So did I. You're never going to let me go to sleep."

  "In order to hate somebody the way that you hate me, there has to be some kind of… passion there. You never knew me before, and you hated me practically on-sight, so there must be some other… reason that you hate me so much."

  "If I participate in this conversation for just a minute can I sleep?" he asked.

  "Yes," she decided.

  "There is probably some other reason that I seem to hate you, something that actually didn't even start with you. But it doesn't matter, because I'm not going to tell you what it is—I'm not drunk enough."

  Considering that, she said, "Do you have any alcohol in the fridge?"

  She heard him chuckle a little, felt his warm breath on the back of her neck. "You're not getting me drunk so you can take advantage of me."

  "I won't take advantage of you," she said, smiling as she privately thought he seemed to be a frisky drunk.

  "Yes, you will. You will use alcohol to get information from me. Damn women, using any means at your disposal to get what you want."

  Oh, in that sense she did want to take advantage of him.

  "I'm just curious," she said.

  "And you're wasting your time and energy. Close your eyes and go to sleep, or I swear I really am going to smother you."

  Yawning unintentionally, Julie said, "But I want to talk."

  "And I want to sleep. Whose bed are we in?"

  "Yours."

  "Damn, looks like I win," he stated.

  "We could go out to my boat," she suggested.

  "Whose apartment is that in?"

  Rolling her eyes, she could see where that was headed. "Yours."

  "I still win. Shut up and go to sleep."

  "Fine," she said, giving in and letting silence envelope them.

  However, after thinking for just another second she said, "I just wanted to tell you… I'm glad that there is someone in the world you like less than me. It makes me feel better."

  He grunted at her, and she took that to mean he was done talking, so she finally gave in to the vague pounding in her head and closed her eyes.

  It felt like longer, but she knew it was a few seconds later when he finally said, "Want to know a secret?"

  Instantly awake, she said, "Sure."

  "I'm glad you told my brother to shove his abortion offer right up his ass."

  Startled, she said, "You are? Why?"

  But Aaron only smiled, his eyes closed as he said, "Only one secret a night, sorry. Good night, Julie."

  Narrowing her eyes, she thought about trying to get more out of him…

  But when she glanced back over her shoulder at him he looked so cute, so peaceful and angelic with that little smile on his lips, his eyes closed, but not yet asleep.

  Instead of pushing him anymore, she turned her head to face a more comfortable direction –the window—and she hesitantly allowed her arm to rest on top of his.

  Then, as she closed her eyes, just before she drifted off to sleep, she found herself wishing something she had never wished in her life.

  Please let him get drunk more often.

  Chapter Thirteen-

  When Julie woke up the next morning, she woke up to an empty bed.

  Strangely, she was disappointed.

  She couldn't remember why at first, but when the thought flitted through her mind that she had wanted to enjoy a few more minutes lying in Aaron's embrace, she quickly pushed the errant thought from her mind.

  Ridiculous.

  She had just wanted to wake up before him once in her life, plus if he was anything like her then he would have one hell of a hangover and he should still be sleeping.

  She should go find him and make sure he had plenty of water to drink.

  Dragging herself from the bed, she wandered out to the living room, and saw no sign of Aaron there. Frowning, she looked in the kitchen, but he wasn't there either. She turned around and went back to the bathroom to take a peek, but he wasn't even in there.

  "Aaron?" she called out.

  Silence.

  He was gone. Of course—he was always gone.

  The house phone started ringing, and she brightened slightly, answering it in hopes that it was Aaron.

  Instead, she got, "Who is this?"

  It was a woman's voice, startled.

  "Julie," she said, also feeling startled by the woman's tone.

  "Who the hell are you?" the woman asked. "Did I dial the wrong number? Is this Aaron's phone?"

  "Um…yes, Aaron Turner's phone."

  "And who are you?" the woman repeated.

  "Julie?" she said, but it sounded more to her like a question.

  "Why the hell is some woman named Julie answering Aaron's phone—especially at this hour of the morning?"

  Feeling slightly panicked, Julie remembered her curiosity about Aaron's relationship status, and she wondered if this female on the other end might be the answer.

  "He isn't here right now," Julie said awkwardly. "If you'd like I can give him a message."

  "Oh, don't worry. I'll call back later—he'll get the message."

  And then the phone disconnected.

  Julie nervously put the phone down, wondering who she had been speaking to. She hadn't sounded very pleased about Aaron having a girl over, and since Julie had no idea how to explain herself, she didn't even know how to reassure the girl.

  Did Aaron have a girlfriend? She wasn't sure why, but she had come to the conclusion –without any basis really, aside from his personality—that Aaron was probably single.

  But even if he wasn't, she thought logically, if he had a girlfriend, shouldn’t she know about Julie staying on an airbed in the living room? And wouldn't she come over?

  Unless that was why Aaron was never home, she realized. Maybe he was always at the girlfriend's house after work—maybe it wasn't that he was avoiding her, he was just spending time with his girlfriend who might not even know his brother's former mistress was knocked up and living with him for the time being.

  Had she just caused trouble in someone else's life?

  Sighing, she sat down on the couch, wishing she knew Aaron's cell phone number.

  ---

  Aaron did finally return home at around one, leaving him just enough time to put whatever he had in that folder he always seemed to be carrying away and get ready for work, then he would go in at two.

  As soon as Julie got the opportunity, Julie approached him hesitantly. "Um, Aaron?"

  She wasn't sure what to expect of him once morning came. Mainly, she was hoping he would stay the nicer Aaron he had been the night before, but as he turned to face her, a look of bored indifference on his face, she thought that was probably unrealistic.

  "Hm?" he responded.

  "Somebody called for you—it was a woman, and I didn't know if I should answer the phone or not, but I thought it might be you so I did, and I don't know who she was, I never got her name, but she…didn't know that I lived here, at least I think." Sighing in frustration at her inability to effectively communicate –a course she had ironically gotten an A in—she tried again. "I don't think that she was extremely…amenable to me answering your phone early in the morning, so…I don't know who it was, but I'm sorry, I didn't know if I shouldn't answer the phone; it doesn't normally ring."

  Shrugging
, Aaron said, "Don't worry about it, it was probably my mom, she's due to be calling. I never got around to telling her about you and if she kind of sounded like a bitch… probably her. I got my winning personality from her,” he stated with a brief, half-smile.

  Smiling slightly, Julie attempted to put a finger on why she felt… almost relieved?

  "Oh, okay," she said. "That's okay, I just wanted to make sure it wasn't… your girlfriend or something, and have her get the wrong idea and get you in trouble?"

  "Nope," he answered.

  She had been hoping he would expand on that, saying whether or not he had a girlfriend, but since he didn't, she moved the conversation along.

  "So, how are you feeling this morning?" she asked him, smiling a little.

  "Fine," he returned, and it looked like the truth. Despite being thoroughly drunk the night before, he seemed perfectly normal.

  Then something flitted across his face for a second and disappeared, and he appeared to shift a little uncomfortably.

  "I'm sorry, by the way, for… last night. That was inappropriate, and I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable."

  She didn't know why his apology made her smile falter a little, made that feeling of rejection come back, but it did.

  "Oh, you didn’t. It's no problem, really," she said quietly. "You weren’t inappropriate, just…"

  "Well, regardless, I apologize," he said succinctly. "I have to go get ready for work," he told her, pulling a paper out of the folder. "But here is your schedule for the week."

  "Thank you," she said, trying to inject some enthusiasm into her voice and cover the unwarranted feeling of rejection and unworthiness that she seemed to always feel when Aaron was around.

  Nodding, he disappeared into the bedroom.

  Julie sighed and sat down on the couch, glancing at her schedule briefly and calculating the hours. Quickly doing the math in her head, she concluded that she was at 23 hours for the week. Not great, especially since she literally had nothing to do when she was off.

  If she had the money to spare, she would stop at a bookstore.

  Maybe she should resort to actually going to the library. When she first moved to Chicago with Jack he had shown her the library—because he knew she was a bit of a dork and a total bookworm—but she had never managed to actually make it there.