by Sam Mariano
"Because I knew you wouldn't like if I wore them?" she finally said.
"Shouldn't you be more concerned with what Matt wants than what I want?"
"I don't think I should," she responded.
"Why?" he asked, watching her, his gaze dropping to her lips and then back to her face.
Her brow furrowed just slightly as she responded honestly, "I'm not…sure."
He didn't say anything for a moment, just sat there looking at her with that hooded look for a minute, and she wondered if he was about to fall asleep.
Then he smiled again, shaking his head and saying, "You should probably go home."
Julie broke the gaze then, her eyes dropping to her lap. The familiar sting of rejection set in—although she had no idea why she felt rejected—and she said, "You're not… coming home?"
He seemed to consider it for another second, his eyes lazily roaming over her, then he met her gaze and he said, "It's probably better that I don't."
Nodding, she said, "You're staying with Leigh tonight then? That's fine, I just thought I could give you a ride if you wanted one, but if you don't want one, obviously that’s fine too," she rambled a little awkwardly, her words her words coming out too fast.
"I wasn't going to go home with you earlier, that's why I let myself drink so much. But now that I did drink so much, I want you to take me home—it was kind of…" He shook his head, closing his eyes. "I can't think of the word I want to use right now, because my brain is a little foggy, but… the point is, you should go home, and you should go home now before I ask to go with you."
He made absolutely no sense.
"It's your apartment," she said, growing slightly irritated. "If only one of us is allowed to go back to it, you should go back to it. If you don't want to be around me, I can drop you off and go somewhere else."
His lips curved up slightly and he shook his head. "Are you really that dense?"
Great, he was back to insulting her again.
Standing up, Julie felt strangely emotional. She just wanted to get out of there. She couldn't even remember what else she had wanted to ask him, and she was getting so tired of being hated—she didn't know why she cared, she didn't know why she wouldn't wear the earrings, and she definitely didn't know why him telling her to go home because he didn't want to go with her made her feel like crying.
She only knew that it did.
"Are you going?" he asked, standing up with her, although his balance took a little longer to kick in.
"I suppose," she said. "You obviously want me to leave, so I'll leave."
"Are you mad now? You're not the sharpest crayon in the box, are you?"
Thoroughly frustrated, she shook her head. "Obviously not. I'm stupid and I'm unlikeable—I don't know why some people get all the bad qualities either."
"Why are you mad?" he asked, looking genuinely bewildered.
She felt like screaming. Did he not realize how openly he hated her? "I'm not mad, I'm just… tired of you not wanting me around. If you don't want me around, just say something. I don't give a shit about your stupid 'debt' or whatever it is you're using me to settle—if you hate being around me so much, just say something and I will be gone within a couple days."
She had expected to piss him off, so she was definitely confused when she looked up and saw that he was smiling at her.
"What?" she asked, eyes bugging out in exasperation.
"I didn't tell you to leave because I hate being around you," he stated.
No, he probably wanted to get laid, so he needed to stay with his girlfriend, she thought a bit sourly.
Her cell phone chimed again, and she fought the urge to throw it on the floor and crush it beneath her heel. Instead, she opened it up and saw it was from Matt.
"Is it him?" Aaron asked.
She wanted to tell him it was none of his business, because he had made her grumpy, but instead she merely replied, "Yes."
The message from Matt read, "Nothing to say?"
Lifting her eyebrows, she wondered what exactly he had said before.
Then she realized all she had to do was text back that she didn't get it, and Matt would resend whatever text message he had sent.
"Is it another booty call?" he asked.
She raised startled eyes at the way he said "another," because that implied the first message…
"Do you want to know what it said?" Aaron asked quietly, as if reading her mind.
She did then more than ever before, but she raised her chin and said primly, "No."
He took a step closer to her, and even though she meant to be stubborn, she felt some of her righteous indignation slip under the intensity of his stare as he took another small step closer. Aaron was standing too close, and for a split second she forgot they were in a room full of people and she thought if she didn't know he hated her, she would think…
"Are you sure?" he whispered.
Swallowing, she held his gaze, but that meant looking up at him because of the close proximity of their bodies. "I'm positive," she said.
His gaze dropped from her eyes, and once more they lingered around her lips for a minute, then they resumed their journey and traveled to her shoulders, down her arms to her waist…
"Why do you make it so easy to forget?" he asked so absently that she wasn't entirely sure he meant to say it aloud. "You're the one person in the world who should be a constant reminder…"
Her stubborn anger slipped all the way then, and her chin slipped about a centimeter.
He reached out and tucked her hair behind her ear one more time, smiling a little dryly as he told her, "You should have put the earrings in."
"Why?" she asked quietly.
"Because then I wouldn't want to kiss you right now."
If she thought her expression slipped before, she thought wrong.
Her jaw dropped open several inches and she gaped at him wordlessly.
Aaron sighed, his lips curving up just slightly as he said, "See, I told you to go home. If you would have gone home, I wouldn't have just said that to you."
It made no sense, she thought a bit dizzily, but all of a sudden his words about her being dense came floating back into her conscious.
"Why do you want to kiss me?" she whispered.
"Why aren't you wearing the earrings?" he countered.
"Why am I dense?" she asked.
"Why did you let me erase Matt's text?"
Why were they playing 20 Questions?
All of a sudden, she heard laughter from the kitchen and the party came floating back into her consciousness, so she took a step back, remembering Leigh and feeling instantly guilty.
"I… should go back to the apartment," she stated.
"Yes, you should," he said in agreement.
As much as she told herself she needed to put one foot in front of the other and walk right out the door, there was something else pulling her to stay, to be near Aaron while he was being…
But she abruptly cut that thought off when she thought of Leigh, of the fact that even though he disapproved of his brother cheating, it was okay for him to want to kiss other girls at his own girlfriend's party.
"You know…" Julie wanted to tell him what she thought of that, but she lost her nerve and shook her head.
"What?" he asked.
"Never mind," she muttered. "It's not important. Guys are all alike. Have a nice night," she said, turning to walk toward the door.
Frowning, Aaron followed after her. "Wait, what do you mean, 'guys are all alike'?"
"It's pretty self-explanatory," she stated, pausing to see if she could spot Leigh to wave goodbye, but Leigh had her back to them, so Julie figured she would just leave. More than likely, Leigh was too tipsy to realize by that time anyway.
"Well, maybe I'm dense," he suggested, following her out into the hallway as she tried to close the door behind her.
"You're just all alike," she said, spinning around to look at him.
"How so?" he asked, f
rowning.
"Because you're all hypocrites. I have put up with your shit because I knew that I was wrong and I deserved it, but… it’s bull shit. You can despise me for a mistake that I made, you can think he's a shitty person, but then you turn around at your girlfriend's party and play some…game, tell me you want to kiss me and then… tell me to leave, and you think you're so much better!"
He looked too confused to scold anymore, so she just sighed and turned around, heading toward the elevator.
It took a second, but she heard footsteps following behind her. "Wait, you think Leigh's my girlfriend?" he asked stupidly.
She paused at the elevator after she pushed the button and turned to him, eyebrow raised. "She isn't?" she asked in an unconvinced tone.
"Uh, no," he stated as if that should be obvious. "I definitely don't have a girlfriend, and yeah, I do think I'm a little better than Matt, but I'm definitely not a hypocrite in that sense. I don't cheat. I don't even consider cheating. Of course I also don't date, so you can't really cheat on someone you're not dating…"
"You're not dating Leigh," Julie repeated in confusion.
Aaron shook his head. "Leigh is… my best friend, but that's all."
There was absolutely no explaining the rush of relief that coursed through Julie at hearing that. "I just thought… I mean, you're always together, you spend the night at her house, you're never at your own apartment, so I guess I just assumed…"
"You know what they say about people who assume."
Offering a sheepish grin, she said, "I've made an ass out of you and me?"
Her phone chimed again, and Aaron rolled his eyes. "Damn, he sure the hell doesn't give up, does he?"
Frowning, Julie said, "He's normally not so persistent. I wonder if something is wrong…"
"Emma's not in town tonight," Aaron informed her. "He's trying to call his back-up to warm her side of the bed."
The elevator doors opened and Julie glanced down at the phone that was telling her she had one new text message.
"Are you gonna go?" Aaron asked her.
Glancing up at him, she slowly shook her head. "No. I'm going to go back to the apartment."
Aaron scowled then, and he said, "Don't bring him over there."
"I won't," she stated. "Contrary to what you seem to believe, when Matt says jump I don't ask how high."
The elevator doors started to close, so she grabbed the door to hold it, glancing back to Aaron. "Well, this is my ride down. Are you coming with me or are you staying?"
He seemed to debate for a few seconds, then he finally came up with, "Well, I guess there's no sense in making you spend New Year's Eve all by yourself."
Feeling a little triumphant, Julie flashed him a grin. "Good. Come along then," she said, stepping inside the elevator.
"Yes, ma'am," he said a touch mockingly, but followed her in anyway.
The doors closed and they stood there in the silence for a second before he asked, "So, are you going to read that one?"
"Oh my gosh," she said. "It's just a text message."
He didn't say anything for the rest of the elevator ride, and Julie began to wonder if she had made him mad. When she yelled at Jack, he usually got mad at her.
"So… not to pry or anything," she said once they got to her car, "but I'm kind of curious about something."
"What's that?" he asked.
"Why is it that you 'don't date'?" she asked.
"Because women are faithless whores," he said plainly.
Her expression became a slight gape again, and she said, "Wow. Thanks."
"Anytime," he responded.
Julie frowned, contemplating that. Then she asked, "Can I assume that we're at least talking about a limited number of women in your experience? One of them probably being that Shannon girl?"
He grimaced. "She was one of those, yes."
She wanted to ask what had happened, but it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out she had obviously cheated on him. Still, cheating happened—it didn't turn most people off of dating and women altogether, so she figured it had to go a little deeper.
Feeling a little brave, she said, "Would it be terribly invasive if I asked what happened?"
"Probably," he said, nodding. "It's a long story, I don't really want to get into it."
Nodding, she accepted that and drove in silence, waiting to think of a good topic to bring up just to make small talk.
However, her mind resisted the topic change and stayed fixed on the redhead. She wanted to know really badly.
Her phone gave a reminder beep and she got an idea, her eyes lighting up as she glanced over at him.
"Hey, would you be open to a compromise?" she asked.
Glancing over at her, his eyes narrowed slightly and he said, "Maybe. What did you have in mind?"
"Well, I know it's personal, but so was the text message I got earlier, and I would assume the one I have right now. I let you delete that one, and I'll even let you delete this one if you tell me the story."
He glanced at her for a second, then at her phone, and then back to her eyes. "Fine, but I'm giving you the shorter version—I'm not going into all the minute details."
"Just the gist," she readily agreed.
He took the phone and opened it up, reading the text message and rolling his eyes, then pushing delete. "Gross."
Julie was glad it was dark, because her cheeks definitely flushed as she imagined what the text might say.
Sighing, Aaron said, "Well, I met Shannon when I was in college. She went to school for graphic design, I went for business. We had the same English class, and I guess we had noticed each other in the hallways. Long story short, we started dating our second semester. We dated all through college. When we graduated, I got offered a job in Cleveland, and Shannon wanted to live in a city, so I wanted to take it, but Shannon got a better job offer in the graphic design division of a big company in Chicago. I had two choices: I could go to Cleveland, she could go to Chicago and we could go our separate ways, or I could move to Chicago with her."
"Obviously you chose door number two," she concluded.
Nodding, Aaron said, "I loved her, I thought she was more important. But when I got here, I wasn't having any immediate luck in the job department, at least not in my field. I ended up getting a job at a restaurant as a cook—it wasn't bad, but it wasn't really what I had in mind for myself. Shannon loved her job, she used to tell me it was everything she had always hoped it would be. We lived here for… I'm gonna say two... maybe two and a half years, I stayed at the restaurant because we had to pay rent and I knew what I was doing by then—I was pretty much running the kitchen at that point, and I liked it enough. I was satisfied with my life, so I didn't complain. Shannon made her way to the very top of the graphic design division at her company, and life… was pretty good."
Julie frowned slightly, wondering how the girl could have had a career in graphic design when she had come to see Aaron and told him she went from Subway to Walgreen's—not really jobs in the field she had become established.
"So… what happened?" Julie asked.
Shrugging, Aaron said, "Well, as it turned out she hadn't worked her way to the top quite how I thought she had. She was sleeping with her boss—her married boss—virtually the whole time she was working there."
Grimacing, Julie's mind conjured up earlier that night, him saying that she should be the one person to make him remember.
Of course. She had slept with her married boss, too, and he was helping bail her out.
No wonder he wasn't fond of her—she probably seemed like Shannon version 2.0 and she hadn't even known the girl.
"How did you find out?" Julie asked.
"Well, apparently she fucked up," he said simply. "I'm not sure whether she thought it would help her get her claws into him more or if it really was an accident, but she ended up pregnant. That's how it all came out. She was sleeping with her boss, meanwhile I… wasted my potential in a damn kitchen workin
g under someone else's barked orders… all for her."
He shook his head, seeming to reflect back on it, and he must not have liked what he saw.
"At any rate, that's pretty much the condensed version. We dated for years, I even moved to this damn city because of her… and then it turned out she had been playing me for a fool all along." Smiling slightly, he added, "And they all lived happily ever after."
They were at his apartment when the story finished, but Julie just parked the car and turned to face him saying, "Wait, I'm confused about something."
Shaking his head, he said, "Sorry, no question and answer period."
Then he handed her back her cell phone and climbed out of the car, shutting the door behind him.
Julie sat there for a second, then she got out of her car, locking the doors and reflecting on the story.
Shannon had even gotten pregnant, just like Julie. Of course Julie knew in her case it was definitely an accident, but that Shannon girl had probably claimed the same thing.
There was one question lingering in Julie's mind, however, and she really wanted to ask, but she didn't want to press her luck.
How did Aaron know the baby wasn't his? She had been his girlfriend, after all, so it could be assumed the Shannon was sleeping with Aaron and her boss—wasn't it possible that either of them could have been the father?
Could Aaron have a child out there somewhere? What if that was why Shannon came back to try to talk to him? She had seemed pretty intent on talking to him.
Maybe he had a paternity test though. Aaron didn't seem to be the warm and fuzzy type, but he did seem to take his responsibilities pretty seriously, and for some reason Julie assumed that even if he and the mother didn't get along, if there was even a chance that he had a kid out there somewhere he would be doing his part to take care of it.
Obviously, whatever else had been in the less-condensed version would probably explain the details of how that happened. Part of her wanted the full story, but she knew she should be happy that she got anything out of him, let alone so much.
So Shannon had been some married guy's mistress, too.
And in being a mistress, she had two timed Aaron and obviously broken his heart.