"I'm going to get out of here," Julie said, slipping her cell phone into her purse. "It was nice seeing you guys," she lied. "Jack, I'll see you later."
But he was up off the couch, causing Miss Morgan to frown in annoyance. "Where are you going? Who did you call?"
She toyed with the idea of being coy, not telling him, but she decided just to be honest. "Matt needs me to come over, he needs help with Anna," he said vaguely.
"Matt," he repeated blankly.
"Yep. I'll see you later," she said, quickly pecking him on cheek.
"At three in the morning?" he asked, giving her a hard look.
She smiled back coldly. "Don't worry, baby. I'll try to be home before six."
With that she walked out, feeling immensely better about life.
---
Julie walked into the Turner home to be greeted by the sight of Matt on all fours in the floor, searching under the couch as Anna made a face at the green frog puppet she was holding.
While she would never admit it, Julie would be lying if she tried to deny that she thought Matt's ass looked good in blue plaid pajama pants.
"Nana!" Anna said when she saw Julie, throwing the puppet aside and reaching out her arms.
Julie grinned, walking over to the baby. "Well, don't you look like a princess over here."
Anna smiled at Julie and held her arms out until Julie scooped her up, then Anna buried her face in Julie's neck and rubbed her eye with her tiny fist.
Julie pressed a kiss to Anna's forehead. "What's wrong, baby girl?"
Frowning in a very perturbed manner, Anna squealed and babbled a little bit, as if telling Julie what had happened.
"You lost your puppy?" Julie asked.
"Na na na," Anna said, shaking her pretty little head.
Julie couldn't help smiling and hugging the little girl. "Well, I'm going to find your puppy, okay? Why don't I take you to your bed and you can relax a little while I find your puppy? When I find him, I'll bring him in to you."
The baby looked skeptical, but in the end she did let Julie haul her up to her crib, and she didn't cry, so Julie assumed it was safe to go search for the lost toy.
"I'm really sorry for bothering you so late," Matt said to her. "I just didn't know what else to do. I have turned this apartment upside down looking for that damn dog, and I don't know where it could be. I've looked under every piece of furniture, in the kitchen cupboards, in the bathtub. She kept pointing toward the kitchen and it sounded like she was trying to say bath, so I looked in every nook and cranny. Then I remembered you said you guys played salon and ‘bathed’ the animals and did their hair, so I thought she tried to give him a bath, but—"
"She did like the baths," Julie cut him off with a smile.
"Yeah, but it wasn't in the tub, I already checked."
“She said bath?” Julie grinned widely and motioned for him to follow her. "Come with me."
Matt seemed confused, but he followed her anyway.
She led him into the laundry room where she paused and took a survey of the area. There were two laundry baskets, one full of baby clothes, the other full of adult clothes. Julie crouched down and dug through the baby clothes first, but when she got to the bottom she just moved on to the next basket. Matt didn't say anything until she finally said, "Aha!" and pulled out the blue puppy with a dirty sock on his nose.
"You found it," he said as if she had cured cancer.
Julie nodded. "We didn’t do stuffed animal baths in the tub. The other day she got applesauce on his ear and I told her I would give him a bath. She saw me put him in the washer and got upset that he disappeared, which is why I made a game out of giving the other animals ‘baths’ in the laundry basket. I can only assume she was trying to give puppy a bath and then she got pulled away from the task and the puppy was left behind."
He took the puppy, a look of relief all over his face. "Thank you."
Julie chuckled. "You're welcome. I'm going to run this to her so she can go to sleep," Julie said.