Beautiful Mistakes

By that time, Julie was so frazzled that she found herself—at times—wishing she would have just continued to live with Jack. Or better yet, made a much better decision not to sleep with Matt and save half of her income every week until she had saved enough to move out into a place of her own. Sure, she would have double the student loan debt, but maybe it would have been worth it.

It was late by the time Emma left, so Anna was already in bed, and with Emma's subtle digs all week, Julie didn't even feel like being around Matt, so she retired to her room to "study" before Emma even left.

It was about 20 minutes after Emma was last heard from that Julie's door opened and Matt crept in.

"You awake?" he whispered.

Julie didn't answer, half hoping he would think she was asleep and just go back to his own room. She was so depressed at having to think of him in bed with Emma all week that she definitely wasn't in the mood to have his hands on her.

But instead of going away, Matt climbed into bed beside her. "Julie?"

"I'm sleeping," she stated.

"Obviously not," he said. "What's wrong?"

She didn't answer, just kept her eyes closed and tried to ignore his presence.

"Are you mad at me?" he whispered into her ear, his tone slightly playful as his hand crept up to cup her breast in the palm of his hand.

"No," she responded without much conviction.

"You sound mad," he said, allowing his thumb to brush her nipple.

"I'm not mad," she said, pushing his hand away, "I'm just tired."

He scoffed a little. "Now you sound like my wife."

Since she wasn't looking at him, she didn't know if it was a playful scoff or a real scoff, but her temper came to life at that comment.

"No, if I sounded like your wife I would be all over you like a $2 whore trying to make her quota, and I would make sure to be very fucking loud about it!"

The sound she heard in response was a rough laugh, leading her to the conclusion that it had probably been intended as a playful remark. "So that's what has you all bothered, huh? It's just Emma?"

Just Emma? Just his wife—no big deal. Not that she could complain extensively about him sleeping with the woman he was married to—still, it was really damn unromantic.

"I'm not bothered," Julie muttered untruthfully.

"You're definitely bothered. I just can't believe someone as smart as you would play right into her hand like that."

Frowning, Julie asked, "What do you mean?"

"Come on, you have to know that she's testing you. She's been baiting you all week. Have you ever seen Emma being anything like affectionate toward me until I suggested you move in here?" he responded logically.

Well, no….

"It wouldn't bother you to see her appearing to be all over me, to assume we're having sex all the time, unless….?"

"Unless I was sleeping with you," Julie realized, everything finally making sense.

"Bingo," he said, lightly kissing her on the temple.

She turned over then, looking up at him. "So none of it's true, then? You guys haven't been…?"

He shook his head, smiling, and allowed his hand to move up under her t-shirt, causing gooseflesh to rise all over her stomach.

Vast relief mingled with her desire to believe him and move on to nicer activities, so she smiled up at him, pulling him down to kiss her.

Within a matter of minutes Matt had her pajama pants at the foot of the bed and his condom on, moving between her legs to alleviate—at least temporarily—any remaining doubts she might have.