Beautiful Mistakes

She could hear Matt's agitated sigh, and she wished she could see them since they weren't actually speaking to each other at that moment, but she figured there must be some sort of nonverbal communication going on.

Finally, the fridge door slammed shut and Aaron said, "Don't worry, she'll be sleeping out here tonight. I'll finish the bed and she won't sleep in my room anymore. That better?"

"Well, that was supposed to be the arrangement from the beginning," Matt complained.

Making another noise of mild disgust, Aaron walked past Matt and into Julie's sight, but he still didn't look at her. "If you're done now, you can go," Aaron said inhospitably.

"I should be going anyway," Matt said, glancing at his watch.

"Say hi to Emma for me," Aaron said evenly as he knelt down next to the boat-bed.

Matt's face tightened for just a moment as he looked at his brother's back, then his expression cleared and he turned a slight smile on Julie. "Bye, Julie. I'll talk to you later."

Nodding, Julie murmured, "Okay, thanks."

With that, Matt called a goodbye to his brother, although it was only acknowledged with a grunt, and Julie waited to hear the door click shut behind him.

It took her a moment to gather up the courage to speak to Aaron, but she finally managed to say, "I know what it must have looked like when you walked in, but—”

"It doesn't matter," he stated, not even letting her finish. "You don't have to explain yourself to me; I already knew what you were when I agreed to take you into my house."

Julie tensed, feeling the sting of his insults again, and then even worse—she began to feel a familiar sting behind her eyes. Not wanting to give him the satisfaction of seeing her cry if she couldn’t reign in her emotions, she frowned at Aaron’s back and groped for the first excuse she could come up with to leave the room.

"I'm…going to go use my laptop, if that's okay. I need to start looking to see which classes I'm taking next semester, so…"

"Please, by all means, take your time," he returned.

Julie scowled at him, and she turned to walk toward the hall, not even realizing the way she held the black velvet box in her hands as if to hide it.

"Oh, and Julie?" Aaron called to her.

Pausing a bit hopefully, she turned back to him and answered, "Yes?"

"Nice earrings," he said acerbically, not even looking away from the bed.

She felt like her stomach plummeted down through her legs, and she didn't even know why. There was nothing she could say, she just fumbled with the box awkwardly, feeling the need to explain again. "They…were a—a kind of peace offering," she stammered awkwardly.

"I'm sure they were," he said as if to pacify her. Then, he paused and looked over his shoulder, not at her, but at the diamonds hanging from her ears. "Not bad. I'd guess…what, a carat?"

Since Julie wasn't really sure what a carat would look like, she could only shrug. "I guess."

Aaron simply smiled, finally meeting her gaze with his sparkling brown eyes and said, "I'm sure Emma got at least two carats."

Before he could see how his words hurt her, Julie turned away from him and walked down the hall, wondering why he was such an angry, bitter, mean person.

Then she told herself spitefully she didn't care, and she went to hide in the bedroom with her laptop until she could leave for her interview.

The sooner she could get away from that mean, rude, incredibly grumpy man, the better off she would be.

Chapter Eleven-

Julie wasn't sure what she had expected of the "kid's parties" job description, but somehow when she returned to the apartment to tell Aaron she needed to inform the person who made the schedules that she couldn't work weekends anymore, she hadn't expected her reason to be, "Because I'm Julie the face-painting pirate on weekends now."

But when she got back to the apartment after her interview, Aaron wasn't there.

Her boat-bed was there, perfectly inflated with sheets and a pillow and a big white down blanket.

It looked anything but welcoming.