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.
No wonder he couldn't stand being around Julie—she must serve as a constant reminder, all pregnant and abandoned by her married former employer.
Grimacing, she began to see why he avoided the apartment. After all, if someone that reminded her of the heartbreak that had chased her all the way to Chicago lived at her apartment, she highly doubted that she would ever want to be there to be reminded every day of what she had lost, of the pain she had experienced.
Suddenly, she realized how completely selfish Matt was to be asking his brother to help him out of that particular situation—surely he knew about what Shannon had done, even if they weren't the closest of siblings.
What an asshole.
She found herself regretting letting Aaron delete those texts less and less by the millisecond.
By the time they got up to the apartment and Aaron had managed to get the key in the lock to get them inside, she found her loyalties lining up behind Aaron—strange, since she really didn't know him all that well.
But she knew that despite being a constant reminder of the woman who had obviously broken his heart, he was still kind enough to give her a roof over her head, to buy her books for Christmas, and give her a job at his restaurant—another place he couldn't escape her.
Obviously Aaron was a good guy, just like Leigh said. Maybe he was rough around the edges, but considering the circumstances, she could understand his thin patience with her.
She found herself immediately relieved, however, that she hadn't let Aaron know that technically she had been with Jack when she first got together with Matt—yes, she broke it off as soon as she went home, but still.