Julie had to bring some work home from her second job—there was another damn pirate party coming up, and it was all on Julie to put together 15 pirate hats and take them back with her so she could set up for the party. She was getting paid an extra half hour for it, but it was still kind of annoying to have to sit on her boat-bed with her pirate hat materials, cutting and stapling in dead silence as Aaron sat in the same room concentrating on whatever was in the folder.
Completing the task took much longer than it should have, but she spent the time with her thoughts, contemplating her budget and how much she anticipated on spending for school books when the new semester started. She got a little bit of financial aid, but definitely not enough, and she sure wasn't raking in much money waitressing a few hours a week.
She considered asking Aaron about getting more hours, but she didn’t want to pounce on him with a request for favors the first day he started being a little more friendly.
Oh well, maybe she could pick up an extra shift if someone called off.
If not, there was always begging on the streets and in the subway. It was Chicago, after all.
That evening when Aaron went to his room alone, calling a goodbye to her, Julie sullenly sat on the couch watching TV for a little bit, then she resigned herself to climb into her stupid boat-bed.
However, when she looked at the bed, she thought it looked a little bit…flat. Frowning, she tested the theory out by standing on it, and sure enough her foot went right down to the hardwood floor.
"Oh no," she muttered to herself, stepping off the deflating bed and grimacing.
She thought about trying to fix it herself, but in the back of her mind was the thought that if she didn't get it fixed… she would probably have to sleep in Aaron's bed. Even if she went in to tell him, he wasn't going to drag himself out of bed to go fix her bed. Surely he would just invite her to share his again, right?
So she really didn't look for the problem long, she just turned out the lights and went back to Aaron's room, quietly opening the door and slipping inside.
When she sat down on the side of the bed she debated whether or not she really wanted to wake him up. He looked so peaceful, she hated to disturb him.
But she also needed to go to sleep, and she wouldn't feel right just crawling in bed with him and not even telling him, so she still made herself peck him on the shoulder and say, "Hey."
He made a face, then his eyes reluctantly opened. "What's wrong?" he asked in a gravelly voice, rough from sleep.
"My bed seems to have deflated," she whispered.
Sighing, he pulled the blanket back and said, "Climb in."
"Thank you," she said, beaming a smile at him and climbing into the bed.
He murmured, "Mmhmm," and rolled over, seeming to go right back to sleep.
Julie waited for a good ten minutes before she realized he wasn't going to roll back over and wrap his arms around her like h
e had the nights he had been drinking.
One thing she discovered—the peaceful feeling she seemed to have when she slept in his arms didn't seem to apply when he had his back to her.
With a feeling of deep discontentment, Julie finally managed to fall into a restless sleep, but before she did she had the thought that she might have been better off sleeping on the couch.
---
The next day was lunch with Emma, and Julie was more than a little apprehensive.
She didn't know what to wear either—she didn't want to wear something too nice, but she didn't want to dress down and look like an idiot either. Aaron had told her that the café Emma had selected was a nice Italian café, and she probably wouldn't be able to say anything on the menu, then he told her two things that were edible and suggested she go with one of them.
In the end, she dressed sophisticated-casual, figuring it would be a win-win.
The café wasn't very hard to find since it wasn't far from the apartment, and Julie tried not to think about it too much before she showed up.
She spotted Emma almost immediately upon arrival, already seated at a table sipping a glass of wine as she waited for Julie. Discreetly checking her phone, Julie saw that she made it with only a minute to spare.
Emma glanced up as Julie approached the table, but she didn't waste a fake smile, she merely nodded in acknowledgement and waved over the waiter.
Not a word was exchanged between them until the food was ordered and the waiter was gone again, and then Emma just sat back, clasping her hands and giving Julie an appraising once-over.
The silence was awkward to Julie, although Emma looked completely at ease, and Julie tried to think about how best to be polite in such a strange situation.