Beautiful Mistakes

But she didn't pry. She let Aaron get his drink and wished she could get one too. Once he had his drink, he glanced back at the table to see if the coast was clear and instead of Emma being gone, he saw the same thing Julie saw—Shannon hesitantly approaching their table.

Aaron's jaw went slack, verifying for Julie that it was indeed strange to see Shannon approaching Emma.

Emma seemed to sense her coming, and she glanced up. A smile tugged lightly at the corner of her lips and she shook her head, then she looked straight at Aaron, her smile widening.

"I think this is what hell is probably like," Aaron observed. "I really have no idea what to do right now. I don't think going back to the table is our best bet."

"Probably not," she agreed, but she couldn't seem to tear her eyes away from the scene at her table.

Shannon finally got up her nerve to approach Emma, or so it seemed, and watching closely Julie could read from her lips that she had said, "Hi."

Emma said nothing, she merely leaned back in Aaron's chair and smiled at Shannon, but it wasn't a nice smile.

"Can we move closer?" Julie whispered.

"You gossip," he accused, but since he did inch a little bit closer she suspected he was curious too.

"How's minimum wage treating you?" Emma asked, swirling her wine in her glass.

Unfortunately, they moved too close. Shannon saw Aaron and got that deer-in-the-headlights look, then she excused herself and walked away.

Emma raised her gaze to Aaron and smiled yet again, but Julie sensed something else in the smile, some sort of dare or challenge.

Aaron didn't bite.

Shaking his head at Emma, he said, "Come on," to Julie, and they decided to do another round of the mingling.

---

As the night wore on, Emma left Aaron and Julie alone. Matt seemed to be matching Aaron drink for drink, and he spent most of the night looking moody as he sat at his table, half the time with Emma, half the time left alone with Anna. Honestly, the man was probably in his own idea of hell—with Shannon, Julie and Emma all there, he didn't have much to look excited about.

Julie kept noticing him stealing little glances in her direction too, and she would see his eyes darken even from a distance as he would take another drink.

It was a few hours into the party when the alcohol was beginning to work its magic on both brothers—she had never seen Matt drunk before, and had no idea what to expect—and while Aaron was easily talked into a slow dance, Matt's mood seemed to droop even lower as he shot glares in their direction.

Once she was in Aaron's arms on the dance floor, however, she didn't remember to keep an eye on Matt.

Aaron had dark brown eyes, and they didn't really twinkle, but they were like warm pools, and especially when he was being nice, Julie could look into them all night. Luckily, while they were dancing she had a perfect excuse to do just that.

"So, what's the verdict?" she asked as they swayed back and forth.

"About what?" he asked with an easy smile.

"It's not so bad, right?" she said. "It's almost over, and then we can go back to our room."

"Oh really?" he asked, lifting his eyebrows in a suggestive way.

She felt ridiculous for blushing, but she hadn't expected him to acknowledge an innuendo.

He chuckled, and she felt his breath as held her just a little closer and murmured, "I was just kidding."

"Were you?" she asked lightly.

"Yes. Partially," he said more honestly than he might have if he would have been completely sober. "Anyway, I can't give you a verdict yet because the jury is still out. If Matt keeps looking at me like that from across the room I'm going to have to punch him in his face."

Laughing, Julie shook her head. "No, you can't do that."

"I can do that; I did it when I was 15, I can damn well do it again. If he's jealous, it's his own fault," he said, glaring in Matt’s direction.