Beautiful Mistakes

"You're a baby," he stated.

Narrowing her eyes, she said, "I am not a baby, and you didn't even know I was that young until I told you."

"I feel like a cradle-robber."

Julie rolled her eyes again. "Please. When I was 18 I went out with a 26-year-old; you're not even the oldest guy I've liked. Like 3 seconds ago we were discussing my fictional affair with a professor, and all of those are at least 30 because they have to go to school for so long."

Raising one of his eyebrows, he said, "Have you ever gone out with someone who was nine years younger than you?"

"No, that would be very illegal," she stated.

"Exactly," he stated.

"But I'm legal, and men die before women anyway, so I think they need to pair up with younger women," she said

reasonably.

Shaking his head, he said nothing else about it, just turned his attention to the television.

After watching the movie for a few minutes, Julie thoughts were led away from their respective ages and she became anxiously aware of the physical distance between them.

They were both sitting on the same couch watching the movie, but while normally she would have liked to scoot closer to him and maybe cuddle, she didn't know if she was allowed to or not. They had agreed to try to date, but up to that point, Aaron wasn't really making an obvious effort to change their relationship at all. Since they already slept in the same bed and slept with their arms wrapped around each other each night when they weren't considering dating, very little had changed. If Julie made the first move, he would kiss her, but since they were at the hotel he hadn't initiated a kiss yet. Granted, it hadn't been too long, but Julie was used to guys who were instantly amorous.

She had certainly never dated anyone even remotely like Aaron before.

And then there was his whole gentleman complex; it made her feel like an awkward pre-teen, unsure of whether or not she should sit next to her crush at the movies. With a less gentlemanly guy, she would have no problem sitting down next to him—close to him—and before long they would be snuggled up or kissing or maybe even doing a little more than that, the movie all but forgotten.

Aaron was actually watching the movie.

His hand had not so much as brushed hers since she put the movie in.

She felt like making a move herself, but she wasn't sure whether he would welcome it or not. Would it follow the gentleman rule he was so fond of?

Why did he have to make her feel so uncertain?

Julie toyed with the idea of at least cuddling closer to him—he did look pretty good sitting there on the couch all warm and inviting—but in the end she chickened out, and she finished watching the action movie in her own little corner while he sat in his.

Perhaps that was why girls liked to watch chick flicks with their boyfriends. It was more cuddle-inducing than watching people die.

Not to mention, when you put in a movie the guy actually likes he isn't going to hold your hand and flirt with you and try to distract you from the movie.

It was the very end of the movie when Julie's cell phone went off.

That caught Aaron's attention, naturally. She could have stripped completely naked and danced in front of the television and she was certain he would have craned his head to look around her, but a text message was enough to distract him.

The man made no sense.

Eager to be possessive over what he refused to claim as his own.

Opening up her new text, she saw that it was from Matt. Of course it would be from Matt, at that most inconvenient time.

It said simply: "What are you doing?"

Debating very quickly whether or not to text back, she quickly typed out, "Movie with Aaron."

When she glanced up two seconds later, Aaron was watching her phone, a light scowl on his face. "Who was that?" he asked.

Rolling her eyes in a way that exaggerated her annoyance, she said, "Just Matt."