"Well, I can cook," she offered. "I'm going to be home all day w
ith Anna anyway, so there's no reason I couldn't have dinner ready when you get home."
Smirking a little, he teased, "What a good little wifey."
"You know it," she answered, grinning. "What do you want?"
"Cheesecake," he stated.
Slanting him a dry look, she said, "I really don't know how to make cheesecake. Bring a couple slices home from the restaurant."
"I don't want my own cheesecake, I want Cheesecake Factory cheesecake."
"Are you sure you don't just want to show off to Matt that you're taking me out to dinner?"
Smiling slightly, he said, "Maybe a little. It's my right."
"Yes, it is," she agreed, nodding. "Fine, I'll make sure I'm dressed and ready to go out by 6:30, how's that?"
"Perfect," he answered. "Well… I was going to visit for lunch, but since you've got Anna, I'll let you play with her and I'll just go back to the restaurant so I can tell Leigh when I'm leaving."
"How is Leigh?" Julie asked.
Nodding, he said, "She's better. I think talking about it was a good idea. I don't know, I guess we'll see."
"How did her interview go?"
"She got the job," he answered. "From now on I'm going to have to go in at nine on Sundays and just work all day."
"Then you need to let me work more," Julie stated. "If Leigh isn't going to be working as much you need to let me have some of the workload. She won't be able to work on Saturdays anymore and you need to close at Flavor, so you need to start letting me close on Saturdays by myself. Sundays I could have off to do homework or whatever needs to be done, and then Mondays I can still hostess at Flavor—”
"I can just get a different hostess at Flavor," he offered. "I don't want you working more than you do now. Really, the weekend is the only thing that changes—Leigh is just losing her weekends at the café. If I give you Saturday nights then you should stop working at Flavor altogether."
"I don't want to. Just working there on Mondays is certainly not too much to manage. You're going to be closing at Flavor on Mondays anyway; our schedules are going to collide and cause us to not spend time together as it is."
Shaking his head, he said, "I don't know, we'll work it out later. I will see you at about 6:30."
Leaning in to give him a kiss goodbye, Julie agreed that she would see him later and then got down in the floor, smiling as Anna crawled into her lap, dragging along the coloring book, and she played with Anna's hair while she continued to color.
---
Julie was sliding an earring into her ear when there was a knock at the door, and she smiled, unsurprised that Aaron was early.
Anna babbled, toddling over to the door and pointing at it.
"Honey, don't get behind the door," Julie replied, walking down the hall toward the door, fully expecting Aaron to open it up with his key.
When the door didn't open, she frowned, picking Anna up and putting her on Julie's hip, then opening up the door.
Her smile faltered when she saw the wrong brother on the other side.
"Oh," she said lamely. "You're here really early."
Nodding, he said, "I knew you had Anna and I was able to finish up early, so I thought I'd just come take her off your hands so you're not trapped with a toddler."
"I never mind having Anna," Julie replied. "You know that."
"Right, sorry. That's my wife who considers our kid an inconvenience; my mistake."