Beautiful Mistakes

Aaron smiled mildly, dropping his hand from her stomach and wrapping his arms around Julie's waist, leaning in and giving her a little kiss. "I'll be glad when she's here, too."

Julie nodded, but getting back to the topic at hand she said, "I know it's weird for you to see Leigh moving on, but this is good for her and we need to be supportive."

"But I don't know if he's good for her."

"Well, they're not getting married, he's just helping her take magazines to her car. Trust me, if he isn't right for her she'll be the one to decide. Don't be such a control freak."

Sighing, he said, "All this change is just… I don't know, I haven't adjusted yet."

"It's still new," she said patiently, offering a cheerful smile. "We'll all get the hang of it."

"I guess it’s good. That means she's going to be okay, right?"

"Yes. And on the bright side, if she and Steve do start going out, we will all definitely be able to be friends."

"I'm going to have to have a talk with him," Aaron said decisively.

"Aaron."

"He's still married, Julie."

"He's getting divorced," Julie reasoned.

"Yeah, they're all 'getting divorced,'" he stated, rolling his eyes.

"That's not fair at all."

"Okay, okay, so Steve really is getting divorced, but he currently lives with his wife. I'm sorry, but if he's still living with his wife, you should be a little careful."

"We don't even know if Leigh likes him," Julie said reasonably. "You're jumping the gun here."

"I just don't like married men," he replied, shaking his head. "You can't trust them at all."

Trying to make light of it instead of let him think of Matt, she blurted, "Does that mean I should never expect us to get married? Even if we're together for next 40 to 60 years I'll remain Julie Kingsley?"

He looked vaguely startled that she brought marriage up, but he recovered easily enough, saying, "No, of course not. Marriage will certainly be an option for us down the road if we want to do that, but I won't be one of those married guys."

"I sure hope not. If you're a good guy all this time just so that you can be shady once you put a ring on my finger I'm going to kick your ass."

His lips curved upward. "Not a fan of false advertising, huh?"

"Not at all. And Alyssa is kicking me, so I'm thinking she's agreeing."

Shaking his head, he said, "No, I'm not going to morph into a douche bag. I’m going to fully appreciate my family once we're all together. Some people just don't realize that they take that for granted… that's something I'll never do."

Since Aaron's hand was on her belly, Julie just placed her hand over his, smiling tenderly at him. "You are an amazing guy, Aaron Turner. I don't know how I managed to snag you."

Sighing, he said gravely, "It was the pirate costume that did it. I mean, what man can resist a face-painting pirate?"

Laughing, she whacked him in the stomach and said, "Shut up, don't make fun of my old costume."

"It was sexy," he said with a little eyebrow raise.

"It definitely wasn't," she disagreed, extracting herself from his embrace and heading over to the counter where she had her cleaning supplies from before she fixed them lunch.

"What are you doing with that?" he asked, frowning.

"I'm cleaning so we can start unpacking this stuff as you bring it in. You better eat your sandwich before the bread gets hard."