Beautiful Mistakes

"Matt?" Julie finally managed.

Leigh frowned slightly, then her expression cleared as she wrongly guessed what was wrong. "Oh, I guess you didn't know his name, huh? Matt—that's his brother's name. Hopefully you never have to meet him, he's an asshole and his wife's really something, too."

"Oh," Julie said, but she couldn't force anything else.

Matt.

Matt. Matt. Matt. Matt. Matt. Matt.

Matt?

"So, Matt was the name of Shannon's boss, which was Aaron's brother?" Julie said one more time, just to clarify that she had heard correctly.

Leigh nodded. "Yep. Can you even imagine doing such a thing—her devoted boyfriend's brother? I mean, the only reason she even got the job in Chicago was because of Aaron, and he didn't even want to move here, but he knew it was what she wanted, so he accepted it even though he thought she was getting the job out of Matt's nepotism and not really because she had earned it."

Julie felt like she was going to throw up.

Absently, she pulled the phone out of her pocket and flipped it open, reading Matt's text message.

Revulsion rolled over her in waves just looking at his name, imagining him and that awful Shannon girl…

Julie was just another notch in his belt.

Just another accidentally-impregnated mistress that had to be taken care of.

What a fucking asshole.

His message read, "Yes, she told me. I think it sounds like a good idea, don't you?"

Since she wanted to text him back a big "FUCK YOU!" she opted just to close her phone and try to temper the anger she felt coursing through her body…

… Just until she got off work.

"One more question," Julie said in a remarkably controlled voice.

"What's that?" Leigh asked, thinking innocently that it was just gossip.

"How do they know the baby was actually… Matt's?" she asked, forcing the name out of her mouth. "I mean, since she was sleeping with them both at the same time, couldn't it have just as easily been Aaron's?"

Leigh's eyes darkened then and she looked down, frowning slightly. "He didn't… tell you that either?"

Julie felt like she had said the wrong thing, but she didn’t know why it would be an odd question.

Her mind was all over the place, she couldn't think about her sentences—all she could think about was how much she wanted to hit Matt.

Then she would have to hit herself for being foolish enough to believe him when he fed her that bullshit about how he wasn't that kind of guy, he had never done anything like that before…

Ugh, and she had bought that crap?

Feeling newly disgusted with herself, she almost forgot to pay attention until she saw Leigh move away a little and smile apologetically.

"Sorry, I can't answer that. Aaron will have to be the one to answer that question."

Nodding, Julie said, "No, that's fine, I understand."

She could no longer focus on the story anyway.

All she could think about was getting the hell out of that restaurant so she could go home.