As she replayed his offer in her mind, she concluded that Leigh must have seen it coming ahead of time. Julie was beginning to step on Leigh's toes—and nobody liked having their toes stepped on.
"I don't know if Leigh is going to like this idea," Julie said hesitatingly.
"Why wouldn't she?" he asked, frowning a little.
"Because… isn't she the only person besides you that has keys?"
"Yeah," he stated. "But you live with me; if anything comes up missing, I know where to find you. It makes sense to give you keys if I have to give them to someone."
"I don't think Leigh will see it that way, and… for that matter, living with you isn't exactly a permanent situation, you know?"
Shrugging, he said, "You don't have to if you don't want to, I was just offering."
"It's not that I don't want to, I do. It's just that I don't want to step on Leigh's toes."
"You're not stepping on Leigh's toes. As it is, if I can't be there Leigh is the only other person who can run the place—she isn't me, she isn't going to want to be there open to close every day of the week with no relief. If I give you keys, you'll be helping Leigh; you can both open and close, so I can split shifts between all of us."
That was the second time he had insinuated he wouldn't be at the café as much.
"Why would Leigh have to do it? You said you close every night, don't you?" she asked.
"Yeah, right now I do,"' he said vaguely.
"Are you anticipating a vacation or something?" she asked, smiling slightly.
"No," he said. "But I have some other things coming up, and beginning February I might not be at the café quite as much, so I just thought if Leigh had someone else to help lighten the load no one would get burnt out."
Julie's curiosity was piqued with that cryptic remark, but he didn't seem to want to share any more information about it, and she didn't want to pry and risk making him grumpy, so she let it drop.
"Well, yeah, if you need someone… it doesn't seem very difficult, I'm sure I could manage to do it."
Nodding, Aaron said, "All right. I'll add you on a couple of nights this week so you can get some practice closing up."
"Sounds good," she said, nodding.
"Once you get comfortable with that I'll put you on a few mornings and I'll show you how to open, but I'm warning you now, it's early."
"That would explain why you're gone every morning at the crack of dawn," she stated.
"I'm an early riser," he told her.
"I noticed. Half the time you don't even sleep in when you're hung over—that is just strange."
Rolling his eyes, he said, "Well, I don't spend that much time being hung over in my life, so…"
"I know," she said a bit sadly.
He chuckled a little and shook his head at her tone. "You would encourage me to be hung over more often?"
"Yes," she said, nodding emphatically.
"Why?"
"Because you throw caution to the wind when you're drunk."
"You say that like it's a good thing," he said dryly.
"Maybe it is sometimes," she suggested.