That evening as she sat at the apartment all by herself all night, consuming the remainder of her box of granola bars and reading her way through 90 pages of George Orwell, she began to wonder exactly what Aaron did with his free time.

It was really inconvenient timing, too, because she should have been engrossed in the story at that point, but there were three little words on the page ("I love you") that for some reason made Aaron pop on in her mind.

She was curious, she realized. Who did Aaron love? Did he date? When he wasn't at work, what was he doing with his time? For all that she was the hated mistress, she was sitting at home alone on a Thursday night reading—what was he doing?

As if she had somehow summoned him, she heard a fumbling with the doorknob and Aaron came walking in with a folder tucked under his arm.

"Hi," she called to him as soon as he was in sight.

He glanced up, clearly not excited to see her. "Hi," he responded out of habitual courtesy.

Discreetly lighting up her cell phone, she saw that it was nearly eleven. "Late night, huh?" she said conversationally.

"Yep," he responded noncommittally.

Nodding, she glanced at the folder, then back up at him.

An awkward silence ensued for about ten seconds, then she remembered that she had something to say. "Oh! I almost forgot. Um, I kind of needed to talk to you about my schedule. I—”

"Leigh already told me," he interrupted.

Feelings strangely deflated, she shrunk a little in her seat. "Oh."

Nodding, he said, "That's fine."

"Well, I was going to ask you myself, but I didn't actually know you were the one I needed to ask until I asked Leigh."

"I know," he stated, and she got the distinct feeling that he didn't want to talk to her.

Giving up, she merely nodded, then she returned to the safe haven of George Orwell.

"Are you still working your 11 to 3 tomorrow?" he suddenly asked.

"Yeah, it's only a Saturday and Sunday job," she told him, glancing up at him.

He nodded and walked to the bedroom without another word.

As she forced herself to concentrate on reading, she heard him go out of the bedroom and into the bathroom to take a shower, but four pages later when she heard the bathroom door open and she paused to see if he was coming back out, she was met with the dull thud of the bedroom door closing behind him.

"Good night," she murmured sarcastically, sighing and turning her attention back to her book.

---

The following day Julie had another of her dumb four-hour shifts at the café, and when she was done she called Jim to see when he would need her for the weekend. He told her he would need her about 11:30 to 5:30, but told her she needed to show up a little early so she could get into costume.

He didn't know she was pregnant, and she wondered how long the costume would fit—and what it was going to look like. He hadn't gone over the specifics when he hired her, but she had settled because she needed money and couldn't afford to be picky.

To her surprise, Matt called her at 5:30.

Even more surprising, she felt almost happy to hear from him.

For a couple minutes it was just small-talk, then he asked her if she would like to go to dinner.

When she hesitated, he added, "I wanted to take Anna to Potbelly's, and I know she's been missing her favorite nanny…"

Julie brightened at the thought of seeing Anna, so she agreed, and he said he would pick her up in a half hour.

Julie spent the next half hour nervously h

Tags: Sam Mariano Romance
Source: readsnovelonline.net