Title: Lips of an Angel
Author: emily64cooper
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairing: Aria/Ezra
Summary: While his girlfriend sleeps in the next room, Ezra sits on his New York City fire escape, holding a cigarette in one hand and nursing a beer in the other. He sighs when his phone rings; these weekly calls from Aria, after years of silence, are both welcome and unwelcome, and he knows that they're coming to an end.
Author's Note: Set to Hinder's "Lips of an Angel". Written for L.J. McMahon.
Honey why you calling me so late?
It's kinda hard to talk right now.
Ezra sat on his fire escape, his feet resting a few steps below the landing. He held a glass of scotch in one hand and a cigarette in the other. His phone lay beside him. Since moving to New York, this fire escape had become his safe haven, a place he could go to escape everyone and everything. Watching the flickering city lights brought him a kind of peace that he hadn't known had since those nights in apartment 3B.
There was a sharp knock at the window before it opened. "You coming to bed anytime soon?" She sounded defeated. Ezra wondered if she'd picked that up from him or because of him.
"Not yet, Ang," he replied.
Ezra heard her sigh as she walked away. Feeling guilty, he quickly downed the rest of his scotch. He'd never been an avid drinker before moving back to New York, but things had been different then.
His phone buzzed beside him and he picked it up without checking the caller ID. He knew who it was.
"Ezra," she breathed.
"You're late," he responded. He glanced over at the open window that led to his and Angie's bedroom. "She just went to sleep."
"I know, I know, I'm sorry, I couldn't get away from..."
"I get it," Ezra said quietly.
Honey why are you crying? Is everything okay?
I gotta whisper 'cause I can't be too loud.
They were both silent for a moment. Ezra took one last drag of his cigarette, then put it out against the rail and let it fall to the ground. He watched it absentmindedly, waiting until it dropped out of existence to look back out at the city.
"Ezra," she said a little desperately. Her breathing hitched. Even after all this time, he knew instantly that that meant that something was wrong, that she was about to cry.
"Aria?" he questioned, concerned.
"What if this is a mistake?" she sobbed.
He wasn't sure what she was referring to; these weekly phone calls or the marriage proposal that had set them off.
"Hey," he soothed softly, after a little while. "Worry about it tomorrow. Let's just… be here, for now, okay?"
Ezra hated to hear her cry. More than that, he hated not being able to do anything about it. He desperately wished, even if just for a moment, that he could take her in his arms again, that he could feel her heart beating in time with his own, and wipe away her tears, disguising his feelings for her as kisses he scattered through her hair.
Instead, all he had were words, the very same words she'd uttered to him a lifetime ago.
My girl's in the next room
Sometimes I wish she was you
I guess we never really moved on
It's funny, the way life works out. When Ezra had thought about his future, all those years ago in the quiet serenity of 3B, this was never what he had expected. He'd figured The New Brew would have been successful, but he would have gone back to teaching anyway once Aria had graduated. They would have been married, maybe even have had a kid by now. They would have found a decently-sized home on the outskirts of Philadelphia, not too far from her family and friends in Rosewood, but far enough to give them their own life, away from the judging eyes of past antagonists.
He had been so wrong.
After everything went south between them, and things did go south pretty quickly, Ezra had packed up and headed to New York to regroup, where he'd lived ever since. He'd found a tiny, hole-in-the-wall apartment above a bar, which ended up being a perfect arrangement, since it encouraged the drinking habit he'd picked up. It was there that he first met Angie. She was reading there by herself one Wednesday night. He'd asked about her book, and they had somehow ended up back in his apartment. If she was upset that he'd called her by Aria's name when he'd drunkenly climaxed, she said nothing.
They'd been together only a few months when he got the first call from Aria. It was supposed to be a courtesy call, informing him that she and her proper-aged fiancée had gotten engaged and would be moving out to California.
She called again a week later, letting him know they hadn't found an apartment. And again the next week, to let him know that they had. By week five of their calls, she'd dropped all pretenses. "I've just missed you so much," she'd cried.
"I know," he'd said, his voice clipped in case Angie overheard, "me too".
It's really good to hear your voice saying my name
It sounds so sweet
Coming from the lips of an angel
"Ezra, it's wrong, isn't it?" Aria asked once her tears had subsided, "what we're doing to Carter and to Angie?"
"Maybe," he said with a shrug. "It still doesn't feel wrong."
Again, they both went silent. For two people who each had such a way with words, it was incredible how often their conversations turned to silence.
"It's just a phone call, Aria," Ezra placated.
"Do you remember," she asked suddenly, "when Noel Khan wrote that message on the back of your car? I sat down at my desk in your classroom and I asked you if you would go back, but you turned around and asked me if I would? I said no, and we agreed to go forward."
"I remember."
"I change my mind. I want to go back."
Hearing those words, it makes me weak
And I never want to say goodbye
"Aria," he sighed warningly. He loved to hear her talk like that. It reminded him of days past, of how utterly, hopelessly in love they had been with one another. Every time she told him how much she missed him or loved him or wanted him back, his heart soared. But he hated that kind of talk, too, for it reminded him of everything he'd lost. It scared him. That kind of talk was nearly enough to break his resolve, to send him crashing into her life like an ill-timed tidal wave, sweeping her up off her feet and back into his arms.
But he knew better, and underneath it all, so did she. No matter how much they both longed for each other, they had to move on. Their time had passed. Now, they were simply ships in the night, passing quietly by and making do with the hand they'd been dealt; their secret phone calls a vestige of something that had long ago been snuffed out.
"I know," Aria murmured.
And she did. She did know. Aria understood just as well as he did that after their call ended, they would both go to bed, go back to their lives. Aria would reenter the master suite through the giant French doors she had insisted she needed. She'd slip back into her fiancée's four-poster California King bed and turn her back to him so couldn't see the guilt etched across her face as she drifted to sleep. Ezra would make his way back into the apartment through the window, careful to keep quiet. He'd strip off his jeans and t-shirts—the button-downs and vests that had made up his teacher costume had never managed to make it to New York with him—and sink into his bed. He'd let Angie curl herself around him in her sleep; he'd stare down at her, her petite frame reminding him of another, and wonder why she stayed with him at all. And in the morning, both Aria and Ezra would awaken and go about their daily routines as if nothing had ever happened.
But girl you make it hard to be faithful
With the lips of an angel
Aria and Carter would get married. Aria had already said yes, and she wasn't one to quit things lightly, especially when it came to love. She would be happy. Occasionally, she'd be tempted to leave, to find Ezra and pick up where they left off, but she wouldn't.
Ezra didn't know what would happen to him. He did love Angie, even if he failed to show it. And since he knew Aria wouldn't leave Carter, he wouldn't leave Angie.
But these calls didn't make anything any easier.
He desperately wished that they had started these calls years ago, when it could have helped them, when it would have mattered. Now it was too late for them. Their time had passed and they knew it.
Someday the calls would too.
So they clung to these phone calls, gently kindling the dying embers of their relationship that once was and never would be again. They had each other if only for now, in the dead of the night; and that was enough.
Honey why you calling me so late?