(A/N:) Here's another chapter! And this chapter is dedicated to the lovely Josie :) Hope you love it!

10.

Work on Monday was an absolute and utter drag. Ezra had one of the worst hangovers he had ever had, thanks to his weekend long drinking binges. He didn't even know how many glasses of scotch he had downed, but his best guess was two and a half bottles.

He was in quite the predicament. He was still madly in love with Aria and he wanted to go tell Aria, thinking that she had the right to know, but he didn't want to lose her. If he told her, he was almost positive she would laugh at him and quit her job and he would never see her again. He had already lost her more times than he cared to admit and he had just gotten her back. If he lost her again, he didn't know what he would do with himself.

But he knew that if he didn't tell her, or at least didn't even hint to it, that he would go mad. He was already going insane, feeling like he would burst from the myriad of emotions he was feeling. He wanted to tell her so badly, just to see what she'd say. Would she agree? Would she slap him? He wanted to find out almost as much as he didn't.

"Good morning," Aria said breezily, passing by him and going straight towards the coffee in the break room. Ezra smiled at her goofily as he leans against the counter. She seemed so calm, so carefree, which desperately confused him. No one was that happy on a Monday and he had kind of hoped she would be like him – self conflicted, bewildered, and frustrated with love. But she wasn't, she seemed happy.

What he didn't know though, was that she was just faking a happy semblance. Aria found it was easier to put up a front, rather than show everyone how upset and dejected she constantly was. And besides, she always put up facades when around her children, so she decided to just keep it going for work and everywhere else.

"You seem happy this morning," Ezra commented.

Aria sighed a little as she poured coffee into a disposable cup. "I guess I am… I had a good weekend," Aria explained while dumping sugar into the liquid. It was a lie; her weekend has consisted of helping her kids with homework, doing a ton of laundry, and fighting with John behind closed doors. They argued a lot, not even about important things. Aria yelled at him for deleting one of her television recordings, he yelled at her for tipping the delivery boy too much; they both knew that their small arguments were a part of a much bigger picture. It wasn't like those things mattered, but their current situation made it seem like the small things did.

"Really? What did you do?" Ezra inquired, making conversation as he stirred a stick around his coffee mug. Although he wasn't quite sure if he wanted to know. Hearing of her "good weekend" would remind him that all he did was host a pity party for himself and get wasted. Or she would tell a story of John and the kids, which Ezra absolutely couldn't bear. It wasn't that he didn't like her story telling, but hearing Aria speak of having another husband and kids with said man was still too much for Ezra to process. Even though Aria's children seemed lovely and John seemed… decent… it didn't mean Ezra wanted to hear of them. No, he would much rather be in his bubble of the past and imagine what it would've been like for him to be Aria's husband and what their kids would be like.

"Ezra?" Aria asked, tilting her head at him slightly.

He snapped back into reality and realized she was asking him something. "I-I'm sorry, what did you say?"

"I said I had a good weekend and asked how yours was," Aria repeated. She paused and added, "Ezra, are you okay? You seem…off…"

Ezra nodded slowly, trying to shake the past and his conflicting feelings from his mind. "Yeah, I'm okay. Typical Monday, I guess."

Aria nodded slowly before sighing, "I better get to work. Those stories aren't gonna edit themselves." Aria shot him one last smile and then got up to walk out of the break room. But before she could make her way out the door, Ezra stopped her by saying, "The dinner was really great."

Aria turned and smiled at him. "Thanks. I thought it was pretty good, too." She gulped and contemplated saying something else. Aria sighed and decided to add, "It was nice seeing you outside an office setting."

Ezra smiled at her genuinely and nodded in agreement. "Yeah, i-it was nice." Aria grinned at him one last time before waving and walking back into the office.

XXXX

"How about pizza?" Aria sighed, glancing around her kitchen and glaring a little at the desolate fridge. She had no real supplies to cook a dinner for her family. She needed to go grocery shopping as soon as possible.

"Pizza sounds good to me," Matt assured as he worked on his math homework at the counter.

Aria nodded and took another sip of her water. "Hey, how's school?" she asked her son, knowing that she hadn't had many conversations with her children in a while.

Matt shrugged and responded, "It's okay. I don't like math class though."

Aria smirked at her son and remembered how much she had hated math when she was a kid. "Yeah, I hated math, too…but you're making good grades?" Her son simply nodded and Aria pondered something: had it always been this hard to communicate with her children? Or was John right? Maybe her working did distant her from her kids…

"How are your friends? How's soccer?" Aria asked, hoping to provoke conversation from him.

Matt sighed, "They're fine."

Aria chewed her lip and inquired, "What was the best part of your day?"

"I don't know," Matt answered, shoving his now finished worksheet in a folder.

Aria sighed and clenched her jaw. "Honey, tell me something."

Matt furrowed his eyebrows and tried to think. "Jennifer wasn't at school, so that sucked."

"Who's Jennifer?" Aria asked as her smile broadened and her ears perked up.

Matt shrugged again. "This girl in my class. She's really nice."

"Do you like her?" Aria asked, reminiscing about all her elementary school crushes.

"Maybe," Matt said, his cheeks growing red. "I like Madison more, though."

"Well, who's Madison?"

Matt packed his folder away in his blue backpack as he answered, "She's this other girl… she's really pretty and nice. But Madison kinda likes Blake, so that's why I like Jennifer."

Aria couldn't help but chuckle softly at the third grade gossip. After a few seconds, Matt added, "I like Jennifer a lot too, though. I always pick her if I'm a team captain in PE. But Madison and me talk more. But I don't want to like Madison if she doesn't like me. And Jennifer definitely likes me."

Aria sighed and wanted to laugh bitterly at how much her growing situation paralleled her eight year old son's. She was about to offer a solution, but John walked in the door. He set down his brief case before going into the kitchen. "Hey," he said, slightly aggravated. Aria just rolled her eyes a little, already growing irritated with her husband. "Where's Chloe?"

"She's in her room," Aria responded, getting up and putting her now empty glass in the sink.

John nodded and walked towards his wife. He kissed her forehead before grabbing an apple from the bowl on the kitchen island. "Are you making dinner tonight?"

Aria shook her head. "Matt and I were thinking about having pizza."

"That sounds good to me," John agreed. Aria just smiled weakly before pulling out her phone and calling the local pizzeria.

Hours later, the pizza box was in the garbage and dirty plates were in the sink. Aria knew they would never get washed if she left them there, so she decided to just clean them. John walked into the kitchen and offered, "Need help?"

"I'm good, thanks," Aria sighed.

John just shook his head and walked over to her and helped her anyway, much to Aria's chagrin. But not even five minutes into cleaning, John's phone began to ring. He set down the dish and pulled his phone out of his trouser pocket. Aria glanced at the caller ID and her eyebrows raised when she spotted a woman's name flashing on his screen. "I gotta take this," John mumbled, stepping out onto the patio.

As he walked outside, Aria tried to think of ever hearing about or meeting someone named Kate. But even if she did know of a Kate acquainted with husband, why was she calling at eight o'clock on a Monday night?

After a couple minutes, John walked back in. "Who was that?" Aria asked, scrubbing a plate roughly.

"No one, just someone from work," John answered vaguely.

Aria nodded slowly and let a few minutes pass before interrogating, "Who's Kate?"

"What?" John asked obliviously.

"Who's Kate?" Aria repeated, getting angrier with each passing second.

"She's someone I work with, okay?" John said exasperatedly.

Aria clenched her teeth together tightly before asking, "Are you cheating on me again?"

John sighed. "No, I'm not. Don't be ridiculous."

"Don't be ridiculous?" Aria reiterated quietly. "Don't be ridiculous?! Are you kidding me?! You fucking cheated on me a couple years ago, why wouldn't you now? How is this being ridiculous?"

"I'm not cheating on you, now could you lower your damn voice?!" John asked in a harsh whisper.

All the anger that had been bubbling beneath the surface erupted in that second for Aria. "Could you not be such a jerk? You have been nothing but rude to me for weeks! Why is that, John?!"

"Because you've been a complete bitch about your job!" John yelled back, making Aria's jaw drop. "Ever since you started that job, you've acted like you're better than everyone else. Having a job does not make you the boss of everyone, I hope you know that."

"I do know that," Aria starts. "I do, but I do not act like I'm better than everyone else. How could I possibly act better than you when you act like you're a fucking king!? You act like you're in charge of everyone and everything and you're just mad because I went back to work and you don't get to control me anymore."

"Control you?" John scoffs with a bitter laugh. "I control you? How the hell do you figure that?!"

"Aria, make dinner. Aria, clean the house. Aria do this, Aria do that. And I had done everything you asked before deciding enough was enough and then I got a job. A dream job of mine with nice people and good pay. You should be happy for me!"

"Oh, yeah, I'm so happy that you now act like a total bitch who can't pay any attention to me or the kids."

"Call me a bitch one more time, and we're gonna have a serious problem right now," Aria warned with rigid breathing.

"Well, stop acting like one then!" John shouted.

Aria just bit her lip and knew this wasn't good. She knew that she would say something she would regret and she knew her kids were upstairs, probably hearing the whole argument. "I gotta go," she mumbled pulling off the gloves she wore to wash dishes and grabbing her purse, leaving John shocked and pissed.

XXXX

She didn't know what she was trying to accomplish by being at a local bar. When she had stormed out of her house, she had had no real destination besides out of her neighborhood. Turns out that 'out of her neighborhood' was a bar named Smitty's Pub.

"Can I get you anything, doll?" asked an older bartender.

Aria smiled politely and requested, "Just a water, thanks." The bartender scoffed a bit before going over and pouring her a glass. She ignored his amused smirk; she was dumb enough to leave and go to a bar, she didn't need to make any more bad decisions tonight.

She took a few sips of water before turning on her stool and spotting someone eerily familiar reading a book. "Ezra?" she whispered quietly, almost to herself. She got up off her stool, water in hand, and walked over. She sat down at the empty stool next to him and joked, "Why do we always meet in bars?

His head snapped up from his book and Ezra raised his eyebrows at the sight of her. "Aria?"

She smiled. "Hey…"

"What are you doing here?" he asked in a bewildered tone. It was a little after nine on a Monday night- he would have expected her to be at her luxurious house, packing her kids lunches and folding laundry. He certainly would not expect her to be at a crummy bar like this.

Aria sighed, "I would rather not get into that…what about you? What brings you to a bar on a Monday night?"

Truth be told was that he had ran out of alcohol over the weekend and by the time he had realized that, the liquor stores were closed. "No reason, really… just needed a drink. It's been a long day."

Aria nodded. "I can agree with that. It's only Monday and I'm already done with this week."

Ezra snickered in agreement before glancing at her drink. "What is that? Vodka?" he asked incredulously.

"No, no, it's just water," Aria corrected with a small giggle.

"You sure know how to party it up," Ezra joked. Aria rolled her eyes and nudged his shoulder before the air fell quiet. Aria's face fell a little as she realized just how easy it was to talk to Ezra instead of John. She didn't know why; maybe it was because Ezra knew her better. Even though she and John had been together, no one in the world ever knew Aria better than Ezra. Ezra knew every little detail about her and it was a two way street. She knew he had a small birthmark on his back, she knew where he was ticklish, and she knew all his dislikes and likes. She knew him better than anyone, including John.

"Want to talk about it?" Ezra whispered, seeing her face fall.

Aria glanced at him and was about to decline, but something in her stopped her. She nodded a little and opened her mouth to finally let all her feelings free.

(A/N:) Ezra and Aria are just getting closer and closer and in the next chapter, things heat up a bit ;) and the next chapter is by FAR my favorite and it's one of my favorite things I have ever written, but you've gotta review to get it!

But I will give a sneak peek from it

Ezra nodded and he took a sip of his scotch. He could feel that the scotch was taking over more and more of what he was saying. As he sipped, he thought of the book and how screwed up his plan to make her safe was. "I was gonna solve the mystery. You'd be safe, and we were gonna end up together. Funny how things don't work out as planned, huh?"

Aria looked at him and gulped. "Yeah. Funny."

Alright, bye for now! I'll try to update asap :)