Ezra was walking down the hall at school. It was already getting late and he was starting to get tired and he'd head straight home to his wife, if he hadn't heard a quiet sob from biology classroom right next to him. He peeked inside with a curious look.

"Melody, what are you doing here so late? Are you alright?" There could be a slight concern heard in his voice. His student turned around as soon as she heard him, her eyes all red and swollen as if she'd been crying.

"Mr. Fitz… I'm sorry, I didn't think someone would still be here at this hour," she said quietly with a weak smile and hid something behind her bag. Ezra walked closer to her to see what she was hiding.

"Is that a sleeping bag?"

"Th-this?" She was obviously panicking. "Y-yes… you… you caught me, Mr. Fitz," Melody said and started crying again. Ezra walked another bit closer to her and put a hand on her shoulder.

"Why don't you tell me what's wrong?" Ezra said reassuringly and with a bright smile that could get almost any girl to fall for him instantly.

"My parents-" Melody wiped off her tears "-they're fighting a lot lately and the last two nights I just… I couldn't handle being at home. I've been sleeping in here since the day before yesterday."

Ezra looked like he was thinking.

"Please, Mr. Fitz, I'm begging you, don't tell the principal, just go and pretend that you didn't see anything," urged Melody as she grabbed Ezra by the shoulders, her long ginger curls swinged as she moved forward. Her watery eyes were looking straight into Ezra's soul.

"I won't tell the principal," he said after a while. "Because there's nothing to tell. Pack your things, you're staying the night in my apartment. It's Friday, so I'll come home with you tomorrow and I'll talk to your parents about it, okay?"

Melody's eyes lightened up immediately. Ezra knew that it wasn't okay for a student to spend the night at the teacher's place but he was sure that everyone would understand this situation. He definitely couldn't let her spend another night or two at school.

"Thank you so much, Mr. Fitz!" Melody's happy shout could be heard through the halls loudly and clearly.

"The chicken is done, potatoes and veggies, too, we have red wine..." mumbled Aria as she was going through the parts of dinner she prepared for Ezra. Lately, she's been a bit mean to him, but she convinced herself that she was just being paranoid. As an apology for being a paranoid wife, she made dinner for her husband. She put everything on the plates, poured wine into glasses, dressed up in beautiful sparkly black little dress and sat to the table to wait for Ezra.

She finally heard keys in the keyhole and got up to stand in front of the door. She smiled widely as she saw her loving husband walking inside their apartment, her smile disappeared after she saw that a high school girl walked inside with him. The girl she wished to never see again. Two weeks ago, Aria and Ezra had a huge fight about a girl. Aria claimed that she totally had a thing for Ezra and he bluntly dismissed that with words that suggested she's being unreasonable and jealous. Aria knew she was right. When she first saw this girl, it was when she knocked at the door of their apartment, she saw the look in her eyes when Melody found out, that Ezra has a wife. It was full of confusion at first but then her eyes changed into something hateful.

Since that time, Melody was always nice to Ezra, way too nice, and she pretended that Aria doesn't bother her. She always wanted to meet him for tutoring or to talk about the bonus essay she wrote and since Ezra is too kind to say no, it was working. Plus he always brought home homemade sweets, cookies and cakes saying: "Melody gave me this as a thank you for tutoring her.". Whenever she met Aria, she smiled at her and Aria knew very well what that smile meant. She's seen lots of looks like that from Ali when they were teenagers. It meant: Don't you dare mess with me or else.

When she told Ezra about her suspicion, he laughed it off and asked her if she was crazy, so she convinced herself, for the sake of her marriage, that it was all in her mind.

"Hi, honey," he greeted his wife with a smile.

"Hello, Mrs. Fitz," said Melody quietly.

"It's Montgomery-Fitz," she said bitterly and turned her head towards Ezra. "What is she doing here?" she asked as if Melody wasn't even there with a furious look in her eyes.

"Aria, calm down, she had nowhere to go, so I offered that she spends the night here. I assumed that you wouldn't mind, she needed a place to stay, you understand that, don't you?" Ezra's calm was making Aria more furious. If only he wasn't so blind!

"I'm not going to calm down. This is the exact thing I was talking about a week ago!" she yelled and grabbed her purse.

"I'm going out, enjoy your stupid dinner!" With that she shoved Melody and Ezra out of her way and she stormed out of her apartment. She really needed to clear her head and she knew that the only thing that will help her was getting something to drink. She wasn't much of a drinker but she admitted that she needed a drink tonight.

"Can you imagine what nerves she has to just walk into our apartment like that? After what she did?" Aria downed another glass of whiskey but she was clearly drunk already.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," said the bartender as he poured her another glass. Aria waved her hand at it and tried to move from the bar to some free table. She clumsily turned around and she'd go to the table she just saw if she hadn't bumped into some guy and spilled her drink all over his shirt. Instead of getting angry, the blond guy just looked at his shirt and tried to dry it off a little. Aria was too drunk to even care about his shirt and sat back down to the bar.

"I'm Jason," said the blond to her and sat down next to her. "Haven't I seen her somewhere already?" he said out loud although he wanted to only think that. "Probably not."

Jason shifted on his seat.

"Aria," she said as she downed the whole new glass of whiskey she just ordered. "Do you wanna hear about my day?"

Jason raised his eyebrow and nodded.

"So, it like started right after I made the perfect dinner…"

Aria slowly opened her eyes. Her head was hurting even more from the sun light that shined right into her face. She sit up and saw a man standing in the corner of the room. It took her a while before she recognized him.

"Jason?" she asked quietly. "Why are you in my bedroom?" Aria quickly tried to cover herself with a blanket, but then she found out that she's fully dressed and that she's lying on a couch. She started blinking quickly from the realization of where she was.

"Jason, WHERE is my bedroom?" she asked and looked around the room, confused.

"You don't remember anything, do you?" he asked with a smirk and handed her a tall glass of water and some pill. "Your head must be killing you."

Aria took the drink and the pill with a short nod.

"Since when are you in New York?" she asked when she downed the glass and put it on the table next to her.

"It's been a while," he answered briefly.

"I remember something at least. We were so drunk last night." Aria buried her face into her hands. "Wait, since when do you drink again?" she asked again.

"Can we not talk about it?" Jason seemed uncomfortable talking about that subject.

"Sure."

"I'm glad we found each other yesterday, it was almost like fate, right?" Aria laughed.
"Yeah, if you believe in fate." Aria got up from the couch. Her head was a bit fuzzy but she quickly recovered from it. She took her purse that was lying next to the table. "Well, it was lovely seeing you again, but I need to get going. Ezra is probably wondering where I am."

Jason moved to the door and so did Aria. She put her arms around his neck and pulled him close. His arms went around her waist. They stood there like that for a while. Neither of them wanted to let go and go back to reality.

"If you ever need someone to talk to, here's my number." Jason broke the silence as he let go of Aria. She quickly put her arms back to her body with an anxious look on her face. Jason walked to his jacket and took a business card out of his pocket. He handed it to Aria with a shy yet charming smile. She took it and put it into her wallet.

"Thanks," she said as she opened the door to Jason's apartment and walked out of it. Now she only needed to head home and face her husband and his new pet.