Spencer had a crazy look in her eye. There was a frown line starting to form across her brow and her mouth had been turned downward for the better part of a half hour. She and Aria were standing in line at the Party City checkout and they hadn't said a word to each other since they entered the queue.
The thing was, Spencer wasn't irritated with Aria, and Aria wasn't irritated with Spencer.
No… the problem was coming from the cell phone in Spencer's purse and the messages sitting in her inbox.
She had arrived late the night before and would be spending the weekend with Aria while Ezra was in Boston meeting with the publishers. Ever since Liam's outburst and the stress it had put on Aria, Ezra had taken on all book-related tasks that did not directly involve or require both authors. Regardless of whether or not they'd even be in the same vicinity as Liam.
Overhead, a woman's voice rang through the store, calling for a price check at the register just down from the one they were in front of. Aria eased back to look around the couple in front of them to see if she could tell how long they'd be waiting. The baby was sitting on her bladder and she was in desperate need of a restroom. In her arms, she carried a bundle of paper plates, paper cups, silverware, and napkins. In Spencer's arms sat the streamers, the balloons, tiny clothes pins, and all other fun-inducing baby shower games and decorations.
The shower wasn't for another few days, and Spencer wasn't especially pleased that Aria was with her picking everything out, but in the end, she figured it didn't really matter if she saw the paper products beforehand. Everything else would still be a surprise.
"Next," called the woman from behind register one. Spencer eased up, taking the place of the couple that had been standing before them and Aria followed close behind.
"I have got to pee," Aria said offhandedly.
"It shouldn't take much longer," Spencer said, nodding her head toward the couple at register one. "They only have a few things if that price check doesn't come back first. As soon as we get up there, you can drop your pile on the counter and hit the bathroom before we leave."
"I don't want to leave you up here all alone," she countered.
"Well it's not like you're paying for any of this; you might as well go to the bathroom before you wet your pants." She turned briefly to face Aria and shot her a wink.
Aria felt herself let out a small breath. Spencer was a pill when she was irritated and Aria couldn't stand when it was misdirected at her.
As if on cue, Spencer's bag buzzed again and she let out a low growl, rolling her eyes and standing a bit firmer in her spot.
"So help me god," she said, her voice low. "I'm going to lay into him so hard…"
"No," Aria said, cutting her off, "you're not going to do anything. You're going to give me your phone when we get to the car and I'm gong to delete all the messages. You don't need to see them, they don't mean anything."
"I can't just delete them without reading them first," she said.
"You won't be. I'll read them for you."
Spencer didn't say anything, but she gave Aria another glance, this one not as sweet.
The couple ahead of them gathered their bags and Spencer smiled toward the clerk before they even got the chance to deny another customer.
"How are you today," said the cashier, any possible emotion completely nonexistent.
Spencer continued to smile and didn't waste her time replying. She let the pile in her hands fall to the counter and pushed it to the side to make way for Aria's handful.
"Here," she said. "Put your things down here and go relieve yourself before a wet spot starts forming on your pants.
It didn't take anything else to convince Aria to obey and drop the pile of paper products onto the counter.
"Thank you," she said before waddling off toward the back of the store.
On their way home, they made a pit stop at the Montgomery household to drop all the shopping off. Ella was glad to see her daughter and was simply bubbling with excitement at the thought that the shower was just a few days away. She wouldn't let either girl in the house for fear that they'd see something and ruin the surprise. Spencer was to come back the next day, alone, and ready to decorate. There were going to be lots of balloons, a kitchen full of snacks, and plenty of excitement.
Aria honestly wasn't sure if she should feel overwhelmed or excited, but eventually determined that both were fair, though she might register a little higher on the overwhelmed end of the graph. She didn't particularly care for being the center of attention, and the closer it was getting to the shower, the more she was wishing Ezra could be there with her. Especially if Dianne was going to show up…that was a whole other ordeal, and one that she couldn't let herself think about at the moment.
As Spencer drove from the Montgomery's to the Fitz's, Aria reached out and grabbed Spencer's phone from the inside pocket of her purse.
"No, don't," she said, reaching out to grab it away. "It's fine, just leave it."
Aria snatched her arm back, out of Spencer's reach. "If you really don't want me to read the messages or delete them, I won't. But I don't think you should read them either. He's not being fair to you, or to Hanna." Aria stuck her tongue between her teeth and her lip in concentration as she waited for Spencer's reply, her hand still held near the window, just slightly above her head.
She knew she was being bold by butting her way into the situation and speaking so out of turn, but if you couldn't be honest with your friends when they were walking into dangerous territory, when could you? And besides, the baby hormones had been messing with her head lately and morality was a huge trigger. She didn't have a lot of patience for pettiness or any type of betrayal of trust. "You were so mad earlier," she added. "If you read them, it's just going to ruin your night. Please don't do that."
"I'm not going to let it ruin our night –"
"You might not mean to, but what if he says something really awful or what if you can't help replying or he sees that you're reading them and send something else, and Hanna sees your phone at dinner tonight and sees that you're getting a message from him? I know you don't wan to hurt her."
"What's she going to think, Aria? He lives in California with her, and we're all grown adults anyway. I'm allowed to talk to him without it having some heavy, double meaning." Spencer might have been talking a little louder and a little more aggressively, but she didn't sound confident in her answer at all.
"Well Caleb might be living in California, but Hanna isn't," Aria started. She paused, picking at her nail polish as she waited for Spencer to say something. When the other side of the car remained silent, she moved her gaze back up. "She didn't tell you about the fight? About moving back to New York, about Caleb staying behind?"
Aria's face dropped and her hand held tighter to the phone, her thumb itching to open Spencer's messages.
"I can't believe she didn't tell you about any of that. Do you guys not talk?"
"No, we do…" Spencer's sentence fell away without a real answer. She turned and looked at Aria who had her head cocked and was giving her a look that clearly said, 'you're leaving something out.' "Okay, so we talk here and there but it's all very superficial. It's fine. We're in the best place we've been in months and I don't want to ruin it. If that means we don't talk about her personal life, or anything with Caleb, then so be it. Honestly, I don't think I could stand to listen to it anyway."
"I just figured she would have wanted to talk to you about it…but I guess Hanna's always been the best at giving someone the cold-shoulder when she's angry."
Aria's hands were now folded in her lap, the phone beneath them. If she kept a steady pressure on it, she wouldn't feel the need to address it.
"Now what aren't you telling me?"
She snapped her head to look at Spencer.
"Nothing, I swear."
"Do you know what they were fighting about?"
"No," Aria insisted.
"You're lying, I can tell. You're not blinking and you have that…that overly-concentrated look on your face that makes it seem like you're pissed off."
"Maybe I am – pissed off," she tried. Spencer's face narrowed and Aria caved. "Okay, fine, but you have to promise to act like you don't know when Hanna is over tonight and at the shower on Sunday. Got it?"
"Yes, come on, just say it."
Spencer's hands tightened around the steering wheel and she took a turn down a side road, pulling into one of two small parking spaces along the alleyway beside The Brew and Aria and Ezra's apartment. She threw the car into park and leaned back, arms still stretched out in front of her.
"Is it that bad?"
Aria picked up the phone that was in her lap and flipped it over so that the screen was facing up. She clicked the home button and watched as more than six messages appeared from Caleb. She held the phone out to Spencer.
"Here," she said. "I would have filled you in earlier if I knew you didn't know what was going on. I guess I figured you and Hanna were closer. I mean, it makes sense that you aren't. I just…I forget sometimes that it got as messy as it did." Spencer raised her eyebrows at Aria, who pulled her lips together into a tight line. "Caleb might have been talking about you in his sleep, and when Hanna confronted him about it, he admitted that…he still had some feelings for you, and I guess the more they argued about it, the more she became convinced that you two had been seeing each other again."
The car was still spitting out warm air, and the radio was low, but Spencer's ears suddenly felt fuzzy. She was speechless. Aria placed the phone gently in her friends lap and retracted her hands. Spencer slowly pried each of her fingers off the steering wheel.
"I know you haven't seen him since he got back with Hanna, but I have a feeling he's trying to get back with you…and I don't want you to get hurt again. That's the only reason I wanted to check the messages for you…or delete them all together. But that's your call. That all might have made more sense if you knew where I was coming from earlier."
There always seemed to be something going on between Hanna and Caleb. Some kind of drama or heartache that kept them from being a happy, stable couple. Aria just hated that this time Spencer was unknowingly in the mix, especially after having lived it in real life once before.
"Does Hanna really think I…"
"No!" Aria said, turning more in her seat so that she was looking at Spencer straight on. "No, I don't think so. Not anymore. I told her that you were very single and had been for some time, and that you hadn't seen Caleb since the last time they were both here. I also told her that I thought you had moved on…even if that's not entirely true."
"Thanks," Spencer said, her voice quiet. She reached down and picked up her phone.
"Can I ask what it was that he sent earlier that upset you so much?" Aria said.
The car grew silent again as Spencer debated whether or not to speak. In all their years being best friends, there was rarely anything Spencer kept from Aria and Aria from Spencer. However, that did not mean that there weren't moments or aspects of their lives that they liked to keep private.
Caleb…didn't seem big enough to be one of them.
Spencer shifted her eyes up to meet Aria's. "He sent me a passage from a book that I was reading while we were in Europe. It's a tragic story about a pair of lovers who are destined for one another but can't seem to find happiness because things keep getting in the way. Now…it seems to make more sense. I'm sure these texts are more of the same."
Aria scoffed and then quickly covered her mouth. "Sorry," she said. "I just can't imagine you two as destined lovers. As much as you might have liked him, he most definitely is not your destiny or your soul mate or an of that crap."
"Are you saying you don't believe in soul mates?" Spencer said in mock shock.
"Well, not exactly…just that you and Caleb aren't it."
They looked at each other in silence for a moment before Aria reached an arm out and grabbed hold of Spencer's elbow. She had a serious look on her face.
"And as much as I would love to keep talking about this, I have got to go to the bathroom again. Don't blame me. Blame her." She pointed her hand downward toward her belly and they both began to laugh.
Later that afternoon, Aria and Spencer were in the kitchen, elbows deep in dinner preparations, classical music playing in the background and a two glasses of wine (well, one glass of wine, one glass of cranberry juice) between them. They exchanged jokes, reminiscing of old times, tossing in offhand comments here and there about how crazy it was that they were still friends with Ali and that the rest of them had been able to stay as close as they had at all. Once things with A had settled, they'd found a good groove, and though Spencer lived away, she made a point of staying in touch with Aria. They moved through the kitchen like air, a great team and a perfect pair. Where one left off, the other picked up.
Aria was finally feeling at the top of her game. She had energy, she could eat whatever she wanted, and just about the only thing that could bring her down was her need to use the bathroom every ten to fifteen minutes.
That might have been a slight exaggeration, but to her, that's how it felt.
"You've got a bit of carrot on your shoulder," Spencer said as she passed, carrying a pan full of cooked chicken over to the stove.
Aria reached up to brush her shoulder, setting the knife down on the cutting board. "I can't reach it," she said. "Can you get it for me?"
Spencer leaned back and reached over, pulling the sliver of carrot off her friend and flicking it into the trashcan that was between them. Aria pushed back her hair and picked up the knife again, resuming her work on the vegetables.
"How's that chicken look?" she asked. "Do you think this is going to be done in time? We should have started this before we left this morning and let it cook on low all day."
"It's not chili," Spencer said. "It's going to be fine."
Aria turned around indignantly, being careful of the knife. "It's still soup though and it's better the longer it cooks." When she had Spencer's attention, she raised the knife as if to gesture the validity of her statement. "You know I'm right. It's going to be weak and the spices won't have married by the time everyone else gets here."
Spencer rolled her eyes. "Speaking of things that haven't married yet…when are you and Fitz going to bite the bullet and tie the knot?"
A low groan emitted from the small brunette. "I don't wan to talk about it," she said. She let the knife chop through a stalk of celery with a satisfying clunk of metal to wood. "We said we'd wait until after the baby was born, but I don't really want to anymore. I'm tried of something always putting us off. There are a million things that could get in the way if we let them…" She pushed all the vegetables to the middle of the cutting board and moved the knife so that it was away from the edge of the counter. Taking the cutting board with her, she walked over to stand beside Spencer at the stove.
"Have you talked to him about it?" Spencer asked.
"Yes and no," Aria said. She sat the cutting board down as Spencer added the broth to the butter and onion that had been heating over the stove as the chicken baked. "I hope you know I'm not pulling that chicken apart," Aria said offhandedly. "I'm okay when it's not still on the bone, but I can't touch it otherwise. Too gross."
"Oh, you're such a baby," Spencer said with a laugh. "Here, dump the vegetables in and give it a good stir, then add the egg noodles. The bag is sitting over there by the sink. I'll pull the chicken apart. This is going to taste great, and now you'll know how to make chicken noodle soup."
"I knew how to make it already, you're using my mom's recipe."
Spencer turned and looked at Aria, one hand outstretched against the counter and a sardonic look on her face. "Just because you had the recipe doesn't mean you knew how to cook it."
"Oh well, that's why they make canned soup."
"Don't give me that," Spencer said as she turned back toward the chicken and Aria made her way around her to the sink. "You're going to be the most domestic homemaker imaginable. Of all of us, it was always bound to be you. Admit it."
"What's wrong with that?" She carried the noodles over to the pot, measured out a few scoops, gave the bag a careful eye, and added the whole thing before leaning forward over the pot so that she would see a little better.
Spencer smiled to herself and shook her head. "Nothing's wrong with that and that's my point. Embrace it."
They continued on, adding a little extra pepper here and there, trying their best to make it taste just the way they remembered Ella's tasting when they were little. It was smooth and had the tiniest bit of kick to it. Not too salty, but not too bland either. Now that it was simmering on low, they could move to the rest of the room and set the table. It wasn't going to be a crazy evening, but they were still ambitious to try and squeeze everyone into the tiny apartment. Even though it wasn't exactly the size of a shoebox, it also wasn't much larger.
Just as Aria was about to reach into the cabinet to retrieve a stack of bowls, her phone began to ring on the table across the room.
"It's a Facetime," Spencer called over. "Do you want me to answer it?"
Aria continued to pull the stack of bowls out of the cabinet and sat them on the counter. "Who is it?" she asked as she made her way over. Spencer held the phone out to her and she took it, flipping the screen right side up so that she could read the name. "Oh, weird, it's Hardy." She raised both her eyebrows seductively at Spencer as she slid the lock screen over to answer the call.
"Hey, little mama," he said, his face filling the screen instantly.
"Hi, Hardy," Aria said, shooting Spencer a confused look. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"You will never believe who I ran into." He was shouting over the noise from the crowded bar around him, a hubbub of people trailed back and forth in the distance behind his head, and the camera swiveled as he slid out of view and put the camera on the man beside him.
"Hey, babe," Ezra said, a bright smile lighting his face from ear to ear. Aria burst into a smile of her own and sat down at the table.
"Hey yourself," she said. "Where are you?"
"I'm in Boston," he said. "I stayed at the hotel all day working on some last minute things and the room was feeling a little cramped so I decided to try the car around the corner, JM Curley's…it's alright. Kind of tight." His eyes focused behind the phone for a second. "Anyway, Hardy's telling me to wrap it up. I'm still not sure why he's here, but we ran into each other about ten minutes ago and I was catching him up on things. He wanted to say hi. Spencer taking good care of you?"
At the same moment Aria spun her phone so that the camera would face Spencer, Hardy came back into the frame.
"Hi," Spencer said, giving the phone an awkward wave. "I don't know you, but it's nice to meet you."
Aria pulled the phone back to face her but found the screen to be a blurry image of a flannel shirt.
"Who is that?" she heard Hardy whisper. She glanced at Spencer out of the corner of her eye and wondered for a moment if she'd heard him. She couldn't have planned a better accident if she tried.
Aria cleared her throat. "Ezra," she said, "Hardy, guys," she cleared her throat again. "Okay, Spencer and I are cooking dinner and the girls are going to be here any minute. I'll call or text you later, okay? Let me know when you get back to your hotel, and Hardy, please, please don't get him wasted. He has a very important meeting in the morning."
"Aria, we were getting wasted when you were still in diapers, I think we know what we're doing," Hardy said, taking his phone back from Ezra.
"Okay, that's not at all true, but whatever. Take care of him, got it? He's got a family to provide for and I do not need you helping him into a ditch." She reached out and was about to hit the red end button when Hardy held up his hand urging her to hold on. "What?" she asked, laughing at the look on his face. Hardy was one of those people that made her slightly uncomfortable because of the way he liked to tease. That being said, she adored him all the same. He was Ezra's best friend, and she could tell why. He brought out a side of Ezra she rarely got to see.
"Who's your friend?"
Spencer's mouth dropped open and Aria had to try her best to keep from laughing. She glanced between Hardy's face on the phone and Spencer's right beside her.
"That's Spencer," she said, still looking at her, just out of the camera's view. She moved back to look at Hardy and directed her next question to him. "Would you like to talk to her?"
Spencer's eyes grew wide and she started making a motion across her neck with her hands, urging Aria to stop her teasing.
"Hardy, she's indisposed at the moment, but otherwise very available. Would you like me to give her your number?"
"Aria," Spencer warned, her teeth barred and neck tight with anxiety.
"What?" she said quietly, holding the phone to the fabric of her shirt so that Hardy couldn't see them talking. "You don't have to call him, but then the ball's in your court if you want to. He's really very nice. He'd be good for you."
"Stop trying to set me up with him. Did you plan this?" she mumbled.
"No," Aria mouthed. She shushed Spencer off toward the kitchen just as a knock came at the door. She pulled the phone back away from her shirt. "Hardy, I'd be happy to give her your number, but we have to go. Someone's at the door and the soup needs to be stirred. Tell Ezra to call me later."
Without waiting to hear his response, she hit the end button, shoved the phone in her back pocket and pushed herself up out of the chair. She gave Spencer a sideways glance at the stove as she walked across the room to answer the door.
"Who's being a baby now?" she asked. "It's because he's handsome, isn't it?" Aria stuck her tongue out and Spencer rolled her eyes, continued to stir the soup at the stove, and did not give Aria the satisfaction of commenting.
A/N: Sorry for the long wait, and thanks for your patience. I've got a lot going on right now so I haven't been able to focus as much attention on this as I'd like. I have a pretty good idea of what happens in the next chapter so hopefully it won't take so long to write. I need some new inspiration or something. I'm feeling kind of out of it with this extended hiatus.
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