Blair woke with a groan, her head pounding and her mouth feeling like it was filled with cotton.

I may have had too much gin, she grumbled internally as she rolled over and glared at the ringing phone at her bedside.

She didn't remember getting into the bed, but she did remember having a surprisingly great time kicking Ezra's ass at chess - so she didn't really regret it. Still, she was considering throwing her phone in the trash for waking her up.

"Hello?" she mumbled, grabbing it without looking at who was calling.

"Amy," Helen's voice came through the other side, slightly panicked, "the police just came by to arrest Ryan!"

"Morning to you too, Helen," Blair muttered, rubbing her face roughly.

"Amy, listen," Helen breathed, "I... I understand that things are complicated, but you can't seriously want him in jail!"

"Helen," Blair breathed, squeezing her eyes shut against the light filtering in through the window, "Your son has been stalking me, grabbing me, and harassing me for months since we broke up. I don't care if he's in jail, but I do care if he leaves me alone - which he's refusing to do. He violated his restraining order. Repeatedly. I can't help you."

"Amelia!" Helen screeched, making Blair yank the phone away from her ear with a hiss, "This is not how you handle these kinds of things!"

"This is exactly how I handle these kinds of things," Blair growled, "Stop blaming me for Ryan's decisions! You want to be mad at someone? Be mad at him. I've already moved on."

"You've been together for years, Amelia!" Helen sighed, clearly trying to calm down and reason with her, "I understand he's made mistakes, but-"

"Nope," Blair cut her off, "I don't date cheaters, and I definitely don't marry people that are showing serious signs of potential violence. I'm done Helen. He needs to deal with his own shit."

"Am-"

Blair hung up and silenced her phone, tossing it beside her on the bed and standing with a grunt. She wasn't interested in dealing with anyone at all at the moment, but definitely not a screeching woman that defended a guy like Ryan.

Instead, she dragged herself to the bathroom and brushed her teeth with a little too much vigor while the shower warmed up. Then, after standing under the water until the scalding temperature that turned her skin pink started to cool, she walked out looking a bit more human than she had when she walked in.

By the time she walked into the living room she was able to keep her eyes open and stand straight, even if her head was still pounding.

"Tylenol," she muttered, shuffling toward the box she knew contained her mini-pharmacy, "For the love of God, Tylenol."

Cane be damned, she needed her head to stop pounding before she could even care about her leg.

"Regretting our decisions, are we?" a deep, silky voice drew her attention to the man standing in her kitchen with a spatula in his hand and a smirk on his face.

"Uh," Blair blinked, tilting her head as she processed what she was seeing, "there's a hottie cooking in my kitchen soooo, nope. Nope, I don't think I have any regrets, actually."

Ezra threw his head back and laughed a barking laugh that made Blair smile despite the throbbing in her temples. She found the bottle and popped two pills in her mouth, swallowing them dry, before she shuffled to the couch and sat down gingerly.

"Why is it you seem perfectly fine?" she grumbled even as her smile never left her face, "You drank too. It's rude that you're fine."

"I had two drinks but the nearly-full bottle of gin you pulled out last night is empty," he said, raising an eyebrow and nodding toward the bottle on the coffee table.

"Well," Blair breathed, leaning her head back and closing her eyes, "Your facts are also rude, so there."

Ezra laughed again, shaking his head and scraping the scrambled eggs he'd whipped up on to two plates beside the buttered toast he'd already prepared.

"Food will help," he chuckled, bringing the plates to the couch and sitting down beside her.

"Mmm," Blair hummed in agreement, leaning forward and diving in immediately before adding between bites, "a girl could get used to this."

"I do not promise you daily breakfasts," Ezra scoffed, "but hangover eggs are complimentary after dates."

Blair snorted, then choked and started coughing when she inhaled some of her eggs.

Ezra busted out laughing as she hacked up a lung, glaring at him like he'd personally shoved the egg bits down the wrong tube. By the time she could breathe again, he'd only just gathered himself enough to talk again.

"If I die before you introduce me to your grandfather the contract is null," Blair grumbled, shaking her head and resuming her meal.

"That would certainly be inconvenient," Ezra chuckled, pulling his phone out and checking it with a nod.

"Ryan was arrested this morning," Blair noted, seeing him checking his phone, "Guessing that was you?"

"It was the police," Ezra clarified, raising an eyebrow, "but I did have the report filed and surveillance from the restaurant and your apartment building sent over to facilitate, yes."

"Thank you for that," Blair said seriously, "His mom called me this morning, so I'm sure we haven't heard the last of it, but I appreciate that you did that."

Ezra nodded, a frown forming on his face as her words processed.

"I understand that we only just signed the contract," Ezra said, leaning back and looking at Blair seriously, "but I think you should consider moving in with me."

Blair nearly had a repeat inhaled-egg moment, and quickly swallowed before glaring at him.

"Are you trying to kill me?" she gasped, tapping her chest, "That is a between-bites statement, for sure."

Ezra chuckled, shaking his head before letting his smile fade slightly.

"I'm serious, Blair. This is a normal apartment. It wouldn't be difficult for them to find your address, and there isn't exactly security here to help you if they decided to come by and harass you. We work at the same office. If you moved in with me we could commute to work. At the office you have security to keep them out, and my penthouse is far more secure. It would be safer - both from Ryan and anyone else that may have bad intentions."

Blair frowned then, sitting back and studying him for a moment.

"I'm not sure how I feel about that," she said honestly, looking up at the ceiling, "I'm pretty big on personal space and stuff... I haven't cohabitated with someone in a very long time..."

"Cohabitated?" Ezra smirked, raising an eyebrow, "Well now that's a word."

"Oh shut up," Blair laughed, sighing as she considered it, "How do you envision this even working? Do you have space for another person? Are we splitting chores? Like, we haven't really talked about any of that."

"Well, I have a housekeeper," Ezra pointed out, "So cleaning up after yourself is the biggest concern there. I have multiple bedrooms, and two of them have ensuite bathrooms - so you'd have your own space in that regard. We could discuss looking for a house, if that's something you're interested in, though that'd make our commute longer."

"I'm not worried about a house," Blair shrugged before gesturing at the boxes scattered across the house, "but I do have my own stuff. I don't have much, and a lot of it is really the basics... but I usually set my place up to have a certain vibe. I spend a lot of time at home, and I prefer to have a space that's accommodating of the things I need."

"Okay, so tell me what you need," Ezra said, crossing his legs.

"I need an office or working space," she said immediately, thinking it through, "Right now that's usually my living room, but the truth is that after work I have more work. My Dad's companies don't run themselves. After work I have to sit down and run through financials, project proposals, approvals, and things like that. I usually set my living room up to be a workspace, and I like it to have a certain feel."

"That's understandable," Ezra said seriously, tilting his head, "We could convert one of the other bedrooms into an office for you. The penthouse has four bedrooms right now, and I very rarely have guests. There's really no need for it. It wouldn't take much to sort that out, and you could decorate it however you wanted so it matched your... vibe."

He smirked then, raising an eyebrow to encourage her to continue. Blair rolled her eyes with a smile.

"I also need a place to paint," she said, nodding toward the balcony off the living room, "I use oil paints, and I use turpentine to clean my brushes. It smells, so I usually paint outside and leave the doors open to air my space out after cleaning up."

"Hmm," Ezra furrowed his brow then, crossing his arms in thought, "to be honest I don't have a great space for that at the moment. We could set you up in the other bedroom with an art studio, but it's not going to be outside. How important is that part of it?"

"Not too important if there's ventilation and good lighting," Blair admitted, "preferably big windows and natural light rather than artificial."

"Okay," Ezra said slowly, "that's not really a good description of the other bedrooms, if I'm honest. The two bedrooms with ensuites have big windows, but the other two do not. I'm not married to the penthouse I have, though, and there are other options we could explore that don't require us to buy a house out of the city. Would you be willing to settle for a lack of painting space in the short term while we looked for a new place?"

"You're seriously considering moving just so I have a place to paint?" Blair asked, her jaw going slack as she stared at him in shock.

"My place is a place to sleep," Ezra said honestly, shrugging, "Like you, I work a lot after the business day ends. I usually come home and work from the living room, similar to you, and I sleep... then I go back to work at the office. I don't really care about the specifics. The penthouse I have now was only chosen because of its location which is why it doesn't even have a terrace."

"Well," Blair considered, looking around, "I literally just moved in. I'm not even unpacked, but I just signed a lease."

"Breaking that will not be an issue," Ezra waved that concern away dismissively, "We could have you re-packed and everything taken to the penthouse this weekend. Most of the basic things, like for the kitchen, I already have - but you can bring everything and go through it once you're there. We can start looking for new places immediately, then move once things are arranged."

"Seems silly to move twice, doesn't it?" Blair chuckled, shaking her head at the whole conversation, "Wouldn't it make more sense for me to stay here until you picked the new place?"

"I'd rather you didn't," Ezra admitted, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees, "I'm concerned Ryan is unstable. He's not going to stay in jail. I'm sure his mother will post bail quickly. Plus, the more we are seen together the more risk there is of your identity leaking - I get a lot of unwanted attention in public. Even if you leave your boxes packed once you arrive at the penthouse, it'd be safer to move you in sooner rather than later."

Blair rubbed her temples with a sigh, her headache improved but not gone. This was an awful lot of thinking for a morning featuring a hangover.

"Let's finish breakfast and hydrate," Ezra said with a chuckle, "I'll put Blaise on the task of looking for other locations. If we can find something quickly, say this weekend, it'll be a moot point. If not, I'd like you to consider moving into the penthouse temporarily - for your safety."

"Breakfast and hydration sounds like a good start," Blair sidestepped, diving back into her eggs and ignoring the chuckling man beside her.

She was hesitant for a lot of reasons, not the least of which was she didn't really know Ezra that well. Sure, they'd had a good night together, and he seemed decent enough... but she'd dated Ryan for over 3 years, and if someone had asked if she thought he was unsafe she'd have answered 'no' without hesitating.

The idea of moving in with a strange man she didn't know wasn't appealing. She thought she'd have time to get to know him before doing something that drastic. He only had to introduce her as his fiancé by the deadline for his grandfather - she thought she'd have time before they actually got married and moved in together to make sure he wasn't a lunatic.

The contract didn't even technically start until they were married, which was one of the reasons she'd already signed it - she figured if she needed to disappear before they said 'I do' then the entire thing would be null anyway.

Living together complicated things.

Ezra, putting his phone down, looked at Blair suddenly as if he was following along with her thoughts.

"You know," he said suddenly, frowning as if things had just clicked for him, "We could get two places... live as neighbors rather than together."

Blair put her fork down slowly, looking at him seriously for a moment.

"I would probably be way more open to that," she admitted seriously, studying him to see his reaction.

"I'm sorry, Blair," he sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose, "I really didn't think that through very well. I apologize."

"You were thinking in terms of efficiency," she said, shaking her head, "It would be more efficient, it's just-"

"No," he interrupted, shaking his head, "You're right. I'll look for places that are separate residences, but are side by side - both will meet your requirements. We'll be neighbors, at most, until we're married."

Neighbors until we're married... that's not a weird statement at all, Blair mused internally.

"Thank you, Ezra," Blair said softly, smiling apologetically, "That... I can work with that."

He nodded, turning to his phone and typing quickly - likely re-directing Blaise's attention.

Blair couldn't help but feeling a warmth of appreciation in her chest as he focused intently on his phone, clearly taking her comfort and need for space seriously now that he understood a bit better.

Funny enough, the effort he put in to make sure they'd have separate residences made her feel just a bit more comfortable with the idea of eventually living with him.

Someday, she thought internally, turning back to her breakfast with a smirk.

--

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