OCRP - Ezra

 

For all Ezra knew, Cole was drunk. He was in a tirade when he found Liz at Ezra's place.

"What are you?" Cole snarled. "Taking my girl like this!" His fists were tight, ready for a fight even if he were in his sleep pants and a pizza-stained tee.

Ezra just sighed and shook his head as if it were a mistake even letting him in. Liz was hiding in the bathroom. 

"Look, at this rate, you are no different than that guy she was with back in California," Ezra told him. "She deserves better. Have you really ever been there for her?" Ezra tilted his head with a smirk.

Cole's teeth nashed as he pushed Ezra back. Ezra fought back even if he didn't want to. But he'd didn't think neither were really going to hurt the other. He turned him around and forced him toward the door. "You're no good for anyone. She is just a friend. She's your friend too, which I am starting to doubt at the moment." 

Ezra opened the door, pushing him so hard with a kick that it slammed Cole into the other wall of the hallway. "Go clean up the place. Just leave her alone. Will ya?" Ezra shut the door and snapped the lock.

"You really know how to pick'm, don't you?" Ezra said to Liz when she came.

"It wasn't always this way," she winced. "I've been a wallflower most of my life." She hugged herself. "I have no idea what he saw in me, anyway." 

She plopped down on the couch.

"You've got a lot of good qualities, you know that." He told her as he sat next to her. "Even Delia likes you."

"I'm just a good listener," she told him.

"Just stop it, will you?" Ezra's voice tensed. He knew she felt this was all her fault with Cole, but it wasn't. "I'm glad you're here, even if it was Cole's doing to get you here. You are just too good for him, and he just isn't ready to appreciate that, evidently. I hope you're not thinking of going back," Ezra said she could stay here as long as she liked. 

"It's not that I don't mind paying rent," Liz looked at him out of the corner of her eye.

"What do you mean?" He looked at her blankly.

"We could be roommates," she suggested. They could look into finding a two-bedroom place here. "I noticed it on the bulletin board in the lobby."

Ezra liked that idea. He nursed the corner of his lip to keep from smiling too much.