The apartment was strangely quiet when Lizzy unlocked the door, tired from a long day at the office. She was glad she was able to go home a little earlier, seeing as it was a Friday, and she just wants to drink some wine, take a bath and watch Desperate Housewives for the rest of the evening. She hadn’t called her Dad yet, a tradition on Fridays, let alone Skyped her brother and her nephew Tyler to find out what’s going on along the West Coast.

Todd shouldn’t have been home yet, but it seemed like there’s some sort of unfamiliar presence here, in her own home. She didn’t quite understand it- until she heard someone giggling from the bedroom.

A high pitched, female giggle.

She and Todd had been together for four years, it’s had its ups and downs but the two of them had always come out fighting, whatever the circumstances may have been. She carefully put her briefcase on the floor beside the telephone and tip-toed across the carpeted floor, hearing the noises coming from the bedroom getting louder and louder as she got nearer.

There was a pair of high heels lounging outside of the bathroom door, which was wide open. Red patent leather that certainly didn’t belong to Lizzy, at least that she could remember. She’d done a lot of stupid things drunk- which gave her and Brian even more things in common. In Law School, almost everyone had seen the video of him in Paris, yelling at poor Jason to take the shot- in fact, on one day they'd brought it up on the projector so the whole class could watch it together, and laugh at her drunken idiot of a sibling.

She’d never live that down. But it was one of the reasons she loved him.

Anger flared up inside of Lizzy’s stomach and she kicked the high heels into the bathroom, almost laughing when the heel broke off against the white enamel of the bathtub. She pushed open her bedroom door, to find clothes strewn across the floor, both men and women’s clothes. She didn’t even need to look up to know what was going on.

“What the fuck is this?” she had to fight not to scream as Todd turned over in the bed, naked as the day he was born and stared at her wide eyed. A brunette was trying to hide herself from the woman above her, but it only took one glance at those cheap blonde highlights to know exactly who Todd had been sleeping with.
Her receptionist, Janice.

“Lizzy, wait, you gotta hear me out!” Todd cried as she stormed out, into the spare room where she kept her bags. She grabbed some clothes out of unpacked boxes from moving into Todd’s apartment on the Upper West Side, not caring if half of them were dirty or torn. She grabbed her phone, her wallet, anything she would need where she was going. She’d slowly become detesting the town she’d moved to when she was eighteen, hell she was twenty seven now, and she wanted to go home. Not home here- but that place she’d been homesick about for years now.

“Why should I hear you out? You’re banging my receptionist, that’s just fine! I hope you two are real happy here in NYC, because if you expect to hear from me again, you are out of your fucking mind!” Lizzy shouted, wishing she’d changed into something other than her work suit, the only one she had. She knew where she wanted to go, and hell, she’d just get a cab and have that take her there. No one in New York had a car anyways.

“Where are you going? Liz, why can’t we just talk about this?” Todd asked as she stormed out to the front door, dragging her bag with her. She didn’t have time to talk, not to this ungrateful bastard.
“Because there’s nothing to talk about Todd! This is over- don’t you get it? Goodbye Todd” she whispered and slammed out of the door, almost collapsing in relief as she ran for the elevator.

Her building wasn’t that tall, one of the smallest in Manhattan, and in minutes she was out on the street, arm raised high as she hailed a cab. As one stopped beside her and she slid inside, she grabbed a hundred dollar bill from her wallet and gave it to the cabbie.
“Where to lady?” he asked in a thick Italian accent, one of the many she’d heard from cab drivers in and around the city.

“JFK Airport”

***
On the morning of Saturday, May 26th, Brian Haner Jr as sat in his living room in a pair of ratty pyjama bottoms and no shirt. His son had just beaten him for the fifth time on Call Of Duty and the kid was five years old.
He had to stop leaving him with Matt when he went to pick up Lacey from work.
“Yay I win again! Dad you suck at this game” Tyler cried, throwing down the remote on the couch and leaping onto the floor , running around the coffee table as a type of victory dance. Brian couldn’t understand how he did it, but obviously kids these days could kill things faster than when he was a kid.

“Turn off the game, honey, I made waffles!” Lacey’s voice floated out from the kitchen and Brian was left to turn off the TV as Tyler bounded into the kitchen, intent on getting the best waffles first. When he finally walked in, he found his son with a stack of waffles on his plate, watching intently as syrup fell from the squeezy bottle. Lacey was stood next to the grill, and Brian wrapped his arms around her waist, kissing her neck softly.
“Morning gorgeous” he whispered as he leant his head on her shoulder, staring out into the bright blue ocean that could be seen in the view from their window. It was perfect weather for surfing; he’d have to take Tyler out later.

“Alright, alright, don’t patronize me. You must be the only person in the world who looks as good coming out of bed as they do when they get in” Lacey grinned, turning around and kissing her husband properly. He bit at her lip when she tried to pull away, ignoring the fact that their son was just centimetres away, and pulled her back in for a more passionate kiss. When his lips licked at her’s, she pulled away, shaking her head.

“Much as you’re tempting me, kissing leads to sex, and sex leads to another one of him, and I will only make another one of them in a bedroom, hear me?” she scolded and Brian smirked, biting his lip.
“So you wanna make another one soon?” he asked and she nodded, blushing a little.
“Let’s make this family a little bigger” she replied and kissed him again. Brian turned around, ready to ask his son if he was up for surfing later on, when he noticed he was missing.

“Honey, where’s Tyler?” he asked Lacey, that horrible surge of panic you get when your child has disappeared rising through his stomach. Her eyes widened, and suddenly the two of them heard him yell,
“Mom! Dad! Come quick!”

The two of them ran out of the kitchen to find Tyler stood by the door, which was wide open.
“Look, Daddy she came back!” Tyler said happily as Brian took a step forward. A girl was sleeping on their front porch, her hair bedraggled and what looked like an executive suit all torn up and crinkled. And as the girl opened her dark brown eyes to stare at the family, Brian gasped.

“Lizzy?”