A/N: Just something that popped into my head after reading too many Rory/Logan Gilmore Girls fanfictions, and it wouldn't leave me alone. I know the whole "Aria and Ezra being friends since childhood" storyline has turned up multiple times in other stories, but I'll try my best to make this different.
I don't see this being very long, maybe a three-shot max, but, we'll see where this takes us.
If you like it, please review. It always makes my day reading your reviews. Enjoy! (:
- J

Disclaimer: I own nothing except the words.

"No strings."

"Excuse me?"

Aria Montgomery placed her hands on Ezra Fitz's chest, forcefully pushing him backwards away from her. She tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear and crossed her arms, glaring at him through narrowed eyes.

"If we're going to do this, there's not going to be any strings," Ezra repeated, mimicking her movements and crossing his own arms across his chest. He knew this was going to end up getting a reaction out of her. It didn't surprise him in the least bit, considering he had known Aria since she was seven years old.

Ezra was eleven and he had just arrived in Rosewood from New York City with his parents and his younger brother Wesley when Aria very literally, on a pink bike with silver streamers hanging off the handlebars, rode into his life. He remembered seeing Alison, ever the Queen Bee, leading the pack on her own bike, with Emily and Hanna behind her, Spencer and Aria pulling up the back. He had rolled his eyes as Alison led them up his driveway and hopped off, extending her hand and introducing herself and the rest of the girls. While his parents spoke to Alison, no doubt impressed by her assertiveness, and his brother spoke to Emily, Hanna and Spencer (he had heard Spencer provoke him with a challenge to race, and he had said something about how once his bike was out of the U-Haul, he would race them and prove that she was wrong, that girls were slow and could never beat boys), he had quickly taken to the quiet girl who had opted out of conversations and instead had settled herself on the curb of their street, reading a book by herself.

He had plopped down next to her and snuck a peek at what she was reading, The Giver, and let out a whistle. "You're reading The Giver? But you're, like, six!" he had exclaimed, much to her chagrin.

"I'm seven and a half, thank you very much!" she huffed, turning back to her book.

Ezra snorted, "Sorry I was wrong. I mean, it's not my fault. You're so little." Aria turned to him and glared, obviously unhappy that he was invading her reading time and insulting her at the same time. "It's just that I'm eleven, and that book's on my list of required reading for this summer," he continued. "I just finished it. Isn't it crazy when-"

"Don't spoil it for me!" Aria screeched at the exact moment the rest of the girls arrived, obviously done meeting the new neighbors. She narrowed her eyes at him and got back on her bike, quickly riding away from him. It was in that moment that Ezra Fitz knew him and Aria Montgomery, that precocious seven and a half year old, were going to get along just fine.

"Ezraaaaaa? Hello? Anyone there?" Aria asked, waving her hand in front of his face. She watched as he blinked a few times, returning back from wherever it was he had gone off to. She bit her lip in an attempt to keep from laughing, determined to prove to him that she could stay mad at him for more than twenty seconds.

"Sorry, where were we?" he asked, clearing his throat and finding his voice.

"You said we weren't going to have any strings. What does that even mean?!" she asked, throwing her hands up in the air. She let out a groan of frustration before turning away from from him and sinking down onto his couch, the one he had taken from his parents home when he had moved out and into his apartment for college.

He knew that when she was angry, she was furious, so he knew better than to approach her right away. "It means you're free to see whomever you want, and I'm free to see whomever I want." His matter-of-fact tone made her want to punch him.

"I know what it means to not have any strings," she spat. "But what does it mean that you want to be 'stringless'?" She dropped her head into her hands, "Am I not enough for you? That you have to see someone else, too?" she asked quietly.

"No, of course not," Ezra said, taking a seat next to her on his couch, just as he had done so many times before.

"Are they still in there?" thirteen year old Aria asked with a roll of her eyes, tucking her legs under her and pulling a blanket over her legs. "They've been talking for hours. You think they'd run out of things to talk about after spending all day with each other at work."

"Aria, they're all at Hollis to work. Our parents are professors with students to teach. It's not as if they're just having fun and partying it up over there," Ezra said with a laugh. "Besides, you should be used to this by now. You know our parents do this every week at dinner."

"Whatever," Aria replied with another eye roll, her new favorite move to do since she had turned thirteen and could now be officially considered a 'teen'. "What movie is it tonight?"

"You choose, I'll go make popcorn," Ezra said before disappearing into the kitchen. Aria reached for the remote and started flipping through the channels, finally coming across a movie she wanted to watch.

"Again? We watched this last week!" Ezra moaned when he returned to his living room, dropping onto the couch next to Aria and placing the bowl carefully on his lap before reaching for the remote.

Aria swatted his hand away, "You said I could choose the movie, and I choose this one," she said with an air of finality, reaching into the bowl for a handful of popcorn.

Ezra sighed in resignation and leaned back into the couch, "Fine." He saw a smile of triumph play on Aria's lips, and she pulled the blanket higher over her shoulder, leaving one hand free to grab more popcorn, of course, and snuggled into Ezra's side, leaning her head onto his shoulder. And that was the position their parents had found them in every night, once a week after dinner, over the course of the last five years and for the next five years afterwards.

"I can't do this right now," Aria said, abruptly standing up. She grabbed her purse and jacket and headed for the door. "I'll talk to you later," she said, not even bothering to turn and acknowledge him. Aria opened the door and slammed it shut behind her, leaving Ezra on the couch with a cold space next to him where she used to be.

He mentally cursed himself for being so stupid, so idiotic for suggesting a "no strings" kind of relationship when, in reality, all he really wanted was to finally be able to call his best friend his girlfriend. He picked up a pillow and threw it against the wall in frustration before throwing his head backwards against the couch. He really screwed up this time.