Pretty Little Lovers Untamed
Author's Note: I don't like Ezra anymore. The show has seriously ruined him for me. But anyways, this is a chapter where he's good. So there.
Chapter 19
Aria met Ezra for lunch at 12:30 just like she said and she surprised to find herself actually wanting to see him. At least she thought she did. What they used to have, before their break-up, and before her tryst with Spencer, had been nice. It hadn't been explosive, but it had been nice and dependable. And what she'd had with Spencer was not. It WAS explosive. And it had absolutely blown Aria's mind. Honestly, she wasn't all that sure she was ready to handle something so different from what she was used to. Maybe Ezra was boring and normal, but at least she didn't feel afraid when she was with him.
He arrived cleanly shaven, wearing ironed clothes. It was plain to Aria that he was trying to put on a front and make her feel as if he was okay. But she knew him enough to read behind that and see the exhaustion floating in his eyes.
Ezra held the chair out for Aria and she sat down quickly and scooted under the table. They ordered waters and some soup and salad and he told her all about Malcolm. "He's so smart!" he enthused, "Seriously Aria, I think he has a photographic memory. Maggie says that she thinks so too and.."
Aria blinked at him and looked up from her potato soup. "Maggie?"
"That's his mother."
She swallowed. "Oh. Yeah. I guess she would be, wouldn't she." She looked into his face and waited for him to say something but he didn't. So she provided a question, "Will you stay with Maggie then? Raise Malcolm with her?"
Ezra looked her dead in the eyes then and folded his long-fingered hands on the table in between them. "That's what I wanted to talk to you about really. I will be with Maggie unless.." He paused. He wanted Aria to figure out where he was going with that.
"Unless?"
"Unless you give me a reason not to be." He took a drink from his water and she could see that his hands were shaking. "Aria," he said, "I'm still in love with you and I would make it work being Malcolm's father and your boyfriend if you let me. If you wanted me."
She found herself sucking in a breath. She never thought that he'd do this here. Not after what happened. And she hadn't prepared herself for it either.
"Ezra," she reached out and took his hand, squeezing her palm in her fingers. "I don't know if I can do that. I don't know if I can be in your life like that." She searched his face and then said, "I think I have feelings for someone else." She hadn't meant to say that, but then she had anyway. "I'm going to need time to decide."
He eyebrows furrowed but he nodded anyway. "Okay," he turned his hand over and squeezed her fingers in return. "I understand. I will be here when you decide."
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