Hey guys! So just a quick author's note I would just like to say thank you so very much to everyone who has read and reviewed this story. Every review means so much to me and really keeps me encouraged to write this. If you have any comments, questions, or constructive criticism feel free to message me. :) ~Heather
"Great job in class today guys, I really enjoyed hearing your opinions on the book so far. No homework this weekend, just make sure you have read up to chapter six because there will be a test on chapters one through six on Monday when you get back from the weekend," Ezra was standing in front of the room, addressing the entire class. Today's discussion had to do with symbolism in "To Kill A Mockingbird" and Ezra had been completely engrossed in the topic. He had a true passion for teaching, anyone could tell. Aria loved when he got so excited about a topic, she found it adorable the way he used his entire body in animated movements to express how he felt. When he really got into a discussion, his eyes would light up and the energy in the entire room would change. She realized that passionate Ezra was quite a turn on. She couldn't help but stare at him. Good thing he was at the front of the classroom and not right by her desk because self control didn't seem to be one of her strong suits at the moment. Ezra glanced up at the clock before continuing his speech, "well, it looks as though we still have about ten minutes until dismissal so if you guys just want to relax, that's perfectly okay as long as you keep the volume down," Ezra went behind his desk and started packing up his bag and stealing quick glances at Aria who would smile back at him.
"Mr. Fitz?" they quickly looked away to the sound of a students voice. Ezra looked toward the direction of the voice and saw that Beth Lanners had her hand raised.
"Umm yeah Beth, what can I do for you?"
"Well, a friend and I are reading some original poetry down at the Rosewood grill on Saturday and I was wondering if you would be interested in seeing it?"
"Oh,well I'd love to but it's my girlfriend and my anniversary on Saturday so I'm taking her to see a Broadway show and we're spending the night in New York City, so I'm actually pretty busy this weekend," a chorus of "awwww"s came from all the girls in the class. at Ezra mentioning girlfriend, he had all the attention from every single female in the room. Aria smiled to herself, even though she definitely thought of Ezra as her boyfriend and herself as his girlfriend, it was rare that they actually used those titles for each other. At least twenty girls hands had shot in the air. Ezra looked alarm, this was the most class participation one of his 'discussions' had ever gotten.
"Mr. Fitz, what's your girlfriend's name?"
"What's your girlfriend like?"
"Is your girlfriend a teacher too?"
"Mr. Fitz, how did you meet?'
"Do you have any pictures of her?"
Questions were shouted from all over the room and with each new question Ezra looked a bit more flustered. How was he going to get out of this? His eyes darted over to Aria's quickly, clearly conveying the message "help". Aria smiled ruefully and shrugged answering his plea for help with a "well?".
"I'm not going to tell you her name because I don't want you googling her or anything," Ezra began, answering the girls questions so that they would shut up, "She's extremely talented and creative, she like art a lot and she likes to write. She's very spontaneous and romantic and really quite adorable at times. She's also very ... short," Aria couldn't stop the laugh that escaped her throat. Aria had mentioned several times to Ezra that her neck would get sore from having to strain it up so far to kiss him. He would always suggest that they could move to a more horizontal location, after giving an exaggerated eye roll, Aria would gladly agree. Aria could tell by the way Ezra cheeks started to blush a bit, that he was remembering the same thing as her. Spencer looked back at Aria and raised an eyebrow questioningly. If anyone else had noticed her laugh they weren't showing any signs of it.
"Show us a picture!"
"What does she look like?" and similar requests were shouted from all different sides of the room.
"Umm, that may not be such a great idea," Ezra began.
"Aria," Aria turned around and saw Emily gesturing at her to lean in.
"What?" Aria whispered quietly, still staring amused at Ezra.
"Are there pictures?" She whispered back worriedly.
"Of what?"
"You and Mr. Fitz!"
"Ezra," Aria corrected, a bit annoyed, "and yeah, we have pictures but they're not really of anything. There's nothing that could really identify either of us,"
"That must suck," Emily sighed, "just be safe,"
"Ugh we're nothing but safe," Aria muttered as she focused her attention back on Ezra who seemed to be creating just a bigger and bigger mess of the situation and being extremely adorable while doing it.
"It's not those kinds of photos, we don't do that! Take photos, I mean. I mean we do take like pictures but there not of that stuff. Not because we don't do that stuff-"
"Mr. Fitz!" Aria interrupted loudly and glared at him. She wasn't really mad, but discussing how far Ezra and her had gotten in front of the entire class was not something she really wanted to do, even though 90% of the class didn't know it was about her. Also, Ezra looked completely desperate to end this discussion. Ezra turned and met her angry look and immediately looked extremely guilty.
"Um, yes, Aria?" he asked formally with just a hint of fear in his voice as if he thought Aria would yell at him in the middle of class. Aria realized that she now had to ask him a question. She quickly tried to think something to say.
"Um, well, I was just wondering," Aria began slowly, playing with her bracelets nervously, "umm, where did you get your tie?"
"Excuse me?" he asked in disbelief, his previous anxiety, now gone.
"Your tie, it's very nice. Where did you get it?" she asked awkwardly. many of the students seemed very confused in the sudden change of topic. Hanna was shooting her a "What the hell are you on?" look. Aria had to admit she was a bit confused too. She had to ask Ezra something and the thing about the tie was the first thing that came to mind.
"Umm I think it's from Men's Wearhouse," Ezra said looking down at his tie and playing with the end, "I'm not quite sure, my mom gave it to me," he finished sheepishly, a small grin spreading across his face as the rest of the class chuckled. A small blush crept up to his ears and he looked down at his shoes. He was so cute, he was ungodly attractive. Aria realized, without much surprise, that embarrassed Ezra was also a turn on.
Aria stood by her bed staring down at her empty suitcase contemplating. It really shouldn't matter what she packed, it's just that whenever Aria would put something into her bag she would automatically take it back out coming up with a reason against bringing it. Too heavy, too fancy, too revealing, not revealing enough, over thinking would be the death of her. After spending twenty minutes doing nothing but staring at pairs of leggings and stressing herself out, she gave up and just texted Ezra.
Hey, what do I need to pack for this weekend?
Once the text sent she flopped back on her bed and waited for his reply. Hanna's words from the past night kept echoing in her mind. As long as you pack some cute underwear, there shouldn't be a problem. Aria didn't really own any lingerie, so that option was out. She was being irrational, Ezra has seen her in underwear that she didn't really consider to be sexual whatsoever, so why should it matter now? A high beeping tone alerted Aria that Ezra had replied to her text.
:) hi. and I don't know. A dress. Something fancy.
Aria smiled as she read the text. She loved dressing up for Ezra. She would spend hours getting ready for him just to see the look on his face when she was done.
You got it :) Anything else? ;)
She replied back to him. She set her phone down on her bed and headed to her closet to look for a dress. Her search was interrupted by her phone going off again. She quickly sat back down on her bed and opened the text from Ezra.
What are you offering? ;)
Anything you want.
Aria paused before hitting send on her next message, realizing the double meaning in her words. Before she could psych herself out, she hit send. She wondered if he would get the double meaning in her text. She sat on her bed with her phone in her lap anxiously waiting for his reply. She kept checking her phone every few seconds even though she knew he hadn't texted back yet. When the text tone went off, she quickly opened his message and was reading it before the short ringtone had finished.
...something sexy?
Looking down at the phone she began to smile. She couldn't tell if Ezra was just flirting with her and joking around or if he really wanted her to bring something sexy. Well, regardless he would definitely want her to bring something sexy, he was a guy after all. Her phone beeped again.
Is that okay?
I said anything you wanted Ezra. I'll see what I can do ;)
Aria smiled slowly to herself and hugged the phone close to her chest as if she could virtually hug Ezra. The fact that he asked, killed her. He was so incredibly caring and adorable. She just wanted, more than anything in the world, to be with him right now.
Hahaha you're amazing. Can I call you?
Of course. Please do :)
Seconds later her phone began to ring. Aria picked up on the first ring.
"Hello honey," she said teasingly into the phone as she flopped down onto her bed. Her reply was the sound of Ezra's laughter.
"Hahaha hey, so I'm super excited for the trip this weekend,"
"I can tell, you won't shut up about it," she retorted playfully
"What? Are you not excited?"
"I'm crazy excited! It's all I thought about today. That doesn't mean I'm going to announce the whole thing to the entire class," Aria teasingly accused.
"Yeahhhh, I'm really, really sorry about that. That brought up some really awkward moments," Ezra said apologetically, "if I had known they would have been so interested in my love life I wouldn't have brought it up,"
"They're just jealous. You are quite the desirable teacher, Mr. Fitz," Aria said in a flirting manner.
"Hahaha oh really?" Ezra said, playing along.
"Oh, absolutely. In fact, if I wasn't already madly in love with my devilishly handsome boyfriend, I would definitely go out with you,"
"But alas, you have a boyfriend!" Ezra declared with dramatic sadness, "will you tell me about this lad, he must be something special to get such a fair maidan as yourself," Aria couldn't control her laughter. Just last week, Ezra and her had snuggled up on his couch to watch the 1976 film version of Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare and one of the actors had the worst accent. It was a guttural mix of Scottish and cockney English. Ever since then Ezra would try to imitate the accent always producing a huge laugh from Aria.
"Hahaha well, let's see. He's very charming and passionate. He's quite funny. Oh, and He's very handsome and caring. He makes me so happy and he's just ... amazing," Aria paused before continuing on seriously, "and I'm very much in love with him," They both stayed quiet on the phone for a few moments until Ezra softly cleared his throat.
"I wish you were here," he said quietly.
"I will be tomorrow, we can spend the entire day together," Aria started smiling just from the thought, "oh! And another thing about my boyfriend, he's very tall," she said jokingly, remembering his short comment from class today. Ezra started laughing.
"Haha sorry about that!"
"Glad to know that "short" is one of the first adjectives that comes to mind when thinking of me!" both Aria and Ezra began to laugh.
"I wasn't going to say "short", I was going to say something else but I didn't think it would be appropriate!" Ezra defended while laughing.
"Not appropriate?" Aria asked in disbelief, "Ezra, you were practically discussing our sex life in front of the entire class!"
"Really sorry... again. I feel like I've been apologizing a lot in the past minutes,"
"Just tell me what you were going to say about me and you'll be completely forgiven,"
"What?" he asked confused.
"You said you were going to say something else instead of short, what were you going to say?"
"Just... I...," he started nervously. Aria began to wonder if what he was going to say was something negative.
"Ezra?"
"I was going to say that you're quite sexy," Ezra said quietly.
"You... think I'm sexy," Aria stated while smiling. She could practically feel Ezra blush through the phone, "well, let the record show that I find you very sexy too," she said quietly.
"Good to know," he replied, amused. Very good to know, Aria thought. Ever since yesterday at Spencer's when she finally decided that it was time for Ezra and her to take the next big step in there relationship, she couldnt stop thinking about it. So many questions raced through her mind. When would it happen? What would it be like? and also Who brings the condoms? She knew that usually it was suppoused to be the guy, but Aria had never really talked to Ezra about it, or about having sex at all. Well, recently. Both of them had brought it up before but each of them had decided to wait.
"Hey, um, can I ask you something?" Aria asked her voice sounding timid even to herself.
"Yeah, sure. Aria, is everything okay?" Ezra asked automatically going in to worried mode.
"Everything's fine. I was just wondering, umm," Aria paused for a second, debating whether or not to ask her question, "are you bringing c-"
"Aria?" she heard her mother yell followed by a set of foot steps heading up the stairs, making it unable for her to finish her question.
"Crap, my mom's coming. Bye, I love you, can't wait for tomorrow," Aria whispered hurridly into the phone. Her parents still didn't know about her realtionship with Ezra and she wanted to keep it that way as long as possible.
"Wait! Aria, am I bringing what?" Ezra asked quickly as Aria's mom pushed her bedroom door open. Aria quickly sat up on her bed.
"Haha yeah, Spence. Okay I'll come over at like ten in the morning. See ya then," Aria said loudly and shut her phone, disconnecting the call with Ezra. She felt guilty whenever she had to end a conversation with Ezra in that manner, but he understood.
"Hey sweetie, lights out, it's getting late," Ella said poking her head through the door.
"Okay mom," Aria said compliently and went to pull out her pajamas and other tasks of her nightime ritiual until her mother left her door side. As soon as Ella had left Aria went pack to the frustrating task of packing. After practically shoving her entire wardrobe into her small suitcase, Aria decided that that would have to do. She would just ask Spencer for advice when she got to her house. Tired, Aria quickly changed into her pajamas and slid underneath the covers of her bed, turning off her bedside lamp as she did so. Tomorrow, she thought happily, a smile playing on her lips. She closed her eyes and within an instant she was sound asleep, a smile still etched in her sleeping features.