Can we aim for at least 10 reviews per chapter? Please? I hate begging for reviews, but I don't see a point in writing if people aren't enjoying my stories. Thank you HarrylovesGinny09, SolitudeMyLove, MzPink4, .dreamers, msbookworm93, lalala17, betheeheartsPLL, and crazyatbest for your reviews!
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
"Can the girls come with us? Please?" I begged Ezra the next morning over breakfast. He set down a plate of eggs, bacon, hash browns, and toast in front of me.
"Yeah, I guess." He shrugged, as he grabbed silverware for the two of us.
"Hey." I slapped his arm playfully, as he sat down next to me and started eating from his plate. "They're not that bad, are they?"
He immediately smiled at me. "Spencer and Emily are great, but Hanna… that girl is just something else."
"You think you've got it bad?" I laughed in response, before stuffing a forkful of eggs into my mouth. "You should hear the things she says about us when you're not around. All the jokes about the whole teacher student thing; she thinks that our relationship is… well… how do I say this nicely…" I paused, searching for an appropriate word, but coming up with nothing. "Hot."
"Oh my God." Ezra groaned. I laughed at his embarrassment as I dialed up Spencer's number on my cell phone.
"Hello?" Spencer answered after one ring.
"Hey, can you get Han and Em on the line too?"
She agreed, before putting me on hold. A moment later, Hanna and Emily's voices chimed throughout the phone.
"So what's going on?" Emily asked curiously.
"Well," I hesitated and glanced at Ezra. "Ezra and I were going shopping for the baby today, and we wanted to know if you guys wanted to come?" My statement ended up coming out more as a question than a request.
"Yes!" Hanna rejoiced. "A day out with you and Fitzy? Score!"
Ezra groaned in response to Hanna's comment, which he had obviously overheard.
"Ezra said earlier that he didn't want you to come, Han." I tried containing my laugher, but failed miserably.
"He what?" She yelled as Ezra snatched the phone from my hands and glared at me.
"He would rather it just be Em and Spence!" I shouted into the phone before Ezra got up from the table and walked to the other side of the room so he could talk to Hanna without my interruptions. I was laughing uncontrollably as I watched him struggle to defend himself.
"I didn't say that!" Ezra tried to explain. He put the phone on speaker so I could hear their conversation.
"Fitzy, you're going to pay." Hanna told him. Spencer and Emily were laughing hysterically in the background.
"This is why I did not want her to come." Ezra whispered to me, as he covered the speaker with his hand. "We're still at home and I already feel uncomfortable!"
"I heard that!" Hanna laughed through the other end. "Fitz, the fun is just starting."
"How did she hear that?" He asked in disbelief, before handing the phone back to me. He sat down at the table and started eating his breakfast again, all while watching me talk to Hanna.
"Han, can you please be nice?" I begged as I got up and grabbed two water bottles from the fridge.
"Nope." She replied, as I handed a bottle to Ezra.
"Hey Aria," Spencer said, finally speaking. "Can I bring Toby with us? Will you mind?"
"Do you care?" I whispered to Ezra. He shook his head no in response.
"Yeah, go ahead! Han, you should bring Caleb too, and Em, bring Samara! It'll be fun!"
"Are you sure?" Emily asked reluctantly.
"Yes I'm one hundred percent sure." I said confidently.
They all agreed and we arranged to meet up downtown in an hour.
I sat back down at the table just as Ezra was getting up to put his empty plate into the dishwasher.
"This is going to be an interesting shopping trip." Ezra chuckled as he sat back down beside me.
…PLL…
"There they are!" I grabbed Ezra's hand and led him over to Spencer and Toby, who had just gotten out of Spencer's car.
"Hey guys!" Spencer exclaimed. She ran up to me to give me a hug. With my pregnant belly in the way, it was awkward to say the least.
"Um, hi, ." Toby said skeptically, evidently unsure of what to call Ezra. Hanna, Caleb, Emily, and Samara all came up behind us a moment later.
"Did Spe-" Ezra began, but Spencer cut him off.
"Yeah, we already told them about you guys, just so we could avoid the awkwardness of it all." She said.
"Okay, well that works, I guess." Ezra said slowly. "Could you do me one favor though?"
"What would that be?" Samara asked curiously.
"Call me Ezra. I'm not your teacher anymore." He requested.
"You were never my teacher… but okay!" Samara exclaimed, which earned a laugh from Emily.
As we roamed the streets of downtown Rosewood, Ezra took this shopping trip as an opportunity to get to know Toby and Caleb. I was surprised at how well they all bonded together.
"Ezra fits right in." Spencer turned around to glance at the boys. Ezra and Caleb were laughing at something Toby had said.
"Yeah I know." I agreed. "I'm glad. I was worried it might be weird for them all, since Ezra was once our teacher and he's older… but right now looking at them, you wouldn't even know he was our teacher unless you asked. He still acts like a teenager sometimes."
"Oh my god!" Hanna squealed. "We have to go in here!" I looked to where Hanna was pointing to find myself face to face with a shop that sold baby stuff specifically for newborns.
Hanna, Spencer, Emily, Samara, and I ran inside, with the boys not far behind us. We all went our separate ways as soon as we set foot inside of the store, each of us in search of cute things for my baby.
"Wait!" Hanna yelled, causing all of us to freeze in place.
"Are you having a boy or a girl?" She asked me cryptically.
Ezra laughed at her question and watched me as I struggled to answer her.
"Um.." I looked down at my feet as I felt the heat in my body all rising to my cheeks. "Well, uh-" I tried to say.
"We don't know the sex yet." Ezra told Hanna, saving me.
"How in the world do you expect us to start buying you stuff for your baby if you don't know if it is a boy or a girl?" Hanna asked angrily.
"I'm sure you'll manage, Han." I shrugged.
"Ugh." She huffed in annoyance.
"I didn't want to know the sex. I wanted it to be a surprise!" I admitted. "If it makes you that happy, we will learn it next doctor's appointment. Okay?"
"Thank you!" She smiled. "But since we are here, we should at least start buying some stuff, right?"
"But we do not know if I'm having a boy or a girl." I stated the obvious once again. How in the world did Hanna think we were going to be able to buy stuff for the baby if we did not know the sex?
"We'll buy you the stuff that can be for either a boy or a girl." She clarified as she took hold of Caleb's hand and sauntered off towards the back of the store.
I turned back towards the rest of the group to realize that Spencer and Toby had already strolled off on their own and were already browsing through the large collection of baby shoes. Emily and Samara had disappeared from our view too.
"These are so cute!" I faintly heard Spencer exclaim. "Can we get these and save them for our baby?" She begged Toby.
"Spence, I don't want to have a baby for a long, long, time." Toby chuckled.
"Yeah, me either, but we can keep them in a safe place until then!"
Toby sighed, before giving in. "Fine. But you get to keep them! I'd rather not have to explain to my parents why I have baby shoes sitting in my closet."
"Thank you!" She took Toby's face in her hands and kissed him roughly on the lips.
I laughed as they broke apart a moment later.
"Did you see all that?" I asked Ezra, who was smiling next to me, watching the young couple.
He nodded, before we started strolling hand in hand through the isles.
"Do you still have the ultrasound pictures?" Ezra suddenly asked. He turned to me and stopped walking.
"Um, yeah. They are in my purse." I patted my purse but looked at him in confusion at the random question. "Why?"
"Oh, nothing, Toby just asked me to see them earlier." He led me into the section that had all the cribs and we started examining each one.
"What color should we get?" I asked. "White? Pink? Blue? Brown?"
"You really should have listened to me. Hanna's right, how are we going to buy stuff for the baby if we don't know the sex?" He smirked.
I groaned loudly.
"Wh-what's wrong?" Ezra asked worriedly.
"You guys keep asking me that! It was my mistake, okay? If it will make you all happy, when we get home we can schedule another appointment just to find out the sex!" I said loudly. I was clearly becoming very frustrated, and my pregnancy hormones were not helping the situation.
Ezra wrapped his arms around me and whispered, "Thank you," in my ear.
"Why do you always have to win?" I asked, looking up at him.
"Because I'm me." He winked, before leaning down to softly place a kiss on my lips.
I pulled away from Ezra suddenly and let out a loud gasp.
"Even I felt that." Ezra laughed, as he placed a hand on my stomach, waiting for the baby to kick again.
"What's going on?" Emily and Samara appeared out of nowhere pushing a shopping cart filled with diapers, bottles, and toys.
"The baby's kicking." I smiled.
"Aww!" Samara cooed, as Emily came over to me.
"Can I- Can I feel?" Emily asked nervously.
"Of course, Em." I laughed. She put her hand over my stomach and stood quietly in front of me, waiting for any movement.
"I don't feel anything." She said, her voice full of disappointment.
"Just wait." Ezra put his hand over Emily's on my stomach. Not even three seconds later, Emily finally felt the baby kick again.
"Ezra has the magic touch." Samara laughed.
"I guess I do." Ezra said smugly.
"What's going on?" I heard Spencer's voice ask. I spun around to see Toby pushing a cart filled with so much stuff that I could not identify half of it no matter how hard I tried.
"Oh, Toby." Ezra took my purse from my shoulder and pulled the ultrasound pictures out of it. He handed them to Toby, who begun to look at them with Spencer. They both were clearly in awe at the sight.
Hanna and Caleb came over to us a moment later, with their cart filled with clothes, clothes and more clothes. Typical Hanna.
"Han, what in the world did you pick out? I told you, we don't know even the sex yet."
"Don't you think that a newborn is a little bit young to be wearing Coach shoes?" Spencer held up a tiny pair of Coach gym shoes.
"These socks are cute though." Samara held up a pair of pink socks with lace around the top of the sock.
"Guys, we don't know if I'm having a girl." I reminded them all as I started going through all the stuff in Emily's cart.
"Oh, don't worry, I got boy clothes too." Hanna assured me.
Ezra and I spent the next thirty minutes quickly going through each cart and choosing everything we wanted, and omitting everything we did not.
In the end, Ezra and I managed to get the four carts of baby stuff down to only two.
"Baby's need so much stuff." I complained, as I helped Hanna load stuff onto the register belt.
"Pink bottles?" I picked up the package that I had not seen before and held it up in front of Hanna. "What if I have a boy? Ezra definitely won't let our son drink our of pink bottles!" I exclaimed.
"Aria!" Toby walked over to us. "You need to calm down. If you end up having a boy, you can just return the stuff that are for girls. And if you have a girl, just return the stuff for a boy." Toby said simply.
"But that's so much work…" I groaned as I leaned against the nearby wall and placed a hand over my stomach.
"I think we'll be okay, Aria. The store will let you return items whenever you want. There isn't the usual ninety day return policy." Ezra took my hand in his in an attempt to stop my extensive worrying.
"Take a deep breath, Aria." Toby advised, going through the quick motion along with me.
"Sorry, guys. I don't mean to be all annoying and bossy. It's the pregnancy hormones. They make me crazy."
"You guys have not even seen the half of it." Ezra whispered to Toby and Caleb, who laughed in response.
…PLL…
Emily, Samara, Toby, Spencer, Hanna, and Caleb, all followed Ezra and I home to help us start setting up the nursery. When we arrived at home, it took half an hour until everything was unloaded out of all of the cars.
I was sitting on the steps leading towards the house watching and directing everyone on where to put all of our stuff.
"Where do you want this?" Spencer asked, holding up a box of diapers.
"Um, I'm not exactly sure. Closet in the baby's room or hallway bathroom? For now? What do you think?" I asked, puzzled.
"Closet." Ezra said, as he walked by me and hoisted up a box from the trunk of our car. Ezra, Caleb, and Toby, all slowly lifted up the box that held the crib and hauled it into the house. I could not help but notice how each of their toned muscles strained against the fabric of their shirts. They all came back a moment later to continue lugging items into the house.
"Mhmm, Caleb's morning workouts are definitely coming in handy." Hanna looked at Caleb with a look of deep love in her eyes.
"Toby's been doing all that manual labor for his carpentry job, so that helps too." Spencer added.
I kept quiet because lately, Ezra had stopped his usual morning workouts to spend time with me instead.
Spencer, Emily, Samara, and Hanna, all noticed my silence and were watching me, waiting for me to add in something about Ezra.
"Ezra hasn't had time to go to the gym. He's so protective that he refuses to leave me all alone in that big house in the mornings."
"Then how is he that toned?" Spencer asked, putting her hands on her hips.
I shrugged in response, truly not knowing the answer.
"I know." Hanna said. Her mouth was curled up into an evil smile, meaning she was about to bust a joke, clearly about Ezra and I.
"Obviously," She said, matter-of-factly, "He gets that workout from his nightly sessions with Aria."
My face turned beet red and I turned away from the girls so that they would not be able to see my face. I covered my face with my hands in humiliation.
"What's going on?" Ezra came over to me with Caleb and Toby walking behind him.
Hanna looked at him mischievously.
"Don't even think about it!" I exclaimed at Hanna, fully knowing she was about to crack another joke.
"What?" She asked innocently.
Ezra just shook his head at Hanna; completely knowing she had said something to embarrass me about him and I.
"Who wants lemonade?" I asked, trying to make something other than Ezra and I the topic of our discussion.
A chorus of "me's!" erupted throughout the yard, as I got up and went inside, in search for some lemons.
I know it's still early in the story for this, but I would love it if you guys could start giving me suggestions for baby names for a boy or a girl and your preference of the gender of the baby. I'll make the gender that gets the most "votes" the sex of the baby. Thanks and hope you liked this chapter! Please review with suggestions! Love you all!