Picture This

Chapter 5

My parents liked to hold a monthly get together with their favorite colleagues, this one was the first one since my mom moved back in so I was trying to make it special and be on my best behavior. It didn't help when I found out dad invited Ezra who I had been avoiding speaking to since the funeral. I couldn't ignore him completely, we are still dating even if no one will ever know, so I stop by Hollis before school to talk to him. When I walk in his office, Jackie, his ex-fiance, is sitting on his desk laughing and playfully touching his shoulder, before he realizes I am there he is laughing along with her and not pushing her away.

"Hey Ezra," I say, walking in and acting like I didn't see her. "Oh, am I interrupting something?" I ask, raising my brow and looking at Ezra who was wide eyed and moving away from Jackie quickly.

"Um no, Jackie and I were just talking about our time in college," he rubs the back of his neck and looks over to Jackie, who was wearing a small black skirt and white tanktop. Not proper attire for a professor. "What do you need, Aria?"

"My father wanted me to talk to you about the party he invited you to, and I'd like you to look over an essay I wrote for my mom's class." I keep my voice calm and anger out of my face as he nods and tell Jackie he'll talk to her later as he ushers her out and closes the door.

"I'm so sorry." He tells me trying to wrap his arms around me but I step out of his reach.

"Are you going tonight or not?" I snap at him.

"I will if you want me to," he replies immediately. "Do you think it'll be a good idea, or will it be too obvious and your parents will find out?" I suck in a breath at that and let it out slowly, looking down and shaking my head before looking back up at Ezra with a nasty glare on my face that makes him stutter a bit. "I mean this could be the baby step you wanted, it'll be nice for them to see us in a mature adult setting and get use to seeing us across the table."

"You and your date?" I remark, pointedly looking at his door.

"I'm not bringing a date. Jackie was just here talking, that's all, I promise." He moves forward and wraps his arms around my torso, kissing my forehead and smiling down at me. "I'll be there tonight, to make up for how I acted at the funeral."

000000000000000

At lunch, I head to my mom's classroom to talk to her about my weekend plans with the girls. I rush in so I have time to eat and start talking before I register who was also in her classroom. "Jason," I say in almost a question, he turns around and smiles a charming smile at me.

"Hey Aria," he replies.

"What are you doing back here?"

"Jason was talking to the counselor about talking to some at risk kids," my mom answers for him, not trying to hide how impressed she was by the man.

He looks over his shoulder at me and shrugs. "Stoners in training like I was," he clarifies. "I just wanted to tell them there is a life after high school."

"Wow," I say walking forward and standing next to him. "That's amazing."

He shrugs off the comment and stands up. "I'll see you all later."

"Yes, we'll see you tonight, Jason." My mom tells him as he heads towards the door.

"Tonight?" I ask in shock.

"I invited Jason to our dinner tonight," she clarifies, but from her expression and Jason's I can tell my shock and slight horror is written clearly on my face, but I cover it up with a smile and nod towards Jason, managing a 'great' as he leaves. Once the door closes behind him my mom asks to make sure I was okay with it and if there was anything wrong between Jason and I, to which I answered all the right questions while I went over all the things that could go wrong tonight with my secret boyfriend and my secret friend under the same roof.