Then

Chapter 59

Aria's POV:

I walked in and saw Ezra waiting for me at the door.

"Hi." I said as he walked over and kissed me on the cheek.

"Look, it's not to late to ditch this and find a miniature golf course."

"No, I want to meet your family."

"Alright, if you insist."

We walked in and were surrounded by tons of huge beautiful paintings.

"Lyle and Francis Springer." I read across the poster hanging on the wall.

"Ya, My grandparents."

"As in Springer Preservation Fund? As in Springer Endowment for the Arts?"

He nodded. "Guilty."

"Ezra. All this stuff belongs to your family?"

"Ya."

"Your family doesn't have money. Your family has money."

"Look... I should have figured out a way to tell you about this, but it's kind of hard to work into a conversation."

"You were cutting off a lot more than a name when you went from Fitzgerald to Fitz."

"All this stuff used to be in my grandparents house, and the only people that ever saw it were my family and people they paid to clean up after them. And they were fine with that. But I'm not."

"I just thought that you never talked about your family because you didn't want them knowing about me."

"I wasn't keeping you away from my family. I was keeping my family away from you."

I half smiled at him.

"Are you angry?"

"No... No, I don't think so. But I think that you do owe me something for all those Ramen noodles. I think we can negotiate that."

"Hmm... okay." He said and placed a loving kiss on my lips.

Although what we didn't know was his mother was watching us the entire time.

Ezra walked off to talk to some of his mother's distant relatives. I wondered off and looked at a painting filled with ballerinas. It reminded me of when I was little. I dreamed of being a dancer. But then I realized I was kinda on the shorter side so crisis averted.
I felt a tap of my shoulder and I turned around and Ezra's mom was in front of me.

"You looked lonely over here."

"Oh. I'm fine" I took a sip of my drink.

She just smiled and nodded as if she wanted to walk away already.

"These are amazing. Ezra said that they belonged to your mom and dad."

"That's right. He hasn't told you very much about himself, has he?"

"We're still learning."

"Well, you certainly know the dedicated teacher, the struggling writer. You fit right in to that world you get to be the muse." She smiled and poked my shoulder.

"Oh, no, I doubt I'd be that."

"Oh, don't diminish yourself honey you have a very important role in all this."

"It's just me and Ezra don't play roles. With each other."

"Well, I guess not."

"What do your parents think about Ezra?"