A/N: Written in response to Best Friends Forever's cancellation for everyone that MUST know what happens with Rav and Jessica after the last episode. Damn you NBC!
Since there's no Category for Best Friends Forever, I had to post it here. Would be grateful if anyone can tell me how to get one made for it. Thanks!
Disclaimer: If Only.
His eyes skim over her like he barely recognises her; like she was one of the hundreds of people that went through his bar every week,
like she wasn't one of his best friends,
like they hadn't just kissed four months ago.
He's still mad at her.
Four months have passed.
She's still confused.
"What can I get you?" he asks casually and her gut from clenches the coldness in his voice.
She croaks out an order and an unnatural smile freezes on her face, "Naya! You're back too..." she screeches as the other woman comes down the stairs.
She sees him freeze momentarily and then place her order in front of her.
She takes it back to their table and watches as he reaches down to kiss Naya. She wants to look away but she can't.
When his eyes find her she feels like a thief, as if she shouldn't have been witnessing that intimate moment between them. As if she wished she could steal it for herself.
Their eyes meet and he feels like a fraud. He shouldn't be doing this in front of her but part of him wants to hurt her; like she had done to him again and again.
He pulls away from Nya and she tells him to meet her upstairs. He quickly scans the bar and follows her. It's just sex after all.
He wonders if he should feel empty but he doesn't, he feels good and content and satiated.
Naya is amazing and he deserves to be happy.
He tells himself it isn't wrong because he isn't cheating on anyone but he is. He cheats every time he imagines his face buried in a blonde head of hair instead of brown.
"I love you." Naya whispers into his neck.
He pretends to be asleep.
"What are you doing here?" she gasps.
Peter is standing at her door.
It's almost a year to the day that he sent her divorce papers.
"Jess, I needed to see you."
"Peter, you need to leave," Lennon says from behind her but she stops her best friend. She wants to hear what he has to say.
They stand outside as he explains. He misses her, He loves her, and he wants her back.
He apologises for short bangs and she feels tears prickling in the corners of her eyes. She had waited for that for so long.
Then suddenly he is in front of her and she is in his arms and his lips are moving against hers.
This was Peter and he was as capable as ever of devastating her but she lets him because for a minute she doesn't feel so desperately lonely anymore.
Joe tells him Peter is here.
His hand instinctively curls up into a fist because he knows what's coming.
He knows he'll lose her again.
The next day she's standing in front of him at the bar. She's had a fight with Lennon and her eyes are red and swollen but he turns away.
"I'm not a dumb baby anymore!" she says suddenly.
"What?"
"About Peter..."
"What are you talking about Jessica?"
"I'm not going to go back to him. I sent him away."
"You always go back Jessica, that's how it works, so just do it now and save us all some time."
"Rav..."
"Stop it Jessica, stop acting like it matters to you what any of us thinks. If you want to go back to him, just do it but stop pretending," He snapped.
She looked so helpless he almost felt bad. Almost. If she went back to Peter, it would be her own fault. It didn't stop his heart from hurting any less though.
"Why doesn't anybody believe me?"
Because you slept with Peter he wants to say but he doesn't.
He laughs out aloud instead and she flinches and it makes him a little bit happy.
"Because Jessica, you stopped talking to one of your oldest friends for three years but you refused to believe that a man you had met months before was cheating on you at your own wedding."
She looks ashamed and tears now fall freely from her eyes.
His gut twists but he stays rooted to his spot.
"Wait!" Rav calls out behind her.
They're outside the bar and it's uncharacteristically quiet.
"I'll drive you home."
"No it's fine," she objects but he's already pushing her into his truck.
"Why did you come here?" He asks as he drives the few blocks to her apartment.
She shrugs. She had an argument with Lennon and then she's standing outside his bar, unsure how she even got there.
"I just wanted you to know."
He nods but stays silent.
They've been outside her apartment for 20 minutes now.
She doesn't say anything.
Neither does he.
"Rav..." she starts but his mouth covers hers all of a sudden.
And her head is spinning because it feels so damn right even though his beard is burning her cheek and her lips are raw and she can't breathe.
So damn right.
She wonders briefly if he made Naya feel the same and suddenly the moment is lost.
Naya.
"Stop..." she pushes him away.
He looks stung and moves to the other side of his truck. She moves away too, backwards, holding onto the handle on the door behind her but she can't bring herself to leave.
"You can't keep doing this to me Jessica." He says tiredly.
It breaks her heart.
"I won't be short bangs." She explains
He shakes his head, "You're not short bangs." He says brushing her hair away from her face.
His hand rests on her neck and her resolve almost weakens.
But she knows better.
She opens the door and steps out.
It's lazy Sunday and he brings Naya.
Not on purpose, but she leaves for Brazil in two days and he's taking the cowards route out.
Things are still tense between Jessica and Lennon, he can tell because Jessica's stuffing a fist full of gummy worms in her mouth and sulking.
It makes him smile but he catches himself before it breaks into a grin.
Stop it, he tells himself but he can't because she frowns when she spots Naya and he's glad that she's jealous.
It's unfair to Naya, he knows it but he's waited ten years for this.
Ten years.
Naya's hanging on his arm and she feels as though she's been punched in the stomach.
She throws another gummy worm into her mouth but Queenetta is looking up at her in disapproval.
She just couldn't catch a break.
He spills a beer over himself and she laughs. It's the first Jessica laugh he's heard in a long time.
She's waiting for him when he comes out of the bathroom.
"Joe asked me to give this to you." She hands him a plaid shirt.
It's not really his style but he rips his wet t-shirt off and puts it on.
"Can I speak to you for a minute?" he asks and before she can respond he pulls her into the bathroom.
She yanks her arm away from him but doesn't make a move to leave.
"What are you doing?" she whispers.
"I wanted this for ten years Jessica; you have to have known that. You have to trust me, I'm not Peter."
"You're lying to her..."
To me, he can hear her thinking.
"What do you want me to do? Tell me and I'll do it. Do you want me to break up with her right now?"
"I don't know...I don't know..."
"Then what is this? What are we doing?" he asks pulling her to him.
"I don't know." She says so quietly he almost doesn't hear.
He's frustrated and angry.
He leaves.
She's hacking at the shoulder of pork when Lennon grabs the fork from her hand.
"What's wrong Jessica?"
"Just imagining this pork is Rav's head."
She nods and hands her the fork back.
Naya's been gone a week.
In the end he told her the truth.
It was the right thing. Even after the slap in his face.
He's dusting off Mark Buffalo when she comes in.
Blonde hair, green eyes, yoga pants and all.
"10 years huh?" she asks as he climbs down the ladder.
"10 years."
"Why me? Why not Lennon? Why not someone else?"
She looks baffled and he wants to laugh because she doesn't see it.
She's so beautiful.
She's so funny.
Sometimes she's so god damn infuriating he feels as though he's on fire.
He shrugs.
"Why didn't you ever say anything?"
"You never felt the same way."
"You don't know that..."
"I was there Jess. I saw all those guys you were with and none of them were me and I was there when you met Peter."
"There's no other guy here now."
"No there isn't."
"So what are you going to do about it?"
"What do you want me to do about it?"
"Rav..."
"Do you want me to kiss you?"
She blushes. He's never made her blush before but he likes it.
He reaches forward and presses a kiss to her cheek and feels her smile against his own.
"I still got it!" she whispers.
And just like that he knows ten years was worth the wait.