He's lying in the hotel bed watching Conan when his phone rings. "Hey," he says, trying for casual. He's surprised: Neela doesn't chase after anyone, but especially not after him. "Miss me already?"
"I need you to tell me your room number."
He blinks. "What?"
"I need you to tell me your room number, because I'm downstairs."
Ray sits up a little. When you train in the ER they teach you to talk to patients using "I need"s: I need you to take a deep breath. I need you to tell me what you took. They say you're more likely to get what you're after that way, and you know what? They're right.
Although if he's being honest with himself, it wouldn't have mattered how she asked.
"Fifteen eleven," he says, and hangs up.
He pulls on a pair of sweatpants, turns off the TV. He looks out the window for a minute at the cars rushing by on the street below.
I need.
He's not going to sleep with her. That's why he walked out of her apartment to begin with. It has nothing to do with not wanting to. He just can't.
She knocks three times, hard. It started raining on his way back to the hotel, and her damp hair is sticking to her forehead. "Hi," he says.
"Are you punishing me?"
"Am I what?" He shuts the door behind her. "Neela."
"It would make sense. I was miserable to you. Did you come all the way to Chicago to throw it in my face? To make me think you still wanted--and then just--go?"
"What?" He doesn't know what else to say. He's exhausted. This whole day, the buildup, whatever, has been--exhausting. He wants to sit down on the floor. "No."
"Look, if it's about Simon, I told you, it's not like that with--"
"It's not about Simon." Although for what it's worth, Ray was totally right. That guy is a dick.
"Then what is it about? I just showed up at your hotel uninvited in the middle of the night, Ray. This is not how I operate. You come here and you make me a bloody maniac--"
"I came here to go to a conference!"
"Oh." She shakes her head and he thinks of a flatline. When she speaks again her voice is cold. "All right. Fine. Look, I'm sorry. This was clearly a mistake of unimaginable proportions." She bends down to zip her coat, and he has just blown this faster than he knew it could be blown.
"Neela, don't." He reaches out and grabs her sleeve and when she looks up he sees her eyes have filled. Fuck, he didn't mean to make her cry.
Well, maybe he did a little bit.
What a piece of crap he is.
Ray takes a deep breath. "Neela."
"Don't 'Neela' me," she snaps. "I'm not some girl you met at a bar."
He's getting frustrated. This is exactly what he was trying to avoid. "Then what do you want?"
She doesn't answer. They stare at each other. He doesn't say other girls' names like that, for the record. She's shivering a little beneath her coat.
"Hey," he says. "It's me."
She kisses him suddenly, her fingers skittering like moths at his neck, his jaw. She is so small. He opens his mouth on instinct, his tongue sliding against hers, sucking at her bottom lip. He should stop. He should stop. Instead he lets her back him up against the wall next to the bathroom door. Her coat is dripping and cold against his bare chest, and when he pushes it off her shoulders he finds she's wet down to her shirt. "Did you walk here?" he asks her. From her apartment it would have taken close to an hour.
She nods.
"Why?"
Neela smiles a little. "I thought I'd give myself ample time to chicken out."
"But you didn't." His hands are on her shoulders. They are standing very close. "Chicken out, I mean."
"It would seem not."
He closes his eyes for a second. "Lift your arms up," he says quietly. "Before you freeze."
She does. He pulls her shirt off. Her bra is black and practical and there's no reason for him to think it's as sexy as he does except that she's inside it, steam rising off her damp skin. Ray runs his index finger along the edge of one of the cups. He doesn't know what his breath will sound like, so he doesn't breathe.
He should stop. He promised himself.
Fuck.
She kisses him again and again, their hands at each other's faces, tongues in each other's mouths. She smells cold, like rain. It's different than it was in her apartment. It's not polite. They don't break as they make it further into the room, and when she falls backwards onto the bed she pulls him with her. He opens his eyes and her lips are a little swollen, darker than he remembers. He thinks his lips are probably swollen, too. His thumb skims over her navel, tracing the outline of her ribs beneath her skin. She's the same coppery color as the leaves on the ground outside, as things about to be absorbed back into the earth, about to disappear.
She tussles with him a little, nudges him onto his back and straddles his hips, one arm planted on either side of his head. "What?" she asks, a little out of breath.
"What?"
"You're smiling."
He lifts his hips a little, nods up at her. "Figures, is all."
She laughs. "Are you calling me a dominatrix?"
"I'm calling you something." He tugs her down on top of him, liking the weight of her, how soft she is. He goes for the clasp on her bra and hesitates, kneading his fingers into the place where her shoulder meets her neck. It's pebbled with the same knots he's been aching to work out since they lived together; even at the beginning, he always counted it as a victory when he could get Neela to relax. She's sucking hard at a spot below his clavicle. He thinks she might leave a mark, and he wonders if she wants to.
In the end he leaves the bra alone--he can't explain it, he just, he leaves it alone. She's distracting. She knows exactly what she's doing--that cool British propriety is such bullshit--her short nails scraping softly down his backbone, two of his fingers in her mouth. He's so hard it aches and he knows she can feel him, his hipbones pressed against the insides of her thighs. He wants her with the force of the jet engine that brought him here this morning, and when he slips one hand down into her jeans he can feel that she wants him, too.
Fuck.
He promised himself he wasn't going to do this.
And probably two years ago breaking a promise, especially one to himself, wouldn't have made a difference either way.
But that was two years ago, so.
Goddamnit to hell.
"Neela," he manages, and he doesn't recognize his own voice. He wonders if this might kill him. He's not trying to be melodramatic: he's almost died twice in as many years, and this is sort of what it feels like. "We have to stop." He pulls back a little, rests his forehead against hers. "I have to stop. I can't--I can't."
"You can't?" Her breath is still a little labored, but she sounds nervous, now. He sees her eyes flick down to his lap, then back up.
"I mean, I can," he amends quickly. Jesus Christ. "I just can't right now. With you. Tonight."
Neela shakes her head, like she's trying to clear it. "Why?"
How is he going to explain this to her? How the hell is he going to explain it? "Because I'm an idiot," he says. To start with. "Neela, I just spent the last three years wanting you more than my fucking life and trying to be okay with the idea that I was never going to have you. And trying to be okay with--" he stops, because this isn't about his fucking legs except of course it is--"just, all of it. Trying to be okay. And now you're here and you're amazing but tomorrow I'm going to get on a plane and go home, and you're going to stay at County. And I just--I'm not--we're not--" He stops again, trying to think. "Ready."
"You fucking bastard." She scrambles off him, pulling a knee up to her chest, and she's staring at him with something like hate. "You are punishing me."
"I swear to God I'm not."
"Then what, you've suddenly had an attack of conscience for once in your life?"
Ouch. Ray exhales. "That's mean."
"I know." She rests her forehead on her knee; she is practically curled into a ball. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it how it sounded."
"Sure you did."
"Well, yes, I sort of did."
He laughs, he can't help it, a low rumble in his aching chest. "Hey." He gets as close as she'll let him, running a hand over her shiny hair. "This isn't a one-night thing for me. I've done a lot of one-night things. This isn't...that."
"Well then what is it, Ray?" She raises her head to look at him. Her chin is rubbed red, from before. It would be better if he didn't still love her so much.
"I think it's something else."
"Yeah. It's something else, all right." Neela nods, unfolding herself and climbing off the bed, picking her shirt up off the floor. She looks like a husk, like this day has somehow hollowed her out. He thinks of how happy she was to see him this morning and figures it was only a matter of time. "I'm going to go."
"Don't." It comes out too fast to sound anything but desperate, but there you have it. He looks at her. "Neela. Just stay here, okay?"
She stops. They gaze at each other, and it's like their whole lives are suspended between them. Eventually she nods. "All right."
Back when they were roommates they'd wait up for each other sometimes, if he was working late or she went out with Abby, one of them sitting on the couch with takeout and beer when the tumblers fell in the lock. They never talked about anything serious, just her night or whatever whacked-out case he'd had that day, TV murmuring in the background as he picked the abandoned pizza crusts out of the box. He can't speak for her and maybe it was just the routine of it but Ray at least always slept better after that, some weird frenetic part of him calmed by knowing that they were both at home.
I need.
He pulls back the covers and Neela slides into bed beside him, pressing her cheek against his heart.