Relationships have never been an easy road for me to navigate. My path with Stella always seemed like a golden paved one way street. We both had the same dream and for the longest time there was no venturing down side streets, no slight curves to the left, no U-turn's of doubt… just the expressway to love with the pedal to the floor. And then one day, Stella took the off-ramp right out of my life. I guess I should have expected it. There had been indicators after all. I mean, how long can you ignore the turn signal when it's constantly blinking in your face? But like many… she went one way and I chose to ignore that she wasn't my co-pilot anymore.
So for a while, I pretended she was just working late. When friends came over, I mentioned she was visiting her parents. When the grocery store clerk wondered about the microwave meals, I told her Stella had a big case and would be gone for a few weeks. I finally stopped telling the lie and accepted the fact that she was gone and wasn't coming back.
Dating became easier with time. I really just wanted a warm, pretty body to keep me company, to save me from being totally lonely. There weren't any feelings behind any of the lines I told… no emotions behind the kisses I stole. I hid behind a smile that said 'Yes, I want to take you to dinner and out for a drink', but deep down, I didn't want anything else. There was no need for any emotional baggage because I had my own to deal with and if we're telling truths here, I'm pretty sure I put up a permanent roadblock to my heart when Stella took the exit ramp.
Becoming Ray Vecchio was just another role, that's what I told myself. It helped me hide Ray Kowalski from the hurts of the world. This way, I didn't lose anything. If things with this lady or that pretty brunette one down in booking didn't work out, and I made sure they wouldn't, she was only hurting the Ray Vecchio in me, not the real me.
Benton Fraser changed all of that when he walked through the doors of the 2-7 precinct and I laid eyes on my partner for the first time. At first, I made mad dashes around the bullpen, trying to pull a date out of all the female employees I could get to say two words to me. Why? To make it look like I was a wanted man. Nobody fell for it and the Mountie saw right through my act, even though he was confused as hell.
Not sure what made me ask him that question in the crypt. Do you find me attractive? Maybe there was something about him that I wanted him to see in me as well. For all the emotional baggage I claimed to not want from any of the women I dated in the past eleven months and thirteen days, I wanted desperately for Benton Fraser to park all of his emotional baggage in my bedroom closet. Maybe, just maybe… we could sort through our baggage together and toss out the things that no longer tied us to another life.
To him, I was Ray Kowalski… he wouldn't let me pretend to be Vecchio. It was at that moment of refusal on his part to accept me as Vecchio that I started to tear down my road block.
Benton Fraser merged gently and deliberately slow onto my one way street and we became a duet…