Title: Coffee Dates
Summary: Saturday, Coffee and Stella sequel.
Disclaimer: Not mine
Warning: None.
Author's note: SCAS was motivated by quality fics for the Rayella fandom, this fic was for an awesome reviewer, LMIH was for too much coffee, too much heat and lack of sleep and I was just thinking, what'll be the next motivator? A walking worm?
Chapter 1
Friendship and Breakups
By yorin
From: Queen of the Losers
Starbucks. Move your ass. It's your turn now.
What it really all comes down to is that Stella Yamada has ruined his life.
There had been a time when Ray Beech doesn't bow to anyone in Mesa High they bow to him instead, begging for his attention, his recognition, his acknowledgement. Anybody that occupies the place below the social ladder treated him with admiration and fear. He was their king, their god. They worshipped him, pampered him and tolerated his antics.
And then she came, hot and fire.
He should have known upon seeing her hair, her mien and her shirt. But he was kind of distracted because that was the day also that Ray Beech's heart skips a beat. And now, it was already far too late for him by the time he realized what she actually was, he'd already been enchanted like a moth on fire and even now he isn't sure that he wants to escape.
It's clear to him that the lead guitarist on the rival band wasn't just anybody to him now. She's the definition of gravity, pulling unsusceptible person into her. And it was the same, irresistible pull that summoned him back to the tacky establishment that sell artificial and overprice coffee.
He hates how much her presence does to him.
Before Stella Yamada, Ray didn't do pining. Girls fall on his feet. They do the pining, not him, never him. It's kind of sad that even his mother had noticed his odd behavior and confronts him about it. And when she heard the words girl and troublesome, his mom just chuckles and said "Ah! Young love." Ray was mortified.
It's kind of the problem, actually. Because no matter how much he denies it, the truth stills lay in front of him, crystal clear.
Ray is in love. Not liking. Not crushing. But loving.
And when he bypassed the in denial stage, a problem makes itself known to him. He can't stop thinking about her and now that he thinks of it, he never stops thinking about her. See what that guitar goddess did to him; she's turning him into a creepy stalker.
It's not like he's sulking or moping or anything quite as tragic as that. It's not that he's hanging around her under the mistaken impression that she'll noticed him if he did so, Ray isn't nearly as pathetic.
He does love her though; maybe that's the real problem.
And speaking of problem, her band is clearly turning into one, not that they weren't already his problem to begin with. The troublesome band caught on about his and Stella's bizarre friendship and coffee dates, and had been persuading her to put an end to it. Ray smirked at that, foolish idiots, they think they could persuade someone as stubborn as Stella Yamada? They might as well be dreaming. But Ray's mood dampen when he realized that in order to get the rebel's heart, he need to get along with her friends also.
Ray sighed. Great, another obstacle in the way to Stella Yamada's heart.
He finished the last steps to their usual table with those thought in mind.
"You've clearly mistaken, Yamada, it's your turn now."
Stella lets out a snort as Ray drops into the chair opposite her, grinning while pointing on the coffee that lies in front of Ray that clearly suggest she was just pulling his leg with her text. Her grin that looks like a cat that eats the canary and all of his relatives didn't deny his observation.
"Well, hello to you too." She drawls.
"I take it that you had a good day?" he drinks the coffee, reminding himself that kissing those delicious grinning lips is still unacceptable and might earn him a black eye from the spitfire.
"Charlie got a girlfriend," Stella sing songs, grin turning into a maniacal laughter.
"And you're happy because?" Ray replies, popping the lid off of his coffee to let it cool before a horrible thought crosses his mind. "Don't tell me you're the girlfriend?" And when that comes out with a pleading tone, Ray blames it on the coffee's hot temperature.
"Eeeww. Stop that thought." Stella kicks his shin. "That's like incest, I treat him like a brother, you know."
"That's domestic abused, woman." Ray couldn't stop the grin the forms on his lips after hearing those words, happy at the thought that a rival had been eliminated. "You haven't answered my question, yet. Why are you so happy?"
Stella very much looks like she wants to laugh for a moment, her lips twitching helplessly before she shakes it off and gives Ray a meaningful look as she says, "It's Charlie and Mo now not Scott and Mo."
Ha, so karma does exist.
"Caught him cheating again?"
"Nope." Stella. "Actually, it was Scott who called it off."
"Ah." That doesn't make sense. When she starts to open her mouth to explain the details, Ray intervenes. "No. Don't tell me the horrid details, I'm sure that Jules and Patty know this already, at least we'll have an interesting conversation on Monday."
"And you trust them to have the true details?" A challenging smirk appears on her lips which Ray found so irresistible.
"That makes it more interesting."He answers her with his own brand of smirk. "They'll probably hear thirty versions of it each one is more ridiculous than the other. Those versions would entertain me in school assembly."
Her answering chuckles reverberated in the room. "I didn't peg you to be a gossip."
Ray scowls at that, presumptuous woman, and grabs the cookies Stella had on her plate, a retaliation of her accusation on him being a gossip.
"It's not gossip Stella." Loving the way her name rolls in his tongue. "Now that Scott and Mo broke up, there's a big chance that Scott would sit in our bunch and hear himself those thirty versions."
"Ray," she says slowly, and if Ray likes the way her names sounds when he says it, there's no word he could explain what he felt when she says his. "Is this your way of punishing him for helping us in Rising Star and joining our band?"
He raised an eyebrow at her. Well duh, and the cold shoulder of course.
She shifted on her seat. Her look of amusement was gone replaced by something akin to a thoughtful look. "He's a good friend you know, despite being a crappy boyfriend to Mo."
Ray knows that. He and Scott had been best friends since they share that sandbox he's been hogging in kindergarten. And for that best friend to turn his back on him, Ray deems it betrayal.
"Oh, come on don't give me that look Stella. He's the one who bail on us."
"That's because you made him go." Stella persists, eyes flashing with determination, the one she always wears when she find another cause that needs to be heard. "Come on Ray. You really want to let a decade of friendship go?"
When it is clear that she won't get a positive answer, Stella probes on.
"I've caught him too many times looking in your table when he thought nobody's looking. He really, really, really misses you guys."
"Probably bored by your band's lameness." He scoffs. Ray didn't budge in his seat. His and Scott's friendship is still a sore spot to him. Scott's the one who bails on him, so he should also be the one asking for forgiveness, traitor that he is. "What's it to you know anyway? You've got another member out of it."
"Ray." It's her can-you-stop-acting-like-a-petulant kid tone. "He's clearly upset with the break up. It's not like he makes it a hobby to let another boy get his girlfriend because he knows deep down that the two are meant to be."
He snorts. Figures. Nobody could miss the lovesick looks the drummer give to Mo, or the way the half Indian gets upset every time a girl get too close to the drummer for comfort. "Just give him an award, like 'the best martyr of the year'. Why bother me with it."
"That's because you're his friend and he needs you now."
"What?" He crosses his arms. "You want me to act all friendly on him just because his crying his eyes out for a girl that he let go on his own will?"
She scoffs. "No. But I want you to talk to him. Patch things up between you two. He needs a friend that isn't Mo's friend."
"Not gonna happen." He replies stiffly.
"Yes you will." Stella grunts back indignantly before taking a long sip of her coffee while looking at him meaningfully over the rim. And Ray should really accept by now that when it comes to this girl just expects the unexpected.
Just ask him, he knows. That's why half an hour later he found himself sitting in front of an amuse Scott, which Stella describes as sulking, moping, pathetic, pitiful and just so sad that is unbecoming to a jock and former member of Mudslide Crush and add a pinch of her puppy dog eyes that has Ray saying yes, that he realizes how clearly he'd forgotten that Mesa High's guitar goddess can be devious at times.
Ray had a nagging suspicion that she probably planned this outing even before he steps inside this tacky establishment.
It also doesn't help when a chuckling Scott says. "Dude! You haven't made the move yet and she already has your balls."
That witch's going to pay.
TBC
And to my awesome first three reviewers in SCAS…
angeleyes456: Four words. Thank you so Much
Its Ella Inspired (Ella Lavender): Haha. To those pansy princes, Stella won't just swallow them; they would also look pathetic next to her awesomeness.
DramaQueen127:Thank you, for as you said it, for not just liking my stories but for loving them. And just to tell you, you're the one who inspires me to write this just like how Ella Lavender's prolific and splendid writing motivates SCAS.
And to sue who review LMIH: Thank you!
For the next chapter:
Stella has a feeling that this Sunday won't be a walk in the park. Seriously, having a shade wearing Ray Beech in your front door proves that.
"I know you're not use to having man as good looking as me graces your presence Stella." Ray drawls, looking too smug for somebody who's not in his own turf. "But seriously, keep your mouth close or you might catch flies in it."
"W-What are you doing here?" Stella's still not sure if she's dreaming this or not.
"Collecting my payback for what you did last night."
Another author's note: Update wouldn't be that fast because I'm having a summer class enrollment next week and the actual classes after that. But I'll try my best to update as soon as possible. College life suck.
