As always, thanks for the reviews! sorry it took a while to get another chapter up... :)
Archie heard a hard knock at his door.
"Coming, coming... jeez keep your pants on" he said as he made his way to the door.
When he opened it he was nearly trampled over by Ray ploughing by him into the apartment.
"Oh yah, sure come on in, I wasn't busy or anything" Archie said jokingly smiling at his friend. The smile soon left his lips when Ray turned around and he
saw the expression on that latter's face. He looked upset, like he had something on his mind, possibly angry.
"Oh no... Now what? What is it with you two?" Morris questioned rolling his eyes.
"What is it with us two? You mean what is it with her? She was incorrigible today" Ray spat out while flailing his arms about to add unnecessary emphasis to his statement.
"We had a wonderful night, everything went perfectly... thanks again for all of your help with that by the way... but then just now she went all postal on me and left my head spinning". Ray continued.
"What? You are not making any sense buddy, Oh hold up" Morris held his hand up to pause the conversation as he reached to get his vibrating phone out
of his jeans' pocket.
'Hello... oh heyyyy Neela" he dragged out her name suddenly making weird angry facial expressions at Ray and raising his free arm in the air to Ray for
guidance on what he should say or do.
In response Ray shook his head vehemently in a nodding and mouthing action of "No" towards Archie, signalling for him to get her off of the phone.
"Uhhh... no I haven't heard from him. Sorry, if he calls me I'll tell him you're looking for him... No, he's not here." Morris tried to sound convincing.
"Okay. Bye." He said as he hung up the phone and glared at Ray.
"I didn't like lying to her just now. You better explain yourself and start now" Morris grabbed two beers out of his fridge and passed one to Ray as they sat
down on the couch. "I don't even know where to start... I just told her I didn't want to get all serious and boring today, you know get bogged down with
the details of the future. I said we could discuss it later, she knows I'm here for four more days..." Ray trailed off as he stared at the wall in front of him.
"You said what?!?" Morris raised his eyebrows at Ray who had now turned to face his friend and noticed the shock in his eyes.
"You mean to tell me that you said that to the most methodical, organized, colour-coordinated, 'I plan everything I do a year ahead' woman we know?
And you thought she'd understand that why? Neela isn't exactly a fly by the seat of her pants kind of girl if you know what I mean" Archie said pointing his
bottle of beer towards Ray for emphasis.
"What? Hey she's the one that got married after only one day of planning, remember?" Ray shot back.
"And, we all know how that turned out" Morris said gloomily.
"Ohhh... what have I done?" Ray groaned as he smacked his lower palm to his forehead and rubbed his tired eyes.
"She's concerned. She is looking for you. Said you're not answering her phone calls just now" Morris stated.
"I told her I needed some space when I left the apartment" Ray said quietly sipping on his beer.
"Avoidance is not going to get you anywhere. Do you want to tell me what this is really about?" Morris prodded.
Ray sighed deeply and began,
"Well, right now I'm really loving what I'm doing down in Baton Rouge. I've still got an extra year of my residency to finish off because of all the time I had
to take off for my rehabilitation and surgeries" Ray started.
"Okay and...?" Morris questioned.
"Neela is leaning towards taking that surgical attending position at Johns Hopkins, I know she's really excited about it but I can't just pick up and leave the
new life I've built for myself down home just yet" Ray said sadly. "Do you see the dilemma?" Ray asked, hoping Morris would have the answer to his problem.
"Yes. So you both do the long distance thing for a year or two. You can still have the holidays, vacations together, it's not that far" Morris encouraged Ray.
"No. I refuse to have a long distance relationship with Neela. It's been long distance these past few weeks and it's been killing me. I can't imagine doing
that for two years no way." Ray said as he pulled his phone out of his jacket pocket and threw it onto the table in front of the two men. It was ringing.
"You need to answer that. You need to talk to her" Morris motioned towards the phone, but it stopped ringing.
"If you heard the last thing she said to me as I left you'd realize why I just can't talk to her. Not yet." Ray said looking down at his beer bottle and tearing away at its' label.
"You see, we've finally found each other after all of those years of not connecting. We're both thirty now. I want to get married, start a family together.
These are all of the ideas swimming around in my mind that I didn't want to have to face just yet... because, I still have no answers on how we're going to
make this work yet." Ray said dejectedly.
"I just wanted one more day of bliss, where we could pretend it was like the good old days when we were roomies... now actually with benefits" Ray smirked as he turned to look at Morris.
"I swear, I wasn't the only one that thought that man!" he exclaimed as he laughed at Ray.
"Whatever. None of that matters now anyways." Ray said as he returned to his gloomy state of mind.
"Ray, you're welcome to stay here as long as you want. But if you want my advice you need to talk to her. As soon as possible, you need to sort this out
before she takes your lack of willingness to address the situation as a sign that you're not serious about this relationship. Knowing Neela she's already got
the whole thing figured out anyways and all of your worrying will have been in vain." Morris said as he got up from the couch.
"I have to go meet Claudia for lunch. We'll catch up later okay?" Morris began to make his way to the front door.
"Lock up when you're done, and Ray? Call her back, now." Morris said as he left leaving Ray alone with his own thoughts. He stared at his cell phone as it began to ring again on Morris' coffee table.