A/N: Thank you for all of the reviews! Here is Chapter 11! Enjoy! x

Chapter 11:

The sunlight shone brightly through the window as Neela walked into the kitchen and opened the cupboard to retrieve some cereal. Once again Neela had a rare midweek day off and she felt happily refreshed having managed to get a whole ten hours sleep the previous night.

She heard the shower on in the bathroom as she had walked past and so she knew that Ray must be awake as well. She felt like she hadn't seen Ray properly in days. Ray had been going out late after work and sometimes left the next morning before she had even woken up. The times when she had seen him their conversations had been brief and … Neela couldn't quite put a word on it but she felt like something had changed. She had even at times wondered if Ray had been deliberately avoiding her, but brushed it off. Why would he ignore me? However she had definitely noticed one thing : something was up with Ray!

Neela poured herself a cup of coffee and then on second thought got out another cup from the cupboard and poured Ray a cup as well. Maybe she could try to talk to him over breakfast. She picked up the mugs and wandered into the living room lost in her thoughts and unconsciously came to a stop outside of the bathroom. She gazed at the door in a daze when suddenly it swung open. Neela jumped almost upsetting the mugs of coffee that she was holding as Ray came barrelling out.

"Jesus!", He yelped as he came to an abrupt stop a few inches in front of her.

"Sorry!", Neela said apologetically. She looked up at Ray who had seemed to have gotten over his shock at seeing her and now looked at her curiously.

"Were you waiting for the bathroom?", he said and then glanced at the mugs of coffee.

"Oh! I made you some coffee!", Neela cried thrusting the mug into his hand. The closeness in proximity to Ray who was wearing nothing but a towel had disconcerted her somewhat.

"Oh…err… thanks", he said awkwardly taking the mug. Seemingly lost for words he took a sip.

"No problem!", Neela said a little to brightly. Still acutely aware that they were standing extremely close together, her gaze fell on Ray's bare, well defined chest, just at the moment she happened to take a large gulp of her own coffee. She choked involuntarily and to her dismay spat her coffee out all over Ray.

"Oh god!", She cried horrified, "I'm so sorry! I can't believe I just did that".

Ray stood there looking a bit stunned as Neela ran into the bathroom to grab a flannel. She rushed out again and began to wipe down the front of Ray's chest.

"It's fine. Don't worry about it", he mumbled looking flustered as she continued to scrub.

"No it's totally not ok you just had a shower! I'm such a klutz! I don't know how I did that! She said, her face red looking deeply embarrassed. "I should probably wet this", she said indicating the flannel.

"No!", Ray croaked. "Seriously it's fine!"

"Ok…", Neela said glancing at his face.

"I'll go and get dressed", he said as he walked quickly to his bedroom and shut the door.

Damn! Neela thought. So much for talking over coffee! I can't believe I spat on him! That's so disgusting.

When Ray came out of his bedroom ten minutes later dressed and ready to go, Neela was waiting in the living room. "Hey I'm sorry again about earlier, do you want me to make you some new coffee?"

"Nah, I'm late for work as it is I'll just grab some when I'm there", he said giving her a small smile. To Neela's relief he didn't look angry.

"Ok", she said smiling at him herself, "I'll see you when you get home yeah?"

"Yup", he said walking to the door, "Cya then".

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Ray walked into the break room to get some coffee and checked his watch. 4.00pm. He sighed. Still another 3 hours to go before I'm off.

The day had seemed to go on forever. It had been unusually slow in the ER much to Ray's disappointment as he had nothing to keep his mind wondering back to the events of that morning.

Since his own personal revelation about his feelings towards Neela he had spent as much time as he could away from her. He figured the best solution was to go cold turkey and that the less time he spent with her, the sooner his feelings would go away. However, it hadn't been working so far and instead he began to suspect that Neela was going to clock onto him soon if he carried on in that way. To make things worse, spending time away from her had only served to reiterate how much he enjoyed being with her in the first place. The more he thought about it the more he wondered how he could have been so blind to his feelings.

He sat down on the worn sofa in the break room and his thoughts once again strayed back to the morning. He had been surprised enough as it was to find Neela standing outside the bathroom waiting for him but even more surprised by her strange behaviour. But then again she's always been a bit crazy. He thought smiling as he remembered the time she had told him to melt the snow that had built up in the kitchen by turning the oven on and leaving the door open. But even more worryingly he had even found her weird antics this morning cute. He hadn't even cared that she spat on him! Rays cheeks went red as he remembered the way she had began to scrub his chest with the towel. He had realised that he had to get out of their pretty fast or his feelings would have become…obvious.

He sighed once more and was just about to get up when he felt his mobile phone vibrate in his lab coat pocket. He pulled it out and was surprised to see that the message was from Neela.

Sorry about this morning again! Dinner tonight to make up for it? I promise not to spit on you :) ! xNx P.S. by dinner I mean I'm cooking - and no jokes! I'm at least 70 percent certain that I wont poison you.

He smiled as he read the text. She's so sweet. Damn it. There was nothing he'd rather be doing tonight after his long shift was over then spend the evening with her. And I can't really avoid her forever can I? he thought. He started to text back a reply.

That sounds great. :) R x

And with the rest of his shift suddenly feeling a lot easier to endure, he downed the remains of his coffee and left the room.

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Ray unlocked the door to the apartment and walked in looking forward to seeing Neela. He found the living room and kitchen empty although smelling delicious and called out her name.

"Neela?",

"In the shower!", came a muffled reply from the bathroom, "Be out soon!".

"Ok!", he yelled back.

He dumped his bag on the floor and flopped down on the sofa. There was a rental DVD resting on the coffee table in the living room which caught his eye and he picked it up. It had a pink post-it note stuck to it which said: Thought you'd appreciate it. But if I can't sleep, you aren't going to either…

He opened the case and laughed. The Omen II. He had been bugging her to watch it for weeks but she had outright refused on several occasions after being scared witless after watching the first one. He realised that she must really be making an effort if she had rented the movie.

He went to his room to get changed and when he came back out he found Neela dressed and in the kitchen peering into a saucepan on the hob.

"Smells good", he said as he came close and peered over her shoulder as she began to ladle it out into a big dish.

"Thanks", she said smiling at him, "Go and sit down, I'll be serving up in a minute".

Ray did as he was told and was promptly joined by Neela who had served up a yummy looking creamy coconut curry.

"Tastes good too!", he said as he tried some.

Neela laughed at him. "You always sound so surprised."

Despite the lack of contact in the previous days, Ray found they eased into conversation as though nothing had changed. He was really glad that Neela had arranged this evening as it made him realise that he was being a complete idiot by trying to avoid her. They were still friends after all, and Ray was man enough to appreciate even just her friendship. His thoughts were confirmed by Neela's words as they settled down to watch the movie after they had finished dinner.

"Ray, stop me if I'm overstepping the mark, but has everything been ok with you recently", She asked with a concerned look on her face as she turned to face him, "It's just that… I mean…is everything ok with us?"

Suddenly Ray felt a rush of guilt as he gazed into her worried brown eyes. The dinner, the movie, in fact the whole evening had obviously been carefully prepared by her because she was worried about him. About his stupid behaviour towards her. She had been the most wonderful friend to him and he had pushed her away. It was exactly what he hadn't wanted happening in the first place. This evening had proved to him that he could be around her without being uncomfortable, despite his feelings, and it wasn't fair to treat her the way he had been. She had done nothing wrong after all.

"I've just been a twat recently and I'm really sorry for making you put up with that", he said looking at her sincerely, "But I've come to my senses and everything's fine now".

As he finished speaking he leaned over and gave her a quick squeeze.

Neela grinned, "I'm glad to hear it. It feels like forever since we've hung out. You've been a ghost lately and well…I've missed you"

Ray could not describe to her how much it meant to him to hear her say this as he looked at her, so he settled for, "I've missed you too."

A small tinge appeared in Neela's cheeks and she grabbed a pillow and hugged it tight as she turned to face the t.v. "Lets get this over with", she said as she pulled the pillow up to her face.

"Hey this is the fun part!", Ray said smirking as he pressed the play button on the remote and sunk into the cushions for what looked to be a great night.