Later that night, Ray was sitting at a table at Ike's, waiting on Neela to show up. As he sat there, he heard a familiar Australian accent and turned his head to see Brenner walk in with Laverne, the intern that had treated him the night before.
His fists clenched in anger as memories of Neela kissing Brenner went through his mind. All he could see was her telling him she wanted to be with him. It took every bit of will power he had not to get up and confront the other man, who was laughing with Laverne about a patient they had treated earlier.
Ray was getting ready to get up and leave the bar, not wanting Neela to see Brenner with another woman. He couldn't bear the thought that she might get jealous of the other man being out with someone else. As he started to stand up, a hand gently kept him in the chair, not letting him leave. Ray was getting ready to confront whoever was doing this when the last person he expected sat down across from him.
"Don't let him win, Barnett. As soon as she saw you, Brenner was the last person on her mind and Mayday didn't want anything to do with him."
"Fine, I'll stay and wait for her. I just want to know one thing while we are waiting for Neela."
"What?"
"What did you do to Sam and why was she giving go to hell looks to both you and Daria?"
"She dumped me after Alex's accident and one night I was here, getting drunk and not wanting to go home. It wasn't long after I was leaving that Daria was walking down the sidewalk, so in one of my more dumb ass moves, I slept with her to take my mind off of Sam. I was telling Daria today that nothing else was going to happen and I guess Sam saw. She figured it out and ripped me a new one. I messed up. All I want is her back and she won't even talk to me now."
Ray could see how much Tony missed Sam by the sad and desperate look on his face. In that moment, he realized that he was being just as irrational as Sam was. For all Neela had known, he had still been seeing Laura and he had never told her any different. So in some ways, it was his fault that she had turned to Simon Brenner in a romantic way.
"Thank you, Gates."
"For what?"
"Telling me about what happened with you and Sam has made me realize just how immature I have been acting. I let her continue to think I was dating a girl I had met at the gym instead of telling Neela that I had broke up with Laura after Thanksgiving. So I'm partly to blame for her turning to Brenner."
"Thank you for saying that, Ray." A voice said from behind them. Ray turned around and saw Neela standing there with tears falling down her cheeks. He could see Brenner at the bar, watching her with longing in his eyes but he could see that Neela didn't notice the other man standing there. "Come on. Let's go somewhere where there isn't a crowd so we can talk in private."
Ray slowly stood up and took the hand she held out for him. He had to fight not to smile as they walked past Brenner and the fact that Neela didn't even look at him. It was almost like seeing him with Laverne didn't bother her at all. All she seemed to care about was leaving with Ray.
Five minutes later, they were in his car, heading back to her place when he finally asked her about Brenner. He had to know if seeing him with another woman had made her jealous.
"Neela, are you okay with the fact that Simon was with that intern, Laverne?"
"Yes, I am. All I care about is talking things out with you. I'm not jealous of him being with somebody else. Do you want to know something weird?"
"What?"
"Even when I was with Tony, I wasn't jealous about him actually being with both me and Meg at the same time. It was the fact that he lied to me." She paused and gave him a mischievous grin that warmed his heart to see. "Now Katey, Zoe and this girl you went to Georgia with, I wanted to rip all of their hair out. I never even met your recent ex girlfriend and I wanted to show her what I could do with a scalpel. Although it didn't help that not long after I found out about her, I got that summons saying I was being sued."
"I'm glad that turned out okay for you. I wanted to knock your intern one when you told me that he had caused you to be sued."
"They have switched Andrew to a new resident and I have done a better job with my new one."
"That's good."
"Do you want to order some pizza and have it delivered to your place?"
"Okay. We had Chinese the last time so Pizza will work."
"Neela, while I'm here, I think I am going to do something for Gates and Sam."
"Ray...."
"When I saw Brenner walk into Ike's, I was so close to leaving and going back to Baton Rouge. Gates stopped me and talked me out of it, he then told me what happened between him, Sam and that intern, Daria. What is it with the three of us, the little triangle with all of us ends badly and you would think we would have all learned our lesson. So what happens, Tony ends up in a mess with Sam and Daria and of course the two of us and Dr. Brenner. It is almost like some angst happy television writer is up there writing out our story."
Neela gave him a strange look that he knew she was questioning his sanity before pulling out her cellphone and calling the pizza place they both loved. He listened to her voice place their order and in that moment Ray realized that he had missed her. If they could straighten out the craziness that was going on between them, either he was coming back to Chicago or she could come to Baton Rouge, he didn't care as long as he was with her.
AN: The next chapter will be the long awaited conversation between Ray and Neela. Brenner will also start to realize that Neela isn't going to choose him and try to move on. So will Ray come back to Chicago or will Neela go to Baton Rouge or will they make a fresh start somewhere else?
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