Ray ||l.h.||

1.7

"Whoa!"

A Russell Stover box drops to the pavement at Ray's feet after colliding with her shoulder, chocolates scattering and sticking to the sidewalk.  She accidentally steps on one of them and briefly takes note of how cute her sandals are, even with caramel and nougat smearing on the side of them. 

"I'm so sorry." She apologizes, bending down to try and salvage some of the candies. Ray doesn't know if this person believes in the five second rule, but at the very least she can throw them away once she's gathered them all up.

She sees Ashton's boots walk to whoever she bumped into, but focuses on picking up the chocolates and keeping them in her hand.

"Nice choice, Ray loves chocolate. When we were younger we would make homemade ice cream at my house and she'd tell me to put Snickers and Oreos in the already chocolate ice cream." Ashton laughs, audibly slapping five with the person he's talking to, who also starts to chuckle.

Ray pauses, blinking at the ground for a moment before she stands with the treats in her palm, because, that laugh sounds familiar. And whoever's laughing was bringing Ray chocolates.

She turns to the guy, glancing at the flowers he's holding. He sounds like Luke and his hair's blond; he sounds like Luke and he has blue eyes; he sounds like Luke but she doesn't see a lip ring. Also this person is buddy-buddy with Ashton and they both disliked each other the last time they interacted. 

"Who's this?" Ray asks Ashton, though she's staring at the maybe-Luke person. 

The blond boy grins and hands Ashton the small bouquet, using both of his hands to open his jacket and reveal letters on his shirt. Ray furrows her brows but scans over his chest to read the words.

Ray's boyfriend.

The shirt says Ray's boyfriend, so this must be Ray's boyfriend, this must be Luke.

A smile spreads slow on Ray's lips as her heart skips a beat—or two. "Luke?" She drops the chocolates, no longer concerned with them. It has to be him; the shirt clearly says so, plus all—actually, about 90% of—the evidence points to it being true. 

"Maybe," Luke barely gets the word out with a coy smile before Ray's excitement gets the best of her and she jumps on him. She expected herself to cry when she had imagined seeing Luke, but for some reason her eyes are dry as Luke spins her, squeezing her tightly. 

It dawns on her that Luke was bringing her those flowers and those chocolates that she ruined were for her, too, which makes her grin threaten to split her face in two.

Ray leans back, cradling Luke's face in her hands and stroking his cheekbones with the pads of her thumbs. She stares at him, taking all of his features in. His eyes look like they're holding the sea captive and Ray is almost ashamed of how mesmerized she is by them, because, really, blue is just a color. 

She trails her finger down to the corner of his mouth, where she expected his lip ring to be. "You're so beautiful." 

Luke's cheeks fade into a light blush and he loosens his grip to let Ray slide down to her feet as he shrugs. Ray giggles, unable to do anything else in the moment and Luke leans over and muffles the sound with his mouth against hers.

"Alright, that's enough." Ashton pipes up, a playful tone in his voice as he rolls his eyes. Ray breaks away, laughing more when Luke goes back in for one more peck. 

Interlocking his and Ray's fingers, Luke plucks the bouquet from Ashton's hand and presents it to Ray. She smiles down at the sunflowers and glances at Luke while she takes them. Ray is unsure of what she did to deserve Luke, at this point, if she's honest.

"I got you sunflowers because you're my ray of sunshine." Luke says, bouncing his brows at his girlfriend. Ray tries not to find that both amusing and endearing, but it's hard not to when Luke puts on the biggest and dorkiest grin Ray has ever seen, so she chuckles pulling him in for a short hug.

"Thank you, you're literally the best," Ray looks at the forgotten chocolates on the pavement. "Sorry about those, by the way."

Luke shakes his head, walking them towards his car. It seems that him and Ashton parked near each other, since Ashton follows behind them. "Don't worry about it." He gives her a warm smile then suddenly stops walking and walks towards a black Toyota.

Ray furrows her eyebrows until she puts it together that this must be his mom's car. The outside looks just as nice as the inside felt, Ray notes.

"I'll see you at home, okay?" Ashton puts his arm around her and brings her in to his chest. She nods, rubbing his back for a moment before letting him go to his own car.

Once both her and Luke are settled into the car with their seat belts on, Luke turns to her as he starts the car. "Since when are you guys on speaking terms?" He asks, checking his rear view while he backs out of his parking space.

"Since when are you guys on speaking terms?" Ray counters, remembering how he and Ashton were talking like old friends when she was picking up the chocolate. 

"You first."

"He came to see me and we made up in the hospital." Ray explains, fondly thinking back on their conversation.

"We weren't until then. I guess he was just too happy about you being able to see that he didn't feel like being a prick." Luke takes his turn answering the question, cracking a lopsided smile as he makes a right.

Ray lightly shoves Luke, bringing a chuckle out of him. They sit in a comfortable silence while Luke drives until Ray shifts to face him. "Why did you ghost me all week?" She isn't mad about it, but now that everything's all over, she wants to find out. 

Luke briefly meets her eyes, then focuses back on the road. Another question for Luke pops into her head, but she'll wait until he responds to this one to ask. 

"I used that week to make and order this," He pauses, holding open one side of his jacket to show that he was referring to the shirt. "And order the chocolates and flowers." Luke sounds proud of himself and the small simper on his face proves that he is.

Ray gives an aw and stretches over the middle console to press a kiss to Luke's cheek. "Well, hey, where's your lip ring?"

"Lost it." He replies, his smirk now edging on sheepish. He gently stops the car at a red light and fully turns to Ray. Luke gazes at her, mainly her eyes that are no longer milky pools, but brown and shining, and Ray's face feels hot under the attention.

"What?" 

Luke shakes his blond head, continuing to stare at the girl. "Nothing. I just can't believe you can see now." Luke quietly says, pulling his mouth into a smile.

As Ray starts to speak, a car behind them rudely honks and startles them both. Luke glares at his rear view that shows which car ruined the moment, then moves the car forward and under the unnoticed green light.

"I can't believe it either." She finishes, when they're down the road. Ray doesn't think her emotions are reacting to all of this correctly, because she assumed there'd be a lot more waterworks and dramatic speeches, but she's been doing a lot more laughing and, well, things she'd normally do.

The boy cuts his eye at her and grins, reaching and taking her hand in his, resting their hands on her leg. Ray looks down at the silver ring on his pinkie and runs her fingernail across it, then lifts her head to watch the road for the rest of the ride.

A/N: hey yall how are you guys????

ray is literally almost over but i'll be so happy to have this as my first finished ff like it's gonna feel so good to change it from ongoing to completed aw man

anyway i'm sorry for the wait on this chapter (especially since i ended the last one on a cliffhanger oops) but i hope you enjoyed it and if you did pretty please vote and comment because at this point you guys should know that i love reading your comments and hearing what you guys thought of the chapter

love you guys!

xoxo girl listening to Drake