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The doorbell rang at about nine pm. For a moment Brad was tempted to ignore the uninvited guest, especially since he had an inkling who it was. It rang again, followed by a fist hitting the door twice in a rather forceful knock and a familiar voice shouting, “Don't try to pretend you're not home, Brad! I've seen the lights and your bike's in the driveway!”Brad sighed and got up from the couch to open the door. He knew it was useless to ignore Ray. He'd tried before. It had only resulted in Ray picking the lock and letting himself in without Brad's invitation.Brad opened the front door to find Ray standing on the porch with a sixpack and two bags of chips in his hands, a huge grin plastered on his face. "Did you miss your best pal Ray-Ray?""What do you want, Ray?" Brad leaned with his shoulder against the doorframe and made no move to invite Ray inside. "Do you need my couch after all? Did the Doc kick you out?"Brad knew Ray very well, which was the only reason why he caught the flicker of surprised shock in Ray's eyes. It would have been invisible to almost anybody else, hidden beneath the huge grin that didn't waver."Nobody has ever managed to kick me out, Brad, not even you." Ray grinned, fully aware that Brad had indeed never managed to get him to leave if Ray hadn't wanted to. "So he hasn't kicked you out and you're not here to camp out on my couch." Brad summarised, giving Ray a suspicious look. "Then why are you here?" Ray touched his hand to his chest, almost crushing the two bags of chips. "You wound me, Bradley. Can't I just come by for a relaxed night of beer and chips?"Brad just raised an eyebrow. "No.""All right, I'm leaving for Nevada the day after tomorrow. I really just came by to annoy you, but hey, at least I brought beer and food!" Ray held up the sixpack and the chips as if Brad hadn't seen them already. "That should at least get me the permission to enter your house." Brad considered the argument for a long moment and Ray waved the beer teasingly. Brad pushed away from the doorframe and stepped aside. "All right, come in.""Thank you so much, Sergeant Colbert." Ray gave a little bow before he slipped inside, ducking just in time to avoid the slap on the back of his head.Ray immediately headed for the living room and placed the six-pack and the chips on the table before he flung down on the couch. "Anyway, what makes you think I'm staying with the Doc?"Brad followed him slowly, taking a beer out of the pack before he slouched in the huge armchair next to the window. "Poke would never let you stay in the same building as his girls, Walt has left with his family, Rudy would have driven you insane after one day and nobody else lives in Oceanside.""That's it?" Ray asked with sceptically raised eyebrows and leaned forwards to grab one of the beer bottles. "Not the best recon skills."Brad took a long pull on the bottle before he fixed Ray with an intense gaze. "I saw you leave the base with Doc Bryan, and you didn't show up on my doorstep the night we came back like you usually do." Brad let that stand for a moment, sure that Ray would understand the faint warning in his words. If Brad had seen them leave together, others might have, too, and this was Oceanside, after all. Brad didn't doubt for a moment that Doc Bryan was going to be extremely cautious, but he wasn't quite so sure about Ray. It wouldn't harm to give him a warning.“You're wearing his bandana.” Brad remarked finally and jerked his chin at Ray's left hand where the camouflage-coloured piece of fabric was wrapped loosely around Ray's wrist. “You've already been wearing it in Iraq.”Ray was quiet for a moment, a frown on his face that reminded Brad of the time after Baghdad. "You know, don't you."It wasn't a question, and Brad didn't pretend that he didn't understand what Ray was talking about. "Let's just say that I've known for a while. But I'm not asking, so you don't tell, please. I don't want to hear about your love life, no matter who you're having fun with."Ray was quiet for a long time, his eyes unreadable and his gaze never leaving Brad's face. “It's not just 'having fun'.”“I know that, Ray. Doc Bryan would have never gone down that road with a Marine if he didn't mean it.” Brad was quiet for a moment, then he smirked. "And you wouldn't let him call you 'Josh' if you didn't mean it."Ray doubled over and spit the beer he'd just been drinking all over the table before he started coughing. It took him a while before he had regained his breath and when he looked at Brad, he seemed truly shocked. Brad had never expected to see that expression on his face."What... How do you know that?" His voice was rough from coughing and he sounded about as shocked as he looked.Brad shrugged casually. "The Doc and I had a word.""What about? Did you give your blessing or something like that?" Ray asked, still stunned, when he got up to get paper towels. Brad smirked. "Something like that.""Care to elaborate?" Ray asked when he came back from the kitchen and began cleaning up the mess he'd made.Brad leaned back in the armchair and nursed his beer. "No." "What, 'no'?" Ray gave him a dirty glare. Brad just shrugged. He wouldn't mingle in Ray's and Doc's... thing. "Ask the Doc if you want to know. It's not my place to tell."Ray balled up the used paper towels and straightened up with a frown. "You make it sound like it's a big bad secret.""It's not that bad." Brad reassured him and reached for the chips. "So, Ray, why didn't you bring a movie?"Ray came back from the kitchen and held out the DVD box of the Die Hard series with his usual, easy grin and wriggled his eyebrows. "But I did, homes."Brad smirked and handed Ray the TV remote.