Oh My God

The apartment was unusually still for this time of morning. In fact, it was so quiet outside Rachel's bedroom door, that she half-expected to find the place empty when she stepped out of her room to start her day.

Normally, as she got herself dressed for work, she would have a few minutes alone in her bedroom where she would listen to the cacophony of noise coming from the other side of the door. Random, out of context words that punctured their way into her room over the din of overlapping morning conversations. Familiar sounds that informed her of who was there and what they were doing as they surrounded the kitchen table. Hearing the routine clamor of apartment twenty prepared her for what she would encounter once she left the privacy of her room and joined her friends in the real world. Before even stepping out into the living room, she could stand there with eyes closed at her door and paint a mental picture of what would be there to greet her. The usual suspects in their usual positions as they shared a quick breakfast before going about their day.

Joey, shoveling cereal into his mouth as he stared at the back of the box, giggling at some conversation he imaged he was having with a cartoon tiger. Chandler, leg crossed over his lap, casually drinking a mug of coffee while reading the paper. Ross, no doubt meticulously spreading butter on a second piece of toast as he bored everyone with some random work anecdote. Phoebe, thanking the grapefruit she was about to eat for letting her slice it open and peel the fruit from its skin. Monica, bouncing around between all of them like she was stuck in a pinball machine, with an extra spoon or napkin, ready to hand it out to one of her friends in need.

Rachel had grown quite accustomed to the mayhem that weekday mornings in her home provided. The bustling apartment gave her a sense of normalcy and offered reliability after all the upheaval of the last few months from the drastic changes she had made in her life. There was a comfort in knowing that everyone who cared about her was right outside her door, day or night. Friends who, at a moment's notice, were ready to listen to her complain, offer her advice, or simply provide companionship that was purer than any she had known before. A level of friendship and devotion that no one else had ever been able to deliver. It helped keep her head up as she built her new life.

But not today.

Today she heard nothing.

No dishes clanging in the sink. No beeping of the coffee pot. No sizzle of bacon. No loud, overlapping voices. No laughter. No chairs being moved. No apartment door opening and closing. Nothing. Just silence.

When she finally stepped from her room, she looked around the apartment and saw that only Chandler and Monica were seated at the table. Her eyes darted around once more, checking for any of the others, but no one else was there. She returned her gaze to the kitchen and noted that the two of them appeared as if they were avoiding each other. Chandler had the paper held up high in a white knuckled grip, practically covering his entire head with it, looking like a boarded up and abandoned storefront. Monica seemed to be deliberately casting her eyes down as she pushed her spoon around in circles in a cup of yogurt. A mindless unthinking machine, blending fruit and crunchy granola in a small plastic cup that she apparently was uninterested in consuming.

Rachel was used to a different kind atmosphere when she came across these two as they sat alone in the apartment. She would feel like a third wheel whenever she joined Monica and Chandler at the kitchen table as they usually looked the part of an old married couple. Chatting like two people who knew each other inside and out yet were also still genuinely excited to spend time together. There was always this energy between them which would further embolden her folly as she tried to bring them together. Knowing glances, shared smiles, intimate touches. It was as if they were performing some courtship ballet, where everything was still hidden inside of them, all the things that they were too blind to see for themselves, were always clearly on display for Rachel. She was an audience of one to their clumsy, unknowing flirtations.

But this morning, things felt different. There was no ease in their body language. There were no smiles. No brief looks of affection. No inside jokes that could set them both off into laughter without either of them saying a word. No soft hand on a shoulder. There was nothing between them that she was accustomed to witnessing when they were together. Instead, there was awkward silence, stiff necks, and what seemed to be a conscious effort to pretend that they weren't even in the same room.

Chandler noticed Rachel first, and he turned to face her as he quickly dropped his paper down onto the table. He stood up and enthusiastically gestured for her to come over and join them, which caused Rachel to stop in her tracks as she tried to process his wild motions.

"Hey! Look! It's Rachel! We can talk to Rachel!"

Monica looked up momentarily, almost appearing as relieved as Chandler to have someone else in the room.

Rachel, still taken aback by the awkward energy in the room, slowly walked towards the kitchen and shook her head. "Oh, uh, I don't know if I have time to talk. I have to open up this morning at the coffee shop."

"I'll give you one thousand dollars to talk to us."

Rachel let a suspicious smile spread across her lips and narrowed her eyes as she tried to figure out the punchline from what she could only assume was another one of Chandler's odd jokes.

"No, I only have time for a quick cup of coffee."

"Wait. You need coffee, before you go to work at a coffee house?"

Rachel stopped at the counter and looked at him with an unamused expression from over her shoulder.

"That's interesting. Don't you think that's interesting Monica? She needs coffee before going to work where they have coffee. We could talk about that."

Monica looked over at Rachel nervously and offered her an unconvincing smile.

Rachel turned around and folded her arms. "Okay. What's going on with you two? Why are you acting so weird?"

Feeling as though Rachel was challenging her, Monica finally showed some signs of life and scoffed. "Weird? We're not weird. If anything, you're being weird."

"I'm not being weird." Rachel looked around the apartment once again. "Where is everyone?"

"Ross was going to meet Carol and Susan at the doctor, Phoebe had to take her grandmother shopping and Joey is still asleep."

Chandler slapped the surface of the table with his hand. "Those rat bastards!"

Rachel eyed him once more as Monica shrugged her shoulders.

Chandler nervously shivered as he took a step towards the door. He felt as if every hair on his body was standing straight up. He stammered a bit and his tongue became unwieldly in his mouth, blocking him from forming any kind of coherent sentence. He finally found the wherewithal to blurt out a few words he had hoped made sense.

"Well, you know, off to work, early worm and birds and noses and grindstones and all that. Good talk Rach! Let me know how that coffee turns out."

He quickly stepped outside, closed the door behind him, and then leaned on it for support. He demonstratively blew air from his mouth as if he had been holding his breath for hours. He looked at his watch and winced at the thought of going to the office this early, but he resigned himself to doing just that as he acknowledged that it would probably be better than staying in the girl's apartment with the awkward fog that laid thick in the kitchen.

Math, spreadsheets, ridiculous acronyms, green numbers and a cursor blinking on a computer screen would surely be enough to distract him from thinking about last night. From trying to process what it was he felt in the pit of his stomach for a split-second as he and Monica sat alone in her shadowy kitchen less than ten hours earlier.

At first, he thought that by just getting back into their routine, it would be enough to squash down any lingering misconceptions his overanxious brain had conjured up, clouding his better judgment with nonsensical fantasies. Yet, when he came over to the apartment this morning, and found only Monica readying herself for breakfast, he immediately felt the strain of his contortions as he tried to act normal while also fighting the urge to address what he was certain was a moment they had between them last night. It had to be a moment because he felt this magnetic pull that was unmistakable.

But was it real? Did he imagine it? It wouldn't be the first time he was alone with an attractive woman for more than three minutes and he thought that she wanted to sleep with him. Misconstruing the intentions of the opposite sex was his specialty, and every time he ended up being horribly, embarrassingly wrong.

Was he wrong this time as well? Everything seemed to signal that something was happening between them. He's seen the films, watched the TV shows, read the books. All the signs that they had taught him to look for were there. What would have happened if Phoebe had not shown up at that exact moment? Was Monica leaning in? Did he want her to?

Chandler shook his head. Thoughts like these could only lead to trouble. They would spin his wheels until they broke off their axles and sputtered out of control, bouncing out of his head and down the street, into the real world for everyone to see.

He shook his head vehemently before making his way to the staircase. This was Monica. He was Chandler. There was no moment.

Rachel gestured towards the door. "Jeez. Just when you thought that guy couldn't get any weirder."

Monica shrugged her shoulders and walked over to the kitchen counter.

"What was that all about?"

Another uninspired shrug.

"Come on Mon, you were with him…"

"What? I'm not with Chandler."

"What?"

"You know, sometimes, I don't even like Chandler."

Rachel looked back at the door, dumbfounded and confused. "Okay."

Monica rolled her eyes and took a deep breath.

"Okay." She bit her lip, as if contemplating one last times what her words should be. "Maybe...well…you see…the thing is…last night…"

Before another word could be spoken, Joey bounded into the apartment, opening the door wildly as he swung his body over to the kitchen table. Rachel, her eyes still fixated on Monica, could swear she saw a sigh of relief escape from her roommate's lips.

Joey let his eyes track the contents of the table as he looked for something to eat. "Hey, Chandler here?"

Rachel lifted her mug to her lips and shook her head. "You just missed him Joe."

Joey groaned and then reached down to snatch a cold piece of toast from a plate in the center of the table. He took a quick bite. "Dammit. I really needed to talk to him. You know that Lorraine chick I've been seeing. Well, she wants me to bring someone for a friend of hers so we could double-date tonight. I figured I'd set her up with Chandler."

Monica perked up and tilted her head, as if she was having trouble understanding what Joey was saying. "Oh, you guys are going on dates?"

Rachel eyed Monica as she seemed unnerved and fidgety. She watched as Monica tugged at her sleeve and scoffed in a display of false bravado. Her lip flared up and her eyebrow arched. Her cheeks became red and one eye seemed to bulge as she appeared to try and hold back some fractious reaction. As Rachel observed Monica's body language, she saw something she hadn't seen since high school. Displayed for all to see.

Monica was jealous.

Rachel quickly grabbed Joey's arm and pulled him forcibly from his chair and towards the door.

"Hey Joe, can I talk to you?"

"Ow!" Joey stumbled backwards as Rachel dragged him out of the apartment and across the hall.

He tugged his arm from her tight grip as they barreled through his apartment door and he rubbed it while staring indignantly at her.

"Why do you keep hurting me!"

"You can't take Chandler on that date."

'What?"

"Joey, there's something going on, and I need some time to figure it out, but you cannot take Chandler on that date!"

"But Lorraine does stuff with food. Like, sex stuff."

"What?"

Joey nodded as a lascivious smile spread across his lips. "Oh yeah, one time, we had this pastrami and…"

Rachel twisted her face up in disgust and frantically waved her arms about. "Just find somebody else!"

"I don't know anyone else." Joey spun around and snatched a small black address book from the top of the kitchen counter. "Look. There are no guys in here."

"Joey!"

Joey shook his head in defeat. "Fine. Fine. I'll see if I can find someone else." He then snapped his fingers. "Ross. He needs to get back on the horse. I'll take Ross"

Rachel folded her arms as her brow wrinkled. "Ross?"

"Yeah. I bet I can catch him before work at the coffee house."

"You're uh, you're gonna take Ross?"

"What. Is there a problem with that?"

Rachel felt flush, like she was getting hot under her collar. Her shirt started to feel tight, itchy and uncomfortable. She tugged lightly at her blouse. "No. I just thought, well, maybe it's too soon?"

"What? Soon shmoon. This guy has to get laid."

Rachel shuddered at his crudeness but relented with a nod of her head. "Fine. Just don't take Chandler. I need him and Monica to be alone tonight."

Rachel watched from the other side of the counter as Ross and Joey leaned in and discussed this evening's double-date. She did not know why it bothered her to see Ross get wrapped up in Joey's plans, or why the idea of Ross having a blind date irked her so much. She felt silly and wondered if maybe she was being a bit too overprotective of her friend. Apart from Monica, she had grown the closest with Ross, bonding over their failed marriages, even if her nuptials never reached completion. It made her feel as if he was the only one who could relate to what she was going through. Like Rachel, Ross was trying to build a new life. Both trying to navigate a world in which all their previous plans had crumbled to dust, and now, they had to figure out not only what they wanted, but who they were going to be.

There were many late-night talks over a glass of wine, long after Monica had gone to bed, where they commiserated in their misery. Nights where he would stick around Central Perk long after his last cup of coffee and help her clean up at closing time so she could go home a little earlier. He was a good friend, and the idea of him out there dating, probably meant that he would have less time for her.

She turned her attention to Phoebe and Monica, both of them chuckling and lost in their own conversation, seemingly unaware that Ross and Joey were even there. Rachel cleared her throat and stepped around the counter to join them on the couch.

"Hey ladies, what's going on?"

Monica chuckled again and looked up at Rachel. "Phoebe has this idea to get us out of the cycle of dating creepy guys."

Rachel nodded. "Oh yeah?"

"Yes. I have this friend, Abby, who shaves her head. She said that if you want to break the bad boyfriend cycle, you can do like a cleansing ritual."

"What? What kind of ritual?"

"Well, you burn all their stuff that they gave you."

"Oh. Sounds a little out there."

"What? No way. I was thinking about coming over tonight with all my stuff."

Rachel's eyes went wide. "Oh, well, we can't do that tonight."

"Why not."

"Well, because, I need you to go on a double-date with me."

Monica shot Rachel a wounded look. "What? You're taking Phoebe on a double-date and not me?"

"Huh?"

"Why would you take Phoebe and not me! If anyone deserves to be set up on a date it's me."

Phoebe turned to look at Monica and gasped.

"Oh stop. You've dated three guys in the last four weeks!"

Rachel shook her head. "Well, uh, Mon, uh, you remember Joey Fischer, right? From school?"

"Oh I hate that guy."

"Well, it's with him and his brother."

"Joey Fischer doesn't have a brother."

"Right. I mean, uh, fraternity brother."

Phoebe shook her head as her lips twisted up. "Oh, I don't know. I don't like frat boys."

"Phoebe, they aren't frat boys anymore. Come on. I really could use your help. I'd ask Monica, but she still has a grudge from that time Joey Fischer took the last pizza bagel at lunch."

Monica folded her arms and huffed. "Well I called it. Does calling it not mean anything anymore!"

Phoebe nodded as a sign of capitulation. "Fine. I'll go on this date. But he better be cute."

"What about our ritual."

Phoebe turned back to Monica. "Maybe tomorrow night, if this guy turns out to be a creep, I'll steal his wallet and we can burn that too!"

Monica sat at the kitchen table and stared at the bottle of grappa that Phoebe had dropped off earlier this evening, along with a box full of stuff that her litany of exes had left behind. While Phoebe assured her that they would all still go through with the ritual tomorrow night as she and Rachel left for their dates, Monica could not help but feel as if it were an empty promise. The comradery the three of them seemed to share over being saddled with terrible men throughout their romantic history faded as she watched Rachel get ready. When Phoebe showed up, barely able to contain her exuberance at the chance to meet some new mystery man on her blind date, Monica's mood soured, and she went from jealous to despondent. Her two friends, dressed up, looking pretty and caught up in the giddy, nervous anticipation that you can only feel on a first date. Meanwhile, Monica was going to be here, alone, in sweatpants.

She wondered what was wrong with her and why she always seemed to attract members of the opposite sex that resided in bottom of the barrel. Liars, cheats, bores, drunks. Her list of exes seemed to resemble more of a cautionary tale rather than a scintillating black book. She used to wonder if she was just a magnet for scum. That her personality warded off the more preferred suitors and left her with the wretched womanizing leeches. Perhaps she simply made bad decisions. Choosing men who show the slightest interest in her work. She recognized that she had a bad habit of becoming enamored with any man that paid attention to anything other than her looks. Someone who noticed what book she was reading, or could overhear the music from her headphones, and use it to strike up a conversation that would catch her off-guard, and before she knew what was happening, she was at dinner being bored to tears about the intricacies of being a stock broker.

It was a vicious cycle of bad choices and terrible instincts. Like the instinct she had last night. The one that had her staring into his blue eyes as she wondered what his hair would feel like between her fingers. Another in a long line of disasters that was thankfully avoided when Phoebe showed up and brought the real world crashing down onto her brief and ill-advised fantasy.

That's all it was.

Just a momentary lapse of reason.

As she focused her eyes on that bottle of grappa, she couldn't help but let her mind play a lonely woman's trick on her as it tried to entice her with that fantasy once more.

Ross straightened his tie and cleared his throat as he stood by the table. He was uncomfortable with the idea of going out on a date, but seeing Rachel planning her own night out, strengthened his resolve. For a few weeks, he had toyed with the idea of asking Rachel out. He thought to himself, why not? What did he have to lose? It was the night before Valentine's Day, and sometimes that meant throwing caution to the wind. He was all set to let Joey down easy, but when he heard Rachel's excited pitch, and saw the smile she had as she convinced Phoebe to go on a double-date, he realized that she simply did not see him as anything other than Monica's nerdy older brother.

Before Ross could fall back into the quicksand trap of his feelings for Rachel, Joey excitedly elbowed him in the ribs and stirred him from his reverie.

"Hey, that's Lorraine. Isn't she hot!"

Ross rubbed at his side and glared at Joey, but quickly turned his attention back to Lorraine and smiled as she approached the table.

"Well hello Joey." She looked Ross up and down from head to toe and smirked. "Wow. Look what you brought. Very nice."

Ross nodded as he was beginning to feel slightly exasperated and forced another uncomfortable smile.

"And what did you bring?"

"Don't worry tall dark and handsome, she's checking the coats." Lorraine lifted her hands to smell them and then turned to Joey. "I'm going to go wash the cab smell off my hands. Will you get me a white Zinfandel and a glass of red for Janice."

Joey nodded as he tilted her head to watch her backside as she walked away. He let a salacious smile spread across his lips, but then slowly, his smile led way to a confused expression as he turned to look at Ross. "Janice. That's a funny coincidence, huh."

Ross chuckled. "Yeah. I bet Chandler would get a kick out of it. Imagine you took him instead of me and how he would freak out when he heard the name."

Before Joey could respond, his entire body appeared to shrivel and shudder as a familiar, shrill, Queens accent bellowed through the restaurant.

"Oh! My! Gawd!"

When he got home from work, Chandler locked himself in his apartment. He eschewed his usual routine of checking in across the hall for people and food, and instead, ate a can of soup for dinner and resigned himself to watching reruns on television all night from the comfort of his chair. It seemed like a good plan, a solid distraction from his busy mind. And yet, every now and then, he would swing his chair around in a circle and stop as he looked at his door.

He thought that he would be relieved to spend his evening home alone. No one to pepper him with questions or idle conversation enticing him to crack open and spill out everything he had been thinking about all day. Chandler always found himself better off with thoughts unuttered and feelings unexpressed. Yet, as he stared at his door, all he could think about was marching across the hall and finding out if what he had played out over and over in his mind had really happened. The only person who could end his torture and sate his obsessive curiosity was right there, no more than fifty feet away from him through two steel New York City apartment doors.

Monica.

He did not want to go over there and have some awkward conversation that might end with his humiliation, but his brain would not let him rest. No matter how hard he tried. Even this afternoon, as he buried his head in the sand and used work to distract himself, all he thought about was last night. He piled a weeks' worth of projects onto his desk with the intent to finish them by the end of the day, and still, he could not shake it. He even stopped at the local bar to have a beer and watch some of the Knicks game as a last ditch effort to delay the inevitable. Yet, no matter what he did, he could not get the image of Monica from last night out of his head. Her eyes like half-moons as she tilted her head and leaned forward over the kitchen table.

He spun around in the recliner in a circle until he faced the door again. How long could he hide here? How long could he avoid going across the hall without looking suspicious? How long could he resist this urge to walk over there and find out exactly what was going on.

The answer it seemed, was not long at all.

Almost without conscious thought, he got up from the chair, walked out his door and found himself a breath away from walking into apartment twenty. He wasn't even sure how he got here so fast without stopping himself a half-dozen times first. He turned the knob and stepped inside, not sure what he would find.

A drunk Monica was the last thing he would have guessed.

"Heeeey! You got the door open!"

"Hey, uh, are you drunk?"

Monica cradles an empty shot glass and shook her head, laughing as if what Chandler had just said was absurd. "Pfft. Noooooo." She used her other hand to support herself and tried to stand up, only to fall back down onto the chair. She laughed and started to nod. "Okay. Yeah."

"What happened?"

"Well, there was this bottle here and I thought, hey, maybe I should drink some of the stuff in this bottle."

Chandler lifted the bottle up and looked at it. "Is this grappa? Isn't this stuff like pure alcohol?"

Monica shrugged her shoulder and giggled as she slid her glass onto the table. "It's a good thing you're here. I need to pour myself another drink but I can't find my glass. Can you help me?"

"The glass you just put down?"

Monica looked at the glass and laughed. "Oh, there you are." She lifted it up and held it out. "Fill'er up pardner."

Phoebe folded her arms and practically snorted steam from her nostrils like a cartoon bull. "Rachel? Where are these guys? They're an hour late!"

Rachel looked nervously around the room. There were no guys coming. No Joey Fischer and his frat brother. No blind date. It was simply a ruse to ensure that Monica and Chandler would be alone and forced them to spend the night together. Tomorrow was Valentine's Day, and the idea that maybe, those two would commiserate in their loneliness on the eve of the most romantic day of the year, was too perfect an opportunity for Rachel to pass up. Perhaps, they would stumble onto some spark between them that could only happen to characters in a movie. She knew it was a fools gambit, but she was okay playing the fool. Something happened that caused the awkwardness between them this morning, and maybe, that's what they needed for the final push.

Now, Rachel had to figure out what to tell Phoebe about their dates. She wanted pretend that they got stood up, but only an hour in, Phoebe was already getting restless. Rachel smiled and poured some more sangria from the pitcher into their glasses and forced out a laugh.

"Well, they'll be here soon. It's probably, you know, a frat prank or something, show up late, make the girls nervous. You know how it is."

Phoebe shook her head. "What?"

"You know, the games men play."

"What kind of men have you been dating?"

"Ray-ray Green?"

Rachel's shoulders stiffened as she recognized the familiar voice that rang through the restaurant.

"Oh no."

"What?"

"It's Melissa Warburton. I do not have the energy for this."

Rachel turned her head and nodded towards a slender brunette who was giddily approaching their table.

"Ray-ray? That is you!"

Rachel plastered a phony smile on her face as she turned and tried to express some measure of excitement. "Melissa!"

"Wow. It has been too long. Oh and you're married now? Right?" Melissa grabbed Rachel's hand and yanked it towards her. Her smile faded when she noticed Rachel was not wearing a ring and she bathed Rachel in a pair of sympathetic eyes. "Oh, poor Ray-ray."

"No, it's good. It's good. Dodged a bullet."

"Okay, if you say so." Melissa looked over at Phoebe and flashed her an envious look. "And who is, your, uh, friend?"

"Oh, this is Phoebe."

Melissa looked over the table, and noticing the pitcher of sangria, she nodded slowly. "Sangria. Oh, I see. I didn't realize you were on a date. I'm sorry."

Rachel tilted her head and chuckled nervously. "What?"

"I just, well, let's just say I didn't know you had an M.O. is all. I don't want to interrupt you and your date."

Phoebe's eyes went wide. "What!"

"Okay, well, here." Melissa took out a folded up business card. "Call me Ray-ray. You can use the number here. We should really catch up."

Melissa skipped away and Rachel kept her eyes down, trying to avoid Phoebe's punishing gaze.

"Rachel?"

"Yeah?"

"Who was that?"

"Oh, that was just a friend from college. We were sorority sisters."

Phoebe looked around the table once more.

"Why did she think we were on a date?"

"What? Oh, I don't know."

"Rachel Karen Green!"

"Okay, okay, shush! Look, one night, we were at a party, and we got a little drunk on sangria, and we kissed a little. She must have the wrong idea about me now."

Phoebe's eyes went wide as she stared at the bottle of sangria. "Oh no. Is that what this is? Is this why our dates never showed up. You want me."

Rachel snapped her head up and stared incredulously at Phoebe. "Eh!"

"It so obvious. Night before Valentine's Day. Sangria. Fake dates. Oh, Rachel, I am so sorry, but I just don't feel that way about you."

Rachel's eyes began bulge. "Eh!"

"Look, you're a lovely girl but I will not be seduced."

"Phoebe, I am not trying to seduce you. I don't like women."

Phoebe nodded. "Oh, all right, okay, that makes sense. I mean, I don't see you as the type of girl to make out with other women."

"Eh!"

"I mean, you aren't that adventurous."

Rachel scoffed and folded her arms. "I'm adventurous."

"Rachel, going to a discount department store instead of Bloomingdales is not an adventure."

Rachel started to gesticulate angrily and looked around the room. "You know what! I am going to prove it to you. I am going to bring Melissa back and she will tell you what happened!"

"Oh, okay." Phoebe looked back at the pitcher of sangria. "But I have to tell you, either way, this does not reflect well on you."

Joey leaned over the table towards Ross and whispered into his shoulder. "We might be leaving now."

"Wait, where are you going?"

Joey looked over at Lorraine to ensure she could not overhear him. "Didn't you hear what she said? She wants to slather my body with stuff and then lick it off. I don't even know what slather means."

Ross's eyes went wide as his voice started to sound panicky. "You can't leave me here alone with Janice."

Joey's shoulders slumped and he slowly began to nod in acquiescence.

Lorraine lifted her chin to signal to a server walking towards their table. "Waiter, can we have three chocolate mousses to go please?"

"I'm outta here." Joey reached into his pocket and dumped a plastic card on the table. "Here's my credit card. Dinner is on me."

Before Ross could protest, Joey and Lorraine scurried out of the restaurant. He sat back down with a look of defeat on his face and glanced over at Janice.

"So…"

"Just us then, huh. What do we do now."

Ross looked down at the table. "Well, we can call it a night." He picked up joey's credit card and let a devilish smile for on his lips. "Or we can order two of everything."

Monica rested her head on the table as she closed her eyes. "Do you think we will ever find someone? Look how quick all the others were able to get dates tonight and the two of us are stuck here alone. Are we pathetic?"

Chandler held his glass up to his eye and tried to squint through it. "What? No way. The others, they are the pathetic one."

Monica lifted her head and stared at him in disbelief. "What?"

Chandler poured himself another drink and slugged it down. He let out a pained gasp as the liquor burned its way down his throat. "They are on blind dates. What? They needed to be set up? With people who don't even know them. Losers."

"Bigger losers that the two of us sitting her alone drinking Paolo's grappa?"

"Yeah, because we're doing this by choice."

Joey's eyes opened as he looked up at the ceiling. He turned his head and glanced over at Lorraine who appeared to still be asleep. He smiled as he let the sexual activities from last night replay in his mind. He then stretched his arm across her body to reach a box on the bedside table. He opened it and removed a donut.

"Food and sex. This is the best day ever."

Lorraine turned over and eyed Joey. "Hey, what are you doing with that donut in bed."

"Uh."

"There are rules about that mister." Lorraine took the donut and slipped under the covers, leaving Joey to groan in ecstasy. "Oh! My! God!"

Ross tossed and turned, unable to get comfortable as he stirred. He flopped out of bed and fell onto the floor with a thud.

"Ow!"

He lifted himself up and held his head, which was already throbbing from the nightmare hangover that was settling into his brain. He tried to put last night's events into focus, but everything was fuzzy and out of order. He decided to ignore his urge to forge order out of the chaos in his mind and instead, thought about taking a hot shower and drinking copious amounts of coffee to scratch the cotton from his head and snap himself out of this post binge-drinking haze.

He brought himself to his feet and started to walk around the bed, only to stop suddenly at the stationary bike set up over in the corner of the room.

"This is not my bedroom."

He looked around the room once more, and had no idea where he was until a nasally, familiar voice filled the room.

"Happy Valentine's day lover!"

"Oh! My! God!"

Rachel felt constricted under the blanket. It was pulled tight against her and wrapped under her body, creating almost a cocoon. She did not like to be so snug and she became frustrated as she tried to pull her arm out from under the covers. She struggled and huffed until she could finally free one hand and she immediately placed it on her forehead.

Her head ached and her vision was blurry. Too much sangria was the culprit. Always her weakness.

She started to untangle herself from the covers, pulling her legs out, surprised to see she was still wearing most of her clothes from the previous night. She tried to piece together the jigsaw puzzle that was her memory, but stopped suddenly as she heard a soft moan of protest coming from someone laying beside her.

She sat up quickly and clutched the sheet to her chest as she looked over and found Melissa and Phoebe, sound asleep, entangled in each other's arms.

"Oh! My! God!"

Chandler rolled over and opened his eyes. His head had a dull ache, but it was not the worst hangover he had ever had. He thought perhaps he got off easy after a night of drinking something as strong as grappa. He turned his head and saw Monica laying next to him and smiled at her as her eyes opened.

"Morning."

"Morning."

Monica smiled back at him and the two of them slowly closed their eyes again, only to snap them up like roller blinds as they both gasped from realization that they were in the same bed together. The two of them sat straight up and covered their mouths, both pointing a confused yet accusatory finger at each other. Not knowing what to do or say, they both simultaneously expressed their disbelief with an incredulous shout that sounded like a chorus they had been practicing to perfect.

"Oh! My! God!"