I got some reviews for the last chapter expressing that some people thought the description of the penthouse was too much. To tell you the truth, I don't know if it'll become absolutely vital information in chapters to come, but it can't hurt to have a picture in your mind of what you're reading, can it? I'm a descriptive writer. I get an image in my mind and I'm going to write about it. I imagined that apartment before I even imagined that it would be where Ross and Rachel might live :-) I liked the idea of the house. I wrote about. That's the way I do things. Sorry if it distracts you, but then maybe my writing style isn't for you.
Still have no idea where this is going. Lo siento :-)
The song I use is "Raining In Baltimore" by Counting Crows.
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Just fluff n' stuff. Also, an experiment with the nickname "baby". I've always liked it. Shame they didn't use it in the show :-)
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"Tomorrow night?" Rachel asked, holding the phone between her shoulder and cheek while she reached for the container of fruit on the top shelf of the refrigerator. "Yeah, I don't see why not. Let me..." Beep beep. "..Dammit, hold on, that's the other line." Click over. "Hello?"
"Hey, Sweety, it's me," Ross greeted.
"Baby, I can't really talk right now, I'm in the middle of like 5,000 things. Have you seen Emma's Carebears spoon, by the way?"
"Uh, try the bottom drawer of the island. What are you in the middle of?"
"I've got Monica on the other line," she explained, bending over to search for the missing utensil, a container of fruit in one hand, her cell phone in the other and the phone propped against her shoulder. "She wants us to come to dinner tomorrow night. That's okay, right?"
"I don't see why not. The Yankees game is on at 8, though."
"Fine," Rachel rolled her eyes, smiling at Ross' unfailingly bouts of childishness. "It's like I've got 2 kids, I swear," he heard her mumble.
"I'm choosing to ignore that. I'll let you go, but I was just calling to make sure we're still on for our date tonight," he conceded. It was somewhat of a joke between them. They'd agreed to go out for an evening alone at least once a weekend. Tonight, being Friday night, was the "date night" this week.
"Well, if you'd let me go get ready for the babysitter then maybe we are," she teased.
"Fine, go," he teased. "Be ready to go by 7."
"Okay, I love you. See you then." Click over. "Okay, Monica, I've really got to go. I've got so much to do before Carrie gets here."
"I've taught you well. Now go and clean."
"You won't be able to sleep if I don't, will you?'
"...No," Monica admitted. "Now go!"
"Okay love you bye," she strung together before hanging up. "What's Carrie's number?" she asked herself, pausing mid-kitchen to collect her thoughts. God bless the electronic phonebook on her cell phone.
As much as she loved staying at home with Emma, she counted down the days until the little girl started preschool next month. She and Ross had already kept her away from it for a year longer than most parents. Now, however, the pressures of taking turns staying at home with her were just too great. Since they'd both been promoted, they'd traded the luxurious salary increases for much-needed free time. They were lucky if they got to the grocery store once a week anymore. That was one of their many reasons for agreeing to at least one date night each weekend. They couldn't let this relationship follow the path of its predecessor. They saw so little of each other during the week that Friday, Saturday and Sunday had to be all about them and Emma.
Tonight was extra special, however, because it was the 6 month anniversary of her "getting off the plane". That's how they referred to it. They never called it a "reunion" or "dating" because those words seemed trivial after all they'd been through. She'd gotten off the plane 6 months ago today and that was good enough.
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Rachel stepped out of the shower in their master bathroom, toweling off quickly and running back into the bedroom to the dresser for a set of underwear. She decided on a sheer, almost-transparent white bra and matching thong. Sexy didn't have to mean black and lacy, after all. She knew he liked these., anyway.
They weren't doing anything too terrible fancy (the formalities of dating considerably lost their glamour after so many years) so she threw on a nice pair of black pants and white tank top. Shoes were what really matter, anyway, she thought, deciding on strappy black one with big heels to pull together the more up-scale effect of the outfit. She dried her hair in a rush, occasionally peeking her head out into the bedroom were Emma was playing on the bed and watching a cartoon on their TV. She glanced at the clock. 6:57. Carrie and Ross would both be there in 3 minutes and she still had make-up to put on. How she ever even got to this point was beyond her. Maybe for their date they could just curl up in the bed and take a nice, long nap?
Ding.
"Shit!" she yelled over the whirling sound of the dryer. Whoever it was was early. "Looks like it's going to be the windy look tonight, huh Emma?" she called into the other room, more so to let her daughter know she was still there than to ask an infant's opinion on dating etiquette. She pulled the still-damp hair up into a messy bun and straightened her shirt before adding a little make-up and running our into the living room and to the front door.
"Hello here," Ross welcomed her, clichely pulling a bouquet of flowers out from behind his back and kissing her on the nose. "You look great." She put her hand lightly on his stomach and patted it as she closed the door behind him.
"Yeah, well, not as great as I would have looked if you had been on time," she scolded playfully, swatting him on the bicep. "Will you bring Emma out here? I've got to go find jewelry."
"Sure, I should probably change my clothes, anyway." He disappeared into the bedroom and Rachel headed straight for the extra jewelry box she kept in the guest bedroom to find a pair of silver earrings and a necklace. She envied a man's ability to "change clothes" in 5 seconds and look good as new.
Ding.
"I've got it!" she yelled into the other room, running back out to the front door.
"Hi, Ms..." Carrie trailed off, her voice losing its perkiness when she horrifyingly realized she didn't know what to call Rachel. Rachel grinned. It only amused her now when people didn't know what to make of her and Ross.
"Rachel's fine, sweety. Come in," she urged, shutting the door behind the pretty teenager. "She's already had her bath and she's in her pajamas, so all you really have to do is keep her occupied until her bedtime at 8. You know the drill." Carrie nodded. Just then, Ross came out of the back in a newly-pressed pair of Khaki pants, a dark blue dress shirt and a light blue tie. Rachel actually smiled at how nice he looked.
"Here she is," he announced, handing the already drowsy child to her sitter. "You might not even have to read her a story before bedtime. It's looks like she's already pretty zonked out."
"Thanks, Mr. Geller. We'll be fine. You two have fun."
"We will. Bye!" With that, Ross and Rachel left the apartment for their night away from dippers, babysitters, work and all-nighters.
"Is it wrong that it's 7 and I just want to go to sleep?" Rachel asked in mock exhaustion, laying her head against Ross' shoulder as they made their way to the elevator.
"Aw, come on," he insisted. "The night's young."
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They walked along the streets of the Village, hand in hand. After dinner, they'd decided to skip the movie to return to their old stomping grounds for a little nostalgia. They each had mixed feelings about the fact that things hadn't changed much in the months they'd been gone. The leaves were falling from the trees, now, and scattering about the streets, but everything else remained the same.
There are things I remember and things I forget I miss it I guess that I should
The sky was darkening from a royal to a navy and in some stretches of sidewalk between the street lights, the stars could actually be made out. Few cars and cabs roamed the streets and most people could be seen inside through their windows, even though it was only 9.
"I think it's going to rain," Ross projected, looking up at the few clouds in the sky that were positioned directly above them.
"This is so bizarre," she mused, shaking her head. "It's like we're guests here, now."
And they were, really. Though all the buildings were the same-- the street lights, news stands and front stoops in the same places-- something seemed off center.
"I never really saw this coming," he confessed, looking up at the apartment complexes towering over them. "I mean, I didn't expected to feel so out of place when I came back."
You get what you pay for but I just had no intention of living this way
"I know what you mean. So much of our lives were spent here. So much of US is here." He looked over at her and smiled, amazed that she could seemingly read his mind. "Our first kiss...our first time...our first 'I love you'...Emma..." she continued, trailing off.
"It is a little disconcerting, isn't it? Knowing that not only will we never get those things back, but that they almost don't even belong to us anymore."
"They belong to us, Ross," she guaranteed him, stopping at a bench off to the side and pulling him to come sit beside her, "but I kind of like knowing they belong to this place, too."
"It's like it's all immortalized," he nodded.
Just then, a deep rumbling rolled across the sky and the Heavens began to weep. Rachel let out a short yelp as the thick drops of rain hit her and began soaking through her clothes. Ross put one hand on her back and guided her underneath the overhang of the store they were sitting in front of.
"Damn, we're never going to get a cab," he predicted, rubbing her shoulders to keep her warm.
"You know what?" she asked suddenly, taking his hand. "Let's just walk for a while."
"Really? I thought you hated getting wet."
"Well, yeah, I do," she admitted, smiling, "but let's pretend we're not so old and bitter, just for a little bit."
"Okay," he conceded, shrugging, "but you do realize that Rachel Green never would have walked in the rain even when she was 25, don't you?"
"Oh, just come on!" she commanded, slapping his shoulder and pulling him behind her.
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They arrived back at the apartment around 10 completely drenched and dismissed a very confused Carrie after paying her. Even though Emma was already sound asleep, they walked up to her room to kiss her on the forehead and say their 'goodnights'.
Once back in the bedroom, Ross began unbuttoning his shirt and rid himself off the soaked-through piece of clothing. He was distracted, however, but watching Rachel saunter past him into the bathroom. Whether she was actually trying to entice him or not, he was unsure of, but she was succeeding, either way.
He approached her from behind where she was standing at the vanity in the bathroom, placing one hand on the counter top to the right of her and the other against the flatness of her stomach. Placing a kiss on her neck, he reached over and turned the light off.
"Ross," she giggled, "I can't see to get undressed."
"I'll do it for you," he whispered, now placing his other hand on her stomach, as well. He moved his kisses in a line from her neck to her ear, finding the lobe and taking it between his teeth. He pushed his hips firmly forward into her ass, pressing them up against the counter and soliciting a soft moan from her lips.
After letting his fingertips brush her stomach lightly at the top of her pants for a while, he began working at the button and zipper, unfastening them and letting the garment fall to the floor. Even in the dark, he could tell she was wearing the see-through lingerie that he liked. He pulled the tank-top off by its sides, leaving her standing with her back to him in her underwear. If it had been even a tad brighter, he probably could have seen her reflection in the mirror, and he was wishing for that now. He almost missed seeing her face in the 2 minutes they'd been standing this way. He felt her lean back into him and reach her arms back to wrap them around him at his waist, connecting her hands together on his lower back. They stood like that for a moment, taking a second out of the sexual heat and fury of the moment to just absorb each other's presence in the dark before he turned her around so he could see her.
The shadows were cast over her face in the pitch, but he could still make out the soft, angelic familiarity there. She was so pretty, sometimes, that it made him want to cry, but he was feeling such a deep-seeded attraction to her that went so far beyond "pretty" now. She was hot. She was sexy. She was seductive. She was that same kind of attractive that made him dream about her when they were in high school and that made him want to be with her 24 hours a day when they'd first started dating. This was the young, heated, passionate, irrational kind of attraction that filled every fiber of your being and made you feel 18 again.
He felt her hands tugging at his belt, cutting the reverie short and causing him to lay assault to her mouth with his. He kissed her deeply for a long while, neither really moving to make it more. It was a hungry, needy kind of kissing. Their tongues delved so far into each other's mouths that their bodies had to physically press together more tightly to sustain balance. His hands roamed her body eagerly, finally finding their way to her ass so he could lift her up onto the counter top and sit her down. He somehow managed to position her on the edge, urge her thighs open with his hands and assert himself between them without ever breaking the kiss.
"Bed?" she asked breathlessly between kisses, wrapping her arms around his neck.
"No yet," he answered, shaking his head a bit and beginning to unbutton his own shirt. Some part of him-- maybe a more primal part-- yearned being naked with her out in the open before retiring to the encompassing sheets of the bed. She helped him with the shirt, pushing it from his shoulders once he'd unbuttoned it and then moving onto his pants. Both let out a sigh of relief once he'd shed down to his boxers and could just return to kissing her slowly and deeply without worrying about excess details such as clothes.
Suddenly, he picked her up and whirled her around to press her up against the wall behind them. Nothing was holding her up but his own arms and he liked the feeling of protectiveness it gave him over her. She wrapped her legs tightly around his middle and groaned as he pushed against her, the cool wall pressing back with equal force. She watched the muscles contract and bulge in his arms as he held her up, beads of sweat forming on his skin. He broke their kiss to suck on her shoulder.
"I think..." he breathed heavily, trying to form a somewhat coherent sentence even when all the blood had rushed from his brain southward., "...we're going to need the bed, now."
He carried her quickly into the other room (also completely dark) and threw her onto the bed, climbing immediately on top of her and settling his weight into the cradle of her hips and knees. They didn't bother to get underneath the sheets. This lovemaking-- and that's what it was, as it hadn't quite yet crossed that fine line into 'just fucking'-- was too furious and deprived for things like sheets. Though they'd had sex many times since she'd 'gotten off the plane', not once had it been like this. Not once had it been this deep or passionate or needy. This wasn't about what they'd gained back or rediscovered-- this was about what they'd missed. This was about all the lonely nights they'd spent wanting one another-- needing one another-- but having been too scared or stupid to admit it. This was about all the failed romances that had fizzled out from inadequacy and failure to live up to this-- what they could make together. This was about the 9 fucking years of being lost in exchange for that 1 year of bliss. This WAS that 1 year...in 1 night.
He tore at her underwear, freeing her from the pieces in one smooth motion and tossing them across the room in his haste. Finally, she was naked. He allowed her to pull the boxers down from his hips and he sank down inside her in one, fluid motion, unable to hold back any longer. It took her by surprise at first, as the whole thing was going rather fast, and he saw her wince.
"Jesus, did that hurt?" he asked sweetly, stopping his moving and stroking her cheek with one hand.
"No," she assured him, breathing into his ear. "No, no, just keep going." She pressed her hands against his back and bent her knees, pulling him as closely to her as possible. A part of her wanted him to melt and just sink into her completely. He smelled and tasted and felt so so good and she never wanted it or him to stop. After only a few more minutes, though, he gave way and she followed, feeling his weight collapse onto her. Neither one moved for what seemed like hours.
Now was the time for the sheets. She somehow positioned them without having to move too much. He was still more or less sprawled across her, his head resting on her breasts and his legs draped across hers. She ran one hand through his hair and another over the smooth, tan skin of his back in the same rhythmic motion he was using on her arm with his right hand.
"Wow," he whispered into the dark. She smiled and nodded.
"Mmm, I know."
"I'm glad I didn't remember it being that way until just now, " he confessed. "I probably would have cried myself to sleep most nights if I'd remembered before."
"How could you forget?" she asked jokingly.
"I think I made myself," he answered, his voice suddenly very serious. "Otherwise, I never could have enjoyed sex again with anyone else."
Silence.
"Ross?" she asked quietly.
"Yeah." He rubbed circles over her wrist, now, with the pad of his thumb.
"We were really stupid, weren't we?"
"Yeah."
Silence.
"Ross?"
"Huh?"
"Did you...think of me?"
"When?" He knew when.
"You know, when you were...with other girls? When we were apart?"
"Yes," he answered honestly.
"When?"
"At least once with every one."
"Really?" she asked, lifting her head to look at him. He couldn't see her do it but he felt it. He nodded. "Even with like...Mona? And Charlie? After 6 years?"
"Yeah," he whispered, almost sounding embarrassed.
"Wow..." She rested her head back down on the pillow and adjusted herself beneath him, wriggling a little to get comfortable. She moved both hands into his hair and stared up at the ceiling.
"Tell me something else," she stated, not so much asking as demanding.
"What kind of something?"
"Anything I never knew. Like that."
He thought for a long time-- several minutes.
"I don't know if you'll like it," he confessed, shifting so he was laying underneath her and she could rest her head on his chest. He wrapped his arms affectionately around her and stroked her back.
"Tell me anyway," she beckoned, placing her hands on his sides.
"It's about her." They both knew who 'she' was. He'd never said her name in his presence, though, and visa versa. There was only one 'her' with them.
"Tell me," she said again, this time more firmly.
"I was thinking of you the whole time," he stated. It was quiet for a few minutes and he almost began regretted bringing it up. He was about to say 'I told you so' before she spoke.
"I knew that already."
"You did?"
"I knew how in love with me you were, Ross. I never doubted that. That was never the problem."
"Oh." He sounded like a little boy who had just been scolded. She reached up and pushed the hair away from his eyes.
"Let's not talk about that," she whispered, kissing his bottom lip and sucking on it for a few seconds. She laid her head back down on his chest.
"Rachel?"
"Hm?"
"Did you really love him?" Like there was only one 'her', there was only one 'him' between them, too. This one had a name, though, and they each said it several times a day. Never in this context, though.
"No," she answered quickly.
"That was fast," he chuckled, partly nervously out of relief.
"It was an easy question."
Silence.
"Do you know how much I love you?" he asked. This almost surprised her. She'd been on her way to dreamland when she heard him utter it. Ross was sweet and sentimental and made no secret of his feelings for her, but he rarely said things as straightforward and uninhibitedly as this when not making love or drunk. He was still a shy person, even with her.
"I think so," she assured him, kissing his collar bone.
"Do you know how long I've loved you?" His voice was breaking. Just barely, but it was there.
"I guess it's been-"
"20 years," he finished.
"God, it has been that long, hasn't it?"
"Yes."
"That's longer than I've ever done anything," she admitted. "That's longer than most people do anything."
"Don't worry," he cooed, because he could tell what she was thinking. "It was worth it."
"Well," she stated a bit more loudly, sitting up on top of him and smiling down. "Is there anything I can do to make it even MORE worth it?" She patted his chest and felt his hands move up her thighs in the dark. His stomach muscles contracted beneath her as he chuckled.
"You're going to be the death of me, woman."
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End Chapter 2. Continued in Chapter 3.