Chapter 2: New, and a Bit Alarming

There was nowhere to run. Not on a several-hour car ride to the coast, stuck in the middle seat.

Worse still, Monica was stuck in the middle seat between Joey and… and Chandler.

She stole a glance at her best friend, who was staring out the window at the traffic rushing alongside them on the freeway. The glass pane was lowered just a crack, enough to feel a breeze. The coolness of it tickled Monica's skin and gave her even more goosebumps than she already had, and for an entirely different reason.

How many minutes had it been, since his lips had claimed and smothered hers? Thirty-five minutes? Forty? How ironic it was to arrive at a moment in which time itself seemed to stop, and yet not mark the time, right down to the second.

Is this what people called a seismic, even tectonic shift? Monica certainly seemed to think so. She could no longer even glance at Chandler and see him in the same light.

He had kissed her…. and what's more, the clumsy oaf had somehow gotten her to kiss him back, a little. She… she had liked kissing him. Her best friend! She had kissed him and enjoyed it! That had to be wrong, on so many levels: best friends didn't kiss. Well, Monica supposed that some could pull it off, if they were comfortable enough with each other, but no pair of platonic friends could kiss the way she and Chandler had and not feel anything more than friendship.

What's more, best friends certainly didn't date: she herself had learned that lesson well from trying for more with Kip. The death of their romance had irrevocably altered the friend group, making everything awkward for a couple of months. Monica knew one thing: she had never cared for Kip – not as a friend, not even as a lover – anywhere close to how much she cared for Chandler. Which is why his little social experiment of making out with her in broad daylight could never be…. never be…

…. More than what it had been, she decided. She loved Chandler too much to date him, even in a testing-the-waters sort of way and risk having it all come crashing down. No, she couldn't do that to her brother and friends. Not again.

Yet, still, still, Monica could feel how her lips tingled, and she let her fingers touch where Chandler's mouth had dwelled less than an hour earlier. It vaguely dawned on her that her hand had been hovering near her mouth like this for much of the last quarter-hour.

"Mon?"

"Hmm?" Monica jerked sharply out of her musings, her eyes darting in a wild and almost fearful way, as if she had been caught. All she found was Rachel turned nearly all the way around in the front seat and peering at her through the Plexiglas divider of the cab.

"Are you feeling all right, honey? You look like you're going to be sick…"

Upon hearing the word 'sick,' Ross started to get agitated, if not outright panic. "Oh, no, no…. There will be no expectorating episodes in this car! Pull over! Pheebs, PULL OVER!"

"For God's sake, Ross, we are in the cab, not your Porsche!" Rachel groused, attempting to hold the paleontologist back. From where he was in the corresponding middle seat of the front bench (an unusual seating arrangement even for a cab), Ross's hand made a grab for the wheel, but Phoebe batted him back.

"Uh uh, Ross – this is my cab! I'm in control of this aircraft!" At everyone giving her funny looks, the masseuse flushed. "Well, I would be…. that's what they would say… if I were a pilot…. flying a plane… but I'm not…."

Monica swallowed. "I'm fine, Pheebs," she reassured their driving friend. She even nodded to Rachel when her roommate looked unsure.

Monica now froze when she felt someone place a hand on her knee.

"Are you sure you're all right, Mon?" Monica turned to stare at where Chandler was searching her eyes in concern. "There are rest stops at pretty consistent intervals; we can look for an exit and pick one…"

Goosebumps now were forming on the flesh of her knee, yet Monica only felt the chill when Chandler dropped his hand. The loss of contact simultaneously made her want to let out a whine, even as this was tinged with a slight relief that she immediately felt guilty for.

All Monica could do was nod her head and flash her best friend a reassuring smile – the best that she could pull off, anyway. Chandler nodded and resumed staring out the window.

Monica studied him, bewildered. The image of her and Chandler kissing as deeply as they had kissed flooded her mind. It overwhelmed her senses, and she basked in its amber glow. She had to mentally slap herself. They had forgotten themselves, in that moment. It was just an experiment, she insisted; Chandler had said so himself. Clearly, he had kissed her because, like she with Pete, he had wanted to see what it would be like. Monica would be lying to herself if she hadn't had occasion to wonder the same thing, but only in the clearing haze of wet dreams. Having both wondered, they had tested it, tested the hypothesis, and the results were…

…. What? Inconclusive? What even had been the hypothesis they were testing anyway? That Chandler was a good kisser? To Monica, that answer seemed quite clear: good. Damn good….

Or had they been testing the hypothesis of whether or not Chandler would make good boyfriend material? The conclusion to that question was far less clear.

Monica stole glances at Chandler, from where he was still gazing serenely out the window, as if he and she really hadn't just crossed that line that most good friends of the opposite sex, and perhaps sometimes even good friends of the same sex, never crossed. Taking him in, Monica pondered him as if she had never seen him before.

New… and a bit… alarming…. Who had ever thought that this could be…. true, that he's no Prince Charming…. But there's something in him that I simply didn't see….

A blast of cold air from her other side made Monica shiver, and she turned to now glower at Joey, who was making a game out of rolling his window up and down, like an overly curious little kid. The struggling actor at one point even stuck his head out the window as though he was a dog.

"It's like natural air conditioning!" he hollered, the rush of the cab billowing his cheeks out.

Monica crossed her arms and rolled her eyes with a huff. Well, at least she hadn't kissed Joey. At least then, her thoughts in the aftermath would be clearer. She wouldn't be left such a wreck.

Would that she were carsick! Logic and circumstances and everything in her should have by now compelled Monica to throw up, yet she did not. Could not.

Because, she was beginning to realize with dawning horror, there had been nothing repulsive about kissing Chandler.

Nothing repulsive at all.

Had it been all kinds of weird? Oh, yes! But repulsive? No. Not in the least.

And that, more than even the possibility of vomiting in this cab, was what frightened Monica.

The group had left early enough that by the time they arrived at Montauk, it was early afternoon. Everyone lent a hand unloading the bags from the car.

Monica frowned at how the sand didn't stop at the edge of the threshold, a thick layer of it flowing right into the living room, as if the shoreline didn't know where beach ended and beach house was supposed to begin.

Sand only gave way to cool tile once they arrived at the kitchen, of which Monica made a cursory inspection. She would scrutinize it more once she had set her heavy bags down, making sure the cupboards were well-stocked and the cooking amenities were up to her standards.

"My client with the fuzzy back said the rooms are on the second floor!" Phoebe called. "Just make yourselves at home, guys!" Then she set off to explore down their street.

Monica heard Rachel calling after Phoebe, asking their masseuse friend where she was going, but Monica paid it little heed as she climbed the carpeted stair. The steps curved and emerged out onto a thin, narrow hallway, with doors on either side. Further down the hall, Joey was opening every one, mentally tabulating something, and when he turned back, his shout was its typical, frustrated bawl:

"There's not enough bedrooms for each of us!"

At this, Monica blanched. She cast a look back over her shoulder to where Chandler was emerging onto the second floor landing. He seemed unimpressed by his roommate's report.

"You actually managed to count something, Joe?" he quipped sardonically. Monica giggled, and in such a manner that her laughing at one of Chandler's witty jokes might have seemed almost normal.

And it would have been – in the Before Times. Before The Kiss.

Chandler squirted past Monica and playfully nudged Joey into one of the open doorways before following him in. He poked his head back out so his gaze landed on Monica.

"No co-ed bunking, right?"

Feeling her cheeks turn oddly pink, Monica nodded fervently at his question that, in any other context, wouldn't have needed to be asked. Heck, Chandler probably only asked it as a formality.

She froze as she felt Chandler studying her.

"One of us is going to be the odd man out…." he pointed out to her, unusually quietly. "You…. you can take the singleton room, if you want."

Monica nodded to him gratefully, smiling weakly. Picking a bedroom door, she slipped inside and closed the door behind her.

She leaned against the varnished wood, trying to control her breathing. Her rapidly beating heart. Damn Chandler for being such a gentleman! Was it all an act? An overcorrection on his part, after he had kissed her in a way that was most definitely not gentlemanly? The gooey sensation at even describing his kissing skills thusly felt traitorous, to her mind.

Flushed and flustered, Monica set about unpacking her bags. Not even organizing, always such a mindless and comforting relaxation mechanism for her, was able to get that damn kiss out of her head! From the heat that burned her skin, it felt like a betrayal, except by whom, Monica couldn't say.

In any case, a more evident betrayal quickly manifested itself in that little beach cottage, when the shouts of what may have been surprise, and in one particular person's voice, confusion, drew Monica out of her room and down the stairs to the sand-covered first floor.

"Bonnie!" Ross was grinning goofily as he embraced his girlfriend, though his smile didn't reach his eyes, which appeared strained as she glanced around at everyone else in the room, his stare lingering on Rachel. "She drove up here to surprise us! Isn't that great?"

Rachel's stare could have split stone, yet she covered well, putting on an actor-worthy smile that only Monica would have known was clearly feigned.

"That's great! What a wonderful surprise!"

Her lips pursed nervously, Monica glanced back in time to see Chandler wandering into the unexpected taking on of an extra guest. The pair of best friends shared a look with each other, before just as sharply, shyly, glancing away.

This was shaping up to be a very awkward, and very long, long weekend.