the love triangle trope, but it's actually a triangle

dinner date!

"where the hell are they?" rob groaned, mostly to himself. zubin and andrew seemed similarly frustrated, standing out by the restaurant ross said they would all be going out to tonight. they had the restaurant and 3/5ths of who was supposed to be there. the remaining 2/5ths weren't answering their phones.

zubin checked the time. "let's go ahead and go in. we were supposed to be in there five minutes ago." surprisingly, he wasn't as frustrated as andrew or rob was by their late friends. "they can find us in there when they get here, might've got caught up in traffic."

andrew sighed. "yeah... let's go ahead."

the three went in and got seated.

while they look at the menus, waiting for their drinks to come back, rob's phone dinged. he picked it up and looked at it. he groaned, angrily typing out a message then setting the phone down. andrew and zubin looked at each other. "what was it?" zubin asked.

rob rolled his eyes. "ross said that joe 'felt bad,' or something. they aren't coming."

"what?" andrew said. "but ross was the one who set this up!"

zubin frowned, looking up from the menu. "hey, at least they're safe. i was starting to get worried about them."

"you? worried about the wellbeing of our friends when they're preventing us from getting some food?" rob said incredously. "who are you and what'd you do to zubin?"

he chuckled with the others. "if it was joe or any of you who were late, i wouldn't be concerned. but ross? i was surprised he wasn't here an hour early." they all laughed, remembering to themselves the times that ross was that early to trivial things they would do.

joe sighed, picking at the food on his plate. "why'd we have to get here an hour earlier than them? we're already done and they just got here."

ross rolled his eyes, continuing to peer over at his three friends dining from across the restaurant. "i didn't want to get here later than them, they could've seen us come in. and i didn't wanna risk getting here at the same time. order something else if you want, i'll pay."

he set his head in his hand, watching the man across from him try to look inconspicuous as he stared at his friends. "what's the point of this?"

ross groaned. "i've told you like,, five times."

"tell me again, i like hearing your voice," joe said, smiling.

his stern expression melted, and ross ended up smiling too. "well, i thought if we got them at a dinner by themselves, they could sort out some feelings they have for each other. romcom stuff, you know?"

joe nodded, looking down at his plate again, thinking about the dinners ross would plan between just the two of them before they became official. "did you do this with me?" ross smiled sheepishly, and joe took that as a resounding yes.

rob found himself staring at andrew as he ordered, a strange sense of anger & guilt brewing in him that he tried to keep down. he thought it was irrational, and he knew it was irrational, but he couldn't help it. andrew was none the wiser, though. in fact he became flustered when he noticed rob staring at him. but his gaze wasn't on him for reasons he hoped it was.

they gave their menus to the waiter and sat in silence for a few moments. rob sighed and decided to direct his strange anger to somewhere else. "i'm not sure if i believe ross. he probably just came up with an excuse because joe didn't feel like going."

zubin rolled his eyes. he was mildly annoyed that rob was still bringing it up. "i think you need to believe our friends more."

"i mean, it's joe." he laughed to himself. "he probably whined about not wanting to go and made ross stay with him."