OH! DARLING | joey tribbiani

twenty seven

The gang, except for Chandler, were all at Joey's apartment to finally visit his new home now that it was furnished and decorated.

"So, what do you think?" Joey asked once he was done showing off the living room. "Casa de Joey."

"It's very..." Quinn struggled to find the correct word to describe what she thought of her best friend's apartment. "... You."

"Yeah, I decorated it myself," Joey beamed with pride.

"Get out!" Ross quickly said.

"Wow, Joey, this is..." Monica motioned to some multicoloured, glass sculpture.

"Art," Joey finished her sentence for her.

Monica nodded her head. "Art it is."

Ross and Quinn were kneeling down next to the table in the center of the living room as they observed it.

"Check this out." Ross said. "Is it a coffee table? Is it a panther? There's no need to decide!"

"I like it," Quinn brushed her finger against the cat's nose as if it were a real one.

"Hey, nice pillow!" Rachel commented as she played with a pink furry pillow on the couch. "So now, tell me, is this genuine Muppet skin?" She asked Joey who looked at her, not understanding the joke.

"Excellent water-table thing!" Phoebe pointed, Joey walking over to where she was.

"Thanks, yeah, I love this," he said. "But you know what? It makes me wanna pee."

"Yeah, well, me too. Yeah, I think that's the challenge," the blonde agreed with him.

"Hey, how come Chandler didn't come?" Joey asked, noticing his best friend wasn't around.

The gang all shared a glance, not knowing how to answer him.

"It's 'cause he had a thing with the, with the thing," Ross said.

Joey nodded his head, understanding that Chandler didn't want to come. "Right, I got it."

Quinn walked over to him and, in a bold move, grabbed his hand, squeezing it in comfort. Joey turned to face her, noticed the sad smile on her face and squeezed her hand back, telling her he would be fine. The redhead hated seeing her two best friends like this and wished there was something she could do to bring things back to the way they were before.

"So why don't you show us the rest of your casa?" Phoebe asked in a way to defuse the awkwardness that settled over the group after Chandler's absence was brought up.

"Uh..." Joey thought over until he remembered. "The best part! Come on!" He motioned to his friends to follow him, dragging Quinn by the hand he still held in his grasp.

They followed him to the bathroom where Joey proudly showed off his toilet.

"Hey. Nice toilet," Rachel remarked, trying not to sound as sarcastic as Chandler.

"No, no, no. Behind it."

"You have a phone in here?" Quinn asked in disbelief.

"That's right darling, I have a phone in here," Joey cockily confirmed.

"Joey, promise me something," Monica asked him. "Never call me from that phone."

__________

"But I thought you wanted to live by yourself," Monica said as she and Phoebe sat around Joey on the couch in Central Perk.

"I did. I thought it'd be great," Joey admitted. "I figured I'd have, like, time alone with my thoughts but turns out I don't have as many thoughts as you'd think. At least the ones that aren't about Quinn, those ones I have lots of. She's all I can think about."