OH! DARLING | joey tribbiani

forty three

"Ross is starting to suffocate me."

Rachel and Quinn were sitting on the balcony of the fire escape of the latter's bedroom, wrapped in thick blankets and smoking a joint the redhead had just rolled after her friend's request. She needed something to unwind from all the anger and frustration she had bottled up from her boyfriend's jealousy.

"What do you mean by that?" Quinn asked, blowing out the smoke in the cold night air and passing the joint to Rachel. The sounds of the city were blending in with the songs from one of the photographer's mixtapes that played through the radio in her bedroom, now being Us and Them by Pink Floyd.

The dark blonde sighed, not knowing where to start. "Well, there's the crazy jealousy with Mark. Just this last weekend, I had this lecture on fashion that I wanted to go to and Mark was gonna come with me but of course, when Ross came to visit me at work and heard him talk about the lecture, he became all jealous so I took him with me instead. He fell asleep and snored louder than a boat, it was so embarrassing! At least when I go to his dinosaur lectures he drags me to, I make the effort to stay awake."

"Mmh, what a dick move," Quinn hummed in agreement.

"That's not the worst," Rachel said after inhaling a drag from the joint. "After the lecture, when I told him how embarrassed he made me feel, he tried to make me feel bad because fashion is so much more boring and he used Jurassic Park to prove his point."

"Ah!? The audacity!" Quinn exclaimed in shock by what she was hearing.

"And on top of that he tried to make me feel even worse because with my new job I don't get as much free time to be with him like I used to before."

The redhead stared at her in disbelief, her eyes and her mouth shaped like an 'O'. "No fucking way."

"I'm not crazy for feeling suffocated by this, right?" Rachel asked, a bit insecure.

"Not at all!" Quinn quickly reassured her. "Sweetie, if I were in your place I would've left him already, though that's not what I'm telling you to do," she specified. "He should be understanding of how much time your job requires from you, especially since you're new and just beginning. He should be supporting you, you're finally doing something that you like! And he should remind you how proud he is that you're doing all this adult stuff on your own, it was barely three years ago that you were still relying on your dad's money."

Rachel sniffled, tears forming in her eyes. After all, she did cry easily. "He does tell me that he's proud but what good does it do when he then makes me feel guilty for the time I spend at work?"

The joint long done and extinguished, Quinn turned around and threw the roach in the garbage can in her room next to her window before wrapping an arm around Rachel's shoulders and bringing her in a side hug. "I'm so sorry sweetie," she said, rubbing her hand up and down her friend's arm. "Want me to kick his ass? Give him a piece of my mind?"

That drew a chuckle out of Rachel. "Nah, it's fine," she answered, wiping the tears that had rolled down her cheeks. "We just need to talk it out at a time when we're not already arguing. Plus, our one year anniversary is coming up soon, I'm sure things will get better by then."

"I hope it does," Quinn told her. "You know where to find me if you change your mind."

"Don't worry, you and Joey are the first people I'm coming to if I need someone's ass to be kicked," Rachel said with a small smile. "Speaking of Joey, how's it going between you two?"

"You sure you wanna hear about how great things are between Joe and I?" Quinn asked, not wanting to rub her amazing relationship in her friend's face.

Rachel patted the redhead's hand that rested on her arm. "I'm sure. I need some reassurance that at least one of the men we know isn't a freak when in a relationship."