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"Do you want anything to drink?" she asked, getting up from the couch and crossing the living room into the kitchen.
When they'd exited the woods that night, Joey told them that Ross had taken Rachel home minutes before, essentially leaving then stranded. After cleaning up, they'd hitched a ride in Phoebe's van, accompanied in the back seat by at least half a dozen of her more-than-suspect groupies. They'd finally arrived at Monica's around 3 am, though, and had somehow managed to stealthily sneak in through a downstairs window under her parent's radar. They were now watching TV in the Geller living room, pretending not to be affected by their solitude and close proximity and furtively fidgeting at the other's every move.
"Yeah, I'll have some water. I think I drank a little too much tonight," he added, only slurring his speech together slightly. Monica smiled and retrieved two waters from the refrigerator before rejoining him on the couch. It wasn't until then that Chandler noticed Ross' absence.
"Hey, did you notice that it was like 3 am? Ross isn't home yet," he noted. Monica looked around, almost as if she didn't believe him.
"Yeah, you're right. Maybe he slept over at Rachel's," she suggested, smiling insinuatingly. She knew that they'd done that on several previous occasions. She couldn't help but be both amazed and slightly jealous that they'd never been caught. She just knew that the second she ever tried to pull something like that, her parents would find out and she'd be grounded until graduation.
She suddenly became very aware of the fact that Chandler had slid his hand over the back of the couch and his fingers were now softly stroking the skin of her shoulder.
"So, uh, what do you think they're doing then if they don't have sex?" Chandler asked, trying failingly to scoot nearer to her without her noticing. She was very aware, however, and she could feel her heart speeding up. Before she knew it, his leg was pressed up right against hers. She answered with a silent shake of her head.
"Oh, hm, I don't know. She's told me before that they just fall asleep with each other. She says it's, you know, comforting and stuff." Okay, his nose was DEFINITELY nuzzling his ear now. She wasn't sure that he'd heard everything she'd just said. SHE couldn't even remember everything she'd just said. His breath was hot, though, and that was about the only thing she knew in that moment.
She did not anticipate the first kiss. It had not been proceeded by an especially memorable or romantic line like she'd been used to seeing in the movies. His breath smelled faintly of alcohol and his hands were shaking with all the combined nervousness of 20 hormonal adolescents. There was no romantic music, but rather a grainy infomercial hosted by a too-tan, middle-aged man flashing across the television screen in front of them. It was nothing like how she imagined it would be when they finally crossed that line between innocent kisses between friends and unmistakable intimacy between two people who were rapidly becoming more.
They kissed long into the night on that couch, totally unaffected by the flickering of the sad and lonely characters across the silver screen and completely unaware of their surroundings. When it was time to say goodnight from fear that her parents would discover them, he found it surprisingly hard to leave. He had known all along that Monica was far too special and respectable to just use her as another means of getting some action, but even after they'd spent a night and morning together, he was aching inside to be closer to her. After kissing her cheek and climbing out of the first-floor window, he contemplated during his walk home about just how he was going to do that.
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One day and a lifetime away, he left her sleeping in bed to go jogging at dawn. Even though the entire night had been in upheaval, he clung to that old habit to comfort himself.
