Spring Day

nineteen

chapter eighty six ~ the one with hormones
Heather's POV

Another bad decision that we had made recently, deciding to throw a baby shower for Phoebe and then forgetting that she wouldn't be able to keep any of the baby-themed presents because she wasn't keeping the babies once they were born. Rachel, Monica and I felt like the worst friends in the world after we realised that this wasn't going to work out. But there was nothing we could do to make it better because we had already invited everyone and had a date set; the only solution we could think of was to change the present ideas. Instead of giving Phoebe things that a new Mother would want to look after the baby, we would give her things that she could use after she had given birth; however, we also forgot that this meant her presents wouldn't mean anything to her for the next two months.

She was already scary when she was hormonal but this was a whole new level of scary and I didn't want to get on her bad side. Why had we even decided to host this party? Because the girls had gotten jealous that they weren't invited to Ross's bachelor party and decided that they could host something better but the truth was, everyone in the room would rather be across the hall than listen to Phoebe complain about being pregnant anymore. I had tried to be a good hostess, talking to the guests and offering them some refreshments that Monica had put together but the truth was, no one was having a good time because everyone was scared of what Phoebe was going to do next.

What mad everyone else even more scared, was when she demanded to open her presents straight away. I knew that this wasn't going to end well because everyone had gone with the idea of buying things that she wouldn't be able to use for another two months as we had been trying to avoid the truth that these babies weren't her babies. But there was no way of compromising with someone this pregnant and hormonal, she just had too much rage to deal with and none of us knew what the right thing to say was. Phoebe was too terrifying and I was glad that I hadn't invited Melissa to this event because she may have started hating me after Phoebe ripped apart her present. We had been on better terms lately, especially now that her relationship with Nick was going so well but I didn't want to jinx anything; so, I refused to invite her to anything that my friends were doing.

"What the hell is this? What, you actually thought it would make me feel better? To give me something I can't even use for another two months? This sucks! Alright, what's my next present?"

All of the guests hid their presents behind their backs because no one wanted to be the next person to be slaughtered by the pregnant woman. Using the only trick that we had, I signalled for Monica to distract her with meat because that seemed to be the only way to calm the woman down and I admitted that it was weird but if it worked then we were going to work with it. And whilst everyone was distracted with keeping Phoebe calm and not killing anyone, I slipped out of the apartment for some fresh air. As soon as I stepped into the hall, the door to the apartment opposite opened and I managed to sneak a look at the bachelor party, which seemed to be much more entertaining than the baby shower that I was stuck at. Joey was coming out of the place, with a woman, who I guessed was the stripper because that was the only reason that a woman would have been in there and I was jealous, but tried to refrain myself because this wasn't a credited argument to have.

"You called a stripper?" I asked, trying not to sound bothered but the truth was that I was very bothered. "I thought Ross didn't want anything like that."

"This is your girlfriend?" The woman asked, which caught me off-guard.

Joey nodded, wrapping his arm around my shoulder as I stood completely still, confused at what was going on. "Yeah, this is Heather."

"She is pretty. You're a lucky guy." She winked at me and I kind of felt a little uncomfortable that this random stripper was being so friendly and we didn't even know each other. "Tribbiani, remember to call me when you're getting married, okay?"

I waited until she had disappeared down the stairs before turning to my boyfriend. "You talked to a stripper about me?"

"Well, I kind of had to. The guys made her give me a private dance in the bedroom, but I stopped her once we were inside and told her that I didn't want anything like that because I was with you. She was really cool about it, promised not to tell anyone."

A part of me couldn't believe that Joey had done that for me, he had always been so caught up with stuff like that, that I couldn't believe that he had stopped a stripper at a bachelor party. I tried not to look too bothered by the whole thing, because if we kept talking like this then I would probably start crying so I changed the subject. "I can't believe Ross is getting married."

"Yeah, it's weird." Joey agreed with me, scratching the back of his neck.

"I mean, we've been together longer than him and Emily but they're the ones getting married."

"That doesn't make you want to get married, does it?"

"No!" I answered, but then backtracked because I felt that I had said that too quickly. "I mean, sure, I would love to marry you one day but it feels way too soon to be thinking about that."

Luckily, Joey didn't seem that bothered about my answer and actually agreed with me. "Good. I was thinking the same thing."

"So, who do you think will get married next?"

"Well, I would say us but I got the baby thing wrong so I'm not the best at guessing these things."

That was true, because after Carol had delivered Ben, Joey had told me that we would be the next to have a baby. At the time he wasn't serious but it had still meant a lot to me and now when we were talking about these things, we were actually together and this could mean something in the future. "Yeah, well, how were you supposed to know that Phoebe was going to be a surrogate for her brother?"

Joey seemed to be talking seriously for a few moments, which was rare as we usually just messed around and never took things seriously. "Would you ever do that, be a surrogate for Chandler?"

"I don't know, I've never thought about it before." I shrugged, talking honestly because I had never thought about it before in detail.

"You should get back to the party."

"Honestly, I wouldn't call it much of a party, not when Phoebe's hormones are through the roof."

He smirked, glad that he wasn't dealing with the same party. "That bad, huh?"

"So bad that most of the guests are considering coming to the bachelor party instead." I told him honestly because if I had the choice then I wouldn't be at the baby shower either.

a/n: another short chapter but i promise that things will start getting interesting 🤠 in other news i thought i had two weeks off from uni but it turns out that i have several assignments due in january & i have to start them now 🤢 -lizzie ⭐️

date published: 30/12/20