The One With The Bathroom Door
By: Jana~
Chapter Five
*****~*****
--Monica watched Chandler walk out the door, he not so much as glancing back before quietly closing the door behind him. She looked at the folded piece of paper in her hand, then opened it and began to read…
'Monica,
Maybe I shouldn’t be reopening the subject now that things are starting to get normal between us again, but I felt like I needed to clear up some things.
I didn’t kiss you that day just because I was sad. I kissed you because I wanted to. And the only reason I started groping you was because it felt so wonderful to be kissing you, and I just lost my head.
When Joey first moved in, I saw the sparks between the two of you, and I'll admit, I was jealous. Was I in love with you? I don’t know. I know whatever it was I felt evolved in time into this friendship we now have. You are my best friend, and I would never consciously hurt you by taking advantage of you.
I hope I wasn't out of line by writing you this little note, and I'm sorry I didn’t have the courage to say these things in person. I guess I'm just a chicken-shit at heart.
Chandler'
--Monica just stared at the letter, oblivious for a moment to life around her…
"Whatcha readin?" Rachel asked as she entered the livingroom from her bedroom…
Monica tore her eyes from the paper and looked to her friend… "Oh, um, nothing…" she tucked the note into her pocket and out of sight… "Hungry?"
"Not yet. I'm still waking up…" She stretched and yawned as she headed for the bathroom.
--Within 30 minutes time, all the friends but Chandler had shown up, looking to Monica for food. She was in her element when she was cooking for her friends and brother, and she hummed softly as she made a large Sunday breakfast, her mind on her task and not on the various conversation being had around her…
"Where's Chandler?" Joey asked, his mouth full of food…
Chandler's name brought her out of her preoccupation, and into the conversation…
"Don't know…" Phoebe replied, scowling at him for talking with his mouth full…
"Me either." Rachel added…
"Haven't seen him…" Ross followed…
When Monica didn’t answer, Joey prompted her… "Monica? Have you seen Chandler?"
"I'm not his keeper, Joey!" she snipped…
Everyone looked at her, shocked over her outburst…
"What is the matter with you?" her brother asked… "Joey didn’t kiss you too, did he?"
"No!" she answered emphatically, then stomped off to her room.
"I thought everything was getting back to normal between her and Chandler…" Phoebe wondered aloud… "Did they have another fight?"
Joey shook his head… "I don’t think so…" he stood and looked at Monica's bedroom door… "Maybe I should go talk to her."
--He knocked softly on the door and heard her say 'come in', so he entered, shutting the door behind him…
"Mon, what's going on?"
"Nothing…" she murmured, then turned and faced him… "Joey, tell me the truth…"
He squinted in confusion… "Ok…"
"How does Chandler really feel about me?"
Joey shifted uncomfortably… "I don’t think I can answer that question…"
"Cause you don’t know?"
He shook his head… "Cause Chandler would kill me!"
"If you don’t answer the question, I'll kill you!" Monica had had enough. She wanted a straight answer, and she wasn’t above threatening someone to get it…
"I'm pretty sure he's in love with you…" he admitted reluctantly…
"Pretty sure?" she repeated…
"Yeah…" he nodded… "He hasn’t said so recently, but that's cause I opened my big mouth and said stuff he didn’t want blabbed."
"Has he ever told you he was in love with me?"
He nodded…
"I gotta go talk to him…" she mumbled, more to herself than to Joey…
"Please don’t tell him I told you anything…" he pleaded… "I hate it when he freezes me out!"
"I won't." she assured him… "Do you happen to know where he went?"
"No. But, if he's not in his room or at the coffeehouse, he's probably at his office."
"On a Sunday?"
"Yeah. He goes there to think."
She shrugged… "Alright. Excuse me while I change."
Joey nodded, but didn’t move to leave…
She blinked in disbelief a few times… "That means 'get out', Joey!"
His eyes grew wide… "Oh! Right!" He quickly left the room.
--"She ok?" Ross asked when Joey entered the livingroom…
"Yeah."
"What did she say?" Rachel asked curiously…
"That's between me and her." Joey replied seriously, retaking his seat at the table…
They all stared at him as he went back to eating.
*****
--Chandler surfed the internet, his mind more on Monica than on the overabundance of porn he was able to locate. His office, the whole building really, was eerily quiet on the weekends, no one stupid enough to spend time there after hours… except him.
He was sure he was there alone, so when he heard a knock at the door, it startled him…
"Yeah?" he asked, standing but remaining behind his desk…
Monica peeked in, and smiled when her eyes landed on Chandler… "Hey. Can I come in?"
He gestured for her to enter… "Sure."
"I read your note."
He felt his heart rate sky-rocket by that simple statement… "Kay…"
"I don’t believe you."
Her remark confused him… "What?"
She pulled the letter out of her pocket… "'When Joey first moved in, I saw the sparks between the two of you, and I'll admit, I was jealous. Was I in love with you? I don’t know'…" she read from the note… "I think you know."
There was a hint of a smile on her face as she approached, and he suddenly felt the urge to run… but where would he go?
"Monica, what are you doing?"
She moved around his desk to stand in front of him… "I think you know that too."
In an instant his lips were on hers. His hand placed firmly on the back of her head, his fingers in her hair, holding her to him as the kiss grew in passion… consequences be damned. If he read the signal wrong, he didn’t care… nothing mattered but how right it felt to be holding her and kissing her…
"I can't stop this time…" he whispered, his voice strained as he kissed her neck…
"I didn’t ask you to…" she whispered back, her nails dragging down his back…
He groaned… "This will change everything…"
"I know."
"Is it worth the risk?" He nibbled on her ear, sighing when he heard her sharp intake of breath…
"I think so…" she whimpered… "You?"
He hummed in response as he continued his affections… "I lied before…" he admitted, his hands inching under her shirt…
"About?" She whipped her shirt off, then moved her lips to his neck as he fumbled with the clasps on her bra…
"I've been in love with you for years…"
She smiled against his skin… "I figured."
--In a flurry of movements, clothes were shed, the contents of his desktop were strewn, and they crossed the line from friends to lovers.
*****
--Monica sat naked in Chandler's lap, in the large office chair that faced his desk, her face buried in the crook of his neck. He softly stroked her legs, drawing little invisible patterns as they enjoyed their post coital snuggle…
"Ross is definitely going to kill me now…" Chandler muttered, half joking, half serious…
"He'll have to get through me first." Monica chuckled, pulling back to smile at him, kissing his lips gently…
"How sad is that?" he laughed… "My girlfriend has to protect me…"
"Girlfriend?" she repeated, and he stiffened… she could feel him tense…
"Sorry. I assumed too much, didn’t I?"
"No, no… it's not that…" she ran her hands through his hair, kissing him sweetly… "I just repeated it cause, well, I liked the sound of it."
"Yeah?" he smiled hopefully… "So, we're…?"
"Dating?" she asked, he nodded… "Afraid so."
"Kay…" He ran his hands up her body… "What made you come here today?"
Her eyes twinkled as she smirked… "If you don’t know, I think there are books with that info…"
He glared, but it was a joking-type glare, followed by a smirk of his own… "Not 'cum'…" he did air quotes… "Come here. As in to my office…"
"I read and re-read your note… and I realized something when I did…"
"What's that?"
"That everything I was looking for… was right across the hall from me…"
--The kiss that followed was passionate as he pulled her closer, their desires rekindling…
They fondled, groped, and made love for hours before heading back home to shower, planning to meet up with the gang at Central Perk later on. They would surely ask questions… dilemma was… what should Monica and Chandler tell them?
TO BE CONTINUED
Thanks for reading!