Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

God, I hated New York.

Hated.

Loathed.

Loathed with an intense passion.

Like really hated.

Hated, hated, hated.

It was not a city that even once had been on my bucket list. It was not a city I had any particular desire to visit, and thanks to my job deciding I was just ‘right’ for the American market, that had been ignored entirely. So, there I was, climbing the stairs of a large New York apartment block which was relatively unexciting to look at. It wasn’t like my company would actually opt into paying any reasonable sum of money for my accommodation even if I had to stay in the place for six months. Forget the fact that we were a leading publisher, we were ‘poor’ – not by my standards but whatever. Why I even had to stay in New York was beyond me, as a city it was expensive, far exceeding the expensive of London which had my lovely box apartment with a cramped space that was cosy in its own cheap way. Why did a job based on being remote require me to travel an ocean and hole myself up in an apartment on the island next to said ocean? What was wrong with rainy lovely London huh? There was no need to go to an even more expensive city, and even colder. So bloody cold. If London was cold, then New York was arctic. It was the weather for polar bears and penguins only. This was already far more than I'd bargained for, the trip had originally been a month at most, but someone somewhere had it out for me and decided that it had to be extended to six months. Six frigging months as if that was what I wanted in any way. Six months away from my box apartment that was home, away from my local bakery which served the best Greek bread, away from puppy yoga and overpriced but delicious sugary coffee. None of which New York could even come close to being compared to.

I wasn’t a fan of New York if it wasn’t already obvious.

The cream beige colour schemed of the cladding on the building was underwhelming compared to the skyline that my plane had flown over. This was looking like a long six months. My eyes roamed over the stairwell that I was climbing slowly considering my inability to pack light. I groaned as I heaved my large suitcase up the dimly lit stairwell, onto the third floor. God everything hurt, I hadn’t slept properly on the plane and my body was screaming at me that it was 1pm UK time and I was yet to eat anything since the plane ‘breakfast’ at some ungodly hour that I barely remembered, having swallowed the lukewarm scrambled egg and insipid bacon and sausage in the hopes of some sustenance being in my body before I unleashed myself on America. Or rather, before America unleashed itself on me. Stopping for a moment to catch my breath, I groaned and took a look behind me at the stairs I had climbed already, one more flight, one more, that was it then I could collapse onto a bed. Thank the lord. Mercifully the last flight of stairs up to the fourth floor was far easier than every flight that came before it. How delightful.

I finally got up to the purple door of my home for the next six months and dug around the lining of my coat pocket until I felt the cool metal of the keys that had been posted to my London apartment a few weeks prior. My brain was just scrambled, and I had a sinking feeling from a lack of coffee and the fact that I had to open my inbox soon and that was not going to be a fun experience considering my lack of sleep, lack of decent food – airplane food could never be considered good – and the lack of caffeine wasn’t on my side either. My job as an editor for a publisher literally required a large stack of coffee pods and a freshly boiled kettle of water; it was the only useful technique I had picked up from former bosses for getting through 600-page manuscripts I could find, and I was missing it currently. All of it in fact. Without another thought about the lack of everything in my life at the current moment, I shoved open the apartment door and was greeted with the sight of a bigger apartment than that I had left in London. My case rolled along the wooden floor as the door fell quietly shut behind me, from the floor below I could hear laughter and squeals of delight but ignored it as I locked the door behind me and slipped out of my beaten-up converse, abandoning them beside the door and my suitcase. Time to explore my home for the next six months. While the kitchen was relatively compact, a large square table was settled in the middle of it that I already knew I was going to spend the majority of my time at, the kitchen had a few fold up chairs that reminded me of university accommodation. I winced silently.

Not overly fond memories those folding chairs held for me.

The kitchen and living room were effectively one huge space, with the living room comprised of a coffee table and a sofa as well as a couple of large comfy armchairs which would be for afternoon naps between manuscripts. As I walked round the apartment t struck me just how little character the place had. that would have to be rectified. I couldn’t think of much worse than working in a bland characterless empty and frankly boring apartment. It wouldn’t do considering every inch of my London apartment was covered in my artwork or artwork I had picked up across my travels from various crafting and art markets up and down the length of the United Kingdom. Continuing my walk through of the apartment I was delighted to find the bathroom had a large bath, at least I'd be able to soak off the jetlag and general stress of working in publishing with manuscripts that needed to be cut down to half their size, even though my manager frequently provided no way for them to be cut down. A large window bought in natural light that covered the living room, while a balcony looked down on the back of the building, as well as overlooked a different apartment block opposite, if I decided to pick up the old vice of smoking the balcony could become useful. It was that or drying laundry in the open air (likely not fresh).

We’d see how New York treated me as to which one happened first.

Walking back inside I ventured into the bedroom to look at the condition, a large bed with a princess and the pea style lumpy mattress was at the centre of the room, with storage cupboards surrounding it. My stomach lurched at the thought of sleeping in the apartment in its current state, the bedding had an interesting few stain that I didn’t want to question the origin of. The bedroom was survivable, but the bedding urgently needed changing and I wanted to test the cupboards strength as I had visions of it coming crashing down on me in the night. What a fun explanation that would be to my boss, whose had been all for the idea of shipping me out to New York despite my loud and frequent disagreements. The bedroom would suffice, the apartment would suffice, a fact I was reluctant to admit considering I still didn’t see any point in me being in the USA to begin with.

Sure it provided an opportunity to see one of my brothers, and meant I got to be in person with a particularly difficult client who would be going on a book signing tour in several days’ time to promote her latest book (which I was yet to fully read), but it wasn’t something I had been thrilled about from conception to execution. I took another slow breath and reminded myself I loved my job – and needed it – I would get to see my brother who I hadn’t seen in person for several years, and this was the opportunity to live abroad that I had always wanted. I hadn’t accounted for being sent to America, the country who I had frequently been told loved the British accent, I had considered putting on accent before arrival but knew I was a terrible actor and wouldn’t be able to keep it up long enough. Deciding that having explored the apartment, and knowing it was in urgent need of new bedding, some personality, and I needed some coffee before I even looked at my inbox, I ignored my large and abandoned suitcase in the kitchen and reached my oversized handbag that my younger brother frequently called ‘the hand luggage bag’ and rooted through it. My two purses were where they had been tossed at the bottom, with my work laptop squidged in between the piles of flight stuff and notebooks. I was never without a notebook. First priority, coffee. Everything else could wait, I snatched up my keys from the table, adding another item to my mental shopping list, ash tray to keep keys in. And headed back out the door, tugging on my converse as I went; locking the door behind me, I began the trek back down the stairs, it was far easier without an obnoxiously overpacked case. My inability to pack light had always been the butt of family jokes, and despite having made it to my 20s, I hadn’t improved my packing skills since I was a child. Lord help me if I were ever to have children and have to pack for them, I could guarantee it wouldn’t end well.

I hopped down the last few steps of the bottom staircase and headed out the main door where I had been deposited earlier having clambered exhausted and far from graceful out of a yellow cab. That’s what they called them in New York right? A yellow cab? Ugh who cared. It’d been a long flight over, even longer trying to work out how to hail a taxi – there was a reason the London tube worked so well – and then getting up all those bloody flights of stairs. If I hadn’t been so proud I would’ve considered calling my delightful older brother and ask him to carry the case up the stairs for me but I also knew he was training and I wasn’t going to interrupt that. There would be time for a catch up another time. Having stumbled onto the main street, I was suddenly reminded that I had no clue where the f I actually was, or where I was going and I hadn’t sorted anything yet to allow me to have internet access to get directions. Bollocks. This whole American adventure was going to be the death of me. My eyes scoured the street I had walked onto from the apartment block, while I couldn’t see any street signs that indicated what streets led off this one, I could see the Central Perk coffee shop that was next to the apartment block, if it sold coffee that was good enough for me, and clutching my oversized handbag, I hurried to the glass door and scanned the place, it looked cosy, well lit with good sized tables for working, it was pretty quiet, not surprising considering it was only 8am local time and most people were probably still waking up.

Without a second thought I pushed open the door and stepped inside, instantly swept up in the armour of freshly ground coffee and sweet baked goodies, I walked my way through the arranged tables of various height levels and approached the counter. The guy behind the counter looked thoroughly pissed off with life, in which case we could probably be friends as I related on every possible level, “morning,” he grunted in a hard to place but definitely European accent, “morning,” I croaked back, imagining what this poor man saw as his eyes roamed over me, a relatively average height girl with her hair in a messy bun, a large bag tucked under an arm, baggy grey sweatpants and a hoodie promoting some ice hockey team or another my brother played for back in London before he moved across the ocean. “what’cha want?” the guy asked, and I read his badge, Gunter, interesting name. Not one I would’ve thought he had but somehow fit incredibly well. “coffee, any kind, iced and sweet, lots of caffeine, I'm going to need it,” I muttered and add a butter croissant to the order as my stomach was still at pains to remind me that the ‘meal’ on the plane was not going to make my jetlag any better or my first day in New York a happy if hazy memory. Thankfully Gunter didn’t bother to question my coffee order, “five dollars,” ah yes the next challenge, working out how the hell one used dollars when a single dollar had a note. What currency needed a single dollar to have a note? Madness. Flicking through my purse I passed over a five dollar bill, glaring darkly at the one dollar bill, Gunther pushed a plate with a freshly baked croissant and jam towards me, “coffee will be over in a minute,” he stated and I took the cue to leave. Walking over to a table far away from the counter, and any window as I didn’t particularly want to stare out onto some random New York street given my current mood. Sighing to myself I knew I had to get the inevitable over with and open my work inbox, although I had a lot of writers who were my personal responsibility, clients rarely made me dread opening my inbox.

Except one.

There was one that made me dread it and was the whole reason I was in this god-awful city to begin with. Nora Bing. I always opened my inbox with trepidation when I knew I was due some chapter or another from her, a project from her always required strong coffee before even reading the email the document would be attached to. You never fully knew what you were going to get when you were working with Nora. Usually more than you bargained for at the very least. She was a sweet enough woman, far too blasé about her sexual experiences in her emails to me, I didn’t need to know or indeed care to know about her recent sexual encounters. I read them every time she sent me a manuscript or section, but nice enough. It was her latest book tour that bought the both of us to New York, as my publisher had insisted that as her main editor I should go and support her on behalf of the company and apparently myself. I had reminded them that I worked behind the scenes for a reason, a people person I was not, but when that hadn’t worked I had reluctantly agreed and been booked a plane ticket. Taking a deep breath and offering a weak smile to Gunther when he placed a large cup of coffee with lots of ice and caramel syrup in front of me, I opened my inbox, closing my eyes for a moment and peeking through one half closed. As expected, a new email had appeared while I had been on my flight.

“dearest Ash, apologies for the delay in getting this to you, you see I was at the best orgy I’ve been to, to date last week and got swept up in it all and completely forgot about this manuscript. Such a me thing to do! Anyway, I got plenty of inspiration from it ;) and have put it into this manuscript can’t wait for your feedback, we must meet for coffee and you must come and meet my wonderful son! He lives in New York, and I think you two would really hit it off, anyway must dash, need to get to the sex store before it closes for the night, toodles! Nora”

I winced silently, not the worst email I'd ever received from her, in fact it was going fine up until we reached the meet for coffee part. After that however, my client trying to set me up with her son? Absolutely not. I gulped down coffee as I clicked onto the document attached and waited for the pdf to load up, while I waited, I pulled out my simple cream notebook with a few embroidered daisies on the cover, and began a list:

To do list for New York Day 1 (of too many) –

- Buy new bedding URGENT

- Find supermarket or some sort of food shop to stock up fridge

- Meet neighbours?

- Unpack

- Get some decent sleep

- Look into getting a new mattress

- Find something to make the apartment look less like an abandoned hospital and more like an actual home

- Stock up on wine – will be needing it

- Ciggies?

My laptop binged with life, the irony not lost on me as the latest manuscript from Mrs Bing informed me it was done loading and ready for my reading delight. Another gulp of coffee was swallowed before I scrolled down past the title page, ‘the hunk next door’ surprisingly a workable title – it usually took at least six phone calls and multiple hours of pitches from head office to get a publishable title on the cover but this one was decent. Was luck finally on my side? Unlikely but a girl could hope, I took a bite of my croissant as I continued scrolling, skim reading the first few pages with pleasant surprise. Naturally as a ‘romance’ writer it wasn’t long before Mrs Bing got onto her preferred topic, and I was reminded that I wasn’t a fan of reading sex scenes over breakfast. Deciding that I should make a start on my to do list and could return to reading once breakfast had settled down and my bed no longer looked like a health hazard, I gulped down the last dribbles of my coffee and shoved my laptop back into my bag. I approached the counter, waiting patiently for Gunter to lift his eyes from staring at the street outside, “ehem,” I coughed quietly, watching his eyes snap up to me in surprise before resetting to his miserable look, I wondered silently if that was his default face, or if it was just for customers. “I'm sorry to bother you but I'm new to the area and just wondered where the nearest supermarket is or whatever its called here,” Gunter looked at me blankly as I sighed internally, surely he knew where a supermarket was in this city? People surely couldn’t survive only on those food stalls and trucks that littered the main streets I had seen when I had researched the city prior to my flight?

“sorry couldn’t help but overhear you, I could aha direct you?” I turned to face the new voice and was greeted by a tall white guy, well built but not in a muscular fight way, nor lanky, somewhere in the middle at a nice balance, a happy medium of sorts. I didn’t get a chance to look at his face as no sooner had I turned around he avoided all eye contact, or looking at me at all. “direct me to a supermarket?” “yeah well I'm no Einstein but I have lived here a while and can give you directions,” I nodded slowly, and offered a small tired smile, “there’s a Walmart not too far, a few European stores too if that takes your fancy, and a Target beyond that,” he explained, as I took in his clothing, a comfortable looking knitted jumper and baggy trousers, with messy brown hair. And very easy on the eyes. I mentally scolded myself for checking out a guy in a city I had only just arrived in who was literally trying to help me. “Target?” I questioned confused, snapping out of my delusions long enough to ask a question, “well some call it tar-gé but it’s a grocery store like the one you wanted or said you wanted aha,” I nodded slowly again, my eyes must’ve been glossing over as the guy shifted uncomfortably in front of me, “I can uh give you directions” my brain really had melted on the plane ride over. “yes directions, that would be good,” he glanced at me with slight concern, “are you a Brit, is this why you seem so confused?” he asked flatly as Gunther sniggered behind me, only to be shot a look by the guy in front of me which silenced him.

“no I'm a Brit who has no idea why she is in New York, or where anything is and would like to not starve to death nor be killed in her new box apartment from whatever is on the bedsheets,” I replied far harsher than was needed but the coffee pumping in my veins combined with my general irritation and hatred for my situation were combining to make me into the ‘devil who types’ as my boss had once referred to me after I had slung several 700+ page of drivel manuscripts out my office door after a particularly bad day. “you just moved into apartment 4-0-9 then,” the guy chuckled, I refused to answer it and instead got the directions off him, scribbling them down messily on my hand. “thanks for your help, was lovely meeting you, as you Americans say, gotta run,” without another look back I exited the coffee shop and not for the first (or likely the last) time that day questioned what the hell I had done in a past life to bring me to my current situation.

The Walmart was closer than the Target according to the directions – though I was still no clearer on why either had such stupid names – and with an accepting if very grudging, reluctance I walked through the automated doors of the Walmart and collected a trolley on my way through. Ignoring the sign that called them ‘carts,’ I pushed it on and took back out my list, even if stocking the fridge was the logical place to start, I made bedding the priority, not being able to stomach the thought of the sheets and duvet currently on my bed. My face fell at the sight of the bedding, off white, morbid grey or trashy red. Ffs. I was desperate not that bloody desperate. My options were off white hospital, coroner grey or brothel red. Wonderful. Snatching the off white off the shelf and tossed it into my trolley I was reminded once again that I had some regrets. Quite a few of them. No one had said life in the USA would be easy, but this was more than I had bargained for, especially considering the range of cereals on display, none of which I could decipher from one another. My eyes studied each box for a moment in confusion before grabbing the closest to the ones in London, and added a silent prayer for good measure.

This was a voyage of discovery and no mistake.

Chapter Text

Despite my original concerns about life in New York, I was slowly beginning to settle into. I had finished my exploration of Walmart and trekked back to my apartment with my arms full of bags with groceries, fresh bedding, several bottles of wine, and anything else I thought could be of remote use for the first few days of settling in. Nora Bing’s latest manuscript had been left unread on my laptop as I instead made up my room and set up my apartment, starting with stripping the bed.

I silently debated if a burning ceremony of the old bedding would be appropriate or if the landlord would in fact want it back for the next poor unsuspecting soul. Deciding I didn’t really want a bill for the stain clad bedding – or a fire – landing on my doorstep, I bundled it haphazardly into the Walmart bag I had just emptied and stowed it somewhere I wouldn’t have to see it ever again.

Progress.

Considering I was certain I was going to crash soon with a terrible bout of jet lag, so far I had been fairly successful in my attempts to make the apartment useable, not a health hazard and also have some personality; having collected several sets of canvases from Walmart and paints to add my own touch to the place. I had looked rather stupid lugging these obnoxious packs of canvases with the rest of my shopping through the streets of New York. But it’s not embarrassing if you’re not embarrassed.

It was a shame I hadn’t thought to bring fridge magnets with me from London, the bare fridge combined with the bland and empty looking kitchen was not enticing but that could be fixed with time. If nothing else I could always buy a tacky NYC magnet and stick it on as a placeholder for something slightly less gregarious.

With everything slowly falling into place I decided to postpone the inevitable manuscript for a while longer and with keys in hand, headed down to the in apartment block mailbox or PO box or whatever the heck Americans called it. The PO boxes were the same shade of purple as all the doors in my new apartment, something told me they either LOVED the shade or bought too much of it, one thing for sure though was that the second I returned to England, I would likely not want to see that particular shade of purple for six to twelve working business months.

At the very least. My eyes roamed across the PO boxes numbers and finally settled on mine, 409, the guy in the coffee shop had guessed bang on, but London was dodgy and I knew you didn’t tell people they were right, I was going to carry through the logic to NYC until proven otherwise. A quiet nagging part of my brain insisted there was no way he could be a murderer, too cute, too awkward, definitely not but better to be safe than sorry I supposed as I wrote my name onto a small piece of paper and slid it into the front box where everyone else had listed their names and initials. Miss A Crompton, perfect.

Yet more progress and I hadn’t even had a nap yet.

The lack of nap was something of a miracle, as usually even when I had enjoyed a full night of sleep, I would have a midday nap. So to have got off a plane, be running low on sleep and still not had a nap? Straight up miracle.

“so I was right about you living here then huh?” I spun round to come face to face with the cute guy from the coffee shop and smiled tight-lipped, “that makes me sound like a murderer, I’m not I promise,” he added awkwardly bringing me straight back to my earlier trail of thought. “well if you were a murderer I hardly think you’d tell me about it while I can run,” I quipped with ease and a small smile that was less tight and forced than my earlier one. “well aha you got me there,” I smiled to myself, his awkwardness was adorable.

And then mentally reprimanded myself with the fact that I wasn’t supposed to say this about random blokes who may or may not live in the same apartment block as me. Even if it was true. “aha good to know…” I trailed off, hoping my hint at learning his name was obvious enough, “it’s that one,” he gestured to apartment 310’s PO box that was sat the row above my own, “J Tribiani Bing?” I questioned as he winced more to himself than at my statement.

“Bing, uh Chandler Bing,” I nodded slowly, “nice to meet you Mr Chandler Bing, I'm Ash Crompton, a Brit very much out of her depth on the wrong side of the ocean,” he chuckled quietly, his outfit unchanged from earlier but the same easy going open aura like earlier. “well if you ever need an American buddy to guide you I can rent you my roommate, he’s an actor so always in desperate need of work,” I laughed softly and smiled ruefully thinking of my own previous roommates who had been in the acting business.

In a manner of speaking. More a manner of speaking than doing actual business and making you know, money. But I missed her regardless and had a massive soft spot (that she was well aware of) for her clutz self. “I’ll keep that in mind, I sure need a new mattress as soon as possible, it’s like the princess and the pea up there,” I stated gesturing to the ceiling,
“and you’re the princess?” Chandler questioned,
“might as well be the pea at this point,” I replied flatly slumping against the PO box. “you didn’t want to get in here right?” I asked hurriedly moving away from it like it was on fire to lean against the wall beside it instead, “oh no no no don’t worry no I don’t need to check the mail today no,” I nodded with another small smile. I could get used to Chandler’s company.

Though I doubted I would get that much work done if I did. “so you’re uh new to New York?” he asked, I nodded,
“first time, probably the last time, living alone once more, no roommate, no friends in the city, just me and my sad little life,” he smirked for a moment,
“you and me both except I have a roommate, my friends live opposite me and I live vicariously through them,” I smiled ruefully, living vicariously through other people was nice to have, it meant you had friends who trusted you, and who you could trust right back too. “I can relate to that, I don’t lead the most exciting life, not exactly party central when I'm around,” I joked, wincing internally at the amount of truth that existed in that one, rather damning statement.

“if you want I can always ask my friends to come and check on you, they’re great, very all American, super energetic, possibly a bit too energetic, always happy to add a new girl to the group and one is a chef so if you are ever in need of food, she’s your gal, she’s always cooking far too much of it anyway…” I smiled again glancing down at my shoes to avoid spooking Chandler with what I was sure looked like a horror movie doll smile from the amount of jokes he had been cracking. “I'd like that, it’d be nice to have friends in a city that I'm stuck in for at least the next six months,” Chandler nodded, his expression somewhere between impressed and sympathetic.

I'd like to think it leant more towards impressed but knew better than to rule out sympathetic. What a wonderful first impression I was making. There was a reason you should never let me make first impressions while jet lagged. “well Miss Ash Crompton, it’s nice to know you have a name and I don’t just have to tell my roommate that…” he cut himself before he could continue, and if the light blush tinting his cheeks was anything to go by, I had a small inkling as to why he had. Adorable. Literally adorable.

“well Chandler you don’t have to worry about that,” I teased gently, as I pushed myself off the wall I had been leaning on, “but if you’ll excuse me I could do with a nap, I don’t think I’ve slept properly in three days or something equally ridiculous,” Chandler nodded, giving me a wave as he walked towards the door, his fingers gripped around a small lighter, muttering under his breath (though not quite quietly enough) an attempt at saying ‘ridiculous’ in a British accent, I sniggered to myself as I climbed back up the stairs to my apartment.

Maybe six months at a minimum in New York wasn’t going to be so bad.

Trudging back up to my apartment however, was going to become the very bane of my existence, I eventually made it back to my floor and back to my apartment. At least I would be at my physical peak with all this stair climbing, I was going to have thighs like tree trunks, now that my apartment looked less Craigslist dungeon and more (well actually) inhabitable, I locked the door behind me and swiftly kicked off my shoes, unbothered about where they landed and walked to my room.

Stripping off my hoodie and layers as I went, before grabbing one of my brother’s oversized jerseys that he had ever so kindly donated to me – he had tried to donate them to his wife with very little success, and me being the doting sister, had happily taken them. Waste not want not and all that. Tugging the jersey over my head, I pulled my hair out of whatever attempt at a hairstyle I had tried to do between shopping and changing the bedding, and collapsed onto the bed. Definitely princess and the pea mattress. That would be the next thing to sort, I told myself as I pulled the quilt around my shoulders and let my head hit the pillow and the world quieten as my long overdue midday nap finally rolled in.

Knock.

Knock.

KNOCK.

“hello???” a female voice called faintly through the door (though regrettably not faintly enough), I groaned loudly, seeing as I no longer had a roommate, there was no way in hell someone was calling for me to let them in because they’d flushed their key down the toilet of a long forgotten night club and needed letting in to pee. It had happened. Grumbling to myself I stumbled out of bed, grabbing my hair bobble as I went and attempting to put my hair into a bun as I crossed the living room – let’s just say if the floor had been lava, then from the very first step I would’ve been sunk. I eventually made it to the door, where the knocking and calling had impressively gotten louder. If my new neighbours didn’t hate me yet it would be nothing short of a miracle. This was not my favourite wake up call after a long haul flight, and a disaster zone of a new apartment.

“yes?” I asked flatly, flinging the door open, making the dark haired woman on the other side of it almost topple into me like a domino. “hi!” she greeted as I stared at her confused, “hello? And you are?” I prompted, my usual polite demeanour having slunk off completely in favour of bluntness so that I could return to my bed. “hi, I’m Monica,” my expression clearly hadn’t changed any less from confusion as I continued to stare at her blankly, “Chandler’s friend,” my mouth formed an o-shape as recognition finally dawned on me.

The girls from downstairs opposite Chandler, the chef and the other two, the ones who were always up for making new friends. And judging from all that knocking and calling, apparently new enemies too. “oh right, yes of course, um come in,” I stepped out of the way to allow her in, which she happily did. “oh now this is just gorgeous,” she commented as I shut the door behind her and pulled my brother’s jersey down ever so slightly further.

I could definitely see where Chandler had been coming from about the too much energy thing. This woman had more serotonin in her pinky finger than I had in my whole body. “Chandler was so excited to tell us about the new girl moving in and how you wanted to get to know some people and I just had to come around and introduce myself and welcome you to New York,” oh my god. This woman spoke at a million miles per hour.

Was she even breathing in between words? Would it be inappropriate to tell her to smoke a cigarette to force her to take a few deep breaths? “yeah, I met Chandler on complete coincidence at the coffee shop downstairs and he’s been really sweet,” I decided it was time to intervene, otherwise I would likely not get a word in edge ways for the next six months. And unfortunately, I still had a manuscript waiting for me.

“ah isn’t Chandler just the best!” Monica enthused before going on another ramble while I fiddled with the bottom of my jersey, “oh you like ice hockey? The boys love ice hockey!” and she was off again… eventually after agreeing to visit her apartment and her roommates later in the day, I finally managed to get Monica to stop talking long enough for quiet to resume in my apartment. I smiled politely before slamming and locking the door shut. How on earth, did one woman have that much energy at nearly 5pm in the evenings? What on earth was she running on? The fricking power cables to the block? The nearest electricity station or whatever they were called?

Being firmly awake now, I decided to cut my losses and just read the first part of Nora’s manuscript, rip the band aid off and all that shit. As a pre-emptive gesture to my future self, I placed a large carton of orange juice, an even larger bottle of champagne, a large wine glass – the biggest I could find in the supermarket – and the newly purchased pack of cigarettes on the table beside my laptop. Future me would probably be overjoyed. With a sense of impending doom, like the ceiling was about to fall in (I distinctly hoped that wouldn’t be my next bad omen of the day), I opened the manuscript and began reading. Half an hour later and I had sacked in the manuscript for a cigarette on the balcony, leaning on the wall to stare out over NYC.

It wasn’t even Nora’s worst manuscript that I'd ever read, it just did nothing for my grumpy brain right now, and editing it was a nightmare I didn’t even want to consider just yet. And as promised, she had indeed filled it in with very in-depth descriptions of her recent adventures. I really should’ve taken a new job up when I had the chance. The characters were fine, heck there was actually a plot in her first draft which was also a rare occurrence, but something about it was missing, and for the life of me I could not put my finger on it. That wasn’t at all likely to bother me, not at all.

Note the intense sarcasm.

Giving up on yet another thing, I walked back into my apartment and reached for a pair of bottoms that resembled something fit to be seen by other humans, shoved my keys into the pocket of my hoodie and grabbed some shoes on the way out the door, being sure to lock the door behind me. Lord knew what I would find chilling in my apartment if I didn’t, probably a whole family of raccoons eating their way through my recently stocked fridge, before making my way down the stairs to stand in front of yet another purple door.

Definitely too much paint. No one could like this shade of purple that much. With a far softer knock than Monica had done to my own door, I waited to be let in, which opened with a flourish to Monica with a girl with brown hair, and another with blonde hair somewhere behind her. “new girl!” Monica greeted, “everybody, Chandler’s new friend in the block is here,” ahh yes, with all of Monica’s earlier talking I had forgotten she hadn’t actually asked for my name.

This could be interesting. “hey,” Chandler greeted from the sofa where he was sat with two more men, both with dark hair, though one clearly more solemn than the other. I offered a slight wave, “everybody this is…” Monica trailed off, she really wanted me to fill in my own name all because she hadn’t remembered to ask, brilliant, “Ash” I filled in for her with one of my well rehearsed tight lipped smiles reserved for book signings and long coffees with Nora that were overpriced.

Various ‘hi’ ‘hello’ and ‘hey’ s were exchanged in varying degrees of awkward while I maintained my perfectly tight smile, “come in sit down, don’t stand on ceremony,” I winced internally. This was more awkward than the time I had walked in on Nora having a threesome with two of the spa assistants on the side of the pool at one of the retreats she booked for us – it was meant to be ‘relaxing’ I had been more stressed than relaxed throughout the entire endeavour.

I settled awkwardly on the floor next to the blonde girl who was playing some sort of game with the taller and solemn looking of the dark haired male pair, “so you’ve met me and Chandler, this is Rachel, Phoebe, Joey and Ross,” Monica introduced at rapid speed, gesturing to various people as she rattled through the names, I nodded politely and shot Chandler a look that screamed ‘what have you got me into.’ “wait is that the Blades of Steel ice hockey team jersey?” Joey interrupted suddenly, all eyes immediately flickering to my brother’s jersey, ah shit. “oh my god it is,” Chandler agreed,

“that’s one of the player’s jerseys too!” Joey added, while the others stared on silently, “which one did you get with?” Rachel asked excitedly, quite literally on the edge of her seat. With all eyes on me I groaned internally, I had hoped we could steer away from this topic and moving to a new city would allow me to keep my family relations on the down low.

Apparently not.

“none of them,” I stated flatly, “it’s really not an interesting story,” judging from all of their faces, they couldn’t have given less of a shit if it was as boring as watching paint dry. I sighed quietly. So much for keeping stuff on the down low. “fine, my brother is one of their players, he tends to give me some of the spare jerseys, told you it wasn’t an interesting story,” I added as the three boys mouths all dropped open, “your brother!?” Chandler stammered while Ross looked between my face and my jersey several times in awe, it was only Joey that finally managed to string a few sentences together, “your brother plays for Blades of Steel?” he questioned,

“yeah,” I replied with an easy shrug, after a while it was something you got used to. I had met most of the team at one point or another, I could have front row tickets if I so desired – I didn’t – and it was just a fact of my existence, it was also why I tried to avoid telling anyone for as long as possible as I loathed the idea of people wanting to be around me purely because of who my brother was. I was not just my brother’s sister. “Daniel Crompton, star player, right wing defence, is your brother?” Chandler managed finally,
“yeah, while I’m here I figured I'd go watch a few of his games, and pay him an overdue visit,” the boys and even Rachel were clearly not recovering from this news. And to be fair to them, I was pretty unbothered by it now, I'd had a lifetime to get used to it after all.

“are they always like this?” I asked turning to Monica as Phoebe was sat braiding her hair loosely in an adorable plait, “pretty much? Sometimes they’re worse, don’t worry they’ll recover, just don’t bring your brother over without warning as that will be an expensive trip to the ER” I nodded, duly noted.
“so I shouldn’t mention that I have tickets to his game in the VIP booth that I can’t go to because of a work event?” I teased in a loud whisper,

“definitely not,” Phoebe murmured from beside me as Monica smirked widely while all three of the boys’ heads, and Rachel’s snapped towards me. “you have tickets? In the VIP box? And you are only just now telling us!?” Joey and Chandler were both on their feet in an instant as I shrugged, “to be fair she’s only been here five minutes,” Phoebe stated from where she was twiddling her around her finger “well I may have, guess I’ll just have to see if I feel like going,” I teased with a small smile.

“why wouldn’t you want to!?” Joey spluttered as Chandler smacked him in the chest,
“no she doesn’t want to go because then we get the tickets,” I glanced back at Monica who was practically bent double in her attempt not to burst out laughing.

“we’ll see if I have a work event,” I shrugged simply as Joey and Chandler collapsed back into their seats, “sorry darlings, but my big brother’s game is one I can’t miss, even for you lovely lads and girl, work is the only way I get out of it, and trust me, you don’t want to see my brother mad at his siblings, it ain’t pretty,” I added nodding at them with a genuine smile that I almost never pulled out as it required too many facial muscles.

“oouu protective brother, wonder what’s that like,” Monica settled on the arm of her couch next to Rachel, who immediately turned her attention back to me. “I heard some of the players are single, is it true?” she asked, all but leaping over the boys to be beside me, I shrugged,
“I don’t know now, after the first few times I stopped paying attention,” Rachel whimpered slightly as Ross shuffled uncomfortably in his seat. Hmm, some unfinished feelings there then. The ‘first few times’ they asked me on a date; I added silently. But now wasn’t the time to unleash that curve ball too. I already had a manuscript on my kitchen table that required my attention – which I wasn’t really ready to give it, and I had a deep yearning for another cigarette to get the attention off me and my notorious ice hockey playing brother.

Or in general just off my brother. That would be a start if nothing else.

“so what do you do for work?” Phoebe asked, at least it was off the topic of my brother,
“I work in publishing, work with authors, read, suggest, edit, publish, sell their books, and attend a lot of book tours, that’s one of the reasons I'm here actually,” I explained briefly deciding to miss out the vast majority of boring and tiresome details. And the Nora Bing detail, that wasn’t one to be dropped on people you who had only recently met. As much as I loved Nora – as a client, occasionally – she was a bit like marmite, you loved her and her books, or you would burst into flames at the mention of her name. There was very rarely an inbetween.

“that’s cool,” they all murmured as I smiled awkwardly, I could get used to their friendship for sure. It just might take a while and quite a few adjustments. And a large wine glass. “now we’ve played icebreakers for the latest central perk cutie, whose up for some twister!” before I even had the slightest clue what was going on, the living room coffee table was being moved and replaced with a white piece of plastic mat covered in brightly coloured spots.

I was suddenly glad I had bothered to put trousers on when I had come down from my apartment, “Ross you spin, Phebes you first,” Monica directed as I settled beside Chandler, gently taking the lighter out of his grip, “go and play like a good boy,” I teased as I flicked the flame back and fourth on the lighter, “I will if you will,” I shrugged without answering, “that’s so weird when it’s not followed by no thanks its late,” I laughed quietly, there was a comfortable ease with Chandler, unlike any I had had with boys back in London, “are you always this easy to get on with?” I asked quietly, watching the flame dance up and down, “nah not really,” he replied sarcastically, placing his arm comfortably behind me on the sofa.

New York wasn’t looking so bad. “Ash you’re up,” I glanced up from where I had been sat and got off the low sofa I had plonked myself onto, Rachel and Phoebe were both somehow bent over with Joey behind them while Monica was doing some sort of yoga pose that had gone horribly wrong if the way her leg was almost knocking into Rachel’s face was anything to go by. I tossed off my hoodie, and emptied the lighter, packet of cigarettes, and apartment keys from my pocket. If I was going to be bending over, I'd rather not spend the whole of eternity trying to find my various items again.

“left hand green,” Ross called as I glanced round the plastic mat cluelessly before finally spotting it, right below Phoebe’s face, “sorry” I whispered to her as I placed my hand and attempted to balance myself in a way that would not cause her injury. Chandler remained sat on the sofa smirking widely as he watched us tangle ourselves further, before answering the phone and calling to Rachel “your bank” I silently wondered if it was common to get calls from your bank. I never did in England but then again I rarely answered the phone if I could get away with.

“can you take my place?” she called back as she began extracting herself from the tangle of limbs we had already formed, when she finally got the phone out of Chandler’s hand he was pushed over to the plastic mat where Joey fully had Phoebe’s ass against his crotch and lucky me was about to have the same with Chandler. God I was glad it wasn’t just my jersey underneath the hoodie, “oh yeah get in there,” Joey encouraged as Chandler stood behind me, one hand lightly touching my hip to steady me from wobbling onto Monica and Phoebe and causing an entire domino effect.

I couldn’t hear whatever Chandler was mumbling but there was definitely some swear words when he was forced to lean over me to get to the next colour that was called out. “well don’t you all look like you are having a great time,” Rachel commented as she settled herself on the sofa where Chandler had been perched. “speak for your frigging self,” I called over to her from where I was squashed beneath Chandler, with Monica reaching beneath me to a colour on the other side of the mat.

It was a physical miracle we had even survived this long.

Eventually we inevitably all fell on top of each other in what could only be described as doggy pile or hugely inaccurate pyramid, to be fair, I was surprised it had taken that long to topple but it didn’t stop me from groaning from where I was squished as we began attempting to extract ourselves and untangle the jumbled mess we had become during the course of the game. “as delightful as human jenga was, if you’ll excuse me,” I murmured, grabbing my packet of cigarettes and lighter from the couch, “wait up,” Chandler called to the course of ‘Chandler really’ as he jogged to catch up with me, “share a cigarette with a handsome American boy?” he commented wriggling his eyebrows,

“oh you wanted me to ask Joey to come with us?” his face fell flat as he shot me a deadpan look which I replied to with a cheeky innocent smile, “hadn’t realised you smoke,” he commented as we crossed the hallway towards his apartment, “oh please I'm no angel, we all have our little vices,” I replied, as he let us into his apartment, and then led us out onto the balcony, “you’ve got the face of an angel” he quipped,

“I think I just threw up in my mouth,” he chuckled quietly as I passed him a cigarette from the packet and took out one for myself, placing it between my lips before lighting the end of it. “there’s something so peaceful about the five minutes of smoking isn’t there,” I commented quietly as he lit his own cigarette and blew out a cloud of smoke, balancing it between his fingers with a practiced ease. “yeah your mind just shuts off,” I nodded in quiet agreement, staring out from the balcony that pointed at the opposite direction to my own balcony.

“from here it almost looks nice,” Chandler scoffed quietly from beside me,
“emphasis on the almost,” I didn’t disagree with him, the low lighting of the apartment allowed us a near perfect view across the city and the dazzling lights, the planes with their landing lights on flying overhead towards the airport, and the buzz of cool air combined with sounds of the busy subways and packed streets filled with yellow cabs.

“it’s not so bad from up here though,” he shrugged, smiling slightly as he took another puff on his cigarette, “could be worse, there are certainly worse views out there, like the view from Monica’s balcony of ugly naked guy,” I shot him a curious confused and slightly concerned look from the corner of my eye, “I’ll explain it to you in daylight,” he promised sincerely as I nodded slowly and let the topic drop.

Perhaps I could get used to this after all.

Chapter Text

I spoke too soon.

I was not used to this.

I was hating this.

My bed wasn’t princess and the pea.

It was the full lumpy misshapen pod of peas, with no princess in sight and the only promised result of the bed was a bad back. A very bloody bad back at that. So much so that the top of my to do list for the following day had nothing even remotely close to do with manuscripts and instead everything to do with finding a new mattress. However, seeing as everyone from the apartment downstairs was either working – Chandler, Monica, Rachel, Ross and Phoebe – or pretending to work – Joey – my adventure into wider New York in search of a mattress that wouldn’t have me sleeping on the wooden floor or sofa for comfort, would have to wait. As, A. I could do with some directions help and B. who wants to test mattresses on their own? That’s meant to be a group activity so each member of the friend group can recommend their preference and give their full input, while you ignore all of them and go for whichever one you wanted to begin with. Easy peezy lemon squeezy.

Instead, I settled on my sofa, with my laptop plugged in to the power charger that was naturally on the opposite side of the wall, and sipped on my large glass of orange juice that was deposited on my coffee table, I had debated turning it into a mimosa before telling myself it was far too early even if I had to read and comment on Nora’s new manuscript. I was currently ignoring the prospect of her book signing which I would be going on with her, for moral support according to the office, for making sure nothing went up in literal flames according to my own experience of Nora Bing book signings.

Maybe the orange juice needed an accompanying breakfast pastry I pondered – if there was one thing, I excelled at to the point of I could have got a whole degree in it and most likely more than the average person did, then it was without a doubt procrastinating. It was my ultimate talent, if I wanted to be famous and go on some trashy talent show then it would’ve been my skill – though maybe sitting on a stage for ages would not really be a talent.

That was just my every day life at this point since arriving State side. Nora’s manuscript remained in front of me for half the morning, as I flicked between doing anything else my work could remotely want me to do. Organising and booking an upcoming tour for a different client? Done. Finalising all the details for Nora’s upcoming book tour, and sending her a long email of Dos (remember the title of your book) and Donts (embarrass the publishing company or talk about sex for too long).

Eventually I conceded defeat and began making notes on the manuscript, many of which surrounded the lack of motivation for the plot to be pushed forward by. It had been missing a motivation. That was it. It had to be it because if something else was in fact missing, I was going to lose my shit and throw my laptop off the side of the balcony in a fit of publisher rage. A speciality of mine, though I was yet to actually throw the laptop and instead usually settled for a smoke break and some swear words. That or painting.

My eyes flickered across the living room to where my brand new canvases remained untouched from when I had carted them along with everything else back to the apartment and up far too many flights of stairs to think about. Maybe painting would make me feel better. It was healthier than a smoke break and wouldn’t require a large repair bill if my laptop went flying. I made a basic lunch – one a university student would be proud of – consisting of slightly overdone toast and the biggest glass of orange juice I could manage along with a bowl of chopped up bananas. At least America had good bananas if nothing else. Small wins.

Storing my laptop away I settled on the floor, my food and drink on the coffee table while I unscrewed the lids of a few tubes of acrylic paint and started doing a light background onto one of the canvases. For a few minutes everything felt right with the world. Except minutes wasn’t the correct description… It was actually hours, as I snacked intermittently and thought over Nora’s new manuscript further while I painted, there was something still missing I realised with a sigh. And yet again I could not put my finger on what it was.

Which made my job as her editor ten times harder. Maybe it would be better when I actually saw her and was able to ask where this was all supposed to lead to. I made a mental note to ask her some questions about it and remind her not to mention it at any of her upcoming book signings or tv appearances. That was the last thing we needed, everyone sat on the edge of their seats in anticipation of her upcoming book which could take anywhere from several weeks to over a year or two to perfect and finally get to peoples’ bookshelves. The life of a publisher never was easy.

With a small smile I settled back on my feet and rested on my knees to look at the canvas, I had long stopped paying attention to what I had been painting and found to my surprise I had painted the view from Chandler’s balcony with the same small ashtray we had used when we had been standing there the night before surveying New York city.

What a strange place for my mind to wander off to. Thinking no more of it, I went to get up and stretch, but upon noticing how dark my apartment had become, my laptop remained where I had stored it and I flicked on the light switch to take the dark edge off the room and bring in some warmth, tidying away the remains of lunch as I went. Maybe I was making progress and the procrastinating hadn’t actually been that…

Until the lights went out.

Shit.

All thoughts of washing up, editing manuscripts and painting instantly left my head as the room descended into darkness. As did every building that was surrounding the block that I could see from my window. My entire apartment was instantly plunged into darkness and I glanced round desperately wondering whether I had properly unpacked enough to find a freaking torch. I was willing to bet I hadn’t. With the limited emergency lighting that illuminated a tiny bit of space by my main door, I scoured my apartment as best as I could for a torch or candles, I found candles first, and grabbed them and then continued digging around for my lighter, which was preferable to matches which I imagined half the city would be fiddling with instead.

I also had had a very memorable accident with matches almost burning off a fake nail at point during my life in the UK and the memory was still fresh enough that I more than happily ignored even the idea of matches. A lighter was quicker, more effective, and didn’t bring back that god forsaken memory of flames near the skin on my fingertips. A couple of flicks with my thumb later and the lighter had lit one candle which rested in an ugly candle holder that I could only assume I had been gifted by a relative at one point or another and only kept in case of an emergency.

Welcome to that emergency I supposed.

Through the paper-thin walls of my apartment I could hear the disgruntled grumbles of other apartment occupants scrambling around for any source of light they could find, and arguing with roommates, significant others, and anyone else in the vicinity as they went. Living alone had the one advantage that the only person you could argue with was yourself, so at least you were always right. And always won. Or technically always won and simultaneously always lost. Minutes passed by as I stared at my dimly lit apartment, I wasn’t scared of the dark but there was something unnerving to me about blackouts, maybe it was the lack of control in the whole matter, I didn’t know but I knew one thing and that was that I didn’t even remotely like it.

It made the apartment feel too big for just me to be wandering around it, especially when the only source of light was a single candle and shadows flickered against the walls while the neighbours in the surrounding apartments did good impressions of a haunting. More minutes passed and I began pacing up and down my apartment, careful not to go too close to the candle and risk it going out, I was really beginning to wish I had unpacked better as despite my best efforts at pacing, I was also tripping over every other thing that was yet to find a permeant home, and I distinctly didn’t want to go to the emergency room as Americans insisted on calling it, and explain I was there because I had tripped over my own items when I hadn’t unpacked properly and there had been a blackout. Now that would be embarrassing to say the least.

With my personal safety and not being embarrassed in a hospital in mind, I settled into one of the armchairs and hugged my knees to my chest. Who could’ve predicted this when I had boarded the plane to New York? “Ash! Ash are you ok in there!? The lights went out!” Monica called through my door loudly, god it was a miracle my new neighbours hadn’t started screaming at me yet. “yeah I noticed,” I called back, scrambling up from the chair and almost tripping over the living room table; note to self, tidy up. Urgently. With far daintier steps, and some mild prancing, I made it over to my door and opened it to Monica stood holding up a very unusual lantern that reminded me of something from the Victorian times. Or a horror movie.

“didn’t know a blackout came with a free haunting,” she faked a laugh before glancing into my apartment, “if I'd known you had the block’s stash of candles I'd have come up here sooner,” I laughed quietly, “but anyway I came to get you, you don’t want to sit alone during blackouts, especially not in this building, come sit with the rest of us,” I carefully grasped my candle and keys, locking my apartment behind me before following Monica down to hers which was somehow lit up worse than mine had been despite at least triple the number of candles. Quite impressive to be honest.

Rachel was stood staring out of the window curiously while Ross flitted here and there lighting yet more candles, if we needed to banish any unwanted spirits, I now knew where to conduct a séance. Phoebe was sat on the couch staring ahead aimlessly while Joey in typical Joey fashion was reclined comfortably, clearly just another event of his day. “where’s Chandler?” I wondered aloud as I glanced round and noticed he was the only person absent, “oh he’s meant to be coming back from work,” Joey replied as Monica scoffed and shook her head, reaching for her landline instead, “why she scoff?” I asked careful to avoid Monica’s recently fluffed cushions as I rested on the arm of the couch, “Chandler isn’t known for being the biggest fan of his work, or his office, or anyone of it,” Joey replied with a shrug.

“mum says all of Manhattan is out and they don’t know when it’s coming back on,” Monica called across the room to a round of groans, “wonderful,” I muttered flatly, wrapping my arms around myself in discomfort, this was soooooo my day. “not a fan of the dark?” Joey asked as Monica went back to arguing with her mother about the appropriate attire for a blackout and meeting suitors during a blackout, I ignored it for the moment. Whose priority was meeting someone in a blackout? There were more urgent things to sort, like getting the power back. “don’t mind the dark, not a fan of blackouts,” I corrected as Joey patted the arm of his armchair and opened his arms, I willingly shifted over to him and sunk onto the arm of his chair before he rolled his eyes as I looked at him in confusion, I'd done what he said.

Without a word he gently tugged me into his lap and rested his arm round my shoulder while I was snuggled into his chest, “thanks,” I mumbled trying not to scream ‘stranger danger’ in my head considering I had met this man less than a week ago. “my first blackout here freaked me out too,” he elaborated as Phoebe took the phone from Monica and asked unironically what her phone number was, Joey chuckled from behind me, the laughter reverberating in his chest against my own body. To be fair Phoebe had a point, it’s not like you ever phone yourself.

Time was passing incredibly slowly again, though not as slowly as when I had been on my own, and Joey had had the ingenious idea to bring in a menorah which he placed delicately on the mantle piece while Ross looked at him in pure disbelief, “Rabbi Tribiani” Joey shrugged unbothered, “Chandler’s old roommate was Jewish, it’s the only candles we have,” still some candles were better than no candles. “ew ugly naked guy!” Phoebe suddenly cried out as the others all but ran to the window to get a look, “I still don’t know who that is,” I muttered under my breath, as I stood behind Ross and immediately regretted my decision, hopping up and down in an attempt to see what they were all looking at, I couldn’t and given the lack of explanation for the name, I suspected I didn’t want to and instead returned to the armchair I had been sat in with Joey.

They all suddenly winced and jumped away from the window like it was on fire – at least we’d have light I thought to myself sardonically – as they all hurried away from the window and returned to where they had been scattered around Monica’s kitchen and living room. Rachel and Monica were chatting aimlessly while Phoebe resorted to fiddling with her hair, “still nothing from Chandler?” Ross wondered aloud as the phone rang as if on cue.

I wonder how I could get it to not call on cue. “oh my god!” Joey shrieked, holding the receiver away from his ear to turn to the rest of us, “he’s trapped in an ATM vestibule with Jill Goodacker” while the others all ooh-ed and ahh-ed I was reminded once again that I really needed to brush up on my American pop culture references as I had literally no clue who she was or why this was so incredible.

In true Joey style, he then proceeded to mumble some sort of gooboldiegook while we once again returned to our state of nothingness in the semi darkness. Should’ve bought my laptop down and done some work, at least if it had died half way through I would’ve had an excuse not to continue with it. Nora Bing’s latest manuscript was no further to being sorted than it had been three hours ago, the only difference was that we now had no power, lighting or electricity and I was actually in a mood where I could probably have got through most of it and any other manuscripts that had dropped into my inbox during that time. Bollocks.

“we can’t just sit around in the dark doing nothing,” Monica groaned as Ross my smiled softly, “ever the do-something my sister,” she flipped him off while simultaneously looking round expectantly, “any suggestions?” I stayed quiet from where I had now moved to be squashed between Joey and Rachel on the couch while Monica was curled up in the armchair I had been in formerly, Ross was low key manspreading in his own armchair and somehow Phoebe had ended up on the floor as a result of this – admittedly Joey had offered her a place on his lap and she had understandably declined and taken the floor instead.

“sexual experiences!” Rachel suddenly declared as my eyebrow rose in questioning concern, “we go through like weirdest places you’ve done it, best place to do it, strangest person you’ve done it with,” if nothing else, we were definitely going to learn a lot about each other from this. And I suspected my mind was about to be blown – metaphorically – and not in a way that I had envisaged for the evening.

“and so then…” we were half way through Rachel’s best shag location and I was staring up at the ceiling suddenly deeply interested in the flickering candle light shadows that were dancing across it. We had been on Rachel’s story for the best part of thirty minutes, and I had established thus far was that the bleachers in an American high school were a risky location and that the drama studio was in fact not the ideal location. Both of which I could have predicted but was now learning based on her first first-hand experience. If losing your virginity was a cherry being popped, then this conversation was several sets of my arteries being popped rather violently.

“what about you Ash, best location to do it?” Monica teased, I thought for a moment, “best location? On a desk probably,” Joey smirked from beside me and high fived me while Phoebe nodded in mild agreement, at the same time the other three had their mouths all but dropped open as they stared at me, I smiled innocently, “your turn Monica!” she looked away from me slowly as she slowly settled back in her chair and tried to look slightly less shellshocked. Jokes on them, the desk was one of three options – a bed, the shower or a bath if you were lucky, or a desk. And considering my current bed situation, beds were not number one on my list for something even remotely comfortable.

“oh my god you went in a library?” I couldn’t hold back my burst of laughter at Joey’s admission to having in fact been in a library, an actual library, even if it was only for a hook up, he shrugged with a knowing smirk, “hotter and smarter than you think,” Ross’ answer was unsurprising to me – he had always seemed like the sort to have a wild side hidden deep down somewhere, apparently hidden in Disneyland by the sounds of it, and Rachel’s was a lot tamer than I had honestly been expecting.

“come on Ash you’ve not said yours yet,” Ross prompted as I gave him a dark glare, there was a reason I hadn’t gone yet, for one it felt a lot like kiss and tell even if it was only the location and for two, my sex life was honestly not that interesting. “weirdest place? God you guys must think my sex life is so exciting if you’re asking me,” I muttered the last bit under my breath as I thought over my answer, “weirdest place was oh god, at uni it was in first year, I don’t know what your equivalent is so don’t bother asking me, and it was on one of the kitchen counter’s in the flat we shared with our flatmates,” the resounding ‘oh my gods’ was practically deafening and I was incredibly glad Chandler wasn’t around to witness this as well.

It was bad enough admitting my misdemeanours to friends but even worse to someone I could’ve been romantically interested in if I didn’t know his friends and didn’t live in the same building. Yay me. “kitchen counters? Like where you prepare and serve food?” Ross stammered, as I smiled bashfully, “well dinner was served” I bit the inside of my mouth as the others dissolved into giggles while Ross turned an impressive shade of tomato red, “and we cleaned the counters after don’t worry,” it had been after a very fun night out that had a fun ending of sorts. And no one was ever any the wiser as we had genuinely cleaned up after the event. Though if Ross’ thoughts were as clear as his expression, the cleaning up after was of no comfort.

At some point during the night Ross and Rachel had cosied up only to separate shortly after as everyone drifted around the apartment, I opted for the floor as Phoebe had done and placed my arms onto the coffee table, placing my head onto my arms as some form of makeshift pillow, allowing myself to dose lightly while Joey flatly informed Ross ‘it wasn’t going to happen’ and for once the apartment was relatively quiet as Ross struggled to comprehend what he had just been told.

At some point I must have snoozed off as when I opened my eyes the living room was surprisingly quiet, “where’d everyone go?” I croaked, the room was still lit solely by the candles, but all of the other girls had disappeared, and Chandler was still yet to return to the apartment. “they’ve gone to return a cat,” Ross called over from where he was hunched at the kitchen table,
“a cat? Return it to what? It’s litter box? It’s meow mummy?”

“yeupppp, they found it on the balcony or something,” Ross replied, Joey was stood beside him, though what he was doing was beyond me, I made a noise in acknowledgement, “oh and we’ve got to plan a surprise party for Monica now,” Joey added as though that somehow cleared up the whole cat matter. I stared at him for a moment in pure bafflement before flinging my hands up in the air and scrambling into an armchair which I proceeded to crawl into. New York truly was the city that never slept, didn’t even seem to catch a break with this lot in an apartment building together.

At some point during all of this Rachel made her great return to the apartment with a man behind her, as she began introducing everyone the look of relative pain that had been on Ross’ face prior, turned into an expression of pure anguish as Rachel set about introducing the man, “everyone this is Paolo, he doesn’t speak much English,” my eyebrow rose silently but I refrained from making a comment. I suspected Paolo would be staying with us and there would be plenty of future opportunities for comment.

The game Ross, Monica and Joey had been playing sat abandoned on the living room table as Ross opened and closed his mouth several times to form words but failed, making him look as though he was attempting to be a goldfish. That was another comment I kept to myself as despite the goldfish impression he looked like a wounded puppy. To which Rachel was completely and utterly oblivious to. “where did Paolo come from? Suddenly into our lives,” ah yes the green eyed monster was rearing its head, I had always silently wondered what the infatuation or relationship between Ross and Rachel actually was, I could see it clear as day even in the darkness and winced to myself.

This wasn’t going to be pretty. I studied Paolo for a second, he was a stereotypical good looking European, though there was something about the European stereotype that Americans in my experience often missed off. The fck around bit. The fact that a lot of the European guys I had known who had come to America and returned to Europe, had been fck around and find out types before they had left, and had somehow come back even worse and more ‘fck anything that doesn’t get away fast enough’ types during their trip across the pond. I really hoped this wasn’t about to be one of the latter scenarios. Especially where the fckboi in question was in and out of the apartment like an escalator going up and down.

I was starting to question if Monica had considered investing in a revolving door as the door opened once more to reveal Phoebe who came in talking about the cat which I assumed judging from the full circle moment we appeared to be having, that the cat was in fact Paolo’s and that he was a very shitty cat owner. “look at that, last to know again!” Phoebe stated, dear god how much had I missed when I had shut my eyes for two bloody seconds? Maybe I should’ve just stayed in my apartment during the blackout and buried my head under the covers.

Though definitely not on that god awful mattress, Joey and Ross were by this point sharing joint looks of pain as my ears picked up what Paolo was mumbling about, thank god my school had forced me to take Italian, “where in Italy are you from?” I asked once Phoebe had extracted her hand from his attempt at kissing it, “oh a small place you likely wouldn’t…” I rolled my eyes, how many times had I heard that before? The you wouldn’t know was one of the fastest ways to give me the ick.

“you’d be surprised,” I replied in Italian cutting him off just in time to see his eyes expand rapidly, “well bella,” my eyebrows rose as he then proceeded to ramble on Italian to me for the next five minutes, of which I nodded politely but said very little why Joey and Ross stared at me in shock, I gave them a teasing wink as I held in the urge to roll my eyes at Paolo’s non-stop waffling in Italian.

It was all the worse that I could understand it.

As Ross sulked and I finally extricated myself and sent Paolo back in Rachel’s direction I turned to Joey, “shouldn’t you be able to understand all that too?” I asked,
“oh I can, I just don’t wannna,” I smiled to myself and shrugged, fair enough. While Rachel and Paolo stood staring out of the window, at what, considering we still had no power, was beyond me. I settled on one side of Ross, while Joey lingered on the other side of him, as we both sat attempting to comfort him as he made incoherent rambling impressions of Paolo that made far more sense than the Italian rambles, I had been subjected to minutes earlier.

This was going to be a long night as Rachel huddled with the others to discuss how cutesy Paolo was, “how come you’re not joining in on the Paolo love fest?” Ross questioned, I scoffed quietly, “when you live in Europe and grew up with guys like Paolo in class, trust me you know every trick in the book they are going to try and use on you, it gets old. Most of them are just f boys anyway, been there done that, got the t-shirt and the ticket, don’t fall for the same crap twice,” I shrugged as the two nodded impressed while Paolo continued his slightly blank looking smile.

Despite most of my hope, Paolo stayed with us while the candles slowly burnt out, and watched in very fake looking interest as Phoebe attempted to count down the last candle burning out. So, this is what a blackout looked like in New York city, a whole lot of nothingness, a random guy and his cat, and watching a candle burn out. And to think I had left London behind for all this. As Phoebe continue counting the candle down, which was not burning out any quicker I shot a desperate look at Joey who nodded knowingly and blew it out, “thank you,” I muttered under my breath from the armchair I had settled in once again in the hopes of finding some sort of comfort during all of this. My first New York blackout. Could tick that one off the bucket list.

Finally, after god knew how many hours the lights came back on as the group did their best impressions of what I could only assume was meant to be count Dracula high as a kite on something, it was hilarious (mainly at how in pain they sounded doing it), until the lights came up and revealed Rachel making out with Paolo. Or Paolo eating Rachel’s face, I couldn’t decide from where I was sat but Ross looked on the verge of fainting, Joey was not looking ready to catch Ross if he did faint and Phoebe and Monica watched on somewhere between shock, horror and pride.

I slunk further down into my seat.

Happy blackout everyone.

Chapter Text

Ow.

Owie.

Youchie.

Pain au chocolat.

I groaned as I attempted to roll over in bed, the large double bed was as uncomfortable as ever and I was once again reminded I was no princess with this mattress. But for once it wasn’t the mattress causing all the pain, oh no it was far worse, it was mother nature reminding me it was in fact that time of the month, I wasn’t pregnant, and this was apparently some sort of crime in her book and warranted a week of extensive pain, irritation and bleeding. I groaned again.

It was going to be a long week I thought as I sighed and pulled the pillow over my head and hunched up in the foetal position. A very bloody (metaphorically and literally) long week. Just what the week needed. Not at all like I was due to go to a book signing. Oh fuck Nora’s book signing at a central book store in the heart of New York which I was yet to discover. Shit. Shit. Shit. I groaned and rolled further into the bed, pulling the duvet cover up with me as I went.

So I was in agony, I was going to have to force something down my throat – ideally painkillers though likely coffee, I still hadn’t gotten a better mattress so I was in two types of agony and I was going to be present at one of Nora’s book signings which never went how I hoped they would. Honestly by this point you’d have thought I'd thrown all sense of hope out the window when it came to these book signings, meet and greets and all the rest of it, but apparently I hadn’t.

More fool me on that one.

With a loud whimper I scrambled less than elegantly out of my bed and tottered into the kitchen where I rooted around in my medicine cabinet until I found painkillers. I had no idea that Americans were allowed to buy paracetamol in such large bottles, in the UK anything over 36 odd was a problem, but in the states you could just have a huge bottle of the stuff? Worked for me, I thought as I knocked back two and starting hunting round for my hot water bottle in the hopes that I had A. remembered it and B. unpacked it. After twenty minutes of rolling around in agony – both literally and metaphorically on the sofa, I accepted defeat and debated my next move, of which there were several options.

I could go back to bed and wait for the paracetamol to kick in which would likely take an hour, I could have a shower and hope it didn’t become a literal blood bath, or I could go and beg for one off Monica and or Rachel. The latter one was winning out as the first two required an indefinite amount of patience that I did not feel even remotely capable of. Leaving only the final option, with another set of whimpers, I edged my way off the edge of the sofa, thanking the lord I had worn period panties the night before and wasn’t going to have to clean a red spillage off my only recently purchased (though admittedly awful) new bedding set or the sofa that the company had said was part of the flat.

Grabbing a hoodie and my keys off the side, I trudged into some sliders and then trudged down the stairs, the pain had began to subside but the nausea was setting in worse than ever, I wouldn’t have been surprised if I had quite literally been green with sickness or yellow like a Simpson. Neither were realistically flattering looks but I was hoping it was the former rather than the latter.

What felt an eternity later, I made it to outside Monica and Rachel’s apartment door and began knocking gently, only to remember how Monica practically banged down my door whenever she came upstairs and to stop being so British and polite. I pounded harder on the door until it finally swung open revealing a very bedraggled Monica on the other side, “oh no did I wake you?” I did my best to sound apologetic, even to my own ears it sounded incredibly forced, Monica shook her head, “just debating if I really need a roommate,” I nodded apologetically, genuinely having felt her pain on that one.

“do you happen to have a hot water bottle? I don’t think I even bought one with me and mother nature is here and well you know the rest, Spain without the S and all,” Monica nodded and gestured for me to follow her inside which I did more than willingly while she began rooting through several cupboards. “you poor thing,” she murmured as I settled into one of the armchairs, tugging my knees up to my chest and covering my worn pjs with the hoodie I had tugged on. While Monica searched I glanced round the apartment in daylight, incredibly neat. Scarily neat.

I had never been one for minimalism or extreme tidiness, seeing it as a waste of time given that I loved art and frequently left my supplies everywhere, so while I could not understand Monica’s need for neatness I could certainly admire it. Though as she became more frantic in her search for a hot water bottle, her neat apartment was getting gradually covered in more and more possessions than I expected her to own. Clearly she was some sort of packing and tidying whizz or those cupboards led all the way to Narnia with how much stuff was appearing.

The door to the apartment swung open – seriously Monica really needed an automatic door or one of those fancy rotating ones at this point, it was that or just take the door off its hinges entirely. Chandler and Joey sauntered in, nonchalant as always and totally unaware of my cramps that were going to turn me into the literal spawn of Satan if so much as two whole sentences left their mouths and that wasn’t two whole sentences each, that was between them.

“woooohhhhh it looks like a Monica volcano erupted,” Monica didn’t even hesitate to throw the most recent thing out of the cupboard in the vague direction of Chandler and Joey which they simultaneously dodged with ease. “soooo ahaha wanna tell us why you’re remodelling the pathway to Narnia?” Chandler questioned as Joey went to peer over Monica’s shoulder to check Narnia was in fact not on the other side of those cupboards doors. Two whole sentences and I somehow managed not to throw the latest copy of Cosmopolitan at either of them, could it be I was getting a better control on my bleeding time scale temperament?

“bleeding, need hot water bottle, my water bottle sat in London, I'm bleeding,” I called over from the armchair I was still curled up in, at which point Chandler swizzled to look in my direction, “no blood near me!” I rolled my eyes, lobbing a sofa cushion at him, I was sure Monica wouldn’t mind the sacrifice considering she was menacingly holding up a frying pan to Joey and making gestures of swinging it, “yo Mon, that isn’t a baseball bat,” Monica must have seen more red than the amount that had led me here to begin with as Joey sprinted away from her and did some sort of parkour over the back of the sofa to land on it less than elegantly.

“the blood ain’t going to get anywhere near you,” I muttered under my breath to respond to Chandler’s earlier complaint,
“sorry Ash, I can’t find one, I thought we had one for sure,”
“yeah you should considering you are hoarding the entire home section of Target and Walmart for a minimalist” Monica chose to rise above Joey’s comment and made the motion of taking small slow breaths before turning back to me, “I guess not though, do you need it for that event today?” I nodded

“there’s no way I can get through a whole afternoon of book signing like this, I'm not sure if I'm going to pass out or throw up first,” Chandler shared a look with Joey who eased his way to stand behind the couch and put himself away from the splatter zone. I rolled my eyes at him too. “do you think you can go to work like this without one though?” Monica asked, concern filling her eyes, “I’ll cope Mon, I’ve coped before and hopefully the book signing store or whatever has a nearby Walmart and some staff who are happy to pour hot water into one if I can find one in this god forsaken city,” my hatred for New York was not quite done yet apparently.

And it had taken a hot water bottle of all things to push me over that edge once more. “well where’s the bookstore?” Joey asked pushing a whole piece of toast into his mouth, my mouth could not help but drop open at the sight, it wasn’t some cute Japanese cartoon toast sort of hanging out of mouth thing, it was the whole thing literally crammed in there. It was either impressive or repulsive and I could not for the life of me decide which one it actually was.

“I don’t even know,” I sighed quietly, what was the bookstore even called? It was something sickeningly sweet, which sounded about right for a Nora Bing book signing, she was big on the sweet charismatic thing with a hint of naughtiness. Hence my dislike for her in depth emails about her latest naughty excursions. It sold books but it didn’t make breakfast while working a pleasant experience. Once you had experienced it, you never did it again. “is it central books?” Joey suggested as we all turned to look at him in surprise that he would actually A. have ever been to a library never mind a book store and B. even knew the name of one.

“what? It’s like central perk,” he defended as we all nodded slowly, no one quite over this particular admission just yet. “it’s called Once Upon a Time,” I declared, the cringe name suddenly coming to the front of my mind, “sounds awful,” Monica stated flatly and I was inclined to agree with her. For some reason my mind was picturing a god awful pink bookstore with turrets. I sincerely hoped I was wrong, while there was nothing wrong with a theme, I hated the idea of a bookstore where you practically had to be dressed up as a knight or damsel in distress to enter it. Even if I knew I was going to be feeling like a damsel in distress in desperate need of a knight in shining armour throughout.

“whatever, I’ll figure it out,” I grumbled heaving myself out of the chair, “thanks for looking Mon, I’ll just go to the bookstore and hope for the best, got to be early anywhere to make sure everything is in check and it’s not like I’ll get to leave early once it starts anyway.” Bidding them fair well, a hug from Joey from a distance as he was clearly still concerned about the splash zone, while a close hug from Monica and a sort of fist bump high five thing from Chandler, I heaved my way back up to my apartment, falling through the door and slamming it to lock behind me as I headed to the shower and told myself I was just going to have to get through all of this one way or another. Once I had showered the priority would be coffee and then we could this show on the road. Or should I say fairy tale.

About forty minutes later, cup of iced coffee firmly gripped in hand, you would have had to pry my fingers off the cup one by one, I was stood in front of the Once Upon A Time bookstore in downtown Manhattan that thankfully wasn’t as bad I had anticipated. Heck it wasn’t actually that bad. Instead of a pink castle with turrets and paintings – which was a description of a nursery I had seen from the subway once, the bookstore had a quaint British design. A standard tall style building, with painting of Tudor house white and black downward strips, flower baskets under the large windows which allowed plenty of natural light in and a warm glow. Maybe this wasn’t going to be so bad.

I pushed through the only obviously modern thing on the bookstore of a glass door and walked through the little glass tunnel that led from the main door into the bookstore itself. For a bookstore with such a cheesy name it didn’t actually seem that bad, there was a thick carpet underfoot and a large sweeping grand y-shaped staircase that you saw as soon as you entered the bookstore itself.

Bookshelves were piled high with books and went as far as up to the ceiling, which had the ladder type things hanging down to reach, drawing my eye upwards I noted how the bookstore had warm lighting from chandeliers and textured ceiling, above which you could see up to the above floors, comprised of sweeping dark wooden banisters and small balconies for reading, as well as sweeping pathways from one side of a floor to the other. Whoever had chosen the name had obviously wanted to convey the magic within, but I wasn’t convinced the name quite did it justice.

“can I help you?” a young woman asked approaching, thankfully she was not in the anticipated princess costume and instead in black jeans with a cute pale blue blouse, “yes I'm here for the Nora Bing book signing, I'm her literary agent and editor Ash Crompton,” I introduced as the woman smiled and nodded. “I can’t tell you how excited we are to have you here and of course Nora’s latest books, please follow me,”

she led us away from the main room and directed up past the various smaller spaces for individual genres until we were right round the other side of the huge staircase which as it turned out was double sided of sorts, and to where in front of the back side of the staircase, which had been cordoned off, there was a whole setup ready and waiting for Nora’s book signing. I'd been to some impressive book signings in my day, but this was definitely one of the top ones to date, a large table with a pale lilac tablecloth had been laid out ahead of the staircase with a chair set up for Nora that resembled a throne. She would just love that.

There were large stand up banners from the floor leading heaven wards as well as drop down bans from parts of the staircase and ceiling showcasing Nora Bing’s books and her picture promoting the book signing and whichever book they were most excited about or her latest. I couldn’t tell at this point as I read so many of her books months and sometimes year before they were published that it sort of passed me by in a blur.

Nora was yet to arrive, so I thanked the staff member and took a moment to take it in, the area they had cordoned off for the book signing had become a sort of Shrine to all of Nora Bing’s books, they were everywhere in site, piled onto tables in creative formations, crammed onto bookshelves organised by title or spine colour, it was hard to tell from a distance, there were even cardboard cut outs of the front cover men from her books that had been dotted around liberally.

They really had gone all out. Unlike other signings I had been to, they had set up a little table for me which I placed my coffee on, knowing full well I likely would be sat on the steps behind Nora to give her words of encouragement or chastising her for hinting too much at the current work in progress, or to stop flirting with the visitor.

It was hard to tell which would come first in truth.

My eyes roamed around the space once more, there was no doubt in my mind that the agency would love hearing about this location and would likely want to send Nora, and the rest of the writers I was an editor for, to the location in the not too distant future. I could only hope that would be in the near future so that they wouldn’t suddenly decide I needed to make a permeant move State side. I settled down on the base few steps of the grand staircase and glanced around, in a matter of hours the place would be full of excited fans ready and waiting for a glimpse and a chat with their favourite author.

That was one part about my job I privately loved, seeing people meet someone they’ve always wanted to meet and aspired to be like is a privilege and really quite sweet and touching. While I was settled on the bottom few steps I felt another cramp kick in, I had loaded my bag with paracetamol and other pain killers but the lack of a hot water bottle was really a blow to what I already knew would be a difficult day with or without mother nature deciding to make her presence known. I groaned quietly, curling up into a tight ball on the steps and trying to remind myself to breath in and out slowly, which naturally the more I tried to remind myself, the less it actually helped.

At least there was no one around to witness it for now. I groaned to myself, next thing to buy – aside from a new mattress, a hot water bottle, and a heated blanket. “um are you good? Is hiding behind a table part of your day job?” I internally whimpered, couldn’t even have a misery party for myself before the true chaos actually kicked off. I slowly turned to look at the source of the voice, at which point my mouth almost fell open, “Chandler!” I breathed in shock, had mother nature made me in such pain that I was now imagining him?

“what are you doing here?” Chandler gave me a slightly crooked smile. I had never seen him before in his work attire, somehow it was entirely unsurprising considering it was a mish mash of his usual attire, knitted sweaters, various states of ironed shirts and his typical baggy trousers, “well I'm certainly not here for a book signing,” he cracked me a smile before properly taking in the various banners. “you work for my mother?” I winced,

“technically she works for me,” I muttered, doing a sort of zombie crawling impression to get back to standing, “good to know, but I'm not here for a reunion with my mother, I bought you a hot water bottle, I know you said you were in pain and didn’t have one and I even got a café on the way to fill it up with hot water – you wouldn’t believe how much whining and flirting it took to get them to fill it up but anyway, here, it can’t get better than hot water from a café,” my eyebrow rose at the flirting and softened into a smile at the length he had gone to get a hot water bottle for me, he passed it over to me and I clutched it to my stomach in a way an excited child would cuddle a new puppy.

“thank you Chandler, honestly thank you so much,” he nodded with a small smile, not self-satisfied or proud, but maybe glad that it had turned out well. Thank god Nora wasn’t here to see all of this, that really would cross the lines between work and play. Not that she hadn’t suggested setting me up with him, I winced to myself, suspecting Chandler was likely none the wiser to that particular notion.

“make sure you survive the book signing, we want you to make it home safely, we’re planning to order in,” I smiled softly and nodded,
“don’t worry I will,” he nodded,
“well have fun, doing whatever you do at a book signing as a publisher, see you later,” he gave me a half wave before making a sharp exit back out of the book store, not that I could blame him. It took another ten minutes of me cuddling the hot water bottle and a still bottle of water on the base of the staircase steps for me to start feeling human and also for Nora Bing arriving. I was used to her not being timely but I could deal with it, because at least everything was ready for her arrival.

“hello my darling,” the air kisses began flying, I smiled softly, “you ready for all of this?” Nora looked more refined than the style I was used to seeing her in. Her fluffy blonde hair bounced around her face, a small handbag that could not even fit a wallet into was dumped on the table as she air kissed and smiled at me, “you are one amazing publisher I mean look at this place!” I smiled bashfully in the face of the praise, “and the banners and those are my books to sign with the exclusive covers? Oh my god Ash, you nailed it! As you literally always do! I don’t know what I'd do without you!”

I smiled again, feeling the colour rising further to my face and it wasn’t only because mother nature was acting up. I was thankful that barely five minutes later the staff came over to let us know that the queues were growing and they were going to let them queue up, my brain immediately went into work mode, Nora was seated, I was stood, surreptitiously hiding the water bottle Chandler had given me under my sweater, and was just about ready for everything the book signing could possibly send my way. Or at least so I thought.

I was met with the sight of hoards of young adults running towards the back of the store where we were located, literally attempting to shove each other out the way to get in line first. I was once again deeply grateful that I was sent as a precaution and didn’t actually have to try and manage the fans – which the unfortunate store staff were instead having to do, which was turning out to be quite the challenge as fans jockeyed for position, body slamming each other this way and that with their piles of books (in various conditions) to be signed by Nora.

I couldn’t even pretend to wish that was my job, I couldn’t think of much worse as I silently watched two fans get into an argument about who was where in the queue, all the while Nora sat at the table blissfully unaware, or paying high amounts of attention but feigning ignorance. Honestly I couldn’t tell which one it was, but when the staff wrangled the fans into the queue, the book signing could begin, and I sank onto my seat on the bottom steps of the staircase once more to get on with some of my own work and just ensure nothing went up in literal flames.

Several hours later and we were finally in the home stretch, most of the exclusive covers had gone already, sometimes multiple books to the same fan, I had raised my eyebrow but said nothing. Nora had chatted amicably with fans, smiling brightly, complimenting and the mild amount of flirting with male readers – I chose to not comment on that either, knowing it would be fruitless and it was something we could always talk about after anyway. And we would be talking about it after otherwise I was pretty sure my boss back in London would have my guts for garters and that wasn’t really the look I was going for.

My hot water bottle had since gone cold but I couldn’t persuade myself to care at that point, I had drank a crap ton of water, my ass had gone numb from sitting on the staircase as I had decided the desk set up that had been left for me was proving too tedious, plus fans had decided it was an importune stop to fangirl/boy over Nora after getting their books signed and before leaving. I was relieved Nora hadn’t mentioned the manuscript I had been editing as it was still relatively slow going for me, despite being on my third read since first being emailed it.

As the last fans left, and I stretched out my body from the crumpled position it had been stuck in, I breathed a sigh of relief, no accidents, no fire, no divulging of sexual dates that would make me vomit up every sip of water I'd had since the morning. Mission complete. As Nora set about thanking the last few fans, I thanked the bookstore and promised we would be in touch for a different author in the not too distant future and hopefully with some promotional content for Nora’s next books.

If there was one thing book stores loved it was the idea of exclusivity with an author especially surrounding the publication of new books, and to be fair, I loved the book store, even the cringe worthy name perhaps more than Nora, and was sure I would be returning on my own for a browse instead of for work. Finally everything was done, Nora picked up her tiny handbag, passed me a signed copy of the exclusive cover,

“how did you?” I questioned as she tapped the side of her nose with a smile, “you know me Ash, I always make sure you get the best,” I smiled softly touched at the gesture and slid the book back into my work bag, “and talking of the best let me tell you about my very single son,” and we were done. I thanked Nora for her hard work, made sure she called a cab and saw her off before I finally gathered my own things together and headed towards the subway.

One book signing down, god knew how many more were to go.

I boarded the subway and then began the tedious task, that I was still somehow not adjusted to, of climbing the various staircases up to the floor where Monica and Joey’s apartments were. Once finally in front of Monica’s apartment door I gave it a light knock, knowing better than to assume Monica would have locked the door, after a moment I gave it a light push and stepped inside Monica’s warm and bright apartment, that had received a deep clean up from the morning, and the circular dining table was now covered in Chinese take out boxes. “what is it!?” Chandler showed irritably as I placed my bag down on the floor and shook my coat off, “hey Ash!” Mon called over spotting me as the door fell shut,

“grab some food and join us,” I smiled gratefully, scooping up one of the unopened take out boxes and collected what looked like a disastrous affair between chopsticks and some sort of fork, “what is this?” I spluttered settling on the arm of Monica’s couch beside Chandler, “that would be an eating device,” Chandler muttered sarcastically, I didn’t even think twice about slapping my hand round the back of his head as I tucked into what appeared to be a chow mien. Or at least I hoped that was what it was.

“look Chandler, you just, you have a quality,” Chandler did not look even the least bit impressed with Monica’s answer to his earlier question, I leaned over to Rachel for an explanation as I stared blankly at the scene in front of me, “everyone in Chandler’s office thinks he’s gay and he’s not ok with it and wants to know why,” she mumbled as I nibbled on a piece of veggie with the weird chopstick fork/knife/spoon abomination.

I nodded slowly as the whole group immediately agreed with Monica’s assessment of a ‘quality’ “and there was me thinking you guys wouldn’t be vague about it,” I hid my giggle as Chandler got up off the couch to eat the remains of what I assumed had been a rice dish to start with, away from judgement. As Chandler began scraping up the remains, Rachel began jumping up and down muttering ‘Paolo from Rome! From Rome!’ while Ross winced. We clearly weren’t over that little love triangle just yet. I continued eating my food deciding their drama could wait and my stomach could not. And would not.

I migrated away from the living room, not wanting to be in ear shot of whatever cringe worthy Italian Paolo was drawling down the phone and dumped myself at the kitchen table opposite Chandler to continue eating. “I'm talking to Rome,” Rachel reiterated as I continued eating, I nodded giving her a thumbs up while Chandler attempted a smile that looked like it was under duress. Someone would have to talk to him about faking a convincing smile that made it look like he wasn’t in fact being pinned down by some horror movie clown that was planning to sell his organs. Monica suddenly paled before her and Ross dashed out the door, calling the words ‘nana’ ‘hospital’ and ‘now’ behind them as some form of explanation, the rest of the remaining friends were clearly no better at interpreting any of that than I was as they all looked blankly at each other.

Well expect for Rachel who grabbed the phone and rushed to her bedroom door, almost hitting her face off it in her hurry to continue talking to Rome. “and on that note, we are done with the Chinese, fancy a smoke Chandler?” I questioned, pushing away the questionable coloured remains of the take out and looked across to Chandler who all but leapt to his feet. I smiled softly, grabbing my bag and coat, and dropping the sad looking take out in the bin on the way.

“thanks again for the hot water bottle,” I began as we walked up the stairs to which he made mumblings of ‘no big deal’ and ‘no worries’ which somehow got complicated into ‘no big worries you deal’ I managed to stop myself from cackling like a witch on acid, and instead led us up to my apartment where I unlocked the door with a practiced ease.

“so do I have homosexual hair? Is that it?” Chandler questioned as we entered my apartment and I dumped my coat on the back of the couch and began routing around in my bag for a packet of ciggies and a lighter. “oh yes Chandler, because that is a thing, you know where my other brother went wrong all these years with being bi? It was all in the hair,” I muttered sarcastically, routing around with increasing urgency, “I mean is it my dress sense? Or maybe it is my hair and you’re all just trying to make me feel better about it!” I resisted the urge to roll my eyes, having realised that at this point it didn’t matter what I said, he was not going to let this one go any time soon. “that’s the quality isn’t it? I just am a quality! I'm not even a quantity!” I groaned to myself as I continued searching,

“Chandler my love, we can discuss this once I have found my ciggies and a lighter, because currently my dear, I am bleeding out of places some of you men don’t even realise exists, I am in pain, I have just ate one of the worst looking take outs I think has ever existed in the history of humanity and if nicotine does not enter my system in the next ten minutes, I am likely to turn to other means to release my frustration,” Chandler immediately stopped going on about people at the office and the rest of the group and began hunting for a packet of ciggies and a lighter. Somehow with far more success than I had managed but I chose not to dwell on that too much and instead locked the main door of my apartment before leading us back to my balcony. Chandler flopped dramatically down onto one of the two chairs I had placed outside, and waited for me to sit down before passing over the packet and the lighter.

I lit my own cigarette before tossing over the lighter and packet to Chandler who mirrored my actions, both of us sighed blissfully and reclined into our respective seats, “better?” he questioned, I nodded silently, “now you can rant about everyone in the office thinking you are gay and whatever quality you seem to believe you have,” I confirmed, folding one leg over the other, he needed no further encouragement and was soon launching into the exact details and questioning which of his mannerisms had conveyed this message so loudly that everyone within a five mile radius seemed to be in agreement on his sexuality.

“I have no advice to offer you,” I stated as I twiddled the cigarette between my fingers, “apart from who cares, you know your sexuality, you’re comfortable in it I assume, so what if a few people get it wrong? Would you sleep with them if they had got it right?” he shrugged nonchalantly glancing up towards the star coated sky, “nah,” I nodded,
“my point is proven,” Chandler remained quiet for a moment, I could all but hear the cogs in his brain quite literally whirring, “don’t we look lovely all cozied up here,” silence filled the evening air for a moment, “its stuff like that isn’t it,” I patted him gently on the shoulder, neither confirming nor denying.

“either way, you need to get the rest of the group and come mattress hunting with me, that mattress is killing my back and no one in their right mind would invite anyone over for a sleepover with it in its current state,” Chandler chuckled quietly as I thought with some dismay about what the hell I was going to do with the old mattress once I finally replaced it. I doubted my feelings of arson towards the original bedding would be appreciated on the original mattress.

“were you thinking of going anywhere specific, can’t get any better than the mattress king according to his commercials,” I scoffed quietly, having seen more than one advertisement for mattress king since originally realising that the mattress was doing no favours for my already grumpy back. “yeah the commercials where he goes on about being the king and makes himself look like a complete and utter twat,” I muttered under my breath in response, “well if it makes you feel any better, when him and his on-off wife were going through one of their many rocky patches, she slept in my bed,” he shuddered dramatically as I tried not to wince myself. An image I could definitely have done without of the mattress king’s queen and Chandler.

I could only hope his bed had a better mattress than mine otherwise god help both of them. “as lovely as I'm sure that was for you, I'd rather not think about your sexual endeavours,” Chandler raised his eyebrows suggestively which I ignored, relaxing once more to stare out over the view of New York from my apartment, “don’t worry most of them are unsuccessful,” he commented cheerily, as I stubbed out my cigarette and took a deep breath.

How on earth did I find myself in the company of such a weird and wonderful group of people on the other side of the ocean? “anyway it’s my bed time, I am still bleeding and my mattress is not made for sleepovers,” Chandler nodded getting to his feet and led us back inside, “see you tomorrow Ash,” I smiled softly, watching him leave the apartment, offering him a small wave as he went before locking the door once more and sinking down on my couch.

No sleepovers here, that much was for sure.

Chapter Text

It had been a strange year so far, and even the end of the year was not looking like it would be a peaceful affair. Though I supposed if it had been strange up until this point why would it stop purely for the holiday season? It wasn’t like life stopped just because the holidays season had hit. Christmas had passed by in a blur, mainly comprised of my attempts and successes of sleeping, hurriedly running down to Monica’s apartment to collect a pre-made Christmas dinner of sorts, American style (which I had later found out was nothing like a British Christmas dinner) – she had rather impressively and dramatically overestimated how much food to take to her parents and had been left with quite a bit extra, as a loving friend and neighbour

(and also hungry Brit who was not the biggest fan of cooking) I was more than happy to take what she couldn’t carry, it was better than having to try and cook something myself and left ample time to curl up in bed. With a selection of sickeningly sweet holiday movies. The portions by Monica were in fact so out of whack that I had a sizeable selection of leftovers that lasted after Christmas day and then some, which was great as I had no intention on food shopping, or cooking, the only exercise I was interested in was switching tv channels and getting up for the bathroom from my cocoon of blankets on the couch – which was still better than my mattress.

As was typical with the any holiday and especially Christmas, everyone from Monica and Joey’s had gone to visit family, this was of course really not an option for me with the cost of plane tickets, even my ice hockey playing brother was too bloody far and we didn’t even have an ocean between us for once. And let’s be real, it wasn’t like the big editors round the board table were going to take pity on me and buy a plane ticket for the holiday season and then back in the new year too.

I had attempted to call my family – both my brother in the States as well as everyone back in the UK – who I was unwilling to admit that I was incredibly envious of, but the line was expensive (breathing was expensive in New York I had decided) and frequently randomly disconnected, usually half way through some juicy family gossip or some funny story about life in the UK/USA. I had given up not long after, deciding to make yet another one of my notorious to do lists:

- Spring clean house – is it too early? How long does winter last in NYC anyway?
- Tidy away Christmas tree – no more bad lucky required
- Set up new year decoration
- Hang paintings
- Redecorate – see above
- Sleep
- Buy a new mattress – burn the current one, arson can be an accident, right?
- Sleep more
- Eat and shower
- Sleep until I mould into the couch and have to be extracted from it by a superhero who will fall in love with me and carry us off back in the direction of the UK

It was not an exhaustive list nor a particularly exciting one – although very creative and imaginative if I do say so myself – but it would do the job and there was nothing a good list couldn’t fix in my humble opinion. While the others returned from the holiday season in dribs and drabs – Chandler being first back but I only knew this from the thumping around when I had gone down the stairs running errands, my lead up to new year was filled with naps, naps, and a few random tasks here and there as well as reviewing the various upcoming plans for my authors who weren’t Nora.

Most of which was admittedly done from my bed, I had accepted that the mattress would be regrettably entering the new year with me on it and had decided to make the most of it, having cocooned myself from the couch onto the bed and done a princess and the pea impression with the number of blankets and other items of cushioning between me and the actual mattress. Without the vast majority of the group below, or coming in and out of my apartment at will, it had been very quiet over the main holiday season which I found to be rather depressingly quiet which really wasn’t helping with the whole far from home thing that I had going for me.

So I was beyond thankful (and elated) when the whole of the group finally returned and had immediately arranged a coffee catch up in the usual place (mainly because no one could be arsed to walk further than the downstairs of the building or pay for an expensive coffee from somewhere else), and then a mattress try out and buy session for me as I was losing my shit with the increasingly awful mattress.

The thought of finally getting rid of the god awful mattress was enough to have me bouncing out of bed on a snowy week day somewhere between Christmas and new year, and dragging on some clothes that vaguely resembled human attire. This had been my first Christmas and would be my first new year too State side, and as much as that was exciting, I couldn’t help but miss home and spending it with my London friends, plus there wasn’t much chance of a midnight smooch in this apartment block.

I mean I didn’t usually have a midnight kiss anyway on New Year’s eve but I had always wanted to experience it and reasoned with myself that NYC was probably the place it would happen, I was no longer convinced that it actually would, so if nothing else I'd have to have a comfy mattress to collapse on to at the end of the celebrations and have a sleepover with whichever plushie I could find first. It hadn’t helped that I had all but gone into hibernation over the holiday period, which was definitely not doing me any favours, so I was trying to tell myself to be productive in some way to make up for the hibernation and that began with looking somewhat human.

Or at the very least, attempting to look human. I stumbled out of my apartment resembling a semi-functioning human during the one time of the year it was acceptable not to give a single fck about how awful you looked. Winning.

Locking the door behind me and then making my way downstairs to Central Perk, I was reminded that the outside of my apartment was very people-y and I wasn’t that big of a fan of people. Especially not the miserable neighbour Smithers or whatever his name was that lived below Monica and Rachel, the man literally gave off the vibe of a scary clown actor from the past, I'd have to ask Monica if she had ever considered this as it was clear as day to me. I trudged into Central Perk, ordering my usual iced caramel latte with Gunther before plonking myself down on the usual couch and curling up into the arm of the couch with my head resting on the arm, my eyes softly drifting shut for a moment.

In the quiet chatter of the warm coffee shop I felt almost at home, it didn’t matter that I was yet to get to my brother’s matches, or see my other brother, or that the phone signal had been horrible and kept cutting out due to snow or storms or whatever, for a moment none of it mattered, I was where I was meant to be. And then of course the world broke in and I snapped out of the daze I had been in, it had been a long time since I had felt like I was where I was meant to be and even longer since I had been at home.

I didn’t know where home anymore was, not after moving to uni, then moving to London and now winding up in the States, home was a distant memory of no longer knowing where I fit in the big wide world. “you ok Ash? You look like you’re out of it?” Joey asked plonking himself in the armchair beside me with his and my drink in hand, Chandler immediately slapped his chest, placing his own coffee order down on the table in front of us, “what she does!” Joey hissed as Chandler shot him a warning look. I smiled softly, “I'm ok, just contemplating, thinking, questioning the meaning of life, you know the usual whatever day of the week it is”

“Saturday” I nodded at Chandler’s intervention; Joey remained unconvinced but wisely said nothing as Chandler settled beside me, and placed his arm on the back of the couch behind my head. “so tell me about your Christmases” I turned expectantly to the two who looked between each other before Joey nodded, clearly this was his conversation to run, “oh you know, the usual, Ma made her Italian American Christmas dinner,”

my eyebrow rose silently wondering what the hell an Italian Christmas dinner looked like, “dad drank and fell asleep, and I got grilled by my sisters about the lack of a sister in law,” sounds about right for the usual family reunion that everyone expects during the holiday season. Maybe being State side away from my own family grilling wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

I turned my attention to Chandler and nudged him in attempt to prod an answer out of him, “it was a holiday,” he shrugged as I rolled my eyes silently, doing my best puppy dog eyes at him from where I was sat, “my mother told me all about her new book,” I silently shuddered, “exactly,” I nodded understandingly, I couldn’t imagine wanting to discuss my mother’s latest erotic story. I couldn’t think of much worse to be honest. “but you know, we all survived, hurrah, so tell us, what about you Ash?” I shrugged

“tried to call home, couldn’t. tried to call my brother, couldn’t. ate Monica’s leftovers and oh my god can that woman cook, and then went back to sleep,” Joey leaned over to high five me while Chandler gave an impressed nod. “oh yeah she’s good,” Chandler agreed, Joey nodded in agreement, “I mean honestly, that food was orgasmic like oh my god,” I groaned as Chandler looked away “I wouldn’t know,” Joey rolled his eyes, tossing one of the grapes he had been in the process of picking off the vine to eat at Chandler’s head instead. “oh please, just because you’re still not over the office thinking you have a quality and not a quantity,” he stated as I low key spluttered on my coffee, earning a sharp pat on the back from Chandler to stop myself choking.

I had barely recovered as Joey shrugged nonchalantly, “just tell them you want the kitty and not the doggie and you’ll be fine,” I wasn’t sure who was more surprised by this as both me and Chandler stared at Joey silently with our mouths agape. Several minutes later, the other girls finally appeared, Rachel and Monica settled on an armchair, and the armchair of Joey’s chair respectively, while Phoebe squished herself onto the couch and Ross who arrived behind all of them, grabbed a chair from a nearby table to sit on – ignoring the complaints about a handbag needing the chair with a muttering of ‘weirdo.’

“so how was everyone’s Christmas?” Monica asked cheerily, all I could hope was for no repeat of Joey’s previous comments, “oh you’re in for a good one, go on Joe,” Chandler encouraged as I internally whimpered, sinking further into the sofa, at the same time Chandler bumped closer to my side, his arm behind me on the couch, moving from being predominantly on the cushions to lower until it was hovering just above my shoulders. I took as silent a breath in as I could, and tried to remind myself that now was not the time for a low blood pressure moment, or high blood pressure either. I wasn’t sure which it was, but my heart was definitely beating faster than it should’ve been and I doubted my blood pressure was in a healthy range for that matter.

Someone was going to have to get me a heartrate monitor so that this didn’t accidentally become a recurring thing, I certainly didn’t have the health insurance required for it to be. Joey merrily set off on his story again including the details that had led to my choking incident, as Chandler kept his hand behind my back, I assumed it was ready to stop me choking again. Lord knew I needed it.

When at long last Joey was done regaling the entire group with his tales, Rachel walked over in her waitress uniform, “no rest for the wicked,” I muttered under my breath noting the candy cane earrings she was wearing while I remained cuddled into the arm of the sofa, “new years plans?” she questioned to narrowly avoid a pillow or two being thrown at her enthusiastically by Joey and Chandler, thankfully neither pillow was the one I was curled up on.

“what’s wrong with new years?” she questioned having just avoided the last of the pillows being thrown at her head and general standing space, “crushing loneliness”
“utter despair”
“a lack of lips to kiss” a unified ‘I heard that’ echoed from round the table as Rachel took it in turns to glare at us individually. Thus began Chandler’s rant and ramble on the evil that was new years, the ball dropping and the lack of kisses, I couldn’t even disagree with the points he was making,

“a pact, just us, the 6- Ash you in?” I nodded from where I was on the sofa still unmoving, “the 7 of us, dinner, no dates, no kisses,” a general sound of agreement echoed round the table “and a new mattress for me!” I called once the nodding subsided, “and a new mattress for Ash so that she actually makes it into the new years,” Chandler added as I gave him a thumbs up and he replaced himself beside me on the sofa, thankfully his arm not round my shoulders otherwise I would not be making it into the new year for a whole different reason.

With a self satisfied clap, Rachel ushered Phoebe over to the ‘stage’ to begin her latest carol concert, as much as I loved Phoebe, I wasn’t convinced one of her concerts was going to help, and low and behold I was correct as when 10minutes later Rachel was collapsed over the table beside Joey while Ross and Monica were all but holding each other up, I turned to Chandler whose head had fallen onto the back of the couch.

“mattress testing?” I questioned quietly, when he didn’t respond I went for a more tried and tested method of a sharp poke and when he finally gave some form of human response I repeated my question to which he rapidly nodded. If I didn’t know better his response was that of a waving Chinese cat, automatic and repetitive with limited human characteristics. Which to be fair, was how I was feeling anyway.

“sounds good,” he muttered stretching dramatically, almost clobbering Rachel in the face as he did so, just in time for Phoebe to begin arguing – well ish, it was more flirting in an enemies to lovers kinda way – with an audience member, the two of us quickly scooted for our jackets and made a speedy exit into the snow which had somehow gotten heavier. “nothing like Christmas in New York,” I muttered as Chandler led the way through the heaving city streets and in the direction of the central district, having grabbed my hand behind him to ensure I didn’t get separated from him in-between the hustle, bustle and far too many crowds, my heartrate was once again not ok.

And more to the point, why was it so busy on the week AFTER Mary’s waters had broke and everyone had sat in some hay was beyond me but I was starting to think many of these little experiences were just a New York thing. “you get used to it eventually,” he stated when we finally got through the packed streets and to a point on the street where he no longer had to practically drag me behind him and I was instead able to walk beside him, and allow my heartrate to return to safe levels. “not entirely sure I want to get used to it,” I muttered, taking the sharp blow to my ribs of someone’s elbow, “oi! It’s not wrestle mania here! you don’t gotta elbow people in the ribs to get by!” I complained under my breath as we split off down a quieter street, “loving the British sass,” Chandler commented as he gestured to a shop up ahead which was branded with turrets. You have got to be kidding me. “so aha, I know it looks, aha,” he began, “awful,” I filled in for him,

“yeah well awful, but they do the best mattresses and by best I mean nice and cheap but reasonable enough that your back will in fact revert to its normal position,” I silently added there were other ways I'd rather my back were dealt with but decided to keep my mouth shut on this occasion. We didn’t need any more heart rates going dangerously high.

“I'm trusting you on this one,” I muttered quietly as he held the door open for me, the glass doors somehow didn’t give any true inclination into what was held behind it, the grey walls with medieval stone castle effect seemed reasonable until my eyes settled on the range of mattresses piled into every space possible, leaving very little room to actually navigate around any of them. “oh my godddddd, Chandler Bing,” I heard Chandler groan from behind me before a woman with dark curly black hair and a very nasal high pitched voice appeared in front of us,

“didn’t expect to see you here,” her laugh was somewhere between a horror movie giggle, a witch’s cackle, and a maniac clown, none of which were comforting in the slightest, “hello Janice,” I stepped back to be beside Chandler and take a better look at the woman in front of us. “hello Chandlerrrrrr, and who’s this?” the laugh was going to grate on me. “Janice, this is Ash, she lives in the apartment block,” Chandler didn’t elaborate further as Janice reached out to shake my hand,

“oh how lovely, you live together, well not together together or I'd have noticed you, what with me coming and going, well at least coming, hahaha,” Janice continued as I internally winced. Could this get much worse. “well you wouldn’t know about that what with you being new here,” yep it could in fact get worse. Much worse as it turned out. “well thank you Janice, as lovely as this introduction is, I'm here to get a new mattress, so if you wouldn’t mind,” this woman just did not take a hint, I did my best attempt at a gentle barge past her. Chandler quite literally scurried behind me as I walked in the direction of literally anywhere but Janice, and the cream marshmallow cloud like mattress in the far corner of the room that was the equivalent of x4 of my current mattress, seemed like a good starting point.

“is that your ex?” I questioned without looking at Chandler, “on and off ex yeah,” he agreed, good to know, though on and off was not a term I typically heard back in London to describe exes… “good for you, I think,” he managed a forced laugh as I flopped down onto the marshmallow mattress, which was unironically called ‘marshmallow’ and rolled onto the centre of it, “oh yeah, this is goodddddd,” I moaned quietly as I sunk further into the mattress with ease, literal marshmallow.

“don’t moan like that, it’ll give the sales reps ideas,” Chandler commented, settling awkwardly on the edge of the mattress and gave me a look towards where the stupidly dressed sales reps were stood around staring at us with renewed interest, I shuddered. Duly noted. “but this is so good Chandler, I mean this is what has been missing from my apartment all this time," Chandler made no response as I continued to lie spreadeagled on the centre of the mattress, before rolling onto my side to survey the other mattresses in the showroom.

I already knew this one was coming home with me but as no one else managed to make it to give their advice for me to ignore – told you there was a technique to mattress testing as both a friendship bonding exercise and an ignore your friends’ advice practice channel – none of the others really held my interest. “you don’t want the princess carriage bed?” Chandler teased, nodding in the direction of a Cinderella style carriage with a mattress somehow wedged into it,

"funnily enough, no," I replied flatly, returning to my original position of comfort across the entire mattress. “kids sized for your convenience?” I laughed quietly, “Chandler pull me up off this mattress otherwise I am not making it back to my apartment before the new year,” Chandler shrugged, and turned to get up and leave, “CHANDLER!” he smirked before returning and helping drag me to the edge of the mattress, at which point I had to all but throw / bounce / jump off the mattress.

“well no sleepovers for you unless they include a ladder,” he commented as I scrambled less than gracefully to the floor, “don’t care, you know why? Sleepovers or not, my mattress is gonna be the best in the block,” I replied over my shoulder as I went in search of a sales rep who had all miraculously disappeared.

“ah yes, the biggest turn of any man, the best mattress in the block,” I rolled my eyes at him as he smiled again, digging his hands into his pockets, all thoughts of the earlier horrid encounter with Janice now nothing more than a distant memory. “just you wait, when all the men are lining up outside my door,” he smirked, as I finally found a sales rep and managed to sign some paperwork to get the delivery of my new not hopefully posture injuring mattress expedited to the second day of the new year. Progress.

“oh I’ll be waiting,” he commented as we managed to escape the mattress king showroom without being noticed by Janice who was still lingering, probably thinking I was trying to steal her man. Not likely considering I would return to the UK in a matter of months and New York would become a distant memory. So why did something I had been excited for like returning home now not seem as exciting?

…

I didn’t ponder on my overactive overthinking – I mean it wasn’t exactly new – for the rest of the day as no sooner had we reached the apartment block, and gone our separate ways, I had returned to my apartment and finally managed to speak to my brothers, both of whom had reminded me it would be practically criminal not to get a new year kiss while in New York. Although almost has soon as they had said this, they had then done the full protective brother thing, so I assumed it to be null and void.

And was treating it as such. Wasn’t like I had a queue for people wanting to kiss me on new years anyway so same old same old. While the others ran around confirming their new year kisses for several hour’s time with increasing levels of frantic if the banging around was anything to go by, I used the time to take a nap and then when I could nap no longer, to do my hair which was not as time consuming as I would have liked – considering I had no interest in getting into my overly tight dress before necessary and instead swapped into lazy pjs to lounge around eating cucumber and hummus while curling up under my duvet again.

This was a far better plan for new years in my opinion but seeing as I had already agreed to go to the party, I wouldn’t go back on my word. I just may snack, nap, and repeat first. For several hours in fact actually, as when I woke back up from another importune nap, I discovered I had indeed overslept ever so slightly, and was supposed to be downstairs for the start of the new years party. Scrambling out of bed, I practically ran from my bedroom to the bathroom and back again in a hurry of glitter and a little black dress with gold details, tugging on heels, fixing in earrings and fluffing my curls as I went. It wouldn’t be me entering the new year if I didn’t do it fashionably late all because I wanted an extra five minutes in bed.

Sounds about right for me. Having managed to accumulate and put on all the components of my new years outfit, I grabbed my keys and locked the apartment door behind me and did my best impression of hop, run, no falling, down the stairs to the apartment below, smoothing out my dress and taking a few deep breaths before knocking on the door and hoping that my late entrance would not be noted.

When the door opened with a flourish I was beyond relieved to discover Monica who smiled brightly as she ushered me in with her usual winning smile and open arms, “Ash you made it!” I laughed quietly, cracking some joke or another about being right upstairs, I blushed slightly embarrassed at my late arrival considering I was literally right upstairs, but Mon continued on, cracking another joke as I managed a soft smile and small laugh.

“I love this dress Mon, truly gorgeous on you, you look a million dollars,” she blushed, attempting to play off the compliment, “ahh well shush,” I smiled softly hugging her gently while surveying the packed apartment, “wow that is a lot of people,” she nodded from beside with a tight smile, I couldn’t decide whether she loved playing host or absolutely hated it in that moment. She always seemed like a natural host whenever the others were around, but I suspected that it was more about the people than anything else, and if her expression was anything to judge based on, her friendship to some of these people was flimsy at best. From where we were stood,

I could see various members of the rest of the group, Ross appeared to be in earnest conversation with the science guy Phoebe had become entangled with at Central Perk, whether it was the one she was with or his sidekick I couldn’t tell but good for whichever one it was. Rachel was nowhere to be seen though Monica was quick to fill me in according to why that was – something about a cat fight for a cab at the airport and a jerk with a suitcase – which considering my own memories of the New York airport, was honestly not that case specific. Phoebe was with her science man smiling brightly the way love only does, while Joey appeared to be playing stepfather to two children (where had these children even come from? Did someone in the group just pop out kids while I was mattress shopping?) and Chandler, I winced upon realising.

Chandler was being cornered by Janice.

“should we do something about that?” I questioned leaning towards Monica and gesturing to where Chandler was quite literally being pinned into a corner, “nah he’ll figure it,” she replied, offering me a snack off a plate that I gladly accepted while she chomped down on my own, “one of these days she’ll get the message or he’ll get tested, and like an STD, she’ll finally bugger off,” what was it with everyone in this friendship group trying to make me choke? I barely managed a few mouthfuls of air before Mon smiled at me toothily and headed off to chat with someone else who had just fallen through the door. I surveyed the room again and took a deep breath, breathe Ash, you’ve done scarier things than try and socialise with a room full of Americans you don’t know, you’ve got this, you can do this, just don’t collapse before the ball drops.

Easy peezy.