Chapter 39: Two Perfect Matches
"Andrew Sanchez."
"Joey Tribbiani."
They shook hands. Joey had the handshake of someone who'd been told handshakes mattered and had taken that seriously. Andrew sat back down on the couch and took stock of him — the easy physical confidence, the warmth that came off him like a space heater, the way he'd walked into Monica's apartment and immediately made it feel like a room he'd always been welcome in.
There he is, Andrew thought. Right on schedule.
"Where are Ross and Phoebe?" he asked.
Monica's voice came from the kitchen, along with the sound of several things happening simultaneously. "Ross is on his way. Phoebe stayed out last night — she went to Staten Island this morning, said not to wait for her." A pause. "Andrew, get in here."
Andrew recognized the tone. Monica had learned, over the past month or so, that he wasn't going to volunteer for kitchen duty unprompted. She'd adjusted her approach accordingly, which he respected.
He got up and went to help.
The apartment smelled like something serious was happening on the stove. Monica cooked for guests the way some people decorated for Christmas — all the way, no half measures, with an investment of effort that went well past what the occasion technically required. Andrew had figured out the psychology of it early on:
the need to be the person who made things good, who took care of people, who filled the table so completely that nobody could possibly find it lacking. It came from somewhere real and it produced genuinely excellent results, which was the best kind of complicated motivation.
"So," Monica said, in a tone that was doing its best to sound casual. "I heard about last night."
Andrew looked at the minced meat she'd handed him to work with. "Ross called you."
"This morning. First thing." She turned from the stove with flour on her hand and an expression that Chandler would have described as identical to his own from the night before. "Rachel Green?"
"That's how Ross recognized her."
"You absolute—" Monica patted him on the back with the flour-covered hand, leaving a clear print on his shirt. She seemed unbothered by this. "Lucky. I cannot believe—"
"You and Chandler are genuinely the same person," Andrew said, without thinking.
Monica stopped.
Andrew heard what he'd said and where he'd let it go, and made a quick correction. "I mean — you and Chandler are a good match. That's all."
Monica made the face of someone who'd been handed a piece of information they weren't sure what to do with. "Chandler and me."
"You're more compatible than you think."
"Andrew, we're friends. That's—"
"I know you're friends. I'm saying compatibility isn't just about attraction, it's about what two people actually need from each other." He kept his voice matter-of-fact, because he meant it matter-of-factly. "Chandler needs someone steady, someone who actually shows up. You need someone who appreciates what you do instead of just expecting it. Those aren't random — those fit."
Monica looked at him for a long moment. The fake-casual laugh she tried didn't quite land. She turned back to the stove.
Andrew let it rest. He'd said what he thought was true. The rest was up to her.
He'd been thinking about this since he'd gotten to know them properly. In the original story they'd taken a long road to get where they ended up, with a lot of unnecessary pain in between. He wasn't under any illusion that he could rewrite it, but he wasn't going to pretend he didn't see what he saw either.
Monica deserved not to go through the doctor first.
The food was almost ready when the door opened and Ross came in, looking like a man who'd had a very long morning following a very long night.
"Ross Geller." He shook Joey's hand with the automatic politeness of someone going through motions.
Joey read the room immediately — whatever Monica had told him, or whatever he'd inferred from thirty seconds of observation — and pulled Ross into a hug before Ross could stop him.
"Hey, man. I heard. I'm sorry." He said it simply and meant it.
Ross blinked. Processed this. Looked past Joey's shoulder at Monica.
"Monica."
Monica spread her hands. "You called and told me. You didn't say keep it secret."
"You could have—"
"Hey," Joey said, still with a hand on Ross's shoulder, "don't be sad. This might actually be a—"
The front door opened.
Phoebe came in wearing a sundress, spinning once in the entrance because the dress warranted it, smile already fully deployed.
"Hi, everyone! I heard there's someone new?" She scanned the room, found the unfamiliar face.
Joey, in the time it had taken everyone to look at Phoebe, had somehow repositioned himself — one hand on the counter, the other at his chest, posture calibrated to a specific frequency.
"How you doin'?" His voice had dropped a register.
"Oh wow, Monica, Andrew — you made so much food." Phoebe had already moved past Joey and into the kitchen, peering at everything.
"Out." Monica pointed.
Andrew dried his hands and followed Phoebe back to the living room. He was done with his contribution to the meal — Monica had it from here and preferred it that way.
"You look great, Phoebe," he said.
Phoebe's smile widened into something triumphant. "The guy from last night gave it to me." She smoothed the dress with both hands, the way someone does when they want everyone to see them doing it. No showing off exactly — more like she genuinely wanted to share the happiness, the way kids do when something good happens and holding it in would be wasteful.
"Speaking of last night—" Chandler materialized at Andrew's elbow, having apparently been waiting for an opening. He had the look of a man with information he'd been sitting on. "Andrew. Good night last night?"
Ross had been half-listening. He turned. Something crossed his face — the specific expression of a man re-encountering a memory he'd been hoping to file under not discussing this.
"Chandler," Ross said carefully. "Don't."
"Rachel?" Chandler said, reading Ross's face and arriving at something. The word landed and then he said it again, slower, with his eyebrows doing significant work. "Rachel. Rachel Green. The Rachel—"
Ross tackled him.
They went sideways into the couch with the momentum of two people who had done this before and would do it again. Joey watched this from across the room with the expression of a man who had found exactly the right place to be.
"I'm going to like it here," he said to no one in particular.
Andrew got out of the way and let it happen.
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