Golden Days︱𝐉𝐎𝐄𝐘 𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐁𝐁𝐈𝐀𝐍𝐈

43│DANCING PARTNERS

"What a minute," Monica narrowed her eyes at him, "What did he say?"

"He said that he wasn't gonna apologize because you guys are living here illegally, so instead what he's gonna do is have you evicted," Joey mumbled quickly, "I'll see you later."

Rachel's eyes widened and she gasped. "What?! You got us evicted!"

"Oh, my God!" Veronica cried, "I can't be homeless yet!"

"What do you mean 'yet'?" Monica stared at her incredulously.

"Phoebe isn't done teaching me how to be street smart in case something like this ever happened," She explained simply, as though that was a totally normal thing to do.

Monica's brows furrowed. "...What do you and Phoebe do when you hang out?"

Veronica shrugged. "It varies. But that doesn't matter, we're homeless!"

"I told you not to go down there!" Monica snapped as she started hitting Joey.

"Well, he made Rachel cry!" He defended himself as he jumped away from her.

"Rachel always cries!" Veronica snapped heatedly.

"That's not true!" Rachel whined as she ironically started crying.

"Will you stop hitting him," Veronica grumbled as she pushed Monica away, "He's an idiot but he's still my boyfriend."

"Now Joey, you go down there and you suck up to him," Monica demanded as she pointed a finger at him, "I mean you suck like you've never sucked before!"

"All right! I'll try! But if I can't, you can stay with Chandler and me until you get settled."

The three shared a look, clearly in agreement about how much they hated that idea.

"Go!" They snapped in unison.

"All right, all right. I mean I'll have to check with him first, but I think he'll be cool with it."

"He won't have to be cool with it because it's not happening!" Veronica growled as she marched over to her boyfriend, Joey taking a step back in fear, "Because you are going to fix this, or we are never doing that thing you like doing."

Joey's eyes widened. "Wait, the thing I like doing or the thing I really, really like doing?"

"Both," She said flatly as she glared at him.

"Ah!" He cried before he rushed out of the apartment, tripping on his own feet, "Treeger!"

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"Punctuality is the number one rule in my employee handbook, which I've adorably named the Han-book," Han reminded Veronica as she walked into the diner.

After finding out they were possibly going to be evicted, Veronica had rushed off to change for work. She figured if they were going to be homeless, she couldn't be broke too. Well, more broke than she already was anyway.

"Relax, Han," She rolled her eyes as she tied her apron, "Nobody's gonna die if I'm not here to drop off a tuna melt. In fact, they're more likely to die if I do drop it off."

"It's payday! And I'm not talking about the delicious little treat with nuts.

"Han, not cool to brag about yourself," Veronica chuckled and gave Earl a high five.

"Here, Veronica, maybe you can use the money to buy a new attitude," He huffed as he handed her the paycheck.

"New attitude?" She arched a brow teasingly, "Isn't that the name of the boy band you're in?"

"And Oleg, you'll notice I docked your pay 'cause you didn't even come in yesterday."

"I told you, I was working from home," Oleg reminded him before heading back to the kitchen.

"There you go, Earl. Don't spend it all in one place," Han smiled warmly at the older man.

"You think you pay me enough to spend it in two places?" Earl scoffed.

"Oh, my God, that's all I made?" Veronica's jaw dropped, "This is less than it cost me to get here today. And I walked."

Before they could discuss their lackluster paychecks any further, Joey and Treeger walked into the diner. Joey had convinced the building manager to let him treat him to lunch to discuss not evicting the girls.

"You can serve yourselves," Veronica called, having not seen who walked in just hearing the bell, "I clearly don't get paid enough to deal with you."

"Huh, same attitude, different place," Treeger scoffed as he gave her a cold look.

Veronica spun around and stared at him in disbelief before she plastered a bright smile. "Oh, Mr. Treeger, I didn't see you there. Why don't you guys sit at the booth over there and I'll get you a slice of pie. On the house. Han, unlike me, can afford that."

"Take the whole thing," Earl huffed as he took out a new cherry pie from the display case, clearly still annoyed over the paycheck issue.

"Please don't kick the girls out," Joey begged desperately, "This wasn't their fault, it was mine."

Treeger raised a brow. "You want me to kick you guys out instead?"

Joey's eyes widened. "No you can't do that, where would the chick and the duck live?"

"You have pets?!"

"No, no, no, no," Joey shook his head vehemently and chuckled nervously, "Those are nicknames. I'm the chick and Chandler is the duck."

Treeger nodded slowly. "Huh, I would've thought it was the other way around."

"Come on man, just let the girls stay, I'll do whatever you want."

"Really? You'll do anything?"

"Yeah, yeah, absolutely."

Treeger paused, clearly embarrassed. "...Can you be my dancing partner?"

Joey thought it over with a frown. "That's not, prison lingo, is it?"

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〚𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐑'𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄〛

I'm sorry this was a short chapter but I hope you guys liked it anyway. Please let me know what you thought! I promise to get the next chapter out soon to make up for this one. How are you guys liking season 4 so far? Please leave any suggestions you have for the next chapters. 

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