Home is Not a Place

Anniversary

Rachel checked her phone discretely for the second time since they'd been waiting for their table at the restaurant – and for the second time her moves didn't go unnoticed by the man standing beside her. This was her third date with Julien and tonight Lisa had insisted on watching Emma overnight, just in case Rachel's evening got "busy". She had protested at first, but at the very least the possibility of sleeping in on a Sunday made her cave in.

"I'm sorry this is taking long, but I promise the duck will make up for the wait." Julien apologized in a thick and very sexy French accent.

"Oh no, sorry, I'm just checking to see if there's any calls or texts from my friend Lisa. She has Emma tonight." She explained.

"Oh, OK. How is she?"

Rachel couldn't tell yet if he was being genuine or just asking out of politeness, but decided not to question it just yet.

"She's good. She was pretty excited about her first real sleepover."

And this time it was the look on his face that didn't go unnoticed, as if Rachel had just disclosed exactly how far their date would go. Before she could react to it, her phone did in fact start to ring, and she was surprised to see not Lisa's name on the screen, but Ross'.

"I'm sorry, I need to take this." She told Julien before turning around slightly to answer it. Any unscheduled call from New York had her on the edge, worrying something urgent had happened. "Hi Ross. Anything wrong?"

"Hi Rach. No, hey, nothing wrong here. I'm just returning your call."

"Oh, right!"

"Yeah, sorry, I was at the movies, so I just saw it."

"Right." So, tonight was probably date night for him too, she thought. Well, technically it was still afternoon over there. "I just wanted to tell you that we're going to make it to Jack and Erica's birthday after all."

"You managed to get the time off?" He sounded delightedly surprised, which made her smile.

"Yes, and I got our tickets this afternoon."

"That's great, Rach! Monica's going to be so happy."

Rachel smiled wider. Oh, how she missed them all.

She also had to restrain herself from teasing him about what he'd just said.

"Just Monica?" she wanted to shoot back. But now that he was seeing someone else, she had to be careful with those flirty comebacks that came so naturally sometimes when she was talking to him.

"How's she doing, how are you guys?" She asked instead.

They started chatting as if Rachel had completely forgotten she was on a date herself, until she finally noticed they were being called by the hostess and raised her index finger to Julien, as if asking for just one more second.

"Honey, I'm sorry, I gotta go. I'm at a restaurant and our table's ready."

"Oh, are you out with your friends?"

The one second too long it took her to answer spoke louder than her words.

"Something like that."

"Gotcha." He said on the other side. "Well, I won't get in your way. Enjoy your evening, Rachel." He said truthfully.

"Thanks." She replied softly.

They walked to their table in silence and while she was studying the menu Rachel could feel Julien's eyes on her.

"So how often do you speak to your ex?" He finally asked.

She looked up from the menu and frowned. Without missing another beat, she shot right back: