The One With The Fake Dating

Closet Hijinks

Chandler's POV

Ever since Chandler had started driving Joey to and from work every day, he noticed he was starting to enjoy his morning drives to work a lot more, and he kept catching himself checking the clock towards the end of the day even more often than he usually did. He wondered why they hadn't thought of carpooling like this before, especially considering they literally live together. 

Another bonus was that Joey had mentioned people were starting to act normal around him again. Well, minus Tyler, but that guy seemed like a jerk anyways. On their drive home from work a couple of days ago Joey was telling Chandler how one of his costars mentioned there had been a rumor going around at some point that Joey had hired Chandler to pretend to be his boyfriend for that night at the bar. But apparently everyone stopped believing that after seeing Chandler driving Joey pretty much everyday. They figured no one would be dumb enough to pay for a fake boyfriend that often, they'd have gone broke. 

"I'm the dumb one," Chandler had remarked sarcastically after hearing the story. "I can't believe I haven't been making you pay me for all of this hard work. I could have been rich by now!" 

But if he was being honest, nothing he was doing really felt like work. He liked helping his best friend out, and it's not like he actually had to do much, other than hang out with Joey slightly more than usual (which Chandler wasn't complaining about). 

Today was no different than most work days for Chandler. He had just finished showing some new employee the correct way to fill out a spreadsheet (which took much longer than it should have for a task that simple, Chandler hated being put in charge of new employees). Now with about 45 minutes left of work, Chandler was just trying to make himself look as busy as possible while doing nothing, since he finished what he had to do early again today. His job really wasn't as hard as some people made it out to be. But after about a minute of shuffling around some papers and reorganizing his desk supplies, he decided he couldn't take it anymore. Luckily for Chandler, today his boss was out sick, meaning he could probably get away with leaving without having to think of some dumb excuse that may or may not even work. 

"Hey Cheryl, I'm clocking out a bit early today," Chandler called out to his secretary. 

"Alright, see you tomorrow then," Cheryl replied without looking up from her work. Chandler gathered his things and headed out of the dull office. He made a beeline straight to his car, deciding on the way that he would just head straight to Joey's rehearsal. It's not like he had enough time to go do anything else before he had to go get Joey anyways. Besides, maybe he'd even get a chance to catch a bit of the play. 

As he was driving to the studio Chandler noticed a small coffee shop and decided to make a quick stop to pick up some coffee for him and Joey. Even though it was kind of pointless, considering they were probably going to end up at Central Perk soon after anyways, he figured it might help play into their charade a little bit more if people saw him bringing in some coffee for his "boyfriend". On his way out of the shop he also grabbed a small handful of sugar packets from the counter, because for some reason Joey liked his coffee to be sweet enough to give you a cavity with one sip. No wonder he always had so much energy.

After a couple more minutes of driving, Chandler arrived at the studio. When he walked in he was surprised at how grand it looked on the inside. He had only ever dropped Joey off from the parking lot before, and the outside of the building wasn't exactly the most impressive thing in the world. However, the inside definitely made up for that. It was probably one of the nicest studios Chandler had ever seen Joey work in. He walked around aimlessly for a bit, not really knowing where to find Joey but hoping he would come across someone who could help him eventually. And surely enough, a few hallways later he noticed one of Joey's coworkers.