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"HEY, LOOK, THEY'RE HOSTING a big Christmas ball tomorrow night near the square."
Sliding her cup back on to the coffee table, Rachel craned her neck a bit so she could see the newspaper Chandler had held up for her. A faded picture ran across the paper right above the article title, showing the massive Christmas tree that currently lit up Times Square.
"Honey," Rachel began once she finished scanning the headline, her look quizzical. "That paper's a week old."
Confused, Chandler hastily flipped the paper over to see for himself and sure enough, the paper was from last week. The weather report on heavy rain shower on the same page should have been enough for him to realize this sooner when they've clearly been getting nothing but continuous snow and chilly winds the past few days.
"Alright, who keeps leaving old newspapers in the trash?" he quipped accusingly. Rachel smiled against her hand, bemused.
With a sigh, Chandler threw the paper back on to the coffee table and propped his feet up on the wood like a grumpy eight-year-old.
Joey must have found his disappointment amusing because he shook his head over his plate of brownies and asked the obvious question, "What are you so hung up about anyway?"
"Nothing," Chandler snapped back, albeit too fast for it to just be nothing.
"Cheer up, Chandler," Joey tried to console through a mouthful, words almost unintelligible. "There's going to be more balls out there."
Chandler stared at him blankly, to which Joey responded to by quickly turning back to his plate with a not-so apologetic squiggle of his eyebrows. Admittedly, that was pretty funny, and normally Chandler would be all over a good innuendo, but he just wasn't in the mood for it right now.
When he averted his eyes back to the TV without a word, he didn't need to look away to see the group exchanging glances between themselves. His irritation was heightened by the fact that they probably weren't going to drop it until he said something, so he spoke up again after a few minutes of unsubtle gesturing.
"If you all must know," he started without bothering to look away from the screen. "The New Year's coming soon and I really want to take Elliot somewhere before I go back to work." He laid his head back on the couch rest before adding almost as an afterthought, "You know, somewhere without crying kids or drunk fifty-year-olds who yell at you for getting their wine wrong."
At that very specific bit, Phoebe looked up at him from where she sat on the carpet, nodding sagely and looking as if she was talking to a toddler with the way she was ogling him. "Well, aren't you just the cutest?"
Chandler shifted on his seat a bit, followed by the slight quirk of his lips. Phoebe always did have a knack at making him light up in the middle of his frequent upsets.
