Jake nodded quietly. "Joey's been homesick too. You leave a place as awesome as Australia for the first time, it's got to be a hard hit. Some days, I don't even feel worthy of him staying. I get it, though. I don't know why either of you would want to stick around here..." He wasn't even sure he liked New York himself. It wasn't home, but he was working on it. Life was different now. Very, very different. He wanted to tell her that he understood that part too, but he didn't feel entitled to that. His fingers were toying with one of his socks where he had crossed his leg over his knee. He wished he had words he could say to her to make it all better, but that just wasn't fair. There was no easy out. What happened happened, and Alice had to live with that.

He met her gaze guiltily but had to nod. "Yeah, I... I don't know. I think I fell in love with him months ago without realising it. Me being a complete asshole and self-centred dickhead aside, Joey is an amazing person. He's a hardworker, and I know you're friends with his wife, but she treated him terribly. He tried to make it work, but he's never been happy. He had to lie about who he was, and he didn't have to do that with me. It just turned into something else before we realised, then when it had, we couldn't switch it off."