Chapter Fourteen
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Finn
I stared at the pieces of the large bookcase laid out on the floor in front of me, complete with bags of screws and IKEA’s finest pictorial instructions. There was absolutely no way we should be able to get this wrong. So why were we on attempt number three already?
“This is bollocks,” muttered Gem darkly, picking up the instruction booklet and skimming through it. “My nephew could do this, and he’s seven. Why the fuck can’t we get this right?”
“Beats me,” I said as I shook my head. I was sure I’d built these—or some variation of them—before, so it shouldn’t have been that hard. Maybe it was because I kept getting distracted by Gem’s face or the way his hands reached for the bits of wood, or the way he looked on all fours, bending over the laid-out pieces. I frowned and tried to snap myself out of it. This was not the time to be focusing on how handsome Gem was or how much I wanted to fuck him. This was the time for building furniture. And maybe if it went well, the other parts could come later.
“Okay, let’s try this again.” Gem peered at the paper and then looked at the various parts in front of him. “Those two end pieces, put them next to each other with that groove thing on the outside and the four holes at the top.” I was sure this was how we’d had them the first time, but not the second, so at least we were already doing better than one of our attempts. “Then,” Gem said, turning the manual around to show me, “we need those twelve screws. The big ones with the weird, hexagonal bit in the middle.”
I looked at the various bags of screws that were littered around us. We’d opened several and strewn their contents across the shop floor before realising it would have been easier to keep everything in their separate little bags or put them in bowls—anything to keep them together. “Here,” I said as I handed some to Gem. “I should have realised we’d already opened them.”
“No worries.” He took the proffered screws and began to twist them into the holes, spreading the instructions out between us so we could make sure we were filling the right ones. “You know, I’m sure there’s a bad hole or screw joke in here somewhere.”
I chuckled. “If I was Eli, or even Lewis, I’d have made it by now. Unfortunately, I’m not that funny off the top of my head.”
“I think you’re funny,” Gem said. “Just different funny. Eli’s like loud, dramatic, over the top funny. You’re sharper. Like he’s a battering ram, and you’re a dagger or something.”
“I’d say more letter opener, but I appreciate the sentiment.” I smiled at him, and Gem snorted. He said something under his breath I didn’t catch. “Sorry?”
“Nothing,” he said quickly. “Just bitching about these screws. I should have bought one of those electric screwdrivers.”
My eyebrows knitted into a frown, but I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to push Gem into admitting something he wasn’t comfortable with, especially if it involved me.
“At least we seem to have put them in the right place this time,” I said.
“Yeah, we’ve filled the correct holes. It just takes a good screw.” He winked at me, and I groaned.
“That was bad. Like horrible, not even funny bad.”
“Then why are you smiling?”
“Because it was so horrible I’m wondering why I even had to listen to it.”
“You’re gonna hurt my feelings, you know,” Gem said with a wry smile.
“Are you that dramatic?”
“I might be.”
“I’m related to Eli, and that man is the very definition of dramatic. He owns two of those ridiculous pageant tiaras for crying out loud. He wore both of them at Christmas and tried to get us to call him Your Majesty.”
Gem laughed. “Did it work?”
“No. Lewis and Jules took the piss out of him until he gave up,” I said, chuckling at the memory. “But my point still stands. Unfortunately, you will never be as dramatic as my brother and, therefore, not dramatic at all.”
“Bloody drag queens! Ruining my attempts at theatrics.”
“It’s what Eli does best.” Although, to give him his due, even Eli knew he could be melodramatic, and half the time I thought he did it just for the fun of it and to piss off Richard. I looked down at the pieces in front of us, which were now fitted with screws. “Okay, what next?”
“Those bits, I think,” Gem said, pointing at two shelf-type pieces and a thinner strip, which I assumed was some form of supporting foot. “With the dowels.” He picked up some short, wooden dowels and rammed them into a couple of holes before starting to fit them to the boards. I frowned, looking at the instructions and then back at Gem.
“You’re putting them in the wrong way round.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes,” I said, “you are.”
“How? They’re meant to go in these slots.” Gem pointed at the paper in front of us. “See?”
“Yes, but they’re meant to go in the other way around.” I jabbed at the diagram and a small box with two additional pictures, one which had a large X through it. “The wood grain needs to face the groove because that’s the back of the bookcase.” I reached out and plucked the shelf from Gem’s hands and twisted it around before slotting it into place. “See?”
“I don’t see,” Gem grumbled.
“Trust me.”
“Fine. But if it’s wrong—”
“It’s not wrong,” I said with a raised eyebrow. Then I grinned. “Just do as you’re told.”
“God no! Where’s the fun in that?” Gem’s expression was teasing as he slotted the other shelf into place. Despite his protestations, he’d turned it to match the one I’d done.
“I’m beginning to understand why they say couples should never build furniture together, especially if it’s from IKEA.” The moment I said it, I wondered if I’d overstepped. I’d meant it in a fun, offhand way, but maybe Gem would see it differently. We weren’t a couple, and I didn’t want him to think that was how I saw us. I mean, it was , but that was only in the deepest, darkest corners of my heart where I hoarded that dream like a precious stone.
But Gem just threw his head back and laughed, the sound bouncing joyfully off the freshly painted walls. “Right? I mean we’re on attempt three already. I think if we were married, we’d have just given up by now.”
“To throw pieces at each other or fuck?”
“Definitely the second,” Gem said. “I’ve never heard of the first. Another family legend?”
“Yes,” I said. My family really did have a lot to answer for. “When Mimbles and my dad were first married, they apparently decided to try to build a dining room set together. It apparently ended with Mimbles jabbing him in the ribs with a chair leg and throwing a bag of screws at him. So not that bad really, but DIY really does bring out the worst in couples. And you know how stubborn my mother is. Dad was apparently just as bad.”
“I believe that.” He’d only met Mimbles and the rest of my parents once, at Eli’s competition, but it was enough to leave an impression. “My mum just did all the DIY in our house. She can pretty much do anything. Except plumbing—she refuses to do plumbing because apparently she tried once and ended up flooding the house. She always told us that her favourite Christmas present was the year my dad bought her a new drill, just after they first got married. Everyone thought he was a terrible husband, but she loved it. It’s the one she still uses, even though it’s practically ancient now.”
“See? I think that’s the way to do it.” I looked at the instructions and reached for some round, plastic screw top things that would hold the base board and middle shelf in place. “You need one person to just build everything and the other to either leave them alone or only assist when two pairs of hands are really needed as long as they promise not to say anything.”
“Does that mean I just need to leave you to get on with it?”
“No.” I looked at Gem, who was smiling at me again. It was the same beautiful smile that always made my whole body light up like a Christmas tree. “If anything, I should let you build them, but we’ve already established—”
“I suck? And not in a good way.”
I snorted. “Yes. That.”
“I could suck in a good way,” Gem said, waggling his eyebrows ridiculously. I could barely keep a straight face.
“Maybe later if you’re good and help me with these.” I gestured at the pile of cardboard boxes that contained numerous bookshelves and display units. “Or at least half of them.”
“You’re no fun.” He’d said it teasingly, but I felt my face fall. I’d heard those words before but never in a good way. It was always in a you’re too quiet and shy to be fun way, and it had always stung. Gem must have noticed because his expression changed, and he reached out across the half-constructed bookshelf to cup my face in his hand. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“It’s fine.”
“No, it’s not.” He ran his thumb along my cheek, and I leant into the touch. “I don’t like seeing you upset, and I don’t want to be the bastard that does that.”
I attempted to shrug, but it was half-hearted at best. “You didn’t mean it.”
“Mean it or not, it still doesn’t mean it wasn’t a dick move.” He tilted my head to look at me, his eyes roaming over my face. It was strange to be on the other end of the gesture because it was usually something I did to him. But this wasn’t a heated, controlling tilt, this was softer. Like he wanted to look at my face to make sure I wasn’t hiding from him. It was… sweet and almost overwhelming. “Have people said that to you before? The no fun thing.”
“Yes,” I said. There was no point in hiding it from him, and I wanted to be honest. Gem deserved that from me. “Mostly when I was at school and then at uni. I’ve never really been very sociable or much of a partier. There are always too many people, it’s too noisy, and I can’t… I don’t know… Control the situation doesn’t sound right, but it’s how I feel. There are too many variables I don’t have control over, and if I’m with people I don’t know that well, then I don’t feel safe. But it’s hard to explain that to people you’ve just met, and at uni they just took it to mean I was weird and antisocial.” I sighed. “Chantelle was nice about it though. She never made me go out with her unless I wanted to, and usually we’d just drink and chill together until she went out. Then when she came back, I’d make us toast, and we’d sit on the sofa.” Usually we’d end up cuddled up together while she told me about her night. The only exceptions were the nights she went home with someone, but she was always good at remembering to text me to let me know where she was. She’d always send me a picture of the person too, just in case.
“I’m sorry,” Gem said. “I was probably one of those wankers who’d have teased you. But it was because I was an insecure cunt who hid behind alcohol and being loud in an attempt to fake confidence. I grew up a lot after I left uni. So trust me when I say those people were assholes, and I’m sorry they made you feel that way.”
“It’s fine, but thank you.”
He leant over and kissed me softly as if he could take all my troubles away with his mouth. It worked, though, and I felt myself relax.
“At least you had Chantelle. She sounds like an interesting person.”
“She is,” I said with a small smile. “You’d like her. She’s coming to stay next week, and she’s bringing Kelsey too. We should all hang out. That is if you want to? How do you feel about children?”
“I’d love that, and kids are great. My nephew is one of my favourite people.” Just the way Gem said it made it sound like the absolute truth, not just a polite pleasantry. My only problem would be getting Chantelle to keep her mouth shut, but I knew she’d do it if I asked, even if she didn’t agree with my tactics. “Just let me know when and where.”
“I will.”
We lingered there for a moment, close together with Gem’s hand on my cheek. I wished it could have lasted longer, but the reality of a looming opening date and piles of flat-pack furniture were too hard to ignore.
“Come on,” I said eventually. “We should get these bookcases built.”
“Yeah. We should.”
Gem pulled away reluctantly, and the look on his face made me wonder just how far we’d stumbled away from just friends already.