Bonus Scene
Levi
We spent hours at IKEA, picking out everything from bed frames to a coffee table. Everything was basic as fuck and supposedly easy to build. We weren’t handymen by any means, but we were both smart.
How hard could it be to tighten a few screws and secure a few boards together with wooden pegs?
Starting in the living room, I unpacked the entertainment center, thinking that would be the best place to begin. If we worked on each room together, we would be done before dark—at least, that was the plan.
“Okay… where are the instructions?” I asked, as I knelt on the floor, lifting boards and throwing packets of screws aside to see where we might’ve misplaced it.
“I tossed it with the rest of the trash.” Lucas shrugged, picking up the bag that contained the Allen wrench and ripping it open.
“You what?” Are you fucking kidding me?
“We don’t need it, everything’s supposed to just piece together like a puzzle, right?”
“What part of this looks like a simple fucking puzzle to you?” I huffed with sarcasm, holding my palms out wide, gesturing to all the shit we had laid out on the floor.
Plywood boards with nothing more than lettered stickers on them and labels that told you which was the front or back, nothing more.
“Well… A would connect with B and B to C and… A to… D?” His confidence dwindled as he recited the alphabet and realized that this was far more complicated than he so brazenly assumed.
“My point exactly, just go find the fucking instructions. I’d like to have my bedroom done before midnight so I can finally get some fucking sleep.” I sighed, dragging my hands through my hair and tugging at the roots out of frustration.
Team building my left fucking nut…
THIRTY MINUTES LATER.
Lucas came over to my side of the room after finishing both of the end tables—lucky fucking him.
“Here, let me—”
“Don’t you dare touch a single fucking thing.” I barked, protecting my pieces as if they were precious treasure.
This TV stand was pissing me the fuck off. I had one side done, but then realized that one of the fucking boards was installed backward, forcing me to take it apart and start all over again.
“Oh come on, don’t be a prick, it’s not that fuckin—” Crack. “Shit…”
Chewing on my cheek, my patience at its fucking limit, I sent Lucas an agitated glare, seeing that he had snapped off one of the wooden pegs that I had hammered into the side of one of the shelves.
“Are you—”
“Hey now, it’s not—”
“Get the fuck out.” I pointed in the direction of his bedroom, my eyes still fixated on the broken piece of wood. “Go work on your shit before I lose mine.”
Lucas held up his palms in submission.
“Fine, fine. But I bet I can finish my room before you finish that.” He teased before taking off down the hall, just as I hurled the tiny wrench at him. “Missed me!” He called before slamming the door behind him.
Fucking Lucas…