Chapter 9

  The Sofa

  I remembered Ikea being a little more confusing.

  Not super confusing. Just confusing enough that if you let your brain relax for even a second, you’d blink and suddenly you were in a completely different fake apartment than the one you started in—surrounded by strangers testing pillows and the softness of furniture.

  Yvette walked like she’d been here a hundred times. Like the yellow arrows on the floor were personally guiding her. I trailed behind her, trying to keep up without looking like I was being pulled along.

  We’d already been wandering for half an hour.

  Chairs. End tables. Beds. Dining sets arranged like a family of mannequins was about to sit down and pretend to be a stereotypical loving family. Everything looked nice, but every time I stopped to actually look at something, Yvette had already moved on, calling it junk or cute with the confidence of a professional…uh, furniture critic?

  “Ooo—okay,” she said suddenly, veering hard left like she’d caught a scent. “You should get a sleeper sofa~.”

  She marched straight up to a couch that, to me, looked exactly like a futon.

  I blinked at it. “Yeah, futons are nice.”

  Yvette turned slowly and blinked at me. “Excuse you. That is a sleeper sofa, not a futon.”

  I squinted at the piece of furniture. It really just looked like a nice futon.

  “…Can’t you tell?” she added dramatically, pointing to the armrest like it was proof.

  “Uh, no,” I admitted. “I can’t. The back goes all the way down like a futon, yeah?”

  “Okay.” She nodded like she’d expected that answer. “See, this is why you brought me.”

  “Well, you sorta volunteered to tag—” She gave me a dirty look as I spoke, so I just shut up.

  She knows what she’s doing, I guess and I don’t. I have never really shopped for anything more than a mattress and even then I picked one that was too stiff. I just tagged along to Ikea with some friends who mostly wandered through it while we were high and then we ate a shit load of Swedish meatballs afterwards.

  I followed her closely, pretending I had any idea what I was looking at. The price tag of the ‘sleeper sofa’ caught my eye and I winced.

  $400. Four. With two zeros.

  “Yeah… that may be a little expensive,” I said, already doing the math in my head.

  Yvette leaned over my shoulder. “Well, what’s our budget?”

  I pulled my wallet out and looked inside. “About… two hundred cash.”

  “Oh. Okay, so you’re broke-broke,” she said, completely unbothered. “That’s fine. We can—”

  “I have my debit card too,” I added quickly, like it mattered. I was a functional adult now, mostly.

  “Okay, again, how much we working with?” she asked with raised brows.

  I hesitated for a moment. My instinct—my actual instinct, the one that still felt like mine—was to avoid looking at numbers I didn’t want to deal with. But she stared at me until I caved.

  “Fine,” I muttered, pulling out my phone. I wonder if Alaric loaded a banking app on here

  I opened it, watching it sign in automatically. I didn’t question it…

  …And then I froze.

  $11,292

  My brain didn’t process it at first. I just…stopped. Like someone had yanked my power cord out of the wall.

  Then I blinked, rebooting. Then I scrolled.

  Deposit: $10,000 — Yesterday.

  “Oh shit,” I breathed, because that was the only phrase I could muster.

  Yvette immediately leaned in like a hawk.

  “What?” she asked. Then her eyes locked on the screen. She sputtered and made a sound halfway between a laugh and a gasp. “DAMN JESSE!”

  Before I could react, she snatched the phone out of my hand.

  “No—hey, hey!” I lunged for it, but she sidestepped easily, like this was a game she’d played with me a thousand times before.

  “Holy shit,” she said, voice rising as she stared at the screen. “You got eleven thousand dollars?!”

  I felt my face go hot in seconds. I looked around and immediately noticed what I hadn’t noticed before: we weren’t alone. Honestly, when were you ever alone in Ikea?

  Two shoppers nearby looked over.

  One of them definitely heard her.

  Shit.

  “Lower your voice,” I hissed, reaching again. “Please. You’re making a scene.”

  “Jesse,” she said, not lowering her voice at all, “did Alan give you ten thousand dollars as a graduation present?”

  “Stop saying that out loud!” I pleaded, trying to keep my voice down while actively panicking.

  “Dude,” she continued, delighted, eyes shining like she’d discovered buried treasure, “what did you do? Sell a kidney? Rob a bank? Suck someone off?”

  “I didn’t—what the fuck did you just say to me?!” I asked, mortified, “No! Give me that!”

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  She just held her mouth open and laughed cheerfully and I just wanted to melt away into the floor.

  She kept my phone just out of reach and grinned. “Okay, okay—calm down. Jesus, you’re acting like someone’s going to mug you inside Ikea.”

  “Someone might,” I muttered. “This place has a food court. That’s basically a mall.”

  Yvette made a dismissive sound. “Oh, please. You’re fine. God, you are a lucky bitch! Alan really said, ‘Congrats on graduating,’ and dropped a small fortune on you.”

  My stomach twisted a little, not because she was wrong, but because I still didn’t know how to feel about it. I’d known Alaric for two days. Evidently, I suppose I’d known Alan Parks for… technically longer, if this world counted.

  But nothing about that felt stable or real just yet.

  Yvette tilted her head, still holding my phone hostage. “So here’s what’s gonna happen.”

  I stared at her. “Please… just give it back!”

  “Yes, I will… you big baby,” she said, pinching my cheek, voice sweet. “You’re going to let me pick out your couch.”

  “What? Seriously?”

  “Yes! Because if you don’t, you will absolutely buy the saddest piece of furniture here. Trust me on this.”

  “I’m capable of choosing a freaking couch,” I said, even though I was not sure I was capable of choosing anything right now.

  Yvette raised her voice half a notch. “Or I can keep yelling about your secret money stash.”

  I flinched immediately. “Why?”

  She smiled wide, not answering. “You trust me?”

  I paused.

  It was such a simple question, and it shouldn’t have made my brain stumble, but it did.

  Because she was looking at me again. We had history. There is a friendship here that has years built into it, but I can’t even see it.

  But she knew the version of me that belonged here.

  And I… didn’t.

  I swallowed and tried to land my voice somewhere normal. “Fine.”

  “Fine what?”

  “Fine,” I repeated, and tried to sound like I hadn’t been emotionally cornered in some staged apartment in a Swedish furniture store. “Pick the couch. Just—please, may I have my phone back?”

  “Yes, you may.” She answered like she was granting me a reward.

  But then she stepped closer and shoved the phone into my stomach hard.

  “Oof,” I grunted, bending slightly from the impact.

  Yvette walked ahead immediately, already scanning the next row of furniture like she was hunting prey.

  “Okay,” she called over her shoulder. “Rule one: if it’s white, you’re not allowed to buy it.”

  “Why?” I groaned out, falling into step behind her again.

  “Because the coffee you drink is basically syrup.”

  “It is not—”

  “Uh, yes, it is” she said without even looking back.

  I opened my mouth to argue, but she turned a corner so fast I almost walked into a display lamp.

  “This one,” she said, pointing at a couch confidently. “This is you.”

  I stared at it. It was… normal. A light blue color. Comfy-looking. Not horrifying. A smaller L shaped couch, but it actually looked okay. Still, her confidence was rubbing me the wrong way for some reason.

  “How is that ‘me’?” I asked, pointedly.

  “When I look at it, I can actually see you using it,” she said. “Plus, it would fit the vibe of your place.”

  I just chuckle softly. “Okay, so have you done this before or something? You an interior designer on the side or something?”

  Yvette shrugged, but I could tell she was pleased I’d asked. “I’ve helped a few friends in picking out some furniture before. I also helped my dad pick out his current arm chair. He fought me at first saying he wanted something else, but in the end… I had the right one picked out.” She smiled proudly at her own story and then kept going. “And—you’ll remember—I’ve helped you, every time you moved your bedroom around like it was gonna fix your life.”

  I blinked. “I did that?”

  She stopped and an odd look came over her face.

  “Jesse,” she said slowly. “You rearranged your room three times sophomore year alone.”

  My stomach tightened.

  Right. Of course I did. Jesse did.

  And I was still trying to catch up to the life I’d apparently lived.

  I nodded like that didn’t bother me. “Huh. Sounds like me.”

  Yvette’s eyes narrowed slightly, like she caught the hesitation laced in my words.

  But she didn’t push.

  Instead, she pointed at the couch again. “Sit.”

  “…Sit?”

  “Sit,” she repeated, already dropping onto the cushions like she owned them.

  I hesitated, then sat too. The couch was softer than I expected. Supportive in a way I didn’t know how to describe without sounding like an old man.

  Yvette bounced once. “See? This is a good couch.”

  I leaned back carefully. “It’s… a couch.”

  “Actually, I think this is more like a sofa,” she said with a knowing look on her face.

  “A sofa? What’s–” I huffed a sigh, “What’s the difference?”

  “I… don’t know, but my grandma called her couch a sofa. That shit was super comfy, and this is giving sofa vibes.”

  I nodded slowly. “Okay, a sofa. I can get behind that.”

  “Yeah!” She said with a smile and tapped my shoulder. “It’s a home decision,” she added.

  I snorted. “Okay, I didn’t realize we were doing symbolism today.”

  “We’re always doing symbolism,” she said, dead serious, then smiled like she was kidding. Mostly.

  I glanced around at the staged room—the fake family photos, the fake books, the aesthetic of it all was completed with a faux skyline plastered on fake brick. Something about it made my chest feel tight again.

  “Feels weird,” I admitted before I could stop myself.

  Yvette tilted her head. “How’s that?”

  “This,” I said, gesturing vaguely. “Shopping. Normal stuff. Like… this is what people do, and I’m just—” I shook my head.

  She watched me for a second, expression softening.

  Then she kicked the leg of the coffee table lightly. “Well. You’re doing it. Adulting!” She did a little jazz hands to further emphasize.

  I swallowed, “Ew, I hate that word.”

  She looked away first, suddenly engrossed in the tag again like it was urgent.

  “So,” she said briskly, voice back to normal, “you can afford it. Which means we’re getting it. And~ you’re buying us a mountain of meatballs after, moneybags.”

  I let out a small breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.

  “Fine,” I said. “But you’re not allowed to yell about my money again.”

  “Eh, no promises,” she replied, already standing. “Aight, let's go. We’ve gotta get you some lamps too.”

  “Lamps? Why?”

  “See, you asking why is already more than enough of a reason that you need them. Come on!” She dragged me up and I followed her, trying to match her pace.

  “What’s wrong with overhead lighting?” I ask, genuinely confused.

  “Ugh! That prison lighting is bad, Parks!” Yvette complained while looking over her shoulder at me, I could make out a pointed smile coming together at the edge of her mouth as she scolded me. “Have some self respect!”