"I'm going to be honest here and admit I didn't have you down as an Ikea kind of guy." She'd had to try and hide her shock when he'd picked her up that morning and told her where they were headed, not that she had done a very good job at all.
"What's that supposed to mean?" He asked, holding the door open for her as they followed the crowds of people heading inside. He was having second thoughts already- if there was something he hated more than furniture shopping then it would be furniture shopping in a busy Ikea.
She shrugged, her cheeks turning pink. "I don't know, I just couldn't picture you shopping here that's all." She guessed it was probably difficult to imagine him in the same shop that Belinda and Dave went to. "I thought you'd be all interior designers and fancy shit."
He laughed, grabbing her elbow and steering her in the direction of the stairs. "Well, I hate to disappoint but I'm in the army I'm not a lottery winner. And besides I've already got an interior designer."
"Well what the bloody hell are you dragging me in here for if you've already got some fancy interior designer lined up?" She'd be lying if she said she wasn't a little bit upset that their day out might be over.
He laughed. "I was talking about you! I haven't got a bloody clue how to do this, Rebecca wouldn't even let me put the Christmas decorations up incase I did it wrong never mind decorate a whole bloody house!"
She felt the relief flood through her. "Well, luckily for you I'm pretty good at these things." She laughed.
"Well, I'm hoping if I have some half decent furniture then you might come and visit me a bit more often?" He held his breath as he waited for her reaction, wondering if he'd crossed the line. He still had no idea where he stood with her at all. It was really rather unnerving.
"Oh really?" She winked, a smile playing on the corner of her lips. "Well, I guess we'll just have to see about that won't we."
What felt like a lifetime later, but was actually only a couple of hours, he dragged her into the restaurant for a much needed cup of coffee before they went to pay for everything she seemed to have managed to put in the trolley while he wasn't looking.
"I'd forgotten how stressful all of this is!" He sighed, flopping down heavily in the chair.
"You've still got to build it all when we get back!" She laughed.
"Are you not going to help me?!" He frowned.
She laughed quietly. "I did a surgery rotation, but they don't teach you how to build Ikea furniture at medical school!"
"Well we can learn together then because the army hasn't taught me to build flat pack furniture either!"
"Well, you'd better be buying me dinner or something in return for this because I have got a full day of work tomorrow and I've now got to spend the rest of my day building your furniture for you!" She winked.
"I think I can manage that! I just need to actually have some furniture, sleeping on the floor is killing my back!" He sighed.
"Well…. in my professional medical opinion that's because you're an old man!" She joked.
"The cheek! I buy you a cup of tea and this is how you repay me!" He pretended to be offended. It she could see he was trying not to laugh.
She shrugged, sipping at her tea. "If you can't handle the truth mate!"
He rolled his eyes at her. "Believe me my mother keeps reminding me that I'm 'getting on' these days. I don't need you doing it too! I think she's worried now that me and Rebecca are over I'm going to turn into some kind of weird recluse. I don't think she actually believed me when I said you were coming shopping with me."
"Well, how do you know that I'm not just a figment of your sad and lonely imagination?" She laughed, raising an eyebrow at him.
He laughed. "I really, really hope not!"
She drained the last of her tea. "Come on then old man, we'd better go get all of this stuff and get back so you can build it!"
He groaned, but drained the last of his coffee and trailed after her as she walked off to retrieve the trolley, which somehow now looked to have more stuff in it than it had when they'd stopped for a drink.
"Are you sure you can't be persuaded to build it all for me?" He asked.
She shook her head, laughing. "Oh I'm sure, but I'm looking forward to watching you try!"
A couple of hours later they eventually found themselves back at his new home, collapsed on the sofa after the effort of carrying everything they'd bought out of the car. There'd been a horrifying moment in the car park where he'd been convinced they weren't going to get it all in the boot, but somehow they had managed it- and now his living room was full of boxes of flat pack furniture that he was going to have to build at some point.
"Thanks again, for helping with all this." He said, propping his feet up on one of the boxes that they'd left in the middle of the room. "I think I would've lost the will to live a long time ago on my own!"
"I would say any time but if I'm being honest I don't want to do that again any time soon." She laughed. "I still need to go and get my a load of stuff for my own place to make it look like I actually live there, not that I am ever really there anyway, but I might need some time before I can face Ikea again!"
"Maybe next time I'll return the favour?" He joked.
"Before that, I think I was promised dinner!" She suggested, forcing herself up off the sofa. "So how about you hand me that toolkit and I'll start building this table while you go and order me some food?"
"Yes ma'am!" He jumped up with a mock salute and a grin on his face, watching from the doorway for a second as she ripped into the box of the coffee table she'd picked out for him and frowned at the instructions.