IKEA

Why did I tell him that I’d give him Tiffany Najbreit? I’ve never even met the damn girl before, for fuck’s sake!

I slam the door to the apartment behind me, shaking my head, barely hearing the creak of the floorboards as I make my way to the bare table siting in the hazy light.

At least the doctor bought my words. In a strange way, it gives me hope. If he believes that Markus Najbreit could have kept contact with Tiffany and Erin and the others, then maybe there’s a chance that I can make my plan work.

“Hey, I thought I heard you coming back,” Ella Sue says brightly, emerging from the bathroom.

Her face is all made up, ready for a day out, and I frown, checking the time.

“Aren’t you supposed to be at IKEA?” I ask.

“Yea, but then I decided to wait for you, since I wanted your input and this place is yours too, and besides, it’s so much cooler if I can bring my friends around and tell them the place was designed by an artist,” she says quickly.

“You’ve got friends to bring over already?” I ask, raising an eyebrow.

I’ll just have to find a way to stay out of their way when they do show up.

“I mean, hopefully I will within a few weeks,” she laughs. “But anyways, want to head out?”

She grabs my hand, her smaller palm sliding neatly into mine, and I don’t have a chance to say “No, I’d really rather stay indoors and avoid anybody who might spot me or photograph me” before I’m pulled out the door.

“Whoa! Look at this!” Ella Sue runs up to a cushy four poster bed and flops onto it, her small body briefly sinking down into the mattress before she wraps herself in the bedsheets and peeks out of the resulting gap at me with a cheeky smile.

“You want to get a…” I rest an arm on a pole and glance at the tag by the side of the bed. “A Hemnes?”

Got to love those Swedish names.

“I want you to join me in bed,” she whispers, tugging my arm.

“That’ll have to wait for later,” I laugh, but she shakes her head.

“How am I supposed to know if this bed is right for me if you don’t sleep with me in it?” she asks, mock frowning.

“I’d rather not get banned from the store before we’ve made our purchases,” I say.

She rolls her eyes, but slips out of the bed, muttering to herself “no fun.” She smooths the bedsheet back out and then hops over to a sofa, splaying herself over the soft cushions.

“This one’s comfy too!” she says in delight, and I make my way over, giving the sofa a once over.

“It could be the centrepiece of a room,” I say, running a hand over the black sofa’s backrest. “But this one’s on the larger side of our possible options. Big, but not too big. Maybe too big…” I’m in the middle of sizing up the sofa when I suddenly pause. Out of the corner of my eye, I’ve noticed there’s somebody there. How long have they been watching for?

“You okay?” Ella Sue asks, noticing the way that I’ve frozen.

“Fine,” I say, turning my back to the person.

He’d started texting on his phone.

“We might need to leave,” I say.

It is a known fact that there is no way to exit an IKEA quickly. I may have just screwed myself over, coming in here. Ella Sue leans with her arms folded over the top of the sofa and looks up at me.

“You can’t be tired already,” she says. “We haven’t even picked out anything yet!”

“That man stand behind us, grey jeans, ponytail, is he still looking this way?”

Ella Sue turns around and spots the guy.

“Yeeaah?” she says haltingly. “He’s coming towards us, he’s smiling, should I smile back…”

“Fuck,” I whisper under my breath.

I spin around, ready to fight for my life if I must, and then—

“Hey um… you’re Ella Sue Singer right?” ponytail-guy asks, scratching the side of his head. Ella Sue nods back at him. Why is she smiling? “Could I… could I get a photo with you?”

“Of course!” she says, patting the empty spot next to her on the sofa, and in a flash, ponytail-guy’s sitting next to her, his phone out, taking a selfie with her. I quietly step out of the camera frame, shaking my head. Of course I hooked myself up with a minor internet celebrity.

“I’m like… such a big fan of yours,” ponytail-guy gushes, “thanks so much, like, my girlfriend is going to be sooo mad when she finds out that I ran into you and she ditched the IKEA trip to get her nails done instead—” He looks at me and the frown on my face. “And uh… sorry if I was intruding…”

“No, not at all!” Ella Sue says, and then she gives me a sideways glance. “Don’t mind him, he’s just…”

“A friend, shopping with Ella,” I say, giving him a cold smile.

“Well, uh… nice to meet you too dude,” ponytail-guy says, before chuckling awkwardly. He hurriedly walks away, disappearing somewhere into the labyrinth, and Ella Sue turns to look at me.

“How’d you know he was a fan?” she asks. “And… and, do you not like him?”

“He was just looking over lots earlier,” I shrug, leaving it at that. Ella Sue looks back at me, her nose wrinkling, unconvinced.