Chapter Twelve

It started off when the armchair fell apart under her weight.

But, hold on. It was totally unexpected. The chair showed no previous signs of weakness, so when Lia barely sat on it and felt it plummet to the ground, she thought she was going to die. Her heart might have skipped a beat, she probably let out a pitiful sound, and she might have peed a little, but who wouldn't have? Thankfully, the cushioned seat absorbed her fall, but the loud thud - and possibly her yelp - made Chase run into the living room. Perhaps to check that she didn't die.

When the man found her, terrified and rapidly blinking on top of the broken armchair, he fucking smiled.

Yes, he did.

"Don't you dare laugh at me!" Lia warned him with a pointed finger and narrowed eyes.

"Are you okay there?" The man asked while grinning.

"Oh yeah, I am great," she replied sarcastically. She didn't know if her knees were solid enough to support her. When Chase saw her struggling to get up from the ruins, he offered her a hand. Lia took it even though se didn't want to, and was pulled up in one tug. Then the pervert held her hips in place, crouched down to her butt's level and proceeded to pat it!

"What the fuck are you doing?! Stop that!" she yelled down at him in shock, trying to push him away from her. She turned back to try to look at what he was doing.

"I am just making sure that your butt isn't hurt. It's a national treasure," Chase deadpanned, his face inches away from my behind.

"I am fine!" Lia yelled again and wiggled out of the man's hold, "But what the hell is wrong with this furniture?! It's dangerous!"

Chase nodded after straightening up, trying to look sympathetic, "I know, it could've split you butt in half."

"Hey! Don't joke around! That was really scary!" she was not whining, se was making a point.

"I know, I know, it must have been..." Chase tried to control the upward curl of his lips, "Did you put on extra weight recently or...?" he teased further.

"Don't you dare! I barely sat on it!" Lia will never let anyone call her fat. Especially not him. "You need to get new furniture! How old are these items anyway?" she gestured at the entirety of the living room.

The apartment complex is modern and clean; the kitchen is new and sleek; and she have no valid complaints to make about the bedroom or the bathroom - except the lack of locks, which she remedied quickly - but the living room looked completely out of place and time. It's as if it had witnessed several wars. Chase's forty-inch flat-screen TV looked ridiculous in the ancient room. And don't get her started on the so-called 'couch'. It honestly smelled like death and several orgies. She is not exaggerating.

"They are not that bad," the man defended and then attempted to rest his weight by the side of one of the room's bookcases only to hear it crack slightly and shift under his weight.

Lia felt vindicated and obviously grinned in return. The bookcase made her point for her. Chase had to acknowledge that.

"Alright," he admitted, but somehow still on to his smug smile, he straightened himself and moved away from the about-to-crumble bookcase as nonchalantly as possible, "I think the living room furniture came with the apartment, the previous tenant didn't want them-"

"Well, no wonder!" she interjected.

Chase looked at her like he was holding something back - like if Lia hadn't interrupted him, he would have admitted that the previous tenant had died on the furniture or something - but instead, he said, "We can buy new furniture. What do you want to get?"

And so they went to the nearest mall.

Yes, the weekend turned into a furniture shopping spree.

She even used the opportunity to ask for a few additional renovations and changes around the apartment. It wouldn't kill them to give the living room walls a new coat of paint, or get a couple of houseplants, and maybe a few pots and pans to be able to make proper meals.

Speaking of meals, Chase lived on protein shakes and raw vegetables. Lia never saw him turn the stove on once. The only evidence that points to him ever being in the kitchen is the protein powder residue she find each morning on the counter. Meanwhile, he was apparently amazed at how Lia find time after a long work day to cook her meals. She actually gave the man the chance once of trying the dinner she made for herself and he was genuinely impressed.

Back to the furniture shopping, they have different tastes and Chase is weirdly opinionated about everything.

"What do you think about this armchair?" Lia pointed out a perfectly good armchair.

"What? This one? Really?" he complained without much elaboration.

"Why? What's wrong with it?" she retorted defensively.

"There's nothing wrong with it, it's just looks like my grandmother's armchair."

"Well, your grandmother has a great taste!" she replied back.

Or other times when he pointed out things she absolutely loathed.

"What do you think of this leather chair?" Chase asked Lia earnestly.

"Ugh. No. Just, no. It's a douchey chair... it's a douchebag's chair." the woman replied back to annoy Chase.

And at some point when they were looking for a super couch, a couch that would fulfill bout of their wishes. A couch that could cradle their tired body after a long day at work, be comfortable enough to sleep on if they had guests over, and also camouflage spilled food and booze.

"Come on, this couch is fine," Chase told her with a sigh after the sixteenth couch they had examined. No grin was left on his face. She had worn him down already. Meanwhile, she had the biggest grin on her face.

"Hmm..." Lia took her sweet time examining it, sitting on it, standing up and testing it's back. She thinks that she wasn't too happy with the way she bent over the back of the couch and rested her hands on the cushions. Alright, she is aware that her butt was up in the air and that the way she was bent over was sexually suggestive, but she wasn't trying to seduce him or anything, she was just trying to frustrate him as the man did to her.

"What the hell are you doing?" Chase asked in a slight annoyance.

"I'm just testing it," she replied to tease him, still bent over the couch's backrest.

Then the man had to go and say this, loudly, amid other shoppers...

"If you're looking for a comfortable spanking bench, babe, I don't think they sell them."

The fucker!

But yeah, Lia thinks she deserve that.

Anyway, the day went on like this. They had no business taking five hours to pick up some furniture like a middle-aged couple, but they did.

And to be completely honest, she enjoyed the man's company. Despite the public humiliation he nearly cause her in the middle of the furniture shop, Lia liked wasting away the Saturday with him.

She was glad she insisted that they do that together. She had originally suggested online furniture shopping, but Chase said that he was old fashioned and believed in trying before buying. When Lia told him to go shopping alone and pick anything he liked, he said that he was doing it for her sake.

So they returned home with a truck that transported a bucket of paint, three house plants, a couch, an armchair, a bookcase, a TV stand, a coffee table, and a few pots and pans.

What Lia wasn't thrilled about was the fact that they had to pull all the furniture together themselves.

She can't call Chase stingy because he isn't. He insisted on paying for the entire purchase. But when she suggested paying for the assembly service, he brushed her off, saying they didn't need it, and that it was something that the two of them could do together.

So there they were, two coats of paint later and a living room empty of the old furniture, along with a ton of nails, screws, and manuals that she is pretty sure they were supposed to follow.

Like she had warned him, Lia wasn't of much help. Unless he consider sitting in the corner sipping from a bottle of beer while flipping through one of the manuals that Chase discarded helping.

"I think these tiny wooden pieces are there for a reason," she told the man. She wasn't drunk yet, so her opinions should have been valid.

"Get your bum over here and help me with this then," Chase said midway through screwing one piece of wood to another. She doesn't remember when they got this comfortable with each other but it may have to do with him suggesting I like to be spanked.

"Put a shirt on first and U may think about it," of course, he was shirtless. He took off his shirt the minute we walked through the front door, even before the movers got all the boxes in and left.

"At least hand me the things I need," he said, somewhat agitated.

Lia was getting drunker minute by minute, but not so drunk that she would actually agree to help him.

"But I am drinking," she excused herself. "I am pretty sure this manual says 'don't operate while drunk'." It didn't say that but he wouldn't freaking know, he was above reading the instructions. "But you know what I can do?" Chase looked up at me like he was actually ready to spank me. "I can get you a water bottle and a snack."

So, yeah... he put together the furniture by himself, while I watched.

I pretty much won that day.

*****