#Who knew building Ikea furniture was foreplay

[lovemesomerafael]

EL AMOR TODO LO PUEDE Chapter 23:  Say Anything

I apologize; I didn’t keep track of who posted this fabulous pic, if it’s you, please let me know so I can give you credit. 

Chapters 1-20  Chapter 21  Chapter 22

As he waited for the elevator, Barba saw Laura Parker enter the apartment building.  This was a new experience; they had not run into one another here since they’d learned they both lived in this building.  Since there was nobody else on the elevator, he held it for her.

A little blinded by the difference between the late afternoon sun and the dim lobby of the building, she didn’t see him holding the elevator until she was close.

“Hey, thanks,” she greeted him, mentally kicking herself for sounding so stupidly cheerful.  

As they rode up toward their floors, she turned to him suddenly and asked, “Would you happen to have a socket wrench?”

“Socket wrench,” he repeated, a little thrown by the question. 

“Ikea cabinet.  I’ve already cried twice.”

Barba laughed, although he didn’t see the connection between a socket wrench and building anything from Ikea.  He was shocked to hear his own voice say, “I have a socket wrench.  I’ll bring it by.”  I’ll do what?  Where had that come from?

“8D.”  

“I remember.”

Half an hour later, Laura heard him knock.  It was disorienting to think that A.D.A. Barba could be standing outside her apartment door but, as she looked through the peephole, there he was, socket set in hand. Despite her nervousness, she tried to appear relaxed and welcoming as she opened the door.  Her smile faltered a little when she saw that he was wearing a soft-looking black T-shirt and black jeans.  He had a noticeable five O’clock shadow that added to the overall sexily casual picture.  He looked so good she was momentarily unable to speak.

“Socket wrench,” he said, holding the metal box out to her.  

“Thanks.”  She took it from him.  “Do you, um… want to come in?”

“And build your cabinet for you?  No, thanks.” Did she actually look disappointed? He realized the idea of disappointing her caused a pang in his heart.  Advertencia.  Peligro.[1]  Again he had the disconcerting experience of hearing his voice saying something his brain had not planned.  “But I’d be willing to watch and kibbutz.”

“You can watch.  No kibbutzing.”

“I can’t promise that.”

“Then I can’t promise I won’t make you build the cabinet.”  

Barba smiled crookedly, then said, “We gonna negotiate this in the hallway?”

Laura stepped aside so he could enter.  As he stepped by her, he looked down at her jeans, which had a large hole in the right knee, and a smaller one on the left.  The jeans were old Levi’s, the type made of real, thick denim, and were well broken in. The seams were nearly white, and the holes were obviously from wear, rather than part of the design of the jeans. Something about the way the jeans fit, and the tantalizing glimpse of her legs through the holes was disturbing to Barba.  The strip of skin that kept appearing between the waistband of her jeans and her fitted yellow T-shirt didn’t help.  

“Rabid wolverines?”  He asked, grinning down at the holes in her jeans.

“Funny,” she answered drily.

Her apartment still had boxes here and there, filled with books and other things she didn’t have a place to store yet.  As she’d said, there wasn’t much furniture, just a soft, comfortable-looking blue couch. He was interested in the keyboard and guitar in a corner.  

“You play?”

“About as well as I speak Spanish,” she answered, smirking.  

He rolled his eyes.  So she wasn’t done teasing him about that.

A long, torn cardboard box had been tossed into a corner, and piles of wooden planks sat in the center of the room.  The cabinet hardware was spread haphazardly, but at least each piece was visible.  The only two pieces of the cabinet hooked together so far were obviously incorrectly joined and sitting crookedly on the floor.  Barba looked at Laura with an eyebrow cocked questioningly.  

“What?”  Laura asked, holding up the instruction booklet.  “The instructions are in Swedish!”

Rafael took it from her. “The instructions are pictures.”

“Well, the pictures are in Swedish.”

“Detective.”  Rafael said, using his cross-examination voice. “Did you intentionally invite me down to your apartment on a pretext to get me to build your cabinet for you?”

“No,” she said.

He simply looked at her.

“I didn’t!  I just asked you for a socket wrench.”

“Which, by the way, would be of no use in building this cabinet.”

“Yes, it will.  There’s these little metal things and you have to twist them in.”

“With a wrench.  Which comes with the cabinet.”

“So that’s what the weird-shaped holes are for.  I wondered about that.”

His expressionless stare was both amusing and sexy.  How did he manage that?

“OK, fine, so I suck at Ikea! You found out my shameful secret. Feel free to mock me for the next 3 to 5 years.”

“I intend to,” he smirked.  The pleased, teasing expression in his eyes caused her to catch her breath for the second time in less than five minutes.

When she could speak, her voice was serious.  “Listen. I admit I’m pathetic at this stuff,” she gestured at the floor.  “But if I was going to ask you to help me, I’d have asked you straight up.  I’m not here for games like that.”

He just shrugged. “OK.  Tell you what.  You buy dinner, I’ll help with this masterpiece here.  Deal?”  ¿Por qué de repente no tengo control sobre lo que digo? Podría necesitar un médico.[2]

Laura looked skeptical. “Doesn’t that make me guilty of…”

“No.  I retract the accusation.  You didn’t lure me here to build your cabinet, and now I’m offering to do it for… souvlaki.  Do we have a deal?”

”We have a deal.”  The smile she gave him was worth building several pieces of furniture.   As she pulled menus from a drawer to order dinner, he began to organize the materials for the cabinet.  He looked over at her as she sifted through the handful of menus, again noticing the way her simple jeans and T-shirt accentuated her lithe, athletic frame.

Barba knelt on the floor and began to separate the pieces Laura had put together.  While his back was turned, Laura took the opportunity to appreciate the fit of his jeans.  Who knew Barba even owned jeans?  She found the menu for a nearby Greek restaurant and brought it to the couch where she read it to him and, for the next five minutes, they negotiated dinner. As Laura called in their order, she tried to absorb the fact that Rafael Barba was in her living room building an Ikea cabinet, and he had asked her to have dinner with him.  Hadn’t he?  Did that count as asking her to have dinner with him?  What the hell.  I’m not a kid.  Why am I actually nervous right now?

Once dinner was ordered, she went over to sit next to him on the floor.  “So, how is this gonna work?”

He glanced at her before picking up two pieces of the cabinet and lying them side by side.  “If I need any help, I’ll let you know.”

“So, what?  I just watch you build a cabinet?”

“Don’t take this personally, Detective, but I think that’s best for everyone.”

She couldn’t help but laugh. “So what do I do?”

“Talk to me.  Tell me how an ER nurse in Chicago becomes a cop in New York.  You said it was a long story, and we appear to have some time.   Hand me that round thing over there.”

“Oh, boy.  Well, I, uh…  I’m a recovering alcoholic.  The ‘drive your life off a cliff and keep your foot on the gas’ kind.”

“Huh.”

“Yeah.”

“Bring me that piece over there.  So… go on.”

Barba worked on the cabinet while Laura gave him the short version of her story.  The food arrived just as she was finishing, at which point Laura remembered that she didn’t have a table.  Of all the surprising things about that evening, the best was learning that Rafael Barba, urbane and eternally impeccable attorney, was perfectly happy eating dinner on the floor.

Looking for a topic of conversation as they sorted through the bags and Styrofoam containers, Laura said, “I heard a story about you winning a case by letting a guy choke you with a belt.”

He snorted.  “That was my first SVU case, as a matter of fact.” He told her about the crime, and the trial, and how he had ended up being desperate enough to resort to such a longshot tactic.  Not surprisingly for a man who told stories to juries for a living, he was a particularly entertaining storyteller.

“Where did you hear that story?”  

“A friend of mine.  You’ve actually met him, he works in your office. Peter Stone?”

Friend?

“Yes, I met him.  Didn’t you both just come from Chicago?”

“We did.  Together, as a matter of fact.  We’re old friends.”

Old friends. Barba wanted to ask about a hundred questions, but didn’t know how to do that without appearing… interested.  He was saved by Laura’s curiosity.  

Finishing a bite of lamb, she said, “I feel like that Incel we questioned last week, telling you boring stories about me.  What about you?”

“Tell you boring stories about me?” He grinned.

“I’d rather hear interesting ones, but if that’s the best you can do…”

For the rest of the time they ate dinner, Barba talked about growing up in the Bronx, telling sweet, funny stories about his childhood.  Most of them were charmingly self-deprecating, like the ones about being a Catholic schoolboy menaced by bullies from the public school down the street, and his disastrous first year in Little League.  

For the rest of the evening, they talked about nothing while Barba put the cabinet together, frequently asking Laura to hand him things or hold things.  The odd situation started to feel normal.  Comfortable.  Pleasant. Conversation was easy and lively, with Barba’s quick wit and tendency to purposely provoke her keeping Laura laughing and looking for ways to tease back.  

Were they… flirting with eachother?  Was that what was happening?  Laura was enchanted with him, she knew that.  He was even better looking up close, and somehow the early experience of feeling beneath Barba’s notice made it all the more special that he’d chosen to spend time alone with her.  And she really liked him.  Whether or not he might be interested – and with each passing moment, she hoped more that he might be – she really enjoyed hanging out with him.  

Barba was having very similar thoughts.  In his case, however, the attraction was nowhere near as welcome.  Barba didn’t date.  That was that.  He liked women as much as the next guy, but he liked them from afar.  The price of getting involved, of opening his heart and making himself vulnerable, was just too high.  Besides, he didn’t even know if he could have a relationship anymore.  Maybe he had just lost that ability.  He hoped so.  But then what are you doing in this apartment letting yourself be captivated by this woman?  

Together, they stood up the finished cabinet and wrestled it to its place.  Laura looked a little dazzled.  “You never even looked at the pictures.”

“I didn’t need to.  It’s obvious how this stuff goes together.”

“Not to me.”

“Claro.”[3]

“You’re not gonna go all superior on me now, are you, Harvard?”

“About this?  Yes.”  That smirk again.  There was an eye twinkle now, too.  Laura felt lightheaded which, as a nurse, she understood resulted from all the blood in her body rushing south.  

Barba couldn’t understand how someone who was clearly intelligent and capable could have such a complete inability to conceptualize how build-it-yourself furniture goes together, even with instructions.  He found it fascinating and endearing, like a lot of things about her.  Cállate, Barba.  No esta pasando.[4]

As Laura began to clean up the bits of cardboard and torn little plastic bags from the floor, Barba prepared to leave.  It was actually something of a relief to him.  He needed to be alone, have a drink, and regain his senses.

“I need to get going,” he said, groaning and stretching out the kinks in his muscles from sitting on the floor for three hours.  “Feliz noche,[5] Detective.”

“Hey, thank you. Really.  I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

“Neither do I.  From a purely scientific point of view, it would’ve been fascinating to find out.”

She smiled the same small, adorable smile and rolled her eyes the same way she’d done all night when he’d made fun of her.  It was definitely time for him to go.

“’Night.  And thanks again.  I’ll… see you at work, I guess.”  

“Thanks for dinner.  Que tengas buena noche.”[6]

As the door closed between them, both Barba and Laura wore thoughtful expressions and smiles that were a little bit silly.  Both of them had thoroughly enjoyed the evening.  Laura was happily excited about what might happen next.  Rafael wasn’t.

[1] Warning.  Danger.

[2] Why do I suddenly have no control over what I say?  I may need a doctor.

[3] Clearly.

[4] Shut up, Barba.  It’s not happening.

[5] Good night

[6] Have a good night.