1 IKEA Madness

THEA

"I really don't want to be here," BM whined, for the 100th time since we walked in the door, five minutes ago.

"We know," Charlie rolled here eyes.

"We've literally been here five minutes ," I frowned.

"That's five minutes more than I wanted to be here," he grumbled.

"Dude, seriously," Sam chimed in.

"I'm just going to complain the whole time we're here, you should just let me go home,"

"You'll get bored with complaining eventually," I shrugged.

"No I won't,"

"It's your money, you're building, and you have to live in it. You should at least have a say in what is bought," I tired to reason.

"Just take my card and get me a comfortable lounge, I don't actually care what it looks like," he held out his credit card waving it around.

"I'm not spending your money without you being here. Besides, Sam can't lift things on his own and Charlie and I can't lift things that are too heavy. So, we need your muscles,"

"You can totally lift things, you actually scare me with your manual labor ability," he frowned at me.

"Maybe so, but I don't want to. Besides we won't fit everything in Charlie's car and she won't let you drive it, so suck it up and enjoy,"

"Yo, what's our budget here?" Sam asked.

"Should we have really brought him here?" I turned to Charlie.

"Even if we hadn't told him, he would have sensed we were coming here, he has an IKEA radar. The amount of time he spends here on his own," she shook her head.

"Like you two in K-Mart are any better," BM frowned.

"We only buy the essentials," I glared.

"You have two fruit bowls," he raised an eyebrow.

"And an empty spice rack for more spices than you two will ever actually use," he added.

"We need two fruit bowls, you boys are over more often than not and always eat our fruit so we have to buy more fruit, thus we need more space to store said fruit. Therefor, we need two fruit bowls. As for our spice rack, it's only empty because it's new and she bakes, and I'm a chef, we need all those spices," I defended.

"Also, shut up," I added.

"You would have made your point so much better if you didn't tell him to shut up," Charlie shook her head.

"The problem with Thea is she keeps talking when she should just stop, especially when she says something stupid, she just carries on, half the time trying to explain what she meant which just makes it worse," Sam stated.

"Shut up Samantha," I frowned.

"You didn't answer my question," Sam turned to BM.

"Just get what we need, beds, lounge, stuff like that," he shrugged.

"You realised he has probably been on Tumblr and the IKEA website, and already planned out the entire space by now, right?" Charlie raised an eyebrow.

"Whatever, the bar is finished and the upstairs bathroom has been paid for,"

BM had bought a building a few months ago and had just finished renovating the ground level from an outdated restaurant into a bar. Something he had been wanting to do since before we were in high school. The building's second floor, I assume use to be used as an office space or possibly a studio apartment seeing as it had a functioning bathroom, if you could call it that. So BM, who had just put basically all of his money into buying and renovating the bar, decided that he would use the office as a living space for him, Sam and our other friend Jae, who's jobs pay little and infrequently. It's a smart plan, except BM hates shopping and they're all currently sleeping on foam mattresses on the floor of the empty space. Which brings us here, to IKEA, which happens to be one of Sam's favorite places.

"Did you just give him a limitless budget?" Charlie frowned.

"God no, the budget is about half of whatever is in my account right now,"

"Only half?"

"Mm, the other half is delegated," BM nodded.

"I guess I'll have to work on a budget," Sam nodded.

"Yeah because you have so much money normally," Charlie pulled a face at him. Sam just mimicked the face she pulled and continued walking, BM shuffled his feet next to me continuing to make it obvious that he didn't want to be here. Because he hadn't made that blatantly clear already.

"Stop sulking, we'll be out of here soon enough," I nudged him.

"No we won't, you brought Sam to IKEA, we're going to be here for hours," he huffed as his phone started ringing.

"Hey bro, what's up?"

"Yeah we're not there, I've been kidnapped and dragged to IKEA with the girls, you've got to come save me... Yeah Sam's here too, the spare key should be in the usual place, just drop your stuff off and come down... Okay, see ya,"

"Jae's on his way,"

SAM

My phone buzzed in my pocket, the other four were bickering about the consistent whining which was just redundant. 'Bianca <3' flashed across the screen, I let out a sigh and slid it back into my pocket. The ringing stopped, and it started ringing again, when it rang for a third time I gave up on ignoring it and answered it.

"Hey," I sighed.

"Hey, I tried calling, where are you?" she asked as if we hadn't spoken less than twenty minutes ago.

"I told you I was going out, we're at IKEA getting some things for the apartment," I answered absently looking through the display room.

"You should have said so, I would have come with you, I know you hate IKEA, and I have killer interior design skills," I wouldn't call an entirely orange and pink apartment with tacky miniature statues and leopard print everywhere, killer interior design skills.

"It wasn't planned, it was another one of Thea's spontaneous ideas,"

"Thea," she hummed,

"Is Charlie there too?"

"Thea's here so,"

"Well I'm not doing anything, I'll come and help, you're apartment will need a feminine touch and god knows those girls don't have it,"

"It's okay, we wont be here too long, I'll just come to see you once we're done and we'll go get something to eat or something,"

"I don't mind really, I'll just get changed and be right there,"

"B, really we won't be long,"

"Love you," she chimed before hanging up.

"Was that Beunka?" Charlie asked, saying her name in the pretentious way Bianca insists it's pronounced.

"It was," I nodded

"Checking in?"

"Something like that, yo, checkout that bed," I changed the subject. It wasn't exactly hard to figure out that the girls and Bianca didn't get along, Charlie especially didn't like Bianca and Bianca was unnecessarily jealous of Charlie, she made it a point to try and be around me every time Charlie was.

"I see you in more of a racing car sort of bed," she teased.

"Have you ever though of stand-up? I mean you're hilarious," I rolled my eyes going to actually look at the loft style bed. It was the style of bed I was looking for.

"I resent your sarcasm,"

"In that case I believe you should resent almost all of yourself," I countered.

"You don't know me,"

"Hey is anyone else hungry?" Thea asked.

"I could eat," Charlie shrugged.

"Why don't we grab some food while we wait for Jae?" she suggested.

"Sounds like a plan, anything is better than shopping," BM continues to whine.

"Dude, shut up, no one likes a whiny bitch," Thea frowned at him.

"Some people do," Charlie shrugged making a small dig at Bianca.

"Let's get food," Thea smirked.

"Does anyone even know where the food court is?" BM asked, they all paused and turned to me.

"What? Because I've been here a billion times you think I know where everything is?" I raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah pretty much," was the general consensus.

"This way," I lead them towards the food.

"See," Thea stated smugly.

"No one likes a dick Thea," BM smirked at here.

"Not true," she smirked back winking.

"We can't take you anywhere," he shook his head at her.

"We can't take either of them anywhere," I pointed out, honestly they were as bad as each other.

"Good thing we brought you here then, huh?" Thea rolled her eyes.

"Like you two are any better, the only difference is we're funny and you're lame," Charlie shrugged.

"You think you're funny," BM muttered.

"Better to think we're funny than look funny like someone we know," Thea looked directly at him.

"Are you sure you're not actually 4?"

"Only mentally," she shrugged.

They continued to bicker back and forth while I lead them to the food court, Charlie added a comment here and there which threw BM off guard for a few seconds, long enough for Thea to throw a comeback at him. In the end he gave up, and sulked a little which only made them ridicule him some more.

"Look, food," I stated in an attempt to save him.

"Why are you looking at me? You eat more in one meal that both of us combined, in a whole day," Thea defended herself from and attack I wasn't staging.

"I was simply pointing out we were in the food court, because you wanted food, do you not remember?"

"Probably not, her memory is as bad as the men she's attracted too," Charlie took the opportunities to make fun of her.

The two had a running joke, Thea liked old men and Charlie liked children. Every time, we'll not every time but quite frequently, if Thea finds a guy attractive he turns out to be over 30 and if it's Charlie finding a guy attractive he's between 18 and 20 which in her head is a child, in reality they're only 4-6 years younger than her.

"Yeah well at least mine have memories, will yours even retain their memories yet?"

"They have their whole life to develop memories, yours are basically dust, they grow older as rapidly as they loose their memories,"

"That's how I like my men, old and dusty, at least they don't smell like baby,"

"That's disgusting," Charlie pulled a disgusted face, if you didn't know her you would think it was the old and dusty comment, it was actually the baby smell comment, the smell itself actually makes her sick, she boarder line throws up. It's probably a good thing she hates children because I don't think she could handled having them.

"It still confuses me that you can literally use you bare hand to pick up any kind of animal poop, you don't even flinch if they get any form of bodily fluid on you but the slight smell of a newborn and you're out of that room so quick you would think it contained a plague," BM shook his head.

"Animals are adorable, babies a gross and sticky, I'm confused as to why people choose to have them,"

"You realize you were a baby once right?" He frowned.

"I didn't choose to have me, I would have aborted me," she shrugged.

"I would have aborted you too," Thea agreed.

"Like anyone else would understand what you're saying," Charlie countered.

"I have BM,"

"Who only understands you half the time,"

"It's not my fault he's dumb," she shrugged.

"I'm not dumb," BM drowned

"Yes you are," Thea nodded.

BM

Arguing with her was pointless, she'll just keep going until she gets bored and then she'll tell me to shut up. I swear she has the mentality of a toddler, a cranky over tired toddler.

"Just sit down," he rolled his eyes.

"You can't tell me what to do,"

"So you're just going to stand there the whole time?"

"No, I'm going to sit down, but only because I want to, not because to told me too,"

"You really showed me," I replied sarcastically.

"Shut up," she pulled a face.

"Child," I retorted.

"You realizes you're as bad as each other right?" Charlie raised an eyebrow.

"We are not," we both said at the same time.

"Thea is worse than me,"

"Yeah," she agreed.

"Can we just get food so we can get back to what we came here for?" Sam stated.

"He's getting IKEA itchy," Thea smirked.

"He's always IKEA itchy," Charlie stated.

"Where is Jae?" Sam ignored them.

"On his way, why?"

"Because he'll keep her entertained," Sam nodded to Charlie.

"One, don't refer to me as if I'm an infant, that's gross, and two he'll just join in and you know it,"

"She's right," Thea nodded.

"I'm always right," Charlie shrugged.

"You've been wrong before," I stated without thinking.

"Name one time I was wrong?" She challenged.

"Dude, she doesn't argue, comment, or make statements if she doesn't know she's right," Thea shook her head at me.

I was sure she had been wrong about something before. So I tried to think about it but I couldn't remember at this point.

"See" Charlie stated smugly after what felt like about five minutes of my inability to think of one.

"Never wrong," Thea smirked a millisecond later.

"Can we just eat?" I sighed.

"No one is stopping you," she nodded.

"What does everyone want? I asked.

"Why are you paying?" Thea teased.

"If it gets me away from you for five minutes,"

"That was mean," she frowned and pouted.

"You're annoying," I shrugged.

"I'm bored, I've been bored all week. Having nothing to do after working full time will drive a person crazy you know,"

"What's your excuse for when you were working?" I countered.

"I have to deal with you," she shrugged.

"You should try dealing with you,"

"If Charlie can deal with me I'm sure you can,"

"Charlie is as broken as you,"

"No I'm not," she shook her head.

"Okay, she's on the same level of broken as you, just not as bad,"

"You're so mean when you're forced into going shopping," she pulled a face at me.

"Hello," Sam sighed.

We stopped bickering thinking he was talking to us but he was on the phone.

"We're in the food court, just follow the yellow line on the floor until you find the sign that says food court, yeah, okay just stay there and I'll come get you, bye," he hung up the phone and stood up.

"I'll be back in a minute," he stated leaving the table.

"Where are you going? Jae knows how to follow a coloured line," I frowned.

"It's Bianca not Jae," he said before leaving.

"Did anyone else know she was coming?" Thea pulled a face.

"No," Charlie also pulled a face.

"It explains why he has to go find her," Thea stated.

"Seriously, this is not what I had in mind when you said we were going to IKEA," Charlie rolled her eyes clearly annoyed.

"I didn't invite her," Thea defended.

"Well obviously," Charlie shot back.

"Play nice you two,"

"Shut up BM," they said in unison, which eased their irritation slightly seeing as they both laughed a little.

"Dude does she even know the difference between a bed and a lamp?" Thea questioned.

"Of course she does, a bed is what she sleeps with Sam on, a lamp is what he turns off so he doesn't have to look at her when he's doing it," Charlie nodded.

"With that logic she might think a lounge is also a bed, and probably the floor and a shower," I commented.

"Dude I don't want to hear about their sex life," Charlie pulled a face.

"Is it morally okay for him to sleep with someone that has the mental age of a toddler?" Thea asked sounding a little too serious.

"Toddlers are smarter that her," Charlie stated.

"You two are so savage," I shook my head.

"You should hear what we say about you," Thea smirked.

"That you're eternally in love with me?"

"Not even in your dreams," she shook her head.

CHARLIE

It didn't take long for Sam to come back with Bianca. Yay. I noticed her hair first, her usually very bleached , probably severely damaged, bottle blond hair was still mostly the same, except she had ombréd pink through the bottom, which interestingly enough, was the exact hairstyle I had the last time I'd seen her. Not that I was surprised.

"Hey everyone," she plastered on a smile, I'm guessing it was fake seeing as Sams face held a slightly bored, slightly annoyed expression which he normally had when Bianca was annoyed and had tried to argue with him about what ever it was that had annoyed her. Probably my presents here. She was consistently pulling me aside and trying to warn and or threaten me to 'stay away from her man' which honestly only made me hang out with Sam more, mostly to spite her but partially to see if she would do anything because I was certain she only knew how to act threatening, or at least try. Please, my kitten holds more of a threat.

"Oh, you have a new hair style?" Thea asked slowly.

"Yeah, I just had it done. Do you like it?" She smiled smugly. That girl spends way too much money on her appearance, and it's not helping.

"I got kind of bored with it after about a week," I shrugged.

"I thought I'd seen it somewhere before," Thea nodded.

She had a habit of doing that, if I did something, or wore something, she would either do something extremely similar or just out right copy it. Honestly, she was probably insecure about how close Sam and I are, she should be more worried about the fact that Sam is only with her out of convenience.

"Let's eat," BM stated.

"Do you want something?" He turned to Bianca.

"Can I get something with no sugar, no carbs, no gluten or dairy, and is fat free?"

"So, water?" I raised an eyebrow.

"Well she can't use up her calories this early in the day," Thea smirked.

"How many calories are you Sam?" Jae walked up behind him.

"Dude," BM frowned.

"What?"

"That's gross,"

"Thea put the idea out there, I just asked,"

"Thea shouldn't speak half the time," BM stated.

"Hey," she pulled a face.

"I hear Thea puts a lot out there," Bianca made an attempt at joining in on the usual banter, the issue there being, none of us liked her, not even Sam. Which meant it was okay for us to attack each other but it was not okay for her to do it.

This was clear by the way everyone stopped joking, BM looked over at Thea who looked both shocked and like she wanted to jump over the table, I half though she would, half knew she wouldn't at least not in such a public setting. Jae looked amused by the whole situation, but he usually was.

"That wasn't okay," BM stated slowly.

"Yeah That was kind of mean," Sam added with a small frown.

"Why? I was joking?" Bianca completely oblivious to the mood.

"You're a joke," I shot.

"You think I'm funny?" She smiled not getting the insult.

"I think it's funny that Sam chooses to continue to put it in someone with an IQ of negative,"

"Charlie," BM shoot me a warning look.

"What? It's not my fault she doesn't understand when she's being insulted,"

"I think I would understand if someone was hitting me,"

"I said insulted not assaulted," I rolled my eyes.

"What's the difference?"

THEA

Charlie was getting more annoyed the longer their conversation continued. Sam looked uncomfortable, Bianca was literally too dumb to know she was being insulted but Sam knew, he wasn't an angry person so he wasn't going to get mad at Charlie for it, but that didn't mean he was okay with it either. Sometimes I felt bad for attaching her, in front of him anyway.

"Insulted is done verbally, assaulted is done physically," BM frowned explained trying to defuse the tension. Idiot.

"She'll figure out the difference on her own if she keeps talking," I stated.

"What?"

"There is really no point explaining it, why don't we just eat and get this over with?" Charlie rolled her eyes.

"That's a great idea ChaCha," Bianca used my nickname for Charlie, which the boys barely got away with using and they only got away with it sometimes.

"Don't call me that," Charlie stared at her seriously.

"Why?"

"Only I get to call her that," I answered, to an outside it probably seemed childish.

"Oh relax Theo, were all friends here," she shrugged this time using Charlie's nickname for me, which made me more mad.

"One, were not all friends, and two, you can't use our nicknames for each other because we don't like you, these three don't even get to use those nicknames and we at least kind of like them," Charlie stated but again the tone and complete message of her comment completely evaded Bianca.

"We're totally friends,"

"Okay B, you know how you only let your grandmother call you Bianca?" Sam stepped in.

"I don't let her, she's just too dumb to know how its actually pronounced,"

"My point is you don't get mad when she calls you Bianca but you get mad when everyone else does?"

"Yeah, because it's pronounced Beunka,"

"This is the same kind of thing, only they can call each other by those nicknames because they get mad if anyone else does it,"

"Why? They're nicknames it's not like it's their real names,"

"Seriously, a brick wall has a higher IQ," Charlie shook her head.

"What is an IQ,"

"Why don't we just skip eating," I stated slowly, the less time we had to spend with Bianca the better.

JACKSON

I walked through the door and set the box on the table, the TV was on so I was assuming Mark was also the home for lunch, until he walked out of the bathroom clearly just having showered.

"Sick day?" I raised an eyebrow.

"There was nothing to do and I can do nothing at home," he shrugged.

"Right, do you actually do work anymore?"

"I do boss stuff,"

"Okay boss man I have pizza, because some of us only have lunch off and can't sit at home all day,"

"You choose to work, why are you home?"

"Because I'm apparently working in the city for the next two weeks," I sighed.

"And that's bad?"

"Do you know how much of a pain it is to work in the city? With rude assholes and everyone is a rush to get to where every they're going?"

"Dude, I work in the city permanently,"

"You sit in a CEO office while your slaves do the foot work,"

"What's your point?"

"I work on the street in the weather with the people, and they're not very nice,"

"Again you choose to work, no one forced you, besides one phone call and you wouldn't have to work in the city. So, I'm not really seeing the issue, I mean you're home for lunch and you'll be home like almost two house earlier than normal,"

"I don't like working in the city,"

"Whatever, where's the pizza?" He shrugged.

BM

We were finally leaving IKEA, two and a half hours later. We would probably have spent more time and had more fun, or any kind of fun, if Bianca hasn't of been here. The girls were annoyed, mostly Charlie, probably because whatever Charlie pointed out for, not just Sam, but any of us, she insulted and pointed out something she thought was better - it wasn't. Then Bianca would get mad because we chose what Charlie or Thea pointed out, that gave the two a small victory but it didn't seem to minimize the irritation levels at all. You would think the tension would ease when we left the building, but it didn't.

"So where to now?" Jae asked once we'd finished loading the flat pack furniture onto the back of my Ute, the smaller items had gone into the back seat and boot of Charlies Mini Cooper.

"Well this isn't going to put itself together," Charlie nodded to the pile of boxes.

"So home?"

"Obviously," Charlie stated.

"Should we get something for lunch on the way? Like a hot chicken and some bread rolls?" Thea suggested, she was like a mother sometimes, when she wasn't a four year old anyway.

"Sam and I can get it," Bianca suggested. The girls faces changed.

"Why would you get it?" Charlie frowned.

"We don't have anything in my car, it will be easier,"

"Oh, you're not helping," Charlie shook her head.

"Sure we are," Bianca smiled.

"Sam," Charlie gave him a seriously look.

"Charlie's rights, Beunka took time out to come and help with shopping when she didn't have to. You should take her to lunch to thank her," I suggested, Sam nodded understanding what I was doing.

It was bad enough having them all in IKEA, if we left Bianca in a small space with Charlie, Thea, and tools, it probably won't end well. It's worrying enough letting Thea handle tools, let alone giving them a target.

"That's a good idea, let's go to lunch,"

"We can't just leave them to do it, if there's more people not will get done quicker,"

"Like you'll be any help anyway," Thea rolled her eyes.

"No I don't think it will, besides the room isn't very big so it will just be cramped with a lot of people being in there," Sam stated ignoring Thea's comment.

"I really feel like we should help,"

"Why don't we go to that restaurant you wanted to go to, the one your friend was bragging about?"

"Really? I thought you didn't want to go?"

"But you want to, so do you want to go to lunch?" Sam pushed.

"Of course, sorry guys we'll help next time,"

"Yay," Charlie rolled her eyes sarcastically.

CHARLIE

"Do you think I could run her over and claim it was an accident?" Thea asked.

"She's too dumb to think it was on purpose, and if she did it wouldn't take much to convince her other wise,"

"If she lived," Thea shrugged starting the car.

We followed behind BM's truck and Bianca followed behind us, for a minute I was worried that she had changed her mind about going to lunch and had decided the come and help us instead.