HOW TO BE SINGLE | SIDEMEN

TWENTY THREE

t w e n t y t h r e e
" not everything needs
to be perfect "
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Lewis and Adela were in her new apartment. It was refreshing to be somewhere new, somewhere she could call her own. Not her parents' house. Not Simon and Adela's. It was Adela's.

Currently they were attempting to assemble her book shelf. An essential for any home owned by Adela, but it turned out neither of them were adept at constructing furniture.

"No, I think it goes in there," Adela instructed, holding the manual in one hand and pointing with the other.

"That's what she said," He joked, laughing at his own immature joke. But even Adela couldn't help but laugh a little.

"Shut up and get building." She rolled her eyes at him, passing him the next piece. "This is why we became friends: building furniture, not 'that's what she said' jokes."

"Nah, but the jokes are a bonus, hm?" He said, locking eyes with her. She watched as his eyes flickered all over her face without a word. She wished he would speak, tell her what he was thinking. But, then again, maybe it was better not to know.

"Sure," She replied, a screwed smile on her lips. "But this bookshelf won't build itself."

He chuckled, turning back to fasten the shelf in. And she busied herself with scanning the instructions, even though she'd already read it twice over.

Lewis could see her doing it out of the corner of his eye and sighed at the sight. "You know, the instructions won't change the more you read them," He quipped light-heartedly.

"I want this to be perfect," She responded, but folded the instructions in two.

Lewis put down the screwdriver and stepped in front of her, gently prying the instructions from her hands. "These?" He waved the instructions for a moment before ripping them in half. "Don't need them, ok?" Adela gawked at him. "Not everything needs to be perfect down to the last nail."

"What if I want it to be?" Adela grumbled, watching the torn instructions fall to the floor. Her attention snapped to Lewis as he put his hands on her shoulders and bent his head to look her intimately right in the eyes.

"You're too hung up on what's right and wrong. Perfection ain't a human necessity. I'm not a bad boy by any shot, but you make me look like the devil with how much you care for everything to be perfect," He said, meaning every single word. "I've only known your for a short time, but it's easy to see how that obsession with the perfect is eating you up."

"I know, I know," She admit, her head dipping to stare at her feet. "But I just want this apartment to be perfect because this is a new chapter in my life and I want to start out on the right foot."