Chapter 15: In Which a Woman Attempts Spontaneous Healing Over Swedish Meatballs and Penelope Commits Light Blasphemy
IKEA on a Saturday is already a bad idea.
[Penelope]
I need to look at tiny fake apartments and judge strangers’ imaginary lives. Come with me.
[Jack]
Ah yes, the Swedish maze of emotional instability. I’m in.
Now they’re standing in front of the giant blue-and-yellow box, that little ocean of shopping carts glinting in the sun, the building humming with people who have opinions about storage solutions.
Penelope tucks her keys into her bag and falls into step beside him as he rolls toward the entrance, nudging his shoulder with her arm like a casual anchor.
“Okay,” she says. “Game plan: we go up, we look at fake rooms, we role-play the people who live there. Then we accidentally buy a 600-pack of tealights.”
Jack nods solemnly. “I can’t stress enough that I’m taking this very seriously.”
Automatic doors whoosh open. The blast of meatball-and-cardboard smell hits them like a wall.
Inside, the escalator to the showroom level hums, steps gliding up into the fluorescent unknown. There’s an elevator tucked off to the side, a line of strollers and carts forming.
Jack glances at the elevator once, then at the escalator, then at her.
“You good?” she asks, neutral.
He smiles, a little sideways. “Yeah. We’ll do escalator. It’s faster.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Is this… allowed?”
“Probably not,” he says lightly. “Don’t tell corporate.”
There’s a small flat landing where the escalator starts. He rolls onto it and angles his chair so one big wheel is snug up against the metal panel where the steps start to rise. Then, when the timing’s right, he lets the moving step catch his front casters and presses that wheel gently into the edge where the stairs are lifting.
His free hand grabs the rubber handrail, then the other. He leans forward slightly, weight over his knees, letting the escalator pull the whole configuration upward–chair, him, smugness.
Balanced. Confident. Like he’s done this a hundred times and knows exactly how far he can push it.
He glances back down at her from his moving perch and grins, eyes bright with mischief.
It’s inconveniently adorable.
And hot.
And also, somewhere underneath her lizard brain, she clocks the fact that this is what “just going upstairs” is for him: a tiny stunt, a calculation, a thing he has to do instead of not think about at all.
There’s a flicker in her chest–some weird, deep ache plus attraction spark, layered and messy.
She files it away. She’ll absolutely not think about it later.
For now, she steps onto the escalator behind him and enjoys the view
—
At the top, they follow the little arrows into Showroom Land.
The first display is a tiny “student” apartment–bed, desk, approximately three thousand storage bins, and some faux vintage gig posters.
Penelope steps into the space, hands on hips. “Ooh the lazy activist.”
Jack wheels into the doorway, looking around like he’s assessing a crime scene. “This is a 22 year old man who says his peace sign tattoo is for nuclear disarmament and not because he got high and listened to the White Album once.”
She cackles. “Yes. He’s like, 'I really want to go to your rally but I have a Door Dash coming, so….”
Jack barks a laugh, head tilting back.
They move on.
Next staged room: white-and-beige living room, plants so green they look Photoshopped, bookshelf organized like a museum exhibit on wellness.
Penelope gasps. “Oh no.”
“What.”
“Self-Care Psycho.”
Jack wheels in cautiously. “…should I be worried?”
“This woman,” Penelope says, voice dropping like she’s narrating a true crime doc, “has hacks. For everything. She will corner you at a party and tell you, completely straight-faced, that when she’s doing the dishes, she likes to pretend she’s a 1950s housewife and has to get them done before her husband comes home and beats her.”
Jack’s head whips around. “I’m sorry, what?”
“It ‘adds urgency to the task,’” Penelope says, doing a pitch-perfect mimic. “It’s a productivity hack.”
“That’s– insane.”
“She also has a jade roller,” Penelope continues, unstoppable now. “She keeps it in the freezer. She does facial massage while listening to murder podcasts and calls it ‘self-care.’”
Jack is staring at her, somewhere between horrified and delighted. “This is a real person you know.”
“This is several real people I know.”
He looks at the bookshelf–The Body Keeps the Score, Untamed, something about “divine feminine energy.”
“She’s read The Body Keeps the Score three times,” Penelope says, following his gaze, “but still can’t figure out why her relationships keep ending badly.”
“Maybe because she’s roleplaying domestic violence while doing dishes?” Jack offers.
“Maybe.” She points at a small stack of cards on the coffee table. “Those are affirmations. She made them on Canva. She has a whole folder.”
Jack picks one up. “‘I am releasing what no longer serves me.’”
“She says that constantly,” Penelope says. “Usually right before she texts her ex at 2 a.m.”
He’s really laughing now.
“I hate this room so much,” Jack gasps.
“Me too,” Penelope says cheerfully. “Let’s never come back here.”
It becomes a bit.
Every room, new lives.
Teal kitchen: “Girlboss who meal preps and has never sat down.”
Gray office nook: “Man who calls his podcast a ‘platform’.”
Nursery: “My strange addiction: Addicted to being a baby.”
They’re ridiculous and perfectly in sync, ping-ponging from room to room like two allegedly grown adults who clearly cannot be trusted in public.
The line for meatballs snakes past a long railing. Jack tucks in beside it; she stays next to him while the line keeps inching forward in weird little increments.
They’re mid-argument about what a lingonberry is when a voice materializes just behind Jack’s shoulder.
“Excuse me,” a woman says.
Penelope looks over.
Middle-aged, oatmeal cardigan, little gold cross necklace catching the fluorescent light. Kind smile, soft loose jowls, and an aggressively earnest underbite that practically screams I lead the Tuesday night prayer circle and have Thoughts about Halloween.
Jack clocks it immediately. Penelope feels his whole body do a tiny internal sigh.
“Hey,” he says, polite. “What’s up.”
“I just…” The woman leans in a little, lowering her voice to what she probably thinks is gentle. “I saw you from over there and felt the Lord nudging me. Do you mind if I pray for you?”
Penelope’s brain blue-screens.
Jack does not even blink. “That’s kind of you,” he starts, default setting. “But I’m–”
“Just for healing,” the woman says quickly, like he’s on a timer. “For your legs, and for strength for you, and for whoever’s taking care of you.” Her gaze flicks briefly to Penelope, soft and pitying. “It’s such a burden. But God sees your sacrifice.”
Penelope’s jaw actually drops.
Jack’s face doesn’t change much, but she sees it–the micro-tightening at his mouth, the way his fingers shift on his wheels.
He opens his mouth again, probably to deploy whatever practiced, diplomatic script he has for this.
Penelope’s body moves faster than her brain.
“Uh, ma’am?” she says, too brightly. “We’re actually just here for Swedish meatballs. So maybe just pray we don’t get, like, a second Trump term? That feels more urgent.”
The woman’s mouth opens.
Closes.
“Also,” Penelope continues, tilting her head, “the wheels are kind of working for me, actually. So I’m not totally sure what we’re fixing here.”
That comes out way more loaded than she intends. She hears it as she says it, feels her face heat.
Jack chokes.
Visibly chokes.
Penelope clears her throat. “In a… structural integrity sense,” she adds, because that definitely helps.
The woman looks like someone just spoke Esperanto at her.
“I–well–I can still lift you up in prayer in my heart,” she says, retreating to higher ground.
Penelope smiles with all her teeth. “Knock yourself out.”
The woman makes a small, wounded noise and turns away, folding herself back into the line a polite distance behind them. Penelope faces forward again, pulse hammering.
“Penelope.” He’s laughing
“What,” she shrugs one shoulder. “She started it.”
“She called you my caregiver,” he says, still half-strangled with laughter. “In an IKEA cafeteria. That’s…new even for me.”
Penelope rolls her eyes so hard it feels like exercise. “Yeah, well, God can send her a push notification about boundaries.”
He snorts again, then sobers just enough to look at her, really look.
“You okay?” he asks, quieter now. “You went full scorched earth on a stranger with a tray.”
“I am fine,” she says, absolutely not fine. “This is fine. I just… wasn’t prepared for public spiritual diagnostics while I’m trying to make eye contact with mashed potatoes.”
His mouth twitches.
“And for the record,” she adds, voice dropping, “if anyone’s going to talk about my sacrifice, it’s going to be me, and it’s going to be in the context of sharing a queen bed with you and your thirteen charging cables.”
He loses it properly then, head tipping back, laugh breaking free. A couple people in line glance over; he doesn't even notice.
When he calms down, he tilts his head, studying her.
“The wheels are kind of working for you, huh,” he says, too casual.
She stares straight ahead at the menu board. “Wow, look at that. Sixteen kinds of potatoes.”
“Penelope,” he says, amused. “Important follow-up–”
“Shut up and order your meatballs,” she mutters, ears burning. “Data collection time is over.”
He huffs, but lets it go, for now.
But she sees it–the tiny click behind his eyes. That “interesting” look. He’s absolutely filing this under Whatever Is Going On With Penelope’s Brain.
She is also absolutely not thinking about the phrase she just said out loud where anyone could hear.
At all.
—
URBAN NIGHT.
It’s the one with the dark green walls, low upholstered bed, moody lamps, and a fake tray of whiskey glasses on the nightstand. Someone in marketing labeled it URBAN NIGHT which is objectively hilarious.
Penelope stops dead. “Oh.”
Jack rolls up beside her. “Wow. Okay, someone in Sweden is going through something.”
She steps into the room like she’s entering a stage set. “This is a fifty-year-old former heiress. Her father owned twenty-seven shopping malls.”
“Very specific number,” Jack says, already smiling.
She nods gravely. “They’ve all tanked. Online retail murdered the family legacy. Hence–” she gestures around at the very tasteful darkness, “–this reduced-circumstance.”
Jack glances at the whiskey tray. “And now she lives… here, alone, with three leather-bound notebooks and an aggressively curated emptiness.”
Penelope walks over to the bed and sits, testing the mattress. It has that annoying IKEA bounce that’s juuuust good enough.
“She says things like, ‘Flying commercial makes me cry,’” Penelope says.
“Devastating. How does she cope?”
“She drives a Dodge Neon.”
He’s laughing now, that soft, helpless version that lands low in her stomach. “How’s she affording URBAN NIGHT on Dodge-appropriate income?”
“She kept three of the malls,” Pen says. “The sad outlet ones. She calls them ‘heritage properties.’”
She leans back on her hands, then pushes further, committing to the bit: a slow, mock-seductive recline until she’s sprawled diagonally across the bed like a very dramatic starfish.
Jack’s eyes track the movement like he’s helpless not to.
She tips her head, meeting his gaze. Then, without breaking eye contact, she bends one knee and slides her foot–just her socked toes, thank God–up along the inside of his thigh, nudging gently against the denim.
He inhales, sharply.
“Penelope,” he says, under his breath. There’s amusement there, but there’s something else, too. “There are children in this store.”
She widens her eyes innocently. “They’ll learn about longing.”
He has to put a hand on his wheel to steady himself. “You are going to get us kicked out of Sweden.”
“Well,” she says. “Then you shouldn’t have shown up to this reduced circumstance looking like a thirst trap.”
“Reduced circumstance,” he repeats, a little strangled.
She sighs theatrically, toes pressing just a hair more into his thigh. She can feel something twitch under the denim, that ghost echo of movement his legs still throw out sometimes when something lights him up. It sends a jolt straight up her spine.
He’s looking at her like she’s absolutely unhinged and he’s having the time of his life.
A family walks past the doorway; their kid stops to stare at the two of them–man in a wheelchair, woman draped across the bed, foot tucked along his leg.
Penelope smiles sweetly and gives a tiny, conspiratorial wave like this is a perfectly normal way to test furniture.
The kid’s mom tugs them along. “Come on, honey, we’re not getting that one.”
Jack mutters, “Good call,” then looks back at Penelope, eyes darker now, the laughter still there but threaded through with something warmer.
He leans a little closer, his hand sliding from his rim to rest on the edge of the mattress, fingers curling into the duvet.
“Please do not get us kicked out for aggressively testing the merchandise,” he says.
She tosses her hair over one shoulder. “If IKEA didn’t want people to bang in their pretend apartments, they shouldn’t have made them so cozy.”
He opens his mouth, closes it, then gives her a look that is equal parts fond and very aware of her on that bed.
“Do not say ‘bang in their pretend apartments’ while making eye contact with me,” he says.
“Too late,” she says.
They’re still joking, but the air has shifted a notch. The lighting in here is softer; the room feels more enclosed than the ones before. The path funnels people past the foot of the bed, leaving them in a little pocket of their own.
A sliding-door wardrobe sits off to the side, door half ajar, full of fake clothing and the illusion of privacy.
Penelope’s brain: this is where the pretend couple sneaks away at the party.
Her body: oh, fun.
A family passes behind them, kids arguing about bunk beds. Jack’s hand is resting on his wheel, fingers flexing absently.
She looks at him–really looks. The way he’s propped slightly forward in his chair, the line of his shoulders, the way the dark room makes his eyes seem even warmer.
Something in her tips over.
Without thinking she reaches for his hand.
“Come here,” she says, quiet.
He blinks, thrown. “Where–”
She’s already tugging gently, not on his chair, just on his hand. He rolls with it, letting her lead his front casters off the main path and toward the wardrobe.
“Pen,” he says, equal parts amused and wary. “We are in a public–”
She slides the wardrobe door open the rest of the way. Inside: hanging shirts, fake shoes, a little bench. Enough space for him to nose in and for her to step around the side.
“It’s a very realistic staged closet,” she says. “We’re just… inspecting the storage.”
“You know there's probably cameras in here,” he mutters, but he’s following, maneuvering the tight turn with careful little pushes. His hands are deft on the rims; she hugs the hanging clothes to her side so they don’t smack him in the face.
He gets the chair in at an angle, the door mostly blocking them from the main aisle. It’s not private, not really, but it’s enough that the rest of the store blurs out.
He looks up at her, a small, incredulous smile on his mouth. “You’re ridiculous.”
She’s breathing a little too fast now, pulse loud in her ears. The narrowness of the space, the way he’s boxed in with her, the two of them in this fake life capsule–it all presses together.
“Yeah,” she says. “And I really want to kiss you right now.”
Something flickers in his eyes–surprise, then heat, then that tiny, disbelieving vulnerability she’s starting to recognize when it’s just the two of them and she pulls him into her orbit like this.
He doesn’t make a joke this time.
He just reaches out, hooks two fingers into the waistband of her jeans, and tugs her gently closer.
“Okay,” he says, voice low. “Come here, then.”
She steps between his knees, one hand on the wardrobe. His hands are on her hips before she can blink, fingers biting in as he drags her down into his lap, yanking her into his space like he’s officially done being polite about it.
And then he kisses her.
It’s immediate and consuming, all that banter winding into a tight coil and snapping. Her fingers curl into his shirt; his hand slides back into her hair, holding her exactly where he wants her.
Her whole body lights up. The closeness is obscenely good–the smell of particle board from the fake wardrobe, his breath, the low murmur of people outside like a soundtrack. He digs his fingers into her thighs and pulls her closer to him. She's fully settled in his lap, one hand bracing the wardrobe, surrounded by hanging shirts with fake price tags.
He kisses like the rest of him: focused, intentional, a little greedy once she meets him in it.
She melts into him, mind briefly blank except for yes this yes this yes this.
“Pen,” he murmurs against her mouth, voice low and frayed at the edges.
“Mm?” she says, entirely unhelpful, sliding her hand up the back of his neck. His hair is soft under her fingers; his other hand tightens on her hip, anchoring her down.
“You’re…” He huffs a breath that might be a laugh. “You’re going to make me forget we’re in a pretend closet.”
“Bold of you to assume I’ve remembered at all,” she says, and kisses him harder.
He groans quietly into it, that little caught sound that makes heat spike low in her stomach. Her hips tip, just a little, chasing more of him on instinct.
His fingers flex, a warning and a request at once. “Woah,” he says again, rougher now. “Careful.”
She stills, breath hot against his jaw. “Sorry,” she whispers, then immediately ruins the apology by pressing her nose into his cheek like she wants to keep him there forever. “You’re–this was a very irresponsible wardrobe placement.”
He laughs, quiet and helpless. “Yeah, they really didn’t think through the horny couple factor.”
A cart rattles past just outside. They freeze like children in a pantry.
“Do you think they can see us?” she whispers.
He tilts his head back just enough to glance at the tiny gap between door and frame. “Probably just my wheels.”
“Okay, good,” she murmurs. “If we get caught, I’m diving behind the clothes. You take the fall. Meet me at the car after.”
His head snaps back to her. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Jack.” She gives him a very serious look, which is impressive considering she’s fully in his lap. “I get slapped with ‘lewd conduct.’ You get a certificate and a think piece. ‘Bravery in difficult times.’ This is not a level playing field.”
His eyes crinkle, laughter already breaking through. “You are unwell.”
“You’re in a closet with me,” she reminds him. “That feels like informed consent.”
He kisses her again, slower this time, more deliberate. She feels the shift in him–the way he stops trying to pretend he’s not completely gone for this and just lets himself lean into it. His hand slides under the hem of her shirt at her back, fingers spreading warm and sure along her spine.
A kid’s voice pipes up nearby. “Mom, why is there a lady in that man’s–”
“Keep walking,” an adult hisses, mercifully.
Penelope breaks the kiss, forehead dropping to Jack’s, shoulders shaking with silent laughter.
“Oh my God,” she breathes. “We’re going to get reported to IKEA Child Services.”
“They’re going to have to put up a sign,” Jack whispers back. “‘Please do not make out in the storage solutions.’”
“‘Ma’am, this is a PAX system.’”
He laughs into her neck, the sound vibrating against her skin. It does ridiculous things to her composure.
He exhales, a little steadier. “Okay,” he says softly. “We should get out of Narnia before someone opens the door and we traumatize a whole family.”
–
They’re back at his place, sprawled on the couch,TV’s on low. Some home reno show muttering in the background. Jack’s sitting at one end of the couch, back braced into the corner, one leg half propped on the coffee table, the other slouched low. Penelope’s sideways at the other end, feet in his lap, absently nudging his thigh with her toes.
They’ve been quietly scrolling for a few minutes, coming down from the day.
Penelope breaks first.
“Hey,” she says, staring at the TV.
“Mmm?” He doesn’t look away from his phone.
“That thing at IKEA,” she says. “With… church aunt.”
He huffs a tiny laugh at the nickname. “Ah yes. Spiritual drive-thru.”
“Yeah.” She chews her lip. “Was that… annoying? Like, not her. Obviously her. But me. I realized I don’t actually know what you want me to do in those situations. Did I… speak for you? In a way that was shitty?”
He lowers his phone, finally looking at her. “That’s a very specific use of the word ‘speak.’ You mean when you verbally suplexed her over the meatballs?”
“She came for my sacrifice,” Penelope says, defensive. “My sacrifice is getting you to stop hoarding conference lanyards, not bravely wiping your sainted brow.”
He grins, but it fades around the edges when he clocks she’s actually wound up.
“Hey,” he says, giving her ankle a little squeeze. “Talk to me. What’s the actual worry.”
She sighs, flopping her head back against the couch. “Just… I went zero to scorched-earth in, like, half a second. And afterwards I was like, cool, did I just make that all about me? Was I helpful? Or did I just… hijack your weird interaction because my brain short-circuited.”
He’s quiet for a second, thumb still absently moving over her ankle bone.
“Okay,” he says. “Honest answer?”
“Obviously.”
He shifts a little, angling toward her more. “First thing: I am never going to be mad at you for tagging in when someone is mid–spontaneous healing attempt over my mashed potatoes. That is a deranged social situation.”
She huffs a laugh.
“Second thing,” he goes on, “I didn’t feel like you spoke for me. I had a sentence chambered, yeah, but what you said was… fine. Good. Very Penelope.”
She winces. “I did say the wheels are working for me.”
He laughs, full and helpless for a second. “Yeah. You sure did.”
She drags her hands down her face. “God. That’s, like, a top-ten ‘words left my body before quality control’ moment.”
“Hey.” His voice softens. “For the record? That line did an absolute number on me. Not in a bad way.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” His mouth curves, half amused, half something else. “It was like… you threw a truth grenade in the middle of a pity party. I’m not mad about it.”
She lets her hands drop, exhaling. “Okay. So that part was… okay.”
“More than okay,” he says. “Mildly catastrophic, but in a fun way.”
“Okay.” She leans back into the couch, finally letting herself relax. “Thanks. For… telling me.”
He squeezes her ankle. “Thanks for asking,”
He picks up the Allen key from the table and brandishes it like a sword. “Now help me build this bookcase before I decide to pray for you.”
She rolls her eyes, but she’s already sliding off the couch to sit cross-legged on the floor beside him, shoulder bumping his knee as she opens the instructions.
The tealights flicker; the half-built bookshelf waits. The day was weird and a little heavy and also unreasonably funny. Which was, apparently, her sweet spot.
Emotional whiplash, light public blasphemy, and one more piece of data she is absolutely not thinking about.
At all.
Obviously.
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