The box had promised "easy assembly." Fuckin' Liars. Every single one of them. You were convinced the Swedish furniture overlords took immense joy in creating these flat-pack nightmares. And here you were, at 4 a.m., hunched over the dumbest shelf in existence, armed with an Allen wrench and faltering patience.

“This makes no sense,” Cruz muttered, her voice rough from exhaustion. You could practically taste the shared frustration, metallic and bitter like the dregs of the cold coffee sitting abandoned by your elbow.

You jabbed a screw into the pre-drilled hole that wasn’t aligning, no matter how much you bullied it. Cruz snorted, and the overhead light buzzed just enough to be annoying. You reached for another screw, only to have it roll off the table and onto the floor like it had somewhere better to be. Naturally.

You and Cruz devolved into a fit of tired, uncontrollable laughter—those late-night, sleep-deprived giggles that made your ribs ache. She fell back onto the carpet, shaking her head, her eyes crinkling with genuine amusement.

Then, out of nowhere, she said it. “I love you more than I hate this stupid shelf right now.” You froze, blinking at her like she’d just started speaking fluent Martian. It took a second to process, to sift through the haze of exhaustion and realize she wasn’t joking. Like she was serious. Like dead serious.