Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2007 15:57:26 +0000 From: Chris Salter Subject: How I Met Jake: Chapter 5 You should know the drill. If two men or anything to do with homosexuality offends you don't read (why are you here anyway?) If it is illegal in your country/principality, don't read. If you're under the legal age in your respective geographical question, again go find something else to occupy your mind with. Disclaimer: I don't know Jake Gyllenhaal, nor do I wish to suggest or guess his sexual orientation. What he does in his own life is up to him. This work is entirely of fiction and should not be taken seriously. With that out the way, Enjoy Chapter 5! Chapter 5: The next morning Chris began to stir when he felt an intense stinging pain coming from underneath his left eyelid. It had been nearly a month since Chris had removed his contact lenses, the immense pain stemmed from the lens folding over on itself. This caused him to awaken suddenly, opening his right eyelid while simultaneously grabbed his left eyelid with his left hand. "Damn it to the bowels of all bloody hell!" Chris cursed as he quickly jumped off the bed and ran into the bathroom. Needing to utilize both hands to search in the drawer for the lens case he clenched his eyelid shut, trying to minimize the pain. A few seconds later Chris pulled the cover of the container off and dug into his eye to pull the lenses out. This now left Chris blind as a bat. Continuing to squint, he continued to search through the open drawer to find his pair of thick black framed glasses. He slipped them on and looked at himself in the mirror, "I look like hell." He muttered as he noticed he was still dressed in the clothes he was wearing last night. He shrugged off his appearance and wandered barefoot into the kitchen. Chris looked over at the clock on the wall. It read 11:37 AM. He grumbled at the fact he allowed himself to sleep so late, then continued on his trek to the fridge. After searching through the fridge for something to eat he finally decided on the leftovers from his meal several nights earlier. He pulled the box out of the fridge, reached into the cutlery drawer and picked up a fork. Chris then shuffled his way to the lounge area and took a seat on the black couch. Chris noticed the TV was still on from the night before, which had been left on the Discovery Channel. He found the remote and turned the sound back on and watched the remaining 30 minutes of a documentary about the Transrapid in Shanghai as he ate his brunch. When the documentary had finished he threw the box into the trash chute and made his way into the spare bedroom. He hadn't had a chance to go in there since Danny had left on Saturday night. As expected Danny had taken his desk, computer and drawing table with him, leaving the room with a pile of books on the ground, a computer chair in front of the shuttered window, and Chris' laptop sitting on the floor at the side of the room. He knew he was going to have to go furniture shopping, and today was probably the best day. Chris then walked back out of the bedroom and towards his phone. He picked it up and dialed a number, after ringing for a short time the other person finally picked up. "Hello?" "Hey gorgeous, whatya doing today?" Chris asked. There was a short period of silence, "Looks like absolutely nothing, did you want to do something?" "Yeah, I just went into the study and found Danny had cleared the room out, I NEED FURNITURE!!" Chris wallowed. "Fancy a trip to Ikea ja?" Sarah laughed and agreed to come over and then head out to Burbank. Chris ended to call and replaced the handset of the phone into its rightful place in the docking station. He then headed into the bathroom and quickly showered and primped himself in the mirror. Heading back into the bedroom and into the wardrobe, he began a search trying to find something to wear. He finally decided on a pair of light denim colored jeans and a thin, grey hooded sweatshirt. He pulled on a pair of socks and a pair of converse shoes. After doing up the laces he heard a noise emanating from the entrance area. He slowly made his way out to find Sarah walking through the small arch between the entrance and the living area. As Sarah and Chris were best friends, they had a set of each others keys, enabling them free reign of each other's apartments when the necessity required. "Come on Princess, hurry up." Sarah yelled. "I'm a comin' I'm a comin'" Chris replied as he walked from the bedroom. He picked up his keys, wallet and phone and motioned towards the door. They headed down into the parking area and jumped into Chris' Volkswagen. Luckily for Chris it was a fairly overcast day outside, allowing Chris to drive down the street with his glasses on, without the need to squint or wear sunglasses. He made his way towards the general direction of the interstate. Sarah turned down the volume on the sound system to converse with Chris, "So, I spoke to Selena last night." "Oh yeah?" Chris replied as he entered the freeway. "Yeah, she told me you and Jake ended up sharing pizza's, all very romantic if you ask me.." Chris laughed at the thought of Jake being interested romantically in him, especially after embarrassing himself the night before, "Sarah honey, he's straight. We just hung out yesterday, you know, talked, saw a movie, and then we ended up grabbing something to eat." He paused for a moment to decide whether to recall the night's events. He decided against it for now. "He's just a nice guy, he just wanted to hang out. But he was great, Danny called and Jake managed to take my mind off him for a while." Chris honked his horn at the X5 that had just cut him off. "He also gave me some advice, said I had closure, which more than what he had with his ex." "He sounds like a nice guy; I'd like to meet him." Sarah responded, turning the stereo back up slightly. Chris snorted, "You just want me to set you up with him." Sarah laughed thought of making a comment about her ideas. She decided not to and for the remainder of the trip to Ikea the conversations revolved around Sarah's work. About 20 minutes later they arrived at their destination and Chris parked in one of the available parking bays. They then made their way into the store. "So, what is you really need?" Sarah asked, having a general idea of what Chris wanted to purchase. Chris walked over to a small stand containing a measuring tape dispenser, a paper checklist and complimentary pencils for him to steal. "I need a new desk, some bookshelves, a couple of new lamps and some other stuff. I was also thinking about replacing my bed, you know, start anew, but I don't think I will get it here." "We could always look." Sarah said as the couple followed the mass of people around the store, walking along a set path like sheep being led to the slaughter. They browsed through the workstation displays, sitting in various seats before Chris finally decided on a simple desk comprised of Silver powder-coated legs teamed with a white table-top. Chris added it to his list and they continued on their way through the store to find some bookshelves. Deciding on something to match, but in a dark wood tone, they then made their way to the small furnishings area. "Oh my god!" Chris exclaimed as he stumbled across a large basket containing various packages of finger puppets. "I'm so getting these!" Sarah laughed, "You're such a kid, you know!" She then proceeded to pick up a package to add to her basket too. By the time they had reached the registers they had managed to pile onto their cart, the desk, 3 bookshelves, a couple of lamps, the finger puppets, a clock, various stationary containers and a blue babushka doll. "That will be $710.85" said the cashier. Chris pulled out his wallet and reached for his credit card. He handed the card to the cashier to complete the transaction. After signing the receipt they made their way back out to the parking lot to load the purchases into the back of the car. Chris opened the rear door and then quickly ran around to lay the back seats down. Making his way back around to the loading area he helped Sarah load in the goods into the back, with the exception of the desktop. He then picked up two straps. "Hang on a second, I'll make this easier." Chris said as he quickly ran around to the drivers side and jumped into seat. He then reached for the button to lower the cars suspension, making the loading process easier for himself. As Sarah was fairly short, she mainly served as a guide for Chris. Once safely on the roof rack Chris secured the desktop and then made his way to return the cart. A few minutes later Chris came back to the car and jumped into the drivers seat. Starting the engine he slowly reverse into the parking lot, then made his way towards the street level. >From Ikea, Chris and Sarah headed straight back to his apartment to offload the furniture pieces. It was about 4pm before Chris finally pulled into the parking area and the couple spent another 15 minutes unloading the purchases from the car. The main issue was navigating the desktop up the stairs to the apartment. After a short struggle and assistance from Chris' neighbor, they finally got everything inside and into the spare bedroom. "I gotta get going," Sarah chirped as she placed the last bag on the floor. "I have to get up early tomorrow for a meeting." Chris looked at his watch, getting close to 4:30pm he would still have time to go and browse some bed stores before coming home to cook himself dinner. "Okay, if you must.." Chris shrugged. Chris followed Sarah outside and down the stairs to the gates. Once at the sidewalk they said their goodbyes and parted ways, Sarah heading back to her car and Chris setting off down the street to do some more retail therapy. The sun was beginning to break through the clouds, causing the streets to heat up a bit more. Quickly Chris headed into one of the larger furniture stores along the street. As soon as he entered the door, he was immediately approached by a young salesman. "Can I help you with something sir?" he asked. Chris, a person who didn't usually like to be followed by sales assistants quickly dismissed the salesman by stating, "No thanks, I'm just looking around for now." He browsed around in the store for a few minutes, taking note of a few suites before making his way back out. He decided before heading back to his apartment he would do some clothes shopping. Browsing through the store and $350 later Chris then made his way to the supermarket to pick something up to cook for dinner. Finally deciding on ravioli he completed his purchase and venturing back towards his apartment. Once inside he dumped his shopping bags next to his bedroom door and headed into the towards the kitchen with his food bags. Emptying the contents onto the countertop he quickly surveyed what he had purchased. As he hadn't eaten much since that morning, he decided to start cooking dinner before beginning to tackle the flat-pak issues. Chris walked over to one of the cabinet doors and pulled it open, presenting him with a large stack of various sized pots and pans. He pulled out a small pot and headed over to the sink. Chris then filled the pot with water and placed it on the stove to boil. As usual Fergus was waiting for his dinner and insisting on inspecting the purchases on the counter. "It's getting hot in here, isn't it Fungus?" Chris muttered towards his cat. Fergus responded by meowing. Chris then made his way over to turn the air conditioning on before slipping off his shoes and heading back to the kitchen. On autopilot he quickly shuffled over towards the fridge to grab a can of cat food. Quickly opening it and presenting it in a bowl for Fergus his attention then return to the pot which was beginning to simmer violently. After turning the intensity of the heating element down, he leaned over, pulled sliced the container holding the ravioli open and dumped its contents into the pot. Chris looked over at the clock on the wall to notice it was nearly 7pm. It didn't take long for the ravioli to cook and once it had Chris drained the water and reached for a plate. He then shuffled his way over to the dining table and placed the plate, a bottle of water and a fork on the table. He then walked over to the stereo and turned it on. He waited for CD drive to begin to kick in before turning the volume down slightly and switching discs until he got to an album by Roger Cicero. As the song 'Kompromisse' began to play, Chris sauntered back to the dining table while miming the words to Fergus. Fergus responded by simply finishing his dinner and walking off to find a comfortable spot amongst Chris' sweaters in the wardrobe. After slowly throwing the food down his gullet, he promptly stood up and placed the spoiled implements into the dishwasher. He turned it on, as he wouldn't be using anymore dishes that night. He then picked up the water bottle and his cell phone and padded into his bedroom. He placed the water bottle on one of the shelves and then headed back into the main room to pick up the bags of clothes. Calmly sorting through the purchases, he found hangers and hung the shirts up, folded the jeans and sweaters and placed them on the various shelves in his usual anal color-coded style. Task completed he made his way out of the wardrobe and into the spare bedroom. "Where the hell do I start?" Chris muttered as he looked around the room. He surveyed the various sized boxes filled with unassembled furniture. Several minutes later he finally decided to tackle the bookshelves first, as they were the easiest thing to do. Chris grabbed a knife out of the small tool drawer in the closet of the room and sat down on the ground, slicing a box open and pulling its contents out over the floor. After neatly sorting everything out and counting the pieces he set to constructing his bookshelf. 20 minutes later after some cursing and grumbling the shelf was completed. Chris then slid it across the beige carpet to a position on the wall adjacent to the window, as soon as it was in place he turned to start constructing the second shelf when he heard the familiar tune of Let's Get Happy. He turned to see his phone vibrating its way across the window ledge. ---Stay tuned for more soon--- I hope you enjoyed reading this latest installment. I really love hearing the feedback from you guys, so if you want to chat or drop me an email, drop me a line at chezmoi_ou_cheztoi@msn.com, just put the title in the subject line so I know who you are! It's great seeing the variety of readers who contact me, so keep it up! For those that are interested, on my hard drive I have now passed the level where I had previously given up. So assuming you guys want to read them, I have quite a few more chapters to upload! Thanks guys! I love y'all to death! Chris.