Chapter 2
Afew days turned into a week for perfectly reasonable reasons.
On Friday, Lara went back to Evan’s apartment to collect the rest of her things and returned pale, tight-lipped, and carrying only one more suitcase because, apparently, he had “helpfully” boxed several items and taken them to his mother’s garage.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said, standing in the entry with a wool coat still buttoned to her throat.
Noah had been halfway out of the living room before Ella even set down her laptop. “Did he give you trouble?”
“No.”
“Lara.”
“He was civil.” She gave a brittle smile.
Ella closed her laptop fully. “Come sit down.”
“I don’t want to make tonight about me.”
“It already is about you,” Noah said, not unkindly. “Sit down.”
So Lara sat.
Ella made tea. Noah ordered Thai food. Lara tucked her feet beneath her on the couch and stared at the wall for a while, saying nothing, while Noah sat in the chair across from her with his elbows on his knees.
Ella did not mind the silence. Later, over containers of curry and noodles, Lara told them she had found out Evan had been telling mutual friends the breakup was “long overdue.”
“Long overdue,” she repeated, laughing softly. “Like I was a library book he was tired of paying fines on.”
Noah’s mouth tightened.
Ella wanted to say something comforting and sharp, something worthy of the hurt on Lara’s face, but all she could manage was, “That’s awful.”
Lara glanced at her. “It is, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“I keep trying to make it more complicated. It isn’t. It’s awful.” Lara picked at the corner of the takeout carton. “Thank you for saying that.”
On Saturday, Lara viewed two apartments and came home discouraged because one smelled like wet dog and the other had a bedroom that could be better described as theoretical. On Sunday, the landlord of a third listing canceled while she was already standing outside the building in the cold.
On Monday, she announced she was looking into short-term rentals.
On Tuesday, she apologized at breakfast for still being there.
By then, she had become almost embarrassingly easy to have around.
Ella had prepared herself for the awkwardness of another adult in the house. The bathroom schedule. The question of who had used the last of the oat milk. The low-level awareness of closed doors and footsteps at odd hours.
But Lara was careful. More than careful. She wiped down the sink after brushing her teeth. She replaced anything she used before anyone noticed it missing. She asked before running laundry. She left twenties in a jar near the coffee maker until Ella found them and told her to stop being ridiculous.
“I’m contributing,” Lara insisted.
“You bought groceries yesterday.”
“Groceries are not rent.”
“You are not paying us rent.”
“Then consider this a tax for the inconvenience.”
Ella pushed the money back into Lara’s hand. “Consider yourself hosted.”
Lara looked down at the bills, then at Ella. “You’re very hard to repay.”
“That’s because I’m not billing you.”
“ I just—” Lara folded the money with precise edges. “I’m not used to being in someone else’s space without knowing the terms.”
Ella softened. “The terms are: be sad, drink coffee, find an apartment that doesn’t smell like wet dog.”
Lara’s mouth curved. “Very generous contract.”
“I’m known for those.”
That evening, Noah found the twenties folded beneath the coffee jar.
He held them up with an incredulous expression. “Is Lara paying us for caffeine?”
“I already yelled at her.”
“You yelled?”
“I expressed firm warmth.”
Ella took the bills and slipped them into the drawer where they kept takeout menus and batteries. “I’ll put it in her purse later.”
“You’re good at this,” Noah said.
“At what?”
He leaned against the counter, watching her with a tenderness that made the kitchen feel smaller. “Making room for people without making it feel like charity.”
Ella turned away too quickly, pretending to rearrange the menus. “It’s not charity. She’s your best friend.”
“She’s becoming your friend too.”
“I think she already was.”
Noah was quiet for a beat, and when she glanced over, his expression had softened into something almost solemn.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“That is not a nothing face.”
“It’s just…” He came closer and slid his hands around her waist. “I knew you’d be kind. I didn’t know it would make me love you more, but apparently I had some room.”
Ella leaned back into him, smiling despite herself. “Dangerous discovery. Soon you’ll love me so much you’ll let me cut the guest list.”
“I love you a normal amount.”
“Coward.”
“You already cut my dentist.”
“Your dentist sent us a Christmas card one time because he thought we were your parents.”
“He’s lonely.”
“He is not invited to our wedding.”
Noah sighed into her hair. “Fine. But if he asks, I’m blaming you.”
“Im willing to take the blame.”
For a minute she let herself stand there with the dishwasher humming and Noah’s mouth near her temple..
Then Lara came in through the back door with a grocery bag on one hip and snow melting in her hair. “Do not yell,” she said immediately.
Ella lifted her head. “What did you do?”
“I bought soup ingredients.”
Noah released Ella, but only halfway, one arm still looped loosely around her waist. “We have food here.”
“We have ingredients. Different concept.” Lara set the bag on the counter and began unpacking leeks, potatoes, a loaf of bread, a bundle of thyme. “Also, I had to walk past that little market on Farmington, and the leeks looked lonely.”
“Vegetables do not experience loneliness,” Noah said.
“You don’t know their lives.”
Ella laughed and reached for the bread. “Soup sounds great.”
“I thought maybe potato leek? Unless that’s too aggressively beige.”
“Noah loves potato leek soup.”
“I know,” Lara said.
It was immediate. Effortless.
Then, as if realizing how it sounded, she added, “I mean, I remembered from that winter you got the flu. You were slightly pathetic."
Noah groaned. “Can we not establish that as a recurring theme?”
“You wore a scarf indoors.”
“I was ill.”
“You asked me if you had consumption.”
“I had a fever of 102.”
“You had man flu.”
Ella smiled as they argued, setting the bread on the cutting board.
It was an old story, one of many. Lara had apparently nursed Noah through a terrible flu before Ella had known either of them.
Ella pictured them younger, poorer, in some drafty apartment with bad radiators and mismatched mugs.
Lara bringing soup. Noah wrapped in a scarf, dramatic and feverish.
The image was not unpleasant.
It only reminded her there had been years before her. She had known that already. Everyone had years before. She had her own—college boyfriends, graduate school roommates, an entire disastrous decade of trying to become a person while dating men who thought basic attentiveness was too difficult.
Noah had Lara in his before.
That was all.
“Do you want help?” Ella asked.
Lara had already taken a knife from the block. “Only if you want to. I’m happy to do it.”
“You don’t have to cook for us.”
“I like cooking. It gives me something to do with my hands besides text people I want to murder..”
“No murder over soup,” Noah said.
“Fine. But only because Ella’s watching.”
Ella held up both hands. “I’m very strict.”
They made dinner together. Or rather, Lara made dinner while Ella hovered and occasionally chopped something Lara had already washed.
Lara moved through the kitchen with surprising confidence for someone who had only been in the house a week.
She found the Dutch oven on the first try.
She knew where Ella kept the good olive oil.
She used the broken pepper mill with the little twist-and-shake motion Ella had learned by trial and error.
“You’ve mapped my kitchen,” Ella said, amused.
Lara glanced over. “Is that creepy?”
“No. Impressive.”
“I like cozy spaces, like this kitchen.” Lara tipped leeks into the pot. They hit the oil with a soft hiss. “Hotels are impossible. Too blank. You can’t learn them. That’s why they make you feel lonely even when they’re nice.”
Ella leaned back against the counter. “I’ve never thought of it that way.”
“I may be over-identifying with rooms at the moment.”
“Understandable.”
Lara smiled without looking up.
The soup was excellent.
Noah ate two bowls and made the soft, appreciative sound he always made when food genuinely pleased him. Ella loved that sound. It was small and private, almost embarrassingly happy, and he never seemed aware he was making it.
Lara heard it too.
“Still works,” she said.
Noah looked up. “What?”
“Potato leek soup. Cure for all Greenwood ailments.”
“Not all.”
“Most.”
Ella tore a piece of bread in half and told herself she was being ridiculous for noticing the satisfaction in Lara’s voice.
It was just soup.
On Wednesday, Carolina Rodriguez came over with a bottle of prosecco.
She had been Ella’s best friend since their first year of college, when Ella had cried in the laundry room because a red sock had turned all her white T-shirts pink and Carolina, instead of offering sympathy, had said, “Okay, but honestly those shirts were ugly.”
Carolina had been maid of honor before Noah had even technically proposed.
Not because Ella had presumed, but because Carolina had once informed Noah at brunch that if he married Ella without giving her at least nine months’ notice so she could dirt her way into a bridesmaid dress, she would sabotage his credit score.
Noah adored her and feared her, which Ella considered proof of his intelligence.
“I bring alcohol,” Carolina announced when Ella opened the door. “Also, I found shoes for your shower that do not make me want to die.”
“You say the sweetest things.”
“I’m a poet.”
Carolina stepped inside, shrugged off her coat, and paused when Lara came out of the kitchen drying her hands on a dish towel.
“Oh,” Carolina said.
Lara smiled. “Hi. You must be Carolina.”
“I must be.” Carolina’s gaze flicked to the towel, then back to Lara’s face. “Lara, right?”
“Guilty.”
They shook hands.