Chapter 3 #4
They turned off the lights and went upstairs softly.
The next morning, Lara left early for her apartment viewing. Noah left soon after. Ella had the house to herself for the first time in days.
At first, she moved through it with pleasure.
She put music on. Not loud, but louder than she had played it lately.
She stripped their bed and gathered towels from the bathroom.
She opened the windows for ten minutes even though the air was cold because the house had started to smell faintly of Lara’s vanilla hair product and the cinnamon candles she had bought at the market “for ambiance.”
Ella had liked the candles. She had said so.
Still, she opened the windows.
She made coffee and used her blue mug and drank it standing barefoot in the patch of weak sunlight near the sink.
She answered emails. She confirmed the florist. She called the dress shop to verify the appointment time, which was eleven, not ten.
She wrote it on the calendar herself, then added it to her phone.
At noon, she went upstairs to put away clean towels.
The guest room door was open.
Ella paused with the stack against her chest.
Lara’s suitcase was zipped and standing near the desk. The bed was made tightly, corners tucked with hotel precision. On the desk were her laptop, a notepad, three rental brochures, and a mug.
Not Ella’s blue mug. Another one. Plain white. The one from the back of the cabinet nobody used because it was too large for the coffee machine.
The room looked temporary. Respectful.
Ella exhaled, feeling faintly foolish.
Then she noticed the closet door was ajar.
The bridesmaid bags that had been in there were now stacked neatly on the chair. The off-season coats had been pushed to one side. A few of Lara’s things hung in the cleared space: a black dress, a cream blouse, a gray coat. Not many. Just enough.
It made sense.
Ella had told her to use anything she needed. Closet space was a need. No one could live out of a suitcase forever, even for a week. If anything, the fact that Lara had hung only three things showed restraint.
Ella set the towels on the bed, then picked up the bridesmaid bags from the chair. They were half-finished, tissue paper wrinkled. She had been meaning to put in the candles, the handwritten notes, the small earrings she had chosen for each bridesmaid.
On the top bag, where Ella had tied a pale blue ribbon, someone had retied the bow.
Better.
Ella stared at it.
The original bow had been fine, but the new one was clean and symmetrical, the loops even, the tails cut at a pretty angle. It looked like something from a wedding blog.
Lara must have noticed it coming undone when she moved the bags. She had fixed it.
That was all.
Ella put the bag down.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket.
Carolina: How’s domestic life?
Ella: perfect with a chance of you being annoying.
Carolina: So, unchanged.
Ella hesitated, then typed: She reorganized my bridesmaid bags.
Before she could send it, she deleted the sentence.
Because that was not fair.
Lara had moved the bags because Ella had left them in the guest closet. Lara had fixed a bow because she was helpful. Ella could not report every tiny thing to Carolina like evidence in a trial nobody had agreed was happening.
She typed instead: All fine.
Carolina replied with only an eye emoji.
Ella put the phone away.
Downstairs, she lit one of her own candles—the fig one Noah had bought her from a boutique because he claimed it smelled like “expensive trees”—and placed it on the coffee table. Its scent moved slowly through the living room, green and familiar.
She sat with the wedding binder and began writing bridesmaid notes.
For twenty minutes, the house felt like hers again in a way she had not realized she missed.
Then the front door opened.
“Ella?” Lara called.
“In here.”
Lara came into the living room carrying a paper bag and an expression of cautious optimism. “I may have found a place.”
“That’s great!”
“Maybe great. The landlord seems normal. The floors are level. There is actual sunlight not generated by brick reflection. It’s small, but small in a charming way, not a crime-scene way.”
Ella smiled. Relief moved through her, immediate and genuine. “When would it be available?”
“That’s the thing.” Lara slipped off her coat. “Two weeks.”
“Oh.”
“I know. Too long. I told her I’d let her know by tomorrow, but I can find a temporary rental in the meantime, or go to a hotel, or?—”
“Lara.”
“I don’t want to assume.”
“You can stay two weeks if that’s what you need.”
The words came out before Ella had fully considered them.
Lara went still.
Ella heard Carolina’s voice so clearly she almost laughed.
But what was she supposed to do? Tell Lara to move into a hotel for fourteen days because Ella felt insecure about bows and oatmeal? That would be absurd. Cruel, even.
“Are you sure?” Lara asked.
Ella smiled. “Yes.”
Lara’s face softened with relief so naked it made Ella feel ashamed for the half-second of hesitation. “Thank you.”
“Of course.”
“I’ll tell Noah when he gets home. Or you can. Whatever feels less like I’m negotiating tenancy over your head.”
That was considerate.
Ella appreciated it.
“You can tell him,” she said.
Lara nodded, then lifted the paper bag. “I brought pastries. There was a bakery by the apartment. I panicked and bought six.”
“You didn’t need the bribery but it works..”
“Thank you. I’m trying my best.”
They ate almond croissants at the kitchen island, powdered sugar dusting their fingers. Lara told Ella about the apartment: third floor, good windows, bad shower pressure, a neighbor with three tiny dogs who wore sweaters. Ella laughed and asked questions. She was happy for her. Truly.
When Noah came home and Lara told him the news, he looked first relieved, then uncertain, his eyes moving to Ella as if checking the decision had been made together.
“She can stay,” Ella said. “It’s two weeks.”
“Only if you’re sure,” he said.
“I am.”
He kissed her temple. “Thank you.”
***.
That night, Noah and Ella went to bed early.
Lara had gone upstairs before them, shutting the guest room door with her usual soft care. The house was dim and quiet. Ella washed her face and brushed her teeth beside Noah, watching him in the mirror as he rubbed at the back of his neck.
“No Peterson neck tonight?” she asked.
He looked at her reflection. “Mild Peterson neck.”
“I can fix that.”
His mouth curved. “Can you?”
“In several ways.”
The look in his eyes changed.
Finally, she thought. Not because Lara had prevented them exactly, but because the presence of another person had made intimacy feel less spontaneous. There were doors to close now. Voices to lower. A self-consciousness that did not belong in their bedroom.
Noah shut their door.
“Quietly,” Ella whispered.
“I know how doors work.”
“You slam cabinets when you’re happy.”
“That is a slanderous accusation.”
She kissed him before he could continue.
The kiss became the kind that made the room disappear.
Slow at first, familiar, then deepening with the relief of finding each other fully after days of being polite in shared spaces.
Noah’s hands moved beneath her shirt, warm along her ribs.
Ella arched into him, and he made a low sound against her throat that sent heat through her so fast she had to bite her lip.
Then, from across the hall, something thumped.
Both of them froze.
A muffled, “Sorry!” came through the wall.
Ella closed her eyes.
Noah dropped his forehead to her shoulder and started laughing silently.
“Don’t,” she whispered, but she was laughing too.
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
His shoulders shook.
The mood broke, not badly, but completely. Ella pushed him back and covered her face.
“This is impossible.”
“It’s not impossible.”
“She’s across the hall.”
“We have overcome adversity before.”
“Not like this.”
Noah kissed her again, smiling into it. “I can be polite.”
“No.”
“I can be quiet.”
“Noah.”
“Right. Lamp incident.”
“Exactly.”
They ended up curled together under the covers instead, frustrated but amused.
Noah apologized against her hair. Ella told him he was ridiculous.
He promised to buy a white noise machine.
She promised to make him sleep in the garage if he bought one before their wedding because she was not becoming that couple.
After a while, his breathing evened out.
Ella stayed awake.
Across the hall, she heard Lara moving once, softly. A drawer opening. Closing. The tiny creak of the guest bed.
Two weeks, Ella thought.
Two weeks was nothing.
She could be generous for two weeks.