Chapter 3
By Thursday morning, Ella had decided two things.
The first was that Carolina loved her fiercely and was occasionally wrong.
The second was that Ella was not going to become the sort of woman who treated another woman’s sadness like an invasion because her best friend had a bad feeling.
So she got up, put on jeans and a navy sweater, made the bed with more force than necessary, and went downstairs determined to be normal.
Lara was at the stove in the soft blue morning light, stirring something in a small saucepan. Her hair was twisted up with one of those clips that looked careless on other women and elegant on her, and she had one socked foot tucked lightly behind the other ankle.
“Good morning,” she said, glancing over. “I made oatmeal.”
Ella stopped in the doorway. “You made oatmeal.”
“With apples.” Lara pointed the spoon toward the cutting board, where neat curls of apple peel lay beside a knife. “And cinnamon. And walnuts, but only on the side because Noah once told me nuts in oatmeal were an abomination.”
Ella smiled despite herself. “He has a lot of food opinions for someone who eats cereal over the sink.”
“He’s a complicated man.”
Lara reached into the cabinet for bowls, then hesitated and looked over her shoulder. “Is this okay? I woke up early and couldn’t stand the idea of sitting around waiting to be sad.”
“It’s okay,” Ella said.
And it was. It really was. She liked oatmeal. The kitchen was warm. There was something pleasant about coming downstairs and finding breakfast already made, something almost luxurious.
Ella stepped forward and opened the drawer beside the stove. “Did you sleep any better?” she asked.
“Some.” Lara’s mouth moved in a careful, noncommittal way. “I only woke up twice, which feels like progress if you don’t think about it too much.”
“That counts.”
“Good. Then I’m counting it aggressively.”
Noah came in while Lara was setting bowls on the island.
He looked better than he had the morning before, damp-haired and freshly shaved, shirt untucked, tie hanging loose around his neck.
Ella felt the familiar little pleasure of seeing him like that, halfway assembled for the day.
He belonged to boardrooms and clients and email chains soon enough.
In the morning, for these few minutes, he belonged to her, at home.
“Something smells incredible,” he said.
“Apple cinnamon oatmeal,” Lara said.
He froze in exaggerated horror. “There aren’t walnuts in it, are there?”
“On the side. I remember your trauma.”
“My trauma thanks you.”
Ella laughed and passed him a spoon. “You’re welcome to make your own breakfast tomorrow if you’re going to be dramatic.”
Noah leaned in and kissed her cheek. “I would never insult the chef.”
“I’m not the chef.”
“Still my favorite person in the kitchen.”
It was nothing more than what he would have said any other morning.
Ella knew that. The words were his usual private flirtation, easy and affectionate.
But because Lara was there, because Lara had made the oatmeal, because Lara was standing at the stove with the spoon in her hand, the compliment felt slightly awkward as soon as it landed.
Noah seemed to realize it too. He glanced at Lara. “But the oatmeal is great.”
Lara lifted her bowl with a solemn nod. “Second-favorite person in the kitchen accepts.”
Ella smiled and stirred cinnamon through her breakfast.
After breakfast, Noah left for work, kissing Ella at the back door because his car was in the driveway and he never remembered his travel mug until the last second. Lara rinsed the bowls before Ella could reach them.
“You cooked,” Ella said. “I’ll clean.”
“I don’t mind.”
“I know, but I do mind being a woman who lets the recently dumped houseguest perform unpaid labor.”
Lara looked at her, bowl in hand, and her expression did something soft. “You always phrase things in a way that makes me feel like you actually see people.”
“Occupational hazard of being raised by social workers,” Ella said lightly.
“No, it’s you.”
The warmth of that should have been simple. Instead, it made Ella feel exposed.
Lara seemed to sense it, because she smiled and looked down, turning back to the sink. “Sorry. Too much before coffee?”
“I’ve had coffee.”
“Then I stand by it.”
Ella let herself laugh, and the strangeness eased.
They spent most of the day in separate rooms. Ella had client calls from nine thirty to two, then an hour of documentation she had hoped to finish before the florist appointment that had to be confirmed by Friday.
Lara stayed downstairs at first, then went out to view another apartment.
She texted Ella a photograph of a window looking directly onto a brick wall.
Lara: Bold of them to call this “natural light.”
Ella: Maybe the brick wall glows in summer.
Lara: I love your optimism. It deserves better real estate.
At three, Ella came downstairs for tea and found Lara at the dining table with her laptop open, the wedding binder beside it.
For half a second, Ella’s steps slowed.
Lara looked up immediately. “I know. I’m sorry. This looks intrusive.”
“No.” Ella kept her voice easy. “I just wasn’t expecting wedding central.”
“The florist emailed,” Lara said. “You were on a call, and your phone kept buzzing on the table, and I saw Bethany’s name.
” She held up both hands. “I didn’t open anything.
It just reminded me that you said the centerpiece quote was due tomorrow, and then I thought, if I sit here watching rental listings refresh one more time, I’m going to become a person who yells at a balcony.
So I started organizing vendor deadlines. ”
Ella looked at the binder.
It was open to a fresh page. Lara had drawn a neat grid with dates, vendor names, deposit amounts, and columns for final decisions.
Her handwriting was elegant in the way of women who had once taken notes with different colored pens.
At the top, she had written GREENWOOD/O’DONNELL WEDDING in tidy block letters.
Ella felt an odd, brief tug at the sight of their names in Lara’s handwriting.
“Is this okay?” Lara asked quickly. “If it’s not, I’ll stop. I truly just needed to do something useful that didn’t involve asking strangers whether ‘cozy lower-level unit’ means basement.”
Ella moved closer.
The grid was good. Better than good. Ella’s own notes were competent but scattered, tucked into pockets and scribbled on sticky tabs because wedding planning turned even organized people into raccoons with calendars. Lara had found the chaos and given it shape.
“This is actually amazing,” Ella said.
Lara’s shoulders lowered. “Really?”
“Yes. I have been meaning to do this for weeks.”
“I love spreadsheets.”
“This is not a spreadsheet.”
“It’s a spreadsheet in paper. Which was what spreadsheets were before computers, actually.”
Ella laughed and sat across from her. “Show me.”
Lara turned the binder toward her eagerly, then seemed to catch herself and pulled back a little, making room. “Sorry. Here. So Bethany needs centerpiece approval tomorrow, the photographer wants the shot list in two weeks, the dress shop confirmed your fitting for next Wednesday at eleven?—”
“Eleven?”
Lara tapped the page. “That’s what the email says.”
“I thought it was ten.”
“It might have changed?”
Ella frowned. She was usually careful about appointments. Not perfect, but careful. She pulled out her phone and searched the dress shop email chain. There it was, last message from Tuesday: We’ll see you Wednesday at 11:00.
“Huh,” she said. “You’re right.”
Lara smiled. “See? This is why binder triage matters.”
“I must have written it down wrong.”
“That happens.”
It did. Especially now, when her brain had too many open tabs: work, wedding, guest room, seating chart, the question of whether Noah’s cousin Melissa would bring the boyfriend nobody liked, the fact that Lara’s suitcase was still beside the desk upstairs because the closet was full of Ella’s off-season coats.
Lara picked up a pale pink sticky note. “Also, the tasting confirmation has three menu options starred. Did you star those, or did Noah?”
“Noah probably starred everything with short ribs.”
“He did write necessary beside the braised beef.”
Ella groaned. “Of course he did.”
“He’s not wrong. I had a bite at the engagement party, and I still think about it sometimes.”
Ella smiled, then leaned over the binder.
For the next hour, they worked side by side.
It was surprisingly easy. Lara asked good questions.
She did not push. She flagged the places where Ella needed to make decisions and color-coded the places where Noah had opinions he claimed not to have.
She found the missing florist invoice tucked between two printouts of invitation fonts and made a triumphant sound so satisfying that Ella high-fived her.
By the time Noah came home, the binder looked like something a person could use without crying.
He stopped in the dining room doorway and stared. “What happened?”
“We fixed your life,” Lara said.
“My whole life?”
“Mostly your wedding.”
Noah looked at Ella. “Should I be scared?”
“A little,” Ella said, holding up the new deadline sheet. “But also impressed.”
He came over and stood behind her chair, one hand landing absently on her shoulder as he looked down at the page. “This is incredible.”
Lara twirled her pen once between her fingers, pleased but trying not to show it. “I had nervous energy.”
“We should have invited you to move in months ago,” Noah said.
Ella laughed because it was clearly a joke.
Lara laughed too.
Noah’s hand, still on Ella’s shoulder, tightened the smallest bit.“Temporary logistical genius,” he amended.
“Thank you,” Lara said, with a little salute.
Ella told herself the first version had only bothered her because Carolina had planted weirdness in her head. No one meant anything by it. Noah liked a solved problem. Lara needed to be useful. Ella was grateful.