In Love With My Ex's Cousin

CHAPTER NINE

Elena

Thursday disappeared into other people’s houses.

I spent the morning at a townhouse three streets from the office, arguing politely with a contractor who wanted to move a wall that did not need moving. The owners stood in the hallway and watched us as if the disagreement itself were part of the design. I kept my voice even, pointed to the structural beam they kept pretending not to see, and won the point without making anyone feel defeated. That was the job as much as fabric and light.

By noon I was back at my desk with dust on the hem of my trousers and a headache starting behind my eyes. Sofia took one look at me and pushed a sandwich across the table.

“Eat that before you start being noble about deadlines.”

“I’m not being noble.”

“You’re about to open the Riverside file and forget you have a body. Same thing.”

She was not wrong. I ate, answered two Hawthorne emails, and only then pulled up the layouts I had promised Luca by Friday.

The work was cleaner than it had been two nights ago. Closed storage along the inner wall. A kitchen that could function without performing warmth. An office in the second bedroom with a desk that faced away from the river, because a man who said he wanted quiet did not need the water competing with him every time he sat down. The main bedroom stayed simple. Too much softness would have been a guess about a life he had not asked me to imagine.

I worked through the afternoon in pieces, interrupted by a call from the stone supplier and a junior designer who needed help explaining to a client why seven different metals in one bathroom was not “eclectic.” At four I closed every other tab and stayed with the Riverside drawings until the rooms stopped asking questions I could not answer yet.

Marcus passed my desk at five-thirty.

“Friday delivery still on?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Keep it tight. Projects like that get complicated when too many people decide they have an opinion.”

I nodded and did not ask which people he meant. In this firm, a last name was sometimes enough.

I sent the file at 8:14 p.m. from my apartment, sitting at the counter in an oversized shirt, the day’s boots discarded by the door. The email was short.

**Preliminary layouts attached. Living space, kitchen, office, and primary bedroom. Window treatments still pending an evening light check. Happy to walk you through the drawings on site if needed.**

I did not add anything else. I made tea I only half drank, washed the mug, and left the laptop open in case a reply came in.

It did, at 9:03.

**Received. I’ll review tonight. Keep the evening light check on the schedule.**

Two lines. No comment on the rooms. No request to change them yet. I read it once, then closed the laptop before I could start inventing tone where none had been written.

Sofia called instead of texting.

“Did you send it?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“He said he’ll review it tonight.”

She was quiet for a second. I could hear music in the background, low, someone else’s kitchen. “Are you all right?”

“I spent the day stopping a contractor from knocking out a supporting wall. I’m tired.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

I looked at my own dark window. “It’s a layout, Sofia. Not a letter.”

“I know.” Her voice softened, but not into pity. “I’m asking because Matteo’s family is not a normal client list, and you have a habit of carrying things quietly until they become heavy.”

“I’m not carrying him.”

“I didn’t say Matteo.”

I didn’t answer that. There was no clean version of the truth that did not sound like more than it was. Luca Moretti had hired me. He had answered questions in an empty apartment. He had told me his cousin did not know. None of that required a feeling. It required caution.

“I’m going to bed,” I said.

“Eat something that is not tea.”

“I will.”

I did, eventually. Toast. Cheese. A tomato I had bought two days ago and kept meaning to use. It was not a meal worth describing, which made it useful. I showered, braided my hair so it would not be a problem in the morning, and got into bed with my phone face down on the nightstand.

Sleep did not come immediately.

That was ordinary too. Some nights my mind stayed in unfinished rooms: a beam a contractor wanted to ignore, a client who used the word *warmth* when they meant *expensive*, a kitchen designed for a man who said he did not cook. I let the thoughts pass without lining them up into a story.

Friday would be the office, a morning site visit, and whatever notes Luca sent once he had actually looked at the drawings. Saturday I had promised myself nothing except laundry and a grocery run. Sunday did not belong to me. I had no dinner to attend, no family table waiting, no reason to think about who sat where in a house I had never entered.

I turned onto my side and closed my eyes.

In the morning I would check the email the way I checked every client email: for revisions, not for meaning.

If there were changes, I would make them.

If there were none, I would schedule the evening light check and keep moving.

That was the work.

And for now, the work was still enough to hold the rest of it in place.