In Love With My Ex's Cousin

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Elena

Monday began with the Hawthorne sofa.

I sent two options before nine, both less sculptural than the last request and both still expensive enough to satisfy the sentence they kept using without knowing what it meant. Then I made coffee, drank it at the counter, and opened the Riverside file while the machine clicked through a second cup I did not need.

Window treatments.

Sheer for the day. A heavier layer after six. I had said it on Saturday. Now it had to become samples, headings, stack-back measurements, and a cost range Marcus would want to see before anything was ordered. I worked through the numbers at my desk once I reached the office, the river project on one screen and a lighting invoice on the other.

Sofia arrived late, blonde hair still damp, already talking.

“The campaign is on fire,” she said. “Not the good kind.”

“Can it be saved?”

“Yes. If the client stops adding adjectives.” She dropped into her chair and eyed my screen. “Please tell me that is fabric and not your entire weekend.”

“It’s fabric.”

“And Saturday?”

“Light check. He approved the seating change and the bedroom storage. Treatments go over today.”

Sofia watched me for a second. “You’re very calm about a Moretti on your Monday list.”

“It’s a Monday list. That’s the point.”

She let it go, which I appreciated more than another question. I spent the late morning on a supplier call, then walked two streets over to look at the sheers in person. Photographs lied. So did names. What the sample card called *soft white* was colder than I wanted for a north-facing room over water. I chose a warmer ivory and a charcoal weave dense enough to kill the glare without turning the apartment into a box.

Back at the office I photographed both, wrote a short note, and sent it.

Sheer: ivory linen. Night layer: charcoal. Samples can be at the property tomorrow if you want to see them against the glass.

His reply came at 1:12.

Tomorrow at five. Leave them if I’m delayed.

I answered once.

I’ll be there at five.

The rest of the afternoon belonged to other rooms. A junior designer had specified a stone that would stain the first time someone set a glass on it. I made her change it and stayed long enough to explain why, because sending people away with only a correction taught them nothing. Marcus passed by at four and asked if Riverside was still clean.

“Yes.”

“Good. Keep the invoices tidy. Names like that attract attention even when the work is simple.”

I said I would.

I left the office at six, bought bread on the way home, and ate late because I had forgotten lunch again. The apartment was as I had left it that morning: washed mug in the sink, laundry folded on the chair I never sat in, the photograph of Sofia and me still by the window. I stood under the shower longer than necessary, then changed into an oversized shirt and sat on the counter with my notebook.

Sofia texted at eight.

Dinner this week? Somewhere with food that is not toast.

I smiled at the phone.

Wednesday. You choose.

Good. I miss complaining in person.

I wrote the measurements I would need for Tuesday and closed the book.

My mother called while I was turning off the lights.

“You’re still awake,” Isabella said.

“So are you.”

“I was looking at a catalogue and lost track of the time. Are you eating?”

“Yes.”

“Properly?”

“Tonight, yes.”

She made a small sound that meant she did not entirely believe me and would not fight about it over the phone. “Come for lunch on Sunday if you can. I have a piece arriving that I want you to see before it goes on the wall.”

“I’ll try.”

“That’s not a yes.”

“It’s the most honest thing I can give you on a Monday night.”

She laughed once, quietly. “All right. I’ll speak to you during the week.”

After she hung up I stood in the kitchen and drank water from the tap. Sunday lunch with my mother would mean art, good bread, and questions that came from care. I wanted that. I also knew I would arrive late if the week ran the way weeks usually ran.

I went to bed with the samples listed in my head and the Tuesday appointment after work: fabric against glass, a decision about colour at five o’clock, then home.

In the morning I would take the samples across the river.

If he was there, we would look at fabric.

If he was not, I would leave them on the table and go home.