“Get the fuck in here. Just let me put on something more socially appropriate. Unless you want to change into a sheet yourself.”
Evander slipped into the room, taking care not to breathe too deeply when he got close to Ozzy. With everything else in that surreal moment, if he caught too deep a whiff of Ozzy, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep himself in check. Once he was out of the tight entryway, toward the bed, he sighed. “Is this all just a ploy to get me naked?”
“Like I need a ploy.” Ozzy stepped toward the bathroom and reached in, flicking on the light. With his arm stretched like that, showing off his armpit and his rib cage, and the top edge of the wrapped sheet sliding down to show off a bit too much hip…
He’s not wrong.
Thankfully, Ozzy walked into the bathroom and closed the door, which gave Evander a chance to catch himself and breathe.I have real things to discuss. No matter how hot he’s making himself look. Or how much his stupid, douche bag schtick is turning me on. For some fucking reason.
Ozzy came back out of the bathroom after a couple minutes, the sheet slung over his shoulder and a pair of gray boxer-briefs on. With nothing else.
Jesus.Maybe he really is doing this on purpose.It was a terrible idea to open the door again, but Ozzy was pushing every boundary. Could it actually be intentional? It seemed like it had to be. There were only so many coincidences that could reasonably pile up.
Ozzy walked past him and bent down, which of course Evander looked at. The thin material stretched taut over his ass. And damn, what an ass. At the very lowest point of his bend, hiswaistband slipped just a half an inch lower, showing the very top of his crack—
Ozzy pulled a pair of black sweats out of his suitcase and stepped into them.
Of course Ozzy wasn’t using this as a chance to proposition Evander. Why would he? And even if he did, Evander wouldn’t take him up on the offer. The two of them getting back together was a terrible idea, even if it was just a one-night stand.
Ozzy plopped down onto the bed. “You going to make me put a shirt on, or can you contain yourself in front of all this goodness?”
Evander scoffed and rolled his eyes. “I’ve seen all that goodness covered in puke after a hard night out. I think I can manage.”
“Good.”
Evander grabbed the office chair and pulled it over to the foot of the bed, then sat down. “Don’t know how you can stand being shirtless in here. It’s like the fucking arctic tundra in here.”
“God, you’re still such a little bitch with the cold. This is areasonabletemperature for sleeping. Which I was going to do until you knocked.” He spread his arms wide, showing off every god damn beautiful inch of his muscled torso in averyinconvenient way for Evander. And he grinned. “Complain again and I’ll turn it down more.”
“You want your nipples hard enough to tear a hole in the sheets, more power to you.” Evander made a good show of looking for his phone, although it was mostly to buy himself time. Ozzy was pushing all his buttons in the right way, and that was very, very wrong for them.
Once he got his phone out and navigated to his notes, he could focus on his screen. “Okay, so I want something with vines. A big trellis over the top with crawling flowers to help shade things.But they need to be the kind of thing that someone this guy’s age is going to be able to maintain.”
“Honeysuckle. Easy. It’ll grow just about anywhere, smells wonderful, and doesn’t really take any pruning.” Ozzy shrugged. “If we were in some hellish armpit of the country down south getting heat stroke, I think Chinese jasmine would be better, but it would die in an instant this far north.”
“What, you can’t work that landscaping magic to get it to grow? Thought you had a green thumb.”
“Shove it up your ass. You can’t make something that’s supposed to grow in Zone Nine survive in Zone Four.”
Evander only sort of understood that whole growing zone thing. But it did sound like a big difference. He knew the numbers could be fudged a little, and Ozzy had done it before, but probably not that much. Wouldn’t stop Evander from picking at him. “Well, we can settle for honeysuckle. Even if it’s boring. Does that need misters or anything?” He shook his phone. “Making a shopping list.”
“If it needs misters, I’ll handle it.”
“I know that, Oswald. We’re partners on this patio project. Which means I need to know about the watering situation so I don’t buy the wrong table design and have a big trough or something.”
Ozzy rolled his eyes. “Here’s a suggestion. If you’re anywhere withweather, don’t buy outdoor furniture with any stupid designs that are going to hold water.” He mimed an explosion around his head. “Crazy, I know. This is why I didn’t want someone else getting involved in this.”
“I’m just minding my Ps and Qs.”
“You’re wasting time instead of thinking.” Ozzy shook his head. “Come on, what’s next? Let me save you again.”
“God, you’re insufferable.”
“Pot meet kettle.” Ozzy sighed. “This isn’t getting us anywhere. Let’s pick it up tomorrow when we have an audience. Maybe that’ll temper things.”
Evander rolled his eyes. “Hasn’t worked so far.” He got a spark of an idea and did a quick search. When he found what he was looking for—it was hardly an original idea, he was sure—he grinned and turned it around. “I found the table for out there. With a trough in it.”
It was just a design, didn’t appear to be for sale, but they had Jake. He’d be able to make it into something awesome. It was mostly a flat tabletop, but a channel ran around the edge. A leafy plant grew in the center, and in the other pictures, it had arrows with the water flowing from that trough into the soil.
