Ev shook his head, but he wasn’t pissed. Not unless he’d completely changed all his old, familiar tells. He had a glint in his eyes, and maybe most importantly, he hadn’t gotten up and run off.
Evander sucked on his teeth, emitting a high-pitched sound. “What do you think about this fence?”
“What? It’s a fence.”
“Yeah, but it’s afence.” Evander pointed vaguely over his shoulder. “This window is a fucking waste. The fence here just totally blocks off any view they might have, which makes this window an absolutely dumbass decision.”
“I don’t disagree, but what do you want me to do about it?”
That spark in Evander’s eyes intensified and Ozzy saw that he’d fallen right into Ev’s trap.This is what happens when I don’t sleep. Another day, he might have called him out for the tactic—it was hardly a testament to his honesty—but they’djustagreed to work better together. Which Ozzy had brought up in the first place. He couldn’t exactly turn around and start backbiting immediately.
Evander sighed. “I’m so glad you asked. I wanted to discuss that with you last night, but…” He bobbled his head, then shrugged. “Well, you were there. You know how that went. I have some ideas I found, though. Might need Jake to step in on them, depending if you think it’s reasonable or not. I would bow to your expertise on that. But I think we can at least improve the view beyond some crusty old wood.”
“It’s actually decent wood.” Ozzy clucked his tongue. “Fine. But if we’re doing this, we need to do this. Get as much as we can hashed out as possible, so we have a good baseline to work from.” They could focus on the job, not on their own bullshit, and not on…whatever the fuck had been going on with Evander the night before. “Dinner. Plans. That whole thing.” It would be easy to tack Jake onto that get-together—Ev had brought him up specifically—but Ozzy couldn’t quite bring himself to add another party to their potential meeting.We need to learn to get along with each other without a buffer.
Even though he didn’t voice it, that was a good excuse. He still heard Evander saying “blow job” in the back of his mind, and sitting so close, old memories and sensations crept up, all radiating from Evander. So it was a bullshit excuse, but it sounded good on paper, and would get him through.God willing, anyway.
With a groan, Ozzy pushed up to his feet, water dripping from his hair and down his nose into a little puddle on the dirt wherethey hadn’t yet done any real work. Bare soil. He brushed his ass off, then offered Evander a hand.
He didn’t take it, instead pushing himself to his feet and shaking his head. “Don’t need your butt stank all over my hands.”
“Never heard you complain about it before.”
He rolled his eyes. “Watch your tongue, Oswald. I can still make this a painful process if I want.”
“Hey, I’m not the one who started things on this—never mind.” Ozzy was half charmed by the bastard and half annoyed. “Meet me in the lobby at six tonight. Don’t keep me waiting.”
Evander didn’t respond, but that was on him. It was his idea to meet up. He could take or leave the offer.
Ozzy really hated how much he wanted Ev to take the offer.Exposure therapy. I spend more time with him, I’ll get rid of this nonsense. Shake him off. It’ll be good for both of us, and we can actually get some work done. Another line of BS, but if he didn’t focus on it too hard, Ozzy could sort of make himself buy it. There was at least a possibility things would work out that way. But given his dreams and everything, it wasveryimportant that they had their meeting somewhere public.
Without a bed.
Where everyone was wearing their clothes.
Because try as he might, know as much as he did, Ozzy found himself continually drawn back to that physical familiarity with Ev. In spite of their feelings toward each other.Although do we even feel the same way anymore?
Chapter sixteen
Evander
Ev stepped onto theelevator and headed down at six-fifteen. He couldn’t help himself. Ozzy would be annoyed, but fifteen minutes could be excused.
It wasn’t as if Evander didnothingwith the time. He spent most of it getting himself showered and primped and probably putting too much effort into finding an outfit he felt good about. It was stupid to bother, but he couldn’t very well go down looking disheveled. He’d settled on a bright-colored Hawaiian shirt, with one too many buttons open at the top, and some acid-washed jeans that had no place on the job site, but made his ass look great.
Not that my ass needs to look great.
The elevator doors opened onto the lobby and he stepped out. Ozzy was right there, arms crossed so that his biceps bulged under the tight black T-shirt. His eyebrows quirked upwards amoment when he saw Evander, then they came together in the middle. “I’d given up on you.”
“I was fifteen minutes late.”
“What, was there traffic?” He stepped aside and let Evander step out of the carriage.
“Terrible. I barely made it down the hallway alive, and now I need a stiff drink.” He bounced past Ozzy and headed toward the quiet, wood-paneled bar set off to the side of the front desk. The sign out front said to simply seat themselves, so he found them a table—there were all of four other people in the bar, so it wasn’t hard—and sat. “This should be enough space, don’t you think?”
Ozzy took the chair opposite him, but did finally unfold his arms. “This is your plan. I don’t know how much space you need.”
The server, a middle-aged white woman, walked by and laid down two menus for them. “We’re quiet tonight, so you boys just wave me down when you’re ready for drink orders.”
