Ozzy tried to work his mind around the problem any way he possibly could, but there was really no other option. He begrudgingly offered Ev a hand and hauled him up. Theyalmostcollapsed again until he got his feet back under him.
Then Ozzy wrapped his arm around Evander, supporting him beneath his armpits, and headed for the elevator. They wereentirelytoo close for Ozzy’s comfort.
His stupid, traitorous body was sending blood to his cock, like this would actually go somewhere.
Chapter eighteen
Evander
Ev had to insistthey stop by a convenience store on the way to the job site. He’d been too hungover to bother finding his sunglasses, but he’d also known he would need them. And some pain pills. If he’d thought he could get away with it, he would have picked up a tall boy and had some hair of the dog too.
As it stood, he was in his sunglasses, wobbly on his feet, edging out the walls with paint so he was sure they had nice, crisp lines. Bunny was with him. They’d call the contractors in once they had the detail work done, but even hungover, Evander trusted himself more than some people he’d never really met before.
They were actually making damn decent progress on the baseline work for the interiors. It helped that the house hadn’t been in such bad shape as their last one. It wasn’t clean, but not a hoarder house. No one had actually lived there, so it didn’t have any of the damage that came from regular use. And it was newerconstruction, so age hadn’t really gotten to it. The flooring had been the biggest thing, tearing out all that carpet and replacing it with vinyl plank, but the subfloor had been in good shape. Plus, there straight up weren’t as many rooms to worry about as there had been in the Springfield job. A smaller footprint made for less work, all else being equal.
After about ten more minutes, Evander finished up the edges of the walls and sighed, dropping his paint brush into the tray, then heading for the door of the bedroom. A few members of the crew had already moved into the large, open living-room-kitchen-combo and were filling in the walls with the Breezy Sky color Evander had settled on, a muted gray-blue. It wasn’t so dark that it closed in the space, but it wasn’t pure, contractor white or eggshell or something boring like that.
He approached the nearest of the workers and cleared his throat to get her attention. “Hey…” In spite of the pain pills, his own voice was just alittletoo loud in his ears, so he tried again, more softly. “Hey, when you get a minute, could use some extra hands in the bedroom. Paint’s all set up in there and everything is masked off already, so should be easy peasy.”
She nodded, then headed for the sliding door and stepped outside.
Evander was ready to follow behind and head for the main house to get some water and cool off—and maybe go somewhere totally dark until his head stopped throbbing and his limbs stopped aching—but before he could, Ozzy and Jake walked through the front door, each carrying a heavy wooden end table.
Jake wiggled his fingers around the edge of the furniture in some semblance of a wave. The end table slipped a bit, but he jammed his knee up into it to catch it. “Shit. I should put this down.” He and Ozzy both set them down in the middle of the floor, well away from where painting was happening. Jakepopped up on top of his table and took a seat, grinning. “I think these look pretty nice, but tell me what you think.”
Evander begrudgingly removed his sunglasses, squinting and cringing as his eyes adjusted. He shot a glance to Ozzy, but as per usual, he showed absolutely no sign of a hangover. It was always one of his more annoying skills. He could get drunk off his ass, then go work for twelve hours outside in the dead of summer and be fine.
Finally, Ev’s vision adjusted. “It might help if you got your butt off of them. Unless you plan on staying here as part of the decor.”
Jake jumped up and managed to not trip, although itlookedlike he was about to take a face plant. Then Evander moved in close and looked at the two tables. Once he got a good look at them, he recognized them from Jake’s rough sketches. “Nightstands. All right.” They were thick and square, with stain so dark they looked almost black. Jake had added some detailing on the drawer and on the cabinet face on the front. Nothing major, but the geometric patterns gave it a little something extra to the eye, plus probably also kept the weight down to make the drawer and the cabinet easier to open. A bulky, heavy look, but a little friendlier to manage on the day-to-day. “I think they’re great. You sure I can’t convince you to custom-build a bed frame to match?”
“I’m pretty sure.” Jake, still smiling, rolled his eyes. “Do you know how much work a custom bed actually is? I’m pretty efficient with my time, but that’s not an option this go-around. Just no time.”
Ozzy cleared his throat very pointedly and stuffed his hands into his pockets, then stepped up so he made a little talking circle with Ev and Jake. “About the time. We were talking last night and had something we might need your help with.”
“Oh, the fence. Yeah.” Evander wasn’t planning on broaching the subject quite then, but if Ozzy was going to bring it up, no reason to let the opportunity pass by. “I’m annoyed that they have awindowfacing the fence. Total waste. So I was looking into framing out some look-through spots in the fence. At least one, there by the window, but I don’t think that’s quite what Oswald has in mind for the yard.”
“You’re right, I don’t want one random weird hole in the fence. If we do this, I would want them all down the length.” He pulled out his phone, flicked over the screen a few times, then handed it to Jake. “Something like this, but we can go over more specific details before we install anything.”
Jake looked at the phone, tilting his head to one side. He clicked his tongue a couple times, then nodded. “Shouldn’t be too bad, but I’ll need to enlist some help from the contractor crew.” He pushed the phone back toward Ozzy. “Think you can spare one or two of them from all the yard work?”
“Take them.”
“Bunny and I finished up our part of the painting in here, so she should be free too,” said Evander. “If you need the extra hands.” He reached out and rested a hand on Jake’s bicep. “Thank you. I think it’llreallyhelp with the whole design.”
“You know what?” Ozzy’s voice was entirely too boisterous, and he had a real gleam in his eye. “I bet Evander would be able to spare a little time today to help you out. Don’t want a bunch of people crowded in here while they’re trying to paint. And that way he’ll know for sure that it’s what we’re looking for.”
Evander suppressedeverythinghe wanted to say in that moment. They’d agreed to be civil, after all. “I don’t think mecrowdingin the woodworking tent would be any better than mecrowdingthings up in here. Don’t want to just stand around supervising, and I probably shouldn’t be trusted with power tools.”
Ozzy waved that concern away. “I’m sure Jake can decide if you’d be in the way or not. And Iknowyou can use tools.”
That was a damnable lie and Ozzy knew it. Evander didn’t even own his own drill.
Jake shrugged. “It wouldn’thurtto have you there. This is kind of coming together out of nowhere, so someone who knows exactly what they want would be pretty good.”
Evander’s entire body tensed. He was barely keeping himself held together with the aid of pain pills and avoiding light and loud noises. But Ozzy waschallenginghim. Plus, with the hangover taken out of the equation, it did make sense for one of them to lend Jake a hand, and Ozzy was undeniably the busier of the two of them.
He was still going to try and save himself a bit of heartache. Headache. Skin ache. Limb ache. Whatever the hell else woodworking would make hurt on his body. “No offense, Oswald, but the two of us are already on very tentative terms with this whole job. Are you sure you trust me to make judgment calls on your precious yard?”
