Evander
Once Bunny got downstairs,wearing pink overalls and a white T-shirt and handing out apologies left and right, they could all get started on the initial interview. Led by Mason. He always made such a good impression, had the charisma and likability hardcore in his column If Evander was pressed, he would have said Mason was probably the least essential part of the entire operation, but no one would ever press that. Least essential didn’t mean they could function without him. They’d tried that once back when they were doing the channel, and without Mason to wrangle them, the job took three times as long.
And he and Ozzy had broken up and gotten back together on no less than five occasions during that job. Two of them in the same day.That won’t be a problem now.
Mason shuffled his papers, but didn’t look at them, instead giving Melanie his full focus. “So we haven’t made it out to the house to look things over quite yet. You wanted to wait until the kids were off to school and your husband was off to work, right?”
“Yeah. I just figured it would be a little easier to get you and a whole camera crew in there without four kids running all over and Jack looking for his keys.” She smiled tightly. “But it should be okay once we’re done here.”
Mason nodded. “And you’re not looking for work on your actual house. This is getting the small outbuilding in the backyard set up for your parents?”
“Right. They’re getting older, and neither of them will say as much, but they’d really prefer to not live alone at this point. And I’d prefer it if I was around in case something happened.” She scratched the back of her hand as she spoke. “The problem is, it’s basically just a box sitting in the back yard. The idea was always for a mother-in-law apartment, but Jack’s parents live across the country and travel most of the year anyway. My parents never acted like they wanted to live with me until recently. So it’s kind of storage and half-finished and probably not suitable for anyone to live in.”
“That’s why we’re here.” Mason moved through a few pages. They all had the same paperwork and Evander couldn’t think of anything they had he would need to pull up. Probably just looked good for the camera. Or keeping up appearances so Melanie felt like they had more of a handle on their shit. The whole social thing was Mason’s department. Doubly so since Homescapes TV had taken over a lot of the tech stuff that he used to handle.
Once he arrived on whatever page it was, he smiled at Melanie again. “You gave us a little info on your parents, but you want this to be a surprise for them, right?”
Melanie nodded and she seemed to relax a little bit. “They’ve both dropped enough hints that I know they want to move in,but they won’t admit it. So if I spring it on them and make it into a big deal, it’ll give them permission to say yes.” She chuckled softly under her breath.
Evander forced his face to stay still. Otherwise, he would have rolled his eyes. A bunch of tricks and manipulation just so someone could feel comfortable doing a thing they alreadywantedto do? Stupid and a whole waste of time. They could have done a much better job on the house if they could have talked directly with Melanie’s parents.
Mason tapped a few spots on the paper. “So you said your dad loves gardening and your mom would really want a place to host guests, entertain, that kind of thing.”
“Right. I don’t want them to miss out on anything just because they’re on our property. They’ll have direct access to the backyard without having to go through the main house if they don’t want to.”
Mason looked over at Ozzy. “Think you can handle that?”
“I think I can handle landscaping and gardening, yes. That’s the whole reason I’m here.” He shook his head, then looked at Melanie. “Do you think it would be good to give your dad a place to start, or would he want to build up the garden all the way from scratch once he moves in?”
She scratched her hand a little more vigorously. “I don’t want to be insensitive, and maybe this part doesn’t get put into the edit of the show or whatever?” She glanced to Eliza with a laugh. “They’re both older. I don’t know how much time he would have to build a new garden up from scratch.” She shook her head rapidly, squeezing her eyes shut. “God, that sounds terrible.”
Bunny reached across and rested her hand on Melanie’s. “It’s not terrible. Just facing reality.”
Evander tuned out, waiting for some keyword that might draw his attention back in. Like his name, or somebody mentioning paint colors or something. It was a little early in the process forthat, but those sorts of details could pop up anywhere. Instead, Evander looked around at the group, picking up vibes. Mason was his usual self. Bunny seemed normal too, in spite of her showing up late. Melanie was a visible wreck. She was going to wind up bleeding if she kept up her nervous scratching tic. Robinson and Aras were both quiet, though on opposite ends of the spectrum. Robinson seemed to be listening intently. Aras looked like he wanted to find the nearest window and jump through it to get out of the meeting. Jake was stuffing a donut into his mouth, smearing maple frosting on his knuckles and chin with no regard for anything. Evander smiled. At least Jake was always himself.
Ozzy tapped on his phone and Evander’s body tensed. He couldn’t evenpretendto give his full attention? On the one hand, it was honest. Ozzy wasn’t trying to keep up pretenses. On the other hand, Evander had the self-control to just tune out, not turn straight to doomscrolling or whatever.
“Well, I think we’re at a point where we probably need to actually see what we’re working with.” Mason smiled and tapped all his papers on the tabletop, neatening them up. He looked over to Eliza. “We good?”
She nodded. “We’re good. Crew should be starting the setup as we speak. Not nearly as much for them to do without us around this time.”
I would hope not. The last place had been a hoarder house with a burned-out back deck, a collapsed fence, water damage, and a rotten front porch. The contractor crew that Homescapes had brought in spent a good amount of time on site just hauling garbage out to the giant bin out front.
The cameras flicked off and the crew started talking to Eliza. Vince, the director of photography, leaned in close to her, gesturing broadly around himself.
Ozzy walked by and Evander stuck himself right in front of his ex. “Anything good happening on your all-important social media, Oswald?” He knew Ozzy’s full name got under his skin. Evander couldn’t understand why. It was charming, and he could live up to a big name. Evander was just as big of a name.
As expected, Ozzy tensed. “Not any of your business what I do on social media, Ev. You want to put your nose somewhere it doesn’t belong, might I recommend shoving it up my ass?”
“Been there, done that, got the T-shirt.” Evander stepped aside. “Stay off your phone during consultations, yeah? Show a little respect for the clients.”
“I was taking notes for the job.” He strode past and flipped Evander the bird over his shoulder. “Jackass.”
Chapter three
Ozzy
Three Rivers may nothave been Ozzy’s kind of town, but as they pulled up to the Trang house on the outskirts, he had to admit he was a little enamored. And alsoinsanelycurious what they did to make this kind of money. It was on easily a couple acres, with a huge lawn out in front of the house. Two stories, very sleek and modern, gray siding with maroon trim. What looked like a three-car garage sat to the right side of the structure, although the production trailers had set up in front of it, taking up a good amount of the space in front of the doors. The driveway was black and white gravel, and wide enough for two cars to pass each other on the way to and from the road. All notions of there not being enough space for the crew to set up vanished as their SUV pulled to the front and they all piled out.
