“Hey.” Evander grabbed onto his upper arm and turned him around. Up close and personal, there was no way to ignore the expanse of hot skin and ripples down Evander’s arms. And the smell. God, his cologne was heady and wonderful.
Ozzy forced himself to focus, and not on the memories of the previous night. He forced his attention toward the buzzing of the saw, since it was firmly in the present and was not Evander. “Something wrong?”
“No. Nothing wrong. Just was hoping to chat with you for a second.”
Ozzy nodded. “Walk and talk. And if you stick around too long, I’m putting your pretty ass to work.”
“Keep talking like that, I might get the wrong idea. Unless that was therightidea.”
Ozzy almost tripped over his own feet, did in fact stumble partway into the middle of the yard where he barely missed catching his toe on one of the hoses and face-planting. He glanced over his shoulder at Evander. “Why would that be right?”Shouldn’t have done it at all. Should have hated him forever and never talked again. Danger Will Fucking Robinson.
“I don’t know. You tell me.”
“Ev, what’s going on?”
He chewed on his bottom lip a second or two, then stood up taller, shoulders pinned back, and spilled out whatever it was he had to say without making eye contact. “I don’t know if this makes any sense, but I’m wondering if we shouldn’t try again, and this isn’t just about that whole thing yesterday, I just am starting to have some questions and maybe we should talk about them.”
It was only once he finished up that Evander finally looked at him. No sign of that little glint like he was screwing with Ozzy. Not that he really would. Honest to a god damn fault.
Fuck.
Chapter twenty-six
Ozzy
The rest of theday, as much as he could, Ozzy avoided Evander. He gave no real answer, other than agreeing to talk after the work was done. He was pretty certain he got a lot of plants planted, but it blurred together. Hours of time that disappeared beneath the wave of worry and confusion.
How had he fallen into this? How the fuck hadEvanderfallen into it? Neither of them were stupid. They should have both been able to avoid the obvious pitfall of getting back together, yet if Ozzy was reading this whole situation the right way, that’s exactly what Ev seemed to be angling at.
I could be wrong. This could be innocent enough. I’m jumping to conclusions.
“Earth to fucking Ozzy!”
He snapped from his thoughts and stood up to see Aras behind him. He was scowling—when wasn’t Aras scowling?—and brandishing a bright orange extension cord like a whip. Ozzy brushed off his knees as he stood. “What’s going on?”
“I was hoping to get your advice on some lights. I’m having a disagreement with these idiot contractors, so I need someone who actually knows what they’re talking about to weigh in.”
Someone else’s problem. Sounds like a great idea to me.“I see you’re winning friends and influencing people as usual.”
Aras rolled his eyes. “Not my fault they brought in a bunch of morons.” He turned on his heel and headed toward the patio, so Ozzy followed. His stomach tightened until he saw that Evander wasn’t a part of this particular confrontation. The cameras were absolutely a part of it, though. Two pointed into the center of the patio, where a wiry, older contractor guy stood, arms crossed while he chewed on his cheeks.
“All right.” Aras stomped back in, stopping slightly too close to the cheek-chewer. “I brought in an actual expert.”
“Iaman expert.” The man’s voice was reedy and taut, blue eyes unblinking. “I’ve been doing outdoor lighting work for twenty-five years, kiddo.”
“Then you owe a lot of clients a lot of apologies. You’re beinginsaneabout this.” Aras turned to Ozzy, gesturing a touch too wildly with the extension cord. “He wants all of the outdoor lighting for this place run off a singleoutlet, and just use these fucking things to stretch them out.” Aras tossed the extension cord down at his feet. “Taking the laziest god damn way out of thisandmaking it less safe. Your boss should run you the hell over.”
Ozzy stepped in before either of them could say anything more. “Okay. I’m with Aras unless you give me a good reason not to actually wire everything in.”
“How about the fact that the couple is old as sin and when they die, the Trangs might want to do something else?”
Aras took a step forward and Ozzy shoved his arm out, catching Aras in the middle of the chest and holding him back. Barely. Didn’t keep him from shouting, though. “You don’t get to be a waste of space just because someone is old, you ageist piece of dogshit!”
“All right, all right, what’s going on?” Eliza scurried onto the scene, slipping in on the opposite side from Ozzy. “Why are we screaming, why are we about to murder each other, why can’t this all just be normal?”
Neither of them said anything, and before Ozzy could fill her in, a voice came from behind. Meek, but there. “A disagreement on the lights. Aras had the harder, but probably better, option.”
Eliza peered over Ozzy’s shoulder. “Dane?”
