As far as Ozzy was concerned, it would have been a lot better if they just talked like normal human beings, but he wasn’t going to push. They needed a chance to redefine themselves as friends instead of a toxic, on-again, off-again mess of a relationship. Which was a good reason not to act the same as always, no matter how painfully stilted it felt to have a conversation with Evander.
Ozzy, for his part, had minimal work still to do on the actual job. The yard was about as far along as they could manage to get it. Aside from some work on the patio, which was more Jake and Evander’s domain at the moment, the work was at a bit of a standstill. So Ozzy had pulled up a chair at a little folding table inside the outbuilding, as out of the way as he could manage, and had a document open on his phone. It was a lot of ideas leftover for the landscaping and outdoor living spaces. Most of it was pie-in-the-sky sort of stuff, like installing a water feature or putting in an actual vegetable garden. Stuff that would need a lot of buy-in from the Trangs, and that they probably didn’t have time to implement anyway.
At the top was the damned rose bushes, which he wasn’t ready to abandon. The longer he sat with nothing to do, the more he wanted to figure out a way to get them transplanted. He had a collection of points to make to Eliza, to the rest of the crew, to Melanie. Once he felt confident enough in his arguments, he’d make them. Hopefully that would be enough.
Be better if I had a solid plan. That was the tripping point at the moment. He had no choice but to respect Melanie’s desire to make this a surprise. Even if it sounded awful to Ozzy, she knew her parents better than him. That meant he couldn’t just send a crew over there to dig up the roses and haul them away.Mightraise a few eyebrows. He hadn’t, however, made any plans to fill in the garden bed next to the patio. If he did figure out a way to make this work, he’d put them in there.
Someone walked up and rapped on the table. Ozzy looked up to see Jake looming. Once he caught Ozzy’s eye, he grabbed a folding chair from against the wall and sat backwards on it. Banged his elbow a little bit, but it didn’t seem to slow him down, even as he shook his arm out. “So, are the rumors true?”
“Rumors are never true.”
“Sure.”
Ozzy sighed and turned off his phone screen. “What rumors are running through that blond little brain of yours?” He had his suspicions, and if he was right, they definitely weren’t true, but better to hear it from the horse’s mouth.
“Oh, just something about you and a certain interior designer who’ve beenawfullyfriendly lately.”
“Shock of all shocks, I’m friendly with my friends.” Ozzy spun his finger through the air in celebration. “Amazing detective work, Jakey.”
“No, come on. You always get extra assholey when you’re trying not to be direct about stuff.” He leaned forward until he was firmly inside Ozzy’s personal bubble. “Spill.”
Ozzy sighed…but it would be good to have someone to talk to. And he’d been there when Jake was getting all up in Quinn’s business. Maybe not to anyone’s good fortune, considering how rocky that got by the end, but there was some sort of symmetry that Ozzy could appreciate.
He tucked his phone into his pocket and got up. “I’ll help you with whatever you’re working on so we don’t fall behind. Not getting much planning done.”
“And then you’ll dish?”
“Yes.” Ozzy shook his head as Jake popped up and took the lead out the door. But he did smile. They allwerehis oldest friends, after all. It’d be nice to have someone to talk to outside of the situation. Would he have ever assumed that person would beJake?Not really, but who was he to question fate?
They headed around the corner and out to the little white canopy. Jake snagged his toe on a stray piece of lumber, but caught himself on the edge of a set of shelves, then pushed the wood out of the way.
Ozzy grabbed a set of safety goggles and took a glance around at the collected works in progress. Immediately, his eyes landed on the privacy wall they’d gone over for the patio. Mostlyfinished, from the look of it. Ozzy pointed at it. “This just about done?”
“Oh, yeah.” Jake squatted down and pointed at the four stubby legs on the bottom. “This is all that’s left. Want to make sure it’s easily removable if they ever just want to open the whole space up, but still secure. The hardware’s getting express shipped, so it should be here in the next couple days.”
Ozzy looked them over. “What are you thinking?” It was a solid plan, he just hadn’t heard anything about it.
“It’s a nifty little cross-bolt thingy.” He held his index fingers over each other by way of illustration. “Four way brackets that get drilled into the concrete footing, then the bolts go through the legs here at ninety degree angles to each other, about an inch apart.” He stood and pulled out his phone, apparently ready to pull it up…then stopped and raised an eyebrow. “Nice try. I’m staying on target. I want to hear what’s going on.”
Ithadn’tbeen Ozzy’s intention to skip over it, but…well, maybe it was subconscious. “All right, fine. Where can I do the least damage here?” He’d tried to work with Jake before and basically got relegated to measuring lumber.
Jake grabbed a large, yellow can with a brush rubber banded to the side. “We’ve got a shit ton of stuff that needs staining.”
Ozzy was about to ask where all this stuff was, but then Jake pointed. On the other side of all the saws and stuff, tarps covered a huge swath stretching out into the front yard, filled with pieces of cut lumber and custom-made furniture pieces. There wasn’t nearly as much bespoke carpentry work as they had back in Springfield, but it was still a lot.
At least I’m doing something with my hands. They headed around and the cameras swiveled into place, in case Ozzy forgot this was all being recorded. He actually looked directly into the camera and spoke to whoever was going to be watching this. “You do anything I don’t like with this footage, I’ll find you.And I literally know exactly how to bury bodies so no one finds them.” Then he pried the top off the can of stain and dipped in his brush. Jake wasn’t looking at him, focusing on his own staining work. Which made it a lot easier to start talking. “We kept butting up against each other on this job, then things got weird, and…well, we’re trying just friends for now.”
Jake whistled low. “Friends with benefits, I assume.”
“Didn’t come up.”But maybe it should.
“Yeah, but I’ve met you two. You’re not going to be able to stay off each other too much longer.”
If only you knew. “Right.”
Jake looked at him, brows furrowed. Then a smile split over his face. “You already got some benefits, didn’t you?”
Ozzy rolled his eyes. “Whatever you need to tell yourself. I’ll let Quinn know that me and Ev are in your spank bank.”
