“I’ll do two.” He lowered his voice even more as people started to move around past them, heading to whatever task Eliza had assigned them. “I think it’s bullshit too, but we just have to get through this one thing. We get a good showing this first season, we can negotiate for more control on picking these jobs next time.”
Ozzy couldn’t help but grin at that. “How far ahead do you think about this stuff?”
“Five year plan. Minimum. Since I was a junior in high school.” He clapped Ozzy hard on the back one more time, then raised his voice back to normal. “I’ll show you the spreadsheets some time if you’re interested.”
“I’m really not.” As Mason walked off, Evander and Eliza approached together.
She looked up at him with a frown. “I know you’re not thrilled, but thank you for playing along.”
“That’s the job.” He popped his knuckles as he spoke. “Where am I going to be best placed here?”
“I already volunteered us for the patio.” Evander pointed to it, apparently in case Ozzy had forgotten where it was. “Figure we’ll be able to make sure nothing goes too wrong better than anyone else. And I can make sure we cover up the actual outbuilding properly. Not too many windows, but that sliding glass door.”
“Makes sense.” Ozzy turned and headed outside, trying not to cringe as he watched contractors throwing bags of soil around to each other to be spread, or tossing tarps and spare plywood over his nice new plants. They already had a mound of dirt piled to the far end of the yard. “What’s the cover story that makes that make sense?”
“Plumbing work.” Evander pulled up even with Ozzy as they reached the edge of the patio. “I think they’re working out the specifics of the story, but something with the water made the most sense.”
“Works for me.” He grabbed one end of the table—the one Evander had picked specifically to spite him—that stood in the middle of the patio and Ev grabbed the other. The sliding door was already open, so they shuffled back through it, carrying it in where it could be hidden a lot more easily.
“Hi.”
Ozzy looked at the source of the voice from the door. It was the same kid who’d been there next to him at the all-hands meeting. He was early to mid-teens, but definitely on the shorter side for that age. He barely poked himself around the edge of the door and wasn’t making any eye contact with either Ozzy or Evander. But he also wasn’t leaving.
Ozzy looked at Evander, who just shrugged.Back in my court. They had the table down and mostly out of the way, so Ozzytook a couple steps closer. “Hey. What’s up? I don’t think I got your name before.”How did I end up with the responsibility of talking to a kid? Who thought this was a good idea at all?
He stepped inside properly and finally looked up. “Jamie.” He shuffled his feet and every synapse in Ozzy’s brain fired off. He was nervous about something, and neither of them were the right people to handle whatever was going on with him.
Before Ozzy could try to change the subject or pull open the escape hatch, the world broke open. Jamie’s voice somehow cut across all the cacophony of the mad rush going on around them. “You’re all…gay, right?”
Oh god. A queerling in trouble. He looked at Evander one more time, but there was apparently no assistance coming his way. Ozzy cleared his throat, then nodded. “Yeah. Unless someone’s…had some self-discovery since last time I checked in.”
Jamie nodded and took another little step forward. “How did you know?”
You had to pick today, kid?Every instinct in Ozzy’s body was screaming at him that this wasn’t a good idea, that he shouldn’t be the person to take this on. Literallyanyother member of the crew would have been better. Well, maybe not Aras. But anyone else.
Yet Jamie had picked the two of them for this heavy fucking conversation. Ozzy took a deep breath, then another to try and steady himself. Real life stuff was way more important than any of this show stuff or the project for the kid’s rich parents.
He looked at Evander. “Anywhere we could go chat?”
Finally, Ev weighed in. “It’s not going to be super awesome out here. In the house or in one of the trailers?”
“Not the house.” Jamie shook his head.
Ozzy’s back straightened. Too many memories pushed through the dark little box he kept them in, trying to flood histhoughts. He remembered those nerves. He remembered that strain. He remembered the uncertainty crawling around his chest.
He grabbed Jamie by the shoulder and headed outside. “You want just us or the whole team? Your call.”
Jamie didn’t hesitate at all, in spite of his general nervousness. “I don’t want it to be a big weird thing.”
“Cool.” Ozzy looked over his shoulder at Evander. Everything between the two of them disappeared. It didn’t matter in the moment. “Get your butt moving.”
Chapter thirty-three
Evander
Ev stayed cautious ashe followed along behind Ozzy and Jamie. Clearly, Jamie was questioning. He didn’t pick the most peaceful time to do it, but Evander couldn’t really blame him. Ev would have killed for a bunch of gay adults around to answer any of his questions when he was trying to figure his own shit out.
But his chest was tight because of Ozzy. They’d been together in some fashion or another for a long time. Evander knew his whole story, his relationship with his family. This had to be pinging off all his danger bells. A kid from a rich family questioning his sexuality—at least that’s what it seemed to be; they’d find out for sure soon enough—and nervous about it. Ozzy didn’t share all the details about anything in his life, but Evander knew them, and he’d gotten a front-row seat to how theystilltreated him for being gay.
