Aras left Evander alone almost immediately. They crossed paths here and there—it was a two-bedroom, one-bath house without much of a footprint—but mostly, they were on their own. Evander almost felt bad for the camera guy, trying to capture anything useful with them split up. Almost. They were still traipsing around someone else’s house and, in spite of his flippant responses to Ozzy, it felt weird.
He pulled out his journal as he walked, making notes on a clean page and dogearing pages that had designs he would need to axe. The maximalism was key. He wasn’t sure he could bring himself to goquiteso old-fashioned, but he would make sure to leave ample room for them to fill in.
Mostly, he wanted to pull in the colors. They were more muted than what he used in his house, lots of pastels and washes. He pulled out his phone and started snapping photos. He’d confer with Melanie to find out if there were any major pieces sheknewthey would want to keep. Couches, chairs, that sort of thing. The TV was…well, he was sure no one would complain about them getting a new TV handed to them, even if the Trangs could clearly afford to furnish one themselves.
He didn’t linger in the master bedroom, but did make sure to get several detailed pictures of an embroidered quilt stretched across the bed. It was stunning. Black with gold and red stitching, showing off a peacock on a branch of delicate flowers. He wasn’t sure what to make of it, or if it could somehow be woven into the future design, but anything that captured his attention so completely, he couldn’t just leave alone.
All-in, it took them about half an hour to tour the little cottage. The biggest things, at least for Evander, were the large windows showing off all the plants around the house, as well as the well-appointed patio in the back. Clearly, they were big on using the outdoor space, and on connecting the two. Which was ammunition for Evander’s argument.
As Aras and Evander headed out, they saw Robinson leaning against the SUV. Alone. Evander waved at him. “Oswald run away?”
“Looking at some…I don’t know what kind of rose bush. Big. Around the back. Kind of shitting himself over it.”
Aras waved his hand through the air and headed for the SUV to stand with Robinson. “Go fetch him if you want. I’m not paid enough to listen to him prattle on about flowers.”
“I’m immune to the prattling, so I’ll take the bullet.” Evander bowed to them, then flounced off around the corner of the house. “Oh Oswald. We’re all done inside. You and I still need to have a talk about the patio space.”
Around the second corner and he saw Ozzy, gently running his fingers along the petals of a pale pink and yellow rose. It was easily the size of his entire hand, and there were similar blooms all over. Based on Evander’s mental map of the area, these rose bushes would have been along the side of the patio, hemming it in for privacy.
Ozzy lifted the blossom to his nose and inhaled deeply, a smile spreading across his face, and once again, Evander remembered all the good shit about him. All the passion. All the reasons they worked so well and got so fiery.
He walked up and rested his hand on Ozzy’s shoulder, keeping his voice low. “You need more time to commune with nature?”
“No.” Ozzy was still smiling as he turned around, fixing bright, wide eyes on Evander. “He’s maintained these roses very well. Peace roses, Barbara Bush roses, Grand Dames. The man’s not afraid of pink, which I appreciate. It’s a shame to leave these here after all the hard work he must have put into them.” His smile faded and his back stiffened. “Guess that’s the job, though. Rich motherfuckers always feel like they know what’s best, even if it means leaving your dad’s life’s work in the hands of some nimrod who buys this house just to tear it down.”
Evander shook his head, then stepped away. “Come on. Let’s get going.” It was a touch heartwarming to hear him so concerned about the plants and the work that Melanie’s dad had put into the gardening, but of course he shut it down and pulled on that damned veneer again. “We have a patio to discuss, still.”
“There’s nodiscussingit, Ev. “He walked side-by-side with Evander, back around the corners of the house. “The outdoor area is mine to deal with.”
“We’ll see.” It felt almost like they were normal together again. Standard couple needling and sniping.
Which almost made Evander stumble over his own feet.Is that even something I want?
Chapter seven
Ozzy
It was nice beingable to meet up in the house, Ozzy had to admit. They didn’t have to use up so much time traveling, which meant more time to get work done. Especially considering they’d had to come late after everything that went down in Springfield, the extra time buffer was nice. Also, much as it ground against him a bit, the Trang house was pretty nice. Even with the extra bodies around. It was the weekend, so the entire family was there. Four kids and the husband, but they mostly stayed upstairs. Not like they were being impolite or anything. Any time they came downstairs, they were all nice enough. The kids were teenagers, so it wasn’t like they weredesperateto talk with a bunch of strange men. Her husband, Jack, offered to help any time he was in earshot, and Ozzy made note of his eagerness.
It would do his heart a little good to break the man a bit. Make him get out there and fix up his own yard. Something his familycertainly would never have done. They had the money and they used it to ensure their property stayed in good shape at all times. Even though Ozzy was a professional landscaper. Even though they had passive income out the ass and hence had the time and energy to do it on their own—
Ozzy stopped the train of thoughts before it derailed and lit his whole brain on fire. None of his personal bullshit mattered. Everyone was gathered around the dining room table, including Melanie and three different cameras. Vince was there as well, positioning and repositioning them. Apparently the lighting was weird with all the windows or something. Ozzy wasn’t paying much attention to any of that. Vince got paid the big bucks to handle all that, and even when they were working on the Pine Point Fixer-Uppers channel, Ozzy was banned from touching the cameras. Not his wheelhouse at all and it always led to bad results, up to and including him apparently somehow deleting an entire day’s worth of footage, which sent Mason into the bottom of a bottle of rum.
Once they got dual nods from Vince and Eliza, Mason sat up a little higher and nodded to Melanie. “This is a little bit of a weird situation, given everything we had to do to keep the surprise, so you’ll have to work with me a little.”
“Of course. Thanks for working withme.” She chuckled softly. “I know I’m being difficult with all this.”
“Not at all.” Mason was a dirty liar. She was definitely being difficult about this.Hope the surprise factor is worth it.
Mason tapped a few keys, then turned his laptop around to face Melanie. “We use this as a way to help get the best possible idea of what our clients are looking for. Usually, we’d do it whole cloth, but this time, we went through as a team and selected a few things that we were pretty sure belonged after looking at your parents’ place.”
Which had been a protracted ordeal. They’d gone back and forth on how much they should leave up to Melanie and how much they should fill in, whether a certain light fixture was important enough to be considered indicative of their style or if it just fit into the milieu of their various decorations. That was Ozzy’s vote, and luckily they landed collectively on that, in spite of Jake’s insistence that no one would use an art deco horse lamp without it being significant to their taste.
The only things Ozzy had really insisted on for the landscaping section of their design app were the flowering bushes—he had roses in mind, of course—and a lovely, enclosed entertaining space. The patio at their house was mostly hemmed in by bushes and vines, with a pergola over the top to support some outdoor lighting. It was hard to translate all of that directly to the app—it was made for people to pick from a selection to help with defining their tastes, not to fit pre-existing information in—but they’d all done the best they could.
Melanie blinked a couple times looking at the screen, then shook her head. “This is intense.”
“There’s no pressure,” Mason assured her. “There’s a lot to it, but it’s just to make sure we’re giving you the best result we possibly can.”
