4. Chapter 4
Chapter four
Evander
The interior was barebones as hell. The floor was covered in a thick layer of dust, which was especially bad since someone had made the bold decision to put carpet in there. The walls were all contractor white. Some of the windows still had protective plastic over them from the install.
Mostly, it was just crowded with a bunch of stuff . Neat stuff. Tidy stuff. Labeled stuff. But stuff that the Trangs pretty obviously weren’t using. It might have been a bit of an assumption in most cases, but several of the boxes had dates written on them in blocky permanent marker. They’d been there for a few years, and had the layer of dust to match.
The production crew was with them on this walk-through, of course, but they had carte blanche to make commentary as necessary during their first look. Eliza assured them that this part of the process would be done with voice-over, basically just to show off where they were starting. So Evander didn’t worry too much about being presentational when he spoke. “Need to check on the weatherproofing on this place. Some dust makes sense, but if people are going to be living here, want to make sure that’s up to snuff.”
“It’s already on my list,” said Bunny.
“Once we get things cleared out, I’ll make sure there are no gaps around the windows.” Jake craned his neck as if he was trying to see a gaping hole around the nearest window. He stumbled into the wall in the process, catching himself on his shoulder. He grinned back at Evander when he righted himself. “No gaps there, I think.”
Evander sighed and moved on. It wasn’t the easiest to piece together the space with so much stuff there, but he had plenty of experience mentally clearing out houses to get the lay of the land. The front door let out into an open concept living room and kitchen combo. A short hallway led to a bathroom, although there was no toilet or sink, only a combination tub and shower and some capped fixtures. Across from that was a bedroom packed with so many boxes and totes that it was notably hotter when he stepped into the tight corridor spaced between the boxes. Having so much stuff in a room, they would hold onto the heat more effectively.
The best feature of the basic house was definitely the sliding glass door that led outside. That would rely a lot on Ozzy and what he did with the space outside, but he was good at what he did. He’d make an outside space worthy of this kind of view and access, that much Evander knew for sure. He could also already see the struggle incoming. With such limited space, it only made sense to treat the patio space as an extension of the house. Evander could design a much better living area for Melanie’s parents with that extra space.
On the last job, Ozzy argued with him about the color of a door because it was outside, even though it was on a covered porch and attached to the house. A fully outdoor space…he wasn’t about to give up control easily.
Evander would have to be particularly annoying to get his way. Which wouldn’t hurt his feelings. A real excuse to give Ozzy a hard time? Wonderful.
Aras grumbled about the light fixtures—mostly the fact there were none, just capped wires and holes in the wall and ceiling—and Robinson frowned slightly when he looked at the bathroom, but it simply wasn’t a huge space, so it wasn’t long before they wrapped up. Melanie saw them inside, past the tumbleweeds and into the back door of the main house. As it closed behind them, the contractor’s crew buzzed back to work, collecting up the weeds into theoretically more manageable piles.
Melanie seated them all in a dining room with a high ceiling, next to the open concept, black and gray kitchen. “Coffee? Water? Snacks?” In her own home, she seemed a thousand times more relaxed, but Evander couldn’t miss the fact she seemed to move in a way that avoided looking out the back windows or the sliding glass door.
Once they were all beveraged up—from the sidelines, Eliza nixed the snacks to save the editors from unnecessary chewing sounds when they went through the audio—Melanie sat down. Back to the windows, of course.
Mason spread his papers out again, then flicked through to some blank sheets. “Okay. So clearly, there’s some outdoor work.”
Ozzy rolled his eyes. “I noticed that.”
Melanie sighed. “I know it looks pretty bad. It just got away from us. With Jack’s schedule and managing the kids, it went on the back burner. Nobody seemed to want to move into the house back there, so it was easy to just stop using the backyard. Then we had a rough year for wind. Then another rough year. Filled up with weeds and…” She spread her hands out, palms up. “Yeah.”
Mason nodded. “No judgment, all right? We’re here to help.”
That was a lie, but Evander let it stand. Clearly, there was judgment. Ozzy was openly judging. Evander was definitely judging, even if he knew better than to run his mouth. After a couple drinks, Mason would probably be more than happy to judge. Once the cameras and mics were off. He was charming, but catty as hell in private. Or maybe not? Haven’t hung out with him in private in a long time. Maybe he’s changed.
“This is going to be hard if we can’t talk to your parents about this.” Aras clicked his tongue. “No idea what style they actually want besides your dad gardening. Should we just be modeling it after this?” He gestured around at the house, but his movements were angular and harsh enough it seemed dismissive and annoyed. Which…yeah. That was Aras.
Melanie nodded. “I have plenty of pictures to show you their style and everything.”
Nobody jumped on that as a great option, but nobody said anything about it. So Evander spoke up instead. “I think we’d be in much better shape if we could actually see their place. Any way we could arrange something like that? Take them out to dinner or take them out of town for a day?” If he wasn’t being so willingly diplomatic for the cameras, he would have just told her there was no god damn way to get a house worth bothering with if they couldn’t spend at least some time and energy figuring out what her parents liked or needed.
“Soon, if possible.” It wasn’t quite Ozzy agreeing with him, but still surprising to hear him jump on the bandwagon with Evander like that. He nodded at his own suggestion, which irrationally annoyed Evander. But he said nothing and let Ozzy continue. “I’d like to get an in-person look at the landscaping your dad has too.”
“It’s a good idea,” said Mason. “Bunny, Jake, and I can probably stay here just fine to do what we need. The rest of you put together a cohesive design idea, bring it back, and that should get us a lot more comfortable with the renovation.”
Melanie nodded, then pulled out her phone. She tapped and flicked around on it. “Let’s see. I can probably…would it be enough time if I got something by Saturday? My folks are always up for a day trip up to Kalamazoo. I could take the kids and make it a whole thing. Give you my spare key.”
“I could stay busy until Saturday.” Ozzy stretched and groaned. “Going to be plenty of work in that back yard until then.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Mason rapped his knuckles on the table. “Sorry for the extra difficulties. We just want to do the best job we can for them. And get your yard in order.”