26. Chapter 26
Chapter twenty-six
Ozzy
The rest of the day, 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 had Evander fallen 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.”
“I am an 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 being insane about 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 single outlet , 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 this and making 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?”
Ozzy looked behind him. Dane was on the shorter side, even shorter than Eliza. A redhead, with a mohawk that flopped to the right. He wore baggy black and, after a moment of looking, Ozzy realized he was part of the production crew. Lighting? He thought maybe lighting.
Dane’s gaze darted side to side. Then he stepped forward, his shoulders sucked in, fiddling around with something in his pocket. But he did keep talking. “Yeah, um. I was here for filming this bit, so I heard it all.” He shrugged. “Don’t really like what this other guy was saying about the clients.”
“At least we’ve hired somebody reasonable.” Aras stepped away from Eliza and Ozzy, shaking his head. “Talk to your contracting crew. I don’t want someone on this job who’s going to half-ass his work just because we’re putting together a house for senior citizens.” He scooted past Dane, patting him on the shoulder a couple times. Hard enough that Dane looked like he was a bout to buckle under the weight. “Thanks for speaking up.”
Then he marched out of sight. Eliza sighed, then nodded to Dane. “You can fill me in.” She pointed to the wiry guy. “You can go talk to your boss. I’ll confer and get over there as soon as I can to sort things out.”
“Oh, sure. Like you’re not going to automatically side with your host when he’s getting up in arms—”
“Maybe I will and maybe I won’t. This is a TV show. Like it or not, Aras is in charge of the electrical work. He gets final say.” Eliza stood at her full height and shooed him with both hands. “Go before I just decide it’s not worth my time and energy. You can get moved to another job, I’m sure.”
His mouth pinched down to a white line, but he said nothing else, just walked away toward the trailers.
Eliza sighed and looked up at Ozzy. “Don’t suppose you saw anything about that?”
He shook his head. “I just got called over to try and weigh in on the problem.”
“And is it a problem?”
Ozzy waited a moment, then nodded. “Don’t know the whole story, but I wasn’t thrilled with what I saw. He was making the wrong call for the project, if you ask me, and then going off about how Melanie’s parents would be dead soon anyway—”
“That’s enough for me. He’s gone.” She patted Ozzy on the arm. “Thanks. I know I haven’t been super present. Don’t want to get in the way, but the yard looks amazing so far.”
“I do what I can.”
“Modest as ever.” Another pat on the arm, then she slipped around him and gestured for Dane to follow her out of the yard and off to whatever they had to do. Dane actually caught Ozzy’s eye and gave him a little smile. Is it supplicating somehow? Or sad? Guilty? It didn’t seem totally happy, but it was over too fast for Ozzy to get a proper read on it. It stuck in Ozzy’s head, though.
At least until he saw Evander carrying a plastic-wrapped sofa in through the fence. Then, Ozzy darts off. This is so stupid .
But he couldn’t quite handle Evander. They had a scheduled time to talk, and Ozzy needed every second of that to straighten out his shit.