32. Chapter 32
Chapter thirty-two
Ozzy
In spite of the big house, it was a tight fit to get everyone in the kitchen. Ozzy was sandwiched between Evander on his right and one of the Trang boys on his left. What the family was doing there, he couldn’t guess, but apparently when Eliza said ‘all hands,’ she meant it. They didn’t have all the contractors in there, but a handful of them. The three cameras and the lighting equipment crammed in didn’t exactly make things more spacious.
Eliza pointed to Melanie. “Okay. Explain fast.”
“Right.” She spread her hands out in front of her. “My parents called. They’re dropping by today. And this is the first I’ve heard of it.”
Ozzy didn’t let himself smile, but there was some undeniable satisfaction running through him. Maybe I’ll get those rose bushes yet .
“I’m really hoping we can…maybe try to keep them from getting too suspicious? I know we’re so close, I really want it to be a big reveal for them when they see the finished product.”
Ozzy clicked his tongue. “I’m not sure how feasible that is. You’ve got all these windows, we’ve cut holes in your fence, your backyard is all put in order.”
“I have an idea on that, actually.” Eliza held her hands up in front of herself, preparing for him to apparently get mad.
This ought to be great . “Am I going to hate this idea of yours?”
“Probably.” She pointed to the windows. “Tarp up the windows, caution tape around the gate, pretend there’s a leak or something in the backyard.”
“And why do I hate that?”
“All the new plants have to be covered, the sod needs to be disguised as much as possible.” She shrugged. “We’re going to have to fling a lot of dirt around the backyard to make it look like there’s something going on and get it as close to square one as we can. Any of the bags of topsoil and stuff we have are going to need to get opened and dumped back there.”
Ozzy sighed. “And then cleaned up.”
“We’re happy to help with all of it,” said Melanie. “Please. It’s one last thing to keep the surprise going for them. They don’t come over that often, so this’ll be the only time.”
Ozzy hated the whole concept. Eliza pinned him down right on that. A waste of resources that could be sold back, taken to another job, donated, anything. A waste of time. Wrecking the whole look of all the landscaping. All to appease the desires of some rich assholes with too much time and money who were getting their entire backyard and their guest house fixed up for free. It was the kind of thing that burned under Ozzy’s skin.
Honestly, it was just the fact that her kid was right there next to him that kept him from running his mouth. Plus, he knew it wouldn’t get him anywhere he wanted, and they were on a time crunch. Eliza liked the idea of them pulling this cover up for the show, and at the end of the day, she had the final say on all this shit.
Ozzy shrugged. “Fine. But I’m going through the yard with a fine-toothed comb. Single particle of dust or rock or mulch out of place, you’re all going to hear about it. Forever.”
Eliza clapped. “Okay.” She turned and looked up at Melanie. “You say we have about half an hour?”
“Yeah. They said they were about forty minutes out, and that was ten minutes ago.”
“Okay then.” She pointed to different members of the contracting crew, getting them moving.
Mason walked up to Ozzy and clapped him on the back. Then held his hand there as he leaned in to whisper, “I’ll swing by a dispensary at the next job.”
“I don’t need a bribe like a child for behaving.” Ozzy took a deep breath, then sighed and let his shoulders drop. “A joint. I don’t need to get edible high if I’m supposed to work the next day.”
“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 Ozzy took 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. Literally any other 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 his thoughts. 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.”