Page 16 of Rules to Love By

“Thank you for the confirmation, boss.” She smiled sweetly at him.

Ozzy narrowed his eyes. “I am fairly certain that’s not what you just said.”

“You’d be right.”

“Do I want to know?”

“Probably not. It wasn’t very nice.”

“Shocker.”

She grinned.

“Okay, fine. Sorry I doubted you.”

That got him a shrug. “You didn’t doubt me, you just had to see for yourself.” She tucked some hair aside again and took the wrench he was still holding. “At this rate, it’s going to be you, me, and Andre doing work on this house until we die.”

“And Keith. Don’t forget Keith.”

Farida blew the annoying hair out of her face. “There will be kids moving in here before he’s done painting.”

“But oh my God, it will be a fantastic paint job. Emma Joy is a vain house, Farida. Keith makes her happy. We let him go at his own pace.”

“He can work fast. I’ve seen it. He painted your entire suite—furniture included—in one weekend.”

“I’ve lived in that paint job for a while now. It’s not hard to see the parts Keith did and the parts Tris helped with. I don’t let Keith back there for a very good reason, but I like the reminder Tris did all that for me.”

“Sappy.” Farida glared at the sink. “Go away now.” She shooed him out with a wave of the wrench.

“Bossy lady,” Ozzy said, but he went, turning Marcus by a shoulder and pushing him out ahead of him.

Farida responded with something Finnish, and while Marcus didn’t understand a word of it, he was pretty sure it was nothing but sass and blunt, possibly less-than-flattering, observation.

Farida was kind, but Fin from the depths of her icy blue eyes to the soles of her steel-toed rubber boots. Kindness in her world could as easily be a gut-punch of truth as a pot of delicious beefy soup-stew.

“So, what can I do for you, Marcus?” Ozzy asked as he strode towards the stairs and his private office at the back of the house’s main floor.

“Oh.” Marcus tightened his fingers around his sheaf of papers. “If you’re busy—”

“Come.” Ozzy didn’t slow as he waved him through the door in the kitchen separating the back of the house, where he lived, from the public parts.

In many ways, the Cabin—affectionately known as Emma Joy and destined to be an LGBTQ+ youth shelter—was a mirror image of the Oaks, the two houses standing back-to-back and sharing their backyard space. That made it easy to navigate, but it lacked most of the modern updates Ozzy and contractors before him had integrated into Kreed’s B and B.

Lucky’s shelter had a long way to go before it was ready to house the kids Lucky so wanted to help.

The door swung silently shut behind them, muting the chaos of the work, clearing Marcus’s head a little. He trailed Ozzy down the hall to his office at the far end, where Ozzy perched on the edge of his desk and tilted his head to one side. “So. What’s up?”

“I was hoping you could help me with this.” Marcus held up his papers.

“Résumé?” Ozzy squinted at him. “You were a cook, weren’t you? Wouldn’t Kreed be better suited—”

“Job estimate…” Marcus took a jerky step forward and thrust the pages at Ozzy. “For Mr. Benson’s barbershop. He has a few things he needs done and figures I can do them. I mean, putting up shelves and painting a wall. Pretty straightforward. I just…”

Ozzy took the papers from his outstretched hand.

“Just what?” he asked gently.

“Thought I should outline what the job was, you know? So he knows costs and things.” He hiked up his jeans. “I can do the work. Nothing I didn’t do at the diner all the time. But the estimate. Not sure about that. Eli helped a bit.” He shrugged and fell silent while Ozzy read through the lists of supplies and numbers.

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