The Struggle (The Things We Can't Change Book 2) by Kassandra Kush Page A

like this since the last time she came to the dance studio. Neither of us seems to know what to say. My first reaction to seeing her is… pleasure? No. No . Hell no. I shove that aside and dig deeper. Ah, there it is. Anger. Annoyance. Irritation.
    I manage to raise an eyebrow at her and gesture vaguely. “Not that you can’t afford it, but you’re letting a lot of cool air leak out right now.”
    She starts, then blushes and steps aside, letting me walk inside. I cross the threshold, entering the house and pause to stare around at the large marble foyer. There’s a grand staircase winding along one wall, the cathedral ceiling draws the eyes upward, but I’m too busy staring at the fountain against the far wall and the five-foot wide pool it splashes into.
    “I’ll get my dad,” Evie says in a whisper so low I almost don’t catch it. She turns and disappears through a hallway off the foyer.
    It only takes a second for Ian Parker himself to come, hand outstretched toward me. “Hello there, Zeke,” he greets, smiling. “I’m glad you came.”
    I think about admitting I almost didn’t, but I bite my tongue. Ultimately, I don’t have a choice, and I’m sure he knows that. I settle for returning his firm handshake with one of my own. I refuse to let him think I’m lazy, along with being some kind of vagrant.
    “Come along with me, then. For now, you’ll probably just be on your own, laying out the initial landscaping. Evie will help you later, with a bit of the lighter work.” He gestures, and leads me through the house and out a back door.
    I can barely keep my mouth from dropping open at the rooms we go through, not just for how opulently they are decorated, but from their sheer size and how many of them there are. Granite countertops and ledges, leather sofas, carpets that look plush enough to sleep on, plasma screen televisions in every room. I feel as though I’m touring a five-star hotel.
    And then we reach the backyard and are stepping through a sliding glass door off an enormous kitchen. We’re on a bi-level deck, this one high on the hill, while the level down from us encircles an enormous pool and has dozens of lawn chairs, all capped off by a diving board and massive rock landscaped waterfall along one side of the pool. Rolling green lawns extend past the deck, and I can see a gazebo concealed among a stand of trees and an old, overgrown garden surrounding it all.
    I’ve always known places like this exist. I mean, it’s not like I’ve never watched MTV Cribs or anything, but seeing it all in person is completely different. It only makes me more annoyed with and ashamed of my own three bedroom apartment, part of a quad-plex building. The Parkers’ kitchen is probably a few square feet larger than the entire first floor of my own home.
    “We’ll feed you lunch every day, give you time for a good hour long break,” Dr. Parker is saying as he begins down the steps of the deck. “The shed there should have everything you need. Anything you end up missing, start a list, and at the end of the week, we can go get everything. We’ve already gotten a load of dirt, mulch, and crushed shells. That’s what this week will mostly consist of. We’re re-working the entire garden and landscaping around the gazebo there. Or at least, you and Evie are.” He glances sharply at me, as if to check if I’m still paying attention. “Any questions?”
    I spread my arms out. “What the hell am I supposed to do to start?”
    Dr. Parker grins good naturedly and hands me a stack of papers, all stapled together. “I believe this would be phase one of Evie’s plan. Although, tearing out all the old plants will probably be the first order of business.”
    I accept the papers and examine them. My first thought is that Evie really sucks at drawing. The papers are a combination of a lot of things; her own sketches, computer print outs of garden blueprints, plants, different materials, gazebo restorations, but the