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“I was teasing. I’ve eaten your cooking before. It’s good. Why don’t we start now and still plan to do more this afternoon? Does that work?”
“Yeah. That sounds good.” I made a mental note to text Megan quickly before my next class and let her know. It was one of our agreements that we tried to keep the other informed when we were having company. Of course, Megan should still be at the bookstore, so it wouldn’t matter, but a heads up was never wrong. It was almost too bad she couldn’t join us. Sometimes she had good ideas. I’d have to pick her brain about the center.
Maybe helping with this would get her mind off how obnoxious her supervisor was being about the fact that Megan had handed in her resignation.
“All right. So it’s multiple parts, right? We have the whole building situation.”
“What’s the building situation?” I frowned and watched her write the word “building” in big, block letters.
“You need one.”
I laughed. “Oh. That situation.”
“Yeah. That one.” She tapped her pen on the notepad. “Maybe we need to outline what you need from the space so we know what we’re dealing with.”
“We could do that. Or I could point out that the church building across the street is for sale.”
“The church…” Kayla tipped her head to the side. “When did that happen?”
“Not sure. I just noticed a sign when I drove past this morning on my way in. I already put a call in to the listing agent. I’d like to at least look at it. It seems ideal.”
“It seems ideal, because it is ideal.” She grinned and scribbled under the heading on her notepad. “Okay, so that’s handled.”
“Whoa.” I held up a hand. “It’s maybe handled. We need to look at it. It could be terrible. Maybe it’s falling apart. Maybe the reason they’re moving isn’t that they outgrew the space, but because it’s cheaper than fixing up what’s there.”
She frowned. “Even so, it’s not like we couldn’t knock everything down and build what you needed there.”
Everything in me warmed when she used the word “we.” I liked having her on my side. Working with me. Like we were a team. A unit. “Maybe. But even if the building is good, I need to talk to Tristan about how terrible getting the zoning changed would be. At least, I assume I’d have to get that changed. I don’t know a whole lot about it.”
Kayla nodded and made a note. “That should be easy enough to look up, though, right? Or like you said, maybe Tristan can just tell you.”
“Right. Still, if the real estate agent gets back to me, would you go look with me?”
“Of course. You know my schedule pretty well.”
I lifted my eyebrows. I wasn’t sure that was the case. “Not if you’re having pop-up dates these days.”
“Oh, please.” She shook her head. “Fine. If Luke calls and asks me out again, I’ll let you know. Deal?”
“Deal.” It was good. I definitely wanted to know if she was setting up more dates with Luke. Ugh. Or did I? Was there any chance for me to convince her that our friendship should shift into something else? “Great. That’s settled then. What’s next, after the building situation?”
Kayla crunched a circle of cucumber and tapped her pen on the edge of the pad. “Programming, I guess. After-school center has a lot of scope.”
I sighed. This was the problem I was having. It was why I hadn’t been doing much other than continuing to think about the fact that I wanted to do it. Taking these first steps ended up being overwhelming. “I don’t know.”
“Why don’t you tell me what you’re thinking?”
My heart lifted at the compassion evident in her expression. “So the problem is I have too many ideas. I know I want tutoring. There are so many kids who struggle simply because they don’t have the help and one-on-one attention they need. I can’t make anyone take advantage of it, but I can at least do what I can to remove the obstacles.”
“Like cost.”
“Exactly.”
“I get that, too. Kids who say they need help but can’t afford it. What subjects?”
I spread my hands. “All of them?”
Kayla chuckled. “Go big or go home, huh?”
