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“Just about.” Kayla flashed a grin as she gathered a stack of papers and a pencil case, I knew she used to hold flash drives. “Can you check that all the computers are powered down?”
“Sure.” I walked the rows in the lab, wiggling mice and listening for fans. I found one that had rebooted, not shut down, and got it sorted before continuing.
“Everything set?” Kayla flipped off the lights in her office and joined me in the lab.
“Yep. You’ve got your luggage in your car?”
“I do. I feel bad that there’s no youth activity for the church this week. It seems decadent to be heading down to the Caymans with the gang when we’d talked about a service project.”
I bit my lip. I understood what she was getting at, but at the same time, I couldn’t regret not being in charge of teenagers for my week off. I was ready for a break. A real break. And some uninterrupted fun time with Kayla. Oh, sure, in the last seven weeks we’d found a rhythm of sorts. We spent nearly every weekend together—not always alone, which would have been a bad plan all around. So we did things with Scott and Whitney, or with Megan, or with the whole group. Sundays were church and lunch at the diner. That kind of thing. We also worked in two or three evenings during the week where we’d have dinner and hang out while we graded homework or prepped lessons.
It was comfortable.
And it was really the same kind of routine we’d been in before Kayla had pulled away because she had feelings for me.
Of course, now there was kissing.
I smiled.
“What?” Kayla looked over her shoulder then back at me. “Why are you grinning?”
“I’m trying to work up to agreeing with you, but I really don’t.” I shrugged. “Sorry?”
She chuckled. “No. It’s fine. Luke is still going. Did you hear?”
“I didn’t.” I frowned slightly. I also hadn’t realized she was still chatting with Luke. It didn’t matter. It wouldn’t. She could have friends of any gender she wanted. I trusted her. She loved me. “I’m surprised he didn’t try to get a group of adults to join him.”
“He did ask if I thought our group would want to come. I talked to Megan and Whitney about it—they thought everyone was looking forward to the beach enough that it wasn’t worth raising. I put Luke in touch with Cody, though. Maybe some of the Ballentine guys are going. I don’t know.”
We reached the stairs and started down. I buried my frustration that she’d had all these conversations with people who weren’t me. Of course, seeing as how it all related to Luke, I could kind of see why she might have hesitated. But only kind of. Because it wasn’t like I cared if she had guy friends.
Oh, fine. I cared a little. And really just because it was Luke. Since he’d tried to date her and everything.
Which hadn’t worked. And really, I owed him a thank-you of sorts because he’d basically been directly responsible for me and Kayla getting together.
Ugh.
I was annoying myself. “I hope he has a good time.”
Kayla glanced at me, a little line forming between her eyebrows. “You’re upset.”
“No. Why would I be upset?” I hated how stiff I sounded, but it wasn’t like I’d chosen it.
She sighed. “I didn’t mention that he’d asked because I didn’t want you to worry. Or be mad. Looks like I chose wrong.”
“I’m not worried or mad.” I wanted to leave it there, but the look she gave me made that impossible. “I guess I wish you’d felt comfortable talking to me about it. I don’t want us to have secrets. Or parts of our life that we can’t share.”
“That makes sense. I’m sorry.”
I would have liked to have taken her hand and squeezed it, but we were still on the school grounds and we’d agreed to keep our relationship quiet. Or as quiet as we could. We’d told our department chair, who assured us it was fine provided we remained professional at school. In fact, she’d seemed surprised that we were only just now dating. I smothered a chuckle. Apparently, most of the staff had assumed we’d been dating this whole time.
I pushed open the door that would take us out closest to staff parking, and let her go ahead of me. “It’s okay. And we have a week at the beach to look forward to.”
She tossed a grin over her shoulder.
“Mr. Campbell!”
I turned to see Trevor sprinting across the parking lot toward me. I stopped to wait.
