When Kaya Perry graduates college, the last place she wants to go back is Layton, the town that she left behind. She left that place with bad memories and no friends, so there is no way she's looking to go back. So it's really a bummer when the job...
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"What are you going to do now that you're jobless?"
Kaya glared at Julian, who lifted his hands in surrender while Ty smashed pots and pans together to find a skillet from his place in his kitchen. Instead of meeting at Ruth's for a lunch, Ty invited everyone—Olivia and Lauren included—for dinner and a movie night at his place. He was an amazing cook and his kitchen was state of the art—clean appliances that were kind of worn from use, marble counters, and a refrigerator and oven that would make her Aunt April cry. According to him, Brazilian food, good TV, and great friends were a great recipe when a disaster happened, and Kaya losing her job qualified as a disaster.
The four were waiting for Ty to finish cooking some pastel de carne con queijo so that they could watch the new Marvel show that had just premiered on TV. Kaya didn't care for comic books or their film counterparts, but she appreciated the movie culture, the way that the movies each had their own distinctive theme, and the overall simplicity of it all. Having seen the other spin-off TV shows with Ty, Kaya could say that she vaguely knew what was going on with the new show that they were going to watch. He didn't like comic books either but he loved watching the movies and shows and could talk all day about his favorite characters, be it someone relatively miniscule in the universe, like Mantis or someone that everyone knew, like Captain America.
Kaya would have much rather talked to Julian about the show rather than her lack of a job.
"I don't know," she said, avoiding his gaze. She was having a hard time talking to him, seeing as he was the reason she was out of a job. It was like he didn't realize it, and maybe, if Alison was manipulative enough—and she was—it didn't even cross his mind. "I guess I'm going to look for a job somewhere else while trying to figure out how to make a living here." Layton wasn't an expensive place to live, but sooner or later Kaya's savings were going to run out and she'd rather not have that happen.
"Oh" was all Julian said, and then he got distracted by a notification on his phone. Lauren and Olivia hadn't made it to Ty's yet, and she was bored, so she got up and joined Ty in the kitchen.
"Need help?" she asked, watching as Ty finished cooking the hamburger on the stove. From the living room where she had been hanging out with Julian, she couldn't smell what had been cooking, but now she could smell everything, from the spices that he used to the onions that were mixed with the meat. The dough that he was going to use sat on the island in the middle of the kitchen, ready to be used.
Ty turned and looked around at the messy kitchen. With a sheepish smile, he gestured to the sink.
"Will do," Kaya said, rolling up her sleeves. The two worked in a companionable silence. She washed the dishes and cleaned Ty's mess while he heated some vegetable oil and started filling pieces of dough with meat and cheese. By the time he was ready to put the food into the deep fryer, Kaya had put all of his dishes away.
"Thanks," he said, washing his hands. "It would've taken me ages to clean all of this stuff up."
"No problem," Kaya answered, eyeing the food cooking in the grease. "I had to escape from the living room."
