Nicky huffed a chuckle. “Look, I’m not gonna pretend I’m comfortable with it. You know me. But he knows real estate and business.”

I should hope so. Gideon’s last name graced buildings in the city. He came from a family that’d helped build New York back in the day.

There was one problem, though. Nicky and I were on the same page; we knew the key to really get the Initiative off the ground was to expand and take on more public schools. Hell, even the private schools that didn’t prioritize music would line up. But expanding and making more money didn’t mean less work for us. We couldn’t delegate everything. My brother and I would just end up with more administrative roles in order to run the whole thing, and I didn’t wanna lose my classes. I’d busted my ass through school to be the music teacher I wanted to be, the one who could apply his degree in psychology to help. To really help. And I told Nicky as much. I told him I was torn. I told him I was proud of the classes we could offer, the quality that went hand in hand with our name, because the academy was run by musicians, not suits, but that it came at a price. If we put suits on the musicians, what would happen to the classes? What would happen to us?

“You have a point.” Nicky put his foot up on the edge of the desk and tapped his chin. “Could we raise tuition?”

I frowned and shook my head. “No more than what inflation dictates. We have too many students from low-income households. No matter what, I wanna keep the classes affordable.”

“Hmm. True.” He checked his watch and stood up with a sigh. “I gotta get to my next class. I’m teaching a bunch of hormonal eighth graders to play the drums this month.”

“Sounds like fun.” I had another twenty minutes before I had a class of third graders. Thankfully, they just sang while I played the piano.

“I’ll get back to you about—you know.” He opened the door, then paused. “You got plans tonight?”

“I have no life outside of Nashville,” I deadpanned.

“Lemme rephrase,” he chuckled. “Do you work late tonight?”

“I get off at seven.”

“Cool. I’ll swing by with lasagna and a business-savvy Gid.”

Fuck yes, lasagna.

“What do you want to talk about now?” Camden asked happily. “I’m not ready to hang up yet.”

I smiled and trapped my phone between my shoulder and cheek. “You can tell me what fun you’ve planned for the rest of the week. If you worked all day yesterday, you deserve some time off, I think.”

Apparently, August and Camden had spent all day yesterday producing new cooking tutorials, so I had that to look forward to.