Not on her watch. Not anymore.

“Just give me the details on when and where to pick her up and I’ll be there,” Samiah said. “I’ll make sure Trendsetters lays out the red carpet for her.”

“Thank you again, hon. Love you,” her sister said.

“Love you too.” She ended the call with Denise and saw a text had come through from Taylor. She’d written one word in all caps: EMERGENCY.

Samiah’s stomach dropped as she immediately hit the call button.

“Hey,” Taylor answered in a hushed voice.

“What’s going on?” Samiah whispered. “Where are you? Are you okay? Have you been kidnapped?”

“Kidnapped?” Taylor asked, her voice now at a normal level.

Samiah sat up straight. “Hold on. Why were you whispering a second ago?”

“Because the lady next to me in line is all in my business,” Taylor said. “I know you were listening to my last phone call,” Samiah heard her say somewhat distantly, as if she’d pulled the phone away from her mouth. A second later, she said, “So, what’s up?”

“You tell me what’s up,” Samiah said. “You just texted emergency in all caps.”

“Oh, yeah, that. So, I have a meeting with this woman in Bee Cave today,” she said, referring to a suburb just west of Austin. “She’s in charge of some kind of homeschooling consortium type thing. I think it’s just a bunch of rich parents who pooled their money to start their own school because they don’t want their kids attending public school. Anyway, she wants to hire me to teach phys ed three days a week.”

Samiah brought a hand up to her head and rubbed her temple. “Is that what you call an emergency?”

“Well, she needs to know by this afternoon,” Taylor said. “The problem is, I’m not sure I want to commit to something like that. But if I don’t take the job, she has someone else she’s going to offer it to.” Her dramatic sigh had Samiah rolling her eyes.

“I don’t know what to do,” Taylor continued. “What if I accept her offer and I don’t like it? And it will definitely eat into the time I’ve set aside for my boyfriend project. I have less than six months to get my shit together before I find Mr. Perfect.”

Was this what it was like to have a little sister? Had she put Denise through this over the years?

“So, do you have any advice?” Taylor asked. “I didn’t want to bother London, but I really needed to talk this through with someone I can trust.”

“Oh, so it was okay to bother me at work, but not London?”

“Well, you’re not literally saving the lives of sick children.”

She had a point.