“It’s done,” she said. She’d taken three additional vacation days and used them to put the finishing touches on her app and the application for the Future in Innovation Tech Conference.

His eyes narrowed. “Is it ready to send, or did you find even more things you want to tweak?”

“No more tweaking! I promise. Everything is complete and ready to upload. I just have to press the submit butt—” Her phone trilled. She looked to where she’d set it on the kitchen island. The selfie Taylor had saved under her name stared back at her.

“It’s Taylor,” Samiah said. “I’ll call her back later.” The phone stopped ringing, but then immediately started again.

“Just answer it,” Daniel said.

“Well, I guess this is technically later.” She reluctantly extricated herself from his hold and answered the phone. “Hello—Taylor, slow down!”

Samiah listened as Taylor—in the most Taylor way—started ranting about ruining her career before it could even get started.

“Oh, my God, would you please slow down,” Samiah said. She paused, then yelled, “Wait, you what?”

“I cursed out a bunch of kids!” Taylor screeched. “In front of their parents! I was fired! My life is over! How am I supposed to go home for Thanksgiving at the end of the month and explain to my family yet again that I am the biggest fuckup on the planet?”

Samiah put a hand to her forehead. “Okay, just calm down. It can’t be that bad.”

“It kinda is,” Taylor said. Something about the switch in her tone of voice caused a prickling sensation to race along Samiah’s spine.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Um, do you think you can come down to the jail on Eighth Street and bail me out?”

“What!”

“So, totally not my fault, but after I cursed out the kids, I may have grabbed the chair one of the mothers was sitting in and ran over it with my car. Not may have, I did. I did run the chair over with my car.”

“With her in it?”

“No!” Taylor said.

Samiah heard a muffled voice in the background, followed by Taylor’s “okay, okay, I’m almost done.” She came back on the line. “I have to get off the phone and London is at the hospital, so I kinda need you to do this. Can you?”

“I’m on my way,” Samiah said. “Don’t damage anyone else’s property before I get there!”

“Can’t make any promises,” Taylor said before ending the call.

She hung up the phone and looked over at Daniel. “Can I get that killer chicken to go?”

“What’s going on?”

She shook her head. “It would take too long for me to explain it. I’ll give you the full story after I get back from the county jail.”

His eyebrows shot up.