“You don’t grow up as a military kid without seeing a therapist at least once in your life,” Taylor said. At least that had been the case for her. “I started having nightmares during one of my dad’s deployments back when we lived in Germany. I was a regular at the Family Life Center for much of the seventh grade.”

Yet her issues with school had never surfaced in any of the therapy sessions she’d had on base. She’d never considered the anxiety that gripped her whenever she sat down to take a test to be anything other than a normal reaction to a scary situation.

Why hadn’t she made that connection? Why hadn’t anyone else? She’d attended a half-dozen schools through her elementary, junior high, and high school years, and no one—not a single teacher, counselor, anyone—had suspected that there was an issue.

All these years she’d thought school just wasn’t her thing, that she was wired differently from all the other people who managed to get through a typical school day without suffering panic attacks.

The fact is, she was different from those people. She just never realized that the thing that made her different was treatable.

“I have to wait until after my dad’s birthday party,” Taylor said. “But I’m going to look into scheduling an appointment for an evaluation once we get back from North Carolina.”

“We?” London asked, her brows arching. “You mean the fake boy toy is meeting the parents?”

“Umm…about that,” Taylor said. “I don’t think I can call him a fake boyfriend after the multiple orgasms he’s given me this week.”

Samiah and London both gasped, then screamed, “Bitch!”

Taylor burst out laughing. “It kinda just happened,” she said. “Actually, that’s not true. I didn’t want to admit what I was feeling, but I really do like him,” she said. And she realized she meant it.

“I knew it,” London said. “Didn’t I call it?” She pointed her crochet hook at Taylor. “If you even try to put me in a cotton-candy-pink bridesmaid gown, we’re fighting. I’d prefer this color,” she said, holding up the deep purple rectangular swatch she’d crocheted.

“There will be no bridesmaid gowns,” Taylor said. “We’ve only been dating for a few days. I mean for real dating.”

“You two make a cute couple,” Samiah said. “But how will this affect Taylor’d Conditioning?”

“I don’t know that it matters anymore. When we first started this whole pretend dating thing, the deal was that Jamar would become a spokesperson for Taylor’d Conditioning once he makes it back into the NFL, but who knows what Taylor’d Conditioning will even look like in another year, or once I earn my degree?”

There were so many unknowns.