My mother only lived a few blocks away, so it was funny that she actually thought she’d escape gossip by not letting me stay at home while I completed my community service. Those Rotary Club bitches were going to be on her case either way.

That wasn’t funny. I shouldn’t laugh.

“Your ‘police record,’ ” Tate mimicked. “I never thought I’d see the day.”

“Don’t tease me, please.”

“I’m not,” she assured me. “I’m proud of you.”

Huh?

“Not for breaking the law,” she was quick to add. “But for standing up for yourself. Everyone knows I’d probably have a police record if not for Jared and Madoc tossing their weight around. You make mistakes like everyone else, but if you ask me, that asshole Liam got exactly what he deserved. So, yes. I’m proud of you.”

I stayed quiet, knowing she was trying to make me feel better about dumping my boyfriend—kind of violently—after a five-year relationship.

But then I shook my head as I inhaled the clean morning air. Everyone may make mistakes, but not everyone gets arrested.

I could do better. A lot better. And I would.

Straightening my back, I held the phone with one hand and inspected the fingernails of the other.

“So, when will you be home?” I asked.

“Not for a couple of weeks. Madoc and Fallon left for a vacation yesterday to Mexico, and Jared’s at ‘Commando Camp’ until late June. I’m going to visit my father soon, but for now, I’m taking the opportunity while Jared is away to pretty up the apartment.”

“Ah,” I mused, staring absently through the trees to the house next door. “Here come the scented candles and throw pillows,” I teased.

“Don’t forget the frilly toilet seat covers and accent lamps.”

We laughed, but mine was forced. I didn’t like hearing about their lives that I hadn’t been a part of. Jared and Tate were going to college and living together in Chicago. He was in ROTC or something and was off on a training session in Florida. His best friend, Madoc—a fellow classmate of mine from high school—was married already and going to college in Chicago with Jared, Tate, and his wife, Fallon, whom I barely knew.

They were all some sort of little gang that I wasn’t a part of anymore, and suddenly a heavy weight settled on my heart. I missed my friends.

“Anyway,” she continued, “everyone will be home soon. We’re thinking of a camping trip for the Fourth of July, so do yourself a favor. Get ready. Be wild. Don’t shower today. Wear a mismatched bra and panty set. Go get a hot bikini. Be. Wild. Got it?”

Hot bikini. Camping. Tate, Fallon, Jared, and Madoc and their wild ways. Two couples and me the fifth wheel.

Riiiiight.

I looked across at the darkened house next door, where Tate’s boyfriend had once lived. His brother, Jax, used to live there, too, and all of a sudden I wanted to ask Tate about him.

Wild.

I shook my head, tears pooling in my eyes.

Tate. Jared. Fallon. Madoc.

All wild.

Jaxon Trent, and all the chances he gave me that I never took. Wild.

The silent tears dropped, but I stayed silent.

“K.C.?” Tate prompted when I said nothing. “The world has plans for you, baby. Whether you’re ready or not. You can be either a driver or a passenger. Now get yourself a hot bikini for the camping trip. Got it?”

I swallowed the Brillo Pad in my throat and nodded. “Got it.”

“Now go open the top drawer of my dresser. I left two presents in there when I was home this past weekend.”

My eyebrows pinched together as I walked. “You were just home?”

I wished I hadn’t missed her. We hadn’t seen each other in about a year and a half.

“Well, I wanted to make sure it was clean,” she answered as I headed to the opposite wall to her dresser, “and that you had food. I’m sorry I couldn’t stay to greet you, though.”

Yanking open the drawer, I immediately froze. My breathing halted, and my eyes went round.

“Tate?” My voice squeaked like a mouse’s.

“You like?” she taunted, the smirk on her face practically visible through the phone. “It’s waterproof.”

I reached in with a shaky hand and took out the purple “Jack Rabbit” vibrator still in its clear plastic packaging.

Oh, my God.

“It’s huge!” I burst out, dropping both the phone and the vibrator. “Shit!”

Scrambling, I snatched the phone off the rug and hugged myself as I laughed. “You’re crazy. You know that?”

The delighted sound of her laughter filled my ears, and I had gone from tears to smiles in no time.

There was a time when I was more experienced than Tate. Who knew she’d be buying me my first vibrator?

“I have one just like it,” she said. “It’s getting me through Jared’s absence. And the iPod has angry rock music,” she pointed out.

Oh, that’s right. I peered into the drawer again, seeing the iPod Touch already opened with earbuds wrapped around it. She must already have loaded music onto it.

“It will help you forget that asshole.” She referred to Liam. The reason I was in trouble in the first place.

“Maybe it will help me forget K. C. Carter,” I teased.

Bending down, I picked up the vibrator and caught myself wondering what kind of batteries it took. “Thank you, Tate.” I hoped she could hear the sincerity in my voice. “If nothing else, I already feel better.”

“Use them both,” she ordered. “Today. Also, use the word motherfucker at some point. You’ll feel a lot better. Trust me.”

And then she hung up without a good-bye.

I pulled the phone away from my ear, staring at it as confusion shredded my smile.

I’d said “motherfucker.” Just never out loud.

“I’m sure you’re probably very nervous, but after the first day it will be much easier.” Principal Masters powered down the hallway at my old high school as I tried to keep up. “And after ten days,” he continued, “it will be as comfortable as an old pair of shoes.”

Inwardly, I admitted that I was never allowed to keep shoes long enough for them to get comfortable, but I’d take his word for it.

“I just don’t understand,” I said breathlessly as I jogged up to his side, trying to keep pace, “how someone with no teaching experience—no teaching education—is expected to bring eight kids up to speed for their senior year.”

It was the dumbest thing I’d ever heard.

When I found out that I was going to be sent home to complete my community service, I was a little annoyed and whole lot relieved. While I certainly didn’t want anyone finding out about the idiocy that got me arrested, I also had no place to live in Phoenix for the summer. Coming home had been a lucky turn of events.

Even when my mother told me I would be staying at the Brandts’ empty house instead of shaming her with my presence at our home, I still thought it was better than hanging around Arizona, knowing that my ex was in our apartment with someone else.

But teaching? Whose brain fart was that?

“You’re not teaching,” Principal Masters shot back, turning his head only enough so I could see the side of his face. “You’re tutoring. There’s a difference.” And then he stopped and spun around to face me. “Let me tell you something about teaching. You can have the best teachers in the world with the most scientifically proven resources that money can buy and a teacher will still fail. Students need attention. That’s it.” He sliced the air between us with his hands. “They need your one-on-one time, okay? You have eight seventeen-year-olds on your roster, and you will not be alone. There are other tutors and other teachers running summer sessions in the school. The cheerleaders and band members will be around here and there, and then we have our lacrosse boys on the field nearly every day. Believe me, the school will be packed this summer. You’ll have lots of lifelines should you need them.”