But that was about it.
I looked at Glenn’s face. He was suppressing a smile.
He was actually excited. And Glenn never got excited about anything.
He went on. “This particular assignment happens to take place in the great state of Texas—”
“Texas?!” I demanded.
Glenn ignored me. “Just right here in our friendly hometown of Houston, so—”
“Houston?!” I scooted my chair back.
In eight years of receiving assignments, I had never once protested a location. That’s just not how this job works. You don’t care where you go. You go where they send you. It’s fine.
But.
It had been a rough month.
Let’s just say I was right on the verge of doing something unprofessional.
But then Glenn told us who the principal was.
Pulling his lips back into a very pleased-with-himself smile, as if this good news would cancel out any bad news that might ever happen again, Glenn did his big reveal. “The principal for this one,” he said, clicking the remote for the whiteboard and flashing a movie poster up for us all to see, “is Jack Stapleton.”
The whole room gasped.
Robby launched into a coughing fit.
Kelly let out a shriek like she was at a Beatles concert.
And that’s when, despite everything I had just decided about how getting myself to London would be the answer to all my problems, I said, “You know what? I quit.”
Four
I DON’T HAVE to tell you who Jack Stapleton is, of course.
You probably gasped, too.
My attempt to quit got totally lost in the chaos.
I’m not sure anybody even heard me—except for Glenn, who brushed that declaration off with a glance, like I was an annoying insect. “You’re never quitting. Like I already said.”
I’d been waiting to get out of Texas like a drowning person waiting for a rope. The disappointment of being still stuck here made me feel short of breath.
But I’ll tell you something. Hearing the name Jack Stapleton didn’t not get my attention.
Was protecting a two-time, back-to-back Sexiest Man Alive here in Texas better than protecting some gray-toothed, watery-eyed, pear-shaped oil executive somewhere else?
Fine. Maybe.
Glenn certainly thought so.
“This one’s a doozy folks,” Glenn said, getting his groove back. “It’s a good thing Brooks had time to rest up, because this one’s gonna keep her busy.”
I hadn’t said yes yet, of course.
But, then again, I never said no.
Glenn clicked the remote for the digital whiteboard and flashed a red-carpet photo of Jack Stapleton, in all his six-foot-three dreaminess, up on the conference room screen. “I take it from the collective gasp that we all know who this man is.”
He started clicking through photos. We did this for every new client, but let’s just say that it wasn’t normally quite this … engaging. The first few were professional shots: Jack Stapleton in a T-shirt so snug, it looked airbrushed. Jack Stapleton in ripped jeans. Jack Stapleton in a tux with the bow tie undone, staring into the camera like we were all about to follow him to his hotel room.
“This really is the client?” Doghouse asked, double-checking.
Obviously, yes. But we all waited to hear it again anyway. Because it was just so unbelievable.
“Affirmative,” Glenn said. Then he looked over at Kelly. “Don’t you have a thing for him?”
“What am I?” Kelly said. “A teenager?”
“I feel like I’ve heard his name come up.”
“Functioning adults do not have ‘things’ for actors,” Kelly declared to the room.
That’s when Doghouse, right next to her, put a boot up on the conference table and gave Kelly a sly smile. “Pretty sure she’s got socks with Stapleton’s face on them.”
“Those were a gift,” Kelly said.
“But you wear them,” Doghouse pointed out.
“It’s weird that you know that.”
But that just made Doghouse grin bigger. “Isn’t his picture the home screen on your phone?”
“That’s classified. And it’s weirder that you know that.”
“The point is,” Glenn said, pointing at Kelly as a cautionary tale. “Be professional. Anything you own with the client’s face on it—”
Doghouse started counting off examples: “T-shirts, tattoos, string bikinis…”
“Get rid of it now,” Glenn finished.
Kelly flared her nostrils at Doghouse, but he just gave her a wink.