“Look,” Glenn said. “This is what they call a business decision.”
But I shook my head. This wasn’t going to work. “You can’t just ground me and dismantle my entire support system. That’s my trip. Those are my clients.”
Glenn sighed. “You’ll go next time.”
“I want to go this time.”
Glenn shrugged. “I want to win the lottery. But it’s not going to happen.”
Glenn was the kind of guy who believed adversity only made you stronger.
I took a minute to breathe. Then I said, “If Taylor’s going on my trip, where am I going?”
“Nowhere,” Glenn said.
“Nowhere?”
He nodded. “You need to rest. Plus, everywhere’s full.” He scrolled through his laptop. “Jakarta’s taken. Colombia’s taken. Bahrain. Those oil execs in the Philippines. All taken.”
“But … what am I supposed to do?”
Glenn shrugged. “Help out around the office?”
“I’m serious.”
But Glenn kept going. “Take up knitting? Start a succulent garden? Double down on personal growth?”
Nope, nope, nope.
But Glenn held fast. “You need some time off.”
“I hate time off. I don’t want time off.”
“It’s not about what you want. It’s about what you need.”
What was he—my therapist? “I need to work,” I said. “I do better when I’m working.”
“You can work here.”
But I also needed to escape.
Now I felt a flutter of panic in my throat. “Hey. You know me. You know I need to move. I can’t just sit here and—and … and marinate in all my misery. I need to be in motion. I need to go somewhere. I’m like a shark, you know? I just always have to be moving. I need to get water through my gills.” My hands gestured at my ribcage, as if to show him where my gills were located. “If I stay here,” I finally said, “I’ll die.”
“Bullshit,” Glenn said. “Dying’s a lot harder than you think.”
Glenn hated it when people begged.
I begged anyway.
“Send me somewhere. Anywhere. I need to get out.”
“You can’t spend your entire life running away,” Glenn said.
“Yes, I can. I absolutely can.”
I could tell from his face we’d hit the wall. But I still had some fight left in me.
“What about the thing in Burkina Faso?” I asked.
“I’m sending Doghouse.”
“I’ve got three years on Doghouse!”
“But he speaks French.”
“What about the wedding in Nigeria?”
“I’m sending Amadi.”
“He hasn’t even been here six months!”
“But his family’s from Nigeria. And he speaks—”
“Fine. Forget it.”
“—Yoruba and a little bit of Igbo.”
That was the crux of it. Glenn had a rep to protect. “I’ll send you,” he said like we were done here, “when it’s a good fit. I’ll send you when it’s best for the agency. I’ll never send you over somebody more qualified.”
I narrowed my eyes at Glenn in a way that just dared him to fight me. “There’s nobody more qualified than me,” I said.
Glenn looked me over, using his well-honed powers of observation like a weapon.
“Maybe, maybe not,” he said at last. “But you buried your mother yesterday.”
I met his eyes.
He went on. “Your pulse is elevated, your eyes are bloodshot, and your makeup is smeared. Your speech is rapid, and your voice is hoarse. You haven’t brushed your hair, your hands are shaking, and you’re out of breath. You’re a mess. So go home, take a shower, eat some comfort food, grieve the death of your mom, and then figure out some goddamned hobbies—because I guarantee you this: You’re sure as hell not going anywhere until you get your shit together.”
I knew that tone in his voice.
I didn’t argue.
But how, exactly, was I supposed to get back to work if he wouldn’t let me get back to work?
Two
HAVE I EXPLAINED what I do for a living?
I usually try to put that off as long as possible. Because once you know—once I actually name the profession—you’ll make a long list of assumptions about me … and all of them will be wrong.
But I guess there’s no more avoiding it.
My life doesn’t make much sense if you don’t know what my job is. So here goes: I am an Executive Protection Agent.