Nine

Nine

BY THE TIME we made it back to Jack’s house in the city, I was ready for some relief.

Everything about that trip to the country was destabilizing—from the dress I was wearing to the cow attack.

I was not going to love being undercover.

But the team had taken the day to finish outfitting the city house, and so the garage was now set up as an onsite security headquarters. More surveillance cameras were up and operational—mostly outside, around the perimeter, in spots where stalkers were most likely to lurk, supplementing the ones at his back door, the patio, and inside his front hallway.

We wouldn’t be here all the time. He was only threat level yellow, after all. I’d put in a regular, twelve-hour shift and then Jack would be on his own for the night. We’d instruct him, again, to read the handbook and make good choices on his own—and we’d monitor the security cameras for significant movement. Different members of the team would be on call.

All this was standard.

Once we got back to the house, I could fall into my normal role. I changed out of the dress, which somehow felt too fluttery to allow me to do my job right, and back into a pantsuit, and then I stood just outside Jack’s door in the at-ease position. Me and the fiddle-leaf fig.

The plan was this: On normal days in the city with Jack, I would be the primary agent, staying with him wherever he went during my shift. Doghouse was the secondary agent, as backup. And then there was a remote team of Taylor and Amadi doing light remote surveillance—mostly monitoring the cameras.

Kelly wasn’t involved. Glenn had decided the socks with Jack’s face were a dealbreaker.

Robby wasn’t on the team, either. I wouldn’t have expected Glenn to pass up an opportunity to force us to work together. Glenn was a big fan of punishment. Especially if he could mete it out himself.

But it wasn’t my job to question him. No Robby was fine with me.

On the days that Jack and I had to visit his parents, the teams would flip: Taylor and Amadi would be primary agents, doing heavy surveillance remotely with Doghouse, and I would be secondary, a set of eyes and ears on the inside, but mostly just there to not blow my cover.

It goes without saying that I preferred being primary.

I also preferred being able to do my job right.

How exactly was I supposed to compete for London, if all I could do was stand around in a cotton dress?

Being back in town felt good. Standing guard at a front door is not always the most thrilling use of time, but compared to feeling useless while being menaced by cattle, it was surprisingly comforting.

At one point, Jack popped his head out to see if I’d like a cappuccino.

I didn’t meet his eyes. “No, thank you.”

Toward the end of my shift, Taylor and Robby showed up at the property to make a few notes on the garden layout.

IT WAS ALMOST time for me to punch out, and Taylor and Robby had been gone a while, when I decided to give the surveillance cameras one more check. We had the monitor set up at a makeshift desk, but I didn’t even sit in the rolling chair. I just leaned in to scroll through the camera views—just for a quick all-clear before heading home—when I noticed something on the monitor.

Down in the corner of “Pool 1” camera view I saw what looked like a pants leg and part of a shoe.

All my hackles went up. I enhanced the image to get a better look, and then I adjusted the camera angle to the right.

And that’s when I saw something I never, ever would’ve expected to see.

In Jack Stapleton’s garden, out by the pool house, partially hidden behind a Palmetto tree … Robby, my ex, and Taylor, my friend …

Were kissing.

Each other.

Robby … who had dumped me a month ago on the night after my mother’s funeral … and Taylor … who had come over right afterward to console me while I cried …

Were kissing.

And worse than that: on the job.

There’s no way to describe how it felt to live through that moment. My eyes tried to look away but could only stare, Clockwork Orange–style, as the two of them went on and on, all tangled and pressed together, sucking face like hateful teenagers.

Remember when I couldn’t feel any feelings about Robby?

Well, that cured that.

The closest word I have for it is panic. Just an agonizing, urgent feeling that I needed to turn it off, or make it stop, or find some way for it to not be happening. Then add some rage. And some humiliation. And disbelief, too—as I tried, and failed, to understand what I was seeing.

It was a physical feeling—burning and searing, like my heart was pumping acid instead of blood.

Up until that moment, I didn’t even know that feeling existed.

At some point—Five minutes later? Five hours?—I heard a voice over my shoulder. “They should get fired for that, huh?”

I turned. It was Jack Stapleton, his eyes on the monitor.

As I looked at him, he looked at me, and his expression shifted from amusement to concern. “Hey,” he said. “Are you okay?”

But I didn’t know what to do with my face. It was like the muscles didn’t work right. My eyes stayed wide and bewildered, and my mouth couldn’t seem to close itself.

Jack certainly didn’t know how universe-shattering this moment was for me, and the last thing I wanted was for him to find out. I wanted to cover. To smile and shake my head and say, “idiots,” like they were just dumb coworkers who I was judging for fooling around on the job.

But I couldn’t smile. Or shake my head. Or speak.

What was Jack even doing here, anyway? Shouldn’t he be inside doing movie star stuff?

And then I realized something else, as Jack pulled the cuff of his shirtsleeve over the heel of his hand, lifted it to my face, and started dabbing at my cheeks.

I was crying.

My eyes were, at least. Without my permission.

After a few dabs, Jack pulled his hand away to show me how the wetness had darkened his cuff, and, with a tender voice I remembered from the grand finale of You Wish, he said, “What’s going on here?”

At last, I shook my head. A historic achievement, all things considered.

Activating the neck muscles seemed to release the jaw muscles as well, and I was able to close my gaping mouth. With that, I became functional enough to look away.

Of course I was. Obviously I was. But I shook my head.

But I didn’t even sound convincing to myself.

I should have gone with “pollen.” Right? A classic.

But instead, as my brain short-circuited, I felt that acid bleeding out from my heart and saturating me from the inside. What was I allergic to? I was allergic to disappointment. I was allergic to betrayal. I was allergic to friendship. To hope. To optimism. To life, to work, to humanity in general.

And so just I answered with, “I’m allergic to everything,” and I walked out of the garage.

Jack let me leave, which was a relief.

I didn’t want to talk, or process, or explore my feelings, for God’s sake—and even if I had wanted to do any of those things, I would never in a million years have done them with him.

You don’t talk about your life with clients.

You just don’t.

You wind up knowing everything about your principals—but they never know anything about you. And that’s how it has to be.

But here’s the thing: The clients never understand that. It feels so much like a real relationship, it’s hard to keep it clear. You’re traveling together, going to bars together, skiing together, hanging out at the beach together. You’re there for their ups and downs, their fights, and their secrets. Your purpose in their lives is to create security so they can feel normal.

If you’re doing a good job, they do feel normal.

But you never do.

You never lose sight of your purpose. And part of keeping that focus is knowing—backward, forward, inside out, and upside down—that they are not your friends.

Friends might wipe the tears off your face with their shirtsleeves, but clients never should.

Which is why I had never once in eight years cried in front of a client.

Until today.

You have to maintain professional distance, or you can’t do your job. And the only way to do that while spending every minute of every shift together is to never, ever share anything personal. Clients ask personal questions all the time. You just don’t answer. You pretend you didn’t hear, or you change the subject, or—most effective of all—you turn the question back on itself.

The answer to “Are you scared?” should be “Are you scared?”

The answer to “Do you have a boyfriend?” should be “Do you have a boyfriend?”

See how easy that is? Works every time.

And what’s more? They never even notice.

Because mostly, when people ask you about you, what they really want to talk about is them.

Right?

It’s hard to describe the maelstrom of emotions churning around inside me as I made my way out to the driveway with the singular goal of getting to my car and heading home. Shock, agony, humiliation—all there, sure. But add to that: a sense of deep disappointment at letting myself get caught by a client in a real moment of emotion.

Was there a way to recover?

He’d seen the tears, yes. But he couldn’t know for sure exactly what they meant.

I’d go home, regroup, and then—only then—if there was time and I was so inclined, would I let myself think about what I’d just witnessed.

Or maybe not.

Because if I just witnessed what I thought I did, it meant that in one short month, I’d lost every single one of the three most important people in my life.

Mother. Boyfriend. Best friend.

And now I was truly alone.

The realization threatened to bring me to my knees.

I had to get out of there. I had to make it to my car.

But that’s when Robby—not even on the team—showed up again a few feet away.

He stopped walking when he saw me, and I did the same back to him.

Could he see my face? Could he tell that I knew?

I put my head back down to keep walking.

But now Robby jumped around to fully block me. “It’s kind of important.”

Was I going to have to fight him? For God’s sake, I just wanted to go home. “Not today,” I said, starting to gird my strength for whatever I needed to do to not have this conversation.

But that’s when Robby looked up right behind me, and then I felt a weight settling on my shoulder.

It was Jack Stapleton. Draping his arm around me, as I’d already given him permission to do.

Robby, of course, couldn’t go against the client.

He looked at me, but I looked away.

I felt more than saw Robby’s shoulders drop in defeat.

Jack gave it another second, as if to say “Are we done here?” And then, decisively, he steered me down the driveway toward my car, leaving Robby staring after us.

Later, in an effort to get Robby in trouble, I’d report everything but the kissing to Glenn.

And it would backfire.

I’d say, “Robby just showed up here for no reason and inserted himself into the assignment.”

And Glenn would say, “That’s a great idea.”

I’d frown. “What is?”

Of course I knew.

A wink from Glenn. “I meant him.”

Was Glenn clueless? A sadist?

Little bit of both, maybe.

Either way, he added Robby to the team—and gave me the credit.

But that night, as Jack fished around in my purse for my keys and then hit the unlock button, I didn’t see any of that coming yet. I didn’t see much, really—other than what was right in front of me: Jack guiding me to the passenger side, opening the door, sitting me down, and leaning across me to buckle me in.

He smelled like cinnamon.

Again: not something I’d normally let a client do.

But so little about this assignment was normal.

When Jack walked around to the driver’s side, got in, and started the car, I didn’t stop him.

As we pulled away from his house, I mustered a weak, “What are you doing?”

Jack Stapleton was offering to pick me up in the morning? “That seems like a lot of work.”

Ugh. I was too haywire to do it right.

Jack frowned and tried again. “You weren’t dating that guy, were you?”

I leaned my head back against the seat and closed my eyes. “Because I don’t talk about my life with clients.”

Even just telling a client that I didn’t talk about my life with clients was more than I’d ever told a client.

Another tactical error, for sure—but I was too numb to care.