The Bodyguard (7)

Glenn rubbed his eyes and when he looked up, he was breathing in that noisy way that had earned him the nickname “The Warthog.”

He stared us down. “I can’t stop you,” he said, “and I’m not going to try. But I’ll tell you this right now. There’ll be no ‘leaving the company’ when this crashes and burns. You’ll get no pity from me, and you won’t get a letter of recommendation, either. If you apply somewhere else, I’ll torpedo you with the worst reference in the history of time. You’re mine. I made you, I own you, and goddammit nobody in this room gets to quit. Not even me. Understood?”

“Understood,” we both said, in unison.

“Now get out of my sight,” Glenn said, “or I’ll send you both to Afghanistan.”



* * *



THAT WAS A year ago.

It’s funny to think how much I’d pitied Glenn’s pessimism back then. His third wife had just left him—not uncommon in this job, since you’re gone more than you’re home. I remember mentally shaking my head at him as I walked away from the conversation. I remember thinking that Robby and I were going to prove him wrong.

Smash cut to a year later: Robby dumping me in the rain, like he was doing us both a favor.

“It’s for the best,” he said. “You need to grieve, anyway.”

“You don’t deserve my grief,” I said.

“I meant your mother.”

Oh. Her. “Don’t tell me what I need.”

Robby had the nerve to look wounded. “Be civil about this.”

“Why should I?”

“Because we’re both adults. Because we know what’s at stake. Because we never really liked each other all that much, anyway.”

That stung like a slap. I met his eyes for the first time and tried not to sound surprised: “We didn’t, huh?”

“That’s fair to say, right?”

Um, no. That wasn’t fair to say. It was incredibly crass. And wrong. And probably a lie, too—a way for Robby to absolve himself. Sure, he’d dumped me the day after my mother’s funeral, but what did that matter if “we never really liked each other all that much, anyway”?

But fine. Whatever.

Though I could think of a hotel room in Costa Rica that might claim otherwise.

In the humiliation of that moment—Had I really just told a man I loved him while he was breaking up with me?—it was as if Robby wasn’t just taking his love away … but all love.

That’s what it felt like.

What can I say? It’s hard to think straight in a crisis, and the conclusion I landed on was that my only way to keep going was to get back to work. I didn’t need hobbies. I didn’t need to learn crochet. I needed to get back to the office, and get a new assignment, and win that position running the branch in London. It was as clear as needing air. I needed to do something. Go somewhere. Flee. Now more than ever.

But before I could step out of the car into the rain and forget him entirely, there was one question I still had to ask.

I looked straight into Robby’s eyes. And then, in a tone like I was just calmly curious, I said, “You said things between us aren’t working. Why is that again?”

He nodded, like that was a fair enough question. “I’ve given some thought to that over the past few months—”

“Months?”

“—and I’ve decided, ultimately, it comes down to one thing.”

“Which is?”

“You.”

My head gave an involuntary shake. “Me?”

Robby nodded, like saying it out loud had confirmed it. “It’s you.” And then, in a tone like he might even be giving me helpful advice, he said, “You have three deal-breaker flaws.”

The words echoed in my head as I braced for them. Three deal-breaker flaws.

“One,” Robby said, “you work all the time.”

Okay. He also worked all the time. But fine.

“Two,” Robby went on, “you’re not fun, you know? You’re so serious every minute.”

Um. Holy shit. How do you argue with that?

“And three,” Robby said with anticipation, like we were really getting to the clincher, “you’re a bad kisser.”





Three


A MONTH LATER, I was still enraged about it.

A bad kisser? A bad kisser?

I mean, “workaholic”? Fine. There’s no shame in being fantastic at your job.

“Not fun”? Whatever. Fun was overrated.

But a “bad kisser”?

That was the kind of insult that would haunt me to my grave.

Unacceptable.

Just like the state of my entire life.

My mother died. Then I got grounded from my job. Then the longest relationship of my life ended with the most insulting insult in the world. And there was nothing I could do about any of it. My mother stayed dead, my ex-boyfriend and my best friend left for three weeks on my assignment to Madrid, and I stayed home. In Houston. With nothing to do and no one to do it with.

It’s a blur how I even survived.

Mostly, I did anything at all to keep busy. I reorganized the file room at the office. I did local mini assignments. I repainted my bathroom tangerine orange without asking my landlord. I cleaned out my mother’s place and listed it for sale. I took six-mile runs after work in hopes of tuckering myself out. I counted the purgatory-like seconds until I could get the hell out of town.