Page 24 of The Bodyguard

Five

CUT TO: MEringing Jack Stapleton’s fancy doorbell in the Museum District.

In my standard pantsuit. Without the makeover I had so valiantly refused.

Kind of regretting that victory now.

This was an intake meeting, and I’d done dozens of them. Usually, the whole team went—primaries and secondaries—to meet in person and gather information. But the team was scrambling too hard right now to take the time.

So, today: just me.

Alone, and talking myself through the moment. You got this.

Once you learn to look at the world from a perspective of personal security, you can’t look at it any other way. I couldn’t walk into a restaurant, for example, without assessing the threat level in the room—even when I was off duty. I couldn’t not notice suspicious people, or vehicles that circled the block more than once, or empty vans in parking lots, or “repair crews” that may or may not’ve been doing surveillance. Honestly, I couldn’t get into my car without a three-step process: checking for signs of entry, checking the tailpipe for blockages, and checking under the chassis for explosives.

In eight years, I’d never once just walked out to my car and gotten in.

I must’ve seemed like the craziest person ever.

But once you know how terrible the world is, you can’t unknow.

No matter how much you might want to.

I wasn’t sure exactly how much Jack Stapleton knew about the world, but part of my job today, and going forward, was to educate him. You absolutely have to get buy-in from the principal, because you really can’t do it alone. Making it clear that protection is necessary without freaking anyone out is a crucial task at the beginning.

You have to calibrate exactly how much clients can handle.

Arriving at Jack Stapleton’s door, I clutched a checklist of things to cover so that he could hold up his end of the safety bargain. I also had some basic in-person tasks that his assistant in LA couldn’t do for him: fingerprints, a blood draw, a handwriting sample. Plus, a list of questions that Glenn called the VPQ—Very Personal Questionnaire—that gathered info on tattoos, moles, fears, weird habits, and phobias. Normally, we’d do a video recording, too, but, obviously, for this guy: no need.

Anyway, that was all I had to do. Stick to the script.

But wow, did I feel nervous.

And that was before he shocked the hell out of me by opening the door.

Shirtless.

Just opened up the front door. To a total stranger. Utterly naked from the waist up. What kind of a power move was that?

“Jesus Christ!” I said, spinning around and covering my eyes. “Put some clothes on!”

But the image of him was already burned into my retinas: Bare feet. Frayed Levi’s. A corded leather necklace encircling the base of his neck, just above his collarbones. And I don’t even have words for what was happening in the midsection.

I squeezed my eyes tighter.

How the hell was I supposed to work with that?

“Sorry!” he said, behind me in the doorway. “Timed that wrong.” Then, “It’s safe now.”

I made myself drop my hand and turn back around…

Where I beheld Jack Stapleton halfway through the process of wriggling into a T-shirt—six-pack muscles undulating like they wanted to put me in a trance.

Let me just stop the clock right here for a second, because it’s not every day you stand in Jack Stapleton’s doorway, squinting directly into his magnificence, while he does a completely normal yet utterly astonishing thing, like put on a T-shirt.

What was it like, you must be wondering, for me to live through that moment?

Maybe this will help: My brain shut down.