Page 8 of The Bodyguard

It’s about predictions, and patterns, and reading the room before you’re even in it.

It’s not just something you do, it’s something you are—and my destiny was most likely set in fourth grade, when I was first recruited as a carpool monitor and got a Day-Glo sash and a badge. (I still have that badge on my nightstand.) Or maybe it was set in seventh grade when we moved into an apartment that was around the corner from a jujitsu studio, and I convinced my mom to let me take classes. Or maybe it was set by all those terrible boyfriends my mother could never stop bringing home.

Whatever it was, when I saw a recruiting booth near the campus jobs kiosk during my freshman year of college with a navy and white sign that read ESCAPE TO THE FBI, it was pretty much a done deal. Escape was my favorite thing. When I tested off the charts on conscientiousness, pattern recognition, observational skills, listening retention, and altruism, they recruited me right up.

That is, until Glenn Schultz came along and poached me away.

And the rest became history. He taught me everything he knew, I started traveling the world, this job became my entire life, and I never looked back.

The point is, I loved it.

You have to love it. You have to give it everything. You have to be willing to step in front of a bullet—and that’s no small choice, because some of these people are not exactly lovable—and getting shot hurts. It’s high stakes and high stress, and if you’re going to do it right, it has to be about something bigger than you.

That’s really why people who love this job love this job: It’s about who you choose—over and over every day—to be.

The luxury travel is pretty great, too.

Mostly, it’s a lot of work. A lot of paperwork, a lot of advance site visits, a lot of procedural notes. You have to write everything down. You’re constantly on guard. It’s not exactly relaxing.

But you get addicted.

This life makes regular life seem pretty dull.

Even the boredom in this job is exciting somehow.

You’re on the move. You’re never still. And you’re too busy to be lonely.

Which always suited me just fine.

That is, until Glenn grounded me in Houston—at the very moment when I needed an escape the most.

THAT SAME DAYGlenn took me off the Madrid gig, my car wouldn’t start—and so Robby wound up driving me home in his vintage Porsche in the pouring rain.

Which was fine. Better, actually. Because I still hadn’t invited him to Toledo.

Maybe it was the rain—coming down so hard that the wipers, even on the highest setting, could barely clear it—but it wasn’t until we made it to my house that I noticed Robby had been weirdly quiet on the drive home.

It was too wet for me to get out right then, so Robby turned off the car entirely and we just watched the water coat the windows like we were at a car wash.

That’s when I turned to him and said, “Let’s go on a trip.”

Robby frowned. “What?”

“That’s why I came to the office today. To invite you on vacation.”

“On vacation where?”

Now I was regretting the randomness of the choice. How, exactly, do you sell Toledo?

“With me,” I answered, like he’d asked a different question.

“I don’t understand,” Robby said.

“I’ve decided to take a vacation,” I said, like This isn’t hard. “And I’d like you come with me.”

“You never take vacations,” Robby said.

“Well, now I do.”