Destanie approached, crossing her arms and examining me as though looking closely at something the cat had just dropped on her doorstep. “Gray,” she said. “But not just gray. Silvery gray. Something with spandex in it for a bit of shine. Tight too. The spandex will give it some stretch so he can perform his duties, but definitely very tight. His muscles alone will deter most of the creeps,” she said, talking about me as if I wasn’t sitting right there.

And hold up. Tight? Silver? Stretch? They wanted me to dress like a Cirque du Soleil performer? No fucking way.

“Perfect,” Emily said. “It’ll differentiate him from Charlie’s team too, which is important. Okay, so that’s the uniform.”

She stared at me, and I stared back, attempting to keep my expression as neutral as possible. With effort, I put aside the small amount of pride I had left. “Where might I find clothes like that?”

“Oh, I’ll give you the names of a few department stores where I have lines of credit. They’ll take care of you.”

“Make sure to get some shoes too,” Destanie said on her way out of the room. “And sunglasses,” she called over her shoulder. “No one should ever know exactly where your eyes are focused.”

Emily picked up the phone she’d set on the side table next to her. “Give me your cell phone number,” she said.

“I don’t have one yet. I’ll have to pick up one of those prepaid phones.” Not that I could afford very many minutes.

She stared at me a moment and then laughed. “Wait, are you joking?”

I slowly shook my head.

She waved her hand. “I’ll have a smartphone sent over and put it on my plan. That’s a necessary part of the job. Plus, I need to be able to text you, and I have to know you’re available at a moment’s notice.”

“Okay. Thanks.” I sounded like a pet dog. God, it was stuff like this that made me feel like a total loser, and I hated it.

“We leave for the tour in six weeks.”

A tour. I’d barely been out of California, and suddenly I was heading out on a big tour in just over a month. I’d have to let my parole officer know. What did I need to know? Would I be provided with an itinerary? Did I need to scope out places before Emily’s arrival? Fuck, I was way out of my depth. Not that I could say that, of course. My head spun at what a difference a week could make.