Chapter 6 Pros Play Hurt
PROS PLAY HURT
In order to become a functioning human again, Sasha had to throw herself outside, as forcefully as a mama bird shoving her chick out of the nest. (Only, she was both the mama and the chick.) On high-anxiety days, this was excruciating.
Her apartment was so delightful, so cozy, so hers.
At home, she was protected from the world.
There was no risk of a shifty-eyed stranger sidling up to her on the train.
She didn’t need to perform glamour. She could sleep between work Zooms and look fresh as a daisy in seconds because no one knew that, from the waist down, she was wearing panties and slipper-socks.
Nothing Out There felt better than In Here.
But she’d done enough therapy to know that was her anxiety disorder talking.
And the longer she wallowed in changelessness, day in and day out, the less hope she had for a functional life.
She needed to find her heartbeat, again.
Feel the world, again. Anything to liberate her from hibernation malaise.
The Paris trip was her big experiment, and she’d passed with flying colors.
She boarded a plane. She flew to another continent.
She stayed in a hotel without barricading the door with paranoid-survivalist shit from .
She allowed herself to have a “club boyfriend” in the sky. Progress was afoot!
And, at the moment, progress tasted like a strawberry shortcake cupcake at the Little Cupcake Bakeshop.
Nestled among Vanderbilt Avenue’s pho, furniture, and flower shops, the redbrick café was a delectably wholesome haven for sweet-toothed Brooklynites like Sasha.
It was a short walk from her apartment—but still, it would’ve been so much easier to order on the delivery app.
A year ago, she would’ve. But on this Sunday morning?
She tore herself out of bed. Unwrapped her bob.
Threw on a tank dress, black-cherry lip gloss, and a straw tote—and dragged her ass out the door.
At the end of the eight-minute walk was a single, perfect, pink cupcake.
And more ruminating on what the hell happened with Wes, the day before.
He was so weird with her. Of course it was jarring to be surprised at work. Especially by a person you hadn’t seen in forever. But something itched at the corners of her brain—it seemed like more than that. Wes wasn’t just surprised to see her.
He seemed in a hurry to get rid of her.
Did I offend him back then? she wondered, racking her brain. Is it because of what happened between us? Because I crossed the line? Is that why he never spoke to me again?
There were so many unanswered questions between them.
She needed clarity, but she also dreaded revisiting that time.
Her head was drowning in confusion. One thing was for sure, though—going to F.E.A.S.T.
was a bad idea. And it was a waste, because her detective was no longer a detective.
Which looked good on him. Wes seemed lighter, somehow, and she was happy for him.
Thrilled. Truly. Finding your calling was a rare gift.
Sasha had thought about him, often, over the years.
In her head, she’d built him up to be this savior-hero figure.
The Good Guy who’d saved her from the Bad Guy.
Sasha only had positive thoughts about Wes.
So watching him recoil when he first saw her?
It was humbling at best; hurtful at worst. But how obnoxious had she been, expecting Wes to drop everything for her?
Even if he’d still been a practicing PI—how dare she assume he’d be available, or that he’d want to take on her case? When did she get so self-centered?
Oh wait; she knew when. Self-centeredness was one of the unsavory occupational hazards of becoming a depressive shut-in.
When you’re the only person you see all day, your only friend in the world, your only care in the world—your perspective shrinks to a tiny, you-shaped pinprick.
Your brain, your needs, your sadness, your bullshit.
Sucking the frosting off her last strawberry, Sasha decided to stop these thoughts, dead. She got it, loud and clear, that Wes didn’t want anything to do with her. And she wasn’t owed an explanation.
As she popped the last bite in her mouth, her eyes drifted out the window.
Across Vanderbilt, a young Latino couple stumbled out of a well-worn brownstone.
Her curls were mussed under a bucket hat; and he had on pajama bottoms and slides.
They were clinging to each other, sipping Diet Cokes, and floating on a fuck haze.
This is probably their first time coming up for air since last night, she thought, bitterly. I hate them. No one should be that happy at twenty-one.
Her mind immediately drifted to Seat F. What if, at some point in the future, they could be that happy together?
Was she delusional for believing there was a chance?
Ever since the flight, she’d been replaying their moments together.
They seemed to just melt into each other’s spaces, until the distance between them shrunk smaller and smaller.
Things like that didn’t happen to her. Their connection felt so seamless.
And then, there was the buzzing thrill of his touch.
(Or was it just that she was touch-starved?
Either way, it was a thrill.) Sasha didn’t believe in coincidences.
No, she was supposed to meet Seat F. Their meeting felt seismic. And she needed to know why.
And for a woman with major trust issues?
Who, at movie theaters, looped her purse strap around her leg to discourage pickpockets (because pickpockets are so famous for haunting AMC Theatres)?
Opening up to Seat F was massively significant.
That’s the part she couldn’t get over. That she’d shared so much of her personal story, and that it felt so natural.
But now, her one chance to find him had fallen through. Sasha had played the Wes thing all wrong. She shouldn’t have barged in on him like that.
Lips pursed in exasperation, she began mindlessly doomscrolling through social media, hoping to stumble upon something, anything to uplift her mood. And just as she clicked on a clip of Botswanan schoolgirls absolutely nailing Beyoncé’s “ALIEN SUPERSTAR” choreo, her phone dinged.
Wes. It was a text from Wes.
Wes: Hey
Sasha: Hi!
Wes: You still wanna talk?
Sasha: YES
Wes: IRL, though. I’ll meet you where you are, if that’s easiest.
Sasha looked up from her phone. She didn’t want Wes to come to the Little Cupcake Bakeshop. It was her private place. Whatever Wes wanted to tell her, she’d prefer to hear it somewhere neutral.
Sasha: No, I’ll come to you. Where r u?
Wes: On a bike, just passed BK Library
Sasha: Go back, meet me out front in 20
A half hour later, Wes and Sasha were perched, side by side, on a step under the massive shadow of Brooklyn’s Central Library.
Which wasn’t an ordinary library at all.
It was a sprawling art deco gem—and the front entrance was iconic, with a fifty-foot facade flanked by limestone columns and bronze sculptures of literary icons and gold accents glinting in the sun.
The dramatic steps sweeping up to the entrance were a wedding photographer’s dream.
Quite the backdrop for Wes and Sasha’s conversation.
“Yeah, I’ll admit it. I was being curt yesterday.
” Wes was a long-limbed, athletic vision in warm-up pants, Stan Smiths, and a bike helmet by his side.
The iced coffees he brought for himself and Sasha were, untouched, on the limestone step between them.
His skin had a slight sheen after riding his bike for miles in eighty-degree weather.
But it just gave him a casually sexy, sporty radiance.
Does this man ever have an off day? she thought, trying to mask her obvious staring.
“. . . and I’m sorry,” he was saying. “I hope you accept my apology. I was just surprised, you know? My life has changed so much since 2022. I knew you in a very specific way, during a very specific time, and seeing you out of context was . . . a lot.”
Sasha nodded, so relieved that he wasn’t angry with her.
“Seeing you out of context was a lot, too,” she agreed. “Like when you’re little and you spy your principal at CVS.”
“I went to an all-boys Catholic school. My teachers were old Irish winos. Seeing you wasn’t that,” he said lightly. “I just wasn’t expecting to confront my detective life at F.E.A.S.T.”
“But are you hiding from your detective life? Half of Brooklyn goes to F.E.A.S.T. You must run into other former clients.”
“No, yeah, I’ve run into clients. And they’re supportive, enthusiastic, all good things. It’s cool. But your case was different.”
“Different?” This was a surprise to Sasha.
“I went to you because you’d had so much experience working with cases like mine.
I researched. Your specialty was high-stakes, emotional cases.
Divorces, missing children. And you were brilliant.
So professional, with a healthy remove.” She chose her words carefully.
“Thank you,” he said. His expression was unreadable.
“So how was my case different from your usual ones?”
Wes frowned a little, thumbing his bottom lip.
He seemed to be choosing his words as carefully and thoughtfully as Sasha.
They were tiptoeing on the edge of something—being deliberately careful and vague, so as not to plummet into oblivion.
If only they could pierce the veil of this halting tension.
“Some jobs were harder than others,” he said finally. “Yours was tough. I don’t know why.”
His nonanswer hung there. Unexplained and unquestioned.
“Why did you give it up?”