Chapter 8 Superhero Cinderella
SUPERHERO CINDERELLA
Wes was a hopeless romantic. But not in the traditional, chocolate-and-roses way. Wes had a romantic worldview. His way of making this unhinged world tolerable? He elevated banal things so they felt special. He ritualized his life, finding beauty in the everyday.
In the supermarket, he often imagined that he was Jesus’s personal chef, shopping for the Last Supper.
On Wednesday nights, faithfully, he’d tuck into a corner of Sisters bar to nurse a single, exquisite glass of Malbec and “have a think.” He even romanticized his studio apartment—which, when he bought it, was a broke-down, abandoned, seven-hundred-square-foot dump.
But he saw the potential, creating a warm space with restored oak furniture, forest-green accents, and artwork by local Black painters.
(He’d seen Eddie Murphy’s Boomerang at a formative age.) The studio was poorly wired and shared a wall with Foam Alone Laundromat. But he’d made the ordinary a sanctuary.
Wes also found a way to make smoking brisket feel special, rarefied.
After some trial and error, he had decided that midnight was the optimal time to start smoking his brisket for the next day’s offerings.
Under the cloak of darkness, alone, cooking outside felt like engaging in some sacred private ritual. It felt reverential, powerful.
Now clad in basketball shorts and a sweatshirt, he trudged out into the darkness of his backyard carrying a tray of beef.
Humming an old Jodeci tune, he loaded his meticulously marinated beef into his Traeger grill (which he bought at 80 percent off, thanks to his boy Discount Dario, a crooked stock associate at Home Depot).
He needed to focus on his brisket, as the Pig Island NYC barbecue competition was coming up.
But he couldn’t get Sasha off his mind. What was it about Sasha Cruz?
Why did he turn into a simp in her presence?
Was it the twinkling angelic chime of her laugh?
The simmering-under-the-surface nakedness of her emotions?
Her unapologetic directness? Her sinewy, deep caramel legs that seemed to stretch fourteen miles long?
Her sultry, feline eyes that twinkled and flashed when she needed him?
I need you, she’d said.
And that’s all it took. Wes couldn’t say no to her.
He couldn’t in 2022, and he couldn’t now.
And even though their relationship was never deeper than client-detective chemistry, he felt helplessly drawn to Sasha.
She ignited all his protective instincts in a way that wasn’t quite .
. . platonic. Whenever he was in her orbit, he lost his head.
Neural pathways, frayed. His palms itched to touch her.
It was torture. Sasha was torture. And he craved it.
So much so, that she’d somehow gotten him to agree to track down her man.
I’m being punished, he thought, shutting the grill lid and setting the temp to 250. I don’t know what for, but considering some of the shit I’ve done, I probably deserve it. Why did she come back now, just when I’m starting over?
Balancing tongs, marinade, and two trays, Wes opened the sliding glass door with his elbow, trudging back into his apartment—
the thick night air carrying the smoky, spiced scent of slow-cooked brisket.
He dumped all his tools in the kitchen, sat down at his rustic coffee table (a gift from his boy Pier 13 Dean, the friendliest furniture cargo thief in Brooklyn).
It was almost 1 a.m. His thinking hours.
The intimate, secret feeling of being the only person awake on the planet usually brought him clarity.
To him, the night wasn’t still or quiet.
It was alive, pulsing with hidden adventures and night-world magic that didn’t count when the sun rose.
He grew up in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, when it was local.
Everyone knew everyone, and a Black family could own a brownstone on the salary of a postal worker and a nurse.
Entire lives were lived, lost, and celebrated on these stoops.
At night, he felt the pull of a lost time.
Long story short, he had insomnia. Another thing he romanticized.
His studio was cloaked in darkness, save for the lamp at the table, illuminating his journal.
While he was waiting for the meat to smoke, he usually jotted down lists, took notes on the day, peeled back his most layered thoughts.
The practice gave him clarity. But tonight, his mind kept drifting from his middle-of-the-night musings.
His brain had felt scrambled since Sasha stepped out of the sunlight in his Natural Born Griller line, two days before.
When her catlike eyes fell on his, he was undone.
I need you, she’d said.
I bet you fucking do, he thought.
Wes rarely thought about old cases. But he’d never stopped thinking about Sasha’s.
Memories would flood him when the first gust of fall wind kissed the trees—or, to be honest, whenever he smelled thyme.
These were amorphous, sense-memory recollections, more ephemeral than specific.
Hoping the trauma hadn’t colored her life.
Hoping that he’d helped her in the long run.
If he’d known she was going to show up at F.E.A.S.T.
, he would’ve had a chance to prepare. But apparently, the Dramatic Appearance was her MO.
Sasha had done the same thing in 2022 when she’d shown up to his office hectic and urgent and an absolute mess .
. . and fucking irresistible. Blindingly, unforgettably irresistible.
Standing there, with her perfect posture and imperious attitude, totally ignoring the fact that she had leaves in her hair, dirt-encrusted knees, and was down a slipper, like an unhinged superhero Cinderella.
Wes wondered if she depended upon the element of surprise and decided that she wasn’t even aware of it.
She just had overwhelming energy. He knew it the first night they met, when, somehow, she cajoled him into spending the night in his office.
One night that turned into a week. Which was unthinkable.
It was so unprofessional. She was a client.
His behavior could’ve been framed as predatory.
If she wanted to, she could’ve sued him to hell and back. Ruined him.
If Wes were a more responsible man, he would’ve bowed out of Sasha’s (first) case the minute she convinced him to let her stay in his offices.
And he knew better. That was the thing. He was raised in his father’s passenger seat, joining him on investigations.
One of the first things Detective Dane Sr. taught him, was that personal feelings should never bleed into a case.
They made you messy and clouded your judgment.
But Wes didn’t know how not to be emotional.
He was born with an obsessive attachment to fairness.
Bad guys deserved to get hunted down and forced to pay for their crimes.
Innocent people were owed safety and peace.
It was that simple. He was driven by uncompromising moral certainty, which is part of what made him a great detective.
Whoever had been stalking Sasha deserved to go down. Fine, but when that sentiment was spiked with unexpected attraction and an intense need to protect, lines got blurry.
Ultimately, Wes had to remind himself that he barely even knew Sasha.
And the way her presence unmoored him was his problem, not hers.
Wes wasn’t the first man to have a crush on an unavailable, beautiful, disaster-prone woman.
Before, she was unavailable because she was mid-crisis (understandable).
Now, she’s off-limits because she’s into the airplane dude.
A man so unforgettable that she . . . never bothered to learn his name?
It made no sense. And he couldn’t fathom a world where Seat F wouldn’t leave the flight with all of Sasha’s information, and plans to see her again.
A woman like Sasha Cruz? The hell was he thinking?
The idea was so foreign to Wes, he couldn’t help but be fascinated.
He had less-than-zero information to go off, but this guy felt unlikely, improbable—like a badly written side character in a student film.
He was a question mark and, unfortunately, Wes wasn’t wired to ignore those.
He had to find him. If for nothing else but to satisfy his curiosity.
As an adult male human, he was keenly aware that if a man wanted to be known, he’d be known.
A woman wouldn’t need a private eye to chase him down.
Assuming that Seat F was straight, single, interested, and available—what type of man could experience six concentrated hours of time with a beautiful woman—this particular beautiful woman—and let her slip through his fingers?
Couldn’t be me, thought Wes. But it didn’t matter what he’d do in Seat F’s position.
Wes had to take himself out of the case, entirely, or the investigation wasn’t going to work.
The case was about Sasha, and she deserved a happy ending.
Sasha had labeled Seat F a “nice guy.” And Wes hoped, for Sasha’s sake, that she was right.
After everything she’d been through, she deserved happiness.
And he’d love to be the one to make it possible for her.
Wes stretched, yawned into his fist, and then flipped a page in his journal.
Sasha had hired him to find out Seat F’s name and whereabouts.
Period, no more, no less. She didn’t ask him to investigate if Seat F was who he said he was.
In lieu of any real facts, he had to start with a few assumptions—that Seat F was interested in Sasha, and that the few details he offered were true.
Sasha was no fool; if she said this guy was into her, then he was.
Flight anxiety and wine could’ve fucked with her perception—but the chances were slim.
Wes only saw a few reasons why Seat F would disappear without a trace:
Possibility #1: SECRETIVE. Since he used aliases for his job, maybe he wasn’t in the habit of revealing identifying information.
Wes imagined that when your profession requires you to go undercover, it can be a hard habit to break.
You add liquor to the situation, and it gets murkier.
Maybe he was used to living in the shadows, a bit. Flying under the radar.
Possibility #2: MARRIED/TAKEN. Just a Don Draper–style sociopath enjoying a midair flirtation before heading home to his bored wife (or husband) and dysfunctional kids.
Possibility #3: INTROVERT. Shy? Submissive? Maybe he didn’t tell her his info because she didn’t offer up hers. Maybe he needed to be dommed a bit. Who knows, some women loved bossing around a fumbling, bumbling dum-dum.
Possibility #4: STRAIGHT-PRESENTING GAY DUDE. Could be confusing, especially if he was the kind of man who flirted with all genders and sexual orientations for sport.
If Wes could get in front of him, meet him in person, he’d know in seconds. Okay, so what did he know about Seat F? He jotted down the details in bullets.
6 feet tall
scar at temple
brown hair
45
luxury hotel inspector
born in Gallipoli, Italy
Italian father, German mother
lives in SoHo, NYC, about half of the year
no address, phone, DOB, or social media
no name, no photograph
The last bullet was a problem. A name or a photo could’ve unlocked everything.
Wes could’ve found him in two hours with a simple skip-trace (a search for a person—aka a skip—who’s skipped town, gone incognito, or otherwise disappeared).
Usually, the person was right under your nose.
They left an ID trail on the online people-finder services: things like mortgages, utilities, landlines, streaming service subscriptions.
But finding a nameless, faceless person was damn near impossible to do.
Unless he got his hands on the airline’s flight manifest—a passenger list that included every person’s name, age, and passport number.
The issue? Passenger lists were highly confidential documents, protected by a million privacy laws.
They weren’t open to the public. Outside of airline employees, there was no way to access the list.
Well, there was no legal way to access the list.
Really, his only recourse was fieldwork.
He could visit Fiorello Airport’s food courts and lounges.
Talk to security guards and gate agents.
See if anyone remembered someone who fit Seat F’s profile.
Of course, the staff was sworn to all sorts of NDAs.
And in this economy, no one wanted to put their job on the line.
Plus, it’d take a while. As much as he wanted to help Sasha, he didn’t have all the time in the world.
He had a food truck business to run. And a barbecue competition to prepare for.
Also, fieldwork was boring.
Too bad he couldn’t do what he wanted to.
In another world, another time, he’d simply bribe an airline worker to release the passenger list. But bribery wasn’t an option for Wes, not anymore.
No gray areas. Black and white, only. In his new life, clarity was important.
And if he started cheating the system there, where would it end?
So the question became—what the hell was he going to do, legally?
It remained to be seen. What he did know was that he’d need to create some boundaries for himself, when it came to Sasha.
Because hanging with her felt a little too good.
And she was in love with someone else. He had to protect himself.
He’d take the case, but only because it felt like a full-circle moment.
Back then, he found the man who was torturing her.
Now, he’d find the man she was in love with.
It felt like closure, a balancing of the scales.
But that’s not all, was it? He also wanted to prove to himself he could solve one last case. That he was a great detective, after all. That he wasn’t the disappointment his father claimed he was.
And then, finally, he could leave the past where it belonged.
He’d just have to be careful, before his secret longing tipped over into something he couldn’t come back from.