Chapter 12 Head Case
HEAD CASE
And then, Wes’s phone went off, ringing into the quiet. He checked the number and groaned. “Jesus. My sister.”
Sasha was grateful for the interruption.
The phone pierced through the almost unbearable tension between her and Wes.
Her head was spinning. With just a few words, Wes had left Sasha an emotionally conflicted wreck.
But now, it was like it hadn’t even happened.
Wes was totally preoccupied with his phone.
“Your sister? It c-could be . . .” Sasha stopped herself and cleared her throat, trying to quell the breathy hitch in her voice. “It could be good news.”
He snorted at this. “You don’t know my sister.” Putting the phone to his ear, he mouthed Sorry and stepped away.
Sasha tried to pretend she wasn’t watching him.
His face registered fifteen different shades of displeasure.
She had to pull it together. What was she going through?
After years of not feeling a single flutter for anyone, she was suddenly attracted to a man?
To two men? She wondered if this was a normal phenomenon.
If, when women emerged from celibacy, they became indiscriminately horny.
But Wes wasn’t exactly an indiscriminate attraction.
As much as she tried to run from it, it was there.
A flutter, a surge, a flash of electricity, whenever she was near him.
Actually, she didn’t even need to be physically near him.
Just on the phone with him. Reading his texts.
Imagining him saying the words out loud.
The thing that sent her running from him—the fact he’d witnessed the scariest time of her life, the reminder, the living time stamp of him—it was also the pull.
Wes understood her on a level that no one else could access.
Even Destiny got annoyed with her bizarre quirks and seemingly random phobias since the 2022 incident.
Wes had been there, though. Wes had saved the day.
But he wasn’t a relationship guy. For good reason, he wanted to keep things professional.
Wes was even resistant to being friends, until she cajoled him into it.
He was unavailable, and so was she. She’d just have to remind herself of this.
And ignore the fact that, with one utterance—He doesn’t have you yet, does he—he’d so easily, confidently, crushed the idea of anyone else from her mind.
Stop it, put it away, remember what you’re here for, she told herself, covertly training her eyes on Wes as he paced, talking to his sister. What was happening on the other side of the call? Judging from his infrequent, interrupted responses, Wes was being strong-armed.
“Brooke, I told you I’m not going . . .”
“You know I have to work . . .”
“Grilling is my work . . .”
“Oh word? Brooke, you design splash parks! I feed people, while you expose them to waterborne syphilis. How dare . . .”
“Fine. Fine. Fine.”
Wes made an exasperated sound, and shoved his phone in his pocket.
With a defeated slump to his shoulders, he walked back over to Sasha, who was trying to fake a nonchalant air. She raised her phone, saying, “Just got a notice that my Uber’s ten minutes behind.”
He nodded. “Yeah, no, all good. I’ll wait with you.”
“So, uh, what was that about?”
“Just my sister, Brooke. Being my sister, Brooke.”
“Your twin sister.” She was dying of curiosity. The mother of the glitter princess! “I couldn’t help but overhear that she’s a water park designer? So fascinating.”
“Yeah, well, if you ever wondered where an engineering doctorate gets you these days, look no further.”
“What happened on the call?”
“I just agreed to something I’m going to regret. But there’s no arguing with my sister.”
“What did you agree to?”
He sighed. “You remember that I was a partner in my dad’s firm, Dane & Son Detective Agency? A bench in Fort Greene Park is being dedicated to him this weekend. He passed not long after I wrapped our case, back in 2022.”
“I’m so sorry, Wes. I didn’t know he passed.”
It was an empty, trite thing to say. How would she have known? But the look on his face was so conflicted, so stormy—she was grasping at how to respond.
Sasha remembered his office, empty next to Wes’s. He didn’t say much about him during her first case. But she’d picked up that he was somewhat of a hero—a complicated hero—to Wes. His father was clearly a tricky subject. She hoped Wes felt comfortable enough one day to tell her more.
“No, you’re fine,” Wes assured her. “The bench has been in the works for a while. And it’s an honor. It’s just that my sister is . . .” He stopped himself. “I’m trying to think of a diplomatic way to say this. Her energy’s just dark. She’s like one of those Spirit Halloween animatronics.”
“So specific,” she said, raising her brows. “Is there a way to compartmentalize? Block out your sister, but go to honor your dad?”
“Nah, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth,” he admitted. “The whole thing is so performative, putting on a show for folks who knew me as a kid that I have no relationship with now. I can visit the bench whenever I want. I don’t need to prove anything.”
“You don’t. And everyone grieves in their own way.”
Wes scratched the back of his neck, drawing his mouth to one side. “Maybe I’m just being an asshole. What do you think I should do?”
Sasha wanted to be sensitive. But she had to tell the truth. “I don’t know enough about your relationship with your father to make an informed—”
“Just tell me.”
“You should go.”
“Damn. I knew you’d say that.”
“I just don’t want you to regret not being there for such an important day.
You’re his namesake. And you followed in his footsteps?
I’m sure he was so proud of you. And it sounds like you feel the same about him.
What’s a few hours to support your family?
Some light punch, a few speeches, shake a few hands. In and out.”
“Family isn’t intrinsically a good thing,” Wes pointed out. “It just means they’re familiar. If familiarity mattered, water wouldn’t boil fish.”
“You’re really such a philosopher,” she said, authentically impressed. “You’re right. If your family’s that toxic, don’t go. Your mental health is the most important thing. That said, there might be cake.”
He chewed on his bottom lip, peering down at the floor. Sasha could tell there was so much more to the story than he was saying. And every part of her wanted to know it. Curiosity flooded her. Wes was a mystery. She wanted to figure out her new (old) friend. She wanted to know more.
“They’re toxic,” he said, finally, “but I have my moments, too. I’ve done things I’m not proud of.”
“Everyone has,” said Sasha.
Wes looked pensive. Unreachable. “Not like me.”
She didn’t know what he meant, but she didn’t want to push. Instead, she said, “If you need some emotional support, I could join you.”
“I don’t need emotional support,” he said quietly.
“What do you need?”
“New relatives,” he said with a small laugh, trying to lighten the mood.
“Wes.”
“Seriously. After my dad died, my mom’s brain powered down. One minute she’s normal, the next minute she’s mean as hell. Especially to me. And she got remarried to a former Harlem Globetrotter who keeps running for mayor as an Independent.”
“Your stepdad is Sweet Willy Watson?”
“And Brooke’s just pathologically rude. No social graces, whatsoever.”
Sasha winced. “It’s really that bad?”
“I can’t, in good conscience, expose you to these ding-dongs.”
“Well, after everything you’ve done for me, I owe you.”
Wes stared down the alley at the street, wrestling with something. “Nah, I’m good. Thanks for offering, though.”
When Destiny invited Sasha to a “couples” scalp massage at Head Case Spa, Brooklyn’s destination for soothing scalp treatments, she eagerly accepted.
She’d read that their cranio-massages left even the most high-strung New Yorkers floating on air.
And floating was what Sasha needed. For the past few nights, she’d had deep anxiety nightmares that bled into the following day—just a jumble of barely logical snapshots from October 2022.
But, hopefully, the treatment would give her relaxation.
The spa was a Mediterranean-inspired oasis, with elegant arches, mosaic tiles, and the delicate sound of water flowing over stones.
Washcloths were draped over their eyes, but reed diffusers awakened their other senses, wafting a geranium-lavender scent through the air.
As Sasha and Destiny sank into weightlessness on their plush cots, masseuses rubbed detoxifying salt scrubs into their scalps.
And while this was all happening, Seat F was somewhere out there looking for her, too.
“Soooo . . . how do you see things playing out, when you finally meet Seat F?” asked Destiny, practically echoing Wes’s question, a few days before. “Honestly.”
“Honestly? In my fantasies, our worlds would collide,” said Sasha, who was lying on a luxe cot a few feet from Destiny. “Climate change would reverse. Flowers would bloom. Pangea would reassemble.”
And, please God, my inconvenient attraction to Wes Dane would fade.
“I love the new you. Look at how unreasonably romantic you’ve become.” Destiny stretched languidly, wiggling her ballet slipper–pink toes. “Imagine telling people the story of how you met?”
“Oh, our meet-cute would be highly abnormal. And you know I like neat, clean-cut things.”
“You eat corn on the cob with a fork and a knife.”
“I’ve been putting off telling Wes how I eat barbecue ribs,” she said with a little chuckle.
If she and Destiny weren’t wearing washcloths over their eyes, Sasha would’ve seen her Oh really? expression.
“Odd meet-cutes are my new micro-obsession,” continued Sasha. “I’m obsessed with this IG account where the host interviews random couples about how they met. And I’ve fallen into a YouTube rabbit hole researching celeb relationships. It makes this thing with Seat F feel more real.”