I pressed send.
8
Tom
Detective Sawyer—Shay, I had started thinking of her as Shay now, though the informality sometimes felt strange on my tongue, like a borrowed coat that didn’t quite fit—had sent me a text yesterday evening. Thirteen hours ago, to be precise. I’d watched the notification appear on my screen and for a moment I just stood there, staring at it.
A date. She was asking me on a date.
The woman who looked at me like she could see straight through skin and bone to whatever rotted underneath, who’d spent years regarding me with professional coldness that bordered on hostility, wanted to have dinner with me. The same woman I’d slept with less than a week ago, because she—or at least that’s what I assumed the reason was at the time—was bored and had nothing better to do.
I should have replied immediately. Basic social convention demanded it—you didn’t leave someone hanging after they put themselves out there by being the one to reach out first. And yet here I was, paralyzed by something I couldn’t quite name, thumb hovering over the keyboard while my tea grewcold in its mug.
A french fry bounced off my forehead, the sheer absurdity of the gesture cutting through my spiraling thoughts.
“Hello? Earth to Tom?” Naomi waved her hand in front of my face. “You didn’t hear a word I said, did you?”
No. No, I did not. How could anything else even matter right now?
“Sorry. I was just thinking.”
“About what?” she asked, stealing another fry from the basket between us and popping it into her mouth. The fries were meant to be shared, but I stuck to my own plate. Naomi didn’t seem to mind, either way.
“Detective Sawyer,” I answered, seeing no point in lying to her. It was like she had a sixth sense about these things, anyway.
Naomi snorted, the sound falling somewhere between amusement and exasperation. “What else is new? You’ve been obsessing over her since the day you met. It’s actually kind of pathetic, in an endearing sort of way, of course. It’s cute.”
“She asked me out.”
Under different circumstances, I might have found the way Naomi’s mouth dropped open amusing. “What? When? How? Tell me everything—and I mean everything, don’t leave out a single detail,” she asked, excitement radiating off her in waves.
“Yesterday. Via text.” I picked up my phone and showed her the message, watching her face as she read it.
“Holy shit, Tommy.” She handed the phone back like it was something precious and fragile. “This is like… huge. Massive. You’ve had a thing for her since basically forever.”
That wasn’t exactly true, though I supposed from the outside it must have looked that way. I’d only tried to befriend herinitially so she’d stop looking at me as if I’d killed her pet. But somewhere along the line, in between the carefully cultivated conversations and calculated smiles, I’d lost the reins entirely.
It had happened gradually, so slowly I hadn’t noticed until it was too late to stop it. The way my pulse would kick up when she walked into a room, how my attention would focus on her like she was the only thing worth observing. The night we’d spent together had been a catastrophic lapse in judgment, a moment where want had overridden every carefully constructed safeguard I’d built around myself. I’d touched her like I was starving, and she’d responded in kind—all that ice melting into something molten and desperate.
One night. Just one night. I had assumed that would be the end of it.
And then she’d sent that text.
“So you think I should go out with her then?” I asked, though I already knew what Naomi would say.
“Of course—is that even a question?” She looked at me like I’d suggested something completely absurd. Then her expression shifted, suspicion creeping in around the edges. “Wait. Please don’t tell me you still haven’t talked to her yet. Tom. It’s been a full day.”
I said nothing, which was answer enough.
“Oh my god. What the hell are you doing? You think that a woman like Shay Sawyer is going to wait around on you forever?” She pressed a palm against her forehead, as if not knowing what else to do with herself. “Look, I say this with love, but you have like, no game. Negative game. You’re operating in the game deficit.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“It means—Send. Her. A. Text. Back.” She spoke slowly, theway someone would to a child who wasn’t quite grasping a simple concept. “Right now.”
My thumb hovered over the keyboard while my mind raced through a thousand different responses, each one feeling inadequate, too eager, or not eager enough.
In the end, I kept it simple, typing out the words before I could second-guess myself.
