Sam figures Russ will call him when he gets back from Tulum, but after a week goes by and he doesn’t hear anything he calls and leaves a message with Sherri, who promises to pass it along. “Nothing urgent,” he tells her, trying not to sound desperate or sweaty. He would have thought he’d heard back about the firefighter show by now. “Just, you know. Checking in.”
He drops in on his old acting class in the Valley. He spends a lot of time at the gym. He goes on YouTube and watches old Birds of California clips for a while, which is weirdly enjoyable—turns out it was a pretty good show, with sharp dialogue and the occasional bit of slapstick and a knack for tearjerker montages set to acoustic covers of classic rock songs. He’d forgotten what a gifted comedian Fiona could be when she wanted to, all perfect timing and elastic expression, her delivery always dead-on.
Sam blows out a breath, leaning his head back against the couch and sifting his hands through his hair. He knows he needs to be honest with her, to talk to her about Birds, but he doesn’t trust her not to bite his head off the second he brings it up. The last thing he wants to do is lose her. But it feels like he’s running out of time.
Still, Sam reminds himself, they might have gotten famous for playing precocious teenagers on television, but they aren’t actually kids anymore. They can have actual conversations. He’ll take her out, he decides—somewhere nice with white tablecloths and flattering lighting, the kind of place where they call french fries frites.
And okay, he doesn’t really know how he’s going to afford to do that at this particular moment, but whatever. He’ll figure it out.
He shuts his laptop with a confident click, then digs his phone out from between the couch cushions. Want to hang out tonight? he texts.
Can’t, she replies. It’s Claudia’s birthday.
Sam thinks about that for a moment. Asks himself, not for the first time, exactly how deep he’s prepared to get in here. I like birthdays, he types, then hits send before he can talk himself out of it.
Seriously? Her reply is immediate. You want to come to my sister’s birthday?
Well, now he feels like an asshole. But: in for a penny, et cetera. I mean, only if you want me to. I’m not going to bust in through the wall like the Kool-Aid Man.
The dots appear, then disappear, then appear again. It’s close to a full minute before her reply comes through. Yeah, okay, she says. I want you to.
He’s expecting a dozen teenyboppers but instead it’s just Fiona and her dad and Estelle when he shows up, with Sam Cooke on the stereo and the sliding door wide open to the warm evening breeze. Claudia is wearing a long pink skirt made of tulle that looks like cotton candy, a crop top, and a pair of Nikes. “Samuel,” she says, sounding exactly like Fiona. “Nice to see you again.”
“Um, you too.” He had no idea what to get her but he didn’t want to show up empty-handed so finally he went to a costume shop in West Hollywood and got her a five-dollar plastic tiara. “Happy birthday,” he says, handing it over. Claudia grins and pops it on top of her head.
“She had a party with her friends, too,” Fiona assures him, passing him a pitcher of lemonade spiked with basil and ginger and nodding in the direction of the backyard. “My family is tragic, but it’s not that tragic.”
Sam shakes his head. “This doesn’t feel tragic,” he says, and it actually doesn’t. They’ve draped a cloth over the patio table and lit candles, strung little white lights all through the trees. There are glass jars full of herbs and flowers lined up at the center of the table alongside an enormous spread of food: chicken, hummus, pita, all kinds of pickled veg. “This is amazing,” Sam says, taking a second helping even though technically he’s only supposed to be eating 1,500 calories a day right now. “Did you guys cook all this?”
“Oh god no,” Fiona says, reaching for the tabbouleh. “It’s murder chicken.”
“Murder chicken?” Sam repeats, and Claudia nods.
“The guy who owned the restaurant put on a white silk suit and went out one day and murdered his mom and sister,” she explains pleasantly, scooping some hummus onto her pita. “Then he shot himself in the head.”
Sam stops chewing. “I’m sorry,” he says, “what now?”
“Hey,” Fiona’s dad says with a tired-looking smile, pointing a drumstick in his direction, “you asked.”
“I did,” Sam admits faintly. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but the guy seems nice enough, if a little schleppy and quiet. “And the whole operation didn’t shut down after that?”
Claudia shrugs. “I mean,” she points out, “it’s very delicious chicken.”
Sam shakes his head, looking across the table at Fiona. “That would be your restaurant of choice.”
“It’s her birthday,” Fiona says, nodding across the table at her sister. Sam likes watching them together: how easy they are with each other, how comfortable and funny they are. He and Adam get along fine, but it isn’t like this. “I just made a helpful suggestion.”
Sam helps her clean up after dinner, wrapping the murder chicken in plastic and loading the plates into the dishwasher. As Fiona is boxing up the leftover birthday cake she swipes one sneaky finger through the frosting, but before she can lick it off Sam catches her hand and slips it into his own mouth instead, tasting the cloying sweetness of the sugar mixed with the salt of her skin. Fiona swallows hard, the muscles in her throat moving. “That was mine,” she protests softly.
“Oops,” Sam says, and goes back outside to get more plates.
Fiona’s dad has disappeared into the house, but Claudia and Estelle are taking glamour shots in the fading light, cooing about the magic hour; Sam is gathering up the glasses when Estelle puts a hand on his arm. “Sam, honey,” she says quietly. She’s wearing a long sparkly gown and a pair of heels so high he’s immediately concerned about her old-lady ankles. “Listen.”
Sam turns to look at her. Something about the tone in her voice has him expecting the kind of speech Jamie’s character might have given to one of Riley’s potential boyfriends on Birds of California: If you hurt her I’ll cut your balls off and put them in the Vitamix or something. Well, Jamie’s character wouldn’t have said that, exactly—the Family Network had very strict rules about vulgarity of any kind—but that would have been the gist. Maybe the dialogue will be a little spicier on Family After Dark.
Now he looks at Estelle and holds both hands up, conciliatory. “Whatever you’re about to say,” he blurts, “I know you all are protective of Fiona. And rightfully so. She’s been through a lot. But I care about her, and I wouldn’t do anything to hurt her on purpose. So you don’t have to worry about that.”
Estelle looks at him for a moment, a wry, knowing smile playing over her brightly painted lips. “Those champagne flutes can’t go in the dishwasher, cupcake,” she tells him. “They’re crystal.”
Sam feels himself blush from the bottoms of his feet clear up to his hairline. “Oh,” he says, nodding vigorously. “Um, good to know.”
“They’re the real thing, and they’re delicate.” She raises her eyebrows. “That’s all I was going to say.”
Eventually Sam wanders down the hall to pee, then stops in the door of Fiona’s room on the way back. He’s not sure what he’s expecting—chaos, maybe, shit everywhere—but instead it’s calm and tidy, a pale quilt smoothed over the queen-size mattress and little jars of essential oils lined up on the dresser. There are framed photos of her and her sister, plus one of her and Thandie with their arms around each other, so young they look like they’re going to a middle school dance. The smell of vanilla and sandalwood hangs in the air. He’s just wandering over toward her bookshelf when he hears Fiona’s voice behind him: “Looking for drugs?”
Sam turns to look at her leaning in the doorway, arms crossed and a half smile on her face like she’s onto him. “Guns, actually.”
Fiona nods seriously. “Guns are in Claudia’s room.”
“I was going to check there next.” Sam turns back to the bookcase, his gaze skipping across the titles: plays, mostly, but a decent amount of fiction, an essay collection or two. The shelves are stuffed to the gills, bowing a little bit. It’s no wonder she and Erin got along. “Oh-ho!” he crows, prying a paperback copy of The Alchemist out from between a gruesome-looking true crime book and a battered hardcover of The Velveteen Rabbit. “What do we have here?” he asks, holding it aloft in victory.
Fiona rolls her eyes. “I never said I hadn’t read it,” she says, crossing the room and taking it out of his hand before tossing it onto the bed. “I’ve read a lot of things.”
“I know you have,” Sam says quietly. He turns back to the bookcase and runs his finger along the spines until he gets to Weetzie Bat, pulling it off the shelf and holding it up. “Can I borrow this?” he asks.
Fiona’s eyes narrow. “Why?”
“Why do you think?” He shrugs. “You’ve read mine. I want to read yours.”
Fiona looks at him for a long moment like she’s waiting for the gotcha. “Fine,” she says, when she’s satisfied there isn’t one coming. “If you promise to bring it back.”
That makes him smile. “Do you want to write your name in it first?”
“Maybe,” she says, but before Sam can reply she’s already kissing him, hooking her fingers in his belt loops and yanking him close. Sam groans quietly against her mouth—dropping the book and curling his hands around her waist, running his thumbs along the soft skin just above the waistband of her jeans. He tries to remember the last time he wanted someone like this, and he can’t. He wants to hand her a Sharpie and hold his arm out, to look down and see Property of Fiona St. James scrawled in her handwriting across his skin.
He starts to walk her backward toward the bed, his hands creeping higher, but Fiona stops him when the backs of her legs bump against the mattress. “Not here,” she mumbles.
Sam groans low and quiet, presses his hips against hers. “Why not?”
Fiona arches, then pushes him gently away. “Because my entire family is watching The Bachelor in the next room, perv.”
“Oh.” Sam swallows. “Right.” He stands there for a moment completely unable to problem solve, dizzy with desire. Finally Fiona laughs, reaching down and lacing her fingers through his.
“You want to get out of here?” she murmurs.
Sam does.
They don’t talk as he winds down Laurel Canyon toward his apartment, the windows down and the warm night air blowing Fiona’s hair around her face. There’s a part of Sam that wants to speed east until they get to Palm Desert, to lay her out on a blanket and gaze up at the massive bowl of stars; there’s a part of him that wants to drive north to see the redwoods, to walk across the Golden Gate Bridge. Sam’s lived in California for fifteen years and he’s never done any of those things, but with Fiona in the passenger seat beside him he thinks maybe he’d like to.
Then she slides her hand up his thigh and squeezes his cock through his jeans, so casual, and Sam completely forgets about doing anything but getting her naked in his bed.
It takes him forever to find a parking spot. They drive around for what seems like hours, Sam feeling increasingly desperate as he circles the block again and again. “I can’t believe you park your fucking Tesla on the street,” Fiona says finally, sounding agitated. “Like, in all seriousness, how has nobody slashed your tires?”
“I got so excited about the apartment that I forgot to ask if there was parking,” he says, gritting his teeth. “And then it was too late.”
“So you didn’t think to, like, rent a spot somewhere, or—”
“There’s usually plenty of parking in this neighborhood!”
Finally he finds a spot that’s really too small, jerking the wheel back and forth as he tries to wriggle in. “Do you want me to do it?” Fiona asks, her voice a full click higher than normal.
Sam makes a face. “What are you, some kind of parallel parking expert?”
“Yes, actually,” she says. “My dad grew up in Queens, it’s a point of pride for him.” She glances out the window. “You’re definitely not going to make it.”
“I’m going to make it!” Sam insists. He does, too, though not before gently kissing the car behind them with the bumper of the Tesla. “It’s fine,” he decides, glancing perfunctorily at the damage before grabbing Fiona’s hand and yanking her toward his apartment, both of them nearly tripping as they race up the stairs to his place. The door has barely shut when they’re on each other, Sam grabbing her ass and boosting her up, her back thumping against the wall as she wraps her legs around his waist.
The bedroom is too far away so he sets her down on the couch and drops down on top of her, rucking up her T-shirt and yanking down the cups of her bra instead of bothering with the clasp. Fiona gasps. It feels like her hands are on him everywhere: her fingers raking over his chest and back and stomach, reaching down to work the button on his jeans.
As soon as they’re both finally naked Sam pushes himself as deep as he can and then just stays there—bracing his elbows on either side of her shoulders, brushing the hair off her forehead. They stare at each other for a moment, both of them silent. Sam bites his tongue before he says something he can’t take back.
“Sam,” she whispers finally, her eyes dark with pleasure; she’s rocking underneath him now, restless, hands clutching at his biceps and hair. “Sam.”
Sam blinks at her dazedly. “Hm?”
Fiona grins. “Nobody’s ever keyed your car out there before?” she asks, lifting one hand and miming a little scraping motion. “Really? Not even a little bit?”
Sam growls and flips her onto her stomach, wrapping an arm around her waist and finding her clit with two fingers; she’s still laughing right up until the moment she finally comes apart against his hand.
They do it again in the shower a while later, then one more time in his bed, her wet hair soaking into the pillow and their skin warm and damp from the spray. “You ever been to Palm Springs?” he asks when they’re finished, propping himself up on one elbow.
“No, actually.” Fiona raises her eyebrows. “Isn’t it all influencers and, like, the occasional cactus?”
“Maybe,” Sam says with a shrug. “You wanna find out?”
He’s expecting her to say no like a reflex but instead she thinks about it for a moment before nodding, her eyes like a cat’s in the dark. “Sure,” she says. “Let’s go.”
“Okay,” he says, and lets himself believe that she means it. “Let’s.”
He falls into a sweaty, sated sleep almost as soon as his eyes close, only to jerk awake in the dark what feels like a few seconds later, disoriented. Sam blinks for a moment, then looks over at Fiona, who’s tossing violently in bed beside him, muttering something he doesn’t understand. The clock on the nightstand says it’s just after two.
Sam sits up. “Fiona,” he says quietly, not sure what to do. His instinct is to touch her, but for some reason he doesn’t think it’s a good idea. “Fiona.”
“Wha—?” She startles awake all at once then, dazed, shaking her head and looking around like she doesn’t know where she is. Her eyes narrow, like she’s never seen him before. “What the fuck?” she demands, drawing sharply back.
“It’s me,” he says, holding his hands up. Then, just in case: “It’s Sam. I think you were having a nightmare.”
Fiona blinks at him for a moment in the darkness, then sags. “Oh,” she says, scrubbing a hand over her face. Her hair is one big tangle. “Sorry.”
“No, it’s okay.” He almost asks her what she was dreaming about, but that seems like a bad idea, too, on top of which there’s a tiny part of him that doesn’t actually want to know. Instead he smiles, smoothing a hand down her arm. Fiona smiles back—at least, he thinks she does; it’s hard to tell in the dark—and lies down beside him.
He doesn’t mean to, but he must fall asleep again, because the next time he wakes up she’s gone, the mattress cool beside him. He gets out of bed and shuffles into the living room, where he finds her curled up in a ball on the couch watching something called Evil Lives Here on cable. “Hey,” he says sleepily, scrubbing a hand through his hair. “What are you doing?”
Fiona doesn’t look at him. “I mean.” She shrugs, gesturing at the TV. “That’s pretty obvious, no?”
Sam frowns. “Are you okay?”
“Yep.”
“Okay.” He’s used to her giving him a hard time about things, but she sounds really and truly annoyed, and he’s not sure why. “Do you want to talk to me?”
“What?” Fiona stares at him blankly. “There’s nothing to talk about. I’m fine.”
“You . . . don’t look fine,” Sam says carefully. She doesn’t, either: there are dark rings under her eyes; her hair is a little bit matted. He wonders how long she was tossing and turning before she gave up and came out here.
Fiona laughs hollowly. “Thanks a lot.”
“No, I didn’t mean—” Sam breaks off. Her jaw is set, her shoulders somewhere up in the neighborhood of her ears. He can see her closing up shop, sure as the lights blinking out in the strip malls back home. “Do you want to come back to bed?”
She shakes her head. “You go,” she says, nodding in the direction of the bedroom. “I’m going to watch this.”
Instead he crosses the living room and lies down at the other end of the couch. Their feet brush, but she pulls hers away, curling her knees up and keeping her eyes on the television. “Fee,” Sam says, gazing at her in the half dark. Then, even though he has a pretty good idea of how it’s going to go: “Do you get nightmares a lot?”
Sure enough: “Sam,” she snaps, reliable as winter in Wisconsin. “Leave it, okay? I can go home, if I’m keeping you up.”
“What?” Sam startles. “No, hey, that’s not what I want.”
“Okay.” Fiona shrugs. “Well then. Let me watch this, okay?”
“Okay.”
He doesn’t sleep for a long time, and he can tell she doesn’t, either. Instead they lie there in uneasy silence, the light from the TV flickering across the rug.
He wakes up the next morning, and she’s making pancakes.
“Something approximating pancakes, anyway,” she says when he pads into the kitchen, popping up onto her toes to plant a cheery kiss on his mouth. She’s wearing underwear and one of his T-shirts, her hair piled high on top of her head. “There’s coffee.”
“I—thanks.” Sam scratches at the back of his neck, cautious. Fiona has never, in all the time they’ve been hanging out, made coffee in the morning. Honestly, Sam didn’t even know he had coffee in this house. “Wow.”
“I don’t have rehearsal until tonight,” she continues, moving busily around the kitchen. “Want to do something? A hike?”
Sam raises an eyebrow. “Since when do you like to hike?”
“I like to hike!” she defends herself. “I could like it, conceivably. I’ve never actually done it.” She shrugs. “But that’s a thing normal people do, right? With the person with whom they’re engaging in various and sundry sexual acts?”
Sam smiles. “I think it’s a thing people do, yeah.” His brain catches on that word, though, normal, like a snag in the knit of a cashmere sweater. He can’t get over the feeling that she’s playacting, like she accidentally dropped some important façade and now she feels like she has to compensate. “Fiona,” he says. “About last night.”
“Yeah,” she says with a self-deprecating smile. “Sorry. I don’t sleep so well sometimes and it makes me an asshole.”
“You weren’t an asshole,” he says.
“You know what I mean.” She waves her hand, like him finding her half-catatonic in his living room is cigarette smoke she can swat away. “I’m going to shower.”
“Wait,” he says, “what about the pancakes?”
Fiona shrugs, like she hasn’t considered it. “I’m not actually hungry. I mostly just wanted to make them. You should eat, though.”
“Okay . . . ?” Sam frowns. “We showered last night, you realize.”
“I mean.” Fiona presses another kiss against his mouth, though he can’t figure out if he’s imagining that it feels a little bit forced. “I don’t think it counts when there’s no soap involved.”
“We used soap.”
“Not for washing.”
That makes him smile. “Fair,” he admits.
Fiona heads down the hallway, pulling off her T-shirt as she goes. Sam watches the long line of her bare back, muscles flexing underneath the smooth expanse of her skin. He stands there for a moment once she’s gone, stuffing a couple of pancakes absently into his mouth. He definitely didn’t have the right ingredients, and they taste distinctly sandy; still, nobody has made Sam breakfast in years.
Fuck it, he thinks, setting a half-eaten pancake down on the counter. He’s being a dick. Everybody’s entitled to a bad night every once in a while—not to mention the fact that when one considers the complete, collected history of Fiona St. James meltdowns, last night barely registered. He’s overthinking it because he feels guilty about lying to her, that’s all. Enough is enough. It’s time to come clean.
He’s just about to head down the hallway when his phone rings on the counter. Sam frowns. It’s a number he doesn’t recognize—the firefighter thing, he realizes suddenly, his heart lifting in his chest. And yeah, usually something like that would come through Russ, but it’s conceivable they wanted to talk to him direc—
“Sam Fox,” he says.
“Sam!” comes the familiar voice on the other end. “Jamie Hartley.”
Sam startles. Jamie hasn’t called him in—well, Jamie hasn’t called him ever, actually. “Um, hey,” he says, glancing over his shoulder at the bathroom door. “Can I call you back?”
“No,” Jamie says cheerfully. “This is important. Do-or-die time here, buddy. Look, I talked to your agent, and he says you’re just as excited to get this thing off the ground as I am. And I know you’ve been making time with our girl.”
Sam can just imagine Fiona’s face if she heard Jamie refer to her as their anything. “I don’t know if that’s what I’d call it,” he manages, trying to keep his voice as quiet as he can without actually whispering. “And dude, I gotta tell you, it really seems like any negotiations you’re trying to have with her should probably be between the two of y—”
“Listen to this guy!” Jamie laughs. “Okay, man, you don’t want to talk about it, I can respect that. I think that’s very classy. But listen. Why don’t the three of us have lunch, at least? We’ll go somewhere nice, have a few drinks, you and I can make our pitch in person. And if I can’t close, then that’s on me. At the very least, you can tell her she’ll get a free meal. Really, no strings attached.”
“I—” Sam has to admit, it sounds reasonable. Fun, even, if not for the fact that Fiona is probably going to rip his balls off for even suggesting it. “Yeah, maybe.” He remembers Jamie taking him for burgers at the end of every season of Birds of California. He remembers that his rent is due in eleven days. “Okay,” he says finally, scrubbing a hand through his hair. He was going to tell her the truth anyway, wasn’t he? This will just be . . . part of it. “Look, Jamie. You know as well as I do that nothing I say is going to make her do anything she doesn’t want to. But I’ll talk to her about it, okay? And I’ll keep trying to convince her.”
“Good man,” Jamie says. “Let’s say one o’clock tomorrow? I’ll have my assistant make a reservation and send you guys the details.”
Sam feels himself blanch. “Wait,” he tries. “I didn’t say—”
But Jamie is already gone.
Sam swears quietly under his breath, staring at the darkened screen for a moment. It’s only after he sets the phone down on the counter that he realizes at some point when he wasn’t paying attention, the water shut off down the hall.
“Convince her to do what?” Fiona asks.
Sam closes his eyes for a moment. Opens them again. When he turns around, there she is, standing at the mouth of the hallway in a towel, gazing at him evenly. Her hair is wet, her face scrubbed. She looks very, very young.
“Fee,” he starts, then snaps his jaws shut. His first instinct is to lie. Did he use her name just now, on the phone with Jamie? He doesn’t think so. He could tell her they were talking about something else. Hell, he could tell her it was another Jamie entirely, someone she doesn’t know and who’s never even heard of her, calling about something entirely unrelated to—
“He wants to have lunch,” Sam says quietly. “The three of us. To talk about the show.”
Fiona nods slowly, absorbing that information. Then she smiles. “This whole time, huh?”
“Wait, what?” Sam shakes his head, not understanding. “No, I—”
“What did you think, exactly?” She sounds sincerely curious. “That if you plowed me enough eventually I’d just roll over and do whatever you wanted? Or was the sex just, like, a fun bonus for you?”
Sam flinches. “I—no,” he insists, “of course not. That’s not what this is at all.”
“Was,” Fiona corrects.
“What?”
“Whatever this was,” she repeats. She’s still smiling. She looks . . . almost pleased, actually, like she’s been waiting for this moment and is relieved it’s finally arrived. “It’s definitely over.”
Sam feels that like a fist through his ribs. “Fee,” he says again, voice cracking a little. “Come on. Can we just—”
“Can we just what, exactly?” Fiona’s eyes flash dangerously; for the first time, her smile falls. “Talk some more about the supposed merits of a project I’ve been very clear I have no interest in doing? Have a friendly little lunch with a person you’re fully aware I truly fucking hate? Forget about the fact that you’ve been lying your flat ass off the entire time we’ve been sleeping together?” She tilts her head. “What is it specifically that you want me to do here, Sam?”
Sam blinks at that, caught off guard. “Wait a minute,” he blurts stupidly, before he can stop himself. “You think my ass is flat?”
“Oh my god.” Fiona laughs out loud, a sharp, mean-sounding cackle. “Okay. This is ridiculous. And you know what the worst part is? I knew it was ridiculous, every single day I was saying to myself, Fiona, this is fucking ridiculous, and still I let myself—” Fiona breaks off, shaking her head in disbelief. “Forget it. I’m gonna get dressed.” She turns toward the bedroom.
“I’m sorry, what about it was so ridiculous?” Sam takes a step toward her, reaches for her arm. “Because I have to say, you didn’t seem to think it was so ridiculous when you were—”
Fiona yanks her arm away. “Do not touch me.”
“Okay.” Sam holds his hands up, backs off right away. “Okay.” He knows he’s in the wrong here, obviously; he knew this was inevitable, on some level, the same way he knew it was inevitable that his show was going to get canceled even if he never really let himself think about it. He’s fully aware that the only possible course of action is to own this as the massive fuckup it is, to prostrate himself and beg her forgiveness and hope eventually she forgets the whole thing.
He picks a fight instead.
“You know what I want from you, actually?” he asks, hands still in the air. “I want to have an actual adult conversation about this for once in our entire relationship. The reboot. Because I think you owe me that much.”
“First of all, our entire relationship is, like, three weeks,” Fiona scoffs. “And second of all, I don’t owe a damn thing to you or anybody else.”
That stings—the idea that he’s been in this more than she has, that he’s trying to make it something other than what it is. “Oh, right,” Sam says, clapping himself theatrically on the head, “sorry. For a second I forgot what a tortured lone wolf you are. Won’t make that mistake again. Although I guess tortured lone wolves don’t usually have cushy little family businesses to fall back on when they irreversibly fuck up their career.”
Fiona’s eyes fly wide. “Oh, that’s what you think I’m doing?”
“I think you’re in the position of not having to hustle, that’s for sure.”
“Having to hustle?” Fiona bursts out laughing. “Look at your apartment, Sam! Look at your fucking car! Are you really going to stand here and try to convince me you’re hurting for cash?”
“I’m completely broke, Fiona!”
“What?” That surprises her, he can tell. “You are not.”
“Yeah, I am.” It feels gross and good to say it, like ripping off a scab. “Quite seriously, how have you spent basically every waking minute with me for the last three weeks and not noticed that? Congratulations, you were right, I’m exactly as much of a fuckup as you’ve always known I was. I have tens of thousands of dollars in credit card debt. I have no idea how I’m going to pay my rent next month. My mom is dying”—he almost gags on the word—“and I’m desperately trying to get my shit in order while she’s still around to see it.”
Fiona smirks. “And doing the Birds of California streaming revival is the thing that’s going to convince her that you’ve really made it?”
Sam feels his whole body flush with shame and anger. “Fuck you.”
“Fuck you,” she counters immediately. “I’m the one person in your life who refused to be manipulated by you, and you couldn’t deal with it, so you spent a month lying to my fucking face instead.”
“Can you blame me?” he bursts out. “You wouldn’t even consider it. Not only would you not consider it, you wouldn’t even do me the courtesy of telling me why.”
“I’ve given you plenty of reasons!”
“Not a single one that isn’t bullshit, you haven’t. What the hell was I supposed to do?”
“Gee, I don’t know.” Fiona looks at him like he’s a clown. “I mean, you could have been the one person in America who respected my fucking boundaries. Just, like, to start.”
“Your boundaries?” Just like that, Sam has had enough. “Come off it, Fiona. You love to act like Darcy Sinclair and whoever else just randomly started picking on you for no reason, but, like: you did all that shit. You did it! I’m sorry, but if you wanted people to stop looking at you all the time then maybe you shouldn’t have walked around for five years of your life acting like a total fucking sideshow!”
Fiona doesn’t say anything for a moment. Right away, Sam knows he’s gone too far. “Fiona—”
“Well!” She cuts him off. “You feel better, now that you finally got that off your chest?”
Sam’s stomach plummets. “I’m sorry,” he tells her, scrubbing both hands through his hair. “I didn’t mean—” He can tell by the expression on her face that he’s just confirmed something for her, some secret fear she’s had that she’s tried to talk herself out of or ignore. He is embarrassed of her, a little bit—more than a little bit, on occasion—and judging by the way she’s looking at him right now there’s a part of her that knew it this whole time. Sam has never felt like more of a coward in his entire life. “I shouldn’t have—look. We’re both worked up, obviously. Why don’t we just—”
“Here’s what’s going to happen right now,” Fiona tells him crisply. She definitely isn’t smiling anymore, but nothing about her is out of control, either. Mostly she just looks . . . blank. “I’m going to go into the bedroom and put my clothes on. You’re going to go out onto the balcony and wait until I’m gone.”
“Fiona—”
“I never want to see you again,” she says calmly. “And I’d like for again to start as soon as possible. So please go.”
Sam stares at her for a long beat, his mouth opening and closing uselessly. Fiona doesn’t wait for his answer before she turns and walks away.