“Nothing,” he says, fishing his phone out of his pocket and scrolling industriously. Fiona hums a quiet sound of disbelief in reply.
“Here we are, sweet pea,” she says when she pulls up to the curb underneath the massive jacaranda tree outside his building. Back in Milwaukee, Sam imagined all apartments in LA looked like this, a two-story U-shaped stucco situation with a courtyard at its center, a fountain burbling quietly away. Then he got here and spent ten years living in a series of particleboard dumps. “I’m going to call a car.”
As she reaches for her purse on the dashboard, Sam gets a whiff of her hair—vanilla and sandalwood. “Do you want to come in?” he hears himself ask.
Fiona laughs out loud. “No.”
Sam rolls his eyes. It’s not like he’s dying for her to take him up on the offer or anything, but he doesn’t know what there is to sound quite so incredulous about. “What do you think, I’m going to put a move on you?” he asks, leaning back against the passenger side window. “I’m not going to put a move on you.”
“Oh, right,” Fiona says, “you just want me to come in so you can show me your record collection.”
“I don’t have a record collection,” he says. Then, before he can think better of it: “Do you want me to put a move on you?”
Fiona laughs again. “You got me,” she says with a twist of her lips. “It was literally all I could think about on the ride over here.”
Sam lifts an eyebrow. “Really?” he asks, though of course he knows she’s just giving him shit. “What did you think?”
“I—” That flusters her, Sam can tell, which was the point, but it has the unintended consequence of flustering him a little, too. He imagines it in high definition before he can stop himself: his hands on the ladder of her rib cage, her soft-looking mouth on his jaw. Neither one of them says anything for a full second too long.
Fiona pulls it together first. “I think I probably should have made you get an STD test before I even got in the car,” she says finally, but it’s weak as far as insults go, and before he can answer she’s sighing theatrically, opening the door, and climbing out into the warm, humid night.
“Fine,” she announces imperiously, “one drink.”
Sam smiles.
Sam’s apartment is on the second floor, up an outdoor staircase laid with painted terra-cotta tile in reds and greens and yellows. Bright pink snapdragons vine along the wrought iron railing lining the catwalk. He moved in here as soon as The Heart Surgeon pilot got picked up, the same week he leased the Tesla. A couple of years in this place, he thought, then a house with a view in Laurel Canyon, the ghost of Mama Cass wandering around humming to herself early in the mornings. Then—once he finally broke out in movies like Russ keeps saying he’s going to—a mansion in the Palisades, next door to Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn.
That was the plan, anyway.
For now he’ll be lucky if he can pay next month’s rent.
Sam unlocks the heavy wooden door and flicks on the lights in the foyer, heading straight for the bar cart in the living room. He grabs two glasses and doubles back toward the kitchen for ice. “I have tequila,” he calls over his shoulder. He feels nervous all of a sudden, though he isn’t entirely sure why. “You want a lime?”
“Um, sure,” Fiona calls back, though he gets the impression she isn’t really listening. Sure enough, a moment later: “This is your place?” she asks, the surprise audible in her voice. “This is . . . nice.”
Sam raises his eyebrows at the freezer. “Why, because you were expecting me to live in a cardboard box on the side of the freeway?”
“I mean, yeah,” she admits. “Kind of.”
“Thanks a lot,” Sam says, though he isn’t actually offended. He’d never bought real furniture before and had no idea what he was doing, so he hired the decorator at West Elm to pick it all out for him. She did a pretty good job, lots of wood and leather and a big modern armchair that makes him feel a little bit like Dr. Evil whenever he sits in it. There’s a Gibson Les Paul signed by Van Morrison hanging on the wall above the couch.
When he comes back into the living room Fiona is standing in front of his bookcase; she’s scooped her hair up into a knot on top of her head, the pale nape of her neck exposed. “You’re a Sarah Waters fan?” she asks. She’s standing on her tiptoes to peer at the top shelf, the muscles in her calves flexing. “Seriously?”
Sam reaches for the bottle. “Who?” he asks.
Fiona holds up a paperback he doesn’t even think he’s ever seen before, and he shakes his head. “My old roommate, Erin,” he explains. “She did a whole Marie Kondo thing when we were moving out of our last apartment. I wound up with a lot of her stuff.”
“Aha.” Fiona nods. “You know, somehow I didn’t take you for a connoisseur of erotic lesbian historical noir.”
That gets his attention. “I am actually . . . very interested in at least a couple of the words you just said.”
Fiona makes a face. “Uh-huh,” she says, turning back to the bookshelves, “see, now that’s more about what I expected from you, Sam Fox.”
“Hey now.” Sam presses the icy glass against her back, right in between her shoulder blades; Fiona gasps quietly. “I read.”
“Oh yeah?” she asks, plucking the tequila from his outstretched hand and taking a sip. “Thank you. What’s your favorite book, like, The Alchemist?”
“Shut up.” Sam blanches. “How did you know that?”
Fiona bursts out laughing. “Oh my god, no it’s not.”
Okay, now he’s a little bit offended. “What’s wrong with The Alchemist?” he demands.
“I mean, nothing.” Fiona shrugs, taking her glass and settling herself down on one side of the couch, crossing one long leg over the other. “It’s just the favorite book of every man who’s only read one book.”
Sam shakes his head. “You really think you know everything there is to know about me, don’t you.”
“Of course not,” she deadpans immediately. “The final ten percent is strictly conjecture.”
“Cute.” Sam sits down beside her, careful to leave a foot of space between them. “Okay then, princess. What’s your favorite book?”
“Oh, I don’t know how to read.”
Sam laughs. “Unsurprising, really.”
“I know, right?” Fiona runs her thumb around the rim of her glass, not quite meeting his gaze. “No, um. It’s Weetzie Bat.”
Sam shakes his head. “What now?”
“I mean, it’s dumb,” Fiona says, though from the guarded look on her face he can tell she doesn’t actually think that. “It’s about a girl who lives in LA in the eighties and is, like, amazingly, heartbreakingly cool. Back when we were doing Birds I used to keep a paperback of it jammed down the back of my jeans like a gun, for good luck or something. That’s how bad I wanted to be her.” She takes another sip of her tequila, waving her hand in front of her face like the idea is a visible cloud of stupidity she can fan away. “Anyway. Spoiler alert. It turns out I’m just me.”
Sam shrugs, bumping his knee against hers. Her jeans are the kind with on-purpose holes in them, and patches of soft, tan skin are showing through. “You’re not so bad, Fiona St. James.”
“Well.” Fiona smiles at that. “I’m no Weetzie Bat.”
They’re quiet for a moment, drinking their tequila. The silence feels electric and keen. Sam thinks, very clearly, Fuck it, and as soon as the words pop into his head it’s like his hand is moving of its own volition from where it’s resting on his own thigh over to Fiona’s. His thumb slips inside a fray in the denim at her knee to rub at the hard cap of bone there, drawing slow circles on her smooth, warm skin.
Fiona’s breath hitches. She looks down and watches his thumb move for a moment, the rise and fall of her chest visible inside her tank top. “I thought you weren’t going to put a move on me,” she reminds him, raising one thick eyebrow. She’s still looking down at her lap.
Sam nods seriously. “I’m not putting a move on you,” he promises, then ducks his head and kisses her.
Fiona gasps against his mouth, the smell of alcohol and lime sharp in the air as her wrist jerks and tequila sloshes out of her glass. He feels like the odds are fifty-fifty he read this all wrong and she punches him in the face, but instead she kisses him back right away, eager, like she was waiting for him to cop on all night long. Sam hums a low, pleased sound. He takes her glass and sets it on the coffee table, then reaches for her hand and licks the inside of her wrist where the tequila is still dripping down it. She tastes like limes and salt.
Fiona swallows hard. “Okay,” she murmurs—more to herself than to him, Sam thinks. She touches her face, her neck, her collarbone. “I—um. Okay.”