Birds of California(11)
It’s more than she meant to say—to anyone, but especially to Sam Fox, with his narrow hips and SAG card and perfectly capped teeth—but to her surprise it actually seems to register. “That must have sucked,” he says softly. “The stuff with Darcy’s website, I mean.”
Fiona turns back to the copier, taking longer than necessary to pull the original off the glass. “It wasn’t a big deal,” she lies. “But I’m out.”
“Hey, I hear you,” Sam promises. “I guess I just thought it sounded kind of fun, that’s all.”
Fiona scoffs. “I think that is exactly the opposite of what it would be, actually.”
“Oh, come on!” he protests. “We used to have a good time, right? You and me and Thandie and what’s his name, the little ginger kid who played the cousin.”
“Seriously?” She rolls her eyes. “His name is Max, and we worked with him for five years. God, you really are just as douchey as you look, huh?”
For a second Sam seems stung by that, which is surprising—she’s never thought of him as an actual person capable of having his feelings hurt—but then he blinks and it’s gone. “Douchier, probably,” he admits with a crooked aren’t I charming smile. “But I mean it. I think you should reconsider.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. Here,” Fiona says, handing him the stack of copies across the counter. They’re a little blurry, actually, now that she’s looking. If her dad was here he’d make her redo them.
Sam doesn’t care. “Keep ’em,” he says, waving her off with one hand and pulling his wallet out with the other. “What do I owe you?”
Fiona rings him up, running his debit card through the ancient machine. It’s weird to see his full name printed on the plastic, a strange reminder that this whole time he’s just been out there in the world, charging things. Existing. As she’s handing it back their fingers brush, just for a second. Fiona feels the zing of it all the way up her arm.
“Well,” Sam says finally, tucking his wallet back into his jeans pocket and adjusting his dopey hat on his head. “I had to try, anyway. I’ll let you get back to work.”
“Yeah,” Fiona agrees, though obviously it’s not like anybody else is clamoring for her attention. Still, she doesn’t want to encourage him. At least, she doesn’t think she does. “I should probably . . . do that.”
Sam smiles one more time, easy, generous as a newly crowned king. “It was good to see you, Fee.”
He’s gone before Fiona can decide if was good to see him too.
Chapter Four
Sam
So, okay, Sam thinks as he peels away from the curb outside the print shop. That’s definitely not going to happen, then. Which is fine. He didn’t even want it to. Who wants to play second banana in a reboot of a show they did half a lifetime ago, anyway? He’s trying to move forward here, not back.
He spends the rest of the afternoon getting ready for his audition and trying not to think about Fiona. It was a total mindfuck, seeing her again after all this time. Which isn’t to say she didn’t look good; she looked sort of incredible, actually, dark eyes and sharp cheekbones and those long, tan limbs. She’s put on some weight in a way that makes him think of girls from back home in Wisconsin—the dramatic curves of her body, the roundness of her ass in her jeans.
None of which actually matters, he reminds himself, turning back to his script. The audition is for a half-hour comedy pilot about a pair of newlyweds who have to move back in with the guy’s parents after his startup collapses. It’s cheesy as all hell and has at least two jokes Sam is definitely uncomfortable with, but it’s a lead, so he preps for it with the same attention he’s given to any of the other hundreds of auditions he’s been on since he moved to LA fifteen years ago. He remembers his first day on set for Birds of California, the way his heart stuttered when he saw their names on the doors of their trailers: Sam Fox. Jamie Hartley. Fiona St. James.
Fuck, he should try to stop thinking about Fiona.
He runs through his lines, irons his button-down. Messes with his hair for a while. There’s a tiny part of him that worries it’s thinning, even though he’s only thirty-one. “Hi,” he says once he’s finally satisfied, smiling his most charismatic smile into the mirror and hoping the casting director is more taken with him than some other people he could name. “I’m Sam Fox.”
The audition goes decently, he thinks, though even after all this time he can still never really tell what they’re thinking back there behind the folding table. He’s hopeful, at least. He texts Erin from the car when he’s finished to see if she wants to meet at their usual place and get drinks.
Can’t, she texts back. Dinner with hipster glasses girl.
Sam sends her a series of crass emojis meant to communicate Hope you get laid, trying to ignore his own weird, sudden pang of loneliness. After all, if he really wanted company, there are at least a dozen other people he could text. But the thing about a lot of his friends here is that Sam knows they’re going to want to talk about work—who booked what or what he’s going to do now that the show is canceled—and he doesn’t want to do that tonight.
He thinks about Fiona again, but that feels like a dangerous road to wander down, so instead he drinks two beers and watches some porn and passes out on the couch in his living room. When he wakes up, his phone is buzzing on the cushion beside his face, a picture of his brother Adam wearing a cheese hat displayed on the screen. The home page of the porn site is still up on his computer, a pop-up ad for some disconcerting animated game playing over and over.