Birds of California(72)
Fiona gazes at him for a moment, not understanding. “Why?”
Sam shrugs. “Because I think maybe I’m falling in love with you,” he explains, “and because I heard you needed a Torvald.” He shakes his head. “Estelle told me your guy fell off a curb or something? I don’t understand how you break your ankle falling off a curb.”
“It’s not a real thing,” Fiona agrees faintly. Then, in spite of herself, never quite as tough or cool or unbreakable as she wants to be: “Go back to the other part.”
“Sorry.” Sam smiles at that, slow and teasing. “Which part, exactly?”
“Don’t be an asshole,” she tells him. She’s still sitting on the stage, her legs out in front of her. She hasn’t washed her hair in three days. “The part about maybe . . .” She trails off, waving her hand. “You know.”
“There’s no maybe,” Sam corrects. “I shouldn’t have qualified it just now. I’m scared you’re going to tell me to go fuck myself, but still I shouldn’t have qualified it.” He wrinkles his nose. “Is that weird?”
“That you qualified it?”
“That I’m sure.”
“I mean, yes.” Fiona squeezes her eyes shut, opens them again. No guy has ever said it to her before. Nobody has ever even gotten close. “But keep going.”
“Well,” Sam says—taking one step toward her, then another. “I am. I’m sure. And I get why you wouldn’t trust me, and I’m not asking you to say it back.” He sits down on the edge of the stage, turning his body to face her. “I just think we should, you know. Plug into the love current, like Weetzie Bat says.”
“Shut up.” That makes her laugh, loud and disbelieving. “You read Weetzie Bat?”
Sam nods, shifting around and digging the battered paperback out of his pocket. “I brought it back in case you told me you never wanted to see me again,” he admits, his fingertips brushing hers as he hands it over. “You seemed serious about me returning it in a timely fashion.”
“I was,” Fiona says. She flips instinctively through the soft, worn pages, then glances at him sidelong. “And I still might.”
“Yeah.” Sam smiles a little sadly, there and gone again. “You do need a Torvald, though.”
Fiona raises her eyebrows. “You seem very confident that I’m going to give you this part.”
Sam shrugs. “I mean, I can do my monologue if you want,” he offers, then jerks a thumb toward the door. “I’ve got my headshots in the car, we can do the whole—”
“That won’t be necessary.”
“I owe you an apology.”
“That won’t be necessary, either.”
Sam’s face falls then, his broad shoulders sagging. He lifts his hand like he’s going to touch her, then seems to think better of it. “Fee,” he says, his voice cracking a little. “Yeah it is.”
Fiona leans back on her palms and tilts her chin up, staring into the lights and concentrating on keeping her bottom lip steady. She didn’t want to let him hurt her. She didn’t want to be the kind of person who could get hurt. She didn’t want to be the kind of person who felt much of anything, period, but then he strolled into the print shop like he couldn’t possibly imagine she’d be anything but delighted to see him, and now it’s all these moments later and here they are. “Yeah,” she admits finally. “It is.”
“I’m sorry,” he says immediately. “It doesn’t matter why you didn’t want to do the fucking show, obviously. You said you didn’t want to, and that should have been enough. But I felt desperate—not that that’s an excuse—but I felt desperate, so I acted sneaky, and I acted like a piece of shit. And I’m sorry. Again.”
Fiona tilts her head to the side, considering. “That’s . . . a pretty good apology,” she admits.
Sam smiles goofily. “Thanks,” he says, the relief audible in his voice. “I practiced in the car.”
She considers him then for a long, loaded moment—his open face and the uncomplicated way he’s looking at her, his green merman eyes—and feels something unlock deep inside her. She closes her eyes, breathing in the dust and sweat smell of the theater. The soap and cologne smell of Sam. “Do you want to know the real reason?” she asks, and opens her eyes again.
All at once Sam gets very, very still. “Yeah,” he blurts. Then, like he’s worried she’s going to change her mind if he isn’t polite enough: “I mean. Yes please.”
Fiona huffs a laugh, though nothing about this is actually funny. Already she’s regretting saying anything at all. “You’re not going to think you love me anymore once I tell you,” she warns him. “Or like me, even.”
“Doubtful,” Sam says, and now he does reach for her, his fingertips just grazing the edge of her sleeve. “Try me.”
Fiona pulls her arm away, instinctive—drawing one knee up and tucking her foot underneath her, making herself small. She never imagined telling him, and now that she’s come this far she finds she isn’t entirely sure how. It’s very possible he won’t even believe her. It’s very possible nobody will.