Sam’s been hard since basically the first second he kissed her and when she opens up her hips to make space for him he growls into her neck, grinding himself mindlessly against her like he’s thirteen and not thirty-one. Fiona hooks one leg around his to keep him close. He’s only ever done cocaine a couple of times but this is what it felt like, his entire body buzzing like he swallowed a handful of stars or his bones are made of neon. She’s chasing his hips with hers, gasping, and all at once Sam’s—shit, Sam’s pretty sure she’s close.
He lifts himself up long enough to work one hand down in between them—if he’s going to get her off he’s damn well going to do it properly—but as soon as he reaches for the button on her jeans she freezes.
“Okay,” she says—pulling away, boosting herself up onto her elbows. “Okay, okay, now I want you to stop.”
Sam stops. “What?” For a second he thinks she’s kidding, but one look at her face has him sitting up so fast he gets light-headed, or maybe he would have been light-headed either way. Multicolored spots explode in front of his eyes. “Sorry,” he says. “I—yeah, of course, sorry.”
“No, it’s not—” Fiona breaks off, touching her mouth like she’s checking to make sure it’s still there. “I’m sorry, I just—” She looks around for a moment, pulling her knees up and scrubbing both hands through her hair. “I shouldn’t have—”
“No no no, you don’t have to explain anything,” he blurts, but he’s surprised by how badly he wants her to. All at once he wants to know everything there is to know about her, her birthday and her middle name and the story behind the scar on the underside of her upper arm. He’d think it was the booze, except he’s not actually even a little bit drunk anymore. He likes her. He likes her so much. And he’s been trying not to think it and trying not to think it since that very first day at the copy shop, but here it is, sitting nakedly in the middle of the room for anyone to see.
“I’m sorry,” Fiona says again. She’s looking around the living room, presumably for her clothes; Sam plucks her bra off the back of the couch and hands it over, and she offers him half a smile. “Thanks.”
“Yeah, of course.” Sam nods, glancing politely away while she does up the hooks and pulls her shirt on, only then once she’s dressed she leans over and kisses him again, slow and wet and a little bit dirty, and okay, now he really has no idea what the fuck is going on. “Fee,” he starts, voice cracking a little. He’s still completely, 100 percent hard. “Can you just—”
Fiona shakes her head. “I should go.”
Something about the tone in her voice gives Sam the distinct impression he’s never going to see her again after tonight, the idea of which makes him weirdly panicky, considering the fact that until the other day he hadn’t thought about her in years. “What if you didn’t?” he blurts.
That stops her. She looks over at him, raising her eyebrows. “What if—？”
“I’m serious,” he says, scrambling shirtless up off the sofa, then immediately feels like a massive tool. “I mean, look, I’m not trying to be some creepy weirdo who can’t take a hint, so obviously go if you want to go, but.” He shrugs. “What if you stayed?”
“Sam—”
“We can just sleep,” he promises, which is the kind of earnest, stupid Nicholas Sparks bullshit she is absolutely never going to let him hear the end of; he’s holding up a hand to cut her off at the pass when she nods.
“Okay,” she says.
Sam blinks at her. “Seriously?” That is . . . not what he was expecting her to say. If she’d said good night, gone outside, and set his house on fire, he would not be more surprised. “You want to stay?”
Fiona’s eyes narrow. “Do you not want me to stay?”
“Of course I want you to stay,” he says, and for once he honestly doesn’t even give a crap about how eager it sounds. “That’s why I asked.”
“I’m not going to have sex with you,” she reminds him. “This isn’t some cute thing where I’m playing hard to get but I secretly want you to convince me to—”
“Fiona,” he interrupts, because he likes to think that fundamentally he’s not a piece of shit, “I know.”
She studies him hard for another long second, like she’s looking for the catch, and he doesn’t know what she sees in his face, but it must satisfy her, because she nods again. “Okay,” she says, sounding more sure about it this time. “I’ll stay.”
Sam feels his whole body relax. It’s the feeling of swerving just in time to avoid hitting another car or making it to your seat just before the plane door closes, the flight attendant floating by to offer you a drink. “Okay,” he echoes, trying not to smile. “Good.”
Fiona relaxes, too, her shoulders dropping as she perches on the arm of the sofa. “We have to watch serial killer documentaries,” she informs him. “That’s what I watch to fall asleep.”
Sam laughs, then realizes she’s not kidding. “Wait,” he says, “really?”
Fiona frowns. “Look, I can go,” she says immediately, gesturing toward the door. “You’re the one who—”
“No no no,” Sam says again, holding both hands up in surrender. “Have it your way. You’re missing out, though. Usually when girls sleep over I read to them by candlelight from The Alchemist.”
Fiona laughs.
She pads down the hallway behind him, hovering barefoot in the doorway as he smooths the blankets over his unmade bed. Once they’re in he turns off the light and opens up his laptop, then realizes as the screen blinks to life that he hasn’t used it since the other night: sure enough, the cartoon boobs from the porn site are still bouncing merrily away. “Friend of yours?” Fiona asks, her voice completely even.
“I read it for the articles,” he shoots back, clicking over to Netflix. “So, is one serial killer documentary as good as another? Or do you have, like, a greatest hits list you like to work from?”
Fiona smiles magnanimously. “You can pick.”
In the end they watch some grisly fucking thing about the Mansons—a cheesy sixties rock score played over shot after shot of Sharon Tate’s yellow hair and round, pregnant belly. Sam tries not to flinch. He likes a slasher flick as much as the next guy, but true crime has always weirded him out—the luridness of it, he guesses, low-end producers making money off the worst day of other people’s lives.
Also, it always makes him a little nervous he’s about to get serial murdered.
Still, he likes having Fiona propped up on one elbow beside him, the ends of her long hair just brushing his arm. It’s not like he’s trying to look or anything, but the collar of her tank top gapes open a little so he can see the tops of her breasts out of the corner of his eye, a handful of freckles scattered across her chest like glitter. He can feel the heat radiating off her skin. Something about the whole setup has Sam afraid to move too much, like how his mom always made Adam and him hold still when deer showed up in their yard while they were playing football. He doesn’t want to scare her away.