“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.”