Birds of California by Katie Cotugno

Author:Katie Cotugno
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2022-02-27T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

Sam

“I mean,” Erin says the following morning, both of them staring wide-eyed at the grainy video on her laptop, “the girl’s got a flair for the dramatic, that’s for sure. It’s almost a shame she doesn’t act anymore.”

“Yeah,” Sam says distractedly, scrubbing a hand through his hair as Erin hits play one more time, Fiona’s wild-eyed face filling the computer screen. She looks feral—her hands flying around like demented birds, her hair enormous—but more than that, Sam keeps thinking, she looks scared. “I mean, she actually does still act, sort of, but—whatever.” He shakes his head. “Can we go out?” he asks abruptly, shutting the laptop harder than is probably necessary and standing up. “Let’s go out.”

Erin takes him for a breakfast beer at the dive around the corner from her apartment: cool and dark and a little bit grimy, the floor slightly sticky underfoot. It’s early enough that they’re the only people sitting at the bar, a friendly drunk scratching lotto tickets at a table in the corner and some daytime talk show carping away on the TV—a talk show, Sam realizes belatedly, on which they’re playing the footage of Fiona outside her theater over and over. Fiona St. James at It Again in New Viral Video, the chyron reads.

“For fuck’s sake.” Sam drains most of his beer in two long gulps. “Hey,” he calls, signaling the bartender before he quite knows he’s going to do it, “sorry. Would you mind turning this off?”

The bartender looks dubious. “You object to The View?” he asks.

“No, I don’t object to The View, I just—sports?” he begs. “There must be a sport on somewhere, right? There’s always sports on.”

The bartender rolls his eyes, but dutifully flips over to competitive bowling on ESPN2. When Sam turns back to Erin, he finds her staring at him, her eyes wide and triumphant. “Holy shit,” she says quietly, “did you catch feelings for Riley Bird?” She says feelings but it sounds like what she means is chlamydia.

Sam finishes his beer instead of answering. “Better not let her hear you call her that,” he says finally. “She’ll eat your heart in the fuckin’ marketplace.”

Erin shakes her head. “Don’t try to put me off.”

“I’m not trying to do anything,” Sam replies, knowing he sounds peevish. “We hung out a couple of times, that’s all. I barely know her.”

“Can you not be full of shit for one second?” Erin asks, setting her glass down. “Like, now that I’m actually looking at your face I’m realizing I’ve been kind of an asshole about the whole thing, so I probably owe you an apology, but putting that aside for a minute, it doesn’t have to be some bullshit game of who can be the coolest guy in Hollywood. If you like her, which you clearly do, and she’s going through a thing, which”—she gestures at the TV—“shit, she clearly is, then what are you doing sitting here with me? Go be a decent human person and make sure she’s okay.”

“It’s not—” Sam breaks off.

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