"I'm not staying."
Her words explode all around him and the bird he has in his stomach whenever she's near him trembles a little, because he knows she's not talking about leaving the night club. She is talking about another kind of leaving, the kind you don't come back from.
"You're… leaving?" he asks, uncertain, his eyes searching hers.
She refuses to meet his eyes because Sam has learned that a look could change everything, could ruin anything. A twinkle, a softness in the eyes, and her entire world could shatter open, and show how fragile, how tiny she feels in this big, big world.
"I'm here right now. And I will be there tomorrow because it's not the time yet, but eventually I will leave. I'm the kind of person that leaves."
Her glass is almost empty but it doesn't stop her from drinking it up in one go. The wine tastes disgusting but the burning in her throat helps her ignore how tensed Danny is besides her.
Danny knows she's one of those things that leaves because she told him, warned him that she would. But she's been there for a few weeks already, she likes it here, he knows she does. Because she has touched people here, she has marked them, letting tiny bits of her with them. And if she runs away, she'll leave behind her too many pieces of her. All she'll have left will be an empty shell and she'll be alone and he couldn't have that. She didn't deserve that.
"My time at the Montecito is running out, Danny."
"I know."
"I'll be around though. I mean, I'm staying in Vegas…just not at the Montecito."
"I know," that's all he says. There are so many things he'd like to tell her right now but she always makes him speechless and breathless at the worst time so he remains silent and the conversation dies out.
He takes the time to watch the moving lights, to observe how they dance across Sam's face, how they make her look different, infinite, inaccessible. Danny feels that at this exact moment, if he tries to reach her, his hand would meet with nothing and she would disappear, dissolve right in front of him. "Why are you telling me that, Sam? Why now?"
"Because you're getting attached," she says as if it is the most obvious thing in the world, as if it makes all difference in the world.
And now she's looking at him and Danny swallows because she's telling the truth and it's not a bad thing but she's saying it like it is and suddenly he hates her a little because she has no right to make him feel bad for being attached to her. She has no right to make him feel bad for liking her.
He just adores her.
She's such an amazing human being even if she never truly believes it unless the words come from her own mouth.
"I'm not getting attached."
"Really?"
He's really not getting attached, he is already attached. Danny's tied to her so so tight that if Sam leaves right now, she'd leave him hurt, open and bleeding.
However, he dodges her question nonetheless. "You don't want me to get attached?"
"No."
"Why?"
Even in the slight darkness of the room, he can see her eyelashes quiver, he perceives the hesitation in her stance, but then it's gone and she looks like she doesn't care much—like she only know coldness and loneliness. "Because I'll leave and it'll break your heart."
"I'm a tough guy, sweetheart."
"Whatever you say, Pretty Boy McCoy," her smirk is fake and then she tilts her head to the side to analyse him, to fit the perfect image of him in her mind, to carve it in the heart she swears she doesn't have.
"Whatever you say, Pretty Girl Marquez," his tone is as playful as his smile is genuine, unlike hers. Then he puts his arm around her and brings her form closer to him. She smells nice but her skin feels cold. He's always running warm, so in a twisted way, they match. "Not worried I'll break your heart, honey?" he asks in a whisper and he swears he heard her breath hitches.
"Nobody breaks my heart," she claims and Danny chooses not to comment on her lie. "Just don't get attached, alright?"
"...Alright," he agrees as he kisses the top of her head and lets her go when she decides to leave the party abruptly.
