Page 11 of Unromance

In the five years he’d been there, he’d never seen so much snow, and never so early. Usually they made it through the New Year before it really started coming down. Not this year, apparently. He would kill for a bit of sunshine, even if it was single-digit temperatures. The closest thing he’d come to sunshine in weeks was Sawyer Greene.

He spent a lot more time thinking about her than he should, especially first thing in the morning when his dick was hard and his bed was empty.

And yeah, he’d googled her. He had to know if her name really was Sawyer Greene. Shockingly enough, it was. He was both surprised and unsurprised to learn she was a well-known romance author. One of her books had been adapted into a movie Mason auditioned for. He hadn’t gotten the part, much to his chagrin, as it turned out to be an instant classic—even if it came under fire from loyal book fans for barely resembling the source material.

There was hardly anything on her Instagram about the movie, and what was there screamed,I was contractually obligated to post this. She hadn’t posted much at all, really, since her third book came out at the beginning of the year. Mason didn’t know much about publishing except, like Hollywood, everything moved slowly. She seemed to release one book a year, but there was absolutely nothing on her Instagram or website about a fourth book. He liked to think it was because she was writing, too busy to update. He thought about that a lot more than he should, too, because the alternative, the idea of a creator not creating… He knew the feeling a little too well, even if his situation was a little different.

“I lost you, didn’t I?” Alissa’s voice came from his speaker, and he almost dropped his phone. He’d forgotten she was on the line.

“Yeah, sorry,” Mason said sheepishly. “Just thinking. I’ll tell them after the holidays, I promise.” He would have to, but he was dreading it. At times, Alissa felt more like his family than, well, his actual family. He and his sister got along, but they never talked this openly with each other. That’s why he’d moved home, to get closer with them after his younger self had pushed them all away to figure out who he was without their influence—namely, his mom’s influence—but he’d been young and thought he had to do it all on his own back then. Things were better now, but no amount of family dinners could undo the volatility of those early years of his career, his mom circling like a helicopter, his father and sister wordlessly watching it happen…

“Oh! Hey, did you send me a book?”

Mason scratched absently at the coarse hair below his navel. “Yeah, I did. I forgot to tell you.” Hell, he’d forgotten he’d done it, shipping a copy to her with two clicks at one in the morning after he’d finished reading. “Might be something for Guiding Light.”

Alissa hummed in interest. “I did want to add something lighter to the docket. But since when do you read romance? No shame, just… surprised?”

He grinned. “Read it. Thank me later. It’s a bisexual, gender-bentHigh Fidelity.”

“You had me at bi. There’s a role for you in it, yeah?”

“If you want,” he said offhand.

Alissa scoffed. “It’s your pitch. Of course I want you involved—either in front of or behind the camera. Or both.”

“You haven’t even read it yet,” he pointed out.

“I trust you.”

He smiled to himself as he heard her thumbing through the book. If Alissa adapted it, his role wouldn’t be huge, supporting at best, but maybe after leavingDiagnostics—once he told them he was leaving—it could be what he needed to shed the “hot doctor” stereotype once and for all. He’d inherited his father’s roguish looks, which meant he often got sent scripts for Lothario types. The recent media fanfare was definitely piggybacking off that, and he was ready to shake off that typecast. He missed the thrill of developing a character, the secret backstory only he knew and translating it on-screen. He hadn’t felt that way about acting in years, and it was like an itch he couldn’t scratch, one he wouldn’t be able to, if he stayed.

His phone buzzed in his hand, and he tore his attention away from the blinding wall of white outside his windows.

Running a few minutes late, sorry!

Mason swore. Between doomscrolling the tabloids and Alissa’s call, he’d completely lost track of time. He was supposed to meet hissister at the Christkindlmarket in five minutes, and he lived ten minutes away.

“Hey—Alissa, I gotta run. I’m late to meet someone.”

She groaned loudly. “Puh-leasetell me it’s not a date.”

His laugh was muffled as he tugged on the first pair of pants and shirt he could find—it didn’t matter, it would all be hidden beneath his winter coat. “It’s ten a.m. on a Tuesday, Alissa. I’m meeting up with the family,” he said distractedly as he attempted to smooth back his hair. God, he really needed to cut it. Not having to have it trimmed Dr. Santiago short was his offseason rebellion, but in the six months since shooting wrapped, it had grown unwieldy. “Taking a break from dating, actually.”

“Oh, really?” Alissa cooed, faking surprise. “But seriously,” she said more softly. “This will all blow over, and once we’re in LA, doing our thing at Guiding Light, everyone will see the Mason West I know and love.”

“Thanks,” he said thickly. “I love you, too.”

“Tell the fam I said hello and remember: What Would Taylor Do?”

“Will do,” he laughed, shoving on his boots as they said their goodbyes.

He hurtled out of his apartment and into the elevator, jamming the button for the lobby with more force than necessary. Propping his boots on the wall, he tied his laces as the elevator slid slowly down to the lobby.

He still hated elevators, but he was grateful that it had brought him a little bit of sunshine in the midst of an otherwise bleak winter.

CHAPTER FIVE

WE’VE GOT TO STOP MEETING LIKE THIS– No matter how big the city, rom-com geography dictates you will run into the one person you’re trying to avoid.Especiallyif you had a one-night stand with them.

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