Page 24 of Unromance

She couldn’t think about that book, the characters she’d spent years crafting, pouring the parts of herself she couldn’t talk about into them, only to see them mangled by Hollywood. She couldn’t change it now, but she had learned from it. Her characters belonged to her and her readers, and she would happily stay in her book lane with no more detours to La-La Land.

There was something in the set of Mason’s mouth that made her heart pang with familiarity. The way he lit up when talking about working with Alissa, and how quickly that light fizzled out when talking about his present. “But you don’t love it?”

“I did—I do,” he corrected himself hastily. He shrugged, rubbing the back of his neck subconsciously. “It’s complicated.”

She met his gaze. He was bullshitting her, and they both knew it. She let it drop. He didn’t owe her an explanation. They’d agreed tokeep things surface level, but Sawyer couldn’t help but read between the lines of Mason’s tiny admissions and careful omissions. Their situations were wildly different, yet she felt like she got him—or was beginning to, at least.

Silence fell between them, and she wondered if he, too, was trying to figure out how to backpedal out of the conversational deep waters they’d waded into.

“So,” Mason said brusquely, clearing his throat. “How did I do? Are you feeling inspired?”

Sawyer scoffed, but she couldn’t quite shake the image of the couple nuzzling noses by the mistletoe. “Did I ruin romance for you yet?”

He fixed her with a look, confirming what she knew: neither of them had really succeeded in their mission. “Maybe,” he hedged. “We should do a few more items from the list. For science.”

To be fair, if today was a test run, it wasn’t a complete loss. She had a lot of ideas she was itching to write down. She wanted to see this through.

“For science,” she agreed. Wandering over to her hutch, she grabbed a bottle of whiskey and put a healthy pour into two mugs. The mug she handed Mason read “BDE” in bold letters, and in a smaller font underneath, “(bisexual disaster energy).”

Mason laughed under his breath as he read the mug, raising it to clink against her titty mug before taking a sip.

“For the record,” she said quietly, not sure how to tactfully broach this subject. She considered herself to be a master of many things, but tact had never been one of them. “I know this—” She gestured between the two of them. “Is an unusual venture that we’re on, but anything you say to me is in confidence. I don’t really have anyone to tell.” Fuck, that was an embarrassingly honest thing to admit. Shecleared her throat and avoided Mason’s overly soft expression. “I just meant, I don’t have TMZ on speed dial.”

The corner of Mason’s mouth quirked up. “Thank you. I didn’t mean to change the subject—well, yes I did. But not because I don’t trust you. It’s just…” He stared down into his mug as if it were alphabet soup, praying it would spell out the perfect nonanswer. When it didn’t, he shrugged. “I love the cast, the crew, my character, but—” He scrunched up his nose. “Let’s just say, if it were my show, I’d run thingsverydifferently. But…” He shrugged in defeat. “It feels really fucking shitty to complain when I have something most people would kill for.”

Even without saying much, he’d still managed to speak volumes.

Sawyer nodded in understanding. “I get that. My editor is begging me for my next book, and I can’t even write one. Meanwhile, there are tons of brilliant writers waiting for that shot, and here I am, squandering mine.” She took a large gulp of whiskey, wincing at the burn. She’d drafted multiple messages to her writer friends to talk about this very thing and deleted every single one, not wanting to seem ungrateful, and here she was word vomiting it all out to Elevator Guy.

The nickname stung worse than the whiskey. Mason wasn’t just One-Night Stand Elevator Guy. Not anymore. What did you call your friends with benefits when “benefits” were against the rules?

A… friend?

Sawyer didn’t want to think too hard about how long it took for that word to bubble to the surface. A new friend. Clearly, Mason was already rubbing off on her, because the mere concept of friendship had her heart racing.

They were supposed to be keeping things superficial, but she supposed they could still be friends, in a way. Like the classmatesyou did a group project with and then never spoke to again once the semester was over.

It was nice, having someone to talk to about these things. Outside of Lily, she hadn’t made many new friends since losing her college friends in the breakup with Sadie. She had writer friends, but she’d been beating the same, sad writer’s block drum for so long now that where they’d once been supportive, their condolences and words of affirmation had now gone stale, a refrain repeated too many times.

But shewastrying. What she was doing with Mason would sound ridiculous if she tried to explain it, but the fact was, she was feeling more inspired in the past few weeks than she had in years.

At this point, her editor, Emily, would take anything, but every time they agreed on a new pitch for her next book, the harder she pushed herself, the more “The End” eluded her. She needed to create, the outlet it provided, but it remained out of reach. And it was slowly suffocating her. Writing had always been her safe space, something that was wholly hers, and in her yearslong writer’s block, it was like the very foundation of her life was crumbling beneath her feet. She’d already sacrificed so much for her career, and there was nothing she wouldn’t sacrifice to get it back.

“So,” Mason said softly, cutting through her downward spiral. “Are we going to decorate this tree or what?”

Sawyer’s eyes widened. “Oh, I wasn’t going to force you to sit through all my decorating traditions. I already took up enough of your time, but thank you. Seriously. I wouldn’t have been able to get a real tree without you.”

Mason’s face fell, but he hastily replaced it with a practiced smile.

“What?” she asked suspiciously.

He shrugged, boyishly bashful and adorable in a way that had Sawyer’s insides melting. “I was kinda hoping to help. We neverreally did the whole decorating thing as a kid. Ours was always professionally decorated and picture perfect. Besides,” he said with a roguish grin that made a very specific part of her melt. “I’m dead curious to see if your ornament collection is half as interesting as your mugs.” He raised the BDE mug in demonstration.

She laughed. She’d planned to ask Lily to come over and decorate with her, but she didn’t want to wait for her to get back from snowbirding with the in-laws.

Her Bluetooth speakers beeped loudly as she flipped them on, and she queued up Ariana Grande. The tree farm excursion had fanned the embers of inspiration that the Christkindlmarket had sparked, and she wanted to keep this feeling going. “Well, if you’re going to be here for a while, take off your pants.”

“Miss Greene,” he admonished, placing a scandalized hand over his heart. “Rule number two.”

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