Page 30 of Unromance

“BALLS!” she screamed, dragging him out of the rink.

Mason surreptitiously tucked his face deeper into his scarf, though Sawyer had perfectly timed her outburst. Everyone on the rink thathad heard was glancing around at neighboring skaters for the source, not along the sidelines, where Sawyer was hobbling unsteadily on her skates, bent at the waist she was laughing so hard.

What a strange person. He liked her so much.

As a friend.

He liked her as a friend so much.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

THE QUIRKY BEST FRIEND– They’re weird, know how to push all your buttons, and you love them for it. No notes.

Mason’s hands slid between Sawyer’s legs, his long fingers teasing her. He was close—so close—to where she needed him. When he finally relented, giving her what she wanted, Sawyer gasped.

With a shudder, Sawyer sat up in bed, rubbing sleep from her eyes. She covered herself with the comforter, though there was no need. She was alone. She blinked away the dream as her dimly lit, Mason-less bedroom came into focus in front of her. With a sigh, she sank back against her pillow, rolling over and screaming into it.

She’d made a pact with herself to stop thinking about Mason when she touched herself, but the memories of their night together had a habit of sneaking in anyway, which meant she’d given up masturbating altogether. And that was a shame, because if getting yourself off was an Olympic sport, she’d have more medals than Michael Phelps.

Squeezing her legs together to ease the ache, she counted backward from ten. Fantasizing about Mason had been one thing when she thought she’d never see him again, but now, she couldn’t, or she’d want to act on her fantasies. And she couldn’t do that, obviously. Not only was it against their rules, but the more she got to know Mason,the more convinced she was that she would be the exact wrong person for him. He wanted the romance, the all-consuming rush of a new relationship. Sawyer simply didn’t have time for that. She had a book to write, and if she was struggling to even fantasize about love, she was in no position to plan and execute romantic overtures in the real world.

Mason was off-limits. She knew that. Hell, she’d been the one to draw that line. But the memory of his hands on her, the feeling of him inside her… It was haunting her—a very specific, veryneedypart of her.

Just as one of her hands began to drift south, her alarm blared, and she jolted out of bed. Staring back at the rumpled sheets traitorously, she toggled off her alarm and trudged away to start a cold shower and get ready to brave the mall.

Normally, the mall was Sawyer’s favorite place to people watch. The mall the day before Christmas, however, was a madhouse.

“When I agreed to do last-minute Christmas shopping with you,” she grumbled to Lily as they queued up for coffee, “I thought you meant antique stores and thrifting, not throwing ’bows in the Apple Store.”

In retrospect, she should have known. Lily’s husband Beau was a techie. The two could not be more different, and yet, even Sawyer’s Grinch heart could admit they were rom-com-worthy. Childhood sweethearts turned second-chance romance. They were the exception, not the rule. And the rule was, when the glass ball drops, it shatters, and no amount of grand, romantic gestures will put it back together the way it was before, and you’ll only drop more things in the process of trying to save something that’s already broken. Sawyer wouldn’t make that mistake again.

“I can’t believe you’re going to IKEA after this,” Lily mumbled.Sawyer had anticipated some form of sarcastic response from Lily when Sawyer caught her up to speed on how One-Night Stand Elevator Guy was now Mission: (un)Romance Guy, but thus far, Lily’s only hang-up was the IKEA of it all. “That place is going to be way worse than this.”

“Is it?” she questioned, her voice unnaturally high. “When I’m making my Christmas list, I’m not thinking, ‘Ah, yes, there’s nothing I want more than to spend my Christmas morning rage-quitting furniture assembly.’”

Though the Christmas Eve chaos was an added bonus. There was no way Mason could make IKEA romantic on a normal day, much less on one of the busiest days of the year. She was definitely going to win this list item—not that they were keeping score. But if they were, well, this one was primed for ruining.

The barista called out their names, and Lily passed Sawyer her coconut milk latte before grabbing her own drink—Sawyer had already forgotten the sentence-length order Lily had placed. Lily propped her cane against the coffee bar before further modifying her order with a few shakes of this and that. Lily treated coffee like she did her canvases—the more layers and mixed media, the better.

“Besides, we gotta ruin500 Days of Summer,” Sawyer said with a shrug.

“That movie isnota romance,” Lily insisted.

“I know, but that’s kinda the point right?” Sawyer mused. “Everyone thinks it is when, really, the villain is Tom—not Summer. She’s very clear she doesn’t want a relationship, and Tom goes falling anyway.”

Lily stirred her coffee contemplatively. “So, Mason is Tom?”

Sawyer’s head bounced from side to side as she considered. “Mason is kinda Tom, but I don’t think he’s a villain. It’s more thatwe’ve got to stop reading into everything and assigning some cosmic significance to it. Two people can go to a tree farm or Christkindlmarket or IKEA and have fun, and they don’t have to fall in love.”

Scooping up her coffee in one hand and her cane in the other, Lily leaned in close as she swept past Sawyer out of the packed coffee shop. “But they could, say, sleep together again.”

Sawyer had to double her pace to keep up. Even on the days when Lily’s osteonecrosis necessitated the use of her cane, her long legs still outpaced Sawyer’s. “Oh my God, Lily.”

“Whaaat?” Lily said innocently. “Multiple. Orgasms,” she said, smacking her cane on the ground after each word. “Don’t waste that, Sawyer!”

She sniffed primly. “My vibrators give me that.” Never mind that she’d followed through on her resolution to rename all her vibrators Mason.

Lily loosed a long-suffering sigh. “Fine. I’ll get you and your vibrator a twenty-four-pack of batteries for Christmas.” Without so much as taking a breath, she plowed on. “Wait, if Mason is Tom, are you Zooey Deschanel? If so, seems like you’re doomed to have him fall in love with you.”

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