Page 33 of Unromance

He should get an Oscar for his ability to appear unbothered. It wasn’t that he still wanted Kara. He’d started the process of moving on months ago. It was that she’d broken up with him because he was “too serious, too fast,” and now, she was engaged.

Luis glanced sidelong at him, smirking. “And you know I’m not talking about Kara.”

Now it was Mason’s turn to feign interest in the nearest kitchen gadget. “Why are we even in this store? Margot doesn’t cook.”

“Yeah, but I do,” Luis countered. “Don’t change the subject. Who’s the girl?”

“What makes you think there’s a girl?” he deflected. Checking the time on his phone, he prayed it was time for him to meet up with Sawyer so he could ditch Luis and avoid this conversation altogether. No such luck. He still had two hours left until they ruined IKEA, which, frankly, wouldn’t be hard. Mason already hated that place, but he’d been putting off getting a second nightstand for months now.

“With you?” Luis laughed. “There’s always a girl. Especially when you check your phone every five minutes.” Luis flicked the corner of his phone, and Mason frowned, shoving it back into his pocket. “I know you’re meeting up with someone after this and you only have, like, two friends. I’m already here, and per Alissa’s Instagram, she’s in Toronto with her girlfriend, so—” He gestured as if it were the only logical conclusion.

Mason hated that he was right. He wasn’t sure when most of his friendships had faded, but between all the night shoots, failed relationships, and multiple transcontinental moves, his pool of friends had whittled down to only Luis and Alissa. Which, frankly, he was fine with. Mason and Luis had been best friends since middle school, and while Alissa was Mason’s invaluable lifeline in the industry, there was something to be said for having at least one person who knew you and liked you before you were “someone.” Luis supported Mason’s career, but he couldn’t care less about all the peacocking, bringing Mason back down to earth when he got too caught up in the microcosm that was the acting world. And he was going to have to leave him behind when he moved to LA. Guilt twisted his gut thathe hadn’t told Luis yet. He knew Luis would take it better than his family, but now that Luiswasfamily, he couldn’t ask him to keep that secret from Margot.

It was weird, at first. His best friend dating his older sister, but it did mean they got to spend all their holidays together, and he much preferred Luis’s company to the insufferable boyfriends Margot had brought home before.

“I’m judging by your lack of refusal that I’m right, so: What’s her name?”

All his warm and fuzzy thoughts about Luis and their steadfast friendship vanished. Of course Luis assumed that. Mason had a bad habit of retreating into his own head mid-conversation, so used to biting his tongue he sometimes forgot he had people he could speak freely around. But this… He didn’t want to involve his family in his and Sawyer’s shenanigans. He wasn’t sure how to avoid the conversation without piquing Luis’s interest further, so he did what his mother had taught him to do when the press asked a question he didn’t like: he gave a half answer. “Her name is Sawyer, but it’s not like that.”

“So you’re not sleeping with her?”

Mason cleared his throat. “No.”

Technically, it wasn’t a lie. Had they slept together? Yes. Were they currently? No. Did he still think about it constantly? Irrelevant.

Luis stared at him wide-eyed, and Mason feared his friend was going to call his bluff. What good were all those years of acting if he couldn’t even lie convincingly?

“Wait… did you—did you make another friend?”

Mason waved away his comment, which was apparently the wrong thing to do, because Luis’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. Which was how Luis managed to squeeze the entire story out of him. Masonskipped the LA detail, but he told him about getting stuck in the elevator, the run-in at the Christkindlmarket, the pact at Kuma’s, the Christmas tree farm, then shouting about balls at the Millennium Park ice rink. By the end, Luis was laughing so hard that the other shoppers had begun to stare, some of their gazes lingering on Mason longer than he was comfortable with.

“C’mon,” Luis managed between gasps of laughter. “Let’s get out of here before someone recognizes you and I get stuck photographing you in front of the oversized marshmallows.”

Mason rolled his eyes. “Next thing you know, the tabloids will be bemoaning that I’m eating my feelings.”

“Mason West,” Luis began dramatically. “Would you say that a marshmallow a day keeps the heartbreak away? Is it—” Luis paused for effect. “Just what the doctor ordered?”

Mason couldn’t help the snort that escaped him, ducking into the novelty shop to avoid the stares he drew.

“Okay, but seriously. You and this girl—”

“Sawyer,” Mason reminded him, wandering over to a wall of mugs.

“How does doing romantic shit with this girl cure you of your romanticism?”

He shook his head, reading a few of the quotes on the mugs as he tried to find the right words. He normally found the inspirational quotes endearing, but today he found them suffocating.

Maybe the mission was working.

“It’s not just about me. The ‘romantic shit’ is supposed to break her writer’s block, and I think it’s helping.” He smiled to himself at the thought. “As for me, it’s like exposure therapy. I put way too much stock in the butterflies, but butterflies don’t last—and neither do my relationships.” Not when it wasn’t the right person.Not whenhemight be the problem. He’d put a lot of thought into Sawyer’s suggestion to call up his exes, to figure out why his relationships kept failing. After she halted his impulsive decision to call Kara, he hadn’t found the nerve to do it again, but he thought about it often, a secret item that he added to their list.

Luis stared at him like he was speaking gibberish. “I guess,” he said skeptically. “You do tend to fall like—” He snapped his fingers.

He didn’t know how to respond to that. He hadn’t planned on telling anyone about his and Sawyer’s pact, because he hadn’t expected anyone to get it. If anyone could, however, it would be Luis. Luis was always his first call when he needed a night of pizza and beer, because, yeah, Masondideat his feelings after a breakup. The only exception to that rule had been Kara, all thanks to Sawyer distracting him.

“So, like, what’s her huge flaw? Because I saw her at the Christkindlmarket before she slipped off like fucking Cinderella at midnight and she’s—” He raised his brows, brown eyes widening to imply Sawyer’s attractiveness. “How are you planning onnotfalling for her?”

Luis had a point. He had a history of falling for people who weren’t falling back. Normally, he’d read too far into the easy, teasing banter he had with Sawyer. It was a habit he needed to unlearn. Because with her, he knew it couldn’t become anything. And even if he did spend more time thinking about her than he should, he was leaving. But he couldn’t say that to Luis. He’d thought waiting until after the holidays to tell his family about LA was the right call, but right now, the prospect of lying to them for the next few days…

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