Page 39 of Unromance

“Oh no,” she said, taking a step back, fisting the hem of her oversized sweater nervously.

“It’s fine,” Mason said immediately. “It’s my fault. I should have warned you my family is extra. This way, at least one of us is comfortable. Let’s go.”

She shook her head adamantly. “Give me, like, five minutes. You can time me.”

He raised one brow, tugging his phone from his coat pocket withan amused quirk of his lips. She watched as his thumb swiped up, and she bolted across her apartment before he could start the timer. She’d need every second.

She didn’t have very many nice dresses. She didn’t often have the occasion to wear them, and she sent a telepathic thank-you to Lily for getting married in the winter and not cursing her with a hideous maid-of-honor dress. She grumbled as she fished out her least favorite bra from the back of her lingerie drawer, the one with the poke-y underwire. It was the only one that worked with the dress, however, so she apologized to each boob personally before hooking it on.

“I will let you out as soon as I can,” she promised them.

She kicked her comfortable pleather leggings into the corner of her closet before stepping into a pair of patterned black tights. Last year’s maid-of-honor dress was a simple, long-sleeved wrap dress made of emerald velvet and felt like a hug. She cinched it around her waist before giving herself a quick once-over in the mirror. She darted back into the closet and nudged aside her weather-appropriate ankle boots and slipped on her Mary Jane pumps.

“Will this do?” she asked as she reemerged from her bedroom.

Mason looked up from his phone and froze like a video game glitch. The timer on his phone went off and he jumped, a myriad of expressions flashing across his face as he silenced it without looking. He cleared his throat. “That’ll definitely do,” he said tightly.

Silence stretched between them, every inch of her aware of the slow drag of Mason’s gaze over her. When he raked his teeth over his bottom lip, she felt it in her core, the distance between them both too far and too close. She gave her head a little shake to clear it, pulling the neckline of her dress closed to hide the flush in her chest.

“Great.” The word came out garbled, as if she’d experience the entirety of puberty in that one sentence. “But now I need somethingelse to wear for New Year’s Eve, because this is the full extent of my nice dress wardrobe.”

“I’ll buy you a dress,” he said offhand.

Sawyer froze in the middle of adjusting her T-straps, teetering slightly to the side. Mason reached out, steadying her.

“You don’t—I didn’t mean—”

“Sawyer.” He interrupted her stammering with a smile. Had he always said her name like that? Surely, he’d said her name plenty of times before, so why did it feel so…intimate? “If I’m dragging you to a snobby party, I should provide you with a snobby dress.”

“Okay. The snobbiest,” she agreed with a limp smile. She was still thinking about the way her name sounded in his deep, rumbling voice that she forgot she hated accepting help, but she sure as shit couldn’t afford a dress nice enough for a Hollywood party—even Chicago Hollywood.

Mason shoved his hands in his pockets, pulling out a small package wrapped in gold paper. She froze as he extended it to her.

“I didn’t get you anything,” she confessed. “You didn’t say we were doing presents!”

Mason waved her concern away. “It’s for Friendshipulent.”

She eyed him warily. God, this was embarrassing. She hadn’t made a new friend in so long, she forgot that they did things like this. She bought gifts for Lily every year, but that wasLily. She was the closest thing Sawyer had to family. The gold wrapping paper fell away, and she slid off the square lid. It was the mushroom mug she’d been eyeing at the mall. Her gaze flitted between him and the mug. “How did you—?”

“Luis grabbed it for me after we left.”

“Then itwasn’tfor Friendshipulent. We hadn’t adopted him yet!” she accused with a jab of her finger to his hard chest. Nevertheless,she strode over to the succulent in its plastic pot, slipping it into the vintage mug, the orange mushroom pattern and the sage-green plant a happy combination.

“I’ll have to get some soil to repot it.”

Mason stared at her blankly, a smile slowly spreading across his face.

“What?”

He pressed his lips together, shaking his head.

“What?”

“Sawyer, I—” A laugh bubbled past his lips. “I don’t know how to break this to you, but… Friendshipulent is a fake succulent.”

She gasped, snatching the plant off the counter. Upon closer inspection, she could see where the layers notched together, the edge of the mold used to create the squishy leaves.

“You watered it, didn’t you?”

---