Page 52 of Unromance

Crossing over to her, he set down the giant bag of takeout before taking her gently by the shoulders. Placing a finger under her chin, he guided her to look at him. “It is a big deal. And we’re celebrating.”

A smile spread across her face, but it didn’t fully chase away whatever emotion clouded her normally bright eyes. “Alright. Well, if you insist—I’ll even let you pick the mugs.”

He placed a hand over his heart. “I’m honored.”

Crossing over to the hutch, he smiled fondly at the Christmas tree in the corner. He paused, doing a double take. “Sawyer?”

“Hmm?” she answered distractedly, using her arm to scoop the contents scattered on her kitchen table into the garbage in one fell swoop.

“Why is there a dildo atop our tree?”

She stilled, her gaze darting between him and the pearlescent sex toy cresting the tree. “Well, so, the porcelain angel fell off. Her face cracked and I tried to fix it, but I’m not exactly Martha Stewart here, alright? And the tree looked so sad without a topper, and I thought the glitter gave it a festive vibe,” she finished with jazz hands.

“It’s a vibe, alright,” he agreed with an astonished laugh. “I love it, for the record.”

She beamed. “Thanks.”

Abandoning her cleaning of the kitchen table, she moved a stack of books off the coffee table and spread the food out on it instead.

Perusing her extensive mug collection, he selected one with a swooning Victorian woman for himself. From the back of the hutch, he unearthed a mug with a bold western font that declared, “Damn, I’m good.” Pouring a shot of whiskey for them both, he handed her the latter.

She grinned at his choices, nodding in approval. “Thank you,” she said softly, tapping her mug against his and taking a sip.

He studied her over the rim of his mug as he drank. There was something to her voice, the unnamable thing still shadowing her expressions. Was it because of what they’d done the other night in his car? Before he could make sense of it, she sank down onto the couch, letting out a beleaguered sigh before pulling a steaming bowl of pho broth toward her.

“Is it okay—that I’m here?” he asked.

She glanced up at him in the middle of tearing basil leaves into her soup. “Mason. I invited you.”

He nodded once, sinking onto the couch cushion next to her. He stole glances at her as he added jalapeños and bean sprouts to his own broth, trying to take solace in the routine of preparing his comfort meal.

She caught him staring again as he stirred sriracha into his broth. “What?” She managed to pack more emotion into that singular syllable than most of his costars did in a page-long monologue.

“Sorry,” he mumbled. “I just—you seem different. Is it because of… the other night?”

Sawyer took a deep breath, her eyes fluttering shut. “No. I’m just tired. This is what I’m like when I’m drafting. It takes me a whileto get my head back after spending so long in another world. I don’t usually—” She gestured between the two of them. “Socialize after a writing binge. It’s like I spend so much time crafting their personalities that it kinda drains mine. So, I’m sorry. I might not be very entertaining. Oh—I’ll ruin romance writers for you, how about that?”

“Sawyer,” he said softly. “You don’t have to ‘be’ anything. Not everything we do has to be for the list. I just wanted to know you’re okay—we’re okay.”

She nodded. “We’re good. It’s not you, it’s me,” she said with a half-hearted sly grin that he could tell even she didn’t buy. She blew out a breath, her bangs fluttering with the force of it. “I also…” Averting her gaze to her soup, she stirred it absentmindedly, and he waited. “I haven’t written like this in a while, but I also haven’t had someone be excited for me that wasn’t someone who got paid when I wrote.”

He thought of Lily, her friend that he’d met at the mall.

She met his eyes, and as if his thoughts were written on his face, she nodded. “I met Lily while I was editingWhy We’re Not Together, so she missed this phase.” She gestured around her messy apartment. She tapped her spoon against the side of the bowl, staring at the wall as if deciding whether or not to keep talking. He hoped she kept talking. Every piece of her that she chose to share felt like both a gift and a hard-won battle. “I’m sure you’ve realized my parents and I aren’t close—not like you and yours. Even with the awkwardness, that Christmas dinner was the best family meal I think I can remember. My family and I…” She ran her thumb along her bottom lip, still staring at the wall across from them. “Well, I wasn’t exactly the ideal preacher’s kid, but it still stung when I sent them an advance copy of my first book and they sent it back without even cracking the spine.”

Mason scrubbed his hands over his face, unsure what to say. Their experiences couldn’t be more different. His mother had nearly suffocated him with support.

“It’s okay,” she mumbled. “You don’t have to say anything.”

He wanted to tell her it wasn’t okay, but he could tell she already knew that, that she’d made her peace with it and nothing he said was going to assuage that hurt. What he couldn’t wrap his mind around was how someone could know Sawyer, had some hand in shaping her, see the wily, wistful wonder that she was—and walk away. In the Venn diagram of “knowing Sawyer” and “loving Sawyer,” for Mason, it was a circle.

A memory played out in his mind’s eye—not a memory. A scene from theAlmost Loversmovie, where the main character reconciles with her estranged family. A scene that hadn’t been in the book. Mason suddenly felt hollowed out. He hadn’t understood why Sawyer hated her book’s adaptation so much. Until now. She’d given a delicate piece of herself to her character, and the studio had bastardized it, as if the only way to be happily ever after is to have everything tied up in a glossy bow where, for Sawyer, there would always be a severed thread.

“Anyway.” Sawyer sipped her broth before continuing. “I took that copy and made a new family. I brought it to every signing I did forAlmost Lovers, and let my readers sign it. It was so battered by the last one that I had to tape the spine.”

“Could I see it?” he asked tentatively.

The soft smile on her face fell, and she stared down at her soup like she wanted to drown in it. “I don’t have it anymore. Sadie and I broke up right before the launch, but I still thought we’d get back together, once everything calmed down. But when I got back from tour, Sadie sent her brother to grab the last of her things, and I leftbecause I couldn’t watch. It was weeks before I realized the book was gone.”

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