Page 54 of Unromance

Mason nodded. “Yep. The movie’s god-awful,” he laughed. “But it’s where my parents met. My mom was just starting out. I think she was, like, twenty-one? Twenty-two? My dad was a few years older and a stuntman—” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively, and Sawyer giggled. “They’d blocked his fight scene multiple times,and everything had been perfect—until the cameras actually started rolling and the film’s lead threw my dad across the room—in the wrong direction. My mom grabbed him half a second before he went through the window. Only, he was moving so fast that they toppled to the ground—”

“Stop,” Sawyer breathed.

Mason laughed as he nodded.

“They landed on top of each other, didn’t they?” she asked breathlessly.

“Yep,” he confirmed.

Sawyer groaned as if in pain from how cute it was. “I bet the media had a field day.”

Mason shook his head. “They didn’t go public for a long time. She was faking a relationship with the film’s lead at the time, so my dad courted her in secret. Everything for the media has always been fake with my mom. ‘Give them something to talk about so you can keep the real stuff for yourself,’” he parroted.

Sawyer grinned up at him. “Puh-lease make all my romance writer dreams come true and tell me you’ve faked a relationship for PR.”

Mason couldn’t help but return her smile, bopping her on the tip of her adorably scrunched nose. “With the amount of costars I’ve dated, you would think, right? But, other than my first relationship where everyone knew it was fake but me, no. They’ve all been real.”

Sawyer’s jaw dropped before she promptly mimed zipping it shut. He knew it was taking all her self-control not to ask for details, but he was opting for rose-colored glasses tonight where his mother was concerned. He didn’t want to get into all that.

He shrugged the shoulder her head wasn’t propped on. “In any other industry, dating a coworker is taboo, but sets are sucha microcosm. There’s not really anyone else to date except your coworkers. The media loves it and it’s great press, and it’s easier to give them their photo op, the sound bite, than to sneak around and get caught unawares. I’ve never kept it a secret that I want what my parents have. They’re so solid. I want to find that. I like going all out. I love love.”

There was that word again. But using it to describe his past relationships didn’t fit quite right. He’d loved some of them, but he was no longer so sure he’d been fullyinlove. Like he’d been in the shallow end of the pool all along and was only just now learning how to swim in the deep end. The depth was both thrilling and terrifying.

He didn’t need to keep talking, but he found himself wanting to anyway, even if it went against all his instincts to let his internal mess unspool. He leaned into Sawyer’s touch, leaned into the feeling of trusting someone with his whole self, even the parts that wouldn’t make for a titillating late-night talk show bit.

“But… despite all that, no matter how hard I tried to get everything right, my relationships never lasted longer than the production schedule. So, when I got theDiagnosticsoffer, it felt like the answer to all my problems. My relationship with my mom had been strained ever since I fired her as my manager—yes, I’mthatchild actor cliché—but I wasn’t a kid anymore. I knew who I was outside of just being Moira West’s son. And I was lonely. I wanted to come home. But, as with all things that seem too good to be true… theDiagnosticsshowrunner makes our lives hell. It—”

As if sensing him shutting down, Sawyer threaded her fingers through his hair, scratching his scalp comfortingly. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d let it all out like this, if he’d ever let it all out at once like this. Now that he’d started, he needed to see it through,from both a need for Sawyer to understand, and a need to understand himself.

“It’s not that I don’t want to tell you all the toxic shit we put up with, I just don’t want to ruin the rest of our night,” he said, laughing darkly. “When filming resumes next month, you’ll be sick of me complaining about it. But, for now, let’s just say it’s no coincidence that I’m leaving this show to start my own production company. It doesn’t have to be that way. We convince ourselves that the bad days on set are okay because they’re big names, that these out-of-touch old white dudes can make or break our career, but—” He shook his head. “There’s a new generation of actors and directors and producers, and we can choose not to perpetuate that.” Glancing down at her, he gave her a crooked grin. “This is where you tell me that in addition to being an incurable romantic, I’m also a hopeless dreamer.”

Sawyer shook her head. “I wasn’t going to say that at all,” she said softly. “I love your dream.”

Mason wasn’t sure why that made him want to cry. He squeezed his eyes shut, inhaling deeply and holding it for a moment before releasing it. He’d had this conversation with his family multiple times over the past two days, explaining the vision for Guiding Light, why he had to move to LA, but he’d been on the defensive. Now, for the first time in days, he was excited. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “That was a lot.”

Sawyer’s hands stilled in his hair, and she shifted, curling into his side so she could look up at him, studying his expression. “Álvarez,” she scolded him. “Why are you apologizing?”

She had a point. He wished he could be more like her, to not feel the need to apologize for going after what he wanted. But he’d grown up under the thumb of Moira West, where you kept the messythoughts shoved under the rug. Mason had been pretending everything was fine, always putting his best foot forward, never letting the bad thoughts out, been masking his expressions for so long, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d talked without tailoring it for his audience.

“I’m not very good at keeping things surface level with you.”

Sawyer shrugged, waving away his comment. “Fuck that rule. We’re friends.”

Friendsdidn’t feel like a big enough word for what she was to him. It scared him how easy it was for him to drop all of his acts around her. With her, he wasn’t Dr. Santiago or Moira West’s son or the media’s favorite doting boyfriend. With her, he could just be Mason Álvarez. “Thank you for listening,” he said sincerely.

“Of course,” she breathed. “What do you need in this moment?”

He exhaled heavily. “It’s been a long two days. I just want to lie here and go back to not thinking about it.”

She smiled softly, nudging his chest with her nose. “I amgreatat avoiding things, but thank you for telling me,” she said with a soft smile. “I know sometimes simply talking about it helps.”

He nodded distractedly. He did feel better, lighter.

Sensing that he wasn’t going to say anything else, she resumed her scroll through Netflix.

He sank deeper into the couch, dragging an incredibly soft blanket off the back and draping it over them.

Rolling onto his side, he kept his arm around her tight, not wanting her to move. He was so full, his head mercifully empty for the first time in days, and her couch was comfortable.Shewas comfortable—and not just her body, her back now pressed into his front—but her presence was like a weighted blanket, soothing himand dragging him under. Seeing her again after two days of worrying felt like an immense weight had been lifted off his shoulders, a contented warmth taking its place.

---