Page 59 of Unromance

He studied her for a long moment before inhaling shakily. “Okay, well—”

“I should get back to work,” she said at the same time, relieved her voice had mostly returned to normal.

She could almost visibly see him latch on to her excuse like a lifeline. He nodded. “Let me call you a Lyft,” he offered, pulling his phone from his pocket.

“I got it,” she said hastily. She tapped through her phone on autopilot, summoning a car. “I’ll see you later?”

They both knew “later” was a conveniently vague way of promising something while promising nothing.

He nodded, not fully meeting her eye. “Bye, Sawyer.”

His gaze raked over her, as if desperately trying to memorize her, one last look before never seeing her again.

As soon as his back was turned, the quaking in her bones turned into a full-body shudder, and she practically fell sideways into herrideshare when it arrived. She’d ended plenty of friends-with-benefits situations before, so why did her whole body feel simultaneously flushed and chilled? Her head felt light, and she was barely able to remember her own name when the driver asked for it. She’d never felt like this before. Perhaps she was coming down with something.

CHAPTER TWENTY

THE “EX” FACTOR– “It’s not you, it’s me.” But what if itisyou?

It wasn’t Mason’s first time tagging along for dress shopping, but it was definitely the first time it was fun. And not just because there was champagne.

Watching Sawyer strut in and out in the ones she felt best in, the shimmies and shakes she’d do for him from when Celia wasn’t looking, the way he wanted to hide her in his coat when he could tell she was self-conscious in one.

He hated that she’d turned their shopping trip into a list item, like it was all there was between them.

He’d spent half an hour being frustrated with Sawyer and then the past few days being mad at himself. He’d picked up his phone to call her a million times, shoving it between the couch cushions before he could hit dial. He wanted to apologize, ask to rewind, go back to how things were before, but there was no going back for him. He thought he could do it. Wait for her. But feeling about her the way he did and having her want nothing but sex had gutted him.

They’d gone to IKEA to ruin500 Days of Summer, but this fight, this feeling, was truly ruining that movie for him. He, too, had fallen for the girl who told him she didn’t want anything serious. But the way he felt about Sawyer—it wasn’t like anything he’d felt before.He didn’t care about fancy yacht dates or tree farms or ice skating under twinkly lights, he just wanted her. Maybe their list was working. Maybe he was changing. But maybe… he just didn’t get to be different with her. The thought didn’t sit right with him. Maybe their listwasn’tworking, because he couldn’t quite let go of the idea that all of this had to mean something. But he didn’t know what else he could do about it either.

Mason hadn’t meant to fall for her—but now that he had, he couldn’t pretend things were casual for him. It felt like lying. It made him feel cheap. He wanted someone to care back, to want him as much as he wanted them. Was that too much to ask? What was it about him that made him so easy to stay detached from?

He knew he’d done the right thing, but that didn’t mean he felt good about it. He felt like he’d broken her trust by doing the one thing he said he wouldn’t, but he couldn’t keep pretending they were just friends. The thing was… the more he thought about it—and he thought about ita lot, no matter how he tried to distract himself—he didn’t think she thought of them as friends either.

Or… was he just seeing what he wanted to see? Whether she had feelings for him or not, if she didn’t want more, he could accept that. He respected her boundaries, but if they were going to stay friends—just friends—he needed to set a few of his own.

With a sigh, he pulled the script on his coffee table into his lap. Twirling the blue pen in his hand, he tried to pick back up where he left off, but he’d lost the thread of the scene. He’d given his agent the go-ahead to notifyDiagnosticsthat season six would be his final season—after the New Year, of course. He didn’t want to spend the entirety of the New Year’s Eve party explaining where he was going and why. But ever since he’d done it, and even though he knew it was the right call, he felt exposed. Even more exposed than when thetabloids had been writing lies about him. He felt raw, like he’d shed a skin and this new one hadn’t quite toughened yet. Reading the script for the season six premiere made him feel like a fraud, and reading about Dr. Santiago and Nurse Lia’s breakup over a simple miscommunication made him want to throw the script at the wall. He knew they had to write Kara out somehow, but this was just bad writing, and the showrunner’s not-so-secret dislike for Kara was practically jumping off the page.

Tossing the script back onto the coffee table, Mason let his head fall back against the couch. This was the whole point, wasn’t it? Things would be different at Guiding Light. They could be the change the industry so desperately needed. Granted, they were a small company, and they couldn’t change everything, but it felt good, it feltrightthat they were doing something, trying.

Mason felt like he’d been trying for years. Trying to be a better son, better actor, better boyfriend. Sure, his life wasn’t terrible by any means, but he thought he’d be happy by now. He kept thinking if he got this role, or made his partner happy, or even got some rare Moira West praise, that he’d finally feel content, and yet… he was still searching. What the fuck was he doing wrong? Was it him?

And how did he fix things with Sawyer? Somehow, his thoughts always spiraled downward back to her.

He had no fucking idea what to do. He knew what he wanted to do. He wanted to race across town and explain himself better. That, yes, hewasdone with their list because he didn’t think he could stop being a romantic any more than she could stop being a romance writer. And he hoped Luis was right, that once the list—their obligations to each other—was off the table, she’d want to be with him anyway. He didn’t care if it was irrational or that he was leaving in afew months: this thing with Sawyer felt different in a way he couldn’t explain, and it was killing him not to know if she felt it, too. If she’d let herself feel it.

He had to get out of his own head.

Pulling his phone out from between the couch cushions, he pulled up Alissa’s contact and hit dial.

“Guiding Light Productions, Alissa Moreno speaking,” she said crisply.

A smile spread over his face, the muscles in his face aching. He hadn’t smiled in days. “Um, yes, hi,” he simpered. “I was hoping you might be hiring.”

Alissa laughed on the other end of the line. “I amsoexcited for the announcement to go live.”

He loosed a long sigh. “I’m excited for it to all be in the open.” He’d already filled her in on the disaster reveal at Christmas and the ensuing conversation with his mother that had somehow been more about her than him. “And I promise no more tabloids for the next few days.”

Alissa scoffed. “Fuck ’em. It never wavered my belief in you or my desire to have you on board. I am glad they seem to be leaving you alone, though. I want you to be able to enjoy this moment.”

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