Chapter Ten

CHAPTER TEN

HOLIDAY HALLMARK MOVIE – Equal parts twinkling lights and patterned scarves, three dashes of hot-as-cocoa lingering looks, sprinkle in a tree-lighting ceremony, and serve up, at an ice skating rink in the town square.

A ll publicity is good publicity, Mason.”

Mason bit his tongue. Sometimes he wished he could vent to his mom and not have it become a TED talk on Moira West’s Five Steps to Making It as a Working Actor. He knew she thought she was helping. She made her career working on soaps, had faked relationships and frenemy feuds for publicity because viewers ate it up. But his relationship with Kara had been real—not media fodder. And this “good publicity” was having real repercussions on his career trajectory. Not that she knew that, because he still hadn’t told her he was leaving Diagnostics , because that would require him to tell her about Guiding Light and the impending LA move.

Mason groaned. Fuck. If he announced leaving the show now, it would look like he also left because of the breakup.

“Honey, you sound like a very sad cow. What’s wrong? I thought you and Kara were a PR stunt. I didn’t think it was serious. At least not serious enough that you bothered introducing us.”

That had been intentional. His mother’s meddling in his professional life had nearly destroyed their relationship ten years ago, and while she was better- ish about it now, he wasn’t eager to find out how those plotting powers could be diverted to his personal life, if given the chance.

Family was everything to Moira West. She fed the media machine what they wanted to see and then retreated to her perfectly crafted private life. When she’d been his manager, she’d done the same for him, too. It was fine when he thought they were in it together. Then, when he was sixteen, he found out the real reason his crush had changed her tune about not dating costars. His mother had advised her to give him a shot, that it would be good buzz for the film. Everyone knew it was a PR relationship—except him. It wasn’t until she dumped him at the premiere after-party that he learned the truth. He and his mother didn’t speak for a long time after that.

“Mom,” he sighed placatingly. “I’m not like you. I never wanted to play the game the way you did.”

Moira sniffed fussily. “Well, that’s all well and good, Mason, but we’re family . I really wish I didn’t have to find out about these things from the tabloids, honey.”

He’d told his mom about the breakup weeks ago, and she hadn’t been nearly as passionate about it then, so why was she so upset now? He snatched his phone off the dresser, hastily typing in Kara’s name.

He stumbled backward until his feet hit the bed frame, sinking onto the edge of the mattress.

People . E! Elle . TMZ. All had posted the same picture. She was wearing a beanie and sunglasses, but there was no mistaking that it was Kara snuggled into her new costar’s side. In her parents’ small-town Starbucks. The week before Christmas. With a ring on her left hand.

Kara Zhao and Peter Levine’s Whirlwind Romance

Peter and Kara Take the Heat Off-Screen

Everything You Need to Know About Peter and Kara, Our New Favorite It Couple

Mason didn’t “need to know” anything—in fact, he wished he knew less. But maybe this was a good thing. Maybe they’d finally leave him out of it. Oh, greaaat . TMZ had been kind enough to include that damn photo of bearded, disgruntled Mason, dredging back up the narrative that he wasn’t handling the breakup very well.

His mother seemed to be looking at the same article, tutting. “I really wish they’d used a better picture,” his mother’s voice trilled from his speaker.

“That’s kinda the point, Mom.”

She sighed in exasperation. “Well, I don’t like it. If you’d just let me leak something to course correct their coverage. Something tasteful about our holiday plans as a family—perhaps how excited I am to host your new lady friend for Christmas—”

“I’m not seeing anyone.”

“So? I could set you up, Brenda’s daughter is trying to break into modeling and—”

“Mom. No .”

Moira heaved a beleaguered sigh. “Fine. Well—I’m just sorry you still have to work with her. Speaking of,” she transitioned none too subtly. He should have started a timer to see how long it took her to pivot to prying into his work life, the only thing that trumped her love of prying into his romantic life. He’d worked hard to establish boundaries between work and family, but Moira West worked harder, drilling holes in the careful walls he’d built. They probably resembled Swiss cheese at this point. “Have you signed your renewal contract yet? You should use this buzz to get more money.”

He tuned her out as she told him a story about the time she’d taken the network for all they were worth to pay her as much as her male costar, a story he’d heard a hundred times.

His phone buzzed, and he opened the new text automatically, desperate for a reprieve.

running late! gimme five!! sorry!!!!! 3

Mason could’ve kissed Sawyer for her perfectly timed interruption. “Hey, Mom, I’ve gotta go.”

She cut off mid-story. “Meeting someone?” she asked hopefully. “A date? You should be seen out with someone new, dear.”

His derisive laugh was muffled as he tugged a soft Henley over his head. “The exact opposite of a date, actually.”

“Okay. I don’t know what that means and, as your mother, I don’t think I want to, especially if it has anything to do with those apps.”

Call the press. Mark your calendars. Moira West not prying. Monumental. Historic.

He said none of this, hurrying his mom off the phone and promising to call her again tomorrow to discuss the Christmas plans she’d called to talk about today before she had launched into an immediate dissection of his life.

He was dressed and out the door in two minutes, glad to be away from the conversation that seemed to linger in the air of his apartment. As the ruthless Chicago wind chafed his face, he found himself wishing he still had the beard from the TMZ photo.

The Millennium Park skating rink was only a few blocks away, but Sawyer still beat him there, immediately recognizable in her mustard-yellow coat. A smile spread across his face when he spotted her, and the knot in his gut loosened a fraction.

He tried not to think too hard about what that meant.

“You ready to do this?” he asked with a forced cheeriness.

She shook her head side to side, green eyes wide.

“Shit,” he said, tugging off his beanie in frustration. “I forgot the cider.”

“It’s fine,” she insisted. “Probably best if I’m sober while knives are strapped to my feet. I have a feeling I won’t need any extra help ruining today’s cliché,” she added with a furtive glance toward the rink.

Mason caught the eye of a gaggle of shoppers, one of them narrowing her eyes as if trying to place his face. He shoved his beanie back on his head. “C’mon,” he said gruffly.

Sawyer glanced up at him, attempting to follow his gaze as he took her hand and guided her toward the rental booth. “Everything alright?”

He glanced back, but the group had moved on. He exhaled slowly. “It’s fine. Crisis averted.”

Her brows rose at the word crisis . She squeezed his hand, which he was still grasping like a lifeline. He immediately dropped it, not consciously having meant to grab it in the first place. If someone had seen, snapped a photo… He could see the headline now: “Rebound Wars: Who Did It Better?” His mother would be elated.

He blinked, and Sawyer was still smiling softly up at him, dark brows arched in concern. “If you’re worried this is too public, we can go another time, some tiny rink—or better yet, not do this.”

He shoved all thoughts of the tabloids from his mind. “Oh, we’re doing this. It’s on the list.”

“Damn it,” Sawyer swore. “Sevens, please,” she said in resignation when they reached the front of the queue for skates.

The rink was packed with tourists and holiday shoppers taking a break, which was better than a smaller rink. The crowd would be easier for them to lose themselves in. Besides, he’d always wanted to come on a date here. They needed to ruin this fantasy.

They settled onto a nearby bench to lace up their skates, Sawyer chewing on the inside of her cheek as she watched the groups skating around the rink.

Mason nudged her with his shoulder, gesturing toward a father cheering on his daughter as she skated clumsily with the assistance of a plastic penguin-shaped skate trainer. “I can get you one of those, if you like,” he teased.

“Is that a short joke?” she clapped back.

He grinned, unable to stop his gaze from roving over her tiny frame. His attention snagged on her hastily tied laces. “Oh no. You want them tight.” Crouching down, he propped her skate against his thigh and undid her laces. Once the first had been sufficiently tightened, he guided her other foot into his lap. He could feel her eyes on him, meeting her gaze as he retied the second skate. Her mouth curved up ever so slightly at the corners. “If you make a joke about me on my knees again, I swear—”

She leaned forward, so close that the white clouds of their breath intermingled. “You’ll what?”

Tearing his attention from her insufferable mouth and the coconut lip balm that he could now smell, he shook his head. He hadn’t forgotten about Rule #2. She was only teasing him to test him. He wouldn’t fall for it so easily this time.

Rising to his feet, he held out his hand. “Ready?”

She flashed him a nervous grin, eyes on the skaters as she allowed him to pull her to her feet. Her shoulders ratcheted up toward her ears, and he realized how truly nervous she was. “You know I got you, right?” he murmured.

She met his gaze, the pucker between her brows smoothing as she nodded. “Yeah. I trust you,” she said equally as soft. His chest suddenly felt tight. “It’s those fuckers I don’t trust.” She pointed behind him, to a pair of experienced skaters zipping between the slower-moving groups.

A young girl let out a startled yelp as one of them whizzed by her, and Mason frowned. “Well, I don’t know if you know this,” he began conspiratorially, guiding her toward the rink’s opening. “But when not performing shirtless surgeries, I make an excellent bodyguard.”

“Oooh,” Sawyer cooed. “Bodyguard romance. Classic. ”

“So, I’m winning this one,” Mason said with a smirk.

“Hardly,” she scoffed. “I find nothing romantic about this. Why did you put it on the list? What about this does it for you?”

Mason laughed, placing a hand at her elbow to steady her as they queued up to get onto the rink. Glancing around, the smile on his face took up permanent residence as he watched the numerous couples holding hands, their gliding steps in sync as they skated beneath the canopy of twinkling lights, the instrumental Christmas music soft enough for whispered, intimate conversation. “Everything?” he breathed.

Sawyer rolled her eyes. “But it’s so crowded.”

He nodded toward a couple on the other side of the plexiglass, the way they grinned, eyes only for each other. “They have no idea there’s anyone here but them.”

Sawyer stumbled slightly as the toe of her skate snagged on the padded walkway. She heaved a heavy sigh. “You paid way too much for these rental skates.”

Mason shrugged. “Experiences are worth it.”

Sawyer pointed out a woman hitting the ice bum-first. “You’re so right,” she drawled sarcastically. “Nothing screams ‘romantic experience’ like a broken tailbone.”

As soon as the words left her lips, a man circled back to help the fallen woman up. The woman got back on her feet—albeit a little clumsily, like a colt using its legs for the first time—but there was no mistaking the mirth in her eyes as the man encircled her in his arms, the two of them laughing it off together.

“C’mon, that’s pretty cute,” Mason insisted.

Sawyer pursed her lips up at him obstinately, and he mimed adding a tally mark under his name midair.

They’d reached the edge of rink, and Mason stepped onto the ice, holding out a hand for her. She took it, and he could practically hear her teeth grinding together as she stepped onto the ice and… froze. Her other hand shot out, grasping his arm in a death grip.

At the sheer look of panic on Sawyer’s face, all plans of proving to her that this was romantic flew from Mason’s mind. A crowd was forming behind her, glaring at her to move so they could get onto the ice. He glared back before refocusing his attention on getting Sawyer through this list item safely.

“Sawyer,” he said quietly, her eyes snapping to his. “Walk toward me.”

She stared down at her feet like she was wearing cement blocks instead of skates. Tucking his hand under her chin, he guided her to look at him. He offered her a reassuring smile, turning so he was facing her fully and extending his other hand for her to hold. “Walk toward me.”

She took one wobbly step forward, careening into his chest. “Well, I think this cliché is sufficiently ruined,” she joked half-heartedly. “Let’s go.”

“We can leave whenever you want. Exit’s right there.” He gestured across the rink. He could see by her thousand-yard stare that it was taking everything in her not to go against the stream of skaters and walk backward out of the entrance they’d just come through.

“One lap,” she bargained, straightening, pride tingeing her cheeks pink. “I can do one.”

“You can totally do one,” he agreed heartily.

She took another hesitant step, and he mirrored her, keeping his hand at her elbow. She flinched as the speedy skaters zipped by, and he positioned himself in front of her again. “Don’t worry about them. Just look at me and I’ll look out for them.”

She nodded, taking another step, both her hands grasping his forearms for balance. Her steps grew more certain, Mason skating backward and glancing over his shoulder occasionally to make sure he didn’t plow over a toddler. Speaking of, the girl with the skate trainer glided past on slightly less wobbly legs.

“Oh God,” Sawyer murmured. “Did we just get lapped by a five-year-old?”

Mason couldn’t help but laugh.

“How did you learn, anyway?” she huffed, her breath clouding in front of her.

“My sister, Margot, was really into it when we were younger, though I think she was mostly into it for the costumes.”

Sawyer gasped. “Why didn’t we get costumes?”

“Next time,” he promised.

“Yeah?” She gave him a shit-eating grin. “I’d love to see you in head-to-toe bedazzled Lycra.”

“Whatever does it for you, I guess.” He wasn’t even sure what he was saying anymore, but she was skating now, paying more attention to their conversation than on moving her legs. Confident that she wouldn’t face-plant, he shifted so he could skate beside her. Sawyer swallowed thickly, her eyes trained on the exit. “It wouldn’t be very inconspicuous.”

“Are you worried about that—being recognized—here?” she asked disjointedly.

He shook his head. “We should be fine.” He hoped that wasn’t a lie.

“Are you sure? You seemed distracted when you got here.”

“It’s not that,” he dodged.

“Then what is it?”

The exit drew near, and Mason raised a brow in question.

“One more,” she said with quiet defiance. “Besides, you can’t avoid my question if you’re trapped on here with me.”

“Trickster,” he teased. They skated in silence for a moment, Mason waiting until they were past the group of teenage girls taking selfies before relaying the latest tabloid headlines to her.

“She couldn’t have kept it under wraps until after the New Year?” Sawyer said vehemently when he was done. “She broke up with you, like, a few weeks ago!”

Her protectiveness made him smile, the knot in his stomach from reliving the story loosening. Not that it meant anything. With Sawyer, it could never mean anything. “I already knew there was someone else. It’s not that. It’s—”

He probably shouldn’t talk about this here, in public, but he wanted to tell her. He hadn’t told anyone because his family was too invested and would find a way to make this about them. Talking about it with Alissa was fine, but she was also his business partner and thus also very invested. He just wanted to talk and have someone listen without an agenda.

“I’m leaving,” he said quietly. He waited, half expecting every person on the rink to stop and stare, to start taking photos and clamor for the exclusive. But no one paid them any mind. No one had any idea that in his two-word admission, Mason felt a million times lighter.

“I’m leaving the show.” He couldn’t resist saying it again. He’d been keeping so many secrets to protect the feelings of everyone around him, he hadn’t realized how suffocating it was until confessing one to Sawyer made breathing feel a thousand times easier. This was definitely breaking their surface-level rule, but he needed to talk about this. More than that, he wanted to talk about this with her . “I’m moving to LA to start a production company with Alissa. We were supposed to announce it earlier this month, but with the tabloids making me out like a womanizer one day and a heartbroken fool the next, it’s—”

He sighed. It was a mess, is what it was. He finally felt like he was doing something in his career that wasn’t chosen by his mother or in spite of his mother. This change was 100 percent for him, a way to reclaim the joy of acting and creating. He hated keeping it to himself like a dirty little secret, not being able to celebrate this giant leap forward.

“Hence our mission,” Sawyer said wisely. “To keep you single and out of the tabloids, so the focus is on your new company and not your love life.”

Mason nodded. “No one wants to trust a guy with their money if they think he’s just chasing skirts. I need to show them that this is my priority.”

Sawyer frowned. “Breakups suck. I can’t imagine going through one publicly.”

He could tell she meant it. For all her talk of a Grinch heart, she felt more than she let on. “Can I ask you something?” As soon as the words left his mouth, he wanted to shove them back in.

“Sure,” she said guardedly.

He could feel his cheeks burning, fully aware he was breaking their rules by asking, but they’d spent three laps discussing Kara, so… “Breakups do suck, but do you ever think that maybe your breakup was just a bad experience—the exception, not the rule?”

Silence fell between them, an apology for pushing too far on the tip of his tongue, when she spoke first.

“Of course I’ve thought that,” she answered quietly, her meek words like a blow to his gut. “But it’s more than that.” She chewed on the inside of her cheek, eyes fixed straight ahead as she and Mason continued to skate. “My entire life imploded when Sadie and I broke up. I lost my girlfriend, my apartment, my entire friend group. And you—you should be shouting your news from the rooftops. Instead, your breakup is holding your joy prisoner. As if getting your heart broken isn’t bad enough, they get to hold the things we love hostage, too? It’s bullshit, and it’s not fair.” Quietly, under her breath she admitted, “I can’t risk that again.”

She rolled her lips inward, and he waited. If she wanted to keep talking, he wanted to hear it.

She glanced at him sidelong. “This is where you try to change my mind by extolling your grand philosophies on—” She lowered her voice like even saying the word would risk summoning it. “ Romance .”

Mason barked out a laugh. “Why do you say that like it’s dangerous?”

“Isn’t it?” she asked, voice pitched high. “It’s not that I had one bad breakup and gave up,” she said slowly, her voice faraway. “It’s like this: I was on this writing panel once, and someone asked a fellow author how she juggled being a mom and a writer. And she explained that it really is juggling, and you have to know which balls are glass and which are plastic. If you drop a plastic ball, it bounces. If you drop a glass ball, it shatters.

“Over the past few years, I’ve dropped a lot of glass balls thinking they were plastic, sacrificing them for plastic balls that I thought were glass. And even though I’m juggling a lot less now, I’m struggling. I can’t juggle any more balls—do not laugh at that,” she said, despite laughing herself. “I knew I was dropping the ball with Sadie, but I thought our relationship was plastic, and would bounce back. I don’t know if my career is glass or plastic. My life is this incredibly sad circus of me trying to keep this one ball up in the air because if I drop it—I don’t know if it will bounce back, if I will bounce back.” She swallowed thickly. “So, yeah, romance is dangerous. One more ball to juggle when I’m already barely coping? That’s not fair to the person trusting me to keep them up in the air.”

Her eyes were glassy, an edge of panic to her voice that always appeared when she talked about writing. He didn’t press for more, tucking the information away to mull over later. For now, he said, “Could you say ‘balls’ one more time?”

Sawyer laughed—though that wasn’t exactly the right word for it. More like a honk. Once she composed herself, she glanced sidelong at him. “Balls,” she whispered.

“Balls,” he said, marginally louder.

“Balls.”

“Balls.”

“BALLS!” she screamed, dragging him out of the rink.

Mason surreptitiously tucked his face deeper into his scarf, though Sawyer had perfectly timed her outburst. Everyone on the rink that had heard was glancing around at neighboring skaters for the source, not along the sidelines, where Sawyer was hobbling unsteadily on her skates, bent at the waist she was laughing so hard.

What a strange person. He liked her so much.

As a friend.

He liked her as a friend so much.