Chapter Eleven

CHAPTER ELEVEN

THE QUIRKY BEST FRIEND – They’re weird, know how to push all your buttons, and you love them for it. No notes.

M ason’s hands slid between Sawyer’s legs, his long fingers teasing her. He was close— so close —to where she needed him. When he finally relented, giving her what she wanted, Sawyer gasped.

With a shudder, Sawyer sat up in bed, rubbing sleep from her eyes. She covered herself with the comforter, though there was no need. She was alone. She blinked away the dream as her dimly lit, Mason-less bedroom came into focus in front of her. With a sigh, she sank back against her pillow, rolling over and screaming into it.

She’d made a pact with herself to stop thinking about Mason when she touched herself, but the memories of their night together had a habit of sneaking in anyway, which meant she’d given up masturbating altogether. And that was a shame, because if getting yourself off was an Olympic sport, she’d have more medals than Michael Phelps.

Squeezing her legs together to ease the ache, she counted backward from ten. Fantasizing about Mason had been one thing when she thought she’d never see him again, but now, she couldn’t, or she’d want to act on her fantasies. And she couldn’t do that, obviously. Not only was it against their rules, but the more she got to know Mason, the more convinced she was that she would be the exact wrong person for him. He wanted the romance, the all-consuming rush of a new relationship. Sawyer simply didn’t have time for that. She had a book to write, and if she was struggling to even fantasize about love, she was in no position to plan and execute romantic overtures in the real world.

Mason was off-limits. She knew that. Hell, she’d been the one to draw that line. But the memory of his hands on her, the feeling of him inside her… It was haunting her—a very specific, very needy part of her.

Just as one of her hands began to drift south, her alarm blared, and she jolted out of bed. Staring back at the rumpled sheets traitorously, she toggled off her alarm and trudged away to start a cold shower and get ready to brave the mall.

Normally, the mall was Sawyer’s favorite place to people watch. The mall the day before Christmas, however, was a madhouse.

“When I agreed to do last-minute Christmas shopping with you,” she grumbled to Lily as they queued up for coffee, “I thought you meant antique stores and thrifting, not throwing ’bows in the Apple Store.”

In retrospect, she should have known. Lily’s husband Beau was a techie. The two could not be more different, and yet, even Sawyer’s Grinch heart could admit they were rom-com-worthy. Childhood sweethearts turned second-chance romance. They were the exception, not the rule. And the rule was, when the glass ball drops, it shatters, and no amount of grand, romantic gestures will put it back together the way it was before, and you’ll only drop more things in the process of trying to save something that’s already broken. Sawyer wouldn’t make that mistake again.

“I can’t believe you’re going to IKEA after this,” Lily mumbled. Sawyer had anticipated some form of sarcastic response from Lily when Sawyer caught her up to speed on how One-Night Stand Elevator Guy was now Mission: (un)Romance Guy, but thus far, Lily’s only hang-up was the IKEA of it all. “That place is going to be way worse than this.”

“Is it?” she questioned, her voice unnaturally high. “When I’m making my Christmas list, I’m not thinking, ‘Ah, yes, there’s nothing I want more than to spend my Christmas morning rage-quitting furniture assembly.’”

Though the Christmas Eve chaos was an added bonus. There was no way Mason could make IKEA romantic on a normal day, much less on one of the busiest days of the year. She was definitely going to win this list item—not that they were keeping score. But if they were, well, this one was primed for ruining.

The barista called out their names, and Lily passed Sawyer her coconut milk latte before grabbing her own drink—Sawyer had already forgotten the sentence-length order Lily had placed. Lily propped her cane against the coffee bar before further modifying her order with a few shakes of this and that. Lily treated coffee like she did her canvases—the more layers and mixed media, the better.

“Besides, we gotta ruin 500 Days of Summer ,” Sawyer said with a shrug.

“That movie is not a romance,” Lily insisted.

“I know, but that’s kinda the point right?” Sawyer mused. “Everyone thinks it is when, really, the villain is Tom—not Summer. She’s very clear she doesn’t want a relationship, and Tom goes falling anyway.”

Lily stirred her coffee contemplatively. “So, Mason is Tom?”

Sawyer’s head bounced from side to side as she considered. “Mason is kinda Tom, but I don’t think he’s a villain. It’s more that we’ve got to stop reading into everything and assigning some cosmic significance to it. Two people can go to a tree farm or Christkindlmarket or IKEA and have fun, and they don’t have to fall in love.”

Scooping up her coffee in one hand and her cane in the other, Lily leaned in close as she swept past Sawyer out of the packed coffee shop. “But they could, say, sleep together again.”

Sawyer had to double her pace to keep up. Even on the days when Lily’s osteonecrosis necessitated the use of her cane, her long legs still outpaced Sawyer’s. “Oh my God, Lily.”

“Whaaat?” Lily said innocently. “Multiple. Orgasms,” she said, smacking her cane on the ground after each word. “Don’t waste that, Sawyer!”

She sniffed primly. “My vibrators give me that.” Never mind that she’d followed through on her resolution to rename all her vibrators Mason.

Lily loosed a long-suffering sigh. “Fine. I’ll get you and your vibrator a twenty-four-pack of batteries for Christmas.” Without so much as taking a breath, she plowed on. “Wait, if Mason is Tom, are you Zooey Deschanel? If so, seems like you’re doomed to have him fall in love with you.”

Sawyer had definitely considered that. They were having fun and she liked spending time with Mason, but he wanted the epic romance. She was fairly confident he was self-aware enough to realize she was not the person to give him that. Though how he was planning on finding that in LA, while managing a new production company, she didn’t know. RIP to his next partner. He was going to be married to his work.

Sawyer’s heart twisted uncomfortably, knowing all too well what it was like to be left for pursuing a dream. She knew their mission was logically a little flimsy, but fuck . If she could help Mason even a little, spare him from going through what she did with Sadie… it was worth it.

She grasped tight to that resolve, blinking as she came back to the present, in a mall packed with people and a Lily who was staring at her a little too knowingly. Time to shut that down. Lily and her imagination could not be left to their own devices. “He’s moving to LA so there’s not really any future there, even if either of us wanted it. Which we do not.”

“Okay, so there’s no future, but in the present, there could be orgasms.”

Sawyer groaned. Lily wasn’t going to drop this, and she was so desperate to get her to drop it that she slipped.

“I’ve thought about it,” she admitted. “The sex was great, but I don’t think he knows how to keep it casual. When we slept together—” Sawyer shook her head in disbelief as the memory came back to her. “He prepared this whole breakfast-in-bed spread. Like, not just a post–booty call bagel and a coffee and get on your way. Like, fruit, homemade pancakes, French press, yogurt and granola… I never understood those sitcom kids who woke up to that and took, like, one strawberry and ran out the door but—” Sawyer shuddered. “It was too much. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. I didn’t even grab a single strawberry.”

Lily’s mouth hung open. “I’m sorry,” she said breathlessly. “Did you say breakfast, as in Little Miss Never Spends the Night spent the night ?”

Fuck.

Sawyer held up her finger in warning. “It was late, and I accidentally fell asleep.” Under her breath, she confessed in a rush, “AndthemorningsexwassogoodIfellbackasleep.”

Lily nodded in faux seriousness. “Of course. You poor thing, getting your back blown out and then he has the audacity to bring you breakfast in bed? The horror! You definitely shouldn’t sleep with him again. Sounds… terrible,” she said wistfully. “Unbearable, to be so attentively taken care of. It’s a feat you survived, really.”

Sawyer clenched her jaw so hard she was in danger of cracking a tooth.

Lily mimicked Sawyer’s stony expression back at her. “All I’m saying is, would it be so bad to sleep with someone you actually like for once?”

Sawyer nearly swallowed her tongue. “What does that mean?”

Lily snorted. “Please. We both know you purposefully pick partners you know you won’t get attached to.”

Craning her neck, she feigned concentrating on finding an unoccupied table, but the food court was as crowded as the coffee shop. “I don’t have time for that right now, I’m—”

“Focusing on my career,” they said in unison, Lily with a mocking undertone.

Sawyer scoffed. “Why do you say that like it’s a bad thing?”

“Because you can do more than one thing at once, Sawyer.” She wasn’t sure if the growl Lily let out was frustration at her or the tweens who stole the empty table they were angling toward.

“The last time I tried to do both,” Sawyer mumbled. “I fucked up both. I just… I need to get my shit together, and falling head over heels is the antithesis of feeling together .”

“You’re the one who keeps talking about feelings,” Lily pointed out smugly. “Not me.”

Sawyer sighed through her nose. “ My point is he doesn’t know how to be casual. So no, we can’t keep sleeping together.”

Lily hummed thoughtfully. “Fair. It would be torture if the sex god caught feelings for you.”

“He’s moving to LA!” Sawyer bleated.

Lily raised her eyebrows. “The perfect out,” she said reasonably. “Unless it’s not him catching feelings you’re worried about. I mean, you drove here and paid way too much for parking all so you could drive forty-five minutes to Schaumburg after this and brave IKEA with him. That’s—” She began singing Meatloaf’s “I’d Do Anything for Love (but I Won’t Do That)” under her breath.

At Sawyer’s scathing look, Lily held up her hands innocently. “Fine, fine, I’m done. So what’s in LA that he can’t find here?”

“Besides sunshine?” She loved Chicago, but she wouldn’t mind a bit more sunshine in her life to balance out the never-ending winter. “He’s going for work,” she hedged carefully.

“Oh, what does he do?”

She hadn’t told Lily about that particular revelation. She stalled for time as they pushed their way through the crowd in pursuit of a table that wasn’t occupied. “He’s an actor.”

Lily perked up immediately. “What theater?” Lily loved Chicago’s theater scene, and was a regular at more than one collective. Sawyer had sat front row at more avant-garde Shakespeare reimaginings than she could count.

“TV, not theater,” Sawyer clarified.

Lily’s cane impeded her path, stopping her in her tracks so she had to face her friend. “Mason who ?”

Sawyer sighed, stalling. “Mason West,” she mumbled.

Lily’s wide eyes grew even wider. “Elevator Guy is Mason West? You had—and I quote—a ‘mind-blowing’ one-night stand with Mason fucking West?”

“I don’t think I said ‘mind-blowing,’” Sawyer deflected. Even though, yes, it had been. The man knew his way around a woman’s body, and she wasn’t mad about it. But when she’d told her best friend about the glorious one-night stand—in detail—she hadn’t expected to see him again.

Lily cackled. “You definitely did, but you didn’t tell me he was Mason West ! How could you hold out on me like this?”

“Would you be cool? Stop shouting his name,” Sawyer hissed. People were starting to stare, Lily’s witchy laugh cutting through the din of the crowd and the tinny Christmas music blaring from the mall speakers. “I wasn’t holding out on you. I didn’t know who he was until the tree farm.”

“So,” Lily began with a smirk Sawyer didn’t trust. “If you do get inspired and write a novel after this weird quest of y’all’s, you know you have to dedicate the book to his— and I quote —‘glorious’ dick, right?”

“I did not say ‘glorious,’” Sawyer insisted. She definitely had, and she wasn’t wrong.

Lily continued to cackle. She was having far too much fun at Sawyer’s expense. With a hefty sigh, Sawyer sulked off.

“I’m sorry,” Lily said apologetically. “I’m done. But please know I’m in awe of you for boinking someone that beautiful. I knew you couldn’t be so pretty for nothing.”

“Dear God,” Sawyer swore. “Stop trying to Mrs. Bennet me! I’m in possession of no fortune, and I’m not in want of a husband or wife or partner.”

Lily bit down on her lip. “Sorry, I’m actually done this time, promise.” She held out her pinkie in truce.

Sawyer wrapped her pinkie around her best friend’s, ready for a subject change. She loved Lily dearly, but ever since she’d given up on their single, twentysomething heathen lifestyle and gotten married, she’d been on a mission to find Sawyer her own Beau. A beau. Ha.

“So, how is it going—y’all’s mission? Are you inspired?” Lily asked as they abandoned their hunt for a table and wandered into a novelty shop.

Sawyer hummed noncommittally. “I don’t think I’m How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days –ing him hard enough, but I’m having fun and feeling inspired to write again, so we’re at least halfway doing it right.”

Lily’s eyes widened, and she bit her lip and wiggled her brows excitedly. “You’re writing again?” For all her meddling, Lily was a great cheerleader, even for Sawyer’s ideas that never made it past the idea phase.

A small smile spread across her face. “Yeah, but I’m not quite ready to talk about it yet.”

Lily nodded in understanding, and didn’t press her further, pausing to study the wall of coffee mugs.

Sawyer came up with a million pitches a day, but there had to be a spark, something special about the idea, something that she connected with, something that necessitated her being the one to write that particular story. She was close. She was mulling multiple ideas in the back of her head, but she hadn’t found the thread that connected them all. It was like looking in a well-stocked fridge, knowing you had the ingredients for a feast, but not knowing what you wanted to do with them. Sure, there were lots of things she could make, but that took time, and emotional energy, and she couldn’t start until she knew what she was craving.

She was close. She’d written a few thousand words of an outline and some opening scenes, but beginnings were easy. Middles were messy but doable, but endings? Endings were her kryptonite.

She’d gotten so excited about her new idea that she’d opened the writing group chat she’d muted months ago in a fit of impostor syndrome. But when she scrolled through the unread messages, impostor syndrome reared its head again. She closed out without saying anything, feeling shitty for having missed out on so many of her friends’ milestones.

She’d contemplated calling her agent, Tess, multiple times over the past week to talk through her half-formed idea. But it was the holidays, and Tess was spending time with her family, and Sawyer had made that call before. An idea would take root, she’d get excited that the inspiration was finally flowing after a long drought, she’d pitch it to Tess and Emily, and she’d write five, ten, fifty thousand words and then at the crux… she got stuck. She’d either write herself into a corner, or she’d drop the plot threads that she’d been carefully weaving, or the characters would stop speaking to her… The thought of trunking yet another unfinished story ate at her, her eyes stinging.

She pushed the thought away, blinking rapidly to clear her blurred vision. She couldn’t afford to think like that. Literally. She couldn’t afford it. She wasn’t going to fail again. Her publisher wasn’t going to drop her because she would finish this time.

“So,” Lily hedged, suddenly very interested in a reindeer mug and avoiding eye contact. “I know I said I’d drop it, and I promise I will, but can’t you do the whole How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days thing and still get laid?”