Chapter Thirteen

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

KISS ME SO WE CAN HIDE – The bad guys are coming, and if we mash our faces together, we’ll become invisible. Probably.

G od, I hate this place,” Mason mumbled under his breath.

They’d been in IKEA for only five minutes—not counting the ten minutes it took them to find each other again after parking—and it was the second time he’d said it. Sawyer stood on her tiptoes to peer around the family in front of them who had stopped to examine the room setup, effectively blocking the walkway.

She let out a frustrated sigh that sent her bangs fluttering. “Well, we’re here now and there’s only one way out: through.”

“This is my personal horror movie.”

“You’re the one who needed a nightstand,” she grumbled. “I don’t get why you couldn’t do it the easy way.”

“Oh yeah? What’s that?”

She scoffed. “Get wine drunk and impulse order one online. Obviously.”

Spotting a gap in the crowd, Mason grabbed her hand and dragged her through with him, his tall stature making the family part for him in a way they hadn’t for her. He dropped her hand once they were through, a strange tingling sensation left in its wake.

“I tried,” he grumbled. “I want one to match my current one, but they all look the same online.”

“Do you really have so many sex toys that you need a second nightstand?”

Mason’s eyes danced as he stared down at her. “Some people use their nightstands for more than just vibrators, Sawyer.”

She raised her brows pointedly. “Like what?”

“Books?”

Touché.

Mason slowed his steps, something unreadable crossing his expression.

“What?” she asked, glancing around for the source of his sudden change in demeanor.

“Do you wanna get out of here?” he asked urgently.

“I mean, yes, always, but why?”

He exhaled heavily, pushing up the brim of his gray beanie to run a hand through his absurdly shiny hair. It was longer than when they’d first met a month ago, his previously short sides now grown out and curling above his ears. He pulled the hat down, and Sawyer resisted the strange urge to push it back, to play with the barely there curls.

“I don’t need it.”

Sawyer’s brows knit together. That was a valid reason and one she used often, but she didn’t exactly have money to spare. If Mason wanted a second nightstand, he could definitely get one.

“I was only getting one because Kara always complained about not having one when she spent the night.”

Ah. Sawyer puffed out her cheeks, unsure how to navigate this. “Okay,” she hedged carefully. “Do you want one, though? We are already here.”

“That’s true…” He puckered his lips, considering. “No,” he said decisively. “I’m not getting one, because I don’t need it. It would only be used by a houseguest, and the whole point of this is I’m not looking for one.”

“Attaboy,” she cheered.

“Which means,” he said, deflated. “We are suffering at IKEA for no fucking reason.”

“Ugh,” Sawyer groaned. “Wanna go test the beds?”

“Sawyer, there are children here,” Mason chastised.

She rolled her eyes. “Not like that, you horndog.” She gestured for him to follow her, the yellow arrows on the floor guiding them through the maze. When they reached the floor of living room setups, they froze. Mason’s face was everywhere. A more groomed Mason in powder-blue scrubs and a lab coat was walking down a hospital hallway, having a muted conversation with his costar ex, Kara.

Sawyer’s gaze slid to Mason in slow motion, as if they didn’t move, no one would notice them frozen in the middle of the aisle. She’d never seen Mason so pale, his face transforming into the blandly smiling mask that she’d come to know as his PR Face, so unlike his usually expressive self.

She pressed her lips together, eyes darting across the massive floor. They had to get out of here. People were giving them dirty looks for blocking the walkway, and it was the last thing they needed—people looking at Mason while his face was on every wall. Mercifully, the episode moved on to a scene that didn’t have him in it, but it was only a matter of time.

Sawyer dragged Mason off to the side, into a tiny cubby between rooms, attempting to bodily conceal him—a feat that would be easier if he weren’t so much bigger than her. Arching onto her tiptoes so her face concealed his, she steadied herself against his chest by curling her fingers around his coat lapels.

She hadn’t been this close to Mason—had made a point to avoid it—in a long time, and it was, well, a lot. He smelled fantastic.

“What are you doing?” he whispered.

“Hiding you,” she breathed.

She had a front-row seat to the smile that spread across his face, his eyes crinkling in the corners. “A valiant effort,” he commended her, tapping his forehead against hers. “But if we get caught all snuggled up, that’s worse for me than being caught shopping at IKEA.”

“Fuck,” Sawyer breathed. “I didn’t think of that.” She picked up a nearby succulent, holding it up as if inspecting it, and effectively hiding their faces from view. “I was thinking more like, let’s ruin the ‘kiss me so we don’t get made by the bad guys’ trope.”

“Is that a trope?” Mason said, tilting his head to the side quizzically.

She swatted his chest. “It totally is. Think, action-adventure rom-com.”

One side of Mason’s mouth quirked up in a cocksure grin. “If you wanna kiss me, Greene, you don’t need to come up with an excuse.”

What in the Wattpad?

“Cool it, álvarez. Rule number two, remember?”

“Oh, I remember the rules. You’re the one trying to kiss me,” he said flippantly. “The scrubs really did it for you, huh?” He flicked his attention to the nearest TV, where his character was back, looking admittedly very attractive in his powder-blue scrubs, leaning against a lab counter, feet crossed at the ankles.

Sawyer whisper-screamed, “Oh my God, is that Mason West?”

The smile slid from Mason’s face. “You wouldn’t dare.”

Sawyer gave him a shit-eating grin. “You do look cute in the scrubs, though. You should wear them for me sometime,” she teased.

“Rule number two,” he said, faux scandalized, the effect ruined by the laugh rumbling out of him, jostling her against his chest. He braced a hand at the small of her back to hold her steady. “Okay,” he said seriously. “Safe to say I’m immune to IKEA-adjacent romantic notions.”

“I think that was true before we got here, but—” Sawyer mimed crossing an item off the list before making eye contact with him and adding another tally mark under her name. As predicted, she’d won this one, no contest.

“Fair. We probably could’ve skipped this one. No one could make this place fun for me.”

Sawyer snorted. “Agreed.”

“Alright. Game plan.”

“Right,” Sawyer said gravely. “How are we getting out of here alive?”

“Well, the plant has to come with us. It now knows too much.”

Sawyer bounced excitedly as an idea took hold. “It can be our Love Fern! Except, a love succulent because succulents are cooler and only—” She checked the price tag. “Eight ninety-nine.”

Mason hummed thoughtfully. “You do have big Kate Hudson energy.”

“Thank you,” Sawyer breathed, deeply flattered.

Mason laughed. “So, do we keep the Love Succulent alive or let it die?”

Sawyer frowned. “Feels like bad karma to purposefully let a plant die, but I can’t keep anything alive, so… maybe skip the Love Succulent?”

Mason ran his thumb over one of the green leaves, squeezing it gently. Sawyer had a visceral reaction to it, the memory of his thumb brushing across her lip, pressing down between her thighs.

He grinned mischievously at her. Could he tell what she was thinking? Plants. They were talking about plants.

“Let’s make it our Friendship Succulent.” He studied her out of the corner of his eye. “We’re officially friends now, right?”

Sawyer shrugged. “I mean, we do know each other biblically and still like each other, so yeah.”

Mason’s answering smile made her chest ache. Not with, like, feelings or anything, but, like, a heart attack maybe. He was too pretty. She was just reacting to his nice face. That she’d sat on, once upon a time. She curb-stomped that thought.

All her not masturbating had her feeling like a frayed nerve, and the close proximity had her sweating more than a Victorian woman catching a flash of bare wrist. She really needed to get out of this alcove that was making her all too aware of everywhere they were touching.

Mason’s face went back into mission mode. “Okay—” Pointing over her shoulder, he laid out their plan to get through the maze of couches and coffee tables as efficiently as possible. It was silly and possibly making a bigger hubbub than just strolling across the floor, but it was fun .

Escape route plotted, they waited for the TVs to cut to a non-Mason scene. Both of them were so tightly wound, anticipation was a palpable thing between them.

The episode changed to another subplot and, miraculously, a gap in the crowd appeared, the two of them slipping back into the throng of holiday shoppers.

As they wove between Ektorp couches and Knarrevik nightstands and more things with more consonants than Sawyer could phonetically parse, Mason grabbed her hand to keep them from being separated by a family with multiple crying children. The swooping sensation in her stomach was definitely due to her almost tripping on a stray table leg and not at the skin contact.

When they finally reached the base level, they were both flushed and breathing heavily.

Mason dropped her hand, and they grinned at each other like they’d just stolen the Declaration of Independence. Then they spied the ungodly long line. Nothing killed the mood like a warehouse packed with cranky holiday shoppers.

Not that there was a mood to kill, or anything.

“We don’t have to get it,” Sawyer announced. She tried to take their laughably tiny purchase from him, but he tucked it under his arm like a football.

“Oh, we’re getting it,” Mason said definitely. “And I expect you to be so goddamn inspired by this excursion that you dedicate your novel to our Friendship Succulent.”

“For Friendshipulent,” she crooned. “My steadfast companion through the murky drafting waters.”

“Are you writing again?” The way Mason’s face lit up was… something. Made her insides feel all weird and gooey.

Her usual nonanswer stuck in her throat. Talking about her books was deeply personal, and they’d agreed to keep things superficial, only sharing list-relevant information, but wasn’t breaking her writer’s block the whole reason she agreed to this weird mission-quest thing? She wanted him to know his efforts were working. Besides, her pitch to Emily was due soon, so this was good practice.

Before she could think twice, she told him the story she’d been hoarding inside her brain—and three different restarted Word documents titled “New Idea,” “New Idea_Take Two,” and “New Idea for Real This Time.” She told him of the guy and the girl who had fallen in love and let that love go by the wayside, of the guy’s terminally ill mother and the ring she’d gifted him, of the girl not being able to give an answer to his proposal, and their journey to honor his mother’s gift by trying to rekindle what they once had, one romance trope at a time.

Mason smiled softly as she spoke, the two of them shuffling closer to the checkout line all the while. “So, basically the opposite of what we’re doing. I love it.”

Sawyer nodded. She pulled out her phone to jot down the two new ideas she’d had while messily explaining the plot to him, the book seemingly unfolding in her mind as she spoke. He said nothing as her thumbs flew across the screen. By the time she finished, she had a wall of typo-riddled text, but it felt like a light at the end of the tunnel, tugging her forward to the next scenes she couldn’t wait to write. When she looked up again, they’d reached the front of the queue, and Mason had already paid for Friendshipulent.

“What? No!” she protested.

“Just make sure I get to play the lead when your book gets picked up for an adaptation.”

She raised her brows at him. “You know authors have no control over any of that.”

He frowned. “Yeah. They should, though.”

She shrugged. “That’s why I haven’t sold any of my other film rights. There have been offers, and I could definitely use the money, but you saw what they did to Almost Lovers . It was like the studio had an idea for a movie they wanted to make and my book was doing well, so they took scraps of my book, slapped my name and title on it, and now the thing I’m most known for is barely even mine.”

That wasn’t the full story, and she had the uncanny feeling that Mason could tell she was holding back the real reason that adaptation didn’t sit well with her.

He frowned, but didn’t push the subject, thankfully. “That’s not fair. Your book is good. All your books are good, prime for an adaptation. Producers should want your input.”

That was not how it worked, but there was an edge to his voice, a protectiveness that warmed her insides. “Thank you,” she said sincerely.

“Of course. What else are friends for? And since we are officially friends,” Mason announced, handing her Friendshipulent. “I will pick you up tomorrow at two o’clock for Christmas dinner.”

Her heart skipped a beat. Meeting the family. She wasn’t Meeting the Family, but wow. “Okay,” she said tightly. Since the tree-decorating detour, she’d upheld her resolution to keep things between them about the list, but on this, she would have to break her rule. She really didn’t want to be alone on Christmas.

Mason beamed, his smile softening as he met her gaze. “And I’m really happy to hear you’re writing again. It’s kinda cool, being a part of the process.”

Sawyer hoped the smile she gave him read as genuine. She tried to let his excitement buoy her, but she couldn’t help but brace for the inevitable moment when it stopped being “cool,” when the veil of mystery was pulled back. The late nights and early mornings and days spent with her butt glued to her chair, and no , she wasn’t writing words, but sitting in that chair and trying was a part of it; and no, she couldn’t just pop out to the store or to a party, because writing time was sacred, and when the inspiration was flowing, she was its captive. The creative well wasn’t a tap that she could turn on and off when it was convenient for her—much less for others.

Maybe one day she’d find someone who got it—got her—but first, she needed to get her shit back together. Then, maybe, she could share it with someone. For now, she would guard this fragile ember of her career with her life.

Oblivious to her mental spiral, Mason’s smile faltered, his attention darting behind her briefly. “I think I had fun… at IKEA,” he said, mildly disgusted.

She huffed in surprise. “Y’know, I think I did, too, somehow.” Her shoulders drooped in defeat as she mimed removing the tally mark from under her name and giving it to him. “I’m sorry. I’m not doing a very good job of ruining things, am I?”

He shook his head. “No, don’t change. I think this is better, actually. If you were horrendous, I’d just blame it all not being fun on that. This way…” He chewed on his bottom lip thoughtfully. “This way someone has to be more fun than you for me to be tempted.”

She scoffed. “Well, good luck, because I am a barrel of fun.”

He grinned cheekily, and her stomach swooped.

“You are, too, by the way,” she said softly. “See you tomorrow?”

He nodded. “See you tomorrow,” he echoed. He took one step back before doing a full spin and coming back to stand before her. “I forgot, uh—” He rubbed the back of his neck, glancing around the parking lot to make sure no one was paying them any attention. “My family doesn’t know about LA, or the production company, or me leaving Diagnostics , so—”

Sawyer mimed zipping her lips. It wouldn’t be a family dinner without some level of secrecy and deceit. At least Mason was hiding good news.

“Thank you,” he breathed. “I want to get through the holidays before breaking the news that I’m leaving.”

“I get it.” She absolutely didn’t. She’d never been close with her family. Coming out as bi at seventeen had squashed any chance of that changing. When she went to college in another state, they hadn’t been surprised, hadn’t batted an eye when she said she wasn’t coming home for holidays or summer break or ever again. Mason was lucky to have a family that would miss him. She was more than a little touched that he’d confided in her at all.

“Tomorrow,” he promised with a roguish grin.

“Tomorrow,” she echoed.

He took a few steps back before turning, his long strides carrying him swiftly across the parking lot.

The happy feeling in her gut soured as she watched his dwindling figure. He’d probably only confided in her about LA because he didn’t care about her like that. It wasn’t like he was leaving her behind, not like his family. This thing between them had always had an expiration date. There was no “them.”

Tearing her gaze off his back, she tamped down the twisting sensation in her gut as she mentally crossed one more thing off their rapidly dwindling list. They didn’t have many items left, and she steeled her resolve. He’d helped her, and it was time to hold up her end of their bargain. And maybe Mason was right. She’d been going about this all wrong. Ruining romance wasn’t the answer. She needed to raise Mason’s bar for romance, to set the new standard.

She was going to become the blueprint for Mason’s other half.