Chapter Five

CHAPTER FIVE

WE’VE GOT TO STOP MEETING LIKE THIS – No matter how big the city, rom-com geography dictates you will run into the one person you’re trying to avoid. Especially if you had a one-night stand with them.

I n the three weeks following her all-nighter with Mason, Sawyer spent a lot of time daydreaming about it. Even though she’d bolted when things got a bit too sweet the following morning, she’d hoped the new experience would unlock something in her brain, presenting her with a new angle to write her next book from. At least, that was the excuse she told herself for thinking about him so much. The words never came, but Sawyer did. She masturbated thinking about that night far more than she should ever admit. She wasn’t sure if it was that she hadn’t had sex in a long time or if it had simply been That Good.

Okay, yes, she totally knew it was the latter.

The blank Word document stared back at her, the cursor blinking ominously. She just needed to type something, get the words flowing, and then more words would come. It didn’t matter if it sucked. She could make it not suck later. Except… she didn’t know what she wanted to write. She smashed the keys in frustration. She always had a million ideas percolating in her brain, but none of them felt right, felt ready .

There was some saying about doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Besides her one-night stand with Mason, Sawyer had been doing the same thing over and over again for months. She woke up, masturbated, showered, made a pot of tea, sat down at her laptop to write, and didn’t write .

She could practically feel Emily, her editor, looming over her shoulder, breathing down her neck. Their call this morning hadn’t gone well. She was off the hook for a Why We’re Not Together sequel, but she still owed them another book—any book. While Emily had agreed to push her deadline from February to March, the implication was there that this was the last extension Sawyer would get. Come March, the book would be a year late. She was already in breach of contract by being so embarrassingly late. If they dropped her, if she had to pay back her advance… she couldn’t afford to pay it back. The royalties from her previous books and the movie weren’t enough to pay her bills. The check from the streaming service would have set her up nicely—except she used it to pay off her mountain of student loans in one fell swoop. It had seemed like a smart use of the money at the time. Now, however… if she didn’t finish this draft and get her next installment payment… she was fucked.

She needed to do something different. Literally anything. She would clean, but she’d been cleaning so much lately to avoid writing that there wasn’t anything to tidy up except the solitary spoon in her sink from her morning yogurt.

Resting her forehead on the edge of her desk—aka her kitchen table—she took a series of controlled breaths. Writing had always been the one thing she’d been good at. She’d risked everything for her career, and now… she could feel the walls closing in on her. She needed to get out of her apartment.

With a few taps of her phone screen, she had her best friend’s number pulled up, her thumb hesitating over the dial button when she remembered Lily was out of town visiting her new in-laws. Sawyer knew she needed to acclimate to doing things by herself again. It was no longer Sawyer and Lily. It was Lily and Beau. And while Sawyer was lonely, she wasn’t bitter. She was fine. She hadn’t let herself need anyone else in a long time, not since Sadie. Not since all her friends had chosen Sadie in the breakup. She was used to doing most things alone.

She closed out of her phone’s Favorites list and opened Google. It was the dead of winter in Chicago. But it was Chicago. There was always something going on, right?

Feeling like a damn tourist, she googled “things to do in Chicago.”

Half an hour later, she was out the door and on her way to the Christkindlmarket, the German Christmas market she’d seen countless times on Instagram. Sawyer was a travesty at social media. With no new books to announce, there were only so many “writing is hard” stories she could post. She needed some content and some inspiration. And hell, she really liked Christmas decorations. Maybe, for the first time in years, she’d get a real tree. She could do it this weekend, spend the next few days decorating and sipping boozy hot chocolate and blasting Ariana Grande’s Christmas album like the basic Christmas bitch she was.

As she hopped off the L, a smile spread across her face, the smell of cider and mulled wine reaching her. Fat globs of snow floated lazily to the ground, and Sawyer pretended she was the protagonist in a Hallmark Christmas movie.

The air was painfully cold, but it made her feel alive for the first time in weeks, slicing through the cloying monotony of her failures and tamping down the panic that lived in the back of her throat like a barely suppressed scream.

The market stalls and their heat lamps beckoned her closer, all the vendors decked out in German garb. One of them boasted some sort of Christmas angel, a beautiful woman in a gold dress with a matching tiara reading Christmas stories to a gaggle of children.

Sawyer bought a cider and a pretzel, the spiced mustard waking up her taste buds as she tucked herself into an alcove to people watch. She didn’t consider herself a people person, but she loved watching them. The little gestures they made while telling a story. The innocuous touches they gave their companions, the need for contact an unconscious choice.

She loved creating little stories for them. The couple debating which Santa ornament to buy. The little boy begging his father for the reindeer toy. Sawyer watched a little blond girl dancing to the music completely off beat, leaping through the air and landing with a twirl, beaming from ear to ear like she’d done something grandiose. That had been Sawyer at that age. Always in her own world, convinced what she was doing there was real and magic.

Sawyer still felt like she was in her own world most of the time. Maybe that was why she’d never been a people person. She didn’t spend enough time inhabiting this plane of existence to really get to know them, always too in her head, lost in a daydream or riddling out her latest plot problem.

She’d wanted to be an author for as long as she could remember. Getting published right out of college was a fool’s hope, but it had happened for her. Then it all went sideways.

Everything had happened so quickly, and she thought she had to say yes to every opportunity when she really shouldn’t have. She had told herself to be grateful, that others would kill for these opportunities, but she had been juggling so many new things so fast that she dropped the ball. She had dropped a lot of things. She lost Sadie to being a workaholic, and while Sawyer wished she’d done some things differently, the thing she hated most was how when her book finally debuted, when she hit the New York Times bestsellers list, the goal she’d sacrificed everything for, she had no one to celebrate with.

She hated that she felt that way, decided then and there she was done with romantic notions. Her career would be her One True Love. Every relationship since Sadie only hardened her resolve.

Dating a writer was a novelty. Sawyer’s midnight writing sprints or five a.m. alarms were endearing at first, but when she had to miss parties or shut off her phone for days at a time to hit a deadline, her exes found her selfish, though she’d never dream of punishing them for doing their jobs. So, she kept her flings brief, light, no strings. She expected nothing from her partners but orgasms. Maybe she got lonely sometimes, but it worked for her. She didn’t want to apologize for loving her job.

Even if she was currently failing at it.

Her success was a fluke. She was twenty-six years old and out of stories to tell. She’d written rough drafts of her second and third books before her first book hit shelves, before everything fell apart with Sadie. She’d managed to edit those two books into something she was proud of, but starting over from scratch had thus far proven impossible. She defined herself by her writing, and if she couldn’t finish this next book, what had she sacrificed it all for?

Suppressing that thought before panic could claw its way up her throat, she took in the market. She could feel the familiar prickle of a story idea taking root. She always started with the characters, never the setting, but something about this little market was speaking to her. Why not start with the setting? Clearly, her usual methods weren’t working.

Tossing her empty pretzel paper into the recycling, she wandered over to the nearest vendor, one of the ones so colorful it was nearly offensive to the eyes. Though that was probably what most people thought when they saw her apartment. ROY G BIV had practically vomited all over her place. Well, Roy and Lily. Not that Lily had literally vomited all over her place.

They’d met two years ago at an art gallery and had immediately bonded, skulking in a corner and giggling over a piece of phallic modern art. While Sawyer later abandoned her artist character research, she latched on to her new artist best friend—and roommate. At least, until Lily’s high school ex moved to Chicago and they rekindled their romance with such sincere sweetness even Sawyer was tempted to believe in love again—even if it meant her person now had a new person. When Lily moved out, they split custody of Lily’s art. Sawyer adorned her new one-bedroom’s walls with it so it still felt like her friend lived there, like Sawyer wasn’t alone. Again.

Wandering into one of the vendor stalls, Sawyer eyed an owl ornament made out of burlap with a bundle of twigs clutched in its feet and a tuft of fuzz on its head. She loved colorful things, but when it came to Christmas decorations, she loved the stillness of a more muted color palette, letting the green of the Christmas tree take center stage. There was something so calming about twinkling white lights, the smell of an evergreen, and delicate ornaments set against a windowsill covered in snow.

She had to get a real tree this year. Inspiration demanded it. She had no idea how she’d get one up to her third-story apartment, but she would . And if she was getting a tree, it deserved a new ornament. Ignoring the way her bank balance screamed at her from her budgeting app—she could already see her accountant’s skeptical look when she submitted this as a write-off for research and development—she took the burlap owl off the rack, her thumb gently stroking the soft fuzz atop its head.

She paid the vendor, clutching her small paper bag like a treasure as she set out to explore the rest of the market. As she passed a stall full of toy trains, she froze.

A man in a gray peacoat and navy beanie stood with his back to her, but she knew that back. She’d run her fingernails down it just before Thanksgiving—and she was very thankful for what he gave.

As if sensing her gaze, Mason turned, the corners of his mouth twitching up. He thanked the woman working the booth as she handed him his package before crossing over to her.

“Actually Real Name Greene,” he said by way of greeting.

She laughed through her nose. So he’d looked her up. She tried not to be flattered. She’d scoured Instagram for Mason álvarez, too, but only found a Spanish soccer player who, while also hot as sin, was not him. Which was probably for the best. What if he had one of those douche-bro online personas? It would ruin all her fantasies and she desperately needed her emotional support daydreams. “álvarez,” she countered, still unsure whether that was his last name or not.

He glanced around uncertainly. “Listen, I know I promised if we saw each other again that I would run, but I’m kind of in the middle of shopping with my nephews, so is it cool if I finish?”

Sawyer’s stomach did a weird flip, pushing all thoughts of how adorable that was from her mind. “Of course. You know I’m a big fan of finishing.”

Mason’s cheeks dimpled as he grinned. “Do not keep making sex jokes, or I will fall in love with you.”

Sawyer fixed him with a hard look. “Don’t you dare.”

He winked at her. They were standing in the middle of the thoroughfare, the sea of shoppers parting around them. People stared at them for the inconvenience, their gazes softening as they lingered on Mason.

“How are you?” he asked. Sensation shot up her spine when he placed a hand at her back, guiding them off the main path and into a sweetshop booth.

Sawyer shrugged, studying the confections disinterestedly. “Trying to write my next book. Failing. Came here to shake things up, maybe get inspired.”

“And are you—inspired?” he asked, taking a box of fudge off the shelf.

“Starting to be,” she said hopefully.

He glanced up at her, his expression seeming to mirror her own cautious hope and relief. “I’m happy to hear that.”

Sawyer pressed her lips together to keep from smiling, trailing behind him as he picked up more overpriced sweets. “How are you?” She asked to be polite, but also… she wanted to know. “Have any more meet-cutes? Get stuck in any more elevators with pretty girls?”

He flashed her a grin. “Just the one, thank God.”

She rolled her eyes, grateful she could blame the flush in her cheeks on the cold.

Mason counted the boxes in his arms, adding two more before queuing up to pay. He must have noticed Sawyer eyeing his massive stack, his grin turning conspiratorial. “What?” he said innocently. “I have a big family! I’m not above bribery to maintain favorite uncle status.” As if to accentuate his point, he grabbed a bag of chocolate coins from the display by the register, adding it to his pile with a flourish.

As they left the sweetshop, Mason turned suddenly, Sawyer nearly running bodily into him. Taking a step back, she put an acceptable amount of space between them. It shouldn’t matter. They’d slept together, for fuck’s sake. It wasn’t like she didn’t know exactly what was beneath that peacoat. But she’d never had a one-night stand before, and she wasn’t really sure what the protocol was if you ran into them again. Going Christmas shopping with them in the cutest market you’d ever seen probably wasn’t it. Especially not when the twinkling white lights overhead reflected in their eyes and—

Jesus, Sawyer, get it together , she chastised herself.

“Hey,” he said quietly. “What are you doing after this?”

Sawyer’s jaw went slack, her lips parting in surprise. Absolutely not. They’d agreed it was a one-time thing. She could not start hanging out with Elevator Guy . Especially not when she was on the most precarious of deadlines.

“Uncle Mason!” a high-pitched voice screeched.

The crowd around them parted, spitting out a small boy that immediately began trying to drag him in the opposite direction.

“Uncle Mason! You gotta come see!”

Mason gave her a bemused look before scooping the boy into his arms and hauling him over his shoulder like a firefighter.

“You hungry?” Mason asked, as if there weren’t a squirming child on his shoulder.

“Um,” Sawyer mumbled, glancing around for some sort of magical excuse.

A pretty brunette appeared beside Mason, the boy in her arms the spitting image of the boy Mason had over his shoulder. She could only be his sister, her exhausted-looking husband half a step behind her. How was she supposed to politely refuse him in front of his family?

“Kuma’s? In an hour?” he pressed.

The woman next to him studied her curiously, her manicured brows raising slightly as her gaze bounced between the two of them. Sawyer was now feeling very hot beneath her many winter layers, and wanted nothing more than to be out of this uncomfortable conversation before introductions could be made. And that was the only reason why she mumbled, “Yeah, sure,” before making a beeline for the exit.