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A short smile appears on his face followed by a shrug. “How do I even approach the issue without it seeming like I’m taking sides? I love both of my daughters more than life itself, and a part of me dies every time Jules refuses to come home because they can’t stand being in the same room together.”
I nod in understanding; it has to be tricky ground to walk on. “No offense, Matt, but did you ever think that by not saying anything it appears you have chosen a side? And that side isn’t in Jules’s favor.”
Crestfallen, his face reveals his understanding of this sudden realization. “She thinks I chose Lisa over her?” His hands fly to the back of his head, and he marches around in the snow, cursing under his breath. When he turns to face me, his blue eyes are brimming over with tears. “How do I fix it? I wouldn’t even know what to say, where to begin.”
I bend down and lift the tree trunk back up. “Don’t worry, Matt. I’ll help you figure something out. You’re an actor, a damn good one, too. So we’ll do what you do best. We’ll rehearse until we get it right.”
Matt bends down, picking up the other side of the tree and lifts it up. “Thank you for finding Jules. Thank you for seeing what I somehow missed.”
“I’m wasted,” Jules says, spinning around and stumbling toward me when I walk into the kitchen after pulling all four Christmas trees into the cabin with the guys. She’s giggling like a school girl with her sister Lisa, and I swear I somehow entered the Twilight Zone.
“You are, aren’t you?” I say to Ms. Drunk Girl.
She wiggles her nose and nods. “And we made cookies!” There are at least three trays of burnt cookies, and she bites into one of them. “They’re burnt because I can’t cook, not because I’m drunk.”
“It’s true. She’s a terrible cook.”
“Says the girl who slept with my ex-boyfriend!” Jules screams, and the room fills with an awkward silence until the girls start cracking up in a laughing fit.
“How much did you two drink exactly?” I ask, rubbing Jules’s shoulders. I don’t really need to ask, because I can spell the rum on her breath.
“Enough to make it possible to stay in the same room together,” Lisa says, eating the burnt cookies. “Enough to kind of feel like sisters.”
“Well,” I sigh, “keep drinking.”
Jules’s laughs fade away when Danny walks into the room and kisses Lisa. Her eyes change from the playful drunk to the saddened one, and I pull her arm toward me.
“You’re fine.” I whisper and she snuggles against me, still looking at them.
“I’m fine,” She turns toward me and gives me a smile, “I’m going to go shower, try to sober up a bit. I’ll see you later to decorate the tree?”
“Yeah, of course.”
I hate this, I hate that she’s hurting and there’s no way to make it better. There has to be something, anything I can do to make it better.
I was wrong when I said Matt was the most normal of the Stone family—he’s not. He’s just as screwed up as the rest.
“Mr. Stone,” I say, clearing my throat as I sit in his office, and he paces back and forth in the closed off room.
“Matt. Call me Matt.” He keeps pacing, rubbing his chin, and my eyes fall to the ground. This family is really making it easier to respect my own.
“Right, Matt. Uh, we don’t have to look at this as a real rehearsal or anything.” My eyes move as fast as they can to meet his. “You don’t have to rehearse this naked.” The fact that I’ve seen Matt naked before I’ve seen Jules’s body is all kinds of fucked up. I have no words for the level of discomfort soaring through my veins.
His hands land on his hips as he stands in front of his desk, and all I want to do is vomit for the next fifty years. “I do my best brainstorming naked. I need my best brainstorming for this. Besides, people were born naked. Why is it that society acts like it isn’t normal? Anyway, let’s get started.” He pulls his desk chair around toward me and crosses his legs.
I was wrong again. I want to vomit for the next one hundred years.
“I’ve been playing the words over and over in my head, and I think I figured it out. So in this scene, I want you to be Jules, all right?” His eyes are locked with mine, which is fine because I have no desire to look anywhere else.
“Okay.”
He rubs his hands across his thighs and then reaches to hold my hands. Fuck my life. “Juli
e Anne Stone. You’re my everything and I realize I haven’t been there for you the way I should’ve. I’ve let you down when you needed me the most. There’s this weird thing that happens in life where people become so terrified of the outcome that they choose to not speak up on the matter. They don’t stand up for those who have been silenced. I should have stood up for you.
“I should have held you close, and even though I couldn’t have made things better for you, I should have let you know you were not alone. I can’t say I understand what your younger sister did, and I will never try to justify it. I can’t say I support her choices, but I can say I love you both equally, fully, and unconditionally.” Matt’s hand lands on my cheek, and I can’t help but be so spellbound by his speech, by his words, that I completely forget he’s naked. I forget that I’m Kayden. I forget everything but the words he’s speaking. He’s not only saying the words. He’s feeling them. Matt Stone is a fan-fucking-tastic actor.
Next, he moves my hands over his heart and continues his speech. “You’re my heart, and I just need you to start beating again.”
