Piper

It’s Christmas Day and it is dragging.

It’s the same thing every year. After we unwrap presents, we eat a Christmas breakfast that consists of waffles, muffins, scrambled eggs, and sausage. Coffee comes in handy with all the energy Mom can somehow conjure up. Sometimes it’s hard to keep up with her.

I avoid Matthew as much possible, but not enough for others to notice. Of course he does. I can feel him looking at me, and during breakfast he even asked me if we could have a word alone.

I told him no, got up to clean off my plate, and then went to work on some stuff for the magazine in “our” bedroom.

Fortunately, there is an extra room here and I made use of it last night, tossing and turning as I tried to sleep. It was a horrible experience, but only because I couldn’t get him off my mind.

It’s about four in the afternoon now and in about fifteen minutes everyone will be outside for the annual Madison family snowball fight.

I am not up for it this year. I love a good snowball fight, but with Matthew around and the truth circulating, I can’t get into it.

While everyone is being bombarded by snow, I’m drowning myself in glasses of red wine and responding to a few emails from Jen.

She’s not having the best of time with her family, either. I’m certain if my family wasn’t so overbearing she’d rather be here than there. Too bad they are.

As I send off an email, I hear the front door shut and Stanley shows up in the kitchen moments later.

“Woo!” He dusts off the snow, rubbing his hands together to warm them up. “You are missing one hell of a fight out there, Pipey! Matthew has a fucking cannonball for an arm.” He shrugs out of his coat, walking for the fridge. “Did he play baseball before?”

His question is asked almost like he already knows the answer.

“How would I know?” I mutter rhetorically. “If anyone has that background information, it’d be you.”

He steps up to the counter, smirking as he chugs down his beer. I don’t think he catches my sarcasm. “You should know things like that—what sports he played, how he likes his coffee, what cologne he wears…right?” he tests.

I shut my laptop, picking up my glass of wine and walking to the exit of the kitchen. I can’t be around Stanley. I might blow up on him.

I can hear Jana and Joey squealing like piglets and Mom shouting how someone is cheating. It sounds like fun, but I think I’m a little too tipsy to bother. I guess I’ll go to the basement and watch some Sex and the City on the big screen.

“Wait—Piper,” Stanley calls before I can escape. I turn, groaning as I roll my eyes.

“What, Stanley?”

He holds his hands out, confusion masking his face. “You’ve been avoiding me more than ever lately. What’s going on with you?”

Is he fucking kidding me? After all he’s said to Matthew he thinks he can pretend he doesn’t know what’s going on? I step toward him, thinning my eyes. “You really have the balls to ask me that question right now?”

He laughs nervously. “Well, yeah. You’re usually the life around here. The only one I can really goof off with. Things seem a bit dull between us.”

“Okay.” I walk to the kitchen island where he’s standing and place my glass down. “Stop acting like you don’t know what’s going on. You wanted to be nosy and do the digging, and because of it, you have ruined everything between Matthew and me! I mean seriously! Are you so bored and miserable without Macy that you had to go digging into Matthew’s business?”

He stares at me, a blank expression. I think I’ve just fired some serious shots. I’ve unleashed anger that was never supposed to escape. I guess this is goodbye to me being his favorite, but I can’t take it back now. Though I feel awful for saying that and stooping so low, I can’t take it back.

Stanley had no right. Why couldn’t he just accept Matthew like everyone else and move the hell on?

I want to take it back, but at the same time I don’t, because if he’d never opened his damn mouth to Matthew, I wouldn’t be trying to avoid him and Matthew wouldn’t be so hesitant to make a move now. Matthew, I’m sure, is ready to zoom right through the exit as soon as his time with me is up.

Stanley stands up straight, running a hand through his hair and then across his face. His face is much paler now, the color completely drained from it.

“Wow, is that really how you feel? Like I ruined everything?” he asks, voice soft.

“How the hell else should I feel? Everything was fine before you put a scare into him.”

The kitchen becomes quiet and Stanley puts his beer bottle down, dropping his head.

“Piper,” he says quietly. “The only reason I did it is because I am your brother and I love you. I want nothing but the best for you and if looking into someone to make sure you don’t end up hurt later was selfish of me, then I guess I can live with that because I don’t regret it. I would take a bullet for you without hesitation. I will do whatever I can to protect you…but I guess you don’t see it that way, which is cool. I just…I thought you would understand is all. You didn’t tell anyone about this guy. Not even me. I had my reasons to be suspicious.”

He forces a smile at me, but it’s broken and sad. My eyes well up and guilt automatically eats my heart out as he walks around me, leaving the kitchen and walking out the back door.

Damn it, Stanley! Why couldn’t he have said that before I spewed all of those mean words?

Now I feel like shit.

My head drops and I blow a defeated sigh. Regret washes through me. I know Stanley doesn’t have much of a life without Macy. I shouldn’t have said that. That was so wrong of me.

My heart breaks for him and I feel so awful because I know deep down he was doing it with my best interest at heart. He has always done things like this for me, and most of the time because I hinted at it.

Stanley never meant any harm, I’m certain of it. And I’d do the same for him if it meant I was protecting him.

The front door opens and Mom walks in, covered in snow. She spots me in the kitchen as she enters, pulling off one of her gloves.

“Hey, sweetie,” she chimes. “You aren’t going to come out for the snowball fight? Gotta tell ya, Matthew has great aim! He’s been hitting everyone!” She steps in front of me, smiling like a schoolgirl. “He is such a fun, loveable guy!”

I try so hard not to roll my eyes.

She’s so happy to brag about him, so cheerful about a guy she thinks will be her future son-in-law. But he isn’t hers to brag about, and I hope she hasn’t told any of her friends because Matthew doesn’t deserve that either.

She continues raving about him, complimenting every highlight and little thing he has done so far on this trip. I have never heard her talk about me like this. It’s almost as if—almost as if she wished I’d met him sooner. Someone to pick up my slack, make me into the wife and mother she wants me to be.

“It’s a good thing you met him,” she says for like the hundredth time. “He is patient, compassionate, sweet, fun, and he doesn’t take things to heart like you always do. He’s your polar opposite, which happens to be a good thing because opposites tend to make the best couples. I guess I can see why he fell for you. You are a beautiful girl, but honey,” she groans, grabbing the hem of my shirt, “you have to give up on these kind of clothes. No one bothers with vintage apparel anymore.”

All right.

That’s it.

I’m tired of her thinking that because I like vintage clothes, and write and edit more than I buy groceries, that I am not an ideal woman. I am so sick of this Christmas, and I’m tipsy and angry and I know I will regret this later, but right now I don’t care anymore.

I just want to go home.

Screw the holidays.

They are never worth it.

“He’s only putting on a show, Mom!” I snap.

She frowns as she rounds the counter, confusion swimming deep in her eyes. “What do you mean, Pipey?”

I look her straight in the eyes. “I mean Matthew isn’t my boyfriend. I don’t have a boyfriend! I hired him to pretend to be my boyfriend and by the end of our deal he’ll be $7,000 richer!” I throw my hands in the air with a shrug, as if I’m exasperated. “We don’t like or love each other. We aren’t planning on getting married or having babies—hell, after this weekend we will never see each other again and you know what? I am more than okay with that because he’s not as great as everyone thinks he is. So there. I admit it. He’s not the perfect guy. He was just pretending to be one. So can we all just stop pretending we are so damn happy now?”

Mom looks at me, too shocked to speak. Her fingers are curled around the edge of the counter, eyes wide, but then her eyes shift up, and she’s no longer looking at me, but behind me.

A throat clears to my left, and that’s when I see the rest of the family standing there. My heart jumps to my throat, all of them staring at me incredulously, chins practically on the floor. My breathing quickens, and I know immediately that I’ve fucked up in stellar fashion.

Oh. My. God.

What is wrong with me?

I feel even worse now and I didn’t even think that was possible. And no, not because of their appalled expressions, or the way Bailey narrows her eyes at me and folds her arms across her chest as if she knew all along something was off.

No.

It’s because out of all the faces, through all of their shocked stares, I can only focus on one of them. Matthew’s.

When I look into Matthew’s eyes, I see nothing but raw emotion.

Sadness.

Anger.

Disgust.

No joy whatsoever.

But worst of all, I see the betrayal.

Heartbreaking, cruel betrayal.

Just like that, it all crumbles.

It feels like the universe is shouting at me right now and it is saying, “To the girl who created the biggest family fuck up of all time, Piper Madison! Merry Christmas you ungrateful, son-of-a-bitch!”

Good Lord.

What have I done?