Matthew Gray Gubler Short Stories - Christmas Edition

Christmas Wrapping #2

"Would've been good to go for lunch,

Couldn't agree when we were both free.

We tried, we said we'd keep in touch."

"Keep in touch?" Matthew had posed in the car park as you mentally prepared for your flight back home for Christmas.

You had nodded, giving him a final hug goodbye before getting out with your bag, the rest of your luggage having gone on ahead with your team. He had driven you to the airport a few days after you had wrapped up several months on set with him as his new co-star. You had gotten to know each other over rehearsals, through hanging out at each other's days on set and dining together backstage before shows and had developed, what you both had thought, was at least a solid friendship. However, once back home and into the New Year, no matter how hard you tried you couldn't ever agree on a time or place to meet that suited both of you. When Matthew was in your state, you were either isolated away on the set of a new show or in a new location and on the odd days that you were free, Matthew was either directing on a closed set or in a new country doing promotional work. There never seemed to be a good time for either of you. It was rather upsetting to not have any time with your friend and you found yourself missing him. Even if you were only hours away from each other or, God forbid, in the same city there was never any overlapping block of time. The only instance where you did have a chance to speak face-to-face was when you passed him on your way off stage at a film festival in Paris. Those exchanges of disbelief at not knowing the other was even in the same country and "hellos" were only brief as you were ushered backstage and he, similarly, was given his cue to head onto the stage.

By December the following year after you had met you had lost all hope of ever seeing him for longer than a few seconds at a time and were beginning to question whether or not you should bother even keeping in touch when he hadn't sent any form of communication in a long while. He hadn't even sent a "thumbs-up" emoji when you had learned that your latest movie had gone to number one at the box office.

You were finishing getting ready for your final on-stage appearance of the year in a play you were starring in when there was a knock at the door and your manager poked his head around the door.

"There's a delivery here for you." He stepped aside, opening the door further and allowing someone obscured by a slightly over-the-top bouquet of flowers.

"I hope I'm not too late to congratulate you."

It may have been months since you had last heard that voice but there was no mistaking who it belonged to. The flowers were removed from his hands by one of your handlers and his face became visible. There was Matthew, in person and clear as day. This definitely beat broken phone lines and pixelated Skype calls.

You grinned into his shoulder as you embraced him. "Never."As you hunted around the almost-barren shelves for even just one tin of cranberries, a name called out to you.

"Y/N?"

You stopped combing through the items and stood up to your full height, a smile planted on our face. You hadn't heard that voice in years.

"Matthew?"

He walked up to and you embraced.

"What are you up to at this hour?"

You gestured towards the shelves. "Thanks to brother/sister I have to try and find cranberries but they're all out of fresh ones and I'm hoping in vain that they have some in a tin somewhere seeing as everywhere else is either closed or out of them."

Matthew laughed, sheepishly brandishing a can at you. "I think I may have just got the last one..."

"Damn you, Gubler!" You laughed. At least you could sleep easy knowing that you had tried everything in order to find what was apparently the most important part of Christmas, as though it were the sweet baby Jesus himself.

He handed it over to you with a grin. "Have it."

"I couldn't possibly, Matt." You tried to hand them back over but he wouldn't accept your gesture. "Thank you. Can I offer you..." You scoured the shelves. "A tin of clam chowder as a form of repayment for owing you one?"

He scrunched his nose, pulling a sickly face to make you laugh.

He shook his head; "Just promise me that you'll stop by my mom on the 26th."

You nodded your head, "It's a deal."