METHOD

by Kate Stewart

  Method

  Copyright © 2019 by Kate Stewart

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  1st Line Editor: Donna Cooksley Sanderson

  2nd Line Editor: Christine Estevez

  Cover by Amy Queau of Qdesign

  Formatting by Champagne Book Design

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  ACT I

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  ACT II

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Epilogue

  Thank You

  About the Author

  For any creative who lives for their passion and bleeds some for their vision. And for those who endure it with them, this one is for you.

  Listen to the Method playlist on Spotify

  Method acting—a range of training and rehearsal techniques that seek to encourage sincere and emotionally expressive performances, as formulated by a number of different theater practitioners.

  When taken to extremes, this type of acting can sometimes wreak havoc on health and personal relationships.

  ACT I

  “All the world’s a stage…”—William Shakespeare

  Mila

  Rolling my forehead on the door, I take deep breaths to both calm and anchor myself.

  “Mila, please.” His tone is guttural, and I feel every ounce of reciprocal pain. We are thin hearts trying to break through thick walls. I peek through the hole and can’t see him but hear the unmistakable clank of a bottle hitting the porch below. “Open the door, baby,” his plea is a mournful whimper. “You promised.”

  I answer him with silence, a silence he deserves. The silence he punished me with when I didn’t deserve it. Though his suffering is ripping me apart, I’ve been aching for him for months, desperate to break through the barricade he carefully constructed, the bricks he laid, that I allowed him to lay, between us. Those walls, they’re still there. He’s no longer my husband, he is the aftermath. What’s left of the man on my porch is the evidence of a job well done and the cause of our demise.

  “YOU FUCKING PROMISED ME,” he rages, slapping the door with his palm, and I jump back stifling a yelp.

  “You’re my Dame. Or have you forgotten…have you forgotten?” His last word cracks as we collectively fall apart on opposite sides of our old universe.

  Choking on tears, I shake my head, fighting the battle to remain idle. The cure to his ache isn’t an open door, it’s the closing of another. I can’t make him see it, and he’s too caught up in the charade to see it for himself.

  I hear the faint unscrewing of the cap. “This makes you a liar, you know,” he spouts sarcastically. “It makes you a fucking liar,” he snaps. “You were the only one…the only left that I trusted.”

  He smacks the door again. “Mila… Open. This. Fucking. Door!”

  “Go home,” I finally answer, my voice filled with lingering weakness. “Just go. You aren’t wanted here.”

  “Not without you.”

  Gathering my resolve, I manage to steady my voice. “You need to leave. Now.”

  Glass shatters as he releases a string of curses. I hear shuffling and his weight falls against the door before he pounds against it. “You can’t do this! You can’t fucking do this, Mila! I won’t let you do this! You’re my wife,” he cries out hoarsely, “and you love me.”

  Unable to take another second, I race through the cottage and lock myself in the bathroom. Cell phone in hand, I weigh the consequences of calling the police. I can’t do it to him, no matter how angry I am. I shoot off a quick text and wait, sitting with my back to the door, rocking in indecision while humming softly, my arms wrapped around me. He doesn’t let up, he doesn’t stop, he just keeps pounding on the door—on my heart, on the ghost of us. Agonizing minutes later, I hear the crunch of tires on the gravel, doors open then close, and muffled words are spoken before a scuffle ensues.

  “Get the fuck away from me! She’s my wife!” The voices grow louder, but his is the only one I hear, and the hurt in it is enough to end me. “Goddammit Mila, don’t do this! You promised me!”

  Rocking back and forth, I do my best to self soothe as sobs pour out of me, tears fall endlessly, and my heart finally erupts. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry,” I whisper as his cries pierce the air.

  “MILA!”

  FOUR MONTHS AGO

  Casey and Bonnie Morning Radio Show

  Casey: Oh, my God, Bon, not Blake West.

  Bonnie: I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe it.

  Casey: The world has lost one of our brightest stars today. Blake West was reported to have been found dead early this morning at his home in Venice Beach.

  Bonnie: No, Casey, no! He was our boy!

  Casey: Neighbors say music was blaring from his condo, and when police arrived due to the complaint, the door was unlocked. Speculation is that the cause of death was suicide.

  Bonnie: Horrible. So horrible. I loved Blake. Why would he do that?

  Casey: Blake has been in and out of headlines in the last few years. Between his divorce last year to former co-star Amanda George and his last two films tanking, he’s had a rough go of it.

  Bonnie: I knew things were tough for him, but damn, Casey, this is our man. I can’t believe he’s gone.

  Casey: Me too, Bon. I’m at a loss, Hollywood. More details to come.

  Lucas

  Eulogies are bullshit. One should never be able to sum up a person’s life with a few sentences. I make a mental note to tell my wife I don’t want a single word uttered at my funeral. The people who mourn for me shouldn’t be reminded of who I was or what I meant to them—they should
n’t have to be. Maybe that’s cynical, but this whole funeral has been a shitshow since we arrived at the church this morning. It just goes to show how fucked up our world is. Lately, no one seems to know anything about anyone. A slew of recent scandals has rocked these hills into something unrecognizable. Mock shock and outrage have made everyone a hypocrite. The unearthing of these evil deeds has escalated into a landslide and perception is more skewed than ever. In Hollywood, transparency is an illusion. In our current world, pride is becoming scarce. Even with the notion that everyone is striving to be better, to perfect their craft, to be a part of something synonymous with legendary, it’s only for the sake of the game.

  Blake lost his ability to hide the minute he was found hanging in his office.

  It strikes me that those gathering today are probably thinking much of the same and Blake isn’t the only thing they’re mourning. Cursing the sick parade, I’m barely able to keep my feet planted as rehearsed words are spoken at his graveside.

  “…he was a believer in the good of humanity.” Sentiments ring hollow around the large circle of people wearing their Sunday best, designer sunglasses pressed firmly on their fixed noses to shield rolling eyes. It’s an idiotic and mocking statement in comparison to the way Blake made his exit. It’s far too apparent Blake didn’t believe in anything when he left. He had no fear of an easy departure, of the Christian God who swears his last sin is unforgivable. Hollywood was his God, and before he took the step off his desk, Blake, like the rest of us, knew our God had forsaken us all. We’ve memorized the gospel much like those that surround us, and we’ve learned every verse. We’ve prayed to the shrines and offered up our souls. Blake concluded there was no point, no way but out, while the rest of us scrambled for some semblance of normal.

  “This is a fucking circus,” I grumble under my breath. Mila squeezes my palm in her hand in reply, pulling herself closer to me. Searching the crowd, I find Blake’s ex-wife, Amanda, her head lowered as she tries to remain unseen amongst the elite. Like the rest of us, she doesn’t want to be here, doesn’t want to acknowledge what Blake’s done. I gather this from her posture alone. I stood by Blake’s side at their wedding six years ago as he wholly pledged himself to her. He’d believed in her. I’d never seen him so happy, and I never will again.

  “Let’s go,” Mila whispers, tugging at my hand and ushering me through the crowd. My wife knows I can’t listen to another word. In no way should his estranged mother have been the one to make the arrangements. I hadn’t gotten my shit together in time to protest as much. It would be another on my list of regrets when it came to Blake. Though deep down, I knew. I’ve always known at some point I would lose him early. He was too volatile, too emotional, he needed too much validation, and he never grew out of it. He was far too weak against his pain. I hate that I think of him that way, but it’s the truth. His exit strategy is a good slap in the face for all of us in the land of make-believe.

  Mila’s heels click on the sidewalk next to neon grass as she guides me toward our waiting car. I’m choking on a thousand words I want to scream back at those still huddled around the hole, the new home of my best friend, but I keep those words within and give Blake the last one.

  Mila

  My husband is bruising in his own skin, and I can’t take it. He’ll blame himself, he’ll blame his best friend, and maybe he’ll blame me a little too because our life was so far removed from Blake’s before he took his own. And maybe Lucas’s relationship with me is one of the reasons. I was always wary of Blake, of his personality. I was always fearful of the consequences of their entanglement as friends, and I’d spoken up on more than one occasion about my concerns. Studying Lucas, I realize that doesn’t matter at the moment. He’s still in shock. I want his pain because I’m not sure he knows how to sort through it. But I’m not sure what I feel either. This is my first funeral, I’ve never lost anyone close to me before Blake. I loved him for a lot of reasons. For who he was, and because he was the closest person to Lucas. I loved him for being for my husband what I couldn’t be at certain times, for knowing when I was in over my head and getting Lucas out of his own. I’m pissed at Blake for sticking him in that place now, without his guidance, without his help. The limousine door is open and waiting, and I slide inside. Lucas shrugs off his suit jacket before climbing in next to me.

  “Home, please,” I instruct our driver, Paul, before I put the partition up. There’s a party, a celebration of life we’re all expected to attend, but I’m far too aware we’re both teetering on the brink. Of what? I’m unsure. No one will suffer Blake’s absence the way my husband will. Lucas just lost a soulmate. It’s a tough pill to swallow, but it’s the truth. And I’m a believer in having more than one kind of soulmate. I’m the lucky woman who gets to devour my husband’s beauty, his brilliance, his depth. He chose me and even after five years of marriage his choice is still a bit surreal. Our courtship is a poor man’s fairy tale and a little cliché but it’s still my favorite. I was the nobody one of Hollywood’s most eligible bachelors chose. The scrutiny cost me a little sanity, but he was worth it. At times, I’m still an ant beneath a magnifying glass. Except now, I know how to deflect.

  But with this, today, I’m in unchartered territory.

  For the last three days, I’ve been by his side, shoulders back and ready for whatever Lucas needs, but so far, he’s been ominously quiet, a thousand miles away while remaining close. The morning after we got the call, I woke to an empty bed and found Lucas dressed on our porch, sitting eerily silent. He was searching himself for answers, answers only Blake could provide, answers he may never get, and I don’t assume anything I have to say will heal him. He needs to hurt, he needs to experience the loss. I haven’t always been confident in us, especially in the beginning. That took time. We reached a healthy stride years ago, and ever since, I haven’t thought much about our ability to weather any shitstorm. For the first time since we got together, I’m at a loss, unsure if he can see me at all. Even when he’s the most involved with his career, his roles, the silence has never lasted this long. The palpable ache emitting from him at first stifles some of my courage before I summon my nerve, pulling up the confines of my skirt around my thighs to straddle him.

  He allows it as he stares out the window and I lean in and let him feel the weight of my body. His fingers absently stroke the bare skin on the top of my thighs as I work the silky material of his tie from around his neck and undo a few buttons of his shirt.

  I need our connection. I am his life and he is mine, and that’s the only way we’ve ever worked.

  “I love you,” I whisper, before pressing a soft kiss to the hollow of his throat. He’s a wall of muscle, hurt, and frustration as I will my way back into his space, praying for any sign of life on his part.

  “Baby,” I croak out, frustrated for being unable to keep it together. Flailing, I clear my throat and press my lips to his chest once, twice, and then slide my fingers through his thick hair, my thumb running along his jaw back and forth as I admire him. His eyes, the color of a new leaf, are trained on the morbid sanctuary of Forest Lawn Cemetery. I can handle his silence, but his pain is like a gnawing heartbeat too loud to ignore. Each minute that passes in that white noise terrifies me. Briefly, I want relief for him, for us both. I slink down in front of him, spreading his legs and kneeling while I unfasten his slacks. Pulling out his ready cock, the throbbing muscle twitches in my palm right before I wrap my lips around it. I work my mouth, rolling my tongue back and forth over his flesh loving the feel of him, alive in this one act, allowing me to soak him in. Looking up, I see he’s rapt on me, on my task. When we finally connect, his eyes glisten before a lone tear rolls down his cheek. Each pull of my lips, each stroke of my hand, every moan around his thick length is my assurance that I’ll be whoever he wants me to be, whatever he needs. He takes a single finger and traces my stretched lips, spurring me on as I lick and suck, my desperation bouncing between us.

  “I love you,” he whi
spers as a tear spills from my own eye and he catches it with his finger before sucking it into his mouth. It’s here on my knees, while he comes on my tongue that I know we’re going to be okay. Not after when he pulls me into his lap and cradles me, not when he’s kissing me so long and hard that I detect a small semblance of us again. It wasn’t when he took me home and wordlessly fucked me all night. It was then, while I was at my most vulnerable, when he let me see him at his, that I knew we could make it through this.

  Mila

  The slice of a turning page rouses me from sleep. I can sense his weight next to me and open my eyes to see him sitting up against the headboard, with a script in hand. He’s nearly finished, and that lets me know how hard I’ve slept.

  Noticing me stir, he palms my shoulder before trailing his fingers down my arm. I lay there basking in his touch as I study his stubbled jaw, one of the things that drives me craziest about him. But there are countless others. Soaking him in next to me, my fingers itch to run through dark locks so thick they give way in the direction of the slightest touch. His size is intimidating and the quiet strength he exudes beneath his muscular build is awe-inspiring. From his faded emerald eyes to the slant of his regal nose and generous full lips, it’s clear his creator expected nothing less than worship for the gift bestowed.

  The first time I fell in love with Lucas, I was sixteen years old sharing a box of Junior Mints with my mother. I, along with half the women in America, sat in a theater seat mesmerized while he outshined a majority of his co-stars. I can’t say he was my first celebrity crush, but he hit me the hardest. Growing up in LA, I’d seen and met my fair share of celebrities, so I can’t say I was starstruck, more awestruck by the way he delivered. Even my mother was impressed, and she’s a tough sell. But we were both right in feeling wowed because that role thrust him into the spotlight, one so bright he’s one of the reigning kings of Hollywood. I give myself a few seconds to admire him before I move to get out of bed. He stops me by pulling me back toward him. Resting my head on his chest, I begin to read some of the lines.