Hollywood Dirt (Hollywood Dirt, #1)(28)

Had his mother lived, she would have been nothing like the sunny burst of nurturing that knocked politely on his window.

Cole jumped at the noise, scowling as he looked away from his phone and up through the car’s window. A woman stood there, mid-fifties, her mouth stretched into a smile, her fingers wiggling in a wave. He tried not to grimace and rolled down the window.

“You must be Cole Masten.” The woman smiled, a relaxed, natural gesture that was nothing like the forced politeness of her daughter. And that was who this no doubt was. Summer Jenkins’s mother. Their similarities lay in the lines of their features, the light hazel of their eyes, the golden brown of their hair. This woman’s was cut shorter and curled. Cole liked it better long, better for twisting up in his hand and pulling. Better for… he shifted in his seat and reached for the handle. Opened the door and stood, feeling better as he looked down at her instead of up.

“How’d you know?” He smiled politely, feigning humility. Fans liked that—the aw shucks I’m nobody shtick.

She held up a cell phone, a flip one, one with actual buttons instead of a touch screen. “My daughter left me a voicemail.” She tilted her blonde coiffed head as if it helped her to remember. “She said, ‘Don’t come home. Cole Masten is here.’” She opened her purse and dropped in the phone. “Nothing to make a mother come home quicker than to tell her to stay away.”

There was a moment of silence, and he shifted into a new position against the side of the car. So, she lived with her mother. That was something you didn’t see in LA.

The woman eyed him, her gaze shifting over his clothes, and he wondered if any evidence from last night was present. “How do you know Summer?” the question was a polite one, voiced in light tones, but there was a trap in the words, a danger in the vowels.

He spoke cautiously. “I just met her today.” The woman said nothing, and his mouth moved in a search to fill the silence. “A few hours ago. I came here to meet Ben.”

“Do you work on the movies also?” Her hand wrapped around the strap of her purse, and she pulled it higher up on her shoulder.

He studied her. Tried to see a joke in her question. “Yes. I’m an actor.” An Academy Award winning actor. An actor Time Magazine just put on their cover. She smiled as if it was a cute little job. “That’s nice. I’m Francis Jenkins. Summer’s mother.” She let go of the purse’s strap and stuck out her hand.

“Cole.” He shook her hand, and her grip was firm and strong. Funny. He’d always imagined Southern women to be meek and mild, to avoid eye contact and to yield to their male counterparts. Between Summer and her mother, that image was being reworked.

“Why are you out here, in Ben’s car?”

He tucked his hands into the front pockets of his pants. “Giving him and Summer a chance to talk. She may have kicked me out of the house.” He grinned sheepishly, and the woman laughed.

“You’ll forgive my daughter. She’s intent on leaving me grandchildless. You were probably too tempting to that goal.” She winked, and it was his turn to laugh. This woman was nothing like his mother. Nothing like Nadia’s mother—a stuffy blue-blood who showed prize Greyhounds and fluently spoke three languages. He felt the slip of her hand through his arm, and she gripped it tightly. “Be a dear and help me inside.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He tried the Southern moniker on for size, and the woman laughed again.

“An actor, you say? We need to work on your Southern drawl.”

They climbed the steps, the front door swinging open before their feet hit the top. Summer paused, her face surprised. “Mama. You’re home early. And I see you ignored my voicemail.”

“Oh, you called?” the woman said mildly. “I must have missed that.”

Cole bit the inside of his cheek to hold back a smile, the older woman squeezing his arm before she released it. Summer kissed her mother on the cheek and waited until she passed inside, Ben’s greeting to Francis faint through the screen door. When Summer looked to Cole, her eyes held him in place, his body leaning against the porch’s railing just so his legs wouldn’t go weak. The front door fully shut and then it was just them and the setting sun and the whistling crickets.

“Did Ben talk to you about the part?” He shouldn’t have started with that; he should have made small talk about the weather, or politics.

She nodded. “He did.”

“And?” God, this was stupid. Any other blonde in LA would be on her knees unzipping his jeans for this role.

“And I’m curious about the compensation.”

The compensation. That was unexpected. He coughed back a laugh. The porch floorboards were weak, the house tiny, the truck parked under the tree had rust spots eating through its side. Her whole life could be bought with one bottle of wine from his cellar. He scratched at his neck and met her eyes. They flashed at him, and he composed himself, dropping the grin. “What would you like for compensation?”

“I don’t know.” She crossed her arms in front of her chest, and he mourned the loss of view. “I don’t know what is fair. That’s why I’m asking you.”

“And you trust me to be fair,” he said slowly. Los Angeles would chew up and spit out this girl before she even found her way to an agent’s door. Don’t trust anyone. That was the first rule of Hollywood. He learned that from his first agent, when he was modeling, and the first go-see came up. “Don’t trust anyone,” Martine Swint had snarled, leaning over her desk and pointing one long red fingertip in his direction. “People in Hollywood will build you up just so that they can rob you blind. You gotta be an * to not be *d. Don’t ever forget that.” And he never had.