Hollywood Dirt (Hollywood Dirt, #1)(53)

I found out about Scott and Bobbi Jo two nights before the rehearsal dinner. I should have just cancelled it, sat down with Scott like a rational adult and broken it off. But I wasn’t rational. I wanted to teach them a lesson. All of them.

I still remembered late in the evening, the dinner’s ruination well underway, the sound of running steps, clipping along the Chart House’s wood floors, the thirty-some people running for the exit. At that time, I had stayed in my seat, my hand on my champagne stem, and smiled. I had toasted my future, or lack thereof, and taken a final sip.

I thought of that as I watched, from the living room window, Cole Masten run down the long drive, his stride never hesitating. And unlike Scott, his head never turned to look back.

This time, I didn’t smile. Had I had champagne, I would have spit it out.





CHAPTER 58


“Where’s Summer?” Don Waschoniz looked up from the dining room table, papers spread out before him, the dark walnut barely visible.

“Not coming,” Cole said, breathing hard, his hand on his knees. He’d sprinted the quarter-mile from Summer’s, his legs not moving fast enough, the pain in his chest and lungs welcomed, the burn in his muscles appreciated.

“Not coming?” Don stood up, pushing his reading glasses up on his forehead. “Did you go there?”

Cole ignored the question, walking to the fridge and opening it up. He stared at the options before him, damn the early hour, grabbing a beer. He swung by the bathroom and found Cocky, standing on the edge of the tub, jumping off when Cole stared at him. Maybe it was time to move him outside and build him a coop. He wasn’t a chick anymore, his head already reached almost to Cole’s knee. He whistled and stepped back, Cocky following. Turning around, Cole bumped into Don.

“Why isn’t Summer coming?” Don demanded. “We need her to see these changes.”

“Why?” Cole said curtly, holding the bottle to the edge of the counter and hitting the top of it, the cap popping loose.

“Why?” Don repeated. “You’re the one who insisted we have her here. You’re the one who sold me on a no-experience actress sitting in on this.”

“I was wrong.” Cole opened the kitchen door and ushered Cocky out, bringing the beer to his lips for a sip. “We don’t need her.”

“You sure about that?” Don rested his hands on the counter and tried to meet Cole’s eyes. “Did something just happen? Because if there’s an issue between you two, I need to know about it. I can’t direct what I don’t understand.”

Cole chuckled around the next sip of beer. “Well, good luck with that, Don. I don’t think anyone could understand that woman.”

“So there is a problem.”

“Nope,” Cole said flatly. “No problem whatsoever.” He finished off the beer and put it down, with a loud chink, onto the counter. “Let’s get started. I want to be done with this shit before the sun sets.”

No problem whatsoever. It was a bit of a lie. There was a problem between he and Summer; he just didn’t know what it was. I don’t even like you. Her statement stuck in his head, a record playing on repeat. She had seemed to like it enough, her body responsive, the sounds from her, words from her… but there was a difference between liking a touch and liking a person. And he didn’t know if he wanted her to like him. He hadn’t exactly given her the keys to make that happen, had hidden away anything good behind a wall of hostility and sarcasm. There was his current level of attraction toward her and then there was what would happen between them if she did like him—a man who wasn’t at a place worthy of a relationship, a man who had his own shit to figure out before he could figure out another person, a man who… if he pushed his best parts forward and was rejected, might not recover from the snub.

Don said nothing, and Cole turned, walking back to the dining room and away from the conversation.





CHAPTER 59


“Tell me I’m an idiot.” I leaned back in the rocking chair and rested my feet on the railing, a beer clutched in my hand, half the label already picked off.

“You’re not an idiot.” Ben sat, dainty in his rocker, beside me. He sipped at ice water and adjusted his sunglasses on his nose.

“I am an idiot. I—” I closed my eyes. “I’m not even going to tell you the things I said to him. It’s embarrassing.”

“He’s Cole Masten, Summer. Don’t worry about it. He’s probably heard things your sweet little mind couldn’t even think up.”

I scowled and brought my beer to my lips, the ice-cold alcohol the only good thing about this moment. His comment didn’t make me feel better. It made me feel worse. Like I was one of thousands, just another stupid girl who fell victim to his sex appeal.

“When do you leave?” I took another sip and looked out across the fields, toward his house, his stupid red truck out front, Don’s rental beside it. I couldn’t wait for filming to start, for him to spend his days somewhere other than right there. Another stupid thought. Filming would put us face-to-face, words-to-words.

“Not ’til next week. Your trailer comes this afternoon. Take it easy on those beers, and we can run over there in a few hours.”

I rolled my eyes and finished off the bottle, leaning down and setting it on the porch, next to the first empty. I sat back and slid my palms in between my thighs, closing my eyes. My trailer. What a foreign concept. Ben had laughed when I had asked if I’d have a director-style chair with my name on the back of it. Apparently those don’t exist in the real world of Hollywood. Apparently a trailer is where it’s at—a place where I can shut the door and be alone in the midst of madness. It sounds like a lonely place. It makes me wish, for the first time in forever, that I had a friend, someone other than my mom, to show it off to, to giggle inside of. Someone to experience this journey with. Someone other than a gay man who was going to abandon me very shortly.