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.

“You’re not going to get pregnant, are you?” He peered over at me. “Because that would make you an idiot.”

“No,” I said quickly. That was one thing I had already arranged. Driven all the way over to Tallahassee to grab a morning-after pill just so I wouldn’t start half the town talking. I didn’t mention to Ben the box of condoms I also purchased. I was still working over that impulse buy myself.

“Shit,” Ben remarked from beside me. “Maybe you should have another.” I glanced over at him and raised my eyebrows in question. “You’re moping,” he pointed out.

“I’m not moping,” I grumbled, further proving his point.

“You bagged a movie star. You should be throwing a fucking party and bragging on Twitter. What you shouldn’t be doing is moping, not when you threw him out of your house like a baller.”

I sighed. “I don’t think it came across as baller. I think it came across as a little psychotic.”

“No offense, but all women are a little psychotic.”

I glared at him. “No offense, but all gays are judgmental.”

“Guilty as charged.” He grinned at me, and I couldn’t help but grin back. I laid my head back on the chair.

“Seriously, Ben, how much did I mess up?”

“By screwing your costar?” He laughed and pulled at the bottom of his shirt, fanning it against his chest. “Honey, you wouldn’t be Hollywood if you didn’t bang a costar at some point. It’s nothing. Just don’t let it affect the performance.”

The performance. A stress point in itself, without adding this on. And as far as being Hollywood? From what I could gather of it so far, I was anything but. I wanted another beer but already felt woozy. I reached out and asked for a sip of Ben’s water with an impatient wave of my hand. He passed it over, and I took a big sip, reluctantly returning it to him.

“It’s nothing,” I repeated his words and tried to find solace in them.

“Right. Just don’t let it affect the performance,” he said again.

“Yeah,” I mumbled. Good thing my performance was of a woman who didn’t like Cole’s character. That should make it a hell of a lot easier.

I closed my eyes and tried to breathe normally, to let the stress melt off me in the hot summer air. Couldn’t, no matter what I tried, get the image of Cole out of my head. It wasn’t the shirtless Cole who’d stood at the end of my bed, his hand reaching out for my ankle. It was the man in my kitchen, his eyes vulnerable and weak, his voice catching… that was the image I was stuck on. And I had told him to leave. Had picked a fight and yelled and done everything I could to get him out the door so I wouldn’t crack and give the poor guy a hug.