CHAPTER 70
When Cole’s phone rang at six fifteen in the morning, he contemplated ignoring it. Glancing down at his watch, he kept pace, his feet quiet on the soft dirt, the fields stretching out before him, the sun low behind the trees, the sky pale pink and peaceful. He didn’t want to talk to his attorney right now, not when he was breathing clearly for the first time in days, his mind working through things that it had stumbled over for the last week.
Like Summer. There was a problem there, between him and her. A problem that had only disappeared during the twenty minutes in her bed. Too short of a time. Embarrassing, really. Nadia would have laughed at him and pushed him off. Then again, he’d never come that quickly with Nadia. He tried to put his finger on what was different with Summer, what had set her apart. He was just starting to work through that when DeLuca’s call came through. He declined the call.
He’d miss this when he went back to California. Running outside, the give of the soil beneath his feet, the breeze devoid of pollution and competitive fight. Maybe he’d try the Observatory when he got home. Run those hills and bring Carlos and Bart with him. Be aware, with every step, of the paps documenting his trip.
The call came through again, and he slowed to a walk, answering the phone. “Hello.”
The man’s voice came through a wall of static and missed vowels.
“I can’t hear you,” Cole said with a smile. “The service here sucks.”
There was another staccato string of words, asshole and summons coming through clear.
“I’ll call you from a landline when I get home.” Cole ended the call and turned off the phone, killing his music at the same time. It didn’t matter; he’d think more clearly without it.
It had been a mistake, changing the scripts. Infusing sexuality into The Fortune Bottle might work well for the movie, but it was raining hell on him. It’d taken every bit of his self-control to stand before Summer, her skirt around her waist, her lace panties, the contrast of her skin against the dark stockings, the dainty garter… his fingers had twitched against her skin, his common sense on a thin ledge, his lines forgotten, the set and crew forgotten, everything fading but the tremble of her and the images of everything he wanted to do to her. He’d been rock hard when he had yanked her skirt back into place and stepped away, had walked to the viewing room bathroom and found pre-come coming out of his dick. “We didn’t get the kiss,” he had griped to Don. It had been easy to feign irritability, to scowl, to call her a rookie. It had been easy to argue with Don when he’d said that the kiss didn’t matter, that the scene was even hotter from the lack of kiss. Foreplay, Don reminded him, can be the hottest thing. And wasn’t that the damn truth.
But today, they would need to get the kiss, would need to document that transition in Ida and Royce’s relationship, to properly build for the sex scene that would eventually come. Jesus. He would kill himself on that day. There was no way, without some release, that he’d last.
A truck approached from the opposite direction, and he jogged right, to the side of the road, his hand mimicking the driver’s and lifting in a wave. The truck rumbled by slowly. Another thing that would never happen in Los Angeles—a friendly wave to a stranger. Especially not from him. A wave would prompt the car to stop, then others, a crowd mobbing him for autographs and selfies, a start that wouldn’t have a finish until he was called an asshole and documented on every gossip rag and Twitter feed as such. He hadn’t been approached once in Quincy. It was odd. Almost scary. He’d wanted to ask Summer about it, had set it aside as a safe topic for the next time they were cordial. That’d been three weeks ago. Cordial just didn’t seem to be in the cards for them.
Before his six years with Nadia, he’d screwed plenty of costars, most of them. It was normal, with four months together, socializing with the crew a non-possibility, for the leads to gravitate toward each other. Lines were often run late at night over drinks. And lines and drinks typically led to drunk kisses and drunker sex. Costar sex had often been good but never great. Then he had met Nadia, fallen for Nadia, and never looked back, never been tempted, never yielded to a costar’s pathetic play at an affair.
And sex with Nadia had always been good, it had been the basis of their relationship, now that he stepped back and examined it. But sex with Summer… that experience had been another league entirely. He had lost his mind in those moments in her bedroom. Touching her, the feel of being inside her, her kiss, her sounds… he had let himself, in her bedroom, enjoy her, want her, worship her. He’d been, in that moment, completely hers. And that, more than their tension, more than Brad DeLuca and his threats, is what scared the absolute hell out of Cole.
He rounded the bend and headed home, extending his stride and pushing the last half-mile hard. He needed to shower. Jack off. Get in some type of a reasonable mind-set before he called DeLuca back and then headed into town.
SCENE #22. That was on the docket today. Rewritten to incorporate the kiss that didn’t happen yesterday. He kept his eyes straight ahead, on the narrow strip of clay, and didn’t look to Summer’s house. A kiss. Child’s play.
Between the swing of his stride, he felt himself grow hard at the thought, and he groaned in protest.
He was fucked. Absolutely, unequivocally, fucked.
CHAPTER 71
“I need you in California this afternoon.” Brad DeLuca didn’t mince words, his greeting skipping straight to the point. Cole stuck the end of the hose in the kiddie pool and twisted the nozzle. Cocky liked the kiddie pool, especially on a day like today, where it was gearing up to be in the high nineties.
“I can’t go to California today.” He watched the pool fill and lifted the towel from his neck, drying off his head, still wet from the shower.
“Yes, you can, and you will. I spoke to your director, and he’s shifting the shooting schedule, said it will be no big deal.”
“You spoke to my director.” Cole mused, spraying a burst of water in Cocky’s direction, when DeLuca had time to sleep.
“I wasn’t going to waste your time by calling you for something that couldn’t be done. I verified that it can be done, and now you’re going. Justin has already set up a flight for you at eleven.”
Eleven. Cole breathed a little easier. Plenty of time to shoot twenty-two and then hit the airport. Worst-case scenario, if Don wasn’t happy, they could reshoot it later in the week. “Why do you need me there?”
“You’ve been summoned. It’s an initial play at mediation. Nadia’s team is trying to look good; though, I can tell you from the tone of our communication, they are anything but cooperating.”
“So it’s a waste of time.”
“Not at all. I spoke to them this morning and gave them an ultimatum. Told them tomorrow is their last chance to stay out of court. They gave us three options on dates for the mediation, and this is our best shot. If we could knock out The Fortune Bottle issue now, especially since you’re clean as a fucking whistle, then the rest is easy. You could be fully divorced by Christmas.”
Clean as a whistle. He didn’t feel clean. With everything happening with Summer, he felt dirty as fuck. He said nothing and opened the back door, Cocky perking up his head. Divorced by Christmas. That would be good. And Nadia would definitely want to avoid court. Maybe this mediation could be it, one giant stress removed from his life.