Hollywood Dirt
Page 53
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“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.
I understood cheating, understood the betrayal that you went through when you found out. Understood the lows that your self-esteem struggled with, the validation that you tried to find, the loneliness that haunted your nights as you mourned a future that, in an instant, disappeared.
I’d kissed Tim Jeffries the night after I’d found out about Scott. I’d never told anyone that before, not Mama, not even Hope Lewis—the one friend who had stuck around after the Rehearsal Dinner from Hell. I’d thought about telling her, but then her boyfriend got a job offer in Atlanta, and, just like that, Hope was gone. I’d kissed Tim Jeffries with my princess-cut diamond twinkling out from its platinum setting, Tim’s sweaty hand brushed it when he grabbed my hand and pushed it to the crotch of his jeans. We’d been sitting in the front seat of his truck, behind the Circle K, his smoke break turned illicit, my gas station stop turned disastrous. Tim had been a high-school flame that had petered out after only one date, and he had smiled at me in just the right way, and I’d been weak and vulnerable and when he’d asked if I wanted a smoke. I’d said yes, even though I didn’t smoke, and I’d smelled trouble. He must have smelled something on me, the scent of desperation, of insecurity. I wasn’t sure. I just knew that he felt bold enough to try, and I felt low enough to accept.
And now, I couldn’t help but feel like I was Tim Jeffries. Slightly chubby, I’ll-take-him-cause-he’s-there, and toss-him-out-later Tim Jeffries. And Cole was me, spinning out of control, the sting of betrayal hot and consuming, on his way to a Rehearsal Dinner from Hell of his own.
My Rehearsal Dinner had haunted me for three years. His might implode more quietly, on a small-town stretch of Georgia dirt, the only casualty a Southern girl’s heart.
CHAPTER 60
With filming about to start, I signed the damn contract, revised three times between Scott and Cole. My half-million dollars ended up actually being four hundred thousand dollars with a hundred thousand dollar bonus when the film hit a certain gross threshold. Scott assured me that it would hit that threshold, not that he knew jack shit about movies, but so did Ben, and I trusted him so I signed the papers. I hadn’t heard a word from Cole and hadn’t seen him in the three trips Ben and I made to the Pit, the old supermarket’s lot now packed with empty trailers, tents, and signage. Everyone would arrive early next week. That was when the madness would begin.
I was ready; I was anxious for it to get here, for filming to begin. Because the sooner that happened, the sooner this would all be done. Then I could take my fat bank account and leave this place. Give Mama a chunk of change and start somewhere fresh. I was twenty-nine years old. It was time, way past time, to leave this old rotting nest.
I parked my truck on the outside of the Pit, in a spot marked for CAST, a bit of excitement passing through me. Cole’s red monstrosity was in his personal spot, his name labeling the parking lot so that anyone with a vendetta against him would know exactly where to go. So stupid. So egotistic. I climbed out, my new flip-flops hitting the hard asphalt, newly redone because Hollywood can’t park on cracked pavement, swinging the door shut and pushing my new cell phone into the back pocket of my shorts.
“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.
I understood cheating, understood the betrayal that you went through when you found out. Understood the lows that your self-esteem struggled with, the validation that you tried to find, the loneliness that haunted your nights as you mourned a future that, in an instant, disappeared.
I’d kissed Tim Jeffries the night after I’d found out about Scott. I’d never told anyone that before, not Mama, not even Hope Lewis—the one friend who had stuck around after the Rehearsal Dinner from Hell. I’d thought about telling her, but then her boyfriend got a job offer in Atlanta, and, just like that, Hope was gone. I’d kissed Tim Jeffries with my princess-cut diamond twinkling out from its platinum setting, Tim’s sweaty hand brushed it when he grabbed my hand and pushed it to the crotch of his jeans. We’d been sitting in the front seat of his truck, behind the Circle K, his smoke break turned illicit, my gas station stop turned disastrous. Tim had been a high-school flame that had petered out after only one date, and he had smiled at me in just the right way, and I’d been weak and vulnerable and when he’d asked if I wanted a smoke. I’d said yes, even though I didn’t smoke, and I’d smelled trouble. He must have smelled something on me, the scent of desperation, of insecurity. I wasn’t sure. I just knew that he felt bold enough to try, and I felt low enough to accept.
And now, I couldn’t help but feel like I was Tim Jeffries. Slightly chubby, I’ll-take-him-cause-he’s-there, and toss-him-out-later Tim Jeffries. And Cole was me, spinning out of control, the sting of betrayal hot and consuming, on his way to a Rehearsal Dinner from Hell of his own.
My Rehearsal Dinner had haunted me for three years. His might implode more quietly, on a small-town stretch of Georgia dirt, the only casualty a Southern girl’s heart.
CHAPTER 60
With filming about to start, I signed the damn contract, revised three times between Scott and Cole. My half-million dollars ended up actually being four hundred thousand dollars with a hundred thousand dollar bonus when the film hit a certain gross threshold. Scott assured me that it would hit that threshold, not that he knew jack shit about movies, but so did Ben, and I trusted him so I signed the papers. I hadn’t heard a word from Cole and hadn’t seen him in the three trips Ben and I made to the Pit, the old supermarket’s lot now packed with empty trailers, tents, and signage. Everyone would arrive early next week. That was when the madness would begin.
I was ready; I was anxious for it to get here, for filming to begin. Because the sooner that happened, the sooner this would all be done. Then I could take my fat bank account and leave this place. Give Mama a chunk of change and start somewhere fresh. I was twenty-nine years old. It was time, way past time, to leave this old rotting nest.
I parked my truck on the outside of the Pit, in a spot marked for CAST, a bit of excitement passing through me. Cole’s red monstrosity was in his personal spot, his name labeling the parking lot so that anyone with a vendetta against him would know exactly where to go. So stupid. So egotistic. I climbed out, my new flip-flops hitting the hard asphalt, newly redone because Hollywood can’t park on cracked pavement, swinging the door shut and pushing my new cell phone into the back pocket of my shorts.
