11. Cole
Chapter eleven
Cole
Well.
The cats out of the bag.
Picture this.
You’re at an award show as a nobody, flying completely under the radar because the work you’d done in the past had only ever made it onto magazine covers, and not television screens. Nobody sparks up conversation with you aside from the bartender, and a couple of women who slur flirtatious remarks your way. But then you see the most spectacular woman you thought only existed in your imagination, getting hit on by some sleazy creep on the way back to her table.
So I did what any man in their right mind would do. I swooped in, hoping to save the day. I didn’t think I’d have a shot with her. But I ended the night with her long, blonde hair wrapped firmly around my knuckle while I buried my cock deep into her tight pussy from behind.
Her red stained lips wrapped comfortably around the tip of my dick, while her dainty hands work the base.
Picture her thick thighs hovering over my chest while her bare, pink pussy glistens before I even touch it, only for her body to crumble on top of me at the slightest flick of my tongue.
Now imagine thinking about her every waking minute of every fucking day, knowing it was your decision to not share names. I made it almost impossible for myself to ever find her again. But when I saw her strut past the bar I work in and live above, I thought it was fate. Then she ignored me when I called out the nickname I’d given her.
She heard me.
I know she did.
She stopped walking, keys clutched between her knuckles at the ready, and for a moment, I felt bad for potentially scaring her. I called out for her, not thinking she would fear for her safety. I did it because I thought we could get a repeat of the night we’d shared only days before. But either I’d satisfied her enough to last a lifetime, and she wasn’t interested in a re-do, or she wasn’t ready for another fourteen orgasms that we both knew I could deliver.
Or she didn’t have as good of a time as I convinced myself she did.
Whatever her reasoning, the look on her face when she saw me was fucking priceless. Her ice-blue eyes popped out of her head, and her jaw was on the floor. When I told Jude she was my girlfriend, her lips snapped shut, and her head tilted to the side.
As if she were concocting a plan of her own to get back at me for basically telling the entire cast and crew that we were screwing, leaving the both of us completely off limits.
She’s probably going to hate me for it, though, but the urge to claim her as mine in front of everyone here was just too strong to ignore.
I spotted her yesterday in the crowd of people checking into their apartments, busy with their luggage or helping themselves to a glass of champagne.
She slipped out and hopped into the back of a black Range Rover as if she were some superstar ducking through the back entrance, trying to dodge the paparazzi and obsessive fans.
Once my brother Tate and I got settled into our apartment on the top floor, he dragged me to see some singer that the production company are keeping an eye on for the soundtrack. “As your manager, you’ve gotta listen to me sometimes, ” he’d told me, throwing a clean t-shirt at me before shutting my bedroom door.
So, I obliged.
I threw on the clothes that he’d given me, and we made our way into town.
When he and I arrived at Bridie’s, she was standing at the bar next to a brunette while deep in conversation.
I didn’t want to approach her.
Not then.
I wanted to see how long it would take for her to realize it was me and that I was here in the same town we’d both be in for the next three months, working on the same movie set, and seeing each other every single day.
She was too in the zone to focus on anything other than the girl beside her or the one on the stage.
When Tate and I got back to our hotel, I’d casually asked him if he knew who she was. He shrugged and threw me a binder that all managers were given with a photo of every single cast and crew member for me to filter through. That’s when I found her name, phone number, and birthday. Anything else I wanted to know, the internet would tell me.
Jennifer Rogers, California’s most wanted hairdresser.
They got that right.
Hourglass figure, thick thighs, porcelain complexion and the softest blue eyes I’d ever seen. Pair it all with her ash-blonde hair, her icy personality, and her ability to make you forget how to breathe?
Snow.
I may or may not have played a part in getting Jude to select her as Mara’s replacement while we had to wait for her.
“ They’re both blonde and about the same height, let’s get some practice shots in, ” I told him, and he agreed almost too eagerly once he’d seen what she looked like, but I shrugged it off as if it were no big deal. As if I wasn’t getting the ball rolling on what I hoped would be a summer filled with the hottest sex of my life.
The universe may just be on my side after all.
Jude spent the next ten minutes directing us, telling me to caress her cheek while instructing her to just lean into it. Allow it to happen. Sink in.
Melt into me.
Her blue eyes stared anywhere but into my dark ones, and I knew she was fighting the urge to quit her job, move back to wherever she came from, and hide away forever. But then something flashed across her face. Something I’d seen on night one. A burst of confidence, if you will. She took Jude’s directions with conviction, acting like loving me is the easiest thing in the world, until he yelled “Cut!” And the scene was over.
My heart was beating in my fucking throat at how close we’d gotten to kissing again.
“Is that all, Mr. Townsend?” she asks our director, batting her thick, long lashes at him, and his cheeks flushed like she’d cast the same spell on him the way she did to me the very first time we met.
“Uh, yes, that’d be all.” He cleared his throat, wiping his hands down the front of his dark blue jeans, his palm swiping across the front of his crotch to readjust.
Creep .
Nodding, she walks back into the direction she’d come from without giving me a second glance, ass swaying side to side, and it was at that moment I realized that these next few months were going to be heaven or hell.
No in between.
***
“Girlfriend?” Tate storms into my trailer, slamming the door shut and I flinch at the sound it makes, shaking the thin walls that keep us hidden, but not mute.
“It’s a little inside joke,” I tell him with a low voice. “If it were up to me, she and I would be married already,” I tease, watching him carefully when he whips around to face mine.
“Married?” He shouts, hands on his hips, nostrils flared out.
“Tate, relax. It’s just a little inside joke between her and I. We met at the F and T awards and got to talking. It’s no big deal.” I open the minibar, pull out a tiny bottle of water, twist open the cap and bring it to my lips. I purposely leave out how the night ended and how the following morning began.
“As your manager , Cole, I need to be aware if these are the type of stunts you’re going to pull, alright? You don’t work in that bar anymore. People are going to care about what and who you do. Who knows what’s going to show up in the paper tomorrow.” He crosses his arms over his chest and I almost spit out my water. My brother is the least serious person I know, until it comes to his job.
Only then, is he a fucking asshole.
“Chill out, brother. It’s all a bit of fun. Lighten up. We’re in this town for the next three months. You can’t be a miserable prick the whole time we’re here.” I close the lid, placing my bottle down onto the countertop.
He forces a deep breath. “Just…don’t fuck it all up, okay? I have a lot riding on this job,” he says, puffing air into his cheeks. His long, dark hair is tied up at the back of his head, his facial hair is slightly overgrown and well in need of a trim. Yet, somehow, he makes it work.
“I have a lot riding on this too, remember? You know, shitty old apartment, clothes in vacuum-sealed bags, and living off tips women give me, thanks to my body?” My reminder makes him roll his eyes.
“You’re here to do your job. Focus on it, and I’ll focus on mine.”
“Yes, captain.” I salute him and watch as his shoulders stiffen on his way out of my trailer.
Day one on set was mostly figuring out how everybody else’s wheels turned. Things they liked, and things they didn’t. I learned quickly that Jude was the type of director to be fucking pissed after three takes, and Mara was the type to roll her eyes and mutter immature insults under her breath every time the word ‘cut’ was shouted in her direction.
I could already tell those two weren’t going to get along. She made her distaste for him very clear, and her want for me even clearer.
She wasn’t in the room when I’d jokingly let everyone know that Jenna and I were a couple. If she were, I doubt she’d be hitting on me at every available chance.
When her takes were good, they were fucking fantastic. There’s a reason she’s Hollywood’s ‘it girl’, and from what I gather, she hates being told otherwise.
I sat in Jenna’s chair twelve times today—I counted—and each time, her colleague, Tahnee, did all the talking for both of them. I liked that my presence made her uncomfortable—liked that being around me made her squirm. But I couldn’t help wondering if her mind was racing with memories of all the things we’d done to each other on the night that we’d met.
She’s impossible to read, but I’d make a mental note to attempt conversation with her alone.
Looking around the now empty set, I take it all in.
Cameras, microphones and chairs with names written on the back of them are scattered everywhere, littering the entire space of what used to be an empty barn at Wingrove Estates. Now, it’s temporarily the set for a new movie.
My new movie.
Well, my first, anything, really, that doesn’t involve photographers demanding I take my clothes off and lather up my body in oil for hands to roam freely.
It’s already a nice change, but I’m not letting myself get too used to it.
I know opportunities like this can be ripped away from you at any given moment, so I’m trying to soak it all up as best as I can, and not fuck anyone over in the process.
I left the world of modeling three years ago. The money ran dry and I’ve been working and living in the Lotus ever since. I pay absolutely nothing to live there, so I can’t complain, but I do dream of a bigger and better life. Now that I have a taste of it living in these fully serviced apartments, I don’t want to go back. I can’t.
I can wash my clothes inside my home, and put them straight into my wardrobe without the need to lug my washing baskets two blocks to and from the laundromat. I also don’t need to keep them sealed away for them to smell fresh.
Getting into acting was my brother’s idea. He studied to be a sports agent in college originally, but people kept approaching him asking if I had an agent, and he took it upon himself to turn me into, well, this.
Cole Green, a model turned actor, staring in Hollywood’s most anticipated rom-com, out next summer. They originally wanted some big-shot actor who was in one of those blockbuster superhero movies, but his schedule was jam-packed, so they went with me instead.
When my brother got the call, he immediately shoved me into acting lessons, and covered all the costs—because he’s always been better with his money than I’ve ever been—and now here we are.
I worked with a dialect coach, a vocal coach, and an acting coach who insisted he live with me to ‘ really help me perfect my craft,’ but it was an easy ‘thank you but no thank you,’ from me.
My brother even tried to force me into dance classes, because, ‘you never know what type of role you could be up for,’ but there just wasn’t enough time in my day.
Regardless, my brother is the reason I’m here, and I can’t let him down.
He might be younger than me, but I owe it to him to succeed.
And I accepted this job hoping to do so.
The only downside to living away from home, is the non-existent beaches.
The nearest one is something like a day’s drive away.
That, in itself, made it hard to convince this Californian boy to accept the job. But then my brother showed me the contract they were offering me with more zeros than I’d ever seen in my life, and I physically couldn’t say no.
The check would clear once shooting was over, but the production company would cover all expenses while I’m here.
It was one of the conditions Tate put in my contract.
“You ready to get out of here?” he asks as we look around the barn one last time to take it all in. His rattling keys snap me out of my daze.
“Yeah, let’s go.”
We push open the heavy, wooden barn doors and take a step outside. The hot, thick air smacks us in the face, it’s almost hard to breathe.
I love summer, so the heat doesn’t bother me, but the humidity in Grangewood Creek is nothing like I’ve ever experienced.
The sun is almost down completely. The car park at Wingrove Estates is nearly empty, apart from our hire car and a black Range Rover parked across from it.
“Bro, is that…” my brother says, smacking the back of his palm across my chest wildly, forcing my eyes to follow in the direction he stares.
“Holy shit! It fucking is!” We knew the chances of seeing Harley Wingrove would be high, given we’re working and living in places he owns, but I never expected to see him on day fucking one.
“Be cool, Cole. Don’t ruin this for me,” my brother says, suddenly serious, making sure I get the memo that he needs to impress his sporting hero.
Tate Green has to be the biggest football fan I’ve ever known. He knows every single statistic about every star player, which obviously includes the best QB the game has seen since Max Anderson.
“Wingrove?” my brother calls out, posture straight, shoulders squared, his hand extended for his hero to take, and he does. “Big fan.” Tate remains calm and stoic. He’s used to meeting high profile celebrities for his job. There isn’t an inkling of excitement to be seen.
I don’t know if I should be impressed or surprised.
Harley hasn’t been in the public eye for years, but his signed jersey still hangs in my brother’s games room. I’m just proud that he’s able to keep it together.
“Thanks,” he replies with a genuine smile. He looks at me with his hand out for me to shake, and I take it. “Cole, right?” he asks, and I nod as our hands fall to our sides. “Say hey to Jenna for me.” His smirk is that of a meddling teenager and I’ll admit, my curiosity gets the better of me. My mind swirls with a thousand different possibilities.
How does he know her?
Are they screwing?
Isn’t he married? Or is he married to Jenna?
Fuck .
“You know her?” I ask, taking the bait, biting the inside of my cheek to stop myself from jumping to conclusions. My brother watches me suspiciously. He doesn’t know anything aside from what I told him earlier, and that everyone we now work with thinks she’s my girlfriend.
“I do,” he says without elaborating, and I want to force it out of him with more questions, but he continues before I get the chance. “Not in the way you do, though.”
“I’m not sure what you mean,” I admit, eyebrows pinched together while Tate’s frustration grows. Word must’ve already spread about my little comment earlier, and I’m kicking myself for it. My brother flashes me an ‘I told you so,’ look, but I refuse to acknowledge him.
“My wife is her best friend. And even if she weren’t, news travels fucking fast in Grangewood Creek, so you better get used to it.” He chuckles, resting his open palm on his chest. “It was good to meet you both. Maybe I’ll see you around,” he says, stepping into his expensive car, closing the door before speeding off, leaving a cloud of gravel smoke in his absence.
Tate watches me. His eyes nearly pop out of his head, mouth hanging wide open, then snapping shut.
“I don’t want to talk—”
“That was so fucking cool! Holy shit, can you believe we’re working and living at places owned by a fucking legend?” My brother blushes like all of his dreams have come true in a matter of seconds, forgetting anything he had said about me knowing Jenna differently than he does.
I’m glad.
My brother already knows more than I ever planned on telling him.
The longer I can keep it between just me and her, the better.