Gravity Happens (Forcing Gravity) Read online

  She gave me a look that told me not to cross any lines. “You know his name is Jase, and he’s good – really good. He’s at the studio right now for a meeting with his agent and some of the producers from his new movie, so I figured I’d squeeze in some time with you.”

  “Aww, I feel honored,” I said, feeling like second prize.

  I looked back. The waves had taken a break, but I didn’t want to look at Logan right then.

  “I saw he visited you in Florida,” I said, keeping my gaze on the horizon.

  I didn’t want to see her face light up when she responded. I’d seen pictures of her and Jase all over South Florida. The media had catalogued their every move, so I got to see a play-by-play of everything they did while he visited. And Logan had looked so happy with him.

  “Oh, my God, E, he totally surprised me. He’s so awesome.”

  Yeah, so I’ve heard – every fucking day for the past few months.

  “That’s awesome. I saw you took him surfing,” I said, finally looking back at her.

  Surfing was our thing, and I was kind of annoyed that she’d made it theirs too.

  She scrunched up her face and then smiled. “Yeah, he’s not very good,” she said, laughing lightly, the sound was music to my ears. “I tried to teach him, but I’m not sure it’ll be a regular thing for us. Jase is better on dry land.”

  Best news of the day.

  “It takes talent to keep up out here,” I said, incredibly confident in my ability to shred, but it was the one thing that I’d always been good at.

  I had a natural talent for it, and I fucking loved it.

  “Tell me about it,” Logan said, shaking her head. “I’ve been working my ass off to keep up with you for years.”

  “And it’s paid off. Your ass is hot,” I said, completely playing off of her words.

  Logan just stuck her tongue out at me before she started paddling away to catch a wave that had snuck up on me. I’d been too busy watching the water glisten off of her tanned face as her eyes sparkled in the sun. I was a wasted son of a bitch over this girl.

  * * *

  “You decent?” I asked as I passed the hall bathroom upstairs.

  Logan smiled at me in the mirror. She’d stayed and hung out after we’d surfed, and we’d ordered in Thai food. Then she’d showered for the party we were having that night and was halfway dressed.

  I’m sure she didn’t think anything of it, because I’d seen her in various states undress throughout our lives, but seeing her standing there in a short skirt and a bra was enough to get me going again after I’d done my best to calm my hormones in the shower.

  “You look hot,” she said to me, eyeing me in the mirror.

  I was wearing jeans, a fitted graphic t-shirt and a black blazer, and I was ready to let loose. Being with Logan all afternoon had me wound up in knots and jerking off in the shower did nothing to ease the tension. I rolled my neck around a few times, trying to loosen my shoulders.

  “So do you,” I said, only serious in my head. I made comments like that all the time, so they didn’t faze her.

  “Thank you,” she said playfully since I’m sure she didn’t think she looked presentable. Her hair was still damp, and she was putting on her make-up. Not that she needed it. She looked really pretty without it. “You okay?”

  I shrugged. “I think I tweaked my neck when I was surfing. I don’t know.” It was a plausible excuse. “I’m heading down,” I told her then. I knew my friends would be there soon.

  “I need like ten minutes.”

  “Take your time. When’s the boyfriend arriving?” I asked.

  She smiled, and it annoyed me that he made her so happy. That should be my job.

  “He’ll be here soon. He was going out to dinner with his boys, and they were going to stop by afterward. You know, you and Gare are becoming quiet reputable party throwers.”

  She winked at me, and I smiled. “It’s my gift in life. Please the people. Give them what they want.”

  “And what’s that?” she asked, playing along.

  “Alcohol and hot girls.”

  She laughed. I loved it when she laughed, and the sound followed me downstairs.

  Garrett was in the kitchen pulling our alcohol from the cabinet underneath the island and setting it on the top when I got downstairs. The fridge was stocked with beer, so we were good to go. It was the last Saturday before the spring semester of classes started, so I’d convinced my brother to throw a party. We needed to cut loose – well, I needed to cut loose.

  My brother didn’t have anything going on since his last movie had wrapped in December. He’d filmed three back to back, so I guess now he was taking a break until the second Earthbound movie started shooting.

  He played a fallen angel in the movies that had been converted from three really popular books. And it was the role of Lucas, the bad boy fallen angel, that had made him famous overnight. The girls loved him, and it was cool since I completely benefited from it.

  Before he’d been shy and reserved, but fame had brought him out of his shell. He’d always been good looking, because let’s be honest, we looked a lot alike, but he didn’t use his looks to his advantage for most of his life. He did now though. He was dating a former Disney star turned pop star who was ridiculously hot, and she had hot friends.

  “Looking sharp, little bro,” he said, as he set the last bottle on top of the island.

  Damn, we had a lot of alcohol.

  I ran a hand back through my hair. It was getting long. I usually kept it that way, but I hadn’t cut it in a while. Maybe I needed to.

  I smiled at my brother, but it felt forced. “I gotta get over this shit with Logan,” I told him, keeping my voice low.

  Garrett nodded as he started mixing me a strong drink. I didn’t even have to ask. I must have looked tense as hell.

  “Well, you tried the getting under someone else angle, and that didn’t work.”

  “Ha, ha,” I said as I took big drink of the concoction he’d whipped up. I wasn’t sure what was in it, but it tasted strong.

  “Dude, I’m serious,” he continued. “You did the whole FWB thing with Lizzie, and I know you and Kara hooked up a few times, but maybe you should try not to bury your feelings anymore. Maybe you should try to overcome them.”

  I raised an eyebrow at him. “What the hell kind of self-help book do you get that shit out of? I don’t even know what that means.”

  He leaned back against the stove and crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m not reading self-help, you jackass. I just know much more about women than you do.”

  I laughed out loud. “Yeah, right. That’s not even remotely possible.”

  Garrett raised an eyebrow at me, and I got the message. My number might have been triple what his was, but he probably did know more about girls – at least on an emotional level. I just knew what would make them scream my name in bed, but I didn’t know shit about relationships.

  “Maybe if you get emotionally involved with someone else, then your feelings for Logan will go away,” he finally said.

  “Dude, I don’t even know how to do that,” I said quickly, because an emotional connection was a completely foreign concept to me.

  Besides, how was I supposed to get emotionally involved with someone when my heart belonged to the girl upstairs.

  “Sure, you do. I know you play dumb because you don’t want a relationship, but you’re not a complete idiot.”

  I reached across the island and slugged him in the shoulder. He slugged me back.

  “Ow, dick,” I said, rubbing my upper arm.

  Garrett just shrugged. “Listen, do what you want, but it’s worth a shot, and it’s better than moping around feeling like shit all the time.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “Yeah, that’s true. But what does that mean exactly? How do I get ‘emotionally’ involved with a girl?”

  I still wasn’t sure I understood what he meant. I wasn’t about to spout off cheesy one-line
rs like, ‘I get lost in your eyes’ or some bullshit like that. That sure as hell wasn’t me.

  Garrett sighed. “Right, sorry. I guess you’ve always been a player by nature. It means talk to a girl, get to know her and don’t have sex. Date her, spend time with her. If she’s cool, you’ll have fun, and she’ll take your mind off of Lo. Then you can have sex with her.”

  Wait to have sex. Huh? That wasn’t something I’d thought about before. Could I even do that?

  “I guess it’s worth a shot,” I said skeptically, taking another big gulp of my drink. I’d try anything once, but I wasn’t convinced this would work.

  Garrett saw how fast I was downing my drink, so he handed me a bag of chips that was sitting on the counter. I opened it and grabbed a handful. Emotionally involved. It was an interesting concept. Maybe I’d explore it.

  “Yo!” I heard from the front door and leaned back enough to see around the refrigerator into the front hall.

  “Hey guys. What’s up?” I said to my boys, Hunter and TJ, who were walking in.

  “Nada,” TJ said, high-fiving me, as Hunter grabbed the bottle of Patron and gave me a silent fist bump.

  Garrett mixed himself a drink as some more people came in the front door. We had a guy out there checking IDs off of the list we gave him, and we’d given specific instructions to call us if anyone who wasn’t on the list or wasn’t with someone on the list tried to come in. It was pretentious as hell, but with Garrett being all famous and shit, there were precautions we now needed to take or else we’d end up with a house full of underage fangirls and annoying paparazzi.

  Soon the house was full of people, and the party was in full swing. I noticed Logan when she’d come downstairs wearing a black and white striped halter top and that short black skirt from before, but she’d pretty much met Jase at the front door, and he’d been monopolizing her ever since.

  I was hanging with Hunter and TJ who were competing for ‘who can pick up the hottest chick’. And even though I knew I should be emotionally connecting with a girl – apparently – I had yet to meet anyone to do that with. I wasn’t exactly sure I’d find a girl like that in Hollywood. Oh, wait, I’d already found her, but she was dating a douchebag movie star.

  Okay, that was it. Now I was even bumming myself out. I needed to stop bitching about what I didn’t have, man up, grow a pair and move on.

  So with conviction in my step, I walked up to a pretty brunette who was talking to Logan’s roommate, Henley.

  “Hey Ethan,” Henley said in her sexy southern accent, as she reached out to give me a hug.

  “Hey Henley,” I said, smiling at her.

  She was a nice girl, but she’d dated my brother for a minute and was super-clingy, so now she was just a friend – and an off-limits friend at that.

  “This party is great,” she gushed, and I turned to her friend.

  “I don’t believe we’ve met,” I said, sticking my hand out for her to shake. “I’m Ethan.”

  “Are you an actor?” she asked curtly, before she would touch my hand. I shook my head, my mouth turning up on one side. The girl was ballsy. Finally she shook my hand. “I’m Nora.”

  “Nice to meet you, Nora. Do you not like actors?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t waste my time dating them.”

  “Well that’s good for me,” I said, turning on the charm. Hitting on women was one of the things I was really good at. “I go to USC – and not to the film school. I’m undecided as far as my major, but I’m great at talking to pretty girls, so maybe I’ll major in communications.”

  Screw emotionally connecting. I’d just turn on the charm and see if I could get this girl to come upstairs with me.

  She laughed, almost spitting out the sip of her drink she’d taken. “Are you serious with that line?”

  Had I used a line? I guess so. And apparently it wasn’t going to work on her.

  I shrugged and grinned at her, knowing if my words didn’t get to her, my smile would. “Nah, not really. I was just trying to be cute.”

  “Well, you don’t have to try to do that,” she said, but it wasn’t said in a flirting or endearing way. She was just stating a fact, and for the first time being called cute didn’t seem like a good thing.

  I leaned closer to her. Then I saw Henley roll her eyes out of the corner of my eye and walk away. She’d seen me in action plenty of times, so she knew most of my moves.

  “Do I get points for being cute?” I asked coyly.

  She shrugged and took another sip of her drink. “Sure, but just so you know, being cute isn’t enough for me.”

  I realized then that I was going to have to work for it if I wanted this girl in my bed. I pulled back from her. None of my usual tactics were going to work.

  “Noted. So what do you do, Nora?” I asked, glad I’d remembered her name.

  “Well,” she said, in an almost challenging way. “I go to UCLA, and at the moment I want to be a vet.”

  “Really? That’s cool. So where are you from?”

  She raised an eyebrow at me. “Are you going to ask me next if I come here often?”

  I eyed her with some major skepticism in my stare. I was not willing to fight this girl to get to know her. If she wasn’t interested, I’d happily walk away.

  “Listen, I’m not an asshole. I’m just trying to make conversation, and when you first meet someone these are the kinds of questions you ask. But if you’re not interested in talking, that’s cool. There are plenty of other people here that I can hang out with.”

  She opened her mouth to say something, and I was imagining it to be a leveling retort, which sort of turned me on. I might like this girl to boss me around once or twice. But then it seemed like she changed her mind.

  “I’m from here,” she finally said. “I grew up in Brentwood.”

  I nodded a few times. “Me too, except I’m from The Palisades.”

  “We’re neighbors,” she said knowingly, and I felt like the ice was finally melting. “Or, well, I guess we used to be since you apparently live here now.”

  I liked that she was softening a bit. Her hard edge had been sexy when I’d walked up, but I wasn’t sure I could deal with that for more than a few minutes. Angry chicks freaked me out.

  “I do live here. How did you know?”

  She smiled, and it lit up her eyes. And she had these really beautiful green eyes that I just wanted to stare into all night.

  “Your picture is on the table over there,” she said.

  I looked over to where her gaze was fixed and noticed a family picture Garrett had put on one of the tables by the sofa. It was from the Earthbound premiere – me, Logan, my brother and my sister, her fiancé, and our parents.

  “Right,” I said as recognition dawned on me. “My brother’s the decorator. I’m not much for putting things up in rooms. You should see my bedroom. It could probably use some posters or something.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Was that an invitation to your room?”

  “No,” I said, my eyebrows knitting together. I hadn’t even been thinking that when I’d said it. I was just making conversation.

  But if she was interested . . .

  “Okay, good,” she said quickly. “Because I’m not going upstairs with you.”

  Shot down.

  “I didn’t ask,” I defended.

  I was glad I hadn’t asked – even jokingly. This girl wasn’t messing around.

  “Good,” she said arrogantly, her eyes narrowing the tiniest bit.

  I finally put my hand up, wondering when the conversation had shifted again. “No need to get defensive. Why would you automatically assume I was inviting you upstairs.”

  Yeah, I know that had been my intention, but it wasn’t in that moment.

  She sighed and bit her lip. “Okay, confession. I sort of know who you are.”

  “You do?”

  “Yeah. I’m friends with Logan, she’s mentioned you, and I’ve seen pictures of you in her dorm room.”
>
  She was friends with Logan? How come I hadn’t met her?

  “Okay,” I said, fighting the urge to ask her if she liked what she’d seen, but I already knew she had since she’d told me I was cute – and it wasn’t going to get me very far.

  “Yeah, and she sort of, uh, also told me that you like women – a lot.”

  Son of bitch. I knew there was a reason she’d been so defensive to my advances. Why did Logan have to tell people about my recreational hobbies? I was not a dirtbag, and she totally made me sound like one when she said shit like that. Okay, so maybe I slept around more than some people, but she didn’t have to share that fact. Besides, I mostly just slept with Lizzie. I might do other things with other girls, but I didn’t sleep with all of them.

  But, I’d slept with a good majority.

  Dammit, maybe I was a dirtbag. And I suddenly didn’t want to be that guy anymore.

  I gathered all of the negative energy that had suddenly struck me and pulled myself together. “Well, I’m not sure Logan explained me in the most accurate of ways, but I’ve actually decided to turn over a new leaf.”

  About five seconds ago.

  “Really?” she asked skeptically, her face and her tone telling me she didn’t believe me.

  “Geez, what the hell did she tell you about me?”

  Nora laughed. “She said you were sweet, but you’ve always shied away from relationships.”

  Yeah, that was true, and it didn’t sound that bad. I was positive Logan had said a lot more that Nora wouldn’t repeat.

  “Well, maybe that was the old me,” I challenged.

  The old me from five minutes ago.

  “Okay,” she said, obviously not believing me.

  She started to walk away, but I grabbed her shoulder. “Hey, not cool. Where are you going?”

  “I need a refill,” she said, gesturing to her empty plastic cup. “Would you like to get it for me?”

  It seemed like she was testing me to see if I really was a dirtbag or not. But I knew deep down that I was a nice guy, and nice guys got girls refills, so I’d get one for Nora.

  “What are you drinking?”

  “Vodka Tonic,” she said haughtily, handing me her cup.

  “Coming right up,” I told her just as confidently.