Forcing Gravity (15 page)

“Despite what you think, Ethan, I do have a life outside of you, but if you must know, I met him at Garrett’s party.”

Ethan rolled his eyes. “He’s not some
douchebag
actor, is he?”

Ethan couldn’t stand some of the guys his brother associated with, and I had to agree with him. Some of them fit the stereotype I was so familiar with perfectly.

“No,” I lied, turning to face Ethan so he couldn’t see my phone when I responded. “He goes to UCLA.”

That could be true. Jase had mentioned that he’d always wanted to go to UCLA. It could happen.

“Whatever,” Ethan muttered. “Just make sure he knows that I’ll kick his ass if he hurts you, okay?”

“I’m typing that right now,” I said, making fake key strokes on my phone.

“Laugh all you want,” he said, “but you’ll want me around if he tries anything shady. You have to watch out for guys from L.A.”

“
Guys l
ike you?” I asked, amusedly raising my eyebrows.

“Especially like me,” he said, as he moved
over
to one of the few remaining boxes that were piled up on my bed.

“Oh Ethan,” I said,
putting my arms around his waist
from behind. “You’re one of the good ones.”

He turned to face me and grinned. “Yeah, I’m really not.”

Henley and her father made several more trips
to the parking lot and back
until all of her things were piled in the middle of our tiny room.
Then he
r dad
said something about having to make a few phone calls and told her he would be back at seven to take her to dinner. The whole time he was in our room, Ethan and I hovered on my side and didn’t say a word. We decided it was better to just remain quiet and pretend to be invisible.

“Oh, my God!”
Henley gasped when her father had left the room.
She collapsed on her bed.
“I am exhausted! Those boxes can just wait. We have more important things to discuss. Both of
ya’ll
sit down.”

She was as commanding as her father
, but at least she was sweet about it
. Ethan and I shuffled over to my now empty bed and sat down faci
ng her, waiting for our next instru
ctions.

“So here’s what
ya’ll
need to know about me,” she said, pulling her long, thick
white
blond hair up in a
high
ponytail. “I’m from Nashville, my mama died when I was a little girl, and my daddy raised me by
himself
. I don’t have any brothers or sisters
, but I do have a cat named
Rosco
back home. I’m going to be a Tri
Delt
, since every woman i
n my family has been a Tri
Delt
. M
y major is Nutrition and Dietary Sciences,
since I want to help people make health eating choices in life,
and I love Kenny Chesney. Now you go.”

Okay, so that last fact was sort of random.
I looked at Ethan.
I wasn’t sure who Henley wanted to go first, and if he wanted to volunteer, that was fine with me.
He just shrugged, so I went ahe
ad, feeling like if I didn’t Henley
would force me to rush her sorority with her or
go
to a Ke
nny Chesney concert
.

“Um, well, I’m Logan, and I’m from Ft. Lauderdale. My dad also raised me, because my mother’s a freaking nut job, but she lives here in L.A. I surf as much as I can, my best friend is this guy here, and I have a sister, but
she can be a brat
, so I
love her
,
but
don’t
always
claim her. Oh, and I’m majoring in Sports Medicine at this point, but that could change.” I shrugged.

And I think I might be dating Jason Brady, but I’m not sure,
I said silently in my head, fighting the urge to squeal in delight at the thought of sharing that little tidbit.

“And you dated, Garrett Lewis,” Henley chimed in, and Ethan started laughing. “What? It’s true. She dated him, and he broke her heart. It’s not very nice to laugh about a thing like that. I got my heart broken last year, and it was
just
awful.”

Henley looked appropriately distraught and empathetic at the same time.

Ethan stopped laughing and cleared his throat. “I’m her best friend, remember,” he said
pointedly
. “And Garrett Lewis is my brother. They didn’t date. You can’t believe everything you read.”

“Your brother is Garrett Lewis?!” Henley exclaimed, and I realized that this girl would be the type to get star struck if she ever
encountered any celebrities. I’d have
to be careful about where I brought her – that is if we ended up being friends. The jury was still out on that one. She was sort of intense.

“Yes, he is,
” Ethan said, “
and before you ask, no he’s not as amazing as everyone thin
ks he is. He used to give me
wed
gies
and pick on me, and one time he pushed me out
of a tree, and I broke my arm.”

“Ethan!” I admonished, shaking my head and feeling the need to defend Garrett. I turned to Henley. “Garrett is a great guy. Don’t listen to Ethan. And no, we didn’t date, we’re just friends.
And I was there when Ethan fell out of that tree, and he slipped. Garrett did not push him.
”

I stuck my tongue out at Ethan for good measure, and he just shook his head at me in amusement.

“Oh,” Henley
said, sounding disappointed. “That’s too bad
that
ya’ll
didn’t date
. He’s
so
hot.”

“He’s not that hot,” Ethan muttered under his breath, so I shot him a dirty look.

“He is
hot
,” I agreed
, directing my response to just Henley
, “but he’s just a friend.”

“Could you introduce me? Oh, my God, you have a picture of him in here
, and you’re on the red carpet
!” She walked over to my desk
and picked up
a picture of Ethan, G
arrett, their sister Kelly
,
and me
. It was taken at the
Earthbound
premier. Henley
turned to Ethan. “I can totally see the resemblance. Who’s that?”

Her guard was up. I think she thought
Kelly
was Garrett’s girlfriend, and she was getting territorial.

“My sister, Kelly,”
Ethan
explained. “She lives in San Francisco with her fiancé.”

“Cute family,” she said,
pacified that Garrett was in fact single and the girl in the picture wasn’t a threat
. She moved on to my
other pictures. “Where are the ones of your girlfriends?”

She turned to look at me appraisingly.

“I wasn’t really close with many girls back home,” I explained. “I mostly had guy friends.”

That
had been true my whole life. I got along with girls fine, but I just preferred hanging out with guys. I think it’s because I was raised by a guy, so I was taught about sports and other guy things. I could converse on most guy subjects easily, so I gravitated toward
them
more. I did have some
female
friends from my volleyball team, but we probably wouldn’t really keep in touch
much
beyond Facebook.

“I have four best friends,” Henley explained, “but two went to Tenness
ee, one went to LSU and one went
to Alabama. I’m the only one who left the south.” She smiled to herself.
“One of them is going to be a Tri-
Delt
like me, one want
s
to be a Phi Mu
,
and the other two are rushing
ADPi
.

“Jesus,” Ethan muttered under his breath, and I at least felt secure that he wouldn’t try to sleep with Henley.

“What sorority are you rushing?” Henley asked me.

Ethan could
n’t
hold in his snort, so I elbowed him, but he was right. I couldn’t see myself as a sorority girl any more than he could.

“Oh, I’m not rushing,” I said, trying to sound passive about it. I didn’t want to offend her, but in truth I found the whole institution to be a little archaic and cheesy.

Henley
tsked
at me. “You don’t know what you’re missing. Sorority sisters are like friends for life.”

“She has me,” Ethan said, smirking a
t me as he put his arm around my shoulders
. “I’ll be her friend for life, and she won’t even have to pay me.”

I shot him daggers with my eyes. Bringing up the fact that being
in a sorority was essentially like buying friends was not an op
inion I wanted him to share, no
matter how much I agreed with him. I was not in the mood to make an enemy with the girl sleeping across the room from me.

“So you’re going to dinner with your dad tonight?” I asked
Henley quickly
,
changing the subject
before she realized Ethan had been
insulting her
.

“Yes, I’m taking him out for a steak dinner,” she said proudly.

“Okay, well, I guess I’ll see you later then. We have dinner plans with some friends of ours.”

I saw Ethan glance at his watch. We had plans to meet up with Garrett for dinner since he’d gotten back from Vancouver that day, but Henley didn’t need to know that.

“Sounds great,” she said cheerfully, before turning back to her boxes. “I’ll see you soon.”

As soon as we were out of the dorm, Ethan turned to me. “You have a roommate.”

“I sure do,” I said with fake cheer, won
dering why I ever felt like communal living
was a good idea.

It would be one thing if I was rooming with Ethan or at least someone I knew, but having to spend nine mo
nths in such close quarters
with a virtual stranger
.
Eee
sh
.
I had a feeling I’d be crashing at Ethan’s a lot, even if I had to sleep on the couch.

“I’ll be
t
my bed’s looking better all the time,” he said jokingly, but it was like he was reading my mind.

-
8
-

“Hey beautiful,” Jase said when he called me a week later.

“Are you
finally
back
in L.A.
?” I asked
, trying to hide the excitement in my voice
, as I stretched out on my bed.

Henley wasn’t home, so our room was exceptionally quiet.
She was at some
sorority something or other. She’d gotten into Tri
Delt
, just like she’d wanted, and there was some event for the new pledges that night.

“I’m actually at the airport
about to get on the plane
, but
I wanted to be sure we were still on for our date tomorrow night.”

“Well, I did mark my calendar, but I’ll have you know I’ve had to fend off three other guys who wanted to go out
with me
.”

“Really?” he asked, all seriousness in his voice
, and I smiled
.

“No, you idiot,” I said, realizing
the words sounded a little harsher than I’d intended
.
“I did get asked out by a guy in my biology class today, but that’s it.”

“I told you
that would happen,” he
said.
“What did you tell him?”

“That I’m a lesbian and my girlfriend gets really jealous when guys talk to me.”

Jase laughed. “What did he say?”

“He asked if he could join us for a threesome.”

Jase laughed even harder. “Please tell me you’re joking.”

“I am,” I said, wishing I would have been that witty. I’d actually stumbled over my words as I
told the guy
I was
kind of,
sort of seeing someone
, maybe, and he’d given me a funny look like he didn’t believe me
. It was a little embarrassing. I was glad Jase didn’t probe
for more details
.

“I
’m just glad I got to you first,
”
he said instead.