Forcing Gravity (19 page)

“You have an assistant,” I said, as another facet of his life registered.

I’d assumed, but to hear him confirm it was a different story.
I couldn’t figure out why I was so appalle
d by all that I was learning
.
Even if he didn’t make what my
mother
made
for each film he did,
he’d been acting most of his life.
He had money, and he was
a
busy
guy
. It would make sense that he had an assistant.

“You’re
weirded
out by that,” he said, as he let go of my hand and settled onto one of the big pillows.
He reached for a pitcher of what looked like iced tea in the middle of the table and busied
himself
pouring it in both of our glasses. “This is passion fruit tea. I hope you like it.”

“
I’m not
weirded
out,” I assured him, completely ignoring what he’d told me about the tea.

I settled
down next to him, eyeing him with concern. I’d upset him
, and I knew it
.

“
It’s
fine,” he said, taking the lid off of something that smelled incredible. It looked like Thai food. “My life’s not normal. I’d probably think I was strange if I met me too.”

I took a sip of my tea, as h
e started scooping noodles onto my plate before he lifted the cover off of another steaming dish to reveal some kind of spicy chicken. He gave me some of that and moved on
to the next dish. I was quite aware that he wasn’t making eye contact with me.

I put my hand on his forearm to stop him
from scooping more food onto my plate
. I needed him to look at me. But he wouldn’t turn his head, so I used my other hand to angle his face toward me and unceremoniously pressed my lips to his, knowing I’d
get his attention that way. I
t
complete
ly
caught him by
surpr
ise, and a few
seconds
passed before
he was suddenly kissing me back. I heard the spoon he’d been holding clank back into the dish as his hands moved to either side of my face
, cupping it and holding it in place
.

“I
do
n’t
t
hink
y
ou’re
s
trange,” I said,
around his lips.

“I am,” he said, ki
ssing me harder and deeper. “I’
m
a
freak.”

“No, you’re not,” I said, as I pushed up to my knees
to gain better leverage.

My hands dove into his hair, pulling him closer to me as his tongue plunged into my mouth and sent jolts of electricity through my body.

“You don’t know me that well,” he said when he pulled back to look at me. “Just wait.”

“It’s fine. I like freaks,” I said before I do
ve back in and kissed him again.

He explored my mo
uth with his tongue, as his hands
moved
to my
waist and pulled me onto his lap, so I was straddling him. It was easy to feel how excited he’d gotten in just a few minutes, but at the same time it scared me. He was much more experienced than me, and I wasn’t going to take that step with him – at least not on our first date
, or even our second
.

Then
I felt his hand move u
nder my
flowy
tank
top
and snake up my back, the feeling of his skin on mine only succeeding in pushing me closer to him, and I considered just how far I might go with him
that night
.

Then my stomach growled, and Jase pulled back to look at me. I loved that his lips were swollen and traces of my lip gloss r
immed his mouth. It made me want
to dive back in for another kiss, but
he
stopped me.

“How about we eat first,” he said, his quickened breathing enough to tell how much I’d affected him.
He’d done the same to me
. I was sure my cheeks were flushed, and not just from the blush Henley had dusted them with.

I nodded and climbed off of his lap, settling onto the pillow next to him. I smoothed back my curls that felt all sorts of disheveled and fanned
myself
as discreetly as possible. It wasn’t a warm night, but things had certainly gotten heated between us enough for me to feel hot.

Jase smiled at me and resumed filling our plates.

“Look at me for a second,” I said, and he turned to me expectantly.

I smiled and reached out with my cloth napkin to wipe my lip gloss from his lips. When I removed the napkin, he leaned over and kissed me. It was just a brief chaste kiss, but it still sent my heart aflutter.

“You’re really good at that,” I said when he pulled back. “Maybe later you’ll show me more of your magical bedroom
and we can do some more of that
?”

He cocked an eyebrow at me.
“Seriously?”

I shrugged and took a bite of chicken. “Sure.”

“For the record, I didn’t bring you here for anything
like that
,” he said. “My intentions were completely honorable.”

“Yeah,
I know, but you can’t just kiss
like that and expect me to not want more.”

He just shook his head and smiled.

“What?” I asked, afraid I did something wrong.

“Most girls are not this comfortable around me,” he said around a mouthful of noodles.

“Is it a bad thing?”

He
swallowed and looked over at
me, his gaze locked on mine for a few seconds.
“Not at all.
I’m just not used to it. It’s just, you’ve never treated me like a celebrity, and I like it.”

“How do most girls act around you?”

He sighed. “They don’t want to get to
know the real me. They act star
struck
, and throw themselves at me and tell me I can do whatever I want with them,
so they can go back to their friends and say they hooked up with Jason Brady.” He shrugged. “I usually don’t even correct them when they call me Jason. I just let them have the fantasy.”

Wow, that was possi
bly the saddest thing I’d ever heard. I put my hand on his cheek, and he turned to look at me.

“I want to get to know the real you,” I said. “Trust me, I’ve been around famous peo
ple my whole life, and I’ve met
the people you’re talking about, but I’m not one of them. I liked the guy I met a few weeks ago
and the one I
’ve
been talking to on the phone
. I’m pretty sure
that’s why I have such a hard time wrapping my head arou
nd the fame thing. I
t doesn’t consume you like it does other people I know.”

“Like your mom?” he asked, and I was surprised he knew who she was
since I hadn’t told him
, but I guess Hollywood was a
small town, so it was feasible h
e’d figu
red it out
.

“Do you know my mom?” I asked cautiously, and I think he thought I was offended.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized quickly. “I didn’
t mean to
insult her. I wasn’t thinking.”

I took a bite of chicken and chewed it thoughtfully. I didn’t want to bad-mouth my mother to someone in the industry, but I’d told Jase about every other facet of my life, so it stood to reason that I
could tell him about her
as well.

I smiled
what I hoped was a comforting smile. “Jase, I know how my mom is. You don’t have to apologize.
Trust me, I’ve known her for eighteen years, and she’s just about the most selfish, vain and celebrity-consumed person I know. So, y
eah, like her. I’ve seen how fame can tear people apart and make them ugly, and Jase, that’s not you.”

“Thank you,” he said softly after a few seconds of silence. “
I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t let the fame go to my head, but I think a lot of people make that promise, and then they get sucked in and don’t even realize it.”

I touched my shoulder against his playfully. “I think you’ve done a pretty good job of remaining grounded.”

I hoped Garrett would stay as grounded as Jase. His career was taking off so fast that he could easily lose himself to
the
fame.

Jase
smiled. “I like to call it forcing gravity, because let me tell you, it is so easy to drift away if you’re not careful.
I learned that the hard way.
”

“Forcing gravity.
I like that,
”
I said, choosing not to pry into what had taught him that lesson. I’d let him tell me when he was ready.

Jase smiled at me.

“Just don’t change,
” I told him, reaching out to squeeze his hand, “
and I think you’ll be okay.”

“I don’t plan on it,” he said sincerely
, and I noticed he was visibly relaxing
. “
You know you’re the first girl I’ve had over to my house.”

“I am?”

He nodded.
“I don’t really make a habit of bringing people here except my family.”

“What do you usually do on dates?” I asked, wondering why I was so different.

He shook his head. “
I don’t date that much,” he said
, hardly answering my question
.
“
Y
ou are the first
person besides Gary
, my family
,
and some of my friends
to come
here
,
and you’re definitely the first girl who I wasn’t related to who has seen my bedroom
.”

I wasn’t sure what he meant by that. Had he not been dating
at all
? No,
he’d just talked about hooking up with women, and
I’d seen him in magazines with girls since he and Chloe had
broken up back in February. Had he just
been causally dating those
girls? Was I different? Was that why I got invited over? I didn’t know what to think.

“
Are you referring to you
r
so-called ‘magical bedroom’?”
I asked, instead of asking the other questions suddenly pressing on my brain.

He grinned
, and all my insecurities flew out of my head
.
“Yeah.”

“
So, no girls have really been here?
Not even, um . . .” I tr
ai
led off, not sure if it was okay to talk about his ex. Even though we’d been talking for weeks, and I felt like I knew him bette
r than a lot of people, we were
still
on
our first date
, and aside from him mentioning her in the car, we hadn’t
ever
gone there
.

“Chloe,” he said for me. “Or as my friends like to call her,
‘
the lying, cheating whore who most likely only dated me to increase her celebrity
status
’
. It’s fine. I kind of wish I could get those two years back, but whatever. And n
o, she never came here. I thankfully moved into
the hou
se after we broke up, because otherwise, I probably would have sold it. There were several months where I
couldn’t stand looking at anything that reminded me of her
, and I really do love this house
.”

He
was trying to keep things light, but at the same time, he
sounded so cold and detached as he spoke of someone he
’d supposedly been in love with. B
ut I guess if the person you give your heart to stomps on it a
nd shows it to the whole
world,
you might be a little jaded
. His comment in the interview about wishing her nothing but happiness came back to me. I knew he’d been lying when he’d said that, and who could blame him?

“Do you like the fo
od?” he asked then, and I knew it was his way of changing the subject.

“It’s del
icious,” I said, forcing a smile that I knew he needed to see
.
“So I’m guessing you lied to me earlier, huh?”

“About what?” he asked
, around a mouthful of food. He looke
d distressed all of a sudden.