Forcing Gravity (23 page)

“He wasn’t hitting on me,” Lizzie
corrected.

“It sure looked like it,” Ethan grumbled.

Lizzie just rolled her eyes at him as she shoved the ice pack into his
hand. He immediately put it on
his eye and winced.

“I took an acting class a few years ago with him. I was being polite, saying hello.”

I got a knot in my throat at that comment. I should have taken the same cue and said hello to Jase, but I’d been too afraid to approach him all night. Why was I being self-conscious
around him? I’d never been that
way around a guy, ever. Was it because he was famous? No
,
that was
n’t
it. His
fame didn’t do anything for me.

It was because he got under my skin. No guy had ever done that before, and I think it unnerved me. I was suddenly worried I wasn’t good enough for him or that he didn’t like me. I hated that feeling. Being nervous and neurotic and all inside my head wasn’t me, and I wasn’t going to do it any longer. If Jase didn’t like me for me, he could just date someone else.

I sighed. “Alright,
I think I’m going to head out.”

“
What?
No, I just got here,” Ethan whined.

“That’s your problem,” I said matter-of-factly, and Ethan pouted.
“Maybe if you hadn’t gotten into a fist fight the party would have been a little more enjoyable.
”

“He’s a dick,” Ethan justified.

No he’s not.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I told him. “
We’re still going for tacos, right?”

“
S
tay the night,” he suggested. “We can go surfing in the morning. You don’t have class until eleven, right?”

I looked over at Lizzie who was visibl
y irritated at
his invitation for
me to stay over. She obviously had different plans for him.

“I’m tired,
E,
and this party doesn’t look like it
’s going to be winding down any
time soon. If you want, I’ll come back tomorrow morning, and we can go out if the surf’s good. If not, I’ll take you to breakfast.
I’ll need to drive Henley home anyway
since she’s apparently staying the night
.
”

I looked over at her to see her nod in confirmation.

“I can take care of that,” Garrett said
as he came up behind us
,
sounding just a little
too eager.

“Yeah, I’m sure you can
,” I s
aid, under my breath as I turned to face him.
“Everything good with Jase?”

He nodded. “Yeah, he told me not to worry about it. He’s a cool guy.”

“He is a jackass,” Ethan chimed in, but no one responded to him.

“By sweetie,” I said, hugging Garrett.

“You’re leaving?”

I nodded. “Yeah, I’m tired, and I think I’m just ready to go.”

“Okay, well, I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said, as he stepped beside Henley and threaded his arm around her waist.

“Surfing and breakfast?”
I asked Ethan.

“
Alright
,”
Ethan said, shrugging, knowing he didn’t have another choice
. He leaned over and kissed me on the cheek
. “Love you. D
rive safe.”

“Love you too,”
I said, as I
kissed him back and
handed him my empty beer can
before making my way through the crowd
toward the
front door.

-
11
-

Outside it was ten times quieter than in the house. I could hear the waves pounding on beach behind the house, and the sound was comforting. I
paused by my car, closed my eyes and let the calm
wash over me for a few seconds.

“Logan?” I heard
,
just as
I was unlocking my car
. I spun around to see Jase
standing behind me, a confused look on his battered face
.

“Hey Jase,” I said, realizing how tired I was in that moment.

“When did you get here?”

I guess he really hadn’t seen
me, even when he was arguing with Ethan and I was standing right there.

I smiled impassively.
“About ten minutes before you got here,” I said, and watched the confusion on his face deepen.

“
I’ve been here for almost three hours.
I didn’t see you.
How come you didn’t come over and say hello?” he asked, and I thought I could
detect a level of
hurt in his voice.

“Well, I figured you had enough female attention, and I didn’t think I should intrude
.”

His eyebrows narrowed. “You should have intruded. I would have been really excited to see you.” He shook his head. “I mean, I
am
excited to see you.”

He smiled his small secret smile at me, and I started to thaw just a bit.

“It’s good to see you too,” I finally said.

“Are you leaving?”

“Yeah, I’m tired.
And fights aren’t really my thing.
”

“You saw that?”

“Yup,” I said, matter-of-factly.

Jase put his hand up in protest. “Hey, that guy started it. I’m still not exactly sure what I did.”

“You were flirting with the girl he has sex with from time to time.”

“No, I wasn’t,” Jase said, completely taken aback by my accusation. “She was asking me about my last film. That’s all. He’s the one who hauled off and punched me.”

“I know, and he shouldn’t have done that, but he’s not a bad guy.”

“Why are you defending him?” Jase snapped.

“Because he’s been my best friend
for
eleven
years,” I said simply. It was really the only reason I was defending Ethan’s actions, because truthfully, he’d been completely out of line.

“Great,” Jase sighed, rubbing his jaw. “Does he know we’re seeing each other?”

I internally grinned when he said that. Apparently he thought we w
ere still seeing each other. Yea
!

“No, he doesn’t. He’s not your biggest fan.”

Jase rolled his eyes,
no doubt
assuming Ethan had made some preconceived judgment about him based on what he’d
supposed
was the truth
from
the tabloids
. “He doesn’t even know me.”

“Apparently you went to school with him for a number of years, and you did something offensive at some point, but he wouldn’t say what it was”

I watched the color suddenly drain from
Jase’s
face.

“What?” I asked. “What did you do?”

“Nothing,” he said quickly. “I don’t know what he’s talking about.”

Dammit. I knew he was lying.

“Alright, I’m going,” I said then, exhausted with how the night had progressed.

“Are you okay?” Jase asked,
searching my face for an
answer
.

“I’m fine,
”
I lied.

“Okay,” he said, not sounding convinced.
I never was any good at lying.
“We’re still on for Friday, right?”

I nodded. “Yeah, why wouldn’t we be?”

That
awesome
small smile appeared on his face
. “No reason. I’m
just
lo
oking forward to seeing you
.”

Then he leaned down and kissed my cheek
, right at the corner of my mouth
,
and let
his lips linger for a few beats
. Having him so close to me did funny things to my head, and I fought to hold onto what had me so irritated just a few seconds earlier.

“Jase, man, come on!”

We both looked up to see Freddie beckoning Jase toward
two
SU
Vs that were parked in
the street. I could see several girls hanging out the windows.

“I’ll be there in a minute,” he called back, and Freddie shook his head impatiently.

“You’d better go,” I told him, suddenly wishing he wasn’t dashing off.

“
Where are you headed?
” he
asked me.

“Home.
My roommate is staying here tonight, apparently, so I get the room to myself.”

In a dorm, that was a rare thing.
“It’s kind of a big deal for me since I haven’t really been alone in weeks.”

“Really,” Jase
said, his hand reaching out to tuck one of my curls behind my ear. He let his hand linger for a few beats bef
ore trailing
it
down behind my ear and
down to my collarbone, making me shiver. His eyes stayed locked on mine.

“Jase!”
Freddie called again.

Jase ignored him. “Can I come with you?” he asked me.

I cocked my head in surprise, not sure what he was asking.

“Where
?
T
o my dorm?”

He nodded and reached out to take my hand, twining our fingers together.
“If that’s okay.
I mean, if you really want to be alone, that’s cool, b
ut I figured maybe we could hang
out.
”

He pulled me against him, so our mouths were only inches apart.
I looked back at the girls Freddie had assembled for Jase and his friends. Some of them looked at us speculatively
, no doubt wondering who the plain girl Jase was talking to was
.

“Don’t you have other plans?” I asked, and his gaze shifted to Freddie and the waiting SUVs.

He looked back down at me. “I’d rather hang out with you.”

Really
?
Over the make-out twins?

“You – you would?
” I
asked
,
suddenly unsure of myself
.

“Yeah,” he said, his gaze still locked on mine.

“Um, okay. I guess you can come back to my dorm with me,” I said, hoping I’d picked up my dirty clothes off the floor and didn’t have anything embarrassing lying around.

Jase grinned widely, before he released me and walked around to the passenger door of my car.

“What are you doing, man?” Freddie called after him.

“I’ll see you later, man,” Jase said, as he hopped inside my car. I looked up to see Freddie shaking his head in frustration.

“Is he mad at you?” I asked, as I slid into the driver’s seat and looked in the rearview mirror to see Freddie stalking back toward the SUVs.

“Nah, he’ll get over it when he realizes there are two more girls he can divide up amongst himself and the other guys.”

My stomach
flipped, and not in a good way, as I wondered what Jase would have ended up doing with those two girls if he hadn’t run into me. Then I dismissed the thought because Jase was with me. He’d picked me over the mass of females he had to choose from who were a sure thing. That had to mean something.

***

“Shit,” Jase muttered, as we pulled into the dorm parking lot.

“What?” I asked, looking around. I didn’t see any cameras. There were students milling around outside, but that wasn’t unusual. It wasn’t even midnight.

“Um, you don’t have anything
I could use as a disguise do
you?” he asked, eyeing the group
of girls who sat on the steps at
the entrance to the dorm chatting and smoking. His eyes darted around, taking in the possible landmines between us and the entrance. He looked like a trapped animal.

I looked in the backseat, relieved to see one of Ethan’s hoodies back there. Jase didn’t need to know who it belonged to. “Here,” I said, handing it to
him along with a black Hurley hat I had discarded back there at some point over the summer. “Do you want sunglasses?”

He glanced at me with an uncomfortable look on his face, and I wondered how much he was regretting his genius plan to hang out with me.

“Or, do you want me to drop you off at home?” I offered instead.

Jase shook his head, as if shaking off what he was feeling, and smiled. “Sunglasses would be great,” he said.

I handed him a pair I had stuck under the sun visor.