Forcing Gravity (49 page)

I opened my mouth to say something, but as soon as I did, Garrett’s voice rang out from the deck above us. He was leaning over the balcony, his arms resting on the wooden railing.

“What the fuck is going on down there?” he asked, and he sounded pissed. “Please tell me what just happened was actually a mirage
,
and I’ve just gotten too much sun today.”

Shit.
Did he see Ethan kiss me? Why in the world was he upset? Oh, shit, did he have feelings for me or something
too
?

I looked back at Ethan who was raking his hands through his hair and pacing in the sand, so I shifted my gaze back to Garrett. “What are you talking about,
Gare
?”

“Did you kiss my brother?” he asked pointedly.

“He kissed me,” I sigh
ed, shading my eyes from the bright afternoon sun as I squinted up at Garrett, trying to read his expression. “And then I pushed him away.”

Garrett just shook his head.

“What?!”
I shouted, not in the mood to explain my actions to him. I’d done nothing wrong, Ethan had surprise-attacked me.

“It sure didn’t look like that from up here. All we saw
was
you two sucking face.”

“I wasn’t kissing him back
! W
ait, who’s we?”

My heart started slamming against
my chest, and it was like my sixth sense had kicked in. I knew before he said it
who
had been with him, who had seen me kiss Ethan.

“Jase was just here,” Garrett deadpanned.

My eyes went wide, even though I was expecting him to confirm what I was afraid of.

“Was?” I asked, catching on to
one piece of Garrett’s sentence that had resonated with me.

“He took off, Logan. He’s pissed.”

Shit!

Fuck!

Damn
it all!

“Where did he go?” I asked
,
the panic creeping up in my voice as my stomach churned. I started to hike up the beach as fast as I could, and when I reached the base of the stairs, something stopped me.

I turned to see
Ethan behind me, his hand
gripping my arm. I’d forgotten he was
there.
“Let me go,” I said, attempting to pull my arm from his grip.

“We have to finish talking, Logan,” he said, and there was a level of desperation in his tone.

“I have to go find, Jase,” I said, the panic clearly evident in my voice
at that point
.

“Just let him go,” Ethan pleaded. “Please. He’s not the right guy for you. I am.”

I narrowed my eyes at him, very aware that the longer I stayed there, the further and further away Jase was getting, and I had no idea where he’d run to. I had to find him.

“Ethan, I am so pissed at you right now, I can’t even think of a creative response to that asinine
suggestion
! I need to go, and you need to let me.”

“Fine,” he said, releasing my upper arm from his grasp. When I was halfway up the stairs, he called after me. “Logan, please think about what I said. Please.”

I just shook my head, not able to focus on him at that moment. I needed to find Jase.

I tore up the stairs to find Garrett still standing on the deck. “Where is he?” I demanded.

“I have no idea,” Garrett said genuinely, and I think he realized what had truly happened between Ethan and me.

“Okay,” I said, closing my eyes and bracing myself.

I ran my hand back through my hair and tried to collect my thoughts. I had no i
dea where Jase would go, but I
would go to his house first, and if he wasn’t there, I’d come up with Plan B.
Garrett watched me the whole time, but he didn’t say anything.
I realized Ethan was standing behind me when Garrett’s gaze went over my shoulder
,
and his head shook infinitesimally.

“He was pissed?” I finally asked
him, needing to clarify what Garrett had
told me.

“
Uh yeah, but
I think he
more
was hurt,” Garrett
said, his gaze coming back to me,
and my heart started to hurt.

Of course he was hurt.
Chloe had put him
through so much shit
because
she’d cheated on him so openly
and repeatedly
. He had major trust issues because of her, and
after he’d finally let me in, he found me doing what he th
ought was the same thing she’d done
. My stomach started aching at the thought of that. The last thing I ever wanted to do was hurt him.

I loved him. I honestly and truly loved him with every part of me. Regardless of his fame and notoriety and the paparazzi and his adoring fans
and the fact that we had to pretend we weren’t together in public and
the
potential
invasion of privacy from the media and all the other drama that came from dating someone like Jase, I loved him. I loved him in spite of all that, and I needed him to
believe
that
, to believe that what happened with Ethan didn’t mean anything
.

Before Garrett or Ethan could say another word, I tore inside, grabbed my keys and my phone off the counter and slammed the front door behind me on my way out. I looked at my phone in the vain hope that I had a missed call or a text message from Jase, but I didn’t. He wouldn’t reach out, and I knew it.

As soon as I was out the front door,
flashbulbs from a lone camera started going off in my face, and I looked up blinking as I tried to get my bearings. I looked up the street to see three other
photogs
running toward me with their gear bouncing against their sides.

“What happened with you and Jason?”
Rodney
asked, as he continued to click off shots of my stunned face. When I didn’t answer, he pressed further. “I saw him tear out of here. Did you get in a fight? Is it over?
Come on, Logan, give me something.”

I focused my gaze on the invasive asshole, as the tears started to burn the back
s
of my eyes. Jase had always told me to ignore the photographers and not to play into their questions. They would try to get under my skin and get me riled up, and the last thing I should do was respond, but in that moment, I just didn’t care.

“Fuck off,” I spat, as I pushed past
Rodney
, elbowing him for good measure.
“I told you, we’re just friends.” But in that moment, I wasn’t sure we were even that anymore.

Without another look back, I flung myself into my car and slammed the door behind me, screeching out of the driveway without even looking behind me to make sure it was clear. I didn’t care. I was fighting so hard to keep the tears at bay, knowing the photographers were firing off shots of me driving away, and it would only be a few minutes before they were chasing me down the street. I needed to get away from them before they followed me. I didn’t need them ending up at
Jase’s
house.

I turned a corner and then another, breaking all kinds of speed records as I drove in a completely wrong direction. I shouldn’t have engaged
Rodney
. I should have ignored him or to
ld him that Jase and I were great and everything was fine
. I knew in telling him off, I’d succeeded in piquing his interest enough that he’d follow me.
People who were just friends didn’t get as upset as I just had.

Dammit!
I slammed my hand against the steering wheel, and then the tears started to fall. I couldn’t hold them back any longer.

With a shaking hand, I instructed my car to call Jase, and after a few seconds, I heard the line ringing. Once, twice, the tears were coming harder now, and I was fighting to keep my focus on the road, three times, a glance in my rearview mirror told me I wasn’t being followed. When I heard the fourth ring, my heart sank. I knew he wasn’t going to answer. His voicemail picked up.

Hey, it’s Jase. Leave a message, and if you’re lucky I’ll call you back.

I was not feeling lucky, and h
is cocky, but jokey greeting felt like a punch to the gut.
I abruptly hung up the phone. I wasn’t going to leave a message. Instead I instructed my phone to call him back. If he wasn’t going to answer, I would just keep calling until he did.

This time the phone rang once, and on the second ring, I was abruptly sent to voicemail, so I knew
he’d sent me there. He wasn’t going to talk to me.

Fine,
I thought, steeling myself and sniffing the tears back. I’d find him, and I’d explain everything. He’d have to know that what he saw wasn’t real.

Twenty minutes later, I pulled into his driveway
only to see Gary coming out
the front door. I threw my car in park, and flew out, not even bothering to turn off the engine. As I barreled toward Gary, I saw the fear in his eyes, but he straightened his spine and brought himself up to his full height, which was the same as mine, but I did notice that he didn’t step off the porch. He just backed up against the wall.

“Where is he?” I demanded, getting right up in Gary’s face. He shrunk further back against the wall. Yeah, he acted like a hard-ass, but he
was a pussy – definitely not a
guy
you
would want next to you in a fight.

“He’s not here,” Gary said, but it wasn’t convincing. He was however, successfully blocking me from the door, so I couldn’t move past him.

“Bullshit,” I said, stepping even closer to him and pressing my finger into his slight chest. “Let me in, Gary.”

“No,” he said firmly. “I can’t do that.”

“Gary, I will kick your ass,” I threatened, and he knew I could deliver on my threat. I probably outweighed him by twenty pounds.

“And I will call the police,” he said matter-of-factly.

I rolled my eyes. “I don’t care. Just let me in. I need to talk to Jase.”

I stepped closer
and pushed Gary at the same time I propelled myself forward to squeeze between him and the door.
When my hand closed around the knob, I twisted
it
and stumbled into the house.

“Jase!”
I screamed, tearing into the main part of the house.
“Jase!”

I ran into his media room, but it was empty. I found the same thing when I looked in his
bed
room and kitchen and the back deck. I tore back to the front hall where Gary stood, leaning against the wall next to the painting
Jase had purchased at
a gallery in San Francisco the day before
, a smug look on his face.

“I told you he wasn’t
here,” Gary said haughtily.

So
I told him the same thing I’d told
Rodney
before I stormed out of my second house of the day.
Not wanting to see him any longer, I got in my car and started driving away from the house as I tried to figure out where I wanted to go next. Jase didn’t have any haunts where he could hide out when he was upset, because he couldn’t hide out in public. I wondered if he’d gone to Freddie’s, and he might have, but I had no idea where Freddie lived, so that wasn’t an option.

So I drove to
Nora’s
apartment near
the UCLA
campus, thinking it was the best place to start
. I knew he hung out there sometimes, and we’d gone over there the week before for dinner.  B
ut I didn’t see his Maserati parked outside, so I didn’t even knock on the door.
I di
dn’t know where his parents or his older sister, Tara, lived, so those
option
s were
also
out.

My last hope was to check
his mom’s
café in Brentwood where
Nora
worked, and I drove there as fast as I could. Nora was behind the counter, and the place was packed, but I didn’t see Jase.

“Logan,” she said warmly when I approached her, but her face fell when she took in my appearance. “What happened? Are you okay?”

“Jase and I got into a fight,” I said, fighting the tears that wanted to fall again.

“Why?!
What happened?”

I shook my head, knowing if I told her, she wouldn’t understand, and even though I didn’t know Nora all that well, I despised the thought of her hating me.

“It was just a big misunderstanding,” I said, my voice shaky as I tried to keep my emotions under control. “Have you seen him? He didn’t come by here, did he?”

She shook her head. “No, he hasn’t been here. Should I tell him to call you if he stops by?”

“Please,” I said gratefully. “Thank you, Nora.”