Gravity Happens (Forcing Gravity) (18 page)

He looked at me in mock-disbelief. “I don’t love
this
,” he said, gesturing to the bed with his head.

I rolled my eyes playfully. “You love acting. It’s fine. Don’t get all in
side your head. You have to get in character in about two minutes, and I want you to do this scene in one take, so you’d better be on your game, mister.”

He smiled
then leaned forward and kissed my lips. “I love you,” he said against them.

“I’m not kidding, one take,” I said
earnestly, and he laughed.

“Jase
, you ready?” someone called out, and he pulled away from me.

He pointed to a chair in the corner, out of the way, where
Charlie was sitting. “You can watch from over there, okay?”

I smiled. “Break a leg,” I said cheerfully and smacked him playfully on his leather covered ass.

“Damn,” he said, as I walked away. “That was hot.”

I
turned around and shrugged. “Yeah, well, I figured it fit the scene.”

He was smirking at me when Chloe walked over to him.

“Could you try to be professional?” she snapped at him.

“Could you try not to be a total bitch?” he snapped back and then walked over to the director as I settled into the chair next to Charlie.

Sloane slid in on his other side. “I told you he wasn’t friendly to her,” she said and winked at me.

I smiled as
the director said, “Places”, and then once everyone was on their marks, “Action!”

I watched as Jase slid seamlessly into Griffin who was enamored with Chloe’s character, Serena, and you never would have know
n how much he detested her as he stroked her cheek, pulled her body flush against his and kissed her.

I decided I would not be kissing him until he brushed his teeth. Yes, I realize that was bitchy, but I didn’t want her taste on him when I kissed him. I wanted only him.

“You okay?” Sloane whispered once the director called cut for the tenth time.

I’d been okay watc
hing the graphic scene the first few times – or as okay as I could have been – but now I was starting to get uncomfortable. And Jase was getting pissed. Chloe kept flubbing her lines right at the end of the scene so they had to start all over, and I knew it was just to irritate me and Jase.

But it was her reactions to him that were really getting to me. She was laying the acting on thick with her moans and cries and facial expressions. If I didn’t know better, I would have really believed she was orgasming. Jase’s character was a
little bit of a dirty talker, and he normally wasn’t, so that was probably the only thing holding me together. He didn’t look like himself, and he didn’t sound like himself. I was grateful for that.

I looked up as he
walked over to the director and voiced his aggravation right before Chloe came up behind him and started to defend herself. Finally the director put his hands up.

“Enough! Chloe, get your lines figured out. We have three more scenes to shoot this afternoon, and I don’t need this bullshit. This isn’t
fucking Shakespeare!”

With that he turned and walked back to his chair.

“Geez,” Sloane whispered to Charlie and me. “I get that I’m not getting a Pulitzer for this book, but come on, don’t insult me. I’m actually pretty good at the dialogue.”

“I thought it was incredibly witty,” I told her, and she beamed at me.

Twenty minutes and two takes later, the director was finally satisfied. I was relieved when he yelled, “Cut! Print! Alright people, we have ten minutes to start filming the scene in the kitchen. Let’s move!”

Jase pulled away from the embrace he had Chloe in
, wrapped a robe around his mostly naked body, and stalked over to me, agitation written all over his face.

“This is bullshit,” he cursed.

“Maybe I should just go to the hotel,” I offered, and he looked up at me in alarm.

“No! No way. You’re not doing that.”

“But Jase, she’s baiting you and messing up her lines to prolong the scene and piss me off. My being here isn’t helping things.”

He shook his head. “I know she is, but I don’t care. You’re staying.”

“Okay, fine,” I said, not sure it was the best decision, but if it was what he wanted, I was fine with it.

“Jase?” We looked up to see Lelani, his hair and make-up girl standing in the doorway. She waved to me. “I need to touch you
r make-up up, come here.”

“Come on,” Jase said, taking my hand to pull me out of the chair.
Then he smiled at me. “Come see me get pretty.”

“You’re already pretty, and you know it,” I teased, and he smiled at me. I was glad to see he was in a better mood already.

* * *

That night Jase, Charlie, Sloane and I ventured
out into the French Quarter to grab dinner. We settled in at a table in the back of Crescent City Brewing Company, since after the day we had on set, none of us were in the mood to dress up and go somewhere that would take a long time. Jase tried to talk me into going somewhere nice, and as much as I appreciated him being romantic, I sort of just wanted to relax.

“So, you’re a model?” Sloane asked, when the waitress brought
us our beers.

I laughed out loud and took a sip of my drink. “Uh, not hardly. I just filled in for an afternoon. I’m interning at 57 Jeans, I was there, they needed someone. It was a matter of convenience.”

Jase put his arm around me and pulled me against him. “Don’t let her fool you. She looked amazing in the pictures. I’m not sure how I’m going to love my sexy girlfriend on a billboard in L.A. for everyone to ogle, but I’m trying to be okay with it.”

“Like she’s trying to be okay with you full-frontal nude on the big screen?” Sloane asked, and Jase chuckled.

“Yeah, something like that.”

“Full front
al?” I asked, turning to look at him.

He met my gaze. “Um, yeah, you knew that, right?”

My eyes got wide as my stomach started to churn. “No, you didn’t tell me about that. Definitely not.”

“Oh,” he said, looking guilty and distressed
at the same time. “I thought I did. It was a rewrite they did a few weeks ago.” He looked away for a second and took a long pull of his beer. “The director added a scene. I walk in, you see my junk, that’s pretty much it.”

“Pretty much it?”
I questioned, fighting the urge to lash out at him for keeping something so monumental from me.

I looked up at
Sloane and Charlie who were pensively watching us, wondering if we were about to get into a fight, and I was trying really hard not to let that happen.

Jase opened his mouth to say something when two girls about my age approached him. The one nudged her friend who started talking.

“Excuse me, but you’re Jason Brady, right?” she asked, tossing her long brown hair over her shoulder in what I assumed was supposed to be a sexy, confident way.

Jase tightened his arm around my shoulder and flashed his movie-star smile at them. “I am.”

The girl smiled brightly. “Oh, my God. That is so cool. We love you. You’re so hot. Can we have your autograph?”

Beside her, her friend, who seemed to be a bit shy just nodded vigorously, her eyes wide.

“Sure,” Jase said, as he removed his arm from my shoulders and took the proffered piece of paper the girl was holding out to him. He looked up at her in question. “What’s your name?”

“Stephanie,” she said confidently, chancing a brief, dismissing glance at me. Then she gestured to her friend. “This is Britney.”

The girl’s friend silently handed Jase a piece of paper. “Thank you,” she said softly.

Jase scrawled his usual message and signature on the pieces of paper and handed them back to the girls with a smile. “Here you go.”

The dark-haired girl smiled widely at him. “Thank you, Jason,” she gushed. “And you know, just in case you want someone to keep you company while you’re all alone shooting in New Orleans, here’s my number. I live nearby.”

“Stephanie!” her friend exclaimed under her breath, but Stephanie just
glared at her and shook her head, silently telling her to shut up.

Her friend looked at me apologetically, and I just shook my head, fighting the u
rge to reach over and smack the brazen bitch. I’d like to say it was the first time Jase had been hit on in front of me, but it wasn’t. People had no shame when they wanted a piece of him.

Jase didn’t take the piece of paper
with the girl’s number on it, and his face took on a stony appearance. I knew he was fighting the urge to tell her exactly what he thought of her request, but he was trying not to make a scene. Andrea, his publicist would kill him if he told off a fan, no matter how much it would have been deserved.

“No thanks. I’m here with my girlfriend,” he said, putting his arm around me
and squeezing my shoulder tight.

The girl smiled at him in a wicked sort of way. “Yeah, but she won’t be by your side every night, and I know how lonely it can get in a hotel room
, in a strange city. I’m just saying I can make it a little less lonely.”

“No thanks,” Jase said, but Stephanie just shrugged and dropped her number on the table.

She and her friend turned away, and she looked back over her shoulder. “I look forward to hearing from you,” she said.

I heard her friend hiss at her, “I cannot believe you did that. His girlfriend was sitting right there.”

Stephanie shrugged. “Everyone knows movie stars aren’t faithful.” She said something else then, but I couldn’t hear her.

“Holy crap, that bitch was bold,” Sloane said then, and I just took a small sip of my drink.

Jase’s mouth was suddenly at my ear. “I love you,” he told me, his lips brushing my earlobe.

“I know,” I said and took
a bigger gulp of my drink.

“I’d never call her,” he insisted. “You know that, right?”

I looked over at him. “Yes, Jase, I know that,” I said, the aggravation I was feeling in that moment coming through in my tone.

“Then why are you pissed?”

I shrugged.

“Logan, what’s wrong?”
he insisted.

I shook my head, not wanting to make waves or cause an argument.

“Tell me,” he urged. “Please.”

It was the desperation in his voice that made me cave.

“I just wish they wouldn’t do that,” I said quietly, hating how insecure I suddenly felt.

“I know,” he said, sounding defeated. “But Andrea would be pissed if I blew off my fans. I don’t want to be that guy.”

“Who?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at him. “The guy who can go out to a meal with his friends and not get interrupted ten times? That guy?”

His
face scrunched up in irritation. “No, the asshole guy who is too good to interact with people who just want to meet him. I owe my career to my fans. I don’t want to shut them out.”

“Yes, but there’s a time and a place for that. Andrea set up meet and greets for your
fans while you’re in the city. You’re not shutting them out completely.”

“
It’s not that simple, Logan,” he said, sounding frustrated, and I wasn’t sure what the big deal was. Did he like girls hitting on him? No, I knew he didn’t.

“Jase, I can keep them away,” Charlie offered
then, and Jase ran his hand back through his hair.

“There,” I said, gesturing to Charlie. “Great solution.”

“You don’t have to do that, man,” Jase said, sounding agitated. “I don’t need a bodyguard to keep away girls who don’t know when they’re crossing a line.”

“Uh,
she knew,” I mumbled, and Jase shot me a look. I took his hand. “Jase, that’s sort of exactly what you need him for. You know some of your fans can get as crazy as the paparazzi.”

Jase looked pensive.

“I’ve got it, man,” Charlie offered. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll let them say hi, but I have no trouble escorting out anyone who takes things too far, you hear me?”

I was glad Charlie was being tough with him. Jase needed it. As much as he wanted to just be a normal guy, he wasn’t, and he couldn’t be when he went out in public.

“Fine, do it if you need to,” Jase consented.

“Happily,” Charlie said, grinning at me. I returned his smile.

“Damn, I’m loving the drama with you guys,” Sloane said then, and we looked at her in question. “I need new material for my next book, and I think I might have something just from all the craziness that follows this one around.” She gestured to Jase with her thumb.

“I’m not dramatic,” he said, smiling for the first time in a few minutes.

Charlie, Sloane and I laughed.

“What?” Jase questioned. “I’m as low key as I can get
considering my job.”

I leaned up and kissed his cheek. “Baby, you’re not dramatic, but a lot of people around you seem to be.”