Gravity Happens (Forcing Gravity) (38 page)

“Yeah, but do you miss me?” I asked her again.

“What do you think?” she asked, and I could see she was losing the battle she was fighting with herself.

I paused. “I think I’m a dickhead who didn’t know what he had
and let it go without thinking.”

She
nodded, her face serious. “I’ll agree with that, but the question is, Ethan, what are you doing here now?”

“Not a clue, except seeing you. That was my only motivation.
I missed you, and the thought of going home and lying in bed wishing you were with me wasn’t enough. I needed to see you.”

“Is this a booty call?”
she asked, eyes narrowed.

I cocked my head to the side, aiming for playful
“Only if you want it to be,” I offered, but really I was joking. I just wanted to hold her in my arms, kiss her if she’d let me, and fall asleep next to her.

She
choked out a laugh, then covered her mouth, and I knew I’d gotten through to her.

“
I totally shouldn’t think that’s cute,” she said, “because I’m so pissed at you, but I guess I have missed your honesty and your sense of humor.”

I
settled into her desk chair, rolling it so my knees were touching the end of her bed.

“I’m sorry, Nora. I was an asshole. Maybe that’s why I came over here. I just wanted you to know that.”

She nodded. “Thank you. I guess it makes me feel a little better after getting dumped so unexpectedly.”

“I’d
never had a girlfriend before you, and although the idea of that label scared me, I liked being with you, calling you my girlfriend. I liked it a lot.”

“I liked being with you too, Ethan. I loved it. That’s why it sucked so bad w
hen you ended things with absolutely no warning.”

“I know,” I said, risin
g to my feet. “And I think I just wanted you to know that I’m sorry.”

I turned to walk toward the door. My hand was on the knob when she stopped me.

“Wait.”

I turned around to see her standing behind me, and before I knew what was happened, she was wrapping her arms around my neck and pulling me down to kiss her. As soon as my lips met hers it felt like coming home
, and I dove in full force, my hands threading through her long, dark hair, anchoring her to me as I walked us toward her bed.

When he
r knees touched the edge, I fell on top of her. Papers crunched beneath us, but if she cared, she didn’t say anything. All she did was wrap her long legs around my waist and kiss me deeper before rolling us so she was on top. Then she stripped off her tank top and her bra and let her gorgeous tits fall free. I immediately closed my mouth around one of her nipples which caused her to moan as her sweet scent assaulted me. My dick twitched in anticipation of what it hoped was coming next. It had been a month since I’d gotten laid, and I was long overdue.

But that wasn’t why I’d gone to Nora’s apartment that night. No, I’d gone to apologize. This was just an added bonus.

I let Nora strip my shirt off, pepper my chest with kisses and slowly grind against me, as my head banged against her laptop that was still balanced precariously on the bed. I let my hands roam down to cup her sweet ass, and she smiled against my chest.

“Can this be a booty
call?” she asked me, looking down at me through her thick, dark lashes.

I looked up
at her in what I knew was lust, but I was starting to think there might be a decent amount of love there too.

“It can definitely be a booty call,” I said, as she reached into her nightstand drawer and dug out two condoms.

“Cool,” was all she said before her mouth descended on mine once again, and she pressed herself against me, giving me a small taste of what was to come.

Chapter Thirty-One

Logan

I didn’t want to go to Vegas,
especially after the incident at the club, but it was Ethan’s birthday, so I was going. Besides, as he’d told me the day before, my mourning period was over. I needed to let Jase go and be okay with it.

But that was harder said that done
, especially after I’d seen him two weeks earlier.

“Are you sure you didn’t w
ant to invite Nora?” I asked Ethan as the plane touched down and we began to taxi to the gate.

I’d caught him a few days before looking at her number on his phone as if he was thinking of calling her, but he never had
as far as I knew. I was honestly surprised he still had her number.

“No,” he said, shaking his head, not providing any more explanation than he had when I’d asked him the first time.

I wondered if he was regretting his decision to break up with her, but he wouldn’t tell me anything, so I didn’t know.

“Did you want to invite Jase?”
he asked sarcastically, so I glared at him.

I’d told him about Jase’s rescue when the pictures of me getting into his car surfaced on the Internet the next day, and he hadn’t been happy about it. I think he was relieved that I hadn’t been assaulted by the paparazzi, but he was pissed that it had be
en Jase who’d been there for me. And it didn’t help that I told him Jase asked me to take him back – probably because he could see in my eyes that it was what I wanted. If only I could get past the whole ‘him sleeping with his ex’ issue, which I knew I couldn’t.

Okay, no, I wasn’t going to do that. I was going
to stop obsessing and just get over him already, because I could not change the past.
Enough!

I vowed then and there that the weekend would be about me doing just that, a
nd if that meant getting sloppy drunk to numb the pain and simply blocking him out, so be it.

I reached for Ethan’s hand that was on the armrest between us and squeezed it. “This is going to be a really fun weekend.”

He grinned at me, his blond hair falling forward into his bright blue eyes. I reached out and tucked a lock behind his ear, then I leaned forward and kissed his cheek.

* * *

“Another!” Ethan called out, and his brother handed him a shot of Patron.

I giggled and swayed on my feet, wondering why I felt compelled to wear heels. I hated heels, and even though I’d become a little more adept at walking in them due to having to learn to be graceful on red carpets and not embarrass Jase
, at least for the brief moment in time when I’d been walking red carpets with him, I still didn’t enjoy wearing heels.

“Shit,” I cursed. “Pour me another.”

Ethan turned to me. “You thought of him again? Psshh. You suck, Lo.”

I shrugged and then tipped the shot back. It was my sixth? My seventh? I’d lost count, and then I lost my balance and fell into Ellie.

“Whoa, girl, are you okay?”

I pouted. “I hate heels. And I hate Jase. I’m drunk because of him.”

I was playing the Jase Brady drinking game, which was my own private game that only I was playing, because I guaranteed I was the only one thinking about him. I made the decision to play when I got hit with the first stab of pain in my chest when we walked into Mandalay Bay, and I remembered Jase telling me that was where he’d celebrated his eighteenth birthday. From then on, I had to take a shot every time I thought of stupid Jase. I’d let Ethan in on my game, and that had been a dumb idea.

But thinking about Jase was even dumber, because now that I’d officially rejected him, he was
probably shacked up with Chloe. I could just picture them running around naked and being famous and having sex in every room of his stupid house. And he was probably loving that she was
so
much more experienced than me. I hated her. She was a slut, and I hoped she got pregnant.

I clamped my hand over my mouth. Okay, I did not wish that, because if she got pregnant, then she would be having Jase’s baby, and it wasn’t like
I
wanted to have his baby. Hell no. I was only eighteen, but I didn’t want
her
to have his baby.

Ethan chose that moment, as I was pouting and seriously inside my head, to place another shot in front of me
, because he knew I was thinking of Jase – again! I glared at Ethan but slammed the shot back anyway. Then I grabbed him by the back of the head and kissed him hard on the mouth. I had no idea what came over me in that moment, but I suddenly wanted to kiss him, so I did.

“Whoo-hoo, Logan!” someone called out, probably one of Ethan’s friends.

Hunter and TJ were with us, and I couldn’t really decipher their voices when Ethan was suddenly responding and shoving his tongue in my mouth. All I could think was that I really liked it, and I wondered why I hadn’t kissed him before. I dug my hands into his hair, as his hands went around my waist, and he pulled my body flush against his.

“Oh shit. What the hell is this?”

That was Garrett. I’d recognize his voice anywhere.

I broke away from Ethan and turned to face Garrett, and as I did, Ethan’s arms swooped around my waist and pulled me back against his rock hard chest. I settled comfortably there, wondering what was next on our list of
fun things to do to celebrate his birthday. It was well past midnight. We’d already had dinner, gambled a little – I’d lost ten dollars – and now we were camped out at the hotel bar.

Maybe we could go dancing! Yeah, that would be totally fun.

Garrett was glaring at me, so I chose not to ask him. He’d been a little crabby all night, and I personally felt like maybe if he and Ellie snuck off and had some sex, he might be a little more fun. I knew they were missing each other since he’d been off in Maine filming the second
Earthbound
movie for the past two weeks and had flown to Vegas solely for Ethan’s birthday weekend, which was why Ellie was with us. So maybe he just needed to get some already.

I spun in Ethan’s arms, and he looked down at me in a drunken haze. He’d had a lot of shots, because it was his birthday, so everyone was giving him drinks.
But because of my game, I’d had a lot of shots too.

“We should totally go dancing!” I told him, and he started to grind against me, so I threw my head back and laughed. Then I came back to center, planted my hands on either side of his adorable face and kissed him again.

“Dancing!” Hunter shouted, and I pulled away from Ethan to look over at him. He had a beautiful blond in a really small dress clinging to him.

I narrow
ed my eyes at him. “Hunter?”

“Yeah,” he responded
, as the girl sucked on his ear.

“Who is that?”

He shrugged, then he turned to the girl. “What’s your name?”

“
Melissa,” she said, rolling her eyes, and I had a feeling she’d told him a few times. When exactly he’d picked her up, I wasn’t sure.

He turned back to me then.
“That’s Melissa,” he said, grinning at me.

I grinned back. “
Melissa, do you want to go dancing?”

“Sure,” she said, as she scooted ever closer to him and rubbed against his thigh. He grinned like a kid at C
hristmas, no doubt knowing he’d be getting some later.

Next to him, TJ was making out with a brunette who I guessed was probably
Melissa’s friend. I noticed they tended to hook up with sisters or friends a lot, and one time they had an absolute field day with a set of twins.

“TJ!” Ethan shouted.

“Yeah!” he said, coming up for air. He had the brunette’s red lipstick all over his mouth.

“We’re going to Tao. Come on.”

“Tao?” I asked, turning to Ethan.

He
nodded. “Best club on the strip.”

“Okay.” Then I turned to Garrett and Ellie. “Are you guys coming?”

Ellie was a little drunker than Garrett, so she answered for them. “Right behind you, sweetheart.”

“Great, let’s go,” I said, as we trudged outside to the limo Garrett had hired for the night. He was such a good big brother.

Ethan pulled me onto his lap for the short ride to the Venetian, so I turned and kissed him again, wondering why I wasn’t grossed out kissing my best friend. It wasn’t at all like when I’d kissed Garrett. That had been like kissing my brother, and I’d thought kissing Ethan would be the same, but it really wasn’t.

I
suddenly pulled away from him and tuned toward Garrett and Ellie. He was whispering to her, making her smile, and she was half-draped over his lap.

“Gare,” I called out to him as Ethan’s hand slid up my thigh. I pushed it away, wondering why he thought that was an acceptable thing to do.

“Yeah,” he said, looking up at me. Ellie suddenly pulled her hand back, and I realized where it had been. And that made me giggle.

“I think your brother is a better kisser than you.”

As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I watched Garrett’s eyes go wide, and behind me I felt Ethan stiffen. Then his grip around my waist tightened.