“I’m okay, Jase.”
He breathed out a breath I didn’t know he was holding. “You called me Jase.”
I ran my thumb back and forth along the side of his palm. “It’s your name.”
“It’s just good to hear you use it.”
I smiled and wrapped my arms around him, leaning my head against his chest. I needed to feel his warmth and comfort in that moment, two things I always felt when I was around him.
“Do you want some breakfast?” he asked when I sat back up.
I nodded, remember how amazing his breakfast cooking skills were. “But I think I’d like to take a bath first. Is that alright?”
“Of course,” he said. “I’ll just give you some privacy.”
With that, he got up and walked to the doorway, and I felt incredibly empty all of sudden. I had to remind myself that he wasn’t going far, but I realized in that instant just how much I’d missed him. I’d cut him out of my life because of what I thought he’d done, and now that I knew the truth, I didn’t want to let him go again. I hoped he wanted the same thing.
When Jase left me alone, I slipped into his huge bathroom and stripped out of his t-shirt and boxers. Then I forced myself to stand in front of the mirror and look at myself. There didn’t seem to be many physical marks from Carter’s attack, but my wrists were sore and from where he’d gripped them so hard, and I had faint bruises. I rotated them around a few times. My right knee was skinned from where I’d fallen in the grass, but other than that, I looked normal. I couldn’t find any traces of dirt on me, and I wondered how much Jase had to do with that.
He’d taken the time to wipe away any the traces of the incident that he could, and he’d dressed me in fresh clothes. Just the thought of him being so sincere and so caring caused tears to form in my eyes again, but I brushed them away quickly, not wanting to cry, not wanting to be a victim.
I started the water for the bath, getting it as hot as it would go. All I wanted was to wash away any traces of Carter’s hands and mouth, and in that moment, I could feel him all over my body. My skin was crawling.
As I sat in the tub, the relief I felt for Jase rescuing me and the vulnerability I’d felt when I was pinned beneath Carter and the loathing I felt for him in general all collided, and my eyes filled up immediately. I knew it would be healthy to cry, so I let the tears stream down my face in rivers until I couldn’t cry anymore. Then I washed my hair and body with the Keihls products that lined the huge garden tub. And when I got out, I felt a million times better as I wrapped myself in a fluffy white robe and went back out into the bedroom.
Sitting on the bed were two shopping bags from Neiman Marcus and one from Sephora. The note next to them said, Get dressed and meet me on the back porch. – J
Inside the Neiman Marcus bags I found three different styles and colors of panties, three matching bras, two pairs of jeans, three t-shirts and three sweaters. There was also a pair of brown riding boots and a pair of Converse sneakers. The clothes were all designer brands with price tags I didn’t want to look at. In the Sephora bag I found an array of designer toiletries and lotions and hair products – most of which I wasn’t sure how to use. I shook my head and smiled at Jase’s thoughtfulness, even if it was a bit excessive.
Then I changed into a pair of bootcut jeans, threw on one of the softest t-shirts I’d ever felt and one of the cashmere sweaters, knowing it would be chilly outside. I used one of the hair products that was supposed to soften curly hair, took the time to semi-dry my hair and used one of the five moisturizers Jase had left before heading outside to meet him.
“What did you do, go shopping while I was taking a bath?” I asked in disbelief when I emerged outside to find Jase sitting at an outdoor table reading the newspaper and drinking coffee from The Coffee Bean.
He grinned, and I sat down across from him. He pushed a to go cup toward me. “I got you a crème brulee coffee,” he said. “It’s my sister, Nora’s, favorite, so I took a chance, thinking you might like it too.”
“I’ve never had it,” I said, as I took a liberal sip. It was delicious. “Yum. Thank you.”
I smiled at Jase, and a rare grin lit up his face. “I’m glad you like it, and to answer your question, no, I didn’t go shopping, but Gary did.” He looked sheepish as he said that.
“Well tell him I said he has excellent taste,” I said, taking another sip of coffee. “But you didn’t have to do that.”
“I know,” he said, taking a thoughtful sip of coffee. “But I wanted to. Are you doing okay?”
I sighed and nodded. “I am. I’m just a little freaked out, but I’ll be okay. I’m just so grateful that you were there, Jase. If you hadn’t come after me, I – I don’t know what might have happened.”
I watched Jase’s jaw tighten, and I could guess what he was thinking. He knew as well as I did what would have happened if he hadn’t found me.
“I’m glad I was there,” was all he said, and then he looked down at his phone. It had buzzed with a message. He got up from the table and went inside, but he left his coffee, so I knew he’d be back.
I looked up into the bright mid-morning sun as the cool air swirled around me. It felt like fall, and I hugged myself as I breathed in the clean, crisp air. We didn’t get weather like that back home.
Jase returned a few minutes later with a large bag of food from Griddle Café.
“Did you have Gary get breakfast, too?” I asked, as he set the bag on the table.
He smiled his secret smile at me. “Maybe.”
He started pulling out containers of food, and I realized I was famished.
“You’d better pay him well for to him to run all your errands on a Saturday,” I chastised.
“I pay him very well,” Jase said, and I knew he wasn’t kidding.
We ate in relative silence, but Jase watched me as I savored the taste of the pancakes, eggs, and bacon. He seemed concerned, but he didn’t say anything.
“I’m fine,” I insisted, and he just looked thoughtfully at me for a few seconds. “I’m tougher than I look.”
And I was. As I’d mulled over what had happened and how weak I’d felt, I just got more and more pissed off. I wanted to hunt Carter down and kick him repeatedly in the balls or hold him down and tattoo ‘Rapist’ on his forehead. I wasn’t about to take what he’d done lying down, and as much as he wanted to, I wasn’t going to let Jase baby me, or Ethan for that matter. I’d had my pity party in the tub, but now I just wanted to be thankful that I was fortunate enough to have two people in my life who cared about me so much and just move forward.
“I should call Ethan,” I said, when I finished my last bite and pushed my plate away.
“He called a few times while you were sleeping and once when you were taking a bath,” Jase said. “I told him you were fine, and you’d give him a call this morning, but you might want to call him before he calls again. I think he’s afraid I’ve kidnapped you.”
I wondered when exactly Jase and Ethan had exchanged phone numbers.
“He still doesn’t trust you, does he?”
Jase shrugged. “I think he’s hated me for so long that it’ll take a while for him to come around, but I don’t think he has the same opinion of me anymore.”
“I’m glad. Thanks for being understanding.”
What I really meant was thanks for being nice to Ethan. He was overprotective as hell, but he was like a brother to me. I wanted them to get along. I wasn’t sure what Jase and I were, but I knew we were friends at the very least, so I wanted Ethan to like him.
“Just so we’re clear,” Jase said, and I could see the apprehension in his eyes, “you believe what I said, right? That I wasn’t involved in what happened to Amanda?”
“To be honest,” I said slowly, “I had a hard time believing it in the first place, but Ethan wouldn’t lie about something like that, so I had no choice but to believe him.”
“I think Carter had him, and a lot of other people, believing I was
involved when I wasn’t.”
“He was the guy who named you, wasn’t he?”
Jase nodded. “Yeah, I think he was. I didn’t realize it until last night. I thought it was someone else, but I knew how pissed he was that I’d been talking to Amanda in her room. He’d always thought something was going on between us, and I think by adding my name to the list of guys who attacked her was his way of saying ‘fuck you’.”
“Did he rape her too?” I asked, wanting to confirm what I’d started to wonder.
“I don’t know,” Jase said. “But after last night, it wouldn’t surprise me. I’m pretty sure now Owen was involved too, even though he swore for years he wasn’t.”
“I hate them,” I said sincerely.
“Me too,” Jase agreed. “Carter especially, and more now than before. That was honestly the worst time in my life, and to know that it was him that put me through it, I don’t know, I mean, who does that?”
“Amanda knows you weren’t involved, right? I mean, I know she didn’t remember what happened, but does she know you weren’t one of the guys?”
Jase sighed. “At first she thought I was involved, because I’d been arrested. She’d also been drugged that night, so she had to rely on fuzzy memories, and the fact that I’d been in her room right before it happened didn’t help. But then she started to remember bits and pieces from the night, and she remembered me leaving her room. She also had some recollection of the other guys, but they were just flashes of memories, nothing concrete. She’s still not sure what exactly happened to her, but yeah, she knows I wasn’t involved.”
My stomached churned at that thought of what she’d gone through, and I knew what happened to her easily could have happened to me. Maybe I wasn’t quite as over it as I wanted to be. “Is she doing okay now?”
Jase nodded. “She’s alright. She’s a sophomore at Berkley, and I talk to her every now and then. Her family moved to Seattle soon after it happened, but we kept in touch. We were good friends for a few years. I wanted to be sure she was okay. For years I felt guilty that I hadn’t stopped it from happening, but I realize now that I couldn’t have done anything, especially if Carter was involved. He was her boyfriend. She trusted him.”
“You’re a good friend,” I said, thinking how lucky Amanda was to have Jase, and how lucky I was to know him. “So how come no one ever found out. How come your name never got out and what happened wasn’t leaked to the press?”
I was shocked that with all the technology in today’s world that no one had ever linked him to that night. I knew he was incredibly lucky nothing had hit the media, but I remembered him saying his parents had worked to have what happened covered up.
Jase shook his head, as if remembering something unpleasant. “We were all minors, so our names were never released, and a lot of students were brought in for questioning about the rape, so it wasn’t easy to determine who was named. Charges we never officially filed against me, and our lawyer did some things to make sure someone would have to look pretty hard and dig pretty deep to find my name linked to what happened.”
“Jesus,” I hissed, knowing something like that could have killed his career if the media had gotten ahold of it. “Ethan told me two guys were charged with her rape. What happened to them?”
Jase looked pained as he answered me. “They’re still in jail from what I understand. They were tried as adults and given the maximum sentence. There was a lot of outrage in the community about what happened to Amanda, so people wanted to see them punished.”
“I can’t believe Carter got away with it,” I said, shaking my head.
“I’m sure he’ll get what’s coming to him one of these days,” Jase said thoughtfully, and I hoped he was right.
“You didn’t like seeing me with him,” I recalled. “I just thought you were jealous.”
He shook his head. “I’ll admit, I wasn’t a big fan of seeing you with him, but I was more concerned. It’s why I kept an eye on you. He was never the most upstanding of guys, so I wanted to be sure you were okay.”
“I’m so glad you did, but how did you even know I needed your help?”
He shook his head and fisted his hands. “When Owen approached me about joining them, he made it sound like it was going to be an orgy, but no matter how he sold it, I knew multiple guys wasn’t something you’d be into. I knew they were up to something shady, so I agreed to go with him. I never thought I’d walk in on what I did, and I’ve never been so glad I did something in my life.”
He shook his head a few times, as if trying to push the memory away.
“Logan, I knew you were upset with me and had this image of me in your head, but at that point, I just didn’t care. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to kill someone as much as I wanted to kill Carter Jackson in the instant I saw him with you, and only because I wanted to get you out of there did I not beat him within an inch of his life.”
Hearing the conviction in his voice, I wanted so badly to walk around the table and slide into Jase’s lap, curl myself around him and get lost in the safeness and security I felt with him, but after everything that happened between us, and how I’d treated him, I wasn’t sure it would be welcome. Sure, he’d come to my rescue, and he obviously cared about me, but it didn’t mean he forgave me for pushing him away.
“Thank you,” I said instead. “I don’t know how I can ever repay you for what you did, Jase. I just – shit.” Tears pricked the backs of my eyes again, but I fought them back, not wanting to cry in front of him. “Just, thank you.”
“I’d do it again in a heartbeat,” he said sincerely.
I leaned my head against the back of the chair and let out a long, slow breath, pushing the tears away. “I just wish the whole thing had never happened.” I lifted my head to find him still watching me. “Can I use your phone? I want to call Ethan.”
“Sure,” he said, taking it from his pocket. He slid it across the table to me, and I went inside to call my best friend.
“God dammit, Lo, where are you?” Ethan hissed as soon as he realized it was me and not Jase.
“Relax, I’m at Jase’s house. You know that, E.”
I settled onto Jase’s cream-colored couch, getting lost in the marshmallow feel of the cushions.
“I’m not going to fucking relax,” Ethan growled. “Not after last night. Are you okay?”
“Yes,” I said definitively. “I’m fine, and we’re not talking about it again. Nothing happened. But please tell me you kicked Carter’s ass.”
Ethan let out a long sigh, and I knew he wasn’t going to move on from this very easily.
“By the time I left him writhing on the floor, he had a busted lip, the beginnings of two black eyes, a broken nose and several cuts on his ugly-ass face,” he deadpanned. “I think I broke some of his ribs too.”
I rolled my eyes. “Oh, come on, Ethan. I know that makes you happy. At least get a little excited that Mr. Abercrombie will be out of work for a while, and maybe you even did some permanent damage to his pretty face.”
“I guess,” he said, “but it won’t ever be enough.”
“Did you at least kick him in the balls for me?”
“Several times,” Ethan said firmly. “And I made sure to remind him each time that it was for you, and that if I ever heard of him touching another girl against her will again, I would sever his nuts.”
Holy crap! Ethan wasn’t messing around.
“Yeah, and then I called the cops and told them Carter was serving minors, and they showed up as we were leaving, and I’m pretty sure his ass spent the night in jail.”
“Thank you for doing that. Really. It means a lot to me.”
“You mean a lot to me,” he countered. “I’m so fucking pissed off at him. I just wish I could erase what he did to you.”
Yeah, me too.
“Ethan. I. Am. Fine. Seriously,” I insisted, working to convince him, as well as myself. “I made a shitty decision, and I have to live with that, but hey, lesson l
earned. That is the last time I hang out alone with a guy I barely know.”
“You should apply that advice to who you’re currently with,” he mumbled.
“Ethan,” I cautioned. “I know Jase, pretty well, and I trust him. I need you to trust him, too. He’s not going to hurt me.”
“He’d better not,” Ethan grumbled.
“If he does, you have my permission to use your right hook on him, okay?”
“Don’t joke, Logan. I will kill anyone who hurts you, and that includes pretty-boy actors. I don’t care how famous he is.”
“Well neither do I,” I countered. Most of the time I forgot Jase was famous. That was his work life. It had nothing to do with the guy I knew. Well, maybe it did. The fact that he had enough pull to get Neiman Marcus and Sephora to allow his assistant to come shopping before they even opened for the day spoke to his status. “Jase is a good guy – bottom line.”
“Fine,” Ethan said, and I could tell he didn’t want to talk about Jase anymore. “I have to meet with my project team for my ethics class. Call me later, okay? I’ll stop by and give you your phone.”
“I’ll call you when I get home,” I promised and shook my head as I hung up the phone. I saw movement out of the corner of my eye and turned to see Jase standing in the doorway to the living room.
“Do you want me to take you home?” he asked, and I was pretty sure I detected disappointment in his tone.
I shook my head. “Not yet. Do you mind if I stay a little longer?”
I had no idea what his plans were for the day, but I felt so safe and secure with him that I didn’t want to go. The last thing I wanted was to be alone in my dorm room. It was so cold and stark. Something about Jase and his house just made me warm.
“You can stay as long as you’d like,” he said, crossing the living room to sit next to me.
I wrapped my arms around his waist and hugged him. “Thank you.”
When he put his arm around my shoulder and pulled me close, I felt like I never wanted to leave.
-19-
I ended up staying at Jase’s the rest of the weekend, but on Monday, I had to go back to school, and he was headed to London for the week to promote Radio Riot, which was premiering there on Friday.
Forcing Gravity Page 24
