Okay, that was a lie. I’d thought about her once after the party when I’d jerked off later that night, because I couldn’t get her out of my head, but then I’d been so disgusted with myself that I’d promptly forgotten about her. Until now, when she was invading my thoughts and my vision once again.
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” she challenged.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at her. This girl was cryptic as hell.
The sushi guy chose that moment to place my rolls in front of me, and Nora looked up in surprise. “That’s all for you?”
I shrugged as I popped a piece of a spicy yellow tail roll in my mouth. “Yesh,” I said around my food, aiming for endearing.
Her eyes drifted down to my stomach that I think she knew was ripped. I surfed a lot, and I ran and lifted weights. It was the only way I could eat and drink as much as I wanted and not let my body go to shit. It was a fine balance I’d perfected.
Nora then leaned over me and snagged a spicy tuna roll piece, dipping it in soy sauce before popping it into her mouth. I couldn’t help but stare at her sleek throat as she chewed and swallowed. She made the simple act look incredibly sexy.
She then sat back and looked at me with a smug expression on her face. “Teach me how to surf,” she commanded.
“Excuse me?” She changed conversational gears like the friggin’ wind.
Then she leaned forward with her elbows on her knees. “When we talked at the party, you told me you’d teach me how to surf. I want to learn. Will you teach me?”
I was sure my eyes glazed over at the idea of seeing her in a bikini. “Sure.”
She smiled and hopped off her stool, but I wasn’t ready for her to leave.
“Great. I’ll come by your place tomorrow. When do you have class?”
“I’ll be home by three,” I answered, fighting the urge to ask her to stay, but she probably wanted to get back to her friends.
“I’ll be there,” she said, and then she leaned forward and pressed her lips to my cheek. She smelled like candy, and I desperately wanted a taste. She pulled back too soon. “See you tomorrow, Ethan.”
I realized as she was walking away that she was still wearing my hat.
“Hey,” I called out, and she turned around with this sexy expectant look on her face.
“Yeah?”
“Can I have my hat back?”
“No,” she said, and then she walked away.
Holy shit. This girl had me by the balls already.
Chapter Seven
Logan
“Do you really have to go?” I whined, feeling like I was going to cry.
Jase leaned forward and kissed me on the nose. “Yes, I do, and it sucks, because I don’t want to leave you.”
I let out a heavy sigh. “How many hours do we have?”
I was skipping class to hang out with him until he had to leave for the airport. We were lounging on the outdoor cushions he had on his back porch, sipping lattes and eating donuts his assistant Gary had dropped off that morning along with Jase’s dry cleaning. I still hadn’t gotten used to the fact that he had an assistant. It was weird.
“Four,” he said, as I pouted.
“Come here,” he said, opening his arms and pulling me into them where he promptly rained my face with kisses.
I sighed and leaned my head against his chest, hating how pathetic and needy I sounded.
“I’ll be back in two weeks,” he promised.
Yeah, he was coming back for the Oscars, which meant it would be another whirlwind event that would fly by too fast. But at least I would get to see him, and at this point, I’d take what I could get because having him in New Orleans, two thousand miles away, was going to suck.
“It’s going to be a long two weeks.”
“Nah,” he said confidently. “It’ll be fine. You’ll hang out with Ethan and Garrett and Nora, and even Henley. Plus, you’ll be so busy with classes that you won’t even realize I’m gone.”
“I guess. And I do have my internship at 57 Jeans, so that’ll take up at least two days a week.”
A few weeks earlier while I was at dinner with Nora, I’d started talking to her about possibly finding an internship. I needed something to occupy my time, since I was getting a little stir crazy just going to school. And now with Jase halfway across the country for six weeks, I knew I’d feel the void even more if I didn’t have a jammed packed schedule. When she told me that 57 Jeans, the company she had a modeling contract with, was looking for a marketing intern, I was intrigued.
She’d hooked me up with an interview with Jeremy Frazier, who was second in command in the marketing department, and who practically offered me the internship on the spot. I’d like to think that it was due to my sparkling personality and intelligence, but I was pretty sure he was more impressed with who I was dating. He’d asked a lot of questions about Jase.
But I’d gotten the job, and it wasn’t like it would be hard. I’d be working in the office two days a week, and then I’d be helping out at a few photo shoots and runway shows they had coming up in the spring. It wasn’t like they needed a genius to do the job.
I probably should have been offended that I was favored because of who I associated with, but truthfully, if it hadn’t been for Nora, I never would have gotten the interview in the first place. I’d learned over the years that sometimes, it really was about who you knew, and if I was going to live and work in L.A. and date a celebrity, well, I probably needed to be okay with being given things for nothing – like the t-shirt I was wearing. Jase’s publicist had brought over two bags of clothes the day before that had been sent to her by different fashion designers who wanted me to wear them.
Ever since Jase and I had gone public, I’d gotten a decent amount of free clothes, which was still so weird to me. But I knew from my mother that this was what companies did to get their brand noticed, and if I, who would be photographed with a celebrity like Jase, wore their jeans or their shoes, then it was worth more than what they would spend on an advertising campaign. For some reason, the average person tended to like a style better if a celebrity was wearing it. And apparently I was a celebrity.
Some of the clothes I liked and I’d worn, because why the hell not, but others that hadn’t been my taste had gone to Nora or Henley. I dressed like a tomboy most of the time, and they were both much more girly.
“And don’t forget that you’ll be helping Luiz out,” Jase reminded me, as the corners of his mouth quirked up.
I’d recently made the mistake of mentioning to my mom and Luiz that I was thinking of changing majors. The one I’d chosen – sports medicine – had been chosen on a whim, and I wasn’t sure it was what I wanted to commit to. I was leaning toward exploring other options.
Of course, Luiz had jumped at the opportunity to help me make up my mind about a new major. He knew I’d taken Intro to Cinema in the fall, and truthfully, I’d kind of taken it as a joke, but I’d ended up secretly loving the class. And then after hearing Garrett and Jase talk at length about being on a movie set and what went into the final product, I’d started asking Luiz questions. And being the smart guy he was, he didn’t forget that I’d had a peaked interest.
Luiz had gone to USC’s film school years earlier, and I knew he wanted me to explore that option. I’d been adamant for years that I wanted nothing to do with the motion picture industry, but if I was being honest, the longer I was in L.A. and the more doors I realized were open for me because of who I was related to, well, I was sort of getting swayed. But now this internship with 57 Jeans might sway me in a totally different direction.
Either way, I wasn’t ready to make a final decision. I was still weighing my options. And I wasn’t going to be doing anything permanent with Luiz during the spring. He’d asked me to help out from time to time to get a taste for the business as he prepped for Charlie Rising, but then he also asked that I come on location with him that summer, which I was actually kind of
excited about.
They were filming the whole movie in South Carolina, mostly on Fripp Island, where they filmed the scenes of the Vietnam War in Forrest Gump, so I’d be close enough to home where I could easily fly down to visit my dad. And I’d get to be with Jase without having to be the tagalong girlfriend. If I was working, it seemed a hell of a lot more legitimate that I be there. And he’d be gone for almost two months. I’d rather be with him in South Carolina than back in L.A. missing him.
“I love that you’re working with Luiz,” Jase said, as he pulled me up so I was straddling his lap and he could alternate kissing me and talking. “I think you’re going love it. Have you ever been on one of his sets before?”
I shook my head. “No, he usually shoots internationally, so I’ve never gone.”
He smiled. “It’s pretty incredible. Back when he was courting me for Charlie Rising, he flew me out to Tazmania when he was on location for Lights Out, and he blew me way. The man is a genius.”
I leaned in and kissed him, enjoying that we were actually talking about something that linked our two worlds together. It made me feel a little closer to him just understanding what he did and what his job entailed. I didn’t know why, but a part of me had always been afraid that Jase and I couldn’t be together in the long run because of what he did and the fact that I wasn’t a part of it. I knew it was stupid, and it made me insecure, but it was how I felt.
“Jase, can we talk about Chloe?” I asked, changing the subject as my insecurities came out in full force.
It was the first time I’d brought her up since he told me they were starring in Sons of Sovereignty together. I was trying to be a supportive girlfriend and not let her position in the film affect me, but what she’d said to me at the Golden Globes had me rattled. It had been two weeks, and I hadn’t told Jase, because I’d been trying to not let it get to me, but I was failing miserably. I needed to say something.
We’d seen her the night before at one of the parties we’d gone to after the SAG Awards, and she’d been polite, but there had been a gleam in her eye that told me she was just biding her time. I was fully prepared for her to pull out all the stops while she and Jase were isolated together on set. And I didn’t know what that meant exactly. It wasn’t that I was insecure about how he felt about me. No, I knew he loved me, but I just didn’t trust her.
“What about her?” he asked, kissing the hollow just above my collarbone, trying to distract me.
I sighed. “I have to tell you something.”
“What?” he asked, pulling back to look at me, his green eyes full of concern.
“She sort of came up to me at the party we were at after The Globes.”
“She did? What did she say?” he asked warily, knowing his ex all too well.
I took a deep breath. “She wants you back, and she told me she was going to get you.”
Jase laughed out loud until he saw that I wasn’t laughing. “Logan, no. Please tell me you’re not threatened by her. Tell me you trust me, because there is no way in hell I’m getting back together with her.”
The conviction in his voice provided more assurance than he probable knew.
“I know, Jase, and I do trust you, but she’s sneaky as hell. I don’t trust her.”
He shook his head and tightened his grip on my waist. “Listen, even if this was last summer, before I met you, I wouldn’t get back together with her. She was horrible to me, and I don’t trust her. Believe me, I’m going to be in the moment for the scenes I have to do with her, but that’s all she’s getting. And I’ll be using a hell of a lot of mouthwash over the next few weeks, because just the thought of even fake-kissing her gives me the chills.”
He mock-shivered as if to prove his point, and I laughed. “Okay, fine. I guess I was freaked out over nothing.”
He leaned forward and touched his forehead to mine. “Baby, I know what it’s like to lose you, and it sucks. I’m not doing that again. I love you.”
I smiled and kissed his nose. “I love you too.”
His hands slid up my lower back and nudged me toward him, as he brushed his lips lightly over mine before deepening the kiss. And before I knew it, my hands were in his hair, and I was pressing against him, only wanting to get closer and lose consciousness about everything that was about to change. I just wanted to forget. I wanted to be in Jase’s arms and lose myself, and I was well on my way to doing just that.
“Hello, are you decent?” Nora called from the doorway to the porch, so I started to scramble off of Jase’s lap, but he held me in place.
“Please don’t move yet,” he murmured, and I understood what he was talking about. I could feel it between my thighs. “Just give me a minute.”
“Okay,” I said, as I eased back a little to allow him some space. He turned me around, so I was still sitting on his lap, but I was facing his sister, and his arms looped around my waist holding me in place. I leaned back against his chest, loving the feel of his comforting warmth.
Nora smiled at us. “Aww, getting in some cuddle time before you’re separated? You guys are too cute.”
Her saying that pulled me out of my elevated mood and back to reality where my boyfriend was leaving me. Jase’s gaze followed his sister as she grabbed a donut from the box next to us and settled into a one of his deck chairs. She had her long brown hair pulled into a ponytail that fell over her left shoulder, and she was wearing a black Hurley trucker hat that looked familiar.
“Am I going to regret giving you a key to my house?” Jase asked her, as she took a big bite of the donut and made a moaning sound.
“This is so good.”
“Have another,” he said, picking the box up to hand it to her, but she waved him off.
“No, I can’t. I have a shoot at 57 on Friday – that Logan will be at.” She winked at me, and I smiled. “They’re replacing my billboard, so I have to be good this week.”
“Another ass-shot?” Jase asked dryly, and Nora made a face at him.
I knew he wasn’t a huge fan of seeing his sister’s backside on a billboard, but she loved modeling, so he tried to be supportive. Tried being the operative word – sarcastic comments aside.
“So, I have news that both of you will be interested to hear,” she shared then, not entertaining his barb.
“What is it?” I asked, as I took a sip of my latte and Jase entwined his fingers with mine, absently playing with my hand.
Damn, I would miss him doing little things like that. Skpe would alleviate the urges to hear his voice and see his face, but not being able to kiss him and touch him would suck.
“I think I have a date.”
“With?” Jase asked warily, as I got excited.
Nora wasn’t a big dater, and aside from flirting with Ethan at his party a month ago, she hadn’t met anyone new in a while. And stupid Ethan had never called her, and he wouldn’t tell me why. He’d been really excited about meeting her and adamant about getting her number, but then he’d never pursued anything after that night. He’d mumbled something about not wanting a commitment when I’d asked, but something told me it was more than that.
Jase was decidedly less excited. He protected his baby sister like no one else, and he was always wary about guys hitting on her because she was gorgeous.
Nora pulled her long legs up to her chest and wrapped her arms around her knees as she smiled. “Ethan Lewis.”
“Shut up!” I shrieked, a smile bursting onto my face. “That’s so awesome!”
“No,” Jase said adamantly and so firmly that Nora and I turned to stare at him. “No way.”
“Um, I wasn’t asking for permission,” Nora said, as I ignored my boyfriend and pressed her for details.
I knew he had his issues with Ethan after the whole kissing me and proclaiming his love incident, which I understood, but he also knew that Ethan had taken back what he’d said. Of course, if I wasn’t sure I believed him, it was feasible that Jase felt the same way, and that made his doubts legitimate.
“Did he call you or something? How did this happen?” I asked excitedly.
She grinned. “I actually ran into him at Sugarfish last night, and he was all alone at the bar, so I stole his hat and flirted with him for a few minutes.”
That’s why her hat looked familiar! It was Ethan’s. Damn, that was his favorite hat too, and he’d let her take it? That must have been some flirting she’d done.
“When are you going out with him?”
“This afternoon. He’s teaching me to surf.”
I raised my eyebrows, wondering whose idea that had been. I was sure Ethan was over-the-top excited about seeing Nora in a bikini. And she’d get to see Ethan half-naked. I’d bet money they’d end up in his bed, but I wasn’t telling Jase that.
“Nora, really?” Jase asked in disbelief, and it sort of annoyed me that he wasn’t happy about this. At least Ethan wasn’t hitting on me.
“What should I have to be concerned about, Jase?” Nora asked him in a clipped tone.
“That Ethan only likes girls he can get in his bed,” Jase said bluntly, and I took major offense to it, even if it was true.
“Hey,” I said, smacking him on the chest with the back of my hand. “Not cool.”
“Hey,” he said right back to me. “My sister, my opinion. I don’t care how long you’ve known the guy and how much you care about him, he sleeps around.”
“He’s a good guy,” I defended, really not wanting to get into an argument with Jase when he was leaving. Besides, I knew he’d slept around a bit in between dating Chloe and me, so he didn’t have much room to talk.
“Not for my sister, he isn’t.”
Nora rolled her eyes. “Jase, I’m nineteen. I’ll make my own decisions about who I go out with, and Ethan told me he’s done with sleeping around.” Jase raised an eyebrow, and Nora held up her hand. “I know, I know. He could be feeding me a line, but I’m willing to take that risk. He’s really cute. I’ll give him a chance.”
“He really is a good guy,” I defended, feeling like I needed to plug Ethan just because he was my best friend.
Gravity Happens (Forcing Gravity) Page 7
