Gravity Happens (Forcing Gravity)

by Alexander, Monica

  She smirked, obviously amused with my plight.

  “I think you like her,” she teased.

  Yeah, I like her ass.

  Okay, that wasn’t totally true. I actually liked Nora, the person, in addition to her fine ass. She was a cool chick. She’d be cooler if she let me kiss her, but whatever. I could exercise patience. Hell, if I couldn’t have Logan, maybe I could date someone who was almost as fun, since I knew Logan wasn’t breaking up with Jase, and I needed to figure out how to move on for real.

  “Maybe I do,” I responded.

  “Good,” she said smugly. “Because she likes you too.”

  “I know she does,” I replied, and took a big sip of my Japanese beer. Across from me, Logan was sipping on a pink drink that was a little too sweet for my taste.

  She suddenly pulled back from her straw and clapped her hands. “Oh, yay! This is so great. I think you guys will be perfect together.”

  I raised an eyebrow at her. “You know she’s playing hard to get, right?”

  Truthfully, she was playing more ‘sit back and make sure Ethan doesn’t still have feelings for Logan’, but Logan definitely didn’t need to know that. I’d just make sure that whenever I was around Nora, my attention was fully on her. Regardless of what I felt, and I couldn’t just turn off my feelings, I could make Nora feel like she came first and I was over Logan. It was simply mind over matter.

  “Yeah, she told me she wanted to be sure you were serious, but you’ve been really good lately – no booty calls to Lizzie, no random hook-ups. I think you’re actually turning a corner, E.”

  I made a face at her. “Yeah, I don’t think that’s the case, but you can think that.”

  She shrugged and took a long sip of her drink. “I see a difference in you, that’s all.”

  “Okay. Whatever. Hey, can you get my hat back from her? She looks sexy as hell wearing it, but it’s my favorite.”

  Nora had left with my hat yet again, and since she’d left me sitting in the hot tub with a hard-on, I hadn’t exactly been able to go after her. And I think she knew that.

  “Get it back from her yourself,” Logan told me in a taunting sort of way, and I made up my mind to do just that.

  * * *

  I was in heaven. Nora was walking around the set wearing a pair of tight as hell jeans and a bra. Granted, she had robe on, but it had slipped at one point when she’d been talking to Logan and me, and I’d caught a glimpse of her breasts overflowing out of the cups of her bra. It had been hard to keep my hands to myself, but I’d exercised restraint and kept my eyes on north of her clevage.

  “Great!” someone shouted in frustration from across the room, and the three of us turned to see the director throwing his hands up in the air.

  “What’s wrong?” some girl asked him, rushing to his side.

  Nora turned back to us. “I guarantee Sienna isn’t coming.”

  “Oh crap,” Logan said, shaking her head.

  “Who’s Sienna?” I asked.

  “The other model in the shoot,” Nora told me, while she glanced back at the director and the woman who were in a heated conversation about reliability. “She’s a total coke whore, and she’s flakey as hell. I’m not sure why they booked her since she’s completely unreliable. I knew when she was late that this would happen.”

  “They have a contract with her,” Logan explained. “I heard Elyce talking the other day about how Sienna only has a few months left, but they’re thinking about terminating it early since she’s been so unreliable.”

  “They should,” Nora agreed. “I can’t stand working with her.”

  “So, what happens now?” I asked.

  Nora shrugged. “We reschedule, I guess, since they can’t do the shoot with just me.”

  “I should go over and see if Gretchen needs me for anything,” Logan said, looking at the angry girl who’d thrown her hands up, who seemed to be running the shoot.

  “I’d stay out of the way,” Nora suggested, which was pretty much what Logan had been doing since we’d arrived. “Gretchen’s impossible when she’s in one of her moods.”

  Gretchen, did seem to be pissed off, so I knew it was good advice.

  “I guess we can start happy hour early,” I suggested after a few minutes, figuring Nora might be more inclined to let me kiss her if she was drunk. My mind was in the freaking gutter as her robe slipped again, just enough to give me a glimpse of one of her full breasts.

  We stood around for a few more minutes waiting until we saw Gretchen marching toward us.

  “Uh-oh,” I said, nudging Logan. “Are you in trouble?”

  “Shit, I hope not,” she muttered.

  “When Logan and I got to the shoot, she spent about thirty minutes doing little things for the director and Gretchen, but then Gretchen had told her to stay out of the way, so she’d been hanging with me. I wondered if maybe that wasn’t okay.

  “You,” Gretchen said when she reached us, pointing at Logan.

  “Me?” Logan asked, her eyes getting wide, and I knew she thought she was really in trouble. She started to defend herself. “I’m sorry, I was just–”

  “Be quiet,” Gretchen said exasperatedly, waving her hand to tell Logan to stop talking. “I know you. How do I know you?”

  “Um, I’m an intern at 57. We met yesterday and then again an hour ago? You had me get coffee for anyone who needed it, and I helped Johnnie with lighting?”

  Gretchen looked impatient. “That’s not what I meant. How else do I know you?”

  Logan shook her head, looking puzzled. “I’m not sure. We’ve never met before yesterday.”

  Then Gretchen snapped her fingers. “I know! You’re Alana Davis’s daughter!”

  Only the guy who’d known Logan her whole life would be able to see the twitch in her left eye that told me she was irritated that Gretchen had brought up her mother. But to the outside world, she was cool and calm about the association.

  “I am,” she said confidently.

  “And you’re Jason Brady’s girlfriend, right?”

  Logan nodded. “Yes.”

  Gretchen’s eyes brightened. “You’re totally cute. Turn around.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Turn around!” Gretchen snapped, making a turning gesture with her hand. “Come on. We haven’t got all day.”

  Logan slowly turned around as Gretchen proceeded to check out her ass, and my eyes almost bugged of my head. What the hell was going on?

  “Have you done any modeling before?”

  Logan shook her head, and the girl look perplexed for a moment. “It doesn’t matter. You’re perfect for this. Go see Caesar in make-up. He’ll take care of you.”

  “I – I don’t understand.”

  The girl rolled her eyes. “You’re filling in for Sienna. Now go!”

  Logan jumped at Gretchen’s direct bark, and Nora suddenly grabbed her arm. “Come on, Lo. This way.”

  Logan looked back at me helplessly, so I followed along as Nora started to talk to her about what had just happened.

  “Are you okay with this?” she asked.

  Logan still looked bewildered. “I’m not even sure what the hell just happened.”

  “Here’s the deal. Since Sienna bailed they want you to stand in for her.”

  Logan’s eyebrows knitted together. “Me? But I’m just an intern. Do they need me for test shots or something while they call in another model?”

  Nora shook her head. “I don’t think so,” she said as she eyed Gretchen from across the room.

  She was on her laptop and her cell phone barking orders at someone else. I caught a few choice words before she said, “I’ll handle it!”

  Then she stomped back over to us as we were approaching the makeshift make-up area and a tiny Hispanic man wearing white capri pants, a red t-shirt, and a navy and white striped scarf. He looked like a gondolier. All he needed was the hat.

  “What was your name again?” Gretchen asked Logan, but I noticed that a
lthough she’d stopped yelling, she was still intense as she raised her eyebrow and tapped her high-heeled foot.

  “Logan Kessler,” Logan said, standing up a little straighter. I noticed she was trying to appear confident, but I could tell she was nervous as hell.

  “Okay, great. Hold still,” she said as she raised her iPhone and took a picture of Logan. Then she thrust a piece of paper at her. “Read this while Caesar does your make-up. You’ll need to sign a day contract, and we’ll obviously pay you for your time. Thank you for doing this.”

  She said it so stiffly that I wondered if she didn’t thank people very often. It was almost awkward coming out of her mouth.

  “Hold on,” Logan said as Gretchen started to walk away.

  She spun around and faced Logan. “Yes?”

  Logan took a deep breath, and Nora smiled at her. “Okay, Gretchen, here’s the deal. I’m not a model. I’ve never done this before. I have no clue what I’m doing. I don’t think you want me for this. I’m only supposed to be interning and helping out at this shoot. I’m not supposed to be modeling.”

  Gretchen shook her head, and it seemed like she was fighting the urge to roll her eyes. “Look, I’ve worked for 57 Jeans for two years. I’ve been a part of their marketing team for this campaign since its inception. I know exactly what I’m looking for, and you’re it. Trust me. I’ve been in this business for ten years. I know what sells, and if we put your face next to hers, there isn’t a girl in the world who isn’t going to want to buy our jeans. She’s outwardly beautiful and sexy, you’re wholesome and cute and understatedly sexy, and you’re Jason Brady’s girlfriend. You two are the perfect package. I’m not sure why I didn’t think of this angle before. Sienna would have been all wrong. This is going to be fantastic. Trust me.”

  Logan looked agitated. “Yes, but I have no clue what I’m supposed to do. I have no experience modeling.”

  Gretchen shrugged. “I don’t care. We’ll shoot this a hundred different ways, and Cristof is the best. He’ll tell you how to pose and what to do to get the best shots. You won’t have to worry about anything, but you really do need to hurry. We’re under a major time crunch here.”

  Then she stalked away and immediately started talking to someone on her phone, barking orders and snapping. I turned back to Logan to see if she was okay. Nora was introducing her to Caesar, the gondolier/make-up artist. She seemed to be fine. I turned back to see the crew spreading sand around what looked like a makeshift construction site, and the photographer’s assistant was doing light tests.

  Suddenly Nora was by my side. “Hi!”

  I turned to her. “Is Lo okay with this?”

  I looked back to see Caesar working on transforming Logan into an even sexier version of herself while a woman was behind her doing something with her blond hair.

  “She’s fine,” Nora said, as she took my hand. “I talked her through what would happen and told her to just have fun. Modeling is super-easy, and I’m going to be right there with her. It’s not like she’s trying to prove something to these people. They asked her, not the other way around, and I know she’ll be great. She seems good with it. You want to take a walk?”

  I looked back at Lo again. I didn’t want to leave her alone, but she was texting on her phone and didn’t look the least bit rattled, so I figured she was fine. And I did wonder if I insisted on staying if Nora would take that as a sign that I wasn’t over Logan, and I didn’t want that. I was really hoping Nora could help me get over her, and not just by being a warm body. I’d tried that, and it hadn’t worked. I was ready to try something else, and I liked how her hand felt in mine.

  I turned back to her. “Sure. Why don’t you show me around the set?”

  “You’re okay leaving Logan?” she asked, and I knew she was testing me.

  I shrugged. “Sure. You said she’s fine, so I’m sure she is. Lo?” I called out to her.

  “Yeah?” she replied, but she didn’t look up. She was probably texting Jase.

  “We’ll be back. Call if you need us, okay?”

  “I’ll be here,” she said, looking up at me and grinning, so I knew she really was okay.

  I squeezed Nora’s hand when she tried to pull it away, looked into her green eyes and shook my head. “Don’t,” I said softly, as I leaned into her.

  She opened her mouth to say something, but no words came out. I smiled, and she looked up at me through her lashes. Damn, she was sexy. I could tell she thought I was going to try to kiss her, but I wasn’t. I told her I’d let her make the first move, and I would, no matter how much it killed me to hold back.

  “Weren’t you going to show me around the set?”

  She swallowed and took a deep breath, shaking her head. I smirked at how rattled she was because of what I hadn’t done.

  “Come on,” she said, tugging me forward.

  We walked over to where the guys were raking the sand near the ‘construction site’. I noticed someone had backed a pick-up truck over the sand, and some of the PAs were shaking sand into the bed.

  “What’s the theme of this shoot?” I asked Nora.

  “Sex,” she said, not looking at me.

  I looked down at the black, shimmery, super-tight jeans she had on and thought, ‘yeah, that’s about right’.

  “Did you bring me here to entice me?” I asked, lowering my lips until they were right by her ear. I watched her grin.

  I’d get her to kiss me soon enough.

  “No, Ethan, you’re already enticed, but today will be a good way for me to see how serious you are about me.”

  I let go of her hand and placed mine on her hip, tugging her against me. “Here’s the deal,” I said, feeling the need to just level with her. “I can’t help how I feel about Logan, and truthfully, I wish I didn’t feel anything for her, because it’s been nothing but a burden since I told her. I know she loves Jase and that I’m never going to have a chance with her, and I have to be okay with that. But the bottom line is, I like you Nora, and I can either lie to you and tell you I’m over Logan and I don’t want to be with her, or you can let me take you out, and we can see if there might be something between us that could supersede my feelings for Logan.”

  Her eyes got wide. “Wow, that was sort of brutally honest. I didn’t expect that from you.”

  I shrugged. “I’m not usually honest with women, because I just want to sleep with them, but that’s not how it is with you. You’re so cool and fun to be around, and I just want to spend time with you. And I also want to kiss you and maybe make-out a little, but I’m only human.” I smiled at her, hoping I hadn’t been too brash.

  “I want that too, Ethan, because you’re a good guy, and your fun and hot, and I really like you, but I don’t want to get hurt. I don’t want to be in a situation where you’re lusting after someone else and are only with me because you can’t be with her. That’s not fair.”

  I opened my mouth to tell her that wouldn’t happen, but I didn’t get the chance.

  “Nora!” someone suddenly called to her, and we both turned. It was one of the PAs I’d seen around the set.

  “Yeah, Maggie?”

  “Caesar needs you. We’re ready to apply the oil.”

  Apply the oil? Holy shit. What did that mean?

  She nodded. “Be right there.” Then she turned back to me, leaned forward and kissed my cheek. “I’ll think about what you said. It’s a risk, but it might be a risk I want to take.”

  Damn, I hoped she’d want to take it.

  A few minutes later, as I stood out of the way but with a good view of the set. I’d watched Nora and Logan come out from the make-up area, and I almost lost it. Each girl looked like walking sex, and I couldn’t decide who looked hotter and who deserved more of my ocular attention. Nora had put on a dark gray shimmery tank top, and Logan had been dressed in white jeans with gold flecks, and she was wearing a gold tank top. It looked like they’d spray-tanned her and made her glisten with oil. I’d never seen her look so hot, a
nd I wondered if she’d told Jase exactly what she’d signed up to do.

  Someone turned on some music then, and Beyoncé’s End of Times started blasting out of the speakers. Then the director had Nora and Logan pose on the end of pick-up truck in different ways – leaning against it with bored looks on their faces, sitting on the end, facing away from the camera and looking over their shoulders which was hot as hell, but then he started to pose them together. And that was seriously like a wet dream to a guy like me. I felt like my mouth was hanging open the entire time as Logan sat on the back of the truck, and Nora kneeled behind her, her body flush against Logan’s. Then there were the scenes where they were embracing.

  I seriously felt myself getting hard just watching. It was like amateur porn. When I thought no one was looking, I pulled out my iPhone and snapped a few shots. I had to show Garrett. He was going to flip when he saw sweet little Logan Kessler looking all dirty and sexy and so fucking hot.

  Then I remembered that this was going on a billboard, and from the amount of pictures they were taking, I was sure it would be in magazines too. I wasn’t sure how Logan would feel about that once she saw the shots, and I hoped she’d be okay with the outcome. She wasn’t typically an exhibitionist.

  The director called for a break after a few more shots of the girls embracing, and as soon as they were free to move, Logan ran over to me while Nora chatted with some guy who’d appeared wearing nothing but a pair of jeans. He had shaggy brown hair and a chiseled jaw, and even I knew he was a guy any girl would lust after. Who was he, and why was he talking to Nora?

  “Do I look completely ridiculous?” Logan asked me, covering her face with her hands.

  I didn’t look at her. My gaze was fixed on Nora and Mr. Sexy. She was laughing at something he’d said. What the hell were they talking about? Why was he making her laugh?

  “Who’s that?” I asked Logan, and she frowned at me.

  “Is it that bad? Do I look so out of place that you can’t even answer me?” she asked, sounder very unsure of herself.