Gravity Happens (Forcing Gravity)

by Alexander, Monica

  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 your 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 frontal?” 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 urge 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.”

  “Yeah, I’ll give you that,” he said, and I wondered if he was thinking about Chloe. I sure was.

  I realized halfway through dinner that we’d never revisited the whole Jase on-screen fully nude, but he seemed to be in good spirits after his fans left, so I didn’t want to push the issue. I didn’t want to make him upset again, even though I wished he would have told me. It probably just slipped his mind.

  Chapter Twelve

  Ethan

  “I want to see you,” I said when I called Nora the next day. No greeting. I didn’t even tell her it was me, because truthfully, I wanted to see how far I could push her.

  She’d come back to my place after we gotten dinner with Logan, but we’d just watched a movie. Or, rather, I’d sort of watched a movie and Nora fell asleep with her head on my shoulder, and I mostly watched her.

  I was tempted to just carry her upstairs and let her continue sleeping in my bed, but I was afraid she might not be cool with that since it was, technically, our first date, although I wasn’t sure I could call it that since Logan had been with us. But either way, Nora didn’t strike me as the type who would voluntarily spend the night with a guy after a first date, so I woke her up and drove her home. She let me kiss her goodnight, but it was just a sweet, goodbye kiss.

  Now I wanted more.

  “Open your front door,” she said in response, and I froze in the upstairs hallway before veering right to look out one of the windows that faced the front of the house.

  “Seriously?”

  She didn’t say anything for a second, and even though I didn’t see a car in the driveway, I was tempted to tear down the stairs if she was really standing on my front porch.

  She laughed. “No, I’m kidding. I’m at work.”

  I heard the sounds of a coffee grinder in the background then.

  “What time do you get off?”

  “Not until three.”

  I looked at the clock on my cell phone. It was only ten in the morning. Damn.

  “Can I come hang out with you?” I asked, really not aiming for desperate. I didn’t want to scare her away, but as soon as the words left my mouth I could hear how they sounded.

  “Wow, eager much?” she challenged, but there was a lightness to her voice which I hoped meant she didn’t think I was a total pussy.

  “I’m kidding,” I said then, but I really wasn’t. “Call me when you get off. I want to take you out tonight – like on a real date.”

  “Ethan, it’s Saturday night. You presume I don’t already have plans.”

  Shit. I hadn’t even thought of that.

  “You have plans?”

  If she did, I’d just call up Logan or my boys and see what they were up to. There was always something going on in this town, someone to hang out with.

  “I do,” she answered, and I felt my heart actually sink. That had never happened before because of a girl, so it caught me by surprise.

  “That’s cool. What are you doing?”

  She hesitated, and I knew that wasn’t a good thing. “Um, I have a date, actually.”

  Excuse me?

  “Okay,” I said, because what the hell else could I say. I had no claim on her that I could state outright, but I suddenly wanted one.

  “I’m sorry,” she said then, and the tone in her voice gave me hope for some reason. “He’s this guy in my biology class, and he’s been bugging me to go out with him all semester, and I finally said yes last week, but he couldn’t get together last weekend, because he was out of town, so we settled on tonight, and then everything happened with you, which I wasn’t expecting, because I hadn’t heard from you, but yesterday was so amazing and fun, and you’re so cute, and I would totally like to see you, but I can’t because I have to go to dinner with him.”

  Nora was out of breath by the time she finished talking, and I had a lot of information to process from that one sentence, but the fact that she said she had fun with me and thought I was cute gave me renewed hope.

  And shit, I didn’t even know who this guy was, but I was pretty positive he didn’t have anything on me. If he did, she wouldn’t have hesitated to go out with him for so long. Suddenly, my confidence was restored.

  “Hey, no worries,” I said, adopting my normal laid back demeanor. “Have fun on your date.”

  “Okay,” she said softly, and it felt like she wanted to say something else, but she didn’t, so I felt the need to fill the silence.

  “Alright, so I guess I’ll talk to you later, then,” I offered.

  “Yeah,” she said, and it had that same vacant tone. “Ethan?”

  “Yeah?”

  “How about tomorrow night?”

  “For what?”

  “Our date – if you’re still interested.”

  Hell yeah, I’m interested.

  “Sure,” I said, playing it cool because I’d played it so uncool at the start of our conversation, and I desperately wanted to make up for it.

  “Okay, well, I guess, give me a call and let me know the plan. I don’t work tomorrow, so I’m good with whenever.”

  “Sweet, I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  “Bye,” she said suddenly and hung up before I could respond. Her abrupt ship-jump from our conversation had me wondering if she was mad, but why would she be mad?

  Girls literally made no sense sometimes.

  * * *

  It was after two in the morning, and I was drunk. Hunter, TJ and I had gone to Lure, and I wasn’t even sure how much we’d spent, but it was a lot, and as a result, I had a lot of Grey Goose in my system.

  We stumbled out of the club, the cool night air feeling refreshing and a little sobering.

  “We out!” TJ shouted as he stopped to hand his ticket to the valet.

  The girl he was with sucked
on his neck while he waited. I had no idea what her name was, but she was Spanish or Italian or Greek and curvy and hot as hell. My boy was definitely getting laid. I was flat-out jealous. My dry spell had gone on too long, but I wasn’t going to do anything to ruin my chances with Nora.

  Mmm, Nora. I really wanted to see her, but I didn’t know where she lived. Could I call her? No, it was too late, and I was drunk. She wasn’t a booty call kind of girl anyway. Besides, she could still be with Mr. Biology Class.

  Shit, what if she was sleeping with him?

  My drunken brain had me panicking all of a sudden, because I had already rationalized earlier in the day that Nora wasn’t a sex-on-the-first-date kind of girl. I knew she wasn’t sleeping with him.

  Okay, fine. It was cool. I’d just go home, sleep it off and call her in the morning. Totally cool. But I had to get home first.

  “TJ!”

  I called out to him since Hunter and the girl he was with had already taken off in a cab.

  “Yeah?” he questioned, looking over his shoulder at me.

  “Dude, I need a ride.”

  He shook his head. “Can’t. Luisa lives in West Hollywood. I’m not driving your ass to Santa Monica and back here.”

  I could hear the underlying tone in his words – I’m off to get laid, and this chick lives so close by that I could be inside her in ten minutes. I’m not taking your sorry ass home and risking her being too tired to even give me head.

  “Come on?” I whined, because I really needed a ride. My friends could seriously be douchebags when girls were involved.

  My phone dinged then, and I wondered if it was Logan. She hadn’t returned my call from earlier in the night when I’d called to see what she was doing.

  My eyes lit up, and my stomach did a little bouncy thing when I saw Nora’s name on the screen, and the words, Are you up?

  I texted back immediately, as TJ and his girl got into his car and took off. Fucker.

  Hi!

  Okay, the exclamation point was a little cheesy, but this chick had my head going all nutty over her.

  Are you home?

  No, just leaving Lure. Night out with my boys. How was the date?

  Not great. I was home by ten.