And now it wasn’t even that I wanted her to let him go for me. I wanted her to let him go for her. Because she deserved better. She did not deserve someone who would cheat on her.
“Lo, he kind of deserved it,” Garrett said, trying to reason with her.
I watched her shake her head. Then she pulled out of Garrett’s grasp and walked into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. I heard her start to cry before the water from the shower drowned her out. I wanted to go to her. My stomach clenched at the thought of her hurting, but I didn’t know how to help her, so I just let her be.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Logan
I let the warm tears flow down my face as the scalding hot water streamed over my shoulders and back. I didn’t think I’d ever felt so low in my entire life. How had I let things go so far? How had they gotten so screwed up?
Jase’s words from the last time we spoke came back to haunt me.
Haven’t you ever gotten so out of control drunk that you did something you regretted?
At the time, I’d snapped at him that I hadn’t. I wouldn’t be that stupid as to let myself lose control after drinking, but I’d done it. I’d gotten so fucking wasted the night before that I’d not only spent half the night making out with Ethan, but I’d married him!
I cringed as flashes of the night before came back to me. We’d gotten back into the limo after I’d said those awful things to Jase, and I’d been so upset after seeing him, because I knew I wasn’t over him. As much as I wanted to be, so much so that I’d even tried hooking up with someone else, I was still completely in love with him. And I hated myself for it. What was wrong with me? I’d caught him in bed with another woman, and yet, I still wanted him.
Dammit! I slammed the soft part of my closed fist against the shower wall, hoping to find just a little bit of relief. It didn’t come.
More flashes of the night before hit me like a train going three hundred miles an hour. Ethan and I had waited in the limo for Hunter and TJ to come out of the club, since Garrett and Ellie had gone back to the hotel early, and we’d drank and kissed and laughed, because I’d felt so rotten that I just wanted to forget about Jase. I wanted to drink away the pain, and I did. Then I’d gone ahead and made things a hell of a lot worse when I suggested Ethan and I get married.
I covered my face with my hands, the tears flowing more freely. It was my fault. I’d suggested it, gotten all excited and talked Ethan into doing it with me. What the hell was I thinking?
I really needed to lay off the alcohol. I needed to never drink again, because I did insane things when I had alcohol in my system.
Oh, my God. Ethan was going to kill me when he found out. At least we hadn’t slept together. I distinctly remembered coming back to the hotel room and pretty much passing out. Thankfully nothing had happened.
A faint knock on the bathroom door made me jump. I’d been so far inside my head that I hadn’t remembered that I wasn’t alone in the hotel room.
“Lo?”
It was Garrett.
“Yeah?”
“I’m going to order you room service, okay? Do you want toast, or do you think you can stomach real food.”
I sighed. He was so sweet. “Real food, please,” I called back. “Thank you.”
“Anytime,” he said, and I could hear the empathy in his voice. He knew Ethan and I had fucked up, that I blamed myself, and that I couldn’t take it back.
We had to get it annulled. There was no other way. I wasn’t going to stay married to Ethan. I loved him, but I wasn’t in love with him. But he was in love with me. That was evident from the conversation we’d had in the limo the night before.
Jesus. This was one fucked up situation, and I had no clue how to handle it.
I stayed in the shower until I felt somewhat human again, then I stepped back out into the room to face the wrath of my best friend. Ethan was sitting up in bed texting, but he put his phone down as soon as he saw me. He didn’t say anything as I wordlessly grabbed a pair of cut-offs and a tank top and turned my back to him so I could get dressed.
I ran a brush through my wet hair, and then turned around to face him. He patted the empty space next to him on the bed, so I walked over to him and tentatively sat down, not sure what to say.
“Where’s Garrett?”
“He went to check on Ellie. He’ll be back.”
I nodded.
Ethan put his arm around me, pulled me against him, and I started to cry all over again. I was a wreck.
“It’s okay,” he said softly, and I shook my head. It wasn’t okay. It was so far from okay.
“Ethan, what are we going to do?” I asked, my head resting on his shoulder.
His phone buzzed at that moment, and he looked down to see who it was, but he didn’t answer the text.
“Do you need to get that?”
“No,” he said stiffly. It can wait.
I looked up at him. He had a stoic look on his face. “Are you happy about this?”
I half-expected him to tell me, ‘Hell yes’ in his normal, exuberant way.
“No,” he said quietly.
“Because this is crazy, right,” I said, prompting him to elaborate. I needed to know where his head was at. “We’re too young to be married.”
“Yeah, that’s part of it.”
“And the other part?”
He sucked in a breath and let it out slowly. “Lo, I love you, and for the past eight months I thought I was in love with you and I wanted to be with you, but I don’t know anymore.”
“Really?”
Not that I wanted him to be in love with me, but this was a sudden change of heart. I wondered what brought it on. Was I a bad kisser?
“Yeah, really,” he said, as if he didn’t believe it himself.
“What changed?”
“Nora,” he said, shaking his head.
“Nora? But you broke up with her?”
He sighed. “I went over to her house last week, and we slept together. And I’m pretty sure we were on the verge of getting back together.”
“I knew you liked her. Why did you break up with her in the first place?”
He shrugged. “Blind insanity? I lost my mind. I don’t know, but it was the dumbest thing I’ve ever done.”
I laughed, a short, non-humorous laugh. “Are you sure about that?”
He looked down at me. “Yes, it was even dumber than agreeing to marry you last night.”
I bit my lip. “Oh, you remembered that it was my idea?”
He nodded. “Yeah, I remember, but that’s all I remember. Was it a nice ceremony?”
I shrugged. “No clue. I can’t remember anything, but I do remember that we didn’t have sex.”
He looked down at me, his bright blue eyes so intense. “We tried.”
I nodded. I remembered that, but we’d been too drunk.
“You fell asleep while I was kissing you,” he said. “And that was probably where it would have ended anyway, because I had so much alcohol flowing through my system, there was no way I could have gotten it up, even for you.”
“I’m glad we didn’t do anything,” I said softly, not sure if it offended him, but it was how I felt. I was so relieved.
Ethan just nodded once, and I didn’t know how to read that.
“So, what now?”
He shrugged. “We get it annulled. I looked up Nevada’s laws, and if the two parties were drunk when they consented to get married, then it can be considered void. I think we qualify for that.”
I nodded. “Yeah, we sure do. So what are you going to do about Nora?”
“Nothing,” he said, sounding defeated. “That was her texting me back. She told me to fuck off. I think she saw us together last night, and now she won’t talk to me.”
“Oh, Ethan. I’m sorry. Do you want me to talk to her?”
He raised an eyebrow at me. “Do you think she’ll actually talk to you?”
Yeah, probably not. I had told her I was
n’t going to rebound with Ethan, and I truly wasn’t going to. But if she’d seen us, she’d be pissed.
“I can try,” I offered. I felt bad enough that I’d gotten him into this situation that I wanted to make it right.
He shook his head. “No, this is my deal. I’m the one who fucked up. I’ll fix it.”
I nodded. If only it were that simple for me to fix things with Jase.
A knock on the door pulled us out of our own little world where we were wishing things were so different in our love lives. I got up to answer it, thankful it was room service. I let the guy wheel the cart into the room, noticing that Garrett had ordered enough food for ten people, which was a good thing, because right as I was closing the door Hunter and TJ burst into our room.
“What’s up Mr. and Mrs. Lewis?” TJ taunted, as he flopped down on our bed.
“Fuck you, asshole,” Ethan muttered, as his foot darted out to kick TJ in the ribs.
“Douchebag,” he called back, his fist reaching out to punch Ethan’s thigh.
They were such idiots.
I rolled my eyes as I lifted a lid covering one of the plates to find a large pancake and three strips of bacon. Mine.
Letting Ethan and his moronic friends insult each other, I went over to the couch, sat down and ate my breakfast in silence.
“Hey Logan?” Hunter called out after a few minutes.
“What?” I asked around a mouthful of food. I was starving.
“Jon Hollywood has pictures of you and Ethan from last night on his blog. You guys are making out.”
“Great,” I muttered.
That was just what I needed. Jon Hollywood was an asshole blogger who loved to post pictures of celebrities in compromising positions or with no make-up or in ridiculous outfits. He was a giant douche.
“Yeah,” TJ chimed in. “And he posted a shot of Jase leaving Tao looking all pissed off, because he saw you two together. It’s awesome. Way to get him back.”
I looked away, not even wanting to dignify that with a response. I didn’t want to get Jase back. I just wanted him back.
“Shut up, TJ,” I growled, glaring at him before I turned back to my food.
“Guys, leave her alone,” Ethan said then. “She’s upset about the whole marriage thing.”
“Why?” Hunter asked, and I gave him my most scathing stare.
Ethan slapped him upside the head. “Why do you think?”
“Dude, it’s not like it’s real.”
“What?” Ethan and I asked at the same time.
Hunter rolled his eyes. “The chapel wouldn’t let you guys get married, because you were fucking bombed, so I did it, and I’m not licensed to do that shit.”
Ethan’s eyes went wide. “Tell me you’re not fucking with me, man.”
“No way, man,” Hunter said, and TJ shook his head.
“I was there too,” he chimed in. “I was the best man, and the girls we were with, whose names I can’t remember for the life of me, were maids of honor.”
Okay, those were extraneous details I just didn’t need. “So, we’re not married?” I asked, suddenly wanting to hug Ethan’s idiot friends.
Hunter grinned. “Only in the Church of Hunter where women all over the world come to worship.”
I rolled my eyes at him. “You’re a dumbass,” I snapped, but even as I did, I realized how much lighter I felt. I couldn’t help the relieved grin that crept up on my face. “But I kind of love you right now.”
Hunter grinned. “Most women do.”
“Idiot,” Ethan said, as he smacked Hunter on the head.
I was glad to see he was switching back into his playful self again, and I could relate. It was like a giant weight had been lifted from my shoulders. All I had been able to think about for the past hour was what Jase was going to say when he found out that I’d married Ethan. What my dad was going to say, what Ethan’s parents would say, and how upset Nora would be. She loved him, and I was pretty sure he loved her. I might not get my happy ending, but he still could. And I was going to help him.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Logan
I knocked tentatively on Jase’s door, hoping he’d be home. His Maserati was in the driveway, but that didn’t mean anything. He had three cars.
“Logan?” he said when he opened the door. I could see he was trying to hide the surprise in his tone, because he hadn’t expected me to be standing there.
He looked so good that it made my heart hurt. I wasn’t sure why I was doing what I was doing, but I’d come all that way, so I wasn’t going to back out.
“Hi,” I said softly. “Can I talk to you?”
He nodded and stepped back, allowing me to come inside. It was the first time I’d been in his house since before the break up five weeks earlier. It felt like a lifetime.
For a few seconds we stood in the entryway looking at each other, my heart pounding almost out of my chest. Jase was as passive as he’d been when we’d talked two weeks earlier, and I knew he was saving face. Even after what had happened in Vegas, he wasn’t mad at me. I knew that if I asked him back, he’d say yes in under two seconds. I just wished it was that easy.
“Come on,” he finally said, leading me into the living room.
I shamefully checked out his ass the entire time I was following him, and only because I was so pissed off at myself for doing it, I recalled the image of Chloe naked in his hotel room and sobered up completely, my Jase Brady buzz gone in an instant. But then he turned around and gestured for me to take a seat on the couch, and seeing him looking at me with haunted eyes almost made me cave.
Almost.
Jase sat across from me in his plaid chair that I used to love to curl up in when I studied. Normally when I sat there, he sat where I was now sitting so he could watch the Lakers or the Dodgers or whatever sporting event happened to be on. He’d watch and cheer and yell at the TV, but every so often he would look up and smile at me or mouth ‘Love you’. And those were some of my favorite memories of a time before everything became jaded and tainted by one act of indiscretion.
“You said you wanted to talk,” he said, the hope in his voice so faint that only someone who knew him as well as I did could detect it.
I nodded and took a deep breath. “I just wanted to apologize to you.”
“To me?” he asked, thoroughly confused by my declaration.
“Yes. For what I said in Vegas, but also for what I said when we talked the last time. You asked me if I’d ever done something stupid when I was drunk, and I know I was really harsh in how I responded.”
He shrugged, obviously thinking he deserved every bit of my wrath, and I knew he was thinking that perhaps, in time, if I punished him enough, maybe I’d get to a point where I felt like we were even. But in order for us to be even, I’d have to do exactly what he’d done.
But then again, had Ethan and I not been so drunk, we would have slept together.
“Okay, so you wanted to apologize?”
I nodded. “And to let you know that I’m not above getting drunk and doing something stupid.”
“What did you do?” Jase asked cautiously.
I folded my hands in my lap, suddenly so nervous – and guilty. “It doesn’t matter, but I did it.”
He laughed, a haunting non-humorous laugh. “Well, I guess I mean, what did you do besides kissing Ethan, because I saw that. And to me that was really stupid.”
I sucked in a breath, remembering how he’d charged at Ethan. “Jase, that was nothing.”
He raised an eyebrow at me. “So you making out with him in multiple locations around Las Vegas was nothing? Did you sleep with him too?”
Just about.
I closed my eyes, feeling miserable all of a sudden. I shook my head and opened my eyes to look at him. “No, I didn’t. I just kissed him, and it was a mistake,” I said softly. “We all make them.”
“Yeah, we do,” he insisted, and I just looked at him, not believing he was equating what I’d done to
what he did.
“Jase, this is completely different. I didn’t hook up with Ethan while I was with you.”
I stood then, wondering why I’d even come to his house. At the time, it had seemed like such a good idea, because I felt like a hypocrite, but now I just felt like I needed to leave. I hadn’t accomplished anything in seeing him, in apologizing, and truthfully, I wasn’t quite sure what I’d even hoped to accomplish.
Jase stood as I walked past him, and he followed me to his front door. When my hand was on the doorknob, he grabbed my shoulder and spun me around, so I was facing him, and before I knew what was happening, his arms were around me, and his lips were on mine.
It took me a few seconds before I reacted and pulled away from him, shoving him hard in the chest.
“What the hell was that?” I demanded, reaching up to wipe my lips with the back of my hand.
Jase smirked at me. “Just a taste of what you’ve been missing, that’s all. And honestly, I didn’t want the last person you kissed to be Ethan. I wanted it to be me, to always be me.”
I glared at him. I was furious and turned on and left with such longing that I wasn’t sure what to do.
“Goodbye Jase,” I spat out.
It was all I could say, because if I didn’t say it, if I didn’t walk away, I would have stayed forever.
* * *
“I am so mad at your brother,” I said when I walked into the café where Nora worked, forgetting that she was mad at me and I was going there to apologize and talk her into taking Ethan back.
“Excuse me?” she asked, as she looked up from where she was wiping a table, and the three people at the next table looked at us like they expected a cat fight. They weren’t far off.
“I’m going to kill Jase,” I told her, crossing my arms over my chest in a huff, going with the bit I’d started.
“I don’t care,” she said, walking away from me, leaving me standing in the middle of the café like an idiot.
I followed her to the back where she started loading dirty dishes into the dishwasher. She turned to look at me with wide eyes.
“You have some nerve to come here after what you did.”
“Nora, it didn’t mean anything. I swear. There’s nothing going on with Ethan and me.”
Gravity Happens (Forcing Gravity) Page 29
