Gravity Happens (Forcing Gravity) (6 page)

I reached across the island and slugged him in the shoulder. He slugged me back.

“Ow, dick,” I said, rubbing my upper arm.

Garrett just
shrugged. “Listen, do what you want, but it’s worth a shot, and it’s better than moping around feeling like shit all the time.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Yeah,
that’s true. But what does that mean exactly? How do I get ‘emotionally’ involved with a girl?”

I still wasn’t sure I understood what he mean
t. I wasn’t about to spout off cheesy one-liners like, ‘I get lost in your eyes’ or some bullshit like that. That sure as hell wasn’t me.

Garrett sighed
. “Right, sorry. I guess you’ve always been a player by nature. It means talk to a girl, get to know her and don’t have sex. Date her, spend time with her. If she’s cool, you’ll have fun, and she’ll take your mind off of Lo. Then you can have sex with her.”

Wait to have sex. Huh? That wasn’t something I’d thought about before. Could I even do that?

“I guess it’s worth a shot,” I said skeptically, taking another big gulp of my drink. I’d try anything once, but I wasn’t convinced this would work.

Garrett s
aw how fast I was downing my drink, so he handed me a bag of chips that was sitting on the counter. I opened it and grabbed a handful. Emotionally involved. It was an interesting concept. Maybe I’d explore it.

“Yo!” I heard from the front door and leaned back enough to see around t
he refrigerator into the front hall.

“Hey guys. What’s up?” I said to my
boys, Hunter and TJ, who were walking in.

“Nada,” TJ said,
high-fiving me, as Hunter grabbed the bottle of Patron and gave me a silent fist bump.

Garrett mixed himself a drink as some more people came in the front door. We had a guy out there checking IDs off of the list we gave him, and we’d given specific instructions to call us if
anyone who wasn’t on the list or wasn’t with someone on the list tried to come in. It was pretentious as hell, but with Garrett being all famous and shit, there were precautions we now needed to take or else we’d end up with a house full of underage fangirls and annoying paparazzi.

Soon the house was full of people, and the party was in full swing. I noticed Logan when she’d come downstairs wearing a black and white striped halter top and that short black skirt from before, but she’d pretty much met Jase at the front door, and he’d been monopolizing her ever since.

I was hanging with Hunter and TJ who were competing for ‘who can pick up the hottest chick’. And even though I knew I should be emotionally connecting with a girl – apparently – I had yet to meet anyone to do that with. I wasn’t exactly sure I’d find a girl like that in Hollywood. Oh, wait, I’d already found her, but she was dating a douchebag movie star.

Okay, that was it. Now I was even bumming myself out. I needed to stop bitching about what I didn’t have, man up, grow a pair and move on.

So with conviction in my step, I walked up to a pretty brunette who was talking to Logan’s roommate, Henley.

“Hey Ethan,” Henley
said in her sexy southern accent, as she reached out to give me a hug.

“Hey Henley,” I said, smiling at her.

She was a nice girl, but she’d dated my brother for a minute and was super-clingy, so now she was just a friend – and an off-limits friend at that.

“This party is great,” she gushed, and I turned to her friend.

“I don’t believe we’ve met,” I said, sticking my hand out for her to shake. “I’m Ethan.”

“Are you an actor?” she asked curtly, before she would touch my hand
. I shook my head, my mouth turning up on one side. The girl was ballsy. Finally she shook my hand. “I’m Nora.”

“Nice to meet you, Nora. Do you not like actors?”

She shrugged. “I don’t waste my time dating them.”

“Well that’s good for me,” I said, turning on the charm. Hitting on women was one of the things I was really good at. “I go to USC – and not to the film school. I’m undecided as far as my major
, but I’m great at talking to pretty girls, so maybe I’ll major in communications.”

Screw emotionally connecting. I’d just turn on the charm and see if I could get this girl to come upstairs with me.

She laughed, almost spitting out the sip of her drink she’d taken. “Are you serious with that line?”

Had I used a line? I guess so.
And apparently it wasn’t going to work on her.

I shrugged and grinned at her, knowing if my words didn’t get to her, my smile would. “Nah, not really. I was just trying to be cute.”

“Well, you don’t have to try to do that,” she said, but it wasn’t said in a flirting or endearing way. She was just stating a fact, and for the first time being called cute didn’t seem like a good thing.

I leaned closer to her. Then I
saw Henley roll her eyes out of the corner of my eye and walk away. She’d seen me in action plenty of times, so she knew most of my moves.

“Do I get points for being cute?” I asked coyly.

She shrugged and took another sip of her drink. “Sure, but just so you know,  being cute isn’t enough for me.”

I realized then that I was going to have to work for it if I wanted this girl in my bed. I pulled back from her. None of my usual tactics were going to work.

“Noted. So what do you do, Nora?” I asked, glad I’d remembered her name.

“Well,” she said, in an almost challenging way. “
I go to UCLA, and at the moment I want to be a vet.”

“Really? That’s
cool. So where are you from?”

She raised an eyebrow at me. “Are you going to ask me next if I come here often?”

I eyed her with some major skepticism in my stare. I was not willing to fight this girl to get to know her. If she wasn’t interested, I’d happily walk away.

“Listen, I’m not an asshole. I’m just trying to make conversation, and when you first meet someone these are the kinds of questions you ask. But if you’re not interested in talking, that’s cool. There are plenty of other people here that I can hang out with.”

She opened her mouth to say something, and I was imagining it to be a leveling retort, which sort of turned me on. I might like this girl to boss me around once or twice. But then it seemed like she changed her mind.

“
I’m from here,” she finally said. “I grew up in Brentwood.”

I nodded a few times. “Me too, except I’m from The Palisades.”

“We’re neighbors,” she said knowingly, and I felt like the ice was finally melting. “Or, well, I guess we used to be since you apparently live here now.”

I liked that she was softening a bit. Her hard edge had been sexy when I
’d walked up, but I wasn’t sure I could deal with that for more than a few minutes. Angry chicks freaked me out.

“I do live here. How did you know?”

She smiled, and it lit up her eyes. And she had these really beautiful green eyes that I just wanted to stare into all night.

“Your picture is on the table over there,” she said.

I looked over to where her gaze was fixed and noticed a family picture Garrett had put on one of the tables by the sofa. It was from the
Earthbound
premiere – me, Logan, my brother and my sister, her fiancé, and our parents.

“
Right,” I said as recognition dawned on me. “My brother’s the decorator. I’m not much for putting things up in rooms. You should see my bedroom. It could probably use some posters or something.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Was that an invitation to your room?”

“No,” I said, my eyebrows knitting together. I hadn’t even been thinking that when I’d said it. I was just making conversation.

But if she was interested . . .

“Okay, good,” she said quickly. “Because I’m not going upstairs with you.”

Shot down.

“I didn’t ask,” I defended.

I was glad I hadn’t asked – even jokingly. This girl wasn’t messing around.

“Good,” she said arrogantly, her eyes narrowing the tiniest bit.

I
finally put my hand up, wondering when the conversation had shifted again. “No need to get defensive. Why would you automatically assume I was inviting you upstairs.”

Yeah,
I know that had been my intention, but it wasn’t in that moment.

She sighed and bit her lip. “Okay, confession. I sort of know who you are.”

“You do?”

“Yeah
. I’m friends with Logan, she’s mentioned you, and I’ve seen pictures of you in her dorm room.”

She was friends with Logan? How come I hadn’t met her?

“Okay,” I said, fighting the urge to ask her if she liked what she’d seen, but I already knew she had since she’d told me I was cute – and it wasn’t going to get me very far.

“
Yeah, and she sort of, uh, also told me that you like women – a lot.”

Son of bitch.
I knew there was a reason she’d been so defensive to my advances. Why did Logan have to tell people about my recreational hobbies? I was not a dirtbag, and she totally made me sound like one when she said shit like that. Okay, so maybe I slept around more than some people, but she didn’t have to share that fact. Besides, I mostly just slept with Lizzie. I might do other things with other girls, but I didn’t sleep with all of them.

But, I’d slept with a good majority.

Dammit, maybe I was a dirtbag. And I suddenly didn’t want to be that guy anymore.

I gathered all of the negative energy that had suddenly struck me and pulled myself together. “Well, I’m not sure Logan explained me in the most accurate of ways, but I’ve actually decided to turn over a new leaf.”

About five seconds ago.

“Really?” she asked skeptically, her face and her tone telling me she didn’t believe me.

“Geez, what the hell did she tell you about me?”

Nora laughed. “She said you were sweet, but you’ve always shied away from relationships.”

Yeah, that was true,
and it didn’t sound that bad. I was positive Logan had said a lot more that Nora wouldn’t repeat.

“Well, maybe that was the old me,” I challenged.

The old me from five minutes ago.

“Okay,” she said, obviously not believing me.

She started to walk away, but I grabbed her shoulder. “Hey, not cool. Where are you going?”

“I need a refill,” she said, gesturing to her empty plastic cup. “Would you like to get it for me?”

It seemed like she was testing me to see if I really was a dirtbag or not. But I knew deep down that I was a nice guy, and nice guys got girls refills, so I’d get one for Nora.

“What are you drinking?”

“Vodka Tonic,” she said haughtily, handing me her cup.

“Coming right up,” I told her
just as confidently.

“
Thanks. I’ll be on the back porch, so meet me out there.”

“Count on it,” I told her, wondering when exactly we’d gotten into a pissing match.
It was kind of turning me on.

Then she smiled at me, her fucking gorgeous green eyes lighting up, and
I melted a little inside. “Thank you, Ethan.”

I headed to the bar, made Nora a new drink, made one for myself and hurried back outside to talk to her. She had me intrigued, and I wasn’t sure why. All I knew was, I wanted to get to know her better.

So I spent the entire night out on the back porch talking to her. I ran inside a few times to refill our drinks, and I half-expected her to get bored with me or me to get bored with her, because I usually didn’t spend much time talking to girls, outside of Logan. But this girl was cool. And she wanted to learn to surf.

I couldn’t believe she’d grown up in Southern California and couldn’t surf, but she said she’d spent most of her childhood riding horses, so I guess she had her own thing that she was passionate about.

Me, I loved surfing, and a part of me wished I would have pursued it competitively. I could have, but my parents wanted me to go to college. I’d had a good reputation around the amateur circuits growing up and had competed regionally, but to travel the world surfing, that was my ultimate dream. I had plans to go to Australia over the summer and maybe to Costa Rica. Maybe I’d even see if I could qualify at the next level. You never knew. College would always be there, but I could only surf while I was young.

When Nora yawned for the third time, I asked if she needed a ride home.

She shook her head. “No, I actually rode here with my brother, so I’ll see if he’s ready to go.

“What if he’s not?” I asked, concerned about how she’d get home. I was too buzzed to drive her, but I’d call her a cab and ride home with her so she wouldn’t have to go alone.

“He will be. I told him when we came that I’d probably want to leave early since I have to work in the morning.”

“What do you do?”

She yawned again. “I work at my parents’ café.”