Forcing Gravity Read online

  We got out and walked inside, and I suddenly felt incredibly nervous about going into a boy’s house alone with him – especially a boy who had as much experience as Jase Brady. But once we got inside the front door, all thoughts of his potential seduction tactics flew out the window. I wasn’t sure if I had expected to see rose pedals lining a path to the bedroom or hundreds of candles lit in the entryway, but there were none of those things. In fact, his house looked pretty normal and extremely well-decorated. I’d bet money he’d hired some renowned designer to pimp his house, because no guy I knew would have a house that chic and trendy. Straight men just didn’t think like that.

  When he took me on the grand tour, he showed me the kitchen that he said he hardly ever used, although it was stocked with every top of the line gadget, tool, and appliance that a master chef would need. I had a feeling he was being modest and wondered if he might cook for me one day.

  Then we walked through the large open living and dining rooms to what he called his favorite room in his house. It was an interior room with the biggest projection screen I’d seen outside of the one my mother had built in our house when Luiz lived with us. There were couches lined up in a modified stadium seating arrangement.

  “This is my TV room,” he said, and I couldn’t hold back a laugh. It was one hell of a ‘TV room’ to say the least, especially since it could seat at least fifteen people comfortably.

  “Do you have anything good to watch?” I asked, as I wandered into the room.

  I turned around to look at Jase, and he was leaning against the door jam, eyeing me with a hint of a smile on his lips.

  “Not much,” he said, gesturing to the floor to ceiling shelves at the back of the room. I hadn’t noticed them when we’d walked in, but he had quite possibly every movie ever made at his disposal.

  I walked up the carpeted stairs to the back of the room and stood in awe at the number of titles.

  “This is incredible,” I said, running my hand along some of the movies that were in front of where I stood, including some that Luiz had produced while he’d been married to my mother. I turned around to look back at Jase, only to find that he was right behind me. I hadn’t heard him follow me.

  “I’m a little bit of a collector,” he said sheepishly.

  I bit my lip. “Where are your movies?”

  I wondered if he was one of those actors who hated to watch himself or if he was like my mother who loved watching her performances. Actually, Jase struck me was the kind of guy who would watch his movies like athletes watch game tapes. He would do it critically to improve his craft.

  Jase gestured to the bottom right corner closest to us, and I crouched down and appraised the titles. Some I’d seen and others I hadn’t ever heard of, but I noticed there were movies dating back at least fifteen years. I was surprised to see two movies that I’d watched as a child that I hadn’t known he’d been in. I found myself wondering which parts he’d played.

  “When did you start acting?” I asked, looking up at him.

  He’d settled on to the arm of the couch closest to us. “I was three when I did my first commercial, and when I was five I got my first bit part in a major motion picture. I also did some made-for-TV stuff while I was growing up.”

  “You’re like a big time movie star,” I said, trying to wrap my head around that concept yet again.

  Yes, I had just seen him interviewed on TV, but it was so easy for me to separate Jason Brady, the actor, from Jase Brady, the guy I was on a date with.

  Jase looked uncomfortable, and I wondered if he preferred me to keep the two guys separate.

  “I guess,” he said, as he put his hand out for me to take. When I did, he pulled me to my feet. “Let me show you the rest of the house.”

  He was so close that I could feel his warm breath on my cheek, and I half-expected him to kiss me, but he didn’t, and I couldn’t figure out why. We were in a dark room with several couches. Most guys would make a move.

  Jase didn’t, but he kept hold of my hand as we walked out of his media room and over to the other side of the house where the bedrooms were. He had a guest bedroom and a weight room that we briefly saw before we paused in the doorway to his bedroom. I felt his arms go around me from behind, and his lips land on my neck, making me shiver. Then I tensed up, and I wasn’t sure why.

  Maybe it was seeing the king size mahogany sleigh bed, or maybe it was just the proximity to a guy I found incredibly sexy, but I was suddenly on edge, and I think Jase could tell.

  “A lot of magic has happened in this room,” he murmured in my ear, and I spun in arms to find him grinning from ear to ear. It was a smile I had yet to see from him, and it caught me off-guard after what he’d just said. I opened my mouth to say something, but he just laughed. “I’m totally kidding. Come on. Are you hungry?”

  I nodded, not sure what had just happened. I felt a little dizzy.

  Jase led me outside to his deck that overlooked the Hollywood Hills. Tall trees provided a good deal of privacy, but I could see the pitches of the roofs of the nearby neighbors’ houses here and there, so I knew we weren’t necessarily as concealed as it seemed. Then, off in the distance was the Hollywood sign, and it was a pretty cool sight to see it from that angle, even I had to admit.

  “Is this okay?” he asked, gesturing to a low table he’d set up on the middle of the deck. There were large pillows on the floor for us to sit on, and all over the table were covered plates and tiny tea light candles in all different colors.

  “How did you do this?” I asked.

  He’d picked me up almost forty-five minutes earlier, and he’d had to have left even earlier to get to my dorm on time.

  He smiled sheepishly again. “My assistant, Gary, took care of it. He left about five minutes before we got here.”

  “You have an assistant,” I said, as another facet of his life registered.

  I’d assumed, but to hear him confirm it was a different story. I couldn’t figure out why I was so appalled by all that I was learning. Even if he didn’t make what my mother made for each film he did, he’d been acting most of his life. He had money, and he was a busy guy. It would make sense that he had an assistant.

  “You’re weirded out by that,” he said, as he let go of my hand and settled onto one of the big pillows. He reached for a pitcher of what looked like iced tea in the middle of the table and busied himself pouring it in both of our glasses. “This is passion fruit tea. I hope you like it.”

  “I’m not weirded out,” I assured him, completely ignoring what he’d told me about the tea.

  I settled down next to him, eyeing him with concern. I’d upset him, and I knew it.

  “It’s fine,” he said, taking the lid off of something that smelled incredible. It looked like Thai food. “My life’s not normal. I’d probably think I was strange if I met me too.”

  I took a sip of my tea, as he started scooping noodles onto my plate before he lifted the cover off of another steaming dish to reveal some kind of spicy chicken. He gave me some of that and moved on to the next dish. I was quite aware that he wasn’t making eye contact with me.

  I put my hand on his forearm to stop him from scooping more food onto my plate. I needed him to look at me. But he wouldn’t turn his head, so I used my other hand to angle his face toward me and unceremoniously pressed my lips to his, knowing I’d get his attention that way. It completely caught him by surprise, and a few seconds passed before he was suddenly kissing me back. I heard the spoon he’d been holding clank back into the dish as his hands moved to either side of my face, cupping it and holding it in place.

  “I don’t think you’re strange,” I said, around his lips.

  “I am,” he said, kissing me harder and deeper. “I’m a freak.”

  “No, you’re not,” I said, as I pushed up to my knees to gain better leverage.

  My hands dove into his hair, pulling him closer to me as his tongue plunged into my mouth and sent jolts of electricity through my b
ody.

  “You don’t know me that well,” he said when he pulled back to look at me. “Just wait.”

  “It’s fine. I like freaks,” I said before I dove back in and kissed him again.

  He explored my mouth with his tongue, as his hands moved to my waist and pulled me onto his lap, so I was straddling him. It was easy to feel how excited he’d gotten in just a few minutes, but at the same time it scared me. He was much more experienced than me, and I wasn’t going to take that step with him – at least not on our first date, or even our second.

  Then I felt his hand move under my flowy tank top and snake up my back, the feeling of his skin on mine only succeeding in pushing me closer to him, and I considered just how far I might go with him that night.

  Then my stomach growled, and Jase pulled back to look at me. I loved that his lips were swollen and traces of my lip gloss rimmed his mouth. It made me want to dive back in for another kiss, but he stopped me.

  “How about we eat first,” he said, his quickened breathing enough to tell how much I’d affected him. He’d done the same to me. I was sure my cheeks were flushed, and not just from the blush Henley had dusted them with.

  I nodded and climbed off of his lap, settling onto the pillow next to him. I smoothed back my curls that felt all sorts of disheveled and fanned myself as discreetly as possible. It wasn’t a warm night, but things had certainly gotten heated between us enough for me to feel hot.

  Jase smiled at me and resumed filling our plates.

  “Look at me for a second,” I said, and he turned to me expectantly.

  I smiled and reached out with my cloth napkin to wipe my lip gloss from his lips. When I removed the napkin, he leaned over and kissed me. It was just a brief chaste kiss, but it still sent my heart aflutter.

  “You’re really good at that,” I said when he pulled back. “Maybe later you’ll show me more of your magical bedroom and we can do some more of that?”

  He cocked an eyebrow at me. “Seriously?”

  I shrugged and took a bite of chicken. “Sure.”

  “For the record, I didn’t bring you here for anything like that,” he said. “My intentions were completely honorable.”

  “Yeah, I know, but you can’t just kiss like that and expect me to not want more.”

  He just shook his head and smiled.

  “What?” I asked, afraid I did something wrong.

  “Most girls are not this comfortable around me,” he said around a mouthful of noodles.

  “Is it a bad thing?”

  He swallowed and looked over at me, his gaze locked on mine for a few seconds. “Not at all. I’m just not used to it. It’s just, you’ve never treated me like a celebrity, and I like it.”

  “How do most girls act around you?”

  He sighed. “They don’t want to get to know the real me. They act star struck, and throw themselves at me and tell me I can do whatever I want with them, so they can go back to their friends and say they hooked up with Jason Brady.” He shrugged. “I usually don’t even correct them when they call me Jason. I just let them have the fantasy.”

  Wow, that was possibly the saddest thing I’d ever heard. I put my hand on his cheek, and he turned to look at me.

  “I want to get to know the real you,” I said. “Trust me, I’ve been around famous people my whole life, and I’ve met the people you’re talking about, but I’m not one of them. I liked the guy I met a few weeks ago and the one I’ve been talking to on the phone. I’m pretty sure that’s why I have such a hard time wrapping my head around the fame thing. It doesn’t consume you like it does other people I know.”

  “Like your mom?” he asked, and I was surprised he knew who she was since I hadn’t told him, but I guess Hollywood was a small town, so it was feasible he’d figured it out.

  “Do you know my mom?” I asked cautiously, and I think he thought I was offended.

  “I’m sorry,” he apologized quickly. “I didn’t mean to insult her. I wasn’t thinking.”

  I took a bite of chicken and chewed it thoughtfully. I didn’t want to bad-mouth my mother to someone in the industry, but I’d told Jase about every other facet of my life, so it stood to reason that I could tell him about her as well.

  I smiled what I hoped was a comforting smile. “Jase, I know how my mom is. You don’t have to apologize. Trust me, I’ve known her for eighteen years, and she’s just about the most selfish, vain and celebrity-consumed person I know. So, yeah, like her. I’ve seen how fame can tear people apart and make them ugly, and Jase, that’s not you.”

  “Thank you,” he said softly after a few seconds of silence. “I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t let the fame go to my head, but I think a lot of people make that promise, and then they get sucked in and don’t even realize it.”

  I touched my shoulder against his playfully. “I think you’ve done a pretty good job of remaining grounded.”

  I hoped Garrett would stay as grounded as Jase. His career was taking off so fast that he could easily lose himself to the fame.

  Jase smiled. “I like to call it forcing gravity, because let me tell you, it is so easy to drift away if you’re not careful. I learned that the hard way.”

  “Forcing gravity. I like that,” I said, choosing not to pry into what had taught him that lesson. I’d let him tell me when he was ready.

  Jase smiled at me.

  “Just don’t change,” I told him, reaching out to squeeze his hand, “and I think you’ll be okay.”

  “I don’t plan on it,” he said sincerely, and I noticed he was visibly relaxing. “You know you’re the first girl I’ve had over to my house.”

  “I am?”

  He nodded. “I don’t really make a habit of bringing people here except my family.”

  “What do you usually do on dates?” I asked, wondering why I was so different.

  He shook his head. “I don’t date that much,” he said, hardly answering my question. “You are the first person besides Gary, my family, and some of my friends to come here, and you’re definitely the first girl who I wasn’t related to who has seen my bedroom.”

  I wasn’t sure what he meant by that. Had he not been dating at all? No, he’d just talked about hooking up with women, and I’d seen him in magazines with girls since he and Chloe had broken up back in February. Had he just been causally dating those girls? Was I different? Was that why I got invited over? I didn’t know what to think.

  “Are you referring to your so-called ‘magical bedroom’?” I asked, instead of asking the other questions suddenly pressing on my brain.

  He grinned, and all my insecurities flew out of my head. “Yeah.”

  “So, no girls have really been here? Not even, um . . .” I trailed off, not sure if it was okay to talk about his ex. Even though we’d been talking for weeks, and I felt like I knew him better than a lot of people, we were still on our first date, and aside from him mentioning her in the car, we hadn’t ever gone there.

  “Chloe,” he said for me. “Or as my friends like to call her, ‘the lying, cheating whore who most likely only dated me to increase her celebrity status’. It’s fine. I kind of wish I could get those two years back, but whatever. And no, she never came here. I thankfully moved into the house after we broke up, because otherwise, I probably would have sold it. There were several months where I couldn’t stand looking at anything that reminded me of her, and I really do love this house.”

  He was trying to keep things light, but at the same time, he sounded so cold and detached as he spoke of someone he’d supposedly been in love with. But I guess if the person you give your heart to stomps on it and shows it to the whole world, you might be a little jaded. His comment in the interview about wishing her nothing but happiness came back to me. I knew he’d been lying when he’d said that, and who could blame him?

  “Do you like the food?” he asked then, and I knew it was his way of changing the subject.

  “It’s delicious,” I said, forcing
a smile that I knew he needed to see. “So I’m guessing you lied to me earlier, huh?”

  “About what?” he asked, around a mouthful of food. He looked distressed all of a sudden.

  “About your magical bedroom. It can’t be too magical if you’ve never had a girl in there with you.”

  He laughed. “Well, I don’t know, I just showed it to you from the doorway, and you in turn invited yourself back there. I’d say that’s pretty magical.”

  “Touché,” I said, taking a sip of my iced tea.

  Jase just winked at me, and I knew immediately why girls threw themselves at him. I was quite tempted to screw eating altogether and go explore his magical bedroom right then and there.

  After dinner Jase put on some music, an Andrew Bird album I’d bought earlier in the year. I listened to the music as I leaned back against the pillows stacked behind me, feeling quite comfortable and content. He disappeared inside and returned with two glasses of wine. He settled down next to me and put his arm around my shoulders, pulling me close to him. I looked up at the millions of stars overheard, surprised that they were visible. Usually either the smog or the marine layer made it hard to see the sky in L.A., but tonight the air was clear.

  “What was it like having your love life splayed all over the tabloids?” I asked him.

  “You tell me,” he said, as he landed a kiss on my temple.

  “That wasn’t my real love life,” I clarified.

  “Yeah, and what the rags printed about Chloe and me wasn’t completely true either, but millions of people in America read the story, saw the pictures, and believed what was written. It’s amazing how much a little twisting and alluding can make a story all the more exciting, and at the same time, so fantastically far from the truth.”