Forcing Gravity Page 4

  I’m pretty sure that I scared the shit out of him, but it didn’t matter. From that point on, he was my best friend. His mother was a super-mom. She made homemade snacks, set up craft projects for her kids and attended each one of their sporting events. She was also the one who convinced my mother to put me in surf lessons.

  At their house, there was a hot meal on the table each night, and the whole family ate together and talked about their day. Even Ethan’s father always made it home for dinner, if only to retire to his home office after dinner to continue working.

  The first time I ate dinner at Ethan’s house, I was in awe of how perfect his family was. All five of them had blond hair, deep tans and a vivaciousness that only rivaled that of my dad. I was instantly sold that they were destined to be my California family.

  Ethan’s sister Kelly was sixteen when I met her, and she soon became my idol, as I listened to her tell stories about high school, her volleyball team, and the many boyfriends she seemed to have. Garrett, who was eleven when we met, was always putting on a show. He aspired to be in show business, and was always practicing for some play that he was in, entertaining us with his guitar, or telling jokes. Even Ethan, who was quiet around everyone else, came out of his shell around his family.

  A lot has changed since I first met Ethan and his family, but we’re still just as close as we were that first summer, and Ethan is always the first person to have my back no matter what. Even when he can’t fix the problem, he always tries.

  “You’re mom sucks,” Ethan said then, causing me to look up from my magazine.

  “Yes, I know,” I said, before looking back down, uninterested in talking about my mother who I noticed was gracing the page in front of me, sparkling in a glittering ball gown at a benefit she’d attended the week before. I quickly flipped the page.

  Ethan leaned forward on the back of the desk chair and sighed loudly. He was broody, which was totally unlike him. I stuck my tongue out at him, hoping he’d snap out of his crappy mood.

  “Hey, there it is,” I said, sitting up on his bed.

  “What?” he asked, leaning forward to see what I was referencing.

  I jammed my finger down on the magazine page in front of me. “Garrett,” I said, having found the picture my dad had told me about the day before.

  I cringed inwardly as flashbacks from the night in Garrett’s hotel room in Miami assaulted me all at once. I’d tried time and again to wash the memories from my brain, but they didn’t seem to want to go away. I looked at the picture again and tried to refocus my mindset. Nothing happened, or rather, nothing noteworthy happened. It was not a big deal. Okay, moving on.

  Examining the picture again, I realized my dad had failed to tell me that Garrett had ended up on the weekly worst dressed list, and that, at least, helped me to push past what I didn’t want to recall. He was dressed in a pretty ridiculous emo outfit, so it was pretty easy to laugh instead of freak out.

  “I told you he’d be in here,” I said to Ethan. “He’s been in every issue since Earthbound came out.”

  “And you’ve been right there beside him for the past month,” Ethan joked.

  “Not anymore,” I said, looking down at the guy who looked like a more chisled version of his younger brother. Four years his elder, Garrett had a slight build and a more angular face, but they both had the same nose, same blue eyes, and same blond hair. Garrett’s hair was just spikey where Ethan’s was chin length.

  “Oh Garrett,” I said. “Red skinny jeans are so not you. What were you thinking?”

  I slid the magazine closer to Ethan who shook his head in dismay before leaning back again.

  “He looks like a douchebag,” he said, not holding back, but I knew it was in jest because he truly loved his brother and was proud of his success.

  Garrett had spent his first two years post-high school at the UCLA film school and doing lower budget movies before getting cast to play Lucas in Earthbound, the extremely popular teen trilogy about two fallen angels who fall in love with a human girl. When the movie premiered the year before, I’d come out to L.A. to attend the premiere with Ethan and his family. At that time, Garrett had been a virtual nobody. The fans were more focused on Donovan Collins, who played the sexier lead fallen angel, Eli, who’d won the heart of the girl in the first book.

  Donovan was already well-known for his work in several other teen dramas, so his fan base was extensive, although Garrett won the hearts of many females after the first movie. His character actually gets the girl in the second book, so his fans have been widely anticipating the next film due out later in the year. Just like with Twilight, teams had formed, and you were either Team Lucas or Team Eli. I was Team Lucas, simply because of Garrett.

  When Garrett first called to let me know he’d been cast as Lucas, I thought he was joking, and so did his family for that matter. It wasn’t until he sent a picture of the front of the script that we all realized he was serious. Then I’d spent the next hour on the phone with Carol explaining what the Earthbound trilogy was about, what a fallen angel was, and why it was such a huge deal that Garrett had been cast as Lucas, the charming, sometimes mischievous angel who went toe-to-toe with Eli, who was good and pure.

  It was funny, though. I thought the weirdest thing about seeing Garrett in Earthbound would be seeing him with wings, but in actuality it was the fact that I forgot it was Garrett up there on the screen. I was so mesmerized with his portrayal of Lucas that I failed to remember it was the guy I’d known since before he’d hit puberty. It didn’t hurt that he was playing a character so different from his true personality. Garrett was quite possibly the nicest guy I knew. He was rarely a jerk, but his character sure was.

  It was amazing how accurate his portrayal was, and I asked him after the movie just how many times he’d read the book. He’d just made a joke about wanting to be sure the fans bought that he could be a sexy angel, but whatever he did worked. His fans fell head-over-heels for him. After Earthbound premiered, Garrett became a teen heartthrob overnight, and he was instantly dubbed as a bad boy, even though that couldn’t have been further from the truth.

  He could no longer go anywhere without being recognized, his picture was in every celebrity magazine, and he became instant fodder for the nightly entertainment shows. Until this summer, it had been a fun weekly event to find out just where he would be in the magazines, that is until I’d found myself on the pages next to him.

  “Personally, I see it as a sign that he’s arrived,” I said to Ethan, who’d grabbed the magazine away from me, so he could stare at the smoking hot brunette on his brother’s arm. “You know you’re somebody when you end up on the worst dressed list.”

  “Those pants are just bad,” Ethan said, tossing the magazine back to me.

  “Claudia Dillon didn’t seem to think so,” I said, pointing to the pop star next to Garrett. “I bet he’s sleeping with her.”

  He probably wasn’t, but saying that was a good way to get Ethan riled up, and since he was already being ornery that day, it was fun to see how far I could push him.

  “Lucky bastard,” Ethan murmured, seemingly jealous. Like he had any problem getting girls who looked like Claudia or who were even better looking.

  “She probably gave him Chlamydia,” I said, and Ethan burst out laughing.

  “That’s disgusting,” he said, but I could tell he agreed with me.

  The girl on Garrett’s arm is what we liked to call ‘dirty-sexy’. She was sultry, underfed and half-dressed. She probably gave one hell of a blow job, but she most likely also left you with a nice present when she went home the next morning. I hoped Garrett didn’t sleep with her.

  “I’m totally going to give him shit when I see him,” I said, and wondered if that was really true. I had a feeling I’d probably clam up when I next saw Garrett after what had happened between us.

  “Not if I get to him first,” Ethan challenged, a grin spreading across his face.

  I just smiled back to hide
my growing anxiety.

  -4-

  “We’re going to a party tonight,” Ethan said a few days later when he called me at home.

  “A party?”

  I was in Skylar’s room letting her give me a pedicure when he called, so she looked up at me expectantly when she heard the word ‘party’. I knew she dreamed of the day she’d be old enough to go to a real party and secretly hoped I’d bring her with me that night. Yeah right. That was so not happening. Because I loved my sister, I would not expose her to that kind of debauchery. I would wait until she was at least sixteen.

  “Yes, a party,” Ethan said definitively, knowing I was likely to back out. “And before you say no, you don’t have an option of not going.”

  I groaned loudly.

  I wasn’t a big fan of parties with Ethan’s friends. They weren’t really my kind of people, and he knew it, but I’d gone with him to a few parties each summer as we’d gotten older. Usually I just hung out with his friend Lauren who was a surfer and a lesbian, which was good fun since she always dated the most melodramatic girls. She’d tell me all about her latest girlfriend dramas, and I’d realize how lucky I was to not have a significant other. Male or female, I was pretty sure the drama of relationships was the same, but Lauren always seemed to date crazy-ass girls who would stalk her or slash her tires or get in fights with other girls, so it was quite entertaining to hear her stories.

  I’d only had two boyfriends in my life, if you can even call them that. Each relationship had lasted around three months, and neither guy made my toes curl. I wasn’t sure if they would even be memorable in the grand scheme of my life. I was still waiting to meet someone that could set my heart on fire, but my hopes of finding that person at one of Ethan’s high school parties were slim. Hopefully Lauren would be there.

  “E-than,” I whined.

  “Lo-gan,” he fake-whined in return, and I knew he was grinning. Dammit, he seemed to have shifted out of his cranky mood and was back to cheerful, playful Ethan. It made it hard to be sullen like I really wanted to be.

  “Fine,” I said, acquiescing to his demands and knowing all too well that if he had to he’d drag me out of the house against my will.

  I needed to get out anyway. I’d stayed in the past few nights watching movies with Skylar, so I needed to be social with someone other than my twelve year-old sister.

  “Good. Be ready in an hour,” he commanded. “I’ll buy you sushi first, and then we’ll head to the party.”

  “That’s a dirty trick, E,” I said, impressed with how well he could manipulate me. Sushi was a surefire way to get me in a good mood. He knew it was my favorite.

  I hung up to the sound of him laughing.

  “I wish I could go to one of Ethan’s parties,” Skylar said wistfully, her attention back on my toes, which she was painting an electric shade of lime green.

  “No you don’t,” I told her, shaking my head. “Ethan will be surrounded by girls giggling and ogling him, and I will be bored out of my mind within fifteen minutes, because every guy there will be a self-indulged, pretty-boy, douchebag.”

  Skylar raised her eyebrow at me in a very-adult way. “I don’t think every guy there will be like that.”

  I raised my eyebrow right back at her. “How would you know? When was the last time you went to a party in which all the attendees graduated from the same private school in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in L.A.?”

  Skylar rolled her eyes. “Duh, never. That’s why you should bring me. You should try to at least have fun. I’m sure there will be some normal guys there, right?”

  I shrugged. “Probably, and no, I’m not bringing you.”

  “I think you should put on a cute dress and some pretty heels and show off those long legs you always cover up with jeans. Guys like long legs. Besides, when was the last time you had a real boyfriend – not a fake one like Garrett?”

  Dammit. I hated when my little sister was smarter than me.

  I mumbled something incoherent in response to her.

  “What was that?” she prompted, as she switched from the polish to the top coat.

  “I said it’s been a few months.

  “Try six,” she blurted, shaking her head. “I swear Logan, if my love life is as depressing as yours when I’m eighteen, I’ll throw myself off a bridge.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  She shook her head. “Hey, I just call them like I see them.”

  “Bite me,” I responded, knowing I was stooping way below even her maturity level. “Oww!”

  The little bitch actually bit my ankle, and then she had the nerve to grin up at me like a smart-ass.

  “Love you,” she said sweetly, so I kicked her with the foot she was holding and succeeded in smudging the polish she’d just applied.

  ***

  I wasn’t sure if I needed to clear it with my mom that I was going out, so after Skylar fixed my toes, I ambled downstairs to see if I could find my darling mother.

  “Mom?” I asked tentatively as I walked outside. She was on the deck, face down on a massage table, while a very ripped, shirtless man kneaded the muscles in her back.

  Both the masseuse and my mother looked up at the sound of my voice.

  “What is it, Logan?” she asked curtly. “You know I don’t like to be interrupted during my massages.”

  Actually, I don’t know that, because I don’t normally live here, but okay.

  “Um, I just wanted to let you know that I’m going out with Ethan tonight. We’re going to grab some dinner and go to a party. Is that cool with you?”

  My mom had never really imposed curfews on me, but I was so used to checking in with my dad before doing anything with friends, that it felt normal to ask. The look on her face told me I shouldn’t have bothered.

  “You’re eighteen. Do whatever you want,” was her response before she buried her head back in the face hole of the massage table.

  Okay, well that stung just a little. I really wished she’d care just a tiny bit.

  “Do you want to know when I’ll be home?”

  “Not particularly,” she said, from the hole in the table, not bothering to look up. She sounded annoyed. I could read her hidden message that said, ‘now go away and leave me alone’.

  “I might stay the night at Ethan’s,” I said, just to see if it would get a reaction from her.

  Her head snapped up. Mission accomplished.

  “Logan Nicole,” she cautioned. “Don’t you dare come back pregnant. Do you hear me? You will regret it for the rest of your life!”

  Gee, thanks Mom.

  I didn’t even have the energy at that point to argue with her and remind her that I was not sleeping with Ethan.

  “Fine, we won’t have sex,” I said instead, turning away from her and rolling my eyes because she couldn’t see me.

  “You’ll thank me later,” she called out as I started to walk away, not even realizing how much her words had hurt me. Did she really have to constantly remind me that she regretted getting pregnant with me?

  -5-

  “That’s a lot of sushi,” I commented when the waitress walked away, having noticed how many rolls and pieces Ethan had ordered.

  “I’m hungry,” he said, shrugging and looking over toward the front entrance of the restaurant where there was a bit of a commotion going on. We were at Katsuya in Hollywood, so celebrity sightings weren’t rare, and it seemed we were in the midst of someone noteworthy.

  “Then be prepared to eat all of it,” I said, looking back from the loud group at the front of the restaurant. I couldn’t tell who the celebrity was, but he or she sure had a large entourage. “I’m good for two, maybe three roles, but the rest is all you.”

  Ethan didn’t respond. His eyes were trained on the slew of half-naked women standing by the hostess station. I watched him as he checked them out and noticed that around the restaurant other guys were taking notice – and rightfully so. All of the women were rail thin, gorgeous, and had an air
about them that said they knew they were being watched.

  They were all sporting heels that were at least four inches high and short, tight dresses, making their legs go on for miles. And they all looked to be around my age. Not that I was trying to compete with them, because truthfully, I’d fall over if I tried to take one step in shoes that high, but I suddenly felt completely underdressed in my skinny jeans, layered boyfriend tanks and flip-flops.

  I should have listened to my sister. Not that Ethan cared what I wore, or that I cared what he thought, but I suddenly felt so out of place. It seemed my Florida surfer girl uniform might not cut it out in L.A.

  “Hello, earth to Ethan,” I called out, when he didn’t look back after a few seconds.

  “Huh?” he said, finally pulling his attention back to me. He looked confused in that typical zoned-out way guys get when pretty girls enter a room.

  “If you want to go talk to one, or several, of those girls, don’t let me stop you. It’s not like we’re on a date or anything.”

  Ethan gave me a funny look that said he didn’t understand what I was insinuating.

  “Those girls,” I said, gesturing back to the group of women, who were mingling and laughing at the front of the restaurant, waiting to be seated. “Feel free to go chat them up if you want. I’m good here with my edamame and this delicious watermelon cucumber mojito.”

  I took a big sip of the drink Ethan insisted I order, savoring the crisp, delicious flavor. Even though we weren’t even close to twenty-one, Ethan and I had fantastic fake IDs that he had made for us by some friend of his, using our yearbook photos. It was a lovely gift he’d presented me with when I’d announced I was going to USC with him.

  Ethan just waved me off like I was crazy. “I’m not leaving you, Lo,” he said, as he grabbed a piece of edamame and sucked the soy beans out between his teeth. “They’re just girls.”