Forcing Gravity (32 page)

I smiled. That was a much easier subject to entertain.

***

Later that day,
I met Ethan for lunch on campus
, and
I quickly
found myself wishing I’d just stayed home
.
I was fresh off a phone call to Jase in which I’d told him about the articles
and my dad’s reaction to them
. He didn’t seem worried, so that helped me to keep things in perspective, although I was starting to freak out just a little, and I think he could tell.
I
kept thinking about
the gravity of the situation and just how far the reach of the Internet extended.

It was unnerving to have your life displ
ayed without your permission. Jase
was used to it, but I wasn’t. But then he said some of the sweetest things, and I knew instantly that everything would be okay. I wasn’t dealing with any of this alone. I had Jase, and he wasn’t going anywhere. Everything would be fine.

“Take care, beautiful,” he said, right before he hung up, so o
f course when
I
met up with Ethan, I was all giddy and smiley
and
feeling all gooey inside
.

Ethan could instantly tell something was up.

“You’re
, like,
glowing. Why are you glowing?” he asked
skeptically
, as I slid into the seat across from him
with my food
.

“I’m glowing?” I questioned, unable to hide my smile,
as I took a French fry off of his tray.

“Yeah, you’re all
smiley
and flushed
,
and your eyes are all glazed over.
Are you high?”

My mouth dropped open, and I grabbed a
nother
French fry and threw it at him. “I am not high, Ethan!
I
just had a date last night, that’s all,” I said as nonchalantly as I could
, forcing the smile from my face
.

“And what time did said date end?” he
asked
teasingly
, seeing right through me.

“When he dropped me off at my dorm this morning,” I said
with just a side of mocking, but
I was
seriously
unable to hide
the
grin
that had crept onto my face
yet aga
in as I thought about my
perfect date
with Jase
the night before
.

He’d a
ctually cooked me dinner, which he was extremely proud of
,
as I sat, drank wine
,
and watched him
show off his skills. I had no skills of my own
in the kitchen, so I was extra impressed
as he flipped and sautéed and stirred
.
And that was all before I actually got to taste what he’d made. It was delicious, and I seriously wondered at that point if he had any flaws.

After dinner
we snuggled on one of the big couches in his entertainment room and watched two movies before I fell
asleep
with my head on his lap
.
Jase had fully intende
d to drive me home after he woke
me up, but as we were walking to the front door, instead of turning left, I turned right and pulled him into h
is magical bedroom where we
proceeded to
do unmentionable things to each other for the next two
hour
s
.

When I saw that it
was getting
really
late, I’d told him I was ready to go, but he’d looped his arms around my waist, pulled me back against his chest and asked me to stay the night.

So I spent the night with Jase Brady, snuggled in his arms and probably had the best night’s sleep I’d had since I moved to L.A. In the morning,
we slept in and he
started to make
me breakfast,
then burned breakfast because I distracted him, and then he started all over making me crepes filled with strawberries and whipped cream. Talk about romantic!

Then
I decided that as much as I wanted to spend all day lounging on his couch and making out with him, I knew I had to put some distance between us. Things were progressing really fast, and I knew neither of us was mentally ready for that.

So Jase drove me home, kissed me sweetly, told me he’d call me later, and
quite possibly the best date
I’d ever had
, came to an end
.

“Ok
ay, so who is this guy?” Ethan
asked
, turning on his big brother defenses
.

“No one,” I said, picking up a cucumber from my salad and taking a bite.
He was going to be a buzz kill on my good mood, and I wasn’t going to stand for it.

“Bullshit. You have never once since I’ve known you stayed
out all night with a guy. He means something to you, but you don’t want to admit it.”

Yeah, he’s starting to mean a whole lot to me, but you hate him, so I’m not telling.

“Just let it go, E.”

“No,” he said, crossing his arms. “You’re like my sister, and I won’t have you sleeping with some guy who might not be a good person.”

“Why do you think he’s not a good person?” I demanded.

“Because you won’t tell me who he is, so that means he’s someone you’re embarrassed to be with. Why? Is it because he’s an asshole
,
or is he in some unsavory line of work? He’s not Garrett’s dealer is he?”

“
What?
No!
Wait.
Garrett has a dealer?”

Ethan looked at me like I was nuts.
“Yeah, but just for weed.
He’s not into the harder stuff.”

“Huh, I never knew,” I said, focusing my attention on my salad. Maybe now that we
’d
moved on to a different topic,
I hoped
Ethan would let the subject of my love life drop.

“So, who’s
the guy, Lo?” he asked
pointedly
.

So much for dropping the subject.

“I don’t want to tell you,” I mumbled.

It wasn’t like he wouldn’t find out. The picture
of Jase and me coming out of his mother’s
café
from
earlier in the week was for sure to be in
Celebrity Weekly’s
next issue
. I doubted we’d make the cover, but we’d be in there.

“Why not?”
Ethan demanded.

I’d never kept anything from him before, and he hated that I was doing it now.
I hated doing it, but I didn’t feel like I had a choice.

“Because you
hate
him,
”
I grumbled, knowing he’d figure it out.

“How do you know?”

“Because you told me
– several times
,” I spat, falling back against the back of my chair in a huff.

“W
hat? Who did I tell you I
. . . fuck! Logan!”

“What?” I asked, crossing my arms like a sullen teenager. I knew he’d figured it out, so I was bracing myself for a lecture.

“You’re fucking Jason Brady?!”

“Keep your voice down,” I hissed. “And no, I’m not
fucking
him, but I am dating him. There, are you happy?”

Of course, I was getting pretty close to fucking him, so I didn’t have a lot of room to talk. We were doing everything but, and I knew he was just waiting for me to give him the green light.
And I was trying to psych myself up to take that step, although I was very close to giving in.

Ethan looked at me in astonishment. “No, I’m not happy. That guy’s an asshole.”

I rolled my eyes. “He’s a really nice guy,” I insisted.
“You don’t even know him.”

Ethan shook his head. “No,
Lo
, trust me on this. He’s a fucking dick.”

I didn’t say anything. I just looked away and ignored Ethan and his
self-righteous attitude toward the best guy I’d met in years.

“I like him,” I said defiantly,
“
and I plan to continue seeing him, regardless of your petty high school feelings toward him. He’s a really great guy.
”

“He’s a rapist,” Ethan hissed, and I almost didn’t catch what he said. 

My head snapped back toward him, and I leaned forward, my heart now pounding in my chest in the way you didn’t want it
to be
pounding. “What did you say?”

“He’s a rapist,” Ethan said again, keeping his voice to a whisper.
“When he was a junior in high school, he and some of his friends gang-raped a girl at a party.”

“Bullshit,” I said, shaking my head. No way was that true. Jase hadn’t once tried to pressure m
e into anything
when
we’d hung out
, and it would have been pretty easy for him to do that
. “There is no way that’s true
, Ethan
.
He’s not that kind of guy.”

Ethan gave me a p
ointed look. “How long have you
known him, Lo
gan
?
A month?
Do you really think you can know for sure that he’s a good guy?”

I shook my head, refusing to believe what
he
was telling me.

“
If it was true,
the papers would have printed it, and he wouldn’t be the mega-star that he is today.
There’s no way something like that wouldn’t get out. You have your facts wrong.
”

Plea
se, God, let his facts be wrong.

“
I know he was arrested, along with four other guys, but they only found DNA evidence from two of them. The others
three
guys
, including Jase,
had good lawyers, so the
y
weren’t
charge
d
with anything
,
and everything sort got covered up.”

“Then how do you know so much about it?” I snapped, crossing my arms and glaring at him. “Were you there?”

Ethan narrowed his eyes at me. “No, I wasn’t
there,
Logan, but a friend of mine was dating the girl who was raped, so I
knew what was happening
during the investigation
. And he saw Jase coming out of her room right around the time the rape supposedly happened. If that’s not proof, I don’t know what is.”

I fought back the taste of vomit in my mouth, not
wanting to think about what i
t must have been like for that poor girl.
Being raped by
five
guys.
I shivered at the thought.
No way
Jase could
have been involved in something like that.

“Did the girl name him as one of the guys who
was
involved?”

Ethan shook his head. “She was drugged. She couldn’t remember anything about the guys, but
her boyfriend
rolled over on Jase, and then the guys who they found the DNA evidence fr
om rolled over on the other two
.
Jase was pretty good friends with two of the guys involved.
”

I sucked in a deep breath, trying to find a reason to acquit Jase in my mind.

“Just because he was there
doesn’t mean he did anything,” I reasoned
, but even
as I said it,
it sounded weak
.

“Well, even if he didn’t
do anything
, he didn’t stop the other guys from doing it either.
What kind of decent guy leaves an innocent girl tied up while his friends take turns raping her?
”

Yeah, that’s exactly what I’d been thinking.

My stomach started churning at the images Ethan was drilling int
o my head, but what was worse, wa
s he was putting Jase right in the center of them.

I sucked in a breath through my teeth. It felt like the wind had been knocked out of me.
“I don’t believe you,” I said through gritted teeth, feeling like I
was
on the verge of tears.

“Believe what you want, but
I trust the guy who saw Jase
come
out of
her room much more than I’d ever trust Jase. He
was always an ass
hole
,
and he always treated girls like shit, but this was so much worse
.
They destroyed her, Lo.
”