Forcing Gravity (2 page)

“Tell me you did not just drop your board on the concrete, Logan,” he chastised, hugging me back and squeezing just tight enough that I could still breathe
, but just barely
.
When I pulled back, he looked at me appraisingly. “You look good, babe.”

I grinned. “You don’t look so shabby yourself,” I teased
, poking him in his taught
stomach
.

I
t
had
been almost
a
year since Ethan and I had last seen each other, and it seemed he’d filled out even more in that time. Of course I knew that since I
’d
paid attention when
ever
he uploaded new pictures to Facebook. He was usually flanked by beautiful
women
, but sometimes there were individual shots of him surfing or after a competition
, shirtless and tan and beautiful
.
Ethan was a California surfer boy through and through
and had competed at an amateur level for several years
which attributed to his
rockin
’ bod.

We’d
actually
been surfing together since we were seven and our moms put us
, along with Ethan’s older brother
Garrett
,
in l
essons
soon after
the Lewis’
had move
d in next door
to my mom
.
I wasn’t nearly as good as Ethan
and Garrett
, especially since
most of
my surfing had been limited to the smaller waves off the coast of Florida for most of my life, but I could keep up with
them
when I had to
.

“What are you doing
here?” I asked, as Ethan
helped round up my discarded bags
,
and I picked up my surfboard, hoping I hadn’t damaged it.
I
t
was in a travel case, so it was probably fine, but i
t was
also a
going off to college
gift from my dad
, so I’d be pissed if anything had happened to it
. He’d had it custom designed and had just given it to me a few days before
I’d left. I’d only ridden it twice.

“You told me you were driving home alone, so I figured I’d show up to welcome you.
Welcome.
”
He grinned, quite proud of himself for his act of chivalry.

“E, how did you get here?” I asked, as I fiddled with the
convertible
top, trying to figure out how it went down. My board wasn’t fitting
in the car
any other way.

“
Garrett
dropped me off,” he said, and I tried to hide the panic I felt all of a sudden.

“Oh,” I said, working my ass off to maintain my composure. “Is he still here?”

Ethan shook his head. “No, he had to fly up to Vancouve
r for some indie film he’s shooting
. It’s supposed to premiere at Sundance next year
or some shit
. So
he
conveniently dropped me off at your kick-ass new car so I could surprise you
.”

He grinned again. I loved Ethan’s smile. He was so happy all the time, and his wide, bright smile always had a way of cheering me up
no matter how shitty I was feeling
.

“Well that sucks,” I said, actin
g how I
knew
Ethan would expect
me to act
upon hearing that I’d missed seeing one of my oldest friends
. “I wish I could have said hi to him.”

“He said to say hi to you,” Ethan said, sett
l
ing in
to the passenger seat next to me after we’d gotten everything loaded.

“Oh, well, hi back
.
”

God, I was so nervous. I’d just seen
Garrett
two weeks before when he’d been in Miami. He was an actor – a pretty popular actor as of late – and he’d been there filming scenes for a new movie he was in, so we’d hung out a few times.
Ethan knew that, but I didn’t think he knew the full story
of what had happened the last
night
Garrett was in town
, and
I wasn’t telling him.
From what I could tell, Garrett
hadn’t spilled anything to him
either, and I was grateful for that.
There’d been an
‘
incident
’
, and I was hoping to keep it solely between Garrett and me.

“You’ll see him in three weeks when
he’s back in town,” Ethan said. “What
? A
re you missing your boyfriend already?”

“Ha, ha,” I said, elbowing him, as he
fiddled with
his iPod, setting it up to work with the car’s stereo system.
I’d have to
have him show me how to use it
later.
“He’
s not my boyfriend, dumbass
.”

“Celerity Weekly
says otherwise.”

“Yeah, well,
Celebrity Weekly
needs to check their facts.”

Garrett’s popularity
as a teen heartthrob
had followed him to Miami, and
the paparazzi had been all over us when they saw us hanging out together. I was actually labeled as Garrett Lewis’
s
new girlfriend for a few weeks, which was awesome
.
Yeah, not really.

I was honestly a little sick of hearing about my recent fifteen minutes as a pseudo-celebrity.
Ethan knew this, so t
hankfully
he di
dn’t tease me
about it
any further
.

Instead, he went back to his iPod, and before I knew it,
Californication
by
Red Hot Chili Peppers
was
emanating from the
undeniable
kick-ass sound system
.
At least my mom had gotten
me every upgrade available. The
car
was
pretty sweet
.

I raised my eyebrow at Ethan
at his choice of music,
as I
drove out of the garage
, and he grinned again.

“Welcome to Cali, baby,” he said, sliding on his Ray Bans and leaning back against the seat,
tilting his face toward the sky to
let the bright sun warm his cheeks
.

-
2
-

No one was home when I walked into my mom’s house, and I stood there for a few moments in sheer disbelief.
It was bad enough that
she
hadn’t met me at the airport, but for her to be gone when I got home was ridiculous.
She knew what time my flight was arriving.

Her
housekeeper, Mrs. Grable, informed
me
that
she was out shopping with my little sister
and she’d be home in time for dinner
.
I guess I should have taken her note literally. I’d see her
at eight.

Needing to speak to someone who
actually
appreciated my existence, and who I knew would answer the phone, I called my dad.

“Hey Daddy,” I said as cheerfully as I could. Of course my dad knew me and my moods better than anyone, so he could tell I was upset.

“Hey Lo,” he said, and my heart squeezed at the sound of his voice. I missed him already. “
How was the flight?”

“Long and tiring, but Ethan met me at the airport, so that was a plus,” I said,
trying to keep things as light as possible,
as I stepped into the elevator with my suitcase.

I usually thought having an elevator in one’s home was absurd, but in this case, with the alternative being hiking up three flights with my bags
and surfboard
, I opted for
one of the indulgences
that
having a filthy rich mother afforded me.

My dad chuckled. “How is Ethan Lewis these days?”

He’d
always li
ked Ethan. They’d only met once
when Ethan had come to visit me in Florida, but he liked to surf
and he was a USC
fan, so to my dad, he was a keeper
.

“He’s Ethan,” I said. “
He’s s
till a heartbreaker who ref
uses to settle down with a girl,
even though they’re all drooling over him constantly, and
he could have any girl he wants
. Oh,
and he’s taller than the last time I saw him.”

When I reached my room, I noticed
that
my mom had redecorated
it
yet again. It seemed like every summer I came back my room was different. No matter, I was only staying there for a month, so what did I care.
I noticed my college boxes had been neatly stacked in the corner of the room. My mom had offered to have Mrs. Grable unpack them and put them away, but I’d been insistent I’d take care of it when I arrived. I wasn’t used to other people doing things for me
.

“Well that’s good. I wouldn’t want you towering over your boyfriend.”

“Daddy!”
I said, exasperated with him. He was under some delusion that Ethan and I were going to get together now that we were both living in the same city. It wasn’t going to happen. “We’re not like that, and you know it.”

“We’ll see,” he muttered. “Just for good measure, you tell him that if he in any way damages my little girl’s heart, I’ll have his head.”

“Okay, I’ll be sure to pass on the message,” I said, rolling my eyes.

I walked out onto my balcony that overlooked the infinity pool and the ocean
a few hundred yards away
. At least I had a great view, and the waves
looked
spectacular. Maybe I could talk Ethan into going surfing when he got back from the gym.
He’d headed there as soon as I’d dropped him off at his house.

“So I picked up
Celebrity Weekly
today w
hile I was at the grocery store,
”
my dad said,
not s
o subtly changing the subject

“Oh yeah?”

I’d seen that
week’s issue, and for the first time in a month, I hadn’t been on the cover, but I
also
hadn’t flipped inside to see what small blurb they might have printed about me and my so-called relationship with
Garret
t
. It
was possible I’d earned a mention yet again
.
Apparently ‘dating’ a full-fledged celebrity made me newsworthy.

The
paparazzi
first
started to think something was going on when they
saw
Garrett
and me surfing
together
in Ft. Lauderdale. We hadn’t seen anyone around, so we thought we wer
e safe, but apparently they’d t
ailed us
and had snapped several p
ictures of us hanging out in the ocean
.

That first week we’d only made one of the smaller boxes on t
he front of the magazine, but
they conti
nued to follow us around Miami
, taking
pictures of what they
thought were intimate moments. T
he next week
’s issue
showcased a picture of us on the cover
with our heads close together at dinner,
and then several
additional
shots inside the magazine
of Garrett
coming to my
house to pick me up, us eating
out
on South Beach
, and
doing other mundane things like
surfing and shopping and waiting in line to see a movie
. But it also featured the piece de resistance –
side by side pictures of Garrett and me out at a club and then me leaving his hotel the next
morning
in the same clothes I’d worn the night before
.
Oops.

Yeah, that
last
one might have
seemed
a littl
e compromising,
but
the others were
completely innocent. We
were just friends, but o
f course no one believed that.
S
uddenly, I was the mystery girl Garrett Lewis, famed fallen angel from the
Earthbound
movies, was dating. Rumors flew
across the internet
about how we’d met, when we’d gotten together and how we were keepi
ng our relationship on the down-
low. Then the
pa
ps
found out my mother was
A-list
actress,
Alana Davis,
and they figured it was a Hollywood match made in heaven.