Forcing Gravity (9 page)

A wave of dread suddenly washed over me.
We were at Garrett’s house? Was he
t
here?

“I t
hought Garrett was in Vancouver,” I said
, trying to keep my voice level
and hoping Ethan would confirm
that
his brother was still in Canada
. I was prepared to see G
arrett in two weeks, not that night
.

“He was, but he came back for the weekend. They had a
break in shooting, so he flew home
this afternoon.”

Shit.
I swallowed hard, trying to keep it together.

The last time I’d seen Garrett had been the morning after I’d stayed the night in his hotel room. It was his last night in Miami, and we’d had a little bit to drink at dinner. I wasn’t able to drive, and instead of taking a cab all the way back to Ft. Lauderdale, Garrett offered to get me a room in his hotel, telling me I could take him to breakfast the next morning before he caught his flight back to L.A. I called my dad to tell him our plan and assured him that we would in fact be sleeping in separate rooms, because I truly intended to do just that at that juncture in the night.

Then Garrett and I had hit the hotel bar, and things had gotten a little crazy. We’d started talking about how his life had changed since he’d become famous, especially with women. He
told me how
girls threw themselves at him on a regular basis
,
which hadn’t ever happened before.
And then, as if punctuating his statement, two giggly girls who couldn’t have been much older tha
n me, approached us
and asked for his autograph.
One ignored me and the other glared.

They giggled and flirted and asked him about his character in
Earthbound.
Then one of the girls actually asked him if he wanted to come up to her hotel room – with
me sitting right there!
Granted, they didn’t know who I was, but we could have been on a date. How rude
of her. B
ut sweet Gar
rett just politely declined the invitation. The girl just shrugged, and she and her friend left the bar, giggling with their heads together, no doubt excited about meeting a
real live celebrity
. B
ut then they stopped when they were at the door, and the one girl turned around
,
glared at me
,
and mouthed ‘slut’.

I
’d
just laughed
and turned my attention back to Garrett who looked bewildered by what had just happened.
As good looking as he was,
Garrett
had
never put it out there like
his brother did, so girls hadn’t ever
see
n
him as a sex object. Well, they sure did now
, b
ut
it seemed as if he didn’t quite understand, nor did he
seem as thrilled as most guys would be.
He hated the intrusion and assumption that he could be propositioned so easily. In truth, h
e
seemed kind of sad that he didn’t have a girlfriend
and unlike most guys, casual sex with groupies wouldn’t do it for him
.

I knew deep down Garrett was a nice guy who just wanted someone he could care about. He wasn’t the type to sleep around, so the star-fuckers who hit on him weren’t his style. He’d admitted to giving in a time or two after
Earthbound
had first premiered, but he
told me he
hadn’t been with a girl in a while.

His PR rep and his agent made sure he had a girl on his arm whenever he went to a
premiere
,
or any other event where he’d be photographed, so it looked like he was dating
, but those girls
would only give off the illusi
on th
at he was linked to someone
for a short while. Major stars who
appealed to a primarily teen audience were more marketable if they were single
, but desirable
, so his agent and publicist made sure he had different girls on rotation
.

I could tell
Garrett wa
s down that night
, especially after his fans had approached him
, s
o I tried to put us on an even playing field.

“
If it makes you feel any better,
I’m going off to college a virgin,” I said morosely, and his eyes had gotten wide.

“Really?”

“Don’t sound so shocked,” I said, punching him in the arm.

“I can’t help it,” he said, shaking his head. “Not that I would think you’d give it up so easily. I just figured there would have been a boyfriend along the way who would have . . .”

His statement drifted off as if he was afraid to finish his thought, but I knew where he was headed.

“I guess I could have had sex, but I was sort of waiting for someone special. Of course he never came along, so yeah, I’m the girl who is going off to college a virgin.”

I leaned my head on my hand, feeling the effects of the alcohol cloud my thoughts.

Garrett shrugged. “It’s no big deal, Lo
. Lots of girls wait until they’re
in college.”

“In L.A.?”
I asked, leaning toward him.

“Sure,” he said, but it wasn’t very convincing.

“How old were you?” I asked, as I reached out to run my fingers through his
short blond locks before letting my hand f
all
to his lap
.

Garrett
suddenly
got shy. “Eighteen.
It was o
n
prom night.”

I laughed out loud, even though I knew
he was embarrassed to share that
fact
with me
.
I couldn’t help it. I was drunk.
“That is so cliché,
Gare
.”

“I know,” he said, shrugging
as he took my hand in his, lacing our fingers together
. “But I’ve had lots of sex since then.”

“I’m sure you have
,” I said, still laughing, as I fell away from him a little. A tug on my hand jerked me back toward him.

“Hey, girls love me, I’ll have you know,” he said defensively.

“Oh I know they do, and by proxy, they hate me because they think I’m your girlfriend. Trust me, I’ve experienced just how much girls like you in these past two weeks. How do you stand it?”

“What? Being a teen heartthrob?” he asked, barely able to get the words out without smirking.

“Yeah.”

“Truthfully, I kind of hate it,” he said somberly. “I mean, when I signed on to do
Earthbound
, it was the coolest thing that had ever happened to me, but I should have lear
ned from what happened to the stars of
Twilight
and
The Hunger Games
that things would change for me. I just didn’t think they would change this much. I’m honestly afraid of getting typecast because of this role
, and not just in my professional life
.”

Since
Earthbound,
Garrett had done two more teen dramas, including the one he was in Miami for
, and he was lined
up to star in a teen horror flick
he was filming in September
, so his
fear wasn’t too far off.
I didn’t think it was possible to get typecast in his personal life. That assumption might have been going a little too far.

“Hey, if
Zac
Efron
can bounce back from
High School Musical,
I think you’ll be okay,
”
I said, trying to appease him

Garrett ran his hand through his hair, looking visibly stressed.
“I guess. Either way, I made sure
to take a break from teen films after
Vacation
From
Hell
. I’ve got that indie film lined up next, and
if I get
the
lead in the studio film I auditioned for two weeks ago, I’ll be okay. Did I tell you about
Junkie
?”

I shook my head. He’d told me about the
indie
film he was going to shoot in Vancouver about a guy who was kidnapped when he was twelve and
was
brainwashed into thinking hi
s captor wa
s his dad
. Then he gets
rescued when he’s eighteen and
is
r
eunited with his
real
family, only he doesn’t trust them after everything he’s been through. It was based loosely on a true story, and I couldn’t wait to see Garrett in such a dark role.

“
Junkie
is about a heroin addict who lives in Vegas. It starts shooting in November, and if I get the role, it’ll be huge.
Although I
’ll
have to lose like thirty pounds which
won’t
be
to
o
fun.”

“No more
In
and Out Burger,” I cautioned.

“No more of these,” he said, hol
d
ing up his Jack and Coke.

I took
a
sip of my vodka tonic and eyed him appraisingly. “Maybe the girls won’t like you
so much if you’re that skinny. It c
ould be a plus.”

I leaned forward so we were just inches apart.

“Could be,” he said softly, his eyes drifting to my lips.

In turn I was suddenly eyeing his full lips and wondering why I’d never thought about Garrett as more than a friend. He was sweet, kind, adorable, sexy
– all the right adjectives a girl wanted in a guy
. How co
me I’d never noticed this before?

“You look really pretty tonight,” he murmured, his
blue
eyes darting between my lips and my eyes.

“Thank you,” I said, leaning even closer. “So do you.”

“Do you want to go upstairs?” he asked then, and his eyes were hooded. It took a lot for Garrett to get drunk, but it seemed he was there. Although I was probably ten times drunker than him at that moment. “It’s getting kind of late.”

Oh, so he just wanted to go to sleep.
Got it.

“Okay,” I said pulling back from him, the moment lost. But I couldn’t stop thinking about how close we’d been as we walked to the elevators
.

As soon as we were in the elevator, alone, I meandered
over
to where he
stood,
watching the numbers go up, up, up.
He didn’t look down at me right away, but when he did, there was something in his eyes that was unfamiliar
and just a little fierce
.

“How come you’ve never tried to hit on me?” I asked, looking up into
his soulful
blue
eyes.

“Because you’ve always been like a little sister to me,” he responded.

“I’m eighteen,” I defended, crossing my arms defiantly.

“Yeah,” he si
ghed, looping his arms around my waist
and closing the infinite distance between us. “I noticed.”

Before I knew what was happening, Garrett and I were kissing and he had turned me around so I was pinned against the back of the elevator. When we reached our floor, he didn’t stop, he just picked me up, and I tucked my legs around his waist as we kept kissing. All the way to his door
,
and even as he fumbled with the key card, his lips never left mine.

Inside, he lay me down on the
bed and angled himself so we could continue making out. His hand slowly moved up under my shirt and closed around my
bra-covered
breast, massaging it slowly as his tongue played with mine.

My head was buzzing, and I know I wasn’t in my right mind when I said, “Have sex with me, Garrett.”

He froze over me for a few seconds before he pulled back and looked at me. I felt my face flush scarlet, as the reality of what I’d just asked
him
hit home, and I took in how equally flustered he seemed to be. We’d definitely been headed in that direction, but it seemed neither of us realized it until I actually said it out loud.

“Shit,” he murmured, as his head fell to my shoulder. “What are we doing, Logan?”

“I don’t know,” I said miserably, as I
realized his hand was still covering
my breast.

“Do you have feelings for me?” he asked, looking up and meeting my gaze.