“Just this
once,” he said, grinning at me. “And let’s not tell your mom about this, okay?”
We sat there and
drank the entire six pack; sharing memories as well as talking about all the
things we loved and would miss about Brandon. It was one of my favorite
memories of me and my old man together, but I still don’t like thinking about
it now because it just reminds me that he’s gone, too.
“Hey, man,” Josh
says, thumping me on the head as he walks by. “Jenna’s coming over in a little
while. I think we’re just going to hang out and play some pool if you want to
join us.”
I’m surprised he
hasn’t said anything to me about my drinking, but then again, he hasn’t said a
word all night. He’s been trying really hard lately to get me to talk and open
up, but I’ve done a good job of shutting him out.
“I don’t know if I’ll
be up for it, but thanks for the offer,” I say, taking another sip of beer.
“C’mon, man, don’t
do this to yourself.” He sighs, facing me. “It’s New Year’s Eve. I’ve never
been one to celebrate this stupid holiday, but it’s better than sitting here
and feeling sorry for yourself all night.”
“I’m not—whatever,
man.” I stop before I get myself caught in a lie, knowing he’ll call me out on
it.
“Okay, well, the
offer still stands if you change your mind.”
He takes off,
running upstairs. I stay on the couch, prepared to get back to my depressing
thoughts when I hear a car door slam and then another. Leaning forward, I put
my beer down on the coffee table, turn around, and pull down the blinds to look
out the window.
My chest feels like
a sledgehammer hit it and I can’t believe what I’m seeing. Opening my eyes
wide, I take another look and see Jenna walking up the driveway with Holly.
Jenna interlocks her arm through Holly’s and they’re laughing about something.
My mind still doesn’t let me believe it’s true. Closing my eyes, I’m convinced
that I’m just hallucinating, but even then, I still try to burn the image of
seeing her smile into my brain. I’ve been missing it so much over the last
couple weeks, but I never realized just how much, until now.
My drunken mind is
slowing down my thought process and I don’t realize that this is actually real
for a few seconds. Damn! I haven’t seen her in almost two weeks and the first
time she’ll see me, I’m going to be shit-faced drunk? I’m off the couch and
running up the stairs when I collide with Josh on his way down.
“What the hell,
man? Where’s the fire?”
“Why didn’t you
tell me that Holly was coming over tonight!?” I blurt out.
“What? I had no
idea. She’s here?”
“Yeah, her and
Jenna just showed up.” Just then I hear the front door open.
“What’s the
problem?” Josh says, keeping his voice low. “You’ve wanted to see her, right?”
“Josh? Carter?”
Jenna yells from downstairs.
“Yeah, babe, I’ll
be right down,” Josh yells back.
“I’m drunk, man. I
don’t want her to see me like this,” I grit through my teeth, trying to keep my
voice down. As much as I don’t want her to see me like this, it hurts to know
that she’s down there right now and I’m not in the same room with her.
“Go take a long,
cold shower and try to sober the fuck up. I’ll keep the girls entertained,”
Josh says, poking me in the chest and then jogs down the stairs.
Jenna and I walk
into the house and it seems like no one is home by how quiet it is. Out of
nowhere Josh comes running down the stairs with a big smile on his face. I
swear, I don’t think I’ve ever seen that guy without a smile on his face. He is
always happy. It could be that I’ve only seen him with Jenna around and she’s
the one putting that smile on his face. They embrace for a short moment and
then Josh turns to me.
“Hey, Holly,” he
says. “I wasn’t expecting you. Jenna said you weren’t gonna be here for New
Year’s.”
“Yeah, I came back
early. I hope I’m not crashing your night.”
“No, no. Of course
not. Carter’s just getting ready,” he says, nodding his head towards the
stairs. “He should be down soon.”
“Sweet, tonight may
not be a total bust after all.” Jenna smiles. “I was telling Holly on the way
over how I kicked your ass in pool this past week. Maybe tonight we can play
teams... maybe even a little boy versus girl action.” Jenna raises her
eyebrows, looking between us.
“Care to make it
interesting?” Josh challenges.
“What did you have
in mind?” she asks, smiling impishly. I’m not sure why, but I really don’t like
where this conversation is going.
“How about a good
ole fashioned game of strip pool?”
Strip pool? I’ve
never heard of it, but I’ve heard of strip poker and I have a feeling the
premise of it is similar. “Uh, I’m not so sure about that.” I shake my head,
looking back over to Jenna.
“Well, you two
ladies talk it over and decide on whatever your hearts’ desire. I’m gonna go
check on Carter.” He takes off, running back upstairs.
Jenna glances in my
direction. “Well, Holly, what does your heart desire?” She’s looking at me with
a twinkle in her eye and a goofy ass smile on her face. I know what she’s
trying to do, but it isn’t going to work. On the way over, she tried to get me
to talk about Carter and I deflected it each time. I’m sure as hell not going
to talk about him now, especially not at his house when he’s just right
upstairs.
“You’re funny,” I
say. “But it’s not going to work.”
She rolls her eyes,
giving up on the subject. “Okay, fine, but are you gonna leave me hanging on
the strip pool or what? I think we could totally take these guys.”
“Are you kidding
me? You’re decent at pool, but I totally suck,” I say, taking my jacket off and
laying it across the couch. Between my nerves from the recent game proposal and
knowing I’m about to see Carter, a light sweat is starting to break out across
my body.
“Yeah, well, that’s
why we’ll have to do a really good job at distracting them. It’s strip pool.
There are a ton of fun ways we could distract them.” She looks frustrated that
she actually has to explain this to me.
Josh comes back
downstairs, rubbing his hands together. “So, what’s it going to be, ladies? Are
we going to shed some clothes or what?”
Jenna looks over to
me with a sweet smile and I nod my head. “Sure, I’m in.”
“Sweet!” he shouts.
“Carter’s just about ready; he should be down in a minute.”
Flutters start in
my stomach and travel all around my body, knowing I’ll see him soon. The last
few times I’d been here, they weren’t the happiest of memories between us.
Carter spent most of the time trying to avoid me, and eventually, I just
stopped showing up all together. However, tonight I’m here purely as a friend.
When the two of us get a minute alone together I want to try and talk to him.
See if he will tell me what is going on with him.
Josh walks past us,
towards the kitchen. “C’mon ladies, let’s get this party started.”
While Jenna and
Josh fight over who gets to break, I head back in the house to grab my jacket. I’m
thinking ahead, knowing that if we are going to be losing clothes, I want to
layer up as much as possible. Luckily, Josh has cranked up the space heater in
the garage, otherwise, having to take off clothes in that cold garage is going
to be miserable... well, even more miserable.
As I turn the
corner and enter the living room, I jump back a foot when I see Carter coming
down the stairs, taking me by surprise.
“Oh, my gosh, you
scared me.” I grab my chest and let out a large breath.
“Sorry,” he says,
“I didn’t mean to.”
“How are you?” My
hand is still over my chest as I take in a deep breath, trying to calm myself.
He shrugs. “Okay, I
guess. How was your Christmas?”
I shrug, too. “My
brother didn’t make it into town, so I got to spend a lot of time with my mom
and dad. I actually wasn’t supposed to be back for a couple more days, but I
was missing home.”
Missing you.
“Yeah.” He swallows
hard and looks towards the ground. “I heard Jenna tell Josh that you weren’t
going to be here for New Year’s,” he pauses and then looks at me intently, “but
I’m glad you came home early.”
“Me, too.” I smile,
fighting the urge to wrap my arms around him. Jenna wasn’t kidding; Carter
doesn’t look like himself at all. I haven’t seen him the past few weeks, but
the broken guy standing before me isn’t the same guy I knew for the past few
months.
He takes a couple
steps towards me and I gulp loudly when he stops just a few inches from me. My
heartbeat that was just beginning to return to a normal rate, starts to go
erratic once more.
“I mean it. I’m
glad you’re here. It’s really good to see you. I’m sorry that I’ve been distant
over the last few weeks. You have no idea how much I wanted to—to hear your
voice, your laugh. I thought about you a lot while you were gone.”
Whoa, I wasn’t
expecting to hear all of this. “You missed me?”
He closes his eyes
and then slowly reopens them. “Yeah, you have no idea.”
“Me, too.” I can
feel myself leaning into him desperately wanting to kiss his lips.
“Hey, Holly!” I
hear Josh shout my name and it breaks my focus. “Better get in here, your girl
has already lost both her shoes... her shirt’s next!
We both shake our
heads and laugh.
“Well, we better
get in there,” he says, glancing to my lips and then back up to my eyes.
“Yeah, we better.”
❧
One hour and a few
beers later, Jenna and I have lost our shoes and our shirts. I know that I will
have to sink my next shot or I’m going to give Carter a chance to sink his. I
don’t want that to happen because that would mean the loss of either my bra or
pants if he makes it. The game has been entertaining, to say the least, and I
can’t complain, seeing that both Josh and Carter are both down to their boxer
shorts.
Jenna is amazingly
talented when it comes to distracting Josh. He has only made one of his shots
the entire game. Carter is mostly the one responsible for the loss of me and
Jenna’s clothes.
“Okay, just hit it
softly,” Jenna coaches me. “Hit the ball right in the middle, but a little on
the left side, but not too far on the left.”
I sigh, looking up
at her. My nerves are already on edge, I don’t need her adding to them.
“Sorry,” she says,
smiling at me. “You’re gonna do great.”
Bringing the pool
stick back slowly, I push it forward, trying to keep it steady. The ball starts
to roll towards the top right pocket and, before it’s even sunk, Jenna is
squealing and jumping up and down.
“Take ‘em off,
boys!” Jenna laughs, glancing back and forth between Josh and Carter.
Josh has no problem
with it and pulls off his boxers in one swift movement.
Oh, my God!
I
tear my eyes away before I see anything, not wanting to see him naked for a
second
time. I’m not sure what’s worse, them stripping or me. This isn’t
nearly as enjoyable as I thought it would be, but I guess it’s so much better
than me losing another piece of clothing. Jenna is laughing, clearly enjoying
this, while I keep my face down. Just when I think things can’t get more
uncomfortable, I see another pair of boxers come to a rest at my feet.
❧
“So, just like old
times, huh?” Carter asks me as he throws a blanket and pillow on the couch.
“Hey, I offered to
sleep down here and let you have your bed. You said no,” I remind him, smiling.
“You know I don’t
mind. I actually started to like it down here and I’ve missed it,” he says,
looking away and falling on the couch. The last few hours have felt like old
times and, from the smile on Carter’s face, it looks like he’s enjoyed himself,
too.
“Well, I’ll see you
in the morning,” I say, heading upstairs.
“Yeah, goodnight,
Holly,” he calls and I’m reminded of how much I miss him saying those words.
“Night, Carter.”
As I slip under the
covers and close my eyes, I try not to think about how badly I want to go
downstairs to see Carter. We have so many things to talk about. There is so
much unfinished business between us that I don’t want to let everything that
has happened the last few weeks—like how he tried to ignore my existence—go
without notice. I toss and turn for close to an hour before finally giving up.
Making my way down the stairs, I try to push the fear and nerves out of my
head.
“Carter,” I
whisper, staring into darkness. “Are you awake?”
“Yeah, I’m up.” His
voice is soft and deep.
“Can I talk to you
for a minute?”
“Yeah, sure.” I see
a large shadow rise and scoot back into a sitting position on the couch.
I take a seat
beside him and—without even touching him—I can feel the heat from him, sending
a path of warmth through me.