You Make Me Whole

“I’m so glad you guys are here! I can’t…I can’t see so good.” The rest of the group laughed before in turn, greeting Ray and Carter. The guys were a lot better behaved than the girls. Anton, Jay, and Charlie each shook Carter’s hand or patted him on the back, thanking him for adding another guy to the party. The other girls, Sonia and Brooke, reacted in a similar way to Annabelle, although without saying anything too embarrassing. If Carter was as nervous as he looked when arriving at the bar, he seemed to totally relax after meeting everyone. He certainly seemed to enjoy how excited everyone was that Ray had brought a guest to the party. She knew it was a good thing, but the knowledge that she didn’t often introduce guys to her friends in Carter’s hands made her nervous. What if he read too much into it? Or what if it made her sound like she was using his impressive job to show off to her friends? Ray tried to shake it off; she knew she was over thinking it. She needed a drink.

Like a mind reader, Annabelle tapped her on the shoulder and offered her a shot.

“Tequila! You guys have some serious catching up to do!” She offered Carter his own shot, which he took, clearly hesitant.

“Aw man, I haven’t had Tequila since college!”

“Well, honey, we’re going to teach you things about partying that you don’t learn at Accountancy school!” Annabelle raised her own glass, ready to toast. Ray nervously glanced at Carter, but he didn’t seem offended by the comment.

“To you guys!” Annabelle toasted loudly, clinking her glass with both Ray’s and Carter’s. He looked deep into Ray’s eyes as they clinked their own glasses together. “To us, I guess,” he muttered quietly with a shy grin. Ray could only giggle as they knocked their shot back.

Carter’s reaction was priceless. Ray liked tequila, and had it most nights out, but even then it still burned every time she took it. Carter spluttered loudly, coughing up as if he’d swallowed fire. The rest of the group couldn’t help but laugh. Anton clapped his hand onto Carter’s back.

“C’mon dude! The girls drank that like tap water. You gotta take it like a man!” he said teasingly. Carter laughed, causing him to cough harder. The group continued to laugh; even Ray couldn’t help herself but to join in. Her own shot already spreading warmth to her fingertips. When Carter was eventually able to take his hand away from his mouth, he looked sheepishly at Ray, as if worried he’d made a fool of himself. Desperate for him not to feel like less of a man, she wrapped her arms around him, enjoying the feel of his arms around her waist.

“Now I remember why I haven’t had Tequila in so long!” he chuckled into her ear.

“Don’t worry, it takes some getting used to!”

“Oh, I don’t think I should get as far as getting used to it,” he laughed. Marcie appeared at Ray’s hip, offering another shot.

“You can’t say that, Carter! It’s not a birthday party unless everyone is sh*tfaced!” She forced the shot into his hand.

“I’ve got work tomorrow!”

“You can call in sick, can’t you?”

“Well…I…I don’t know.”

“When was the last time you called in sick?”

“Erm…when I had the flu last November!”

“What!” The group laughed again at Marcie’s reaction.

“Dude, that was nearly a year ago!” Brooke chipped in. “You can totally get away with calling in sick!”

“Yeah I skip work because of a hangover at least once a month,” Jay bragged.

“Dude, more like once every two weeks!” Charlie corrected him, causing another round of laughter, and earning him a playful nudge from Jay.

“How do you guys get away with it without getting fired?” Carter asked innocently.

“Most of us are in jobs where our bosses don’t even notice if we turn up anyway. We’re nobodies. It’s not like you where your job actually matters,” Anton offered as an explanation, taking a swig from his beer. At that, Carter looked down sheepishly, ashamed to have been pointed out as different to the others.

“Hey, don’t worry about it, bro,” Anton added after catching Carter’s reaction. “You’ve done good, man. You’ve got it made.”

Carter shrugged it off, “It’s not as special as it sounds. It’s a lot of work and no play.” He looked around the group, raising his shot glass. “So I guess I deserve one sick day.” He knocked back his shot, causing a huge cheer from the whole group.

From then on, the night was a blast. Both Ray and Carter caught up with the drink…and then some. When she hesitantly took out a cigarette, sheepishly explaining she only smoked when she drank, Carter merely asked if he could bum one, as he too often liked a smoke when he had been drinking.

Carter fit in with Ray’s friends better than she could have hoped. She couldn’t believe how worried she had been about his reaction to meeting her friends. She often left him and the guys excitedly discussing sports or cars while she and the girls gossiped like teenagers. The girls all swooned as they teasingly pointed out the way that Carter was looking at Ray all night, and the way she couldn’t help but grin to herself. She ended up telling Annabelle how the date went when they went to the bathroom together. She told her about how different he was to how she expected, how he seemed to like her despite how different they were.

“You think you’ll sleep with him, tonight?” Annabelle asked as she reapplied her lipstick in the mirror.

“I don’t know.” The thought had passed her mind several times throughout the night. Every time he gently brushed her knee with his hand when they sat next to each other, or ran his hands through her hair as he kissed her on the dance floor, or how their bodies moved together as the increasing alcohol made their dancing more daring, she felt an uncontrollable urge to be even closer to him. She had imagined on several occasions what it would be like to lie in his arms, to feel him move inside her, while he caressed every inch of her body. The only thing holding her back was the fear of rejection.

“I’m not sure he’s that kind of guy,” Ray confessed. He had been such a gentleman all night; maybe he just wasn’t one for going to bed with a girl on the night of meeting her. It wouldn’t surprise Ray in the slightest, and she couldn’t even call him a jerk for doing it, but she wasn’t sure she could bear the idea of asking him back to her place, only for him to turn her down, even if it was for the most sincere of reasons.

“Oh, come on, Ray! Every guy is that kind of guy! You should see the two of tonight. Of course he’ll want to go home with you.” Annabelle packed up the rest of her makeup and checked herself out once more in the mirror.

“Hmm, I don’t know. I’ll let him make the move, I think.”

“See, he comes across as a really shy guy. I think he needs a woman like you to take control of the situation. Trust me, guys find nothing sexier than a girl who knows what she wants, and is determined to get it.”

“We’ll see how it goes,” Ray said absent-mindedly, her mind already racing at the idea of dragging Carter back to her apartment.