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Three words.
He’s drunk. I shake my head.
Another text. Another declaration.
He’s drunk, I remind myself again.
I look at the texts again. I listen to the voicemails again. And again. And again.
He’s drunk. He won’t remember this. He doesn’t mean it. It’s too soon, anyway. But is it? We’ve had a connection, a pull to each other, packaged in the guise of hatred for a long time when it was anything but. We needed each other. We need each other.
I hit the call button.
“Hey gorgeous,” he says.
“Hey,” I take another breath. I don’t want to sound accusatory. “What’s going on?”
“Yeah, I kind of slipped.”
The complete lack of denial reassures me. He knows he screwed up, so that’s good, right? But he is indeed drunk, and that is not good. “Are you doing okay?”
“I’m great,” he says. “I was just celebrating just how great I am.”
The background noise isn’t loud enough to be a club. Not that Carter is the clubbing type… certainly not at our age, but who knows what he does when he is drunk? I’ve only seen angry drunk Carter. My cock twitched at the thought of angry drunk Carter. I didn’t even know there was a happy drunk Carter. And to my knowledge, he hasn’t been drunk for more than a year. Please God, let him be at the hotel bar. “Carter, can I talk to the bartender?”
“I’ve already told him I have to go.”
“Good…but, I, uh—” soon the voice filling my ears is not Carter’s.
“Hi,” he says.
“Hi, uh, this might sound like a strange question, but is this the bar at the Tivoli Suites?”
“Yeah.”
I exhale. Okay, so that is a small plus in this not-so-great situation. “I’m out of town and he didn’t say… look, he needs to stop drinking—”
“I know, he keeps telling me he isn’t supposed to be drinking,” he pauses. I hear Carter’s voice saying something about the Grizzlies. “He’s a very happy drunk.”
I smile. “Well, that’s good.”
I run my hands through my hair and hear the horn signaling the end of the game. Thank fuck. I don’t even know the final score. I can’t even recall anything from the third period. We were winning until the time my attention was drawn to Carter. Judging from the lack of noise from the crowd, we must have won.
“I’m still several hours from being home. He has a suite there. Can you make sure he gets to it—and now? I know it’s a lot to ask.”
“It’s cool, no problem. I’ll give him some water and make sure he gets to his room.”
“I really appreciate that.”
“Look, man, I’m new here and I had no idea I wasn’t supposed to serve him…”
The kid sounds afraid, like he is in trouble, like he might lose his job. It’s not on him to know this stuff. Had Carter informed the other bartenders not to serve him if he came in?
“There is no way you would know,” I say. “It’s okay. It’s neither your fault nor your responsibility.”
“Are you the hot hockey player he’s been babbling about? We’ve had the game on.”
I shake my head and run my hands across my face. “I haven’t been a player for a long, long time, but I do work for the Grizzlies… please, get him upstairs.”
