Earlier (7pm)
Carlton had thought for a long time that he wasn't destined to be popular or to have many friends. So, to hide any self-consciousness or loneliness he had developed this massive arrogance and an attitude that made other people think that he was better than they were. In the last year or so, he was glad that occasionally he was able to drop the façades he threw around him for protection.
The day had been dragging on, and Carlton felt that he had been looking at the crime scene photos of his current case for an hour, trying to find something he might have missed. O'Hara had gone out for the night, saying she had a date, and she would see him in the morning.
This case was driving him crazy. The fact that O'Hara had asked twice if they needed to call Spencer for assistance was driving Carlton into a rage. He still wasn't convinced that Spencer was a psychic, but that man was pretty observant when he needed to be. Carlton wanted to try to solve the case on his own, and he made a mental total of cases that Spencer had been called in. He tried to balance out the number of cases they actually solved, with the ones where Spencer had come in to help. Spencer had help them close the last two cases, and Carlton thought they needed to get one solved without him.
He wondered sometimes if O'Hara called Spencer in at times because she was sweet on him.
He looked over everything for another hour, before he decided to leave for the night, or at least for a few hours. He just needed to find something to keep himself preoccupied for the next few hours.
He finally decided to go to the grocery store, since he hadn't done any real shopping for about a week, and he was running low on frozen pizzas.
Carlton was debating on whether he had the energy to make cubed steak tonight, when he heard someone call his name. He thought of waiting to see if the person was actually talking to him. There could always be another Carlton in the store. Maybe if he turned the person would stop bothering him, and leave him in peace. He put the meat down, and turned around though. A few feet behind him were Burton Guster, and Henry Spencer.
Carlton noticed that Guster was wearing khakis and a pink striped shirt, and Henry was wearing a green shirt with palm trees, and Bermuda shorts.
"We are having an avoid Shawn night, would you like to join us?" Henry asked.
Carlton thought of making up an excuse, but he was feeling a bit frustrated and really wanted to somehow hang out with humans. Guster and Henry weren't bad people, and Carlton had even gone fishing with Henry a few times. "Does that mean we won't talk about Spencer the whole night?" He asked suspiciously, before he made his final choice. Even if they were, it wasn't like he had any other plans for the night.
Guster laughed. "If we can avoid it."
"Okay, I am in."
They continued buying all the things that they might need, and they went back to Henry's house to cook. Henry let Carlton cook the steaks, while he prepared everything else. Guster set the table, and would do the dishes after dinner was over.
They spent the whole dinner talking about a variety of things, and Carlton even found himself laughing a lot more than he had in a long time. He especially liked the police stories that he and Henry were able to share. Guster and Carlton also had a good discussion about some of their favorite words.
After Dessert, it had been Henry's suggestion that they have a Scrabble tournament. Upon trying to find the box, Guster remembered that he saw Spencer playing with it the other day. So, instead of just going to the Psych office to get the book, and come back, they decided they would play over there. Shawn was on a date, so he wouldn't be back in the office till morning.
Guster found the board under Spencer's chair, and brought the chair and the game over to his desk. He set up the board. He let Carlton sit in Spencer's chair and Henry sit in his chair. Guster sat in one of the chairs that were for the guests.
Carlton hadn't actually remembered spending much time in the office, so between turns he would explore the office. He found all kinds of weird things: Rubik's cubes that weren't finished, Miami Vice: the series DVD disc scattered away from their boxes, a novelization of the movie E.T., were among some of the things he found.
Two games in, Carlton found Shawn's stock of alcohol. There weren't any beers, but the stuff to make martinis so, Carlton made some for everyone.
The games got funnier as they consumed more alcohol, and they technically were a bit more lax with the rules, but they were all having fun, so it didn't matter.
Carlton was sure he ended up drinking more than anyone else drinks, but they didn't seem bother by it.
By 4:30, they had sobered up a bit, so they walked over to one of those 24-hour diners and ordered breakfast.
Afterwards, since Carlton lived a distance away, and Guster knew he had to go to work, he suggested that Carlton could crash on the couch at the office, since it was closer to the precinct.
They agreed they would do this again sometime. Guster said he would look up some ideas for things, which they could do on the next avoid Shawn night, since he wasn't tired, he had taken a nap earlier in the day. Henry waved bye, and headed home.
Guster got Carlton a pillow and a blanket.
"Thanks, this was fun." Carlton said, really meaning it.
"It was." Guster agreed.
Carlton kicked off his shoes, and lay down on the couch.
The next thing, he remembered was waking up, putting his shoes back on, and slipping out without a word to Spencer, who he could hear talking in the other room.
Carlton had a splitting headache, he knew he shouldn't have drunk so many of those martinis. He needed to learn to control his alcohol more. He had had a lot of fun last night, and despite the headache it amused him to be putting something over Spencer. Though, it was possible that Spencer could find out about last night, but right now, it was a secret between Guster, Henry, and Carlton.
