Drifting

The amount of effort that Carson had put into managing The Summer Set’s tour, and making sure that it went perfectly, completely drained her. After the last show in LA she helped them pack up and with kisses on their foreheads, sent them back to Arizona, yelling “I’m so proud of you!” as they left.
Funnily enough, she was dealing with her depression better. Sometimes it improved when she didn’t have to plaster a smile on her face constantly. She could just be herself, and that helped her mood.
For the next week she spent all day in her pajamas, read, drank enough tea to fill 10 bathtubs, tried out new recipes, watched every single episode of The Office (American version), slept in till at least 11 everyday, Skyped with Kirsten while she was onset, made up a cartoon character named Hardy who’s main goal in life was to be the ringleader of his very own circus (that was clown free), texted till she couldn’t feel her thumbs, and looked online for puppies.
While it was thrilling to be the exact opposite of productive, after day 9 she started to itch. It was that itch that told her she needed to do something. Usually it meant get back on the road for a few weeks managing a band, but this one felt different.
“What’s the matter, sweets?” Kirsten asked from what looked like her trailer.
Carson sighed, readjusting her MacBook Pro’s screen, “I don’t know. I feel useless. I want to be doing something, but I just don’t know what. I don’t want to be back out on tour right now. It’s just not calling me anymore and I feel like I need something that is for me.”
“Well is there anything that you’ve always wanted to do? Sometimes what you’re missing is passion. You gotta do what makes you happy, baby.”
“Yeah you’re right. I guess I’ll sleep on it,” Carson sighed and ran a hand through her messy hair.
Kirsten looked away from the screen and Carson heard the sound of a trailer door opening. “Hey hot stuff.”
“Hi blondie,” said a deep manly voice.
You know that thing where if you’re Skyping with someone and you try to see something out of frame and you lean to try and see it even though you know it’s ridiculous because you won’t be able to? Well that’s what Carson did. When Kirsten started laughing at her Carson hid behind her hands, “Shut up Kirsten! I’m not right in the head right now! I cannot be held accountable for anything that I do!”
When Kirsten’s laugh simmered down to a chuckle, Carson reappeared from behind her hands. There was a very good looking black man smiling at her. “Oh dear lord, now a ridiculously good looking guy is seeing me make-up less, shower-less, and out of my mind.”
“Just a normal day, sweetheart and I think you’re gorgeous.” He winked and Carson felt a blush run up her cheeks.
Kirsten smacked his arm, “Shemar don’t overwhelm the girl. I’ve grown accustomed to your hotness over the years. It’s quite distracting when you first meet you.” Shemar just smirked and leaned back into the couch. “Anywhooo… I’m having dinner at my house Friday night and everyone is going to be there and you should bring your sexy self.”
“Well flattery does work on me...” Carson smiled. “I’ll bring desert.”
“Perfect. My house at 6 or earlier or whatever. I just want you to meet all my friends.”
“I’ll be there! It gives me an excuse to,” Carson started holding up fingers, “1. Shower 2. Leave the house and 3. Test out the new cake slash frosting recipe.”

She had found it. It came to her at 4 am on Thursday morning. She was going to open a bakery.
Bingo.
The purpose was there. The passion was there. That day Carson got down to business. She started looking online for buildings that morning. There was so much that she had to do. Find a store, find employees, menus, recipes, décor, supplies, and get a loan.
Sighing, Carson slumped back into her armchair; this was going to be easier said than done. The money. Oh God, the money. She wasn’t poor, but she certainly wasn’t rich. Between modeling gigs, tour managing, and the money her grandfather had left her and her brother and sister, it was enough for her to live easily on. Most of it had gone into buying and restoring her house in LA, but she had saved a few grand for emergencies or future endeavors. This was a future endeavor.

“Oh my God I am sooo sorry that I’m late!” Carson burst into Kirsten’s house 20 minutes after 6, desperately trying to keep the cake she had made balanced on her right hand. “There was so much traffic and my realtor was late and oh my God hi I don’t know you guys.”
Five people beamed over at her as she sheepishly grinned back. “Baby girl, I’m insulted that you don’t remember me, because I definitely remember you.” The ridiculously good looking black man from her Skype date with Kirsten winked at her.
Carson blushed, “Oh yeah, you’re… Shemar right?”
Shemar nodded and winked again as a younger man, who was wearing brown corduroys, a lilac v-neck sweater with a white collar poking out, and converse jumped up from his seat and took the wobbling cake from her hands, “I don’t want anything to happen to that, Kirsten has been raving about your baking for the past few days.”
“Oh man. I hope she hasn’t set your sights too high. I always hate when people talk up something, telling me how amazing it is, like, ‘oh my god you have to see this movie!’ and then you see it and it sucks. It’s such a let down, but then again, I’m rambling and that’s not cute so I’m just gonna shut up and oh, I’m Carson by the way. Hi.” The beautiful blonde lady sitting next to Shemar threw her head back in a loud laugh, “Oh, she’s wonderful! I’m AJ.”
“I’m Matthew,” he smiled and his eyes flicked around her oval face.
“Sit, sit!” Paget patted the seat next to her.
The group chatted and laughed until Kirsten came busting into the living room declaring that her magnificent meal was ready to devour. Talk turned to first jobs and funny stories from the Criminal Minds set.
“And that is why Gube isn’t allowed in my trailer anymore,” Thomas finished.
“Wow,” was all that Carson could say as she laid a hand on her chest, forcing her breathing to slow down and Paget wiped a tear from her eye.
“So, now they they’re done making fun of me,” Matthew laughed and turned to Carson, who he had sat down next to, “What’s your job history, Carson? Kirsten said something about how you work in the music industry?”
After taking a sip of wine she smiled and said, “Yeah I do! But before that, well hmm let’s see… I’m actually a classically trained pastry chef; I graduated from The Culinary Institute of America in New York with a Bachelors in pastry and baking, and after that I was too poor to open up my own bakery,” Carson said a little laugh, “so I moved out here to LA and I started working for TaDa! catering. That’s actually how I got introduced into the music scene because TaDa! caters this huge summer tour called Warped Tour and I worked with them on it. It was really grueling; you got up at 5 am everyday to cook breakfast for 300 plus people, had an hour off and then started on lunch. It was nuts and exhausting, but amazing because I got to merge my two major loves, which is cooking and music. But yeah, through that I met a lot of bands and became really good friends with them and once I stopped working for TaDa! this one band that I met on Warped called The Maine asked me to tour managed for them when their regular guy got sick. That was 2 ½ years ago and now I’m finally getting to get back into baking again. Wow, okay, that was long.”
AJ raised her hand, “I for one feel inadequate now.” Carson laughed along with everyone else and Matthew turned back to Carson, “So do you only tour manage for that one band, The Maine?”
“No, no. I just got done about a week and a half ago tour managing for a band called The Summer Set, before that it was This Century, before that it was 30 Seconds to Mars, and before that it was Kings of Leon.”
“Kings of Leon?! 30 Seconds to Mars?!” Kirsten squealed. “If I wasn’t into girls, I would totally tap Jared Leto.” She stood up and made a humping motion against her chair. Thomas dissolved into a fit of giggles that sent everyone else over the edge, tears of laughter falling from their eyes.

After nearly everyone had cleared out and Carson’s cake plate had been cleaned and returned to her, she kissed Kirsten and Melanie on the cheek. “Thank you guys so much for tonight. I really had so much fun.”
“Anytime, Carson! We love seeing you.” Melanie smiled and put an arm around Kirsten.
Matthew appeared from the hallway with his jacket on, carrying Carson’s jacket on his arm. “I thought you’d want this.” He shyly smiled.
“Oh, thank you!” Carson smiled, setting down her purse and cake plate to put her jacket on. She was surprised when she felt Matthew slip it on. “What a gentlemen.”
Matthew shrugged, “What can I say? My parents raised me right.”
“Okay, I really need to go,” Carson smiled and waved to Kirsten and Melanie who were shooting looks at her and Matthew.
“I’ll go out with you,” Matthew said, following her outside and they walked in silence to her car. “It was really nice meeting you Carson.”
“You too, Gubes.” Carson smiled up at him.
“You should come to the set sometime.”
“Oh that sounds like fun!”
“Actually it’s a lot of waiting… but time passes faster when there are fun people around.” He laughed as he ran a hand through his short, messy hair.
For the first time that night Carson really looked at him. His warm brown eyes, and his perfect cheek bones, and the dark circles under his eyes that on anyone else she would have never found attractive. Matthew broke her out of the daze by saying, “Well night.”
“Goodnight,” she smiled and he opened the car door for her and after she slid in and started the engine, closed it after her.
“Drive safe.”
Carson rolled down the window to reply, “You too, oh and I just wanna say, tonight is the happiest I’ve been in a long time, so thank you for being a big part of that.” A blush crept up her cheeks as she said it.
“I’m glad to be of service.” A large smile spread across his face. “Goodnight, Carson.”
She was going to be happy. She was going to learn how to again and get off the damn pills once and for good.

“Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times. If one only remembers to turn on the light.” –Albus Dumbledore