In any other situation other than this, Carson wouldn't have had any doubt that Shay's party was going to turn out perfectly. She excelled at a lot of things, but putting together a really good party was one of the top things on that list. It wasn't surprisingly, really, considering how much experience she had in the partying field. Regardless, with the way that this summer was going, Carson honestly wouldn't have been surprised if something happened. If Alexandra poured antifreeze in their drinks, if Owen decided to toss his new outlook on his relationship with Shay out the window, if Ariana riled Shay or Colette up... there were a lot of possible scenarios that worried Carson. Things could either go really well and set a new tone for the summer, or go really poorly and have Shay on a plane to Dubai before the guests even left.
A couple of hours into the party, and surprisingly, things were going well. After little deliberation (because fashion wasn't really his thing), Carson had chosen green as his color, because a pair of green shorts were the first thing he saw in his closet. He matched it with a white button down shirt, whose sleeved had to be rolled up due to the California heat, and a pair of Sperry's boat shoes. He knew that he would hear about the lack of effort put into the outfit by someone, with that someone most likely being Colette, but it didn't bother him too much. There were guys like Owen who worked in that industry and knew how to dress well without a second thought, and then there were guys like him, who just... rolled with it.
While Carson hadn't seen much of Owen so far, he also hadn't seen much of Shay, or any of the others staying with the siblings for that matter. A few of his old fraternity brothers had shown up on the spur of the moment, and while Shay mingled with her friends, Carson had taken the time to hang out with them. They spent most of their time in the pool area, because Carson wasn't a good dancer. He knew that it wasn't just dancing going on inside, but at the same time, he knew there was at least some, and with a girlfriend who could dance so amazingly, he wasn't willing to risk embarrassing himself. Call it paranoid, but Carson didn't want Shay's music-industry friends to already brush him off as not being good enough for her. So, he stuck to what he knew for as long as it seemed reasonable. He didn't go crazy on the drinking, for a couple of reasons, with one of them being that he honestly was still a bit freaked out of his drunk self. If he had gotten so obliterated at one point, to have willingly slept with Lex, he didn't know what else he was capable of doing. There was no way that a sober Carson would cheat on Shay, but at the same time, there was no way that a sober Carson would sleep with the barely eighteen-year-old sister of his best friend. Getting blackout drunk wasn't appealing to him tonight anyway, even if his college friends seemed on the path of getting there.
"Alright, guys, I better go see what Shay's up to. Enjoy yourselves, I'll be back in a few," Carson eventually said. He didn't escape the crew before one of the guys, Tanner, yelled something about him already being whipped, but Carson didn't even look back. He was getting ready to shoot a text to Shay to ask where she was, because with the size of the home, it could take him an hour just to find her, but he didn't have to look far. He found her soon after entering the house, but he waited to approach her until she had finished speaking to the group she was with, and was turning away on her own. He caught her as she spun around and even while pressing his lips against hers, couldn't keep himself from grinning. "I didn't think envy really fit me when I picked out these shorts earlier, but damn, have I been jealous of everyone who has been hogging you all night," he whispered when he pulled away. It wasn't just some corny pickup line. He really had been, and as he inhaled the scent of her perfume, he leaned in again for another kiss before finally releasing her. For the first time, he wasn't even worrying about whether Owen was near or not.