Spotless

5.

Saul was ready to leave before Fabbi had even gotten out of bed. It took an extra 30 minutes from their breakfast for Fabbi to get ready.

"Are you ready for this, Fabbi?" Saul asked as he spread jam on his toast. "Did you do proper prep? Do you have your notes?"

Fabbi sighed. "What are you, my mother? Of course I'm ready." He poked at the fruit on his plate before decided to push the whole thing away. "We should leave soon."

The capital was only a 5 minute walk away, so the two decided to walk in silence to the briefing.

***

The room was full of people, from business men to single mothers, it was an amazing turnout.

Fabbi was to go up and speak in 10 minutes.
And nobody could find him.

"I swear he was with me like, 4 minutes ago-" Saul was trying not to let panic come over him. Maybe he just needed a quiet place to think. This room is quite loud...

Saul didn't try to look around for Fabbi until there was only 3 minutes until he had to start. By this point he had joined the press team in a frantic search for the rep. Saul could hear Pablo on the phone in one of the lady's hands, he did not sound very happy.

With one minute on the clock, Saul was starting to lose hope. Until he saw a flash of purple leaving a bathroom as he walked by.

He knew that purple.

He spun around and grabbed the purple blazer, pulling Fabbi over.

"What the absolute f u c k, Fabbi?! Do you know how long we've been looking for you?"

Fabbi looked pale and clammy. Saul's previous fury died down seeing him like this.

"Are you okay? What's wrong?"

Fabbi harshly pulled his blazer from Saul's firm grip. "Nothing! Nothings wrong. I was just in the bathroom alright—" and with that, he walked away to start the briefing.

Saul simply took a seat in the front row of the chairs that were placed in the room, watching Fabbi walk up onto the platform that was placed for him. The lights dimmed and a spotlight was placed on the young rep.

That lighting does wonders for his skin, Saul caught himself thinking. He quickly dismissed that line of thought and came back to the moment.

Fabbi did decent for his first briefing, Saul would say. He had a few stumbles and stutters but who doesn't? It wasn't until the Q&A started that Saul started to worry.

"Mr. Loso! Mr. Loso! What does this mean for the public elementary schools? Are our children in danger??" At least 7 microphones were shoved in Fabbi's direction. That pale look came back to his face.

"I... We suggest discarding any cleaning product from our brand that falls under the dates that the virus causing ingredients were discovered and—"

"But Mr. Loso, what about the products that were used in the schools already?" Another reporter, 4 more microphones.

Fabbi looked like he might pass out now. Saul got up from his seat, growing increasingly worried. He could see the media press quietly talking to each other before sending their camera crew  to catch every moment of this public panic.

Before he could make a big mistake, Saul got Fabbi off the platform, pulling him down by the wrist.

He quickly leaned up to the microphone, "Mr. Loso will not be taking anymore questions right now."

And at that, he took Fabbi out of the room, then out of the building. He waved a taxi down and got Fabbi in there too before sitting down. Fabbi was unexpectedly going along without a fight.

Silence in the taxi, neither speaking up for a while. After a bit, Saul broke the silence.

"So, what happened back there?"

Fabbi didn't answer.

"Come on, was it lack of preparation? Were you not prepared for the questions they were asking? Because we can totally go over tha—"

"It wasn't lack of preparation, dumbass! G o d. I'm fucking fine, the briefing went fucking f I n e. So just get off my back..!" He turned his back to Saul and stared out the window.

Saul let it rest for the rest of the taxi ride back to the hotel.