XPLR | Colby Brock

~8~

I finished the song on the radio on my car, trying to calm myself down. What is happening? Why am I so nervous?

Of course, I knew why. I had shown up to a mansion close to nine o'clock at night, a huge house full of people I don't know. They seem trustworthy enough, though. Well, so did Ted Bundy. But Ted Bundy was a sociopath. Well, Colby Brock could be, too.

Either way, I got out of the car and walked up to the front door. I knocked three times and stood back.

The door opened slowly to be quiet and a hand motioned me inside. I slipped in through the crack in the door and I knew it was Colby by his cologne. "Thank you so much for coming," he whispered. "Isn't he in his bedroom?" I asked, "why are we whispering?"

He pointed to the sofa, where two guys were gaming and Corey was asleep on the sofa. In front of everyone?

"Is something wrong?" Colby asked gently, his voice raised a little. He could read my mind. "No, no. I'm alright. I know Elton, but who's the other guy?" I asked, pointing to the two guys sitting on opposite sides of the room, but with matching controllers in hand.

"That's Aaron Doh. Come on, did you live under a rock? Have you never seen a vine?" he teased. "Now that I think about it, I think I have seen him before."

"Oh, but not me?"

"Yes, not you. Or Sam," I prodded. "Ouch," he chuckled, "you'd think the person we met exploring would know who we are. Speaking as Elena was wearing XPLR merch."

"Well I'm not Elena," I gave him a small smile as I flip my head over to pull my hair up. He watched me in silence for a second before shaking his head and looking elsewhere. "What are you going to do?" he asked.

"Depends. Do you want to be mean and do skin too, or just eyelids?" I asked as he led me into the room the others were in. Aaron looked to me between matches. "Who's this, Colby?" he asked. "She's one of the girls from the last exploration video," Elton said quietly, looking at his phone.

"She's going to help me pull a prank," Colby said, getting his camera ready. "On Corey?" Elton asked, "I figured she was here because you're the almighty Colby Brock."

"Please. I didn't know who he was until last night," I tugged at my tight pony tail to loosen it. Elton chuckled quietly. "Wow. I like her already," Aaron said, "but I didn't catch your name."

"I didn't throw it," I teased.

"Whatever. I'm Aaron," he said, chuckling a little, holding out his hand to me. "Rose," I took it and shook it twice. "Alright, let's go film the intro," Colby said, nodding with his head for me to follow. As we left, he gave Aaron a look, but I didn't let him know I saw. "So basically... fall my lead," he said, smiling a little. "I've done plenty of Elena's videos, so I have an idea what I'm doing."

He smiled and set his camera up on the tripod. "That's good." He pressed record and stepped back next to me. "What's up, guys? Today, I am here with Rose, someone you might have seen in Elton's video," he said, pointing to me and I gave a small wave. "Today, we are pulling a prank on Corey... sort of a revenge prank. If you don't remember, during the prank war, Corey and Devyn put makeup on me while I slept. So today, we are getting a little bit of revenge."

He took the camera off the tripod. "So what are we going to do to him, Rose?"

"Well, I'm thinking we can do some foundation since he's sleeping on his back. Hardcore eyeshadow, although I don't know if I could do it as well as Devyn did."

"I think you could," he said. I chuckled. "We'll see."

He led me into the room Elton and Aaron were in. "Say hi, Elton. Say hi, Aaron," he said, pointing the camera at them respectively. Quietly, I knelt down beside the sleeping Corey. "Is he going to hate me after this?" I whispered. "No. Corey's pretty cool," Colby said as he got down beside me and held the camera up to record our prank.

I took out my foundation and put a little on my hand, then dotted it on his face. "This is going to be so great," Colby said through an excited giggle. "Yes it is," I giggled with him, excited in my own way. Even if I didn't really know these guys, it was fun. It was fun putting makeup on a 200- no, 185- pound guy.

It was fun listening to Elton and Aaron play whatever game they were playing, whispering insults to each other when either one has the upper hand. It was fun listening to Colby excitedly tell the audience everything I was doing. It was, surprisingly, the most fun I've had in a long time.

This won't last, I know it won't. But I still took a little extra time working on Corey's artwork of eyeshadow, just to prolong my stay at the TFIL mansion.

"I think I'm done," I whispered as I stepped back a little, stepping over the mess of makeup pallets and bottles. Colby put the camera in Corey's face, showing off my work. "Wow, Rose, it looks amazing," he smiled at me. "Elton, Aaron, come look at this," he said as Elton put away the gaming controllers.

Elton and Aaron came over and both snickered. "This is great. He's going to be so upset," Elton said, offering a high five to Colby. "It's not me who pulled this, it's Rose," he said, pointing to me. "Oh, sorry," he said as he offered it to me instead. I smiled and stood on my toes to slap his hand.

Aaron shook Corey's shoulder. "Corey... we have a surprise for you," Colby said, smirking. Corey sat up. "Really?"

"Yeah, it's in the bathroom," he said as Corey stood up. "I'm scared."

You could hear Elton's laughing behind me as Corey walked towards the bathroom and stopped outside the door. "What is it?" he asked Colby, "Rose is here, so I should be nervous."

"Just go see," Colby said. Corey sighed and opened the door to the bathroom with all the mirrors in it and paused before looking in the mirror. "No way," he said and began to laugh a little. At that point all the guys and I started laughing hard. "I hate you guys," he said. "How do I even get this off?"

I opened my mouth to say something, but Colby stopped me. "No, don't tell him."

I laughed as he tried to rub it off with water, but he only smudged his eyeliner until he looked like a raccoon. After Colby had stopped recording, he looked to me. "We better get you out of here before he gets to you," he laughed and started towards the door. That sounded good to me, so I followed him.

He opened the door for me, and he followed me to my car. "I'll text you later, alright?" he asked. I gave him a polite smile. "Looking forward to it." He smiled too. "Thank you again. I'll see you, Rose," he said.

"Bye, Colby," I said as I opened my car door. "Bye, Rose," He watched as I got in my car and started it, and eventually drove away.