Bad Taste (Part I) // Colby Brock

40 - Colby

          Waking up without Rebecca was getting harder, and since I was in my own bed this time, I had a momentary panic that she hadn't slept with me at all. But my sheets faintly held her scent and my arms were left out in front of me, where she would have been hours ago. The sun was already setting — it was earlier than I usually woke up at my own home — but the room was still light.

I forced myself to sit up, stretching as I scanned my eyes around. I saw Rebecca's backpack sitting next to the bathroom door left open. There appeared to be a number of outfits inside, which made my chest tighten. She planned on staying more than just tonight, and since she wasn't here but the backpack was, maybe she was planning on staying tonight too.

My first instinct, realising this, was to grab my phone. Nobody but Sam had texted me since last night, so his message caught my attention.

'Can you double check all of our jobs if you're going to be having Rebecca around? Be pretty awkward if she witnessed anything,' and he added, 'Proud of you'.

I ignored the second one.

'As far as I remember, nothing for about a week now.'

And then I found Rebecca's contact. I hesitated, listening to the others downstairs. Not everybody was up. I could hear Katrina and Sam, of course, in Sam's room talking about what she was going to have for dinner; Corey and Devyn were downstairs in the red room — I could hear her giggling and lots of shuffling, so I guessed he was dancing; Kevin was doing it with him; it sounded like Mike was awake in his room too.

So many people to listen to me, if I were to call her right now. I still did it. I had kissed her multiple times right in front of them and even admitted to being worried about the bruises that I had put on her. My reputation was stinging already, in danger of collapsing.

The phone barely rung once. "Colby, I'm gonna smash someone's face in."

I almost laughed. "Why?"

"I'm just really fucking angry. I'll explain later. Don't be surprised if I need bail because I'm literally about to assault somebody on the street."

"As entertaining as that would be" — I glanced at the time — "it's too early to come and save you from the cops. Punch a hole in my wall if you're gonna beat something up."

I heard the grin in her voice. "Or I'll just beat you up instead," she suggested, then she growled. "If that woman looks at me like that again-"

"Becks, don't hit anyone."

"Shut up, I want to," she snapped at me through the phone.

I tried not to let myself get angry as I heard her shuffling on the other end.

"Where are you?" I asked.

"Oh, the studio. The woman's talking to uh... Blair, I think?"

"You don't know your employees names." It wasn't a question.

"Shh, I don't have to. I'm never usually here. I haven't been in my office for a while before now..." She trailed off and grunted. "I hate that I'm here. Again, I'll explain later."

"Are you coming here?"

"Yeah, I'll bring you some dinner if you want?"

"No, I'm good. I'll eat before you get here."

I was lying, but the thought of having to eat again wasn't particularly pleasant. Whilst I could eat — and had eaten — if I wanted to, it didn't taste that great and took releasing a lot of energy to get rid of all of it from my stomach so I didn't feel so stuffed.

"Okay," she sighed. I heard her tapping something on a desk for a moment. "Oh, I have to get out of here before I murder that woman. Are you going to stop me from punching a wall?"

"No."

"Good, because I really need it." There was shuffling and the sound of a zip. "I'm gonna eat before I come over; I'll get, like, take out, I think. And then I'm right there. You better be up and dressed, otherwise I'm gonna punch you instead."

"I will be, I just wanted to know where you were."

"Hm, sure. You just wanted to stay in bed, lazy. Don't lie to me; I can always tell."

A door shut on her side of the phone.

"I need both hands right now, I'll see you later."

"Yeah."

She hung up on me. I threw my phone to the side, chewing on my lip as I darted into my bathroom. The shower had been used this morning, as I expected, and a curling thing sat on my counter. I shook my head. She was already making herself at home in my room, and I couldn't even be mad about it.

After a shower and getting changed, I zipped downstairs into the kitchen. Thankfully, nobody was in there, which gave me a free pass to sneak a blood bag out of the secret freezer and fly back up to my room with it. I hoped nobody was listening to me as I drank it, cringing. It was still disgusting. I threw it in the trash beneath some random papers I didn't remember and hoped Rebecca never went through my trash.

Doors started to open and close rapidly in the hallway now as Sam ran Katrina downstairs and the others got up. The only ones left up here were Jake, Tara, and Elton. Elton and Jake slept a lot, and Tara liked to stick close to Jake constantly, even if he was asleep. I decided to follow the crowd and take just myself and my phone downstairs into the red room, lying across my chair before anyone could even blink.

I was about to pull something random up on my phone to disguise my eavesdropping when Katrina's voice spoke. "Colby?" she asked, hesitant.

I looked at her a little too sharply, but she just smiled a little at me.

"Rebecca said she's stolen your car."

My hand automatically moved to my pocket, which I should have put my keys in. I hadn't even tried to get them; had I known, subconsciously?

I didn't reply to Katrina. I hadn't considered that Rebecca didn't have any way of getting anywhere unless I took her to get her car, which she'd made clear yesterday she didn't want to happen. Was she going to steal my car every day she was here? She was, wasn't she?

And I wasn't even mad. She had me wrapped around her finger already. Damn.