Bad Taste (Part I) // Colby Brock

58 - Rebecca

           I opened the door to let Katrina in. She looked me over for a second, silent judgement on her face. I was reconsidering my hospitality to her, my bitchiness creeping back up, but she had walked to my bed silently before I could justify getting annoyed.

She had controlled her face by the time she turned around, sitting against my headboard. "You don't have a side preference, do you?"

I snorted. "The middle."

Katrina smiled and shook her head. She slid under the covers as I walked to the other side. I slid in next to her and turned to face away, curling my legs close to my chest. The movement wafted a breeze of Colby into my nose, and I fought not to huff. It was making me miss him, as stupid as that was. I wanted the arms around my waist and the face dug into my hair.

After a couple of moments, that's what I got, but from Katrina. She was hesitant with her hand as she placed it on my waist, and then she just curled up into me. My body jerked at first, my head spinning to look at her.

She was blushing. "I miss Sam," she told me. "Mind?"

"A little..." I muttered. My good will was not completely used up, though, so I reluctantly laid back down.

Katrina hugged my back. For some reason, it didn't feel awkward. It was comfortable enough that I felt a joke rising through my throat.

"So are you usually the big spoon?"

Katrina laughed loudly, a drunken snort following. "Don't tell anybody. He hates it when people know."

My brow raised in surprise. Sam was a little spoon... As I thought about it, staring into the dark, I realised that it kind of suited him. It certainly suited him and Katrina. From the little that I had seen of the two of them together, the relationship was equal, with no change of power balance at any given time. Whilst Sam was most definitely stronger, Katrina balanced it by hugging him instead of the other way around.

It was sweet...

I was definitely too drunk to be around other people if I thought that was sweet.

However, between the feeling of arms around me and the smell of Colby, sleep came fast. It was like my brain had tricked my body that he was here, just for a moment. This was the first time I'd actually, seriously missed him, and I wondered if it was just because of the alcohol. If I still missed him in the morning, then I was going to put a hole through my wall and deal with the consequences later.

KATRINA

The last thing I'd expected when I tried to cuddle Rebecca was for her to actually let me. But she did, and she laid in front of me seemingly peaceful for quite a while. I couldn't tell when or if she had fallen asleep, but for me, it was impossible still. Despite my sleepy haze over the last hour, lying here without Sam was weird. And it was weirder that I could smell both Rebecca and Colby in this bed — mostly because of the shirt she wore.

I didn't know how long it'd been when Rebecca shifted in my arms. At first, I thought she was trying to get rid of me, but her hand moved over mine on her waist and I heard her huff. She moved her head further into the pillow, humming once. She was asleep.

My hand was being held tightly, as if she was trying to hurt me to get me to let go. But I couldn't, because her grip was too strong. She moved her head again and shifted her legs this time, curling them even closer to herself than before.

And then she revealed to me why she was distressed in her sleep. "Colby," she whispered, so low I almost couldn't hear it.

She held my hand a little tighter. I realised that she knew someone was sleeping with her even unconscious, and she knew it wasn't Colby. I remembered Sam telling me, that night after Colby had had the talk with the single guys to back off, why Colby had looked like he wanted to blush: Rebecca had whispered his name in her sleep.

Now I could hear it for myself as she missed him subconsciously.

I felt sorry for her, I really did. She had ended up being the One — as Tara was certain of — of one of the biggest assholes I'd ever met, and she turned out to be just as much of one, when she wasn't tipsy. His easy-to-piss-off attitude combatted with her bitchy attitude, making their whole relationship difficult.

I'd wondered why Colby had locked himself in his room and why Rebecca hadn't returned to the house for a few days. It was obvious that they'd broken up whatever they were, but neither of them wanted to.

Colby and Rebecca seemed like an impossible pairing: hot-headed, violent, and impatient. Yet, in a way, they were perfect for one another, because they knew what the other was going through when they snapped unnecessarily. And they knew how to deal with that, after a comment or two of their own.

I realised after watching Colby and Rebecca out of the corner of my eye — and after Colby had punched Aryia for calling her princess — that they used each other to calm down; needed each other to calm down. He had walked in and stunned us all by kissing her immediately. Then he'd pulled her away so they could be alone, even though that didn't really exist in our house.

Colby had rampaged yesterday. None of us really knew why. He'd come out of his room for five seconds. Sam told me he'd gone to the kitchen — to get a blood bag, I guessed, because he couldn't feed on live girls anymore — and then we heard something break. Sam and Elton were the ones to go and see what had happened, whilst I was left in the dark. Then last night in bed, Sam told me that Colby had thrown an entire cabinet door at the wall, putting a dent in it, then he'd smashed a glass and ran upstairs. He'd almost splintered his door in half, apparently.

Now that I had time to think about it, I realised what had happened. Colby was frustrated because he was having to feed on a bag with no benefits to his suffering. He didn't have a girl to kiss and lie with on his chair and sleep with at night — even if he didn't go to bed then. And yet, he still couldn't feed on actual humans. A cruel punishment for their breakup.

If Rebecca really was his One, they wouldn't be able to stay apart long. I knew it, Tara knew it, hell, even Colby knew it deep down.

The rampage yesterday was the first sign that he was getting to his breaking point. And when that happened, he would have no choice but to come back to Rebecca. If she didn't find her way to him first.

So was I that bad if I helped them?