Bad Taste (Part I) // Colby Brock

65 - Rebecca

          My head snapped up, my eyes meeting a pair of blue ones with a painfully familiar silver ring around them. The smell of coffee filled the room, but my brain didn't fully process it.

My whole body was set on fire, my heart pounding. What was breathing? I didn't seem to know because I hadn't done it since I'd seen him.

He was stood in the doorway a little awkwardly — a side I had never seen before — with a cup in his hand and his keys in the other. He wore black ripped jeans covered in chains, a loose checkered button-up shirt that he'd left open halfway down his chest. His hair was still red at the tips. He looked like he'd just walked out of a photoshoot and his agent had given him some fuel and told him to be on his way.

But that was just how Colby looked: like a model. Constantly. Always.

I couldn't speak or move for a long time. I didn't think he could either.

I hadn't thought that I would react so badly to seeing him again. It felt like we had been together for years, broken up for a while, and now that long time's worth of feelings were bubbling up again. But we hadn't been together for years; we'd been together for a week or so. And we hadn't known each other for more than a month. It was impossible to say that I was staring at him like something I needed.

My body acted on its own accord now. At a painfully slow pace, I stood up from my desk and walked around it. I took the coffee from his hand, placing the cup down on a far corner of the desk before grabbing his wrist and dragging him further into my office. Just the feeling of his wrist under my finger sent a thrill through me.

I slammed shut my office door then did what any sane person would do: I hugged him. And he let me, encouraging it as he wrapped his arms around my waist.

His head dropped to my shoulder and he inhaled like he needed the smell of me, and I knew exactly how he felt because I was doing the same thing to him. With my face dug into his neck, I was breathing in as much of him as I could; catching up with the lost days.

A small part of me knew how stupid it was to do this. We had realised that we wouldn't work and had managed to walk away before anything got serious... except that it still had, because there was something about me and Colby that had just always fit. And that thing, whatever it was, was strong in this room, holding us together mercilessly. It didn't want to let go and neither did he.

"Fuck," Colby whispered.

"Shit," I replied.

They were the only words that fit the situation: knowing we shouldn't be doing this, knowing how much each of us wanted to do this — and how much we needed it, knowing walking away would be harder this time.

Colby breathed in again, his nose brushing my neck for a millisecond. I had missed the feeling, even if he hadn't done it very often. This was wrong to be so right so soon, and after we'd already broken up. I wondered for the first time why he had showed up at my office door — in a studio he shouldn't know the location of — but I pushed all of my questions back so I could just embrace him. I owed myself this little bit of completeness for the days and nights of torture to come without him.

Though the silence between us was pleasant, I wanted to hear his voice, his laugh, even his growl. So I said the first thought that came to mind, and I hoped I hadn't made him mad with it. "Are you still an asshole?"

He chuckled, softly, right into my neck. "Yes," he replied. "And you?"

"Of course," I breathed. I couldn't help myself when I nudged my nose against his neck and brought myself closer to his body. It just felt right to be as close to him as possible while I still could. There was no way I was letting him go until I had to.