Bad Taste (Part I) // Colby Brock

85 - Rebecca

I was finally getting ready to leave when Jax came back to my office. I had heard him coming down the hall, but I'd refused to move from my position staring angrily at my desk until he hesitantly knocked on the door, a pile of papers in his arms. I looked up at him but didn't say anything, so he started. "They all look good, with just little changes. We've written them down separately so we don't ruin your original sketches. We can get started on making them tomorrow if you want. But... I'd like to request that we all go home now: we're exhausted."

"Whatever," I growled.

He didn't leave yet. "Did you call Mrs. Woods and co.?" He asked slowly, careful with his words this time.

"Yes. It's none of your damn business." Except it was. "I'm representing us at the showcase. You're fucking welcome."

Jax slowly smiled—it caught me so off guard that I wasn't sure what to do with myself when I saw it. Then he placed down the papers on my desk and stepped backwards into the hall. "Thank you." He said genuinely. "See you tomorrow, Ms. Woods."

I just grunted. Jax disappeared up the stairs while I looked over the four different notebook sheets that had been ripped out. They each had notes and mini sketches about my designs and how they believed they could be better. Normally, I didn't take well to criticism, but I knew that these designers, for the most part, knew what they were doing. They had finally gotten a grip—starting with the designs they lost and hopefully not ending with the design they made for me.

So with each change they suggested, I genuinely considered it before either writing it off or implementing it into my designs. Surprisingly, I was using most of them, and I loved how they turned out: they were exactly what I had imagined when that spark of inspiration had hit. I found myself soon making copies of each design with my photocopier and writing down the names of the different designers—who I thought would be best at making each design. It was a similar line up to who I had allowed to look at each piece.

Each of them had two, and the last design was up for taking by anyone who finished first. Feeling newly protective over my designs, I put them—and the project folders—in a filing cabinet with a locked drawer instead of just on the shelf where anybody could take them. This little incident was going to bother me for a while, I thought. I made a mental note to also see if I could get the locks changed on everything again—Blair having a key to the studio to start with pissed me off. No one but employees were allowed in this place. Employees and my boyfriend and close friend.

When I was more confident that everything was safe, I double-checked the office window and locked my office's door. The thought of being completely alone in this studio then returning to my empty apartment completely alone kind of upset me: I wanted company, which was honestly a first. I wondered, for a moment, where Katrina was going to be. After all, Colby had alluded that things were going to get ugly at the house, and if he didn't want me there, then Sam certainly wouldn't want Katrina there. Was it possible they'd taken her to my apartment?

I suddenly felt a zing of annoyance go through me as I walked to the break room, phone in hand. I called Katrina, a part of me knowing goddamn well what Colby had ordered her to do instead of being at the house. When she answered, she was already hesitant. "Hey, Becky." She greeted lightly.

"Katrina, where the fuck are you?"

She loudly gulped. "Um... listen, I was just about to call and ask if—Sam!" Katrina's voice drifted into the background as the sound of zipping wind attacked the microphone and my ears. I was examining the break room, checking for any signs that it had been messed in like my office. I didn't see anything but a drawer left wide open, which I assumed was Jax or the others' doing. The drawer was empty anyway.

"Rebecca, we need Katrina out of the house. Usually, we put her in a hotel, but you have an apartment and it's safe enough there for both of you. She will be taking your bags with her—Colby had to leave early with some others. I hope you aren't going to argue with me about this because I don't have him to deal with you."

"Deal with me?!" I shrieked back as I checked the other drawers. There were five, four of them filled with jackets and little personal belongings that were easily forgotten at work. I realised Blair's was the empty one. Whatever—she didn't work here now anyway, as I'd said. I definitely needed to change some locks.

"Yes, deal with you. You're very difficult, Rebecca. I don't know how he does it."

I was snarling with anger. "I'm going to punch you in the fucking face when I see you, Sam... or I'll tell Colby to do it."

"Feel free." This wasn't a Sam I knew. "Please do not be too long; I cannot make Katrina wait on your balcony for too long before I worry."

"Fuck off! I'll be as long as I fucking please."

Sam chuckled lowly. "I do apologise for putting this on you, Rebecca, I honestly do. But this will only happen with your consent from now on if you're—"

A voice yelled in agony from the background. "Sam!" It sounded like Jake.

"Gotta get Katrina out of here. Things are going to get ugly. Do this for me, Rebecca? Hurry home for her?" Sam was almost pleading, but that wasn't what made me want to break every traffic and driving law there was to get back home soon: it was the thought of Katrina standing alone on my balcony in the dark, vulnerable.

"Fuck off," I answered, and he knew what I meant by it. He started to say 'thank you' but I hung up on him and slammed the door to the spiral stairs. I had been turning out lights everywhere I went, plunging everything into darkness. The studio itself was last. It was eerily quiet with everyone else missing. Reminders that somebody had been in my office plagued the back of my thoughts as I naturally took extra care in surveying the room.

I wasn't a paranoid person, but right then, I was concerned about what could be lurking in the dark.