Bad Taste (Part I) // Colby Brock

116 - Rebecca

I thought it was reasonable to expect Colby to be there when I woke up, but he wasn't. It was about midday, which meant I had approximately five hours before I had to be at a fancy venue an hour's drive away. So I had four hours to get ready. I estimated that I'd spend only an hour or less to get ready, though. So I had three hours or a little more to call Jax, go to Colby's house to kill him, and then prepare myself. Driving would make me more anxious, so I thought I better make it early. That gave me even less time.

At the very least, my outfit was still at my apartment, which was where I was, so I didn't have to go to Colby's to get ready. Even if he was asleep, it would be difficult to concentrate on changing and not getting into bed with him.

I showered and got into the outfit I deemed to be an "I'm a professional but I refuse to wear ugly pantsuits to your overly fancy events" outfit. It was a black shirt with thin straps that showed off a little bit of cleavage. I wore with it a large black suit jacket that reached about mid-thigh, if that, and was tied at the waist with a belt to cover my lower half. The sleeves fell over my hands slightly but I liked it, so I added a pair of thigh-high boots.

It felt good to finally be wearing this outfit after I'd had it planned for so long—since the moment I'd heard that I was now representing my whole studio at the showcase. That was just in a few hours, not days anymore.

Although we'd worked our asses off at the studio to get everything sorted, there was just one thing that I needed to make sure happened, because I wasn't entirely ready for this showcase. Not mentally, not emotionally. And so I picked up my phone and found out the number of a person I didn't particularly want to call.

"Hello, Ms Woods," Jax's voice greeted me.

I hesitated. "Hello, Jax. Are you aware of the day?"

"Showcase day. We're all aware," he replied. He had no idea what was coming. I drew in a breath and let it out slowly, inaudible to anyone who wasn't in the room.

When my mouth opened again, I couldn't believe what I was doing. "Is there any chance that you will accompany me to the showcase? I am not, under any circumstance, explaining to you why or calling you my date."

There was silence.

"If you don't answer, I'll ask someone fucking else," I snapped, losing my patience with him already. He inhaled sharply on the other side of the phone before I heard a door shut.

"You're serious?" He asked.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I told you, I'm not explaining myself. It's yes or no."

Silence again. I was tempted to go to the studio and strangle him if he went silent again. Did he know that we were on a schedule? Did he care? He was going to fucking care if I—

"Okay," he agreed, then corrected himself. "I mean yes, Ms Woods. Should I... what do I wear?"

"You should know fashion," I accused as I secretly breathed out in relief.

"I do, I do. Alright. Thank you, Ms Woods, for this opportunity." I rolled my eyes, slumping into my couch. He seemed to hear it because he cleared his throat. "How are we getting there?"

"Separately," I replied quickly. Colby wasn't going to be happy with this to begin with, let alone if I was driving all the way there with him. An hour. With Jax. Completely alone. Nope. No way. No thank you.

"Alright. I should get there for five, yes?"

"Yes."

"I'll be perfectly on time. I can't believe— Sorry, I'll go and fangirl to somebody else. Thank you, Ms Woods. This means the world to me." Jax hung up on me and left me to stare at the phone in astonishment. This meant the world to him? What did, going to the showcase? I hadn't known he wanted to go in the first place, let alone that it was so important to him. I supposed I should have talked to him about that and then I would have known...

Regardless, I now had a much more difficult job that was probably going to be worse than the showcase itself. Certainly worse than asking Jax to drive down in a separate car to a professional event: I had to tell Colby that I had done that.

My reasoning for this decision was fairly simple: my mother was there, so she couldn't see that I was dating a vampire; my sister was there, and I didn't want them anywhere near each other; the event was for designers and fashion gods, of which he was neither, even if he did manage to look good in everything.

It was only one in the afternoon, so I wasn't sure if Colby was going to answer. If he'd been anywhere near as exhausted as I had been after the fight, then he did all the locking up for me, then he ran back home after resisting falling asleep while lying with me, then he was bound to still be sleeping like a baby.

Baby. A little fire lit in my stomach.

That fire grew when I heard Colby's tired hum of acknowledgement through the phone. It was closer to a grunt. I decided to use his pet name against him since he was tired. "Hey, baby," I said with a smirk on my face. He grunted back, refusing to wake up. It was cute but I knew what would have him sitting up within long. "So, I'm not... ready to face my mom at the showcase alone. I haven't seen her in fucking ages and she's always wanted me to design like her. I want someone to take the attention away from me. Whilst you would obviously be a good choice, I realised you can't meet my mom. You're..."

"A vampire," Colby murmured.

"Yes. I had to ask someone who knew what they were talking about instead." I stopped speaking, hearing his sheets move. He knew exactly what I was going to say.

"Rebecca..."

"I had to pick someone! No fighting, remember? And I'm running on a tight schedule; I want to get to the studio and finish what I didn't last night. We can't talk long."

"Rebecca," he repeated this time harder.

"Have a little faith in me, Colbs. You know you've got me. And besides, he is driving in a completely separate car. I'm going to be at the showcase at least half an hour before he is, which means I have to leave soon, by the way." I paused. "At least I told you."

"Yeah, thanks," he grumbled, his sheets shifting in the background again. I heard him sigh, telling me he'd laid back down. I breathed out in relief. We weren't going to fight. "Call me when you—and when he—get there."

"Won't you be sleeping?" I teased.

"No, I'm waking up early for a job. Should be just after five, so I'll be awake in plenty of time to grill you about doing this."

"Wha—"

"I'm going back to sleep, Becks." I stopped, glaring at the phone. There was a short silence before I got to imagine his smile as he said, "talk to you later, baby."

Yes, we would talk later.