Bad Taste (Part II) // Colby Brock

233 - Rebecca

Colby arrived two hours later, after Angela and I had not only finished swapping stories, but had also sorted out most of the details for Mother's funeral—which Angela had been allowed to arrange—in a crazed planning session.

I wasn't drunk, I was just slightly tipsy and in the mood for a fight with one man in particular, the man back at the house who'd hurt my sister when she was already at a low.

To not do that, I had a couple of contingency plans. One: distract myself before I left Angela's place, which I'd managed with the funeral planning. Two: don't be too drunk—planning a funeral sobered you up. Three: have Colby pick me up, so I could stare at his face and forget all of my problems. And four: avoid Aryia at all costs until I'd had a chance to talk this over with Colby.

Angela immediately invited Colby into her apartment, but he insisted that he didn't want to stay, so I gave my sister a goodbye hug, warned her about drinking too much, and allowed myself to be pulled into the hallway.

The door on the opposite side of the hall opened just as we were walking away, allowing me to see a young man dressed in a thick jacket not fit for LA's climate about to leave, a pair of keys in his hand. He was about my age, maybe a couple of years older, and saw us leaving before he saw Angela watching us go. They met eyes, exchanged smiles, and started talking, but by then, the elevator doors were closing.

Colby held my hand until we got to my car, where he opened the door for me. In less than a second, he was no longer at my window but in the driver's seat starting the engine. "Have a good time?" he asked me.

It felt like he was my parent picking me up from some sort of party or hanging out with my friends.

"Yeah, it was nice to talk to her," I told him honestly. "Really felt like we're sisters again. It hasn't been like that since we were kids."

He smiled. "I'm glad. It's been a long time coming."

"She told me about Aryia."

"She did?"

"Yeah."

"And you aren't hiding a stake you're going to stab him with?" A small, sinister smile spread over my face that caught Colby's attention immediately, causing him to cock his brow. "Baby-"

"I don't," I promised, giggling. "Well, I do have a stake, but I won't use it on Aryia. Unless I see him. Which reminds me," I carefully pulled one of Colby's hands from the steering wheel to hold with my own, "we need to go up to the attic. I want to talk about this with you."

Colby glanced across the space of the car, deliberating that, then nodded. "We can do that. I'll take you straight from the car."

"Thank you."

For the rest of the drive, I told him about me and Angela fleshing out the main ideas of the funeral and that we'd be working together to get it ready for the next month. We were waiting so long because we all wanted to be on the same page—all stable-minded, too. Besides, there would be a lot of people we had to fight not to have at the funeral. She'd be sent off only by the people who were closest to her. The entire fashion community were far from that.

At the house, I barely even got a second to blink before we were stood in the dark attic, which swiftly was lit up by all the overhead lights. I examined the room, reminded of a time in which I was slightly broken.

Not anymore. Even if there were still some things that'd never be totally fixed, I was far from the shell of a human I'd become for so long after Mother's death.

I joined Colby on the couch, which I half expected to squeak with leather it wasn't made of—it was actually a very comfortable velvet.

"Say whatever," Colby told me.