I looked at Colby, seeing his jaw clench as Jeremy shifted nervously.
"Don't fucking look at her." Colby seethed and took a step to cover me from Jeremy's gaze.
I didn't understand why he was so bothered about Jeremy looking at me. Jeremy and I were friends when we worked together and I really did trust him.
He would occasionally hit on me when we worked together but it was never creepy or even taken seriously.
As far as I was concerned he wasn't a threat to me.
"You need to see this." Jeremy repeated as I looked over at Sam. He was staring intensely at Jeremy with as hard of an expression as Colby.
"It better be something good enough to pound on my door like that." Colby said with annoyance then started following him.
"We'll be back." He said to Sam and I before going to leave the room.
"Maybe you should go with him." I said nervously. "I can't. He'll be okay though." Sam said withe enough confidence that I believed him.
"What do you think happened?" I asked and finished setting up my paints, choosing the colors I was going to use.
"Could be anything. Mostly likely someone got hurt." Sam said with a shrug. "Do we trust his gang enough to leave him alone with them?" I asked as he sighed.
"Colby trusts them. They've been loyal to him for years and we've cleared them all." Sam said then grabbed his phone.
"Okay, yeah I guess you're right." I said then grabbed the blank canvas from the bag next to me.
I don't know how long Colby was gone before he was coming back into the room.
"Everything okay?" Sam asked as I looked up at Colby. "Everything is fine." Colby grumbled then sat behind his desk.
The look on his face said otherwise as he angrily typed into his computer. Luckily, Sam and I were both smart enough to not talk to him.
He would probably rip our heads off if we tried to.
We sat in silence, Colby stewing about whatever happened. Sam was working on his phone and I was painting.
I was thinking really hard about what Sam meant by "painting my future."
Obviously I knew what it meant but I didn't know what I wanted my future to look like. Everything was so uncertain and dangerous right now.
I didn't want to dream of a future with Colby because there was no guarantee it would ever get to happen.
It was hard to think about the fact that Colby could leave at any point and never come back.
It was so hard I tried to not think about it.
"Alright. Ready to go?" Colby asked after a long while of silence. "Yeah. You good?" Sam asked as Colby nodded and stood up.
"Yeah." He said then looked over at me. "I'm gonna keep this door locked. Nobody knows the code so you will be totally safe." He said and walked up to me.
"There's snacks in the fridge but I'll bring you back something good when I get back." Colby said then looked at the canvas in front of me.
"You haven't started painting yet?" He asked as I scrunched my brow, looking at the blank canvas in front of me.
"I guess not." I mumbled. "You okay?" Colby asked and lifted my chin with his fingers so I would look at him.
"Yeah." I said as a look of worry formed on his face. "You're sure?" He asked as I nodded.
"Positive. Please be safe." I said as he nodded and gently kissed me. "We won't be too long." He said then brushed my hair behind my ear.
"I'll be here." I said then looked at Sam. "Stay safe." I said as he nodded. "We'll be fine." He said as Colby stood up straight.
"Bye, sweetheart. I love you." Colby said as I waved. "Bye. I love you, too." I said then watched as they left the room.
Once they were gone I sighed and looked down at the canvas.
I needed to stop being so in my head about this and just needed to paint my ideal future.
Logic and probabilities needed to be pushed away since there was no changing the things I couldn't control.
Even if this painting was the only glimpse of the future I wanted, it would be beautiful.
I ended up zoning out, finally getting into the painting. It felt so good to be consumed by the silence around me.
I felt like I was being sucked into a world that wasn't so scary and was more beautiful than I could ever imagine.
After a while of silence, the door was opening and Colby was coming into the office.
"Hey, where's Sam?" I asked as he sighed. "There was a situation in LA. He had to go back." He said and ran his hand through his hair.
"Something serious?" I asked with concern. "Someone broke into the house. It really freaked Kat out so he went back." He explained then held out a little white bag from the pharmacy.
"You remembered." I said with a smile as he nodded. "Of course I did." He said then kissed my head.
"I see you got some work done." Colby said with a grin and pointed to my painting.
I ended up painting Colby and I's silhouettes standing on the top of a hill with the sunset in front of us.
On my hip was a baby boy and a little girl was holding Colby's hand, looking up at him.
Sitting next to us was my four siblings, looking out at the sunset that was ahead of all of us.
It was how I wanted my future to look, but it would probably never be possible.
"It's not very good." I said quietly. "I think it's amazing. I can't wait to see it in real life though." He said then kissed my head.
"Can we go home?" I asked and looked up at him, ignoring the comment.
I didn't want to even entertain the idea of it becoming reality.
It wasn't likely and I didn't want to get my hopes up.
"Yeah. We can go home." He said with a smile and held his hand out to me.
I went to grab the painting so I could bring it back to the apartment with us.
"I wanna keep it." Colby said and put his hand on mine, stopping me from grabbing it.
"Really?" I asked as he nodded and picked it up. "Yeah." He said then grabbed a thumbtack from his desk and stuck it in the wall so he could hang the canvas on it.
"It's a reminder to be focused so I don't get fucking killed." He said then turned to help me pack up my paints.
I smiled slightly, feeling my heart flutter at the idea of him wanting to have that painting to be our reality.
"Thanks for getting my medicine." I said as he grinned. "You're welcome. How are you feeling?" He asked as I shrugged.
"Fine." I said then finished cleaning up the paints.
"I just want to take a bath." I said causing him to chuckle. "A bath with you sounds nice." He said then grabbed my bag of paints.
"Let's go." He said then led the way out of the room and down the hall. I wanted to ask what happened earlier but now wasn't the best time.
I felt like it was something big but he was downsizing it because that's what he always did.
I kept my eyes down until we got to the car. I didn't want anyone to get yelled at for looking at me.
"So...what happened earlier?" I asked as soon as Colby started driving. "What do you mean?" Colby asked as I shrugged.
"With Jeremy. Ya know...when you got mad at him." I said as he sighed. "Oh. Uh...yeah. Will got hurt on a mission today. It was pretty bad." He said causing me to frown.
"Is he okay?" I asked as he nodded. "He should be. Injuries happen." He said then took my hand.
"Do you think it has to do with what's going on?" I asked as he nodded. "Yeah, probably." Colby said as I pulled my hand away.
"What's wrong?" He asked as I shrugged. "I just don't think you're taking this seriously enough." I said as he sighed.
"I just don't want you to worry, Julia. We're taking every precaution we can. It's all a little scary but we're gonna be okay. I just have to figure everything out." Colby said calmly.
"Then I can go home?" I asked and looked over at him. I saw a hint of pain behind his eyes as he nodded, focusing on the road.
"Yeah. You can go home." He said quietly. "With you?" I asked and took his hand. He hesitated for a second, rubbing his thumb along my hand.
"I don't know, Jules." He said quietly as my heart sunk. I knew it was because of the gang and because it was the only life he really knew, but it still broke my heart.
I craved something normal for us, but didn't know if I would ever get it.