Cigarette Burns

"Where the fuck is Corey? Has anyone seen him?" Shay's voice echoed through Slipknot's tour bus a few weeks later, and she was met only with blank stares and head shakes. No one seemed to have seen him all day. "The show's in a fuckin' hour!" she yelled to nobody but herself as she stepped off of the bus and called his cell for the twentieth time.

"What?!" Corey's voice flooded into her ears, and she breathed a sigh of relief to hear him, even though it was quite clear that he was drunk or somehow otherwise inebriated.

"Where the fuck are you, Taylor?" Shay asked him, and he was silent for a long time.

"I... met up with an old friend," he slurred, and Shay could hear the distinct sound of a woman giggling through the phone, causing her heart to instantly break just a little bit. Sure, she and Corey hadn't moved past that first kiss at all, but the more time they spent together, the more Shay felt like they might be able to have something at some point. If she'd had a crush on him at the beginning of the summer, time passing was only causing her to fall into some sort of love with him.

"Are you aware that your band plays a show in an hour?" Shay asked, and Corey was silent again. That was one habit of his that drover her absolutely insane; he always thought about everything he said in a phone conversation like it was about to be the most important thing he'd ever say. Even simple answers seemed to take him minutes to formulate when he was talking to you through the receiver of a phone.

"Y-yeah, I'll... I'll be there," he said, and Shay clicked her tongue.

"Seems unlikely," she said, and Corey was instantly mad.

"Don't fuckin' doubt me," he growled, and a moment later the line went dead and he was gone.

"God damn it," Shay mumbled to herself, making her way back into the bus and throwing herself into her bunk.

Not even twenty minutes had passed when the curtain that closed the bunk off was torn open and someone shoved themselves into the small space with her. It was dark and she'd been almost asleep, but she knew at once that it was Corey. His fantastic smell wafted into her nose and it was obvious that he'd just taken a shower.

"Corey, what the fuck are you doing?" Shay asked him, sitting up as best she could.

"Proving to you that I made it, obviously," Corey said simply, folding him arms behind his head and settling into the mattress.

"Okay, but what the fuck are you doing in my bunk?" she asked, flipping on the overhead light. Corey shrugged, his baby blue eyes boring into her.

"Missed you?" he phrased it as a question, but Shay knew he didn't have a real answer for her.

"What happened to your friend?" she asked, and Corey scoffed.

"Are you jealous?" he asked her, and she shook her head adamantly.

"Of course not. I'm just your assistant. You're absolutely free to do what you please," she said, and he scoffed again.

"You're jealous," he stated, and she rolled her eyes, knowing she wasn't going to win the argument.

"So what if I am?" she asked, looking at him seriously. He shrugged again.

"The old friend is just a friend. More of a sister than a fuckbuddy," he said, and she nodded.

"You didn't have to tell me that," she said, and before she realized what was happening, Corey's hand was underneath her chin, pulling her face up so that he could look her in the eye. His fingers lingered there, his thumb tracing slow circles on her throat. She willed herself not to let goosebumps rise up over her skin, but they did anyway.  Corey glanced down at her arms, obviously noticing them. He smiled at her, leaning close into her ear.

"We both know you're not just my fuckin' assistant. From the second you walked into my house that first day, we both knew. I don't know what the fuck you are, and I'm not going to put a label on anything, but we both know it's not just platonic," he rasped quietly, his voice sending another layer of goosebumps over her skin. He looked down again, noticed them, and smiled again.

"It... it can't be anything other than platonic, Corey," she said, trying her best to sound serious, but he smiled again and she couldn't help but do it back.

"It can be whatever the fuck we want it to be," he whispered, kissing a line down her jaw and down to her throat, pausing to suck lightly in the hollow of it. She gasped lightly and she could feel him smiling against her skin. He dug his teeth in just slightly and then lifted his head back up so that he could look into her eyes. 

"I want to kiss you," she breathed, and he let out a deep laugh.

"What are you going to do about that?" he asked, and she studied him intently, watching him as he watched her.

Without another word, she leaned in and met his lips with hers, kissing him quickly and passionately, like he might stop her at any moment. She knotted her fingers into his long mohawk and he leaned into her, his hands roaming her back and finding their way into her loose tank top. His fingers set the bare flesh of her back on fire and she leaned into his embrace, pulling him in like he might disappear. She nibbled his bottom lip and he smiled into the kiss, opening his eyes to look at her. She looked back at him, and in that moment she couldn't believe how absolutely perfect he was.