crowz

two

The next morning, the girls and I met up with Slipknot in the hotel parking lot. "You actually showed up!" Shawn exclaims.

"Well duh. Who would pass up an opportunity to tour with Slipknot?" I say.

"Sear would," Chris says as he walks past us. I laugh.

"He's right. Anyway, I'm sure you can see we only have one bus. There's a few couches in the living area, and we uh... took a few pillows from the hotel rooms, but i'm damn sure not all of us are gonna have a bed or couch every night. Sorry."

I laugh. "It's fine. You didn't have to steal pillows for us."

"If you don't wanna sleep on the floor with your stolen pillows," Corey's voice sounds from behind me, "you can always just sleep with me."

I roll my eyes, and the girls laugh.

"Fuckin get some!" Emma yells as she walks towards the bus.

"Shut up," I laugh. Corey wraps his arm around my waist.

"You should know, Corey, she doesn't do relationships. Don't get too attached," Lake says.

"Perfect. No strings to be pulled." He smiles, and my heart falters ever so slightly. "I can do that."

Fuck.

"We'll see where the nights take us," I wink, then spin out of his grasp. As I bring my suitcase onto the bus, i manage to catch a glimpse of him standing there still, arms crossed, stunned. The girls already in the bus fall out laughing, slapping me on the shoulder.

"I think you may have Corey beat in terms of asshole-ery," Paul says. "He's not used to being put into his place."

"Like i said last night. I'm not afraid to speak my mind, and i don't put up with bullshit," I shrug. He nods, and everyone continues piling their stuff into the bus. Once we're on the road, all of us are congregated in the living area, talking about nothing and everything.

"What's your favorite song?" Mick asks to no one in particular.

"My all time favorite is probably C.R.E.A.M by Wu-Tang," Liz answers.

"Fuckin' love Wu-Tang," Corey exclaims.

"I'm more of a Soul Kitchen type gal," Emma says.

"Comfortably Numb by Pink Floyd has been the mood a lot lately." Lake pipes up.

"What about you, miss lead singer? Surely you've got a favorite song," Joey asks.

"It changes a lot i guess. I do have a core favorite song, but i don't tell anyone that one. My public favorite song at the moment is probably Spiders by System of a Down," I say. "What's yours?"

"Ah, nuh uh. You don't get off the hook that easy," Corey starts.

"Leave her alone, Taylor," Clown rolls his eyes.

"It's called trust issues," I say. "The song is extremely special to me for... special reasons, and only a few people know it and why."

He raises an eyebrow, but nods. "Fair enough." For the next few hours, we talk about everything and nothing at all, just getting to know each other. I learned that Sid was the youngest, Jim is extremely fucking hot, and almost everyone's addicted to something. That's alright though, because honestly I don't mind. Of course, I'm all for recovery and stuff, but people like us don't usually get recovery. Anyways, many hours later, we arrived at the next hotel. All four girls were in a room, and then the guys were split up evenly-ish.

"Y'all wanna hit the town before we have to sleep?" Chris suggests. There's a chorus of "yeah"s and "why not"s, and after unpacking and getting dressed up, we met back up in the lobby.

"How early is the show tomorrow?" Liz asks.

"Later in the night I think, so we'll be fine. Where to first?" Paul asks.

"Downtown's not too far from here. I'm sure there's something to do out there," I say. "It's nice out. We should walk. If that's fine with you guys."

"I'm down," Mick says, and everyone nods.

"Alright then. Let's go," I smile. We filter through the door and onto the sidewalk. Craig offers his hand to Emma with a smile, Liz takes Mick's arm, Lake walks next to Sid, and Corey strays behind with me.

"What's you deal?" he asks.

"Pardon me?"

"You think you're so mysterious. 'I go by Ryssa. Secret favorite song.' I wanna know why."

I roll my eyes. "There's a reason you don't know me. As much as I put myself out there, I'm actually a very private person. Like i said. Trust issues are a bitch."

He stays silent for a second, then looks at me and nods. "Yeah. I know." For the rest of the way to downtown, it's quiet between us, save for our footsteps.

We ended up in a club called The Den. There were four floors up, and who knows how many below, and balconies all over. Girls in aerial silks were hanging from the ceiling, there was fire being spun on a stage, and the whole place was thick with smoke.

I pull Lake to the side before letting her run off with Sid. "Hey now, it's the first night of tour, and we haven't even performed once yet. Don't let me get too fucked up, yeah?"

She laughs. "You'll be fine. But yeah, I'll keep an eye on you."

"Thank you," I smile. Sid takes her hand and the disappear into the crowd, and I feel a presence behind me.

"Mind if we grab a drink?" Jim's voice sounds.

I spin around, seeing Jim in a well-fitted leather jacket and black dress pants. "Not at all." He takes my hand, and we make our way through the people on the floor to the bar.

"What'll it be?" the bartender asks once we find seats.

"Rittenhouse Rye for me," Jim says.

"I'll take a Sazerac," I say. He nods, and Jim pulls out his wallet. "I can pay for my drink."

"No it's alright," he says. "I insist." I roll my eyes and smile. The bartender places our drinks in front of us, and Jim raises his glass. "To new friends."

I raise mine. "To new friends."

A few drinks later, I found myself in one of the balconies with Jim, having the time of my life. My ears were ringing faintly, and there was a slight pressure in my head, but it was great. As for the rest of me, the only other thing I could feel were Jim's hands on my hips.

As the DJ ended the song, Jim spun me around to face him. "As great of a time I'm having, we should probably get going. It's almost one thirty."

"Holy shit," i laugh. "Yeah, we probably should try to gather everyone up." The DJ starts a new song, the lights shift, shining in a way that made Jim's grey eyes seem a deep blue. My breath catches, and he smirks.

Before I knew it, his lips were on mine. Good god, did he know how to kiss. All too soon, he pulls away and smiles. "C'mon. Let's go round up the others." I nod wordlessly and follow him into the hallway, where he texts the bands.

While he's texting them, I'm still trying to wrap my head around what just happened. Surely he's just had too much to drink. Right? Either way, i am not catching feelings on this tour.
Absolutely not.

a/n: what the fuck was that lmaooo
i think i forgot how to write. but if y'all like it, then i'll keep writing. please leave feedback and vote n stuff; i require validation🥺🥺