Chapter 12

We didn't get back to the house until around three in the morning. The guys kept feeding the fire, and it took much longer than expected for the fire to die down naturally. I didn't mind, though, since Cory and I stayed in our cuddle position for the majority of the night. I was getting cold anyway, and so I nuzzled into his body for warmth, of course. Wouldn't you do the same?

While the boys worked on putting the fire out in the middle of the night, the girls and I used flashlights to figure out how to pack all of our food back up and get it all back to the house. Really, what we ended up doing, was dumping the ice water out of all of the coolers (there was not one bottle of beer or wine left over), and we just threw all of our shit into the coolers. Whatever food was left over would have to be sorted out in the morning because I would be damned if I would be spending time in the kitchen while I could be spending time in bed with Cory.

As soon as we arrived back at the house, we all said our goodnights and headed straight towards our respective bedrooms. I walked into our bedroom, and then straight into our bathroom, and immediately grabbed the bottle of baby powder off of the counter. I entered the shower and doused my legs and feet with the baby powder to remove all of the annoying sand that didn't want to come off by just rubbing it with my hands.

I don't think I was standing in the shower and dusting off my legs for more than ten seconds before I heard Cory walk into the bedroom. "I'm in here," I called out from the bathroom.

Cory quickly appeared in the doorway, and furrowed his eyebrows. "What are you doing?" he asked as he walked into the bathroom. "Is that my baby powder?"

"Maybe," I quickly replied as I looked down at my feet. "I can't get the sand off, so I had to use baby powder."

"That works?" Cory asked, kicking off his flip flops. And before I knew it, he stepped into the shower and placed his feet next to mine. God, his feet are HUGE. It's like they were meant for a dinosaur, but instead, they were given human qualities and were placed on Cory's legs. "Sprinkle me."

Out of nowhere, I laughed loudly, bending at the waist. The sound of my laugh filled the bathroom, and I'm sure the house, but just hearing Cory utter the words "Sprinkle me" was just completely worth it. That would be a phrase I'd have to keep on reserve for future use.

"What's so funny?" Cory asked as he laughed along with me.

"Sprinkle me," I repeated as I caught my breath. "Oh, that was a good one."

He giggled. "But I'm serious! Sprinkle the powder on my feet, woman!"

"Fine, fine," I obliged as a dusted his legs and feet with baby powder. Like a scene out of a movie, there we were, two grown ass people standing in a shower stall with baby powder on our legs and feet. We could both already start to see grains of sand collect on the stall floor.

"This stuff really works," Cory remarked as he bent down and brushed some of the baby powder and sand off of his knees. "I doubted you, Ms. Michele, but sometimes, you know what you're doing."

"It's okay, you're Canadian, so you wouldn't know."

Cory sucked his teeth and made a grimacing face as he looked up at me. "Burn," he hissed. "Give me that baby powder."

"No!" I squealed as I tried to hide it behind my back, as if he didn't know where I had just put it.

"Give it to me!" he laughed as he lunged towards me and felt around my back as he tried to get his hands on the bottle.

As he was fumbling behind my back, I was able to sneak the bottle of baby powder in front of me, and with one quick jerk of my hand, I shook the baby powder all over the front of his shirt. He stopped fumbling and looked down at his shirt, not quite sure whether to smile and laugh or retaliate some more. "Oh, you've done it now," he grinned evilly as he lunged towards me again. But this time, he was able to get the bottle away from me rather quickly. Oh, shit.

"No, no, no!" I laughed and pleaded at the same time, and I knew that I was absolutely screwed. He held the bottle far above my head, so high up I couldn't reach it if I tried, and he squeezed it. The baby powder fell from the sky like it was snowing, and it had coated both of us. It was in my hair, on my face, and it was already embedded in my clothing. And it had even gotten on Cory, which proved that his master plan had backfired. His brown hair was now snowy white, and his shirt was covered in even more powder than it was before.

He dropped the bottle to the bottom of the shower stall, and it had landed with a thump. We both started laughing as we tried brushing the powder off of our hair and shirts, but it ended up just creating a larger cloud of powder that we couldn't seem to escape. While I was trying to brush the powder off of my arms, I didn't notice that Cory was staring at my face. And when I looked up towards him, our eyes seemed to have connected like someone had connected them with a chain, locked it, and threw away the one key that released the lock. Why did his eyes have to be so deep and beautiful, and why was he always giving me these long, deep, romantic looks, like there was something he was dying to say or do, but just couldn't do it?

Neither of us spoke, but Cory's breathing became heavier. We were just standing there – why was it getting heavier and noticeably louder? I licked my lips, which was a mistake because they were dusted with powder, and now my tongue tasted like chalk. But I didn't really care too much, because slowly, Cory was starting to inch closer to me.

I wasn't quite sure what to do. He was coming closer, and I didn't have much space to back up behind me. I took the one step that I could backwards before my back rested against the tiled walls. So, I just stood there, my back against the wall, as Cory continued to inch closer towards me.

Oh my God, I knew it. He was going to kiss me.

My breathing became labored as he neared me. He placed his hand under my chin and lifted my head up slightly. He lowered his head down near my face. And just before I thought he was finally going to kiss me, he smiled, just centimeters away from my lips.

"You want me to kiss you, don't you?" he whispered flirtatiously.

I wanted to outright scream in his face. Scream, moan, pant, beg, plead… anything to get my message across. But instead, I somehow held it all together and I nodded my head slightly. "Yes," I admitted as I stared deep into his eyes. "I want you to kiss me."

Without saying another word, Cory lowered his head just far enough and placed his lips on mine. Oh God, this was amazing. He kissed me softly and gently, his hand moving from under my chin to the back of my neck. In fact, he actually got a pretty good grip of the roots of my hair, and he was just aggressive enough to send a chill up and down my spine. Our lips moved together as if they've done this all a million times before. Really, Finn and Rachel have kissed a bunch of times, but it was never like this. Finn Hudson had NOTHING on Cory Monteith. No, this was new, and this was fun, and this was exciting. This felt like destiny, as absolutely corny as that sounds.

I don't even know how long we were kissing, but I do know that we were moving around an awful lot, so that must have meant we were going for a while. We started on the back wall of the stall, and then somehow, I was pressed up against the soap dish on the adjacent wall. After I got a soap dish bruise right on my left shoulder blade, I remember taking control and somewhat pushing Cory up against the frosted glass door, where our make-out continued, and then commenced.

We were both quiet for the first few moments after we pulled our lips off of each other's, and I wasn't quite sure what to say. We just really looked at each other, both of our breathing actually being pretty heavy. My hands were rested on his chest, and his arms were wrapped around my petite waist. He spoke first. "That was fun," he admitted with a small smile.

I didn't even know what to respond with, because I just didn't want a response to be too much or too little in the moment. I figured that nodding and smiling would have to suffice, at least for now.

"How are we going to clean all of this powder off?" he asked, looking at my hair and my clothing.

I shrugged before attempting to brush the baby powder off his shirt with my hands. "I was just going to take a shower and then do laundry in the morning, or really whenever I wake up."

"Sounds like a plan," he smirked as he removed his hands from around my waist. "You can take a shower in here. Maybe I'll see if I can get into the shower across the hall in by Harry and Chord."

"Okay," I smiled. I moved away from him so he could step out of the shower stall. Damn, I hated to see him go, but I loved to watch him leave. "I'll see you in bed, then?"

He turned back to me and nodded. "Yeah, in a few minutes."

And just like that, he left the bathroom, and left me in a shower stall covered in baby powder. I stood completely still, completely in shock at the events that just happened. I tried to come to the realization of the events that had just happened by touching my lips. Yep, they were wet.

I just had my very first make-out session with Cory f'ing Monteith, and it was beyond any words that I could use to describe it.