Louder Than Love || Chris Cornell

Puttin' On The Ritz

"Hi," Chris says cutely and smiles at me.

"Hi," I smile back as he moves towards me and places a quick kiss on my lips. He places his arm around my waist as I touch his bare chest through his jacket. I can smell the mixture of his cologne and the leather of his jacket and it was intoxicating.

"Um... have you met Jason yet?" Kim asks me.

"No..." I say shyly as Kim gestures to the tall blonde drinking a beer next to the mini fridge.

"Jason... this is Andi... Chris's girlfriend," Kim says. Jason finishes his sip and just nods in my direction but doesn't say anything. I give him a half smile but he continues to drink his beer. My smile fades as he finishes his beer and immediately goes for another.

" Ok," I say quietly to myself instantly feeling awkward. Suddenly there was a knock at the dressing room door and Kim gives a weird look and opens it. There stood a girl holding an MTV microphone with a camera guy behind her.

"Hey I'm Tiffany and this is Steve my uh... camera guy from MTV, we're here to interview you guys before the show... is it still cool that we do the interview?" she asks as she looks at each of the guys

"Uh... sure..." Kim says and lets him through the door with Steve the camera guy. I pull away from Chris and take off my jacket, as he moves over with between Jason and Matt as they start an interview for MTV.

"Ok... I guess we'll just get right into it?" She says to the camera guy and he nods.

"Ok well the question everyone wants to know is how you guys feel about being nominated for a grammy?" She asks as she points the mic towards them.

"yaaaayyyy..." Matt says unenthusiastically and everyone laughs.

"You know it's really... one of those things.. where you just gotta pinch yourself, you know just to make sure you're not dreaming" Chris says and holds up his arm and pinches it.

"You know you just hope someone you care about is coherent enough to just wake you up –" Kim starts but Chris interrupts and I couldn't help my laughter.

"You know I'm just gonna go ahead and pinch him right now, you know he likes it,"

"You know he has lots of skin right there too, and right there," Chris says and pinches Kim's chest and then moves to his cheek and Kim tries to pull away jokingly.

"No really though, it's really great," Chris smiles sincerely.

"You know actually I really don't care.." Kim jokes.

"Don't bring us down.." Chris jokes sadly and Kim gives him a look. I had to slam my hand over my mouth to keep from laughing my ass off.

"Ok it's great... it's fantastic," Kim says as he takes the mic but Tiffany take it back from him.

"What do you think of the other bands that you're up against?" Tifffany asks.

"Um gee I wish they had nominated us for something, you know it would've represented more of a jury of our peers... you know we're very happy for Metallica... um good thing Jethro Tull isn't in the running this year and we're very happy for Faith No More and Queensryche..." Kim trails off and nods.

"Queensryche's from Seattle too right?" She asks.

"Yea...and uh we hope any one of those bands... they deserve it for sure," Kim says

"What do you think of the category you're under, Heavy Metal... do you guys consider yourselves a heavy metal band?"

"Well The Grammy's do so... there's that," Kim sarcastically replies.