Chapter 4
“I’m home!” Chloe said as she opened the door to the house back from the arena.
“In the kitchen,” Aubrey’s voice replied and the ginger dropped her keys in the little bowl at the entrance and noticed a nice smell in the house. She sniffed the air a couple of times, making her way to the kitchen.
“It smells really good in here,” she commented. Aubrey smiled when she saw her and pointed to the counter.
“I made your favorite. Apple crumble pie, just the way you like it. And I bought whipped cream-- lots of it.”
Chloe grinned and ran to her friend who accepted her hug with a sigh of relief. “Thanks, Bree,” she said with her face in her neck. “You didn’t have to.”
Aubrey pulled away to take Chloe’s hands into her own. “I’m sorry for last night, Chlo. I’m just stressed about our performance soon and frankly, I’m just not a fan of… her so I reacted badly but it wasn’t fair to you. So I’m sorry.”
Chloe smiled, intertwining their fingers together. “Thanks. I get it. I just-- I think you should give her another chance.” An idea popped into her head and her eyes sparkled with excitement. “You should come to the party tonight! They’re gonna celebrate their win from today in the courtyard.”
The blonde winced, “Oh I don’t know… I mean-- congratulations to them for winning but… “ she trailed off and when she saw Chloe’s hopeful blue eyes, she sighed. “Fine, okay. I’ll come by but if I don’t like it, I will leave.”
Chloe squealed and hugged her best friend tightly. “Yay! Oh it’s going to be aca-amazing!”
“Right,” Aubrey chuckled. “Alright, let’s eat some pie.”
…
She was excited for the party. She was really bonding with these girls, she had made progress with Beca and Aubrey had agreed to come with her. She didn’t want to overdo it so she simply put on a jacket on top of a blue shirt and did light makeup. She took one last look at herself, smiling at what she saw and decided she was ready.
“You ready, Bree?”
“Yeah, just a minute!”
Aubrey came out wearing a pink top and Chloe took her hand, dragging her out of the house. It was 9:15 and it was less than a 10 minute walk to the courtyard so they’ll be considered on time for a party at the time they’ll arrive.
The music was booming and there were a lot of people. Word must’ve gotten out that people were having a party because Chloe didn’t know half the people there. There were already empty solo cups on the ground every two feet and Chloe decided that she needed to catch up fast.
“Come on!” she said, grabbing Aubrey’s wrist to pull her towards the bar where she was met with Stacie and Cynthia-Rose.
“If I drink too much tonight,” Stacie said before noticing the two that just got there. “Will you pull my hair back when I puke?”
Cynthia-Rose looked at Stacie up and down before nodding. “Yes. I can be trusted to do that.”
Stacie was going to answer when she spotted Chloe and she smiled. “Hey Chloe! I’m so glad you made it!”
The redhead grinned, hugging both hockey players. “Of course! Congratulations on your win today again.”
Cynthia-Rose smirked. “Thanks, Beale. Who’s the hottie?”
Aubrey blushed before stepping into the conversation. “I’m Aubrey, I’m the captain of the Bellas.”
“Oh the Barden Bellas! These girls are smokin’ hot,” Stacie said enthusiastically and Cynthia-Rose nodded in agreement. “Hi, I’m Stacie. My hobbies are cuticle care and the E! Network.”
“And hockey,” Cynthia-Rose added with a snort and Stacie shrugged.
“Eh.”
“I’m Cynthia-Rose,” the girl said, shaking Aubrey’s hand while she checked her out with hungry eyes.
“Shots?” Stacie said, offering her a small glass and Chloe clapped happily.
“Don’t mind if I do!”
Aubrey declined politely, opting for the punch but Chloe and Stacie chugged a shot at the same time. The redhead cringed at the burn in her throat but she hadn’t had fun like this in a long time so she was deciding to let loose.
An hour later, she was pretty tipsy, Aubrey was somewhere talking with Amy and Chloe still hadn't seen Beca. She knew the hockey player was short but it almost seemed impossible for Chloe not to have spotted her already. Maybe it had to do with the fact that every time she tried to look for her, Stacie shoved another shot in her hands.
Even with her blurry vision, she finally tried to take a moment to focus so she could find the girl she was looking for. Her eyes widened when she finally spotted her talking to some guy on the stands. She frowned when she saw him get closer and closer to Beca and how the hockey player was obviously smiling back at him. He was wearing a Treble hoodie so Chloe easily deduced it was Jesse. She wondered if Aubrey could be right and they could be dating.
Something turned in her stomach and when she saw the dark-haired boy walking away, she immediately took her chance. She walked up to the stands quickly and breathed out a “Hi!” while taking Beca’s hands, tugging her closer. Okay maybe she was a bit more drunk than she thought.
Beca’s face was close to hers and she had no desire for her to pull away, she liked the proximity. She could see every little detail of her face. The cut on her right eyebrow that she had made today, the cold blue eyes, everything. Beca was beautiful.
“I am so glad that I met you.” She got even closer to her face, eyes dropping down to Beca’s lips briefly. “I think that we’re gonna be really fast friends.”
Beca smiled, “Yeah? Well you saw me naked so,” she added with a wink that made Chloe’s heart skip a beat.
“About that,” Chloe said, still holding Beca’s hands and trying to focus on something else other than how soft they are. “I guess I should… apologize, right? I’m a pretty forward person so sometimes I don’t really think about the way other people feel about it.”
“I couldn’t have guessed,” Beca joked sarcastically.
Chloe bit her lip and lowered her voice, “It’s just that when I want something, I usually don’t stop until I get it.”
Beca seemed taken back by the statement. Chloe’s not sure if she imagined it but it almost looked like Beca’s eyes dropped down to Chloe’s lips for a second. Before she could think anything of it, a voice was heard.
“BeCAW!”
Beca pulled away from Chloe’s grip and straightened her back, looking at Jesse who was coming back with two red solo cups. He gave one to her while trying to take a sip of his own cup, spilling beer on his chin.
“Red, this is Jesse. Jesse, meet Red.”
Chloe smiled at him because even though the thought of him dating Beca upset her for the simple reason that she was in fact attracted to her, it didn’t mean he wasn’t a good person. “I usually go by Chloe.”
He chuckled a little, “Noted. I only knew you by Red. Nice to finally meet you.” Chloe’s eyebrows shot up at his words and she turned to the hockey player.
“You talked about me?” she said in a soft voice and Beca slapped Jesse’s shoulder.
“Whatever,” was all she answered and Chloe bit her lower lip to keep herself from laughing. She was thrilled at this new information and was definitely going to bring it up later.
“How’d you two meet?”
Jesse grinned, putting his arm around Beca and she tried to push it off but when he persisted, she left it there. “We met at hockey camp this summer. I sang her an epic solo in my dad’s backseat, she fell in love, the rest is history.”
He looked at the small hockey player like he just said the funniest thing ever and Beca had an annoyed expression on her face. She shoved him away for good and took a sip of her cup without commenting anything else. Chloe couldn’t help but feel the pang of disappointment from the confirmation that they were dating. They seemed really close too, sharing looks that Chloe didn’t really understand. She wasn’t sure what she was expecting.
Jesse continued like nothing happened, “You’re a Bella, right? Bumper tells me your captain is batshit crazy.”
Chloe frowned, not appreciating that this information was going around. “Yes I am. She’s not crazy though, she’s… driven.”
“She called me a bitch the first time I met her,” Beca said with a smirk.
“She doesn’t like meeting new people. I know someone else like that,” Chloe teased and Beca rolled her eyes. Jesse looked at them and then snorted, taking a sip of his beer. Before she became an obvious third wheel, she cleared her throat. “Alright, I’m gonna go get another drink. This ginger needs her jiggle juice!” she said while shaking her butt and walked away.
“Make good choices!” she heard shouted back at her and she smiled at the fact that Beca repeated what she had told her earlier today.
She found Aubrey with Amy still entertaining a conversation about something random. She joined them but didn’t really listen to what they were saying, too busy looking at Beca and Jesse still talking on the stands. She was still delighted at the fact that she learned Beca talked about her to Jesse. She wondered what she said about her. Even though Beca seemed to be dating the Treble, Chloe was being pulled towards the hockey player and she wouldn’t stop until she knew everything about her.
After a while, Stacie and a few other Dames joined them and the tall hockey player took Chloe’s hand and raised it in the air.
“I hereby declare thee Chloe Beale an honorary member of the Barden Dames, division III!”
Everyone cheered as Chloe beamed. She felt the warmth in her chest from the alcohol and she felt happy about the new friends she had made. With her hand still in the air, she looked over where Beca was to find her already looking at them with a smile.
When she caught Chloe’s eyes, Beca raised her glass at her and Chloe’s smile got even bigger.
…
When Aubrey woke up an hour after Chloe did, she found her eating the pie in front of her laptop in the kitchen.
“Good morning,” Aubrey said and Chloe looked up. “Healthy breakfast, I see.”
“Morning!” she said with her mouth full and pointed the pie with her fork. “This pie is so good, Bree.” She couldn’t help it, she loved sugary things and when she saw the pie on the counter when she went downstairs at 8 AM earlier, she couldn’t not take a slice. Her usual bowl of cereal that she had every morning could wait.
The blonde chuckled, moving around the kitchen to make herself a fruit bowl. Aubrey was crazy healthy. Chloe thought she lived a pretty healthy lifestyle before she met the captain in freshman year; Aubrey worked out at the gym 5 times a week and only ate sugar free things. The ginger couldn't even begin to imagine a life without sugar. Seemed like a nightmare.
“What are you doing?” Aubrey asked, pointing at the open laptop.
Chloe pinched her lips together and tried to move the screen to make sure her friend couldn’t see. “Oh, nothing,” she tried to say as nonchalant as she could. Aubrey narrowed her eyes and walked around the counter to the kitchen table.
“Oh my aca-God, you stalker!” The blonde said in a laugh and Chloe flushed. Stacie and her had exchanged instagram the night before and Chloe might have gone on Stacie’s following list to find Beca’s handle and see what kind of pictures she posted. When Aubrey looked at the screen, Chloe had clicked on a picture that was of all the Dames at some kind of party.
They all had their cups raised in the air and Beca wasn’t looking at the camera, she was looking at Stacie mid-laugh while the girl had an arm around her waist and the other in the air, her face split into a grin. They all looked really happy and Chloe’s heart skipped a beat at how beautiful Beca looked when she was so carefree.
“I followed Stacie last night and I just-- I got curious,” she tried to defend herself but it was a lost cause.
Aubrey clicked off the picture and scrolled through her account. Beca had only posted 9 pictures and only 3 of them were pictures of her, four if you counted the one where it was a picture taken from the back where you could see the number 47 and MITCHELL on her green jersey and she was skating towards the goal with the puck. The rest of the pictures were either pictures taken related to hockey or pictures of her friends.
Aubrey clicked on the selfie Beca had posted last month that Chloe had already inspected in great details earlier. It was a picture of her that looked like it was taken on a hike, she was wearing red tinted sunglasses and staring at the camera with a straight face. The caption was “I know, I just don’t give a fuck”. She looked stupidly adorable and hot at the same time.
Aubrey didn’t seem to agree with Chloe’s thought. She scoffed. “Nice caption,” she said sarcastically which just proved to the redhead once again that the two of them butt heads just because they were too similar.
“I think it’s a good picture,” Chloe said, totally biased. “And hey I thought you were going to make an effort.”
“I just don’t understand why you want to be close to her so bad. She’s rude and standoffish and worst of all, she’s dating a Treble.”
Chloe frowned, Jesse’s words from last night came flowing back to her brain and she shook them off quickly. “First of all, who’s she dating doesn’t really determine who she is as a person and second of all… I don’t know-- she’s special. I feel a connection to her. Like the universe is telling me I need to be with her.” She took a breath. “It’s like I can tell that there’s something pushing us to be close.”
Aubrey looked at her for a moment and walked away to finalize her breakfast. “You’ve always been too much of a romantic for your own good.”
Chloe knew that already. When Chloe loved, she loved hard and with everything in her.
She bit her lip and moved her cursor to the follow button but didn’t click, hesitating a little. “Screw it,” she mumbled to herself, clicking on the button and breathed out when she saw the blue turn into white.
She waited a couple of seconds before closing the tab and moving on with her day. She had some school work to do, especially an assignment from her First Aid class on how her training had been going so far. She moved to her bedroom and put on some music to concentrate on her work.
Two hours later, she got to the notification that she had been not-so-secretly waiting for.
effinmitchell47 has followed you back!
She didn’t even stop the squeal that came out of her mouth at the notification and opened her phone. She clicked on her own profile to imagine what Beca was seeing right now and she was glad to see her past pictures were good ones. Her last picture had been posted less than two weeks ago and it was a picture of her with Aubrey. They were both laughing at something and the picture was blurry but Chloe loved it. At the top of her screen, a message appeared and she clicked on it in half a second.
effinmitchell47
creep.
She smiled at the fact that they were now in a texting stage.
chlobealehuh
social media’s public, beca. that’s kind of the whole point.
effinmitchell47
sure.
hangover? someone had fun last night.
chlobealehuh
just celebrating your win accordingly. you should’ve let yourself have more fun ! after all, you did have one goal and two assists.
effinmitchell47
oh but I did have fun. my fun was watching you shake your butt and saying “this ginger needs her jiggle juice.
chlobealehuh
so me shaking my butt was fun to you is what I’m hearing
effinmitchell47
shut up I didn’t mean it that way
chlobealehuh
sure seems like you did ;)
who’s the creep now?
effinmitchell47
still you. I’ve never barged into anyone else’s shower
which is like the bare minimum but somehow you couldn’t reach it
chlobealehuh
I apologized for that!
besides it’s your fault for not telling me you had such a beautiful voice!
effinmitchell47
pretty sure it doesn’t give you the right to see me naked, red.
chlobealehuh
it’s not like you have anything to be ashamed about ;)
and we sounded totally aca-awesome together!
effinmitchell47
aca-awesome? someone get me out of here.
chlobealehuh
admit it, we sounded great
effinmitchell47
…
fine.
yes we did.
chlobealehuh
look at you go! i think we’re friends now, beca
effinmitchell47
oh are we?
chlobealehuh
yep! just you wait, you’re gonna become obsessed with me soon enough.
effinmitchell47
I guess we’ll see huh?
They ended up texting sporadically for the rest of the day. Halfway through, Chloe had sent her her number with a winky face and Beca hadn’t wasted any time before moving their conversation over. Every single time that her phone vibrated with a text, the redhead felt her heart tug.
Beca over text was the same as Beca in real life; adorably sarcastic and the Bella couldn’t get enough. She knew she was entering dangerous waters but she couldn’t afford to care. Not when she loved the feeling of butterflies of her stomach this much.
Chloe was also happy that by the end of the day, she had learned another fact about Beca. Apparently, the hockey player didn’t like movies. She explained that Jesse was trying to give her a “movie-cation” and that so far, it was a failure. Chloe almost took it as a challenge. Maybe she could make Beca watch a movie with her and see how it goes. Not that she told the hockey player that, Chloe would hold on to that playing card until the right moment.
Besides, she wasn’t going to have free time for a while with the riff-off happening soon and then regionals. That pretty much meant Aubrey was only focusing on the Bellas and Chloe had to match her energy if she wanted her friendship with the blonde to survive.
She just hoped she’d figured out how to juggle the barden Dames on top of all of that.
Chloe was sitting in the living room, the TV playing some bad romantic movie that neither and Aubrey were watching when she received a text that made her laugh so hard, Aubrey almost fell out the couch in surprise.
beca :)
what the /fuck/ is a riff off