Aca-moms

That Monday Chloe sits in her classroom after school, because she had to finish something. David is playing quietly in a corner waiting till they can go home. The silence is broken when the principal steps into the classroom and asks:

"Ms Beale, is Ms Mitchell late again? I thought she promised it wouldn't happen anymore..."

'Fuck', the word almost slips Chloe's lips. She knew she should have confided with her boss as soon as she moved in with Beca, but she had been dreading it. She takes a deep breath and speaks up.

"Well, ehrm, there's something I need to tell you. I know the school has a strict policy of keeping the relationship between parents and staff professional, but Beca and I, I mean Ms Mitchell and I, we go back to our college days. I'm currently staying at her house, because my own apartment has water damage and is being renovated. She's in New York for business now, and the least I could do was stay with David for her. I just need to finish this stuff up here and we're heading home."

She tries to keep it as matter-of-factly as she can.

"Do any of the other parents know?"

"Alice only knows about us going to college together, but I'm confident she won't tell anyone."

The principal is hesitant for a moment, but answers:

"Ms Beale, this is very much against school policy, but I understand the urgency of your situation. If I receive signals that this influences your work or if other parents find out, you understand that I'll be forced to take appropriate measures."

A little afraid of what 'appropriate measures' are, Chloe nods in silence.

After the relatively calm Sunday Beca has two crazy days of meetings. The meetings mainly consisted of the LA manager fighting with the NY manager and Beca had been watching from the side line. There was a constant rivalry between the two offices, but the Atlanta office was never part of that rivalry. Beca felt like she was wasting here time, she hadn’t come to New York just to hear her two former bosses fighting. After listening to them going on about whose ideas were the best, or who should determine what the company should do for almost a day, Beca just snaps.

“Look, I’ve worked for both of you, and the way I see it, this is just some childish fighting. What the New York office produces isn’t better than what the LA office does, or the other way around. The fact that both locations are so different is what makes the company so successful. So maybe we should even use that to our advantage more.”

Both men silently stare at the tiny brunette, which makes her feel even smaller by the minute. Then finally the LA boss speaks up.

“Mitchell, that’s actually a great idea. But where does that leave Atlanta?”

“Hopefully in peace to let me do what I do best, create music”, Beca huffs.

“Oh no, Beca, you are one of the most musically gifted people in the industry, but I think we can no longer deny that you have a very strong sense of business as well.” The NY manager agrees.

The next day was spent brainstorming how they could actually make it work, laying the groundwork for a campaign that would highlight all three locations separately, playing the differences to their advantage, as Beca had suggested.

On Tuesday evening Beca decides to go to the hotel bar to get herself a drink. She sits down at the bar and orders a Jack and coke. Sipping from her drink she lets her mind wander from the meeting to David and Chloe back in Atlanta. She'd kill to be there right now, just the three of them at home. She doesn't notice it when a woman sits down on the empty stool next to hers, until a voice asks:

"Drinking all by yourself? That's hardly ever a good sign. Can I get you  another one of those?"

Beca looks up to see the blonde who offers her a drink. Happy for some company to distract her from her homesick thoughts she accepts.

"Yeah, a Jack and coke, please. Hi, I'm Beca."

"Hi, I'm Julie. What brings you here?"

"I'm currently on a business trip, meeting at the cooperation’s headquarters. Lots of talking, boring stuff, you know...What about you?"

"I'm actually in town to meet with my publisher, I write novels. What kind of business are you in? You don't look like some boring business woman..."

"Well I am pretty boring in general. But I'm a music producer."

The women chat for a while and Beca notices that Julie moves closer to her and is clearly checking her out. Although she can't deny that the woman is gorgeous, she feels uncomfortable and is not sure she wants this. For starters she didn't like the small frown she had observed when she had mentioned her son, and she was coming on too strong for Beca's liking. And even though she has decided that it is best to move on and get over Chloe, the redhead is still in the back of her mind. Speaking of the Devil, her phone rings at that same moment. A glance at the caller ID informs her that it's Chloe.

"Excuse me, Julie, it's my wife calling, I have to get this one. Thanks for the drink, see you around"

Julie looks at her with disbelief as she gets up. Beca quickly makes her way out of the bar before she picks up.

"Hey Chlo, what's wrong?"

"Does anything have to be wrong? I just wanted to hear your lovely voice."

This non-intentional flirting was going to be the death of Beca someday, she knew it.

"Right.."

"And I wanted to confirm your arrival time tomorrow. We're coming to pick you up."

"Okay, great. I'm looking forward to seeing you again. How are things there?"

Chloe hears a tired tone in Beca's voice.

"It's fine here, nothing special, but we can't wait to have you back here. I'm already planning a welcome home movie night."

Beca groans, but secretly she can't wait to be curled up against Chloe on under a blanket on their couch.

"I'll check my flight details upstairs and text you. Night, Chlo."

"Night Becs"

The next morning Beca heads down for breakfast. At the breakfast buffet she spots the blonde from last night. She tries to avoid her but the blonde has spotted her and joins her at her table.

"Hey Beca nice to see you again, so what was that about last night? I'm not used to getting turned down and especially not with such lame excuses."

"Hi Julie, I'm sorry I gave you the wrong impression. I wasn't really looking for anyone, I just liked to have someone to talk to, to get my mind of a busy day."

"Look we're both adults, there's totally no reason to have a friend call and pretend like it's your wife."

"She's …"

"No, Beca, look. I'm not stupid, you're not wearing a wedding band and you don't even seem like the marrying type to me. You should just have the guts to be honest with me."

"OK, I'm not married, technically. But there is someone, sort of, so again, I'm sorry if I gave you a wrong impression but I'm not interested."

"Fine, whatever." Julie gets up with an air of annoyance and leaves Beca behind.

After breakfast Beca goes to her room to pack her stuff. Beca had opted for late check out, but she still had some time to pass before heading to the airport. She remembers that she hasn't got any gifts for back home yet. She buys David a t shirt and a yellow taxi toy car. She doesn't see anything she likes for Chloe, so she decides she'll buy her a more regular gift, rather than some NY memorabilia. After all, she looked after David those days, on top of everything else. Close to her hotel was a jeweller, so she decides to look for something for Chloe there.

At the jeweller Beca browses the displays, she isn't really sure what to get Chloe. After some browsing she sees a simple bracelet, a fine silver chain with a single bead on it. The bead is decorated with a line of little diamonds. Beca instantly likes it an decides to get it for Chloe. Content with her pick, she heads back to the hotel to pick up her luggage and head to the airport.

The check-in is uneventful and Beca is one of the first passengers to get onto the plane. After putting her bag in the overhead compartment she settles into her seat. By putting her headphones on she isolates herself from the rest of the plane.

When she is settled in nicely, her thoughts begin to wander to the events of the past three days.

First there was meeting with Stacy, the remarks that she had made about Chloe kept echoing in Beca's mind. Stacie hadn't even said "if", but "when". And of course, Chloe is an amazing woman, it was unthinkable that she would remain single. But the thing was, Chloe didn't seem to go anywhere. In all the time Chloe had lived with her, the redhead had been out twice, both times with some colleagues and once she had dragged her to the mixer in their building. Other than that Chloe spend most of her time at Beca's side. Beca had grown too accustomed to that.

Then there was that meeting with the blonde, Julie, and the incident with the phone call. That night she had tried to convince herself that it was just the same as in college, when they had pretended to be girlfriends to get rid of annoying boys, but after that morning exchange with Julie, she knew that it wasn't. It was especially the marrying type comment that had thrown her off. Even though she had been with Jesse all through college, she had never even thought about what it would be like to be married one day, she had just never looked that far ahead. It was different with Chloe. Of course, that was also because they had slipped into their little family routine, but on multiple occasions Beca had been aware that she didn’t want it to end, that she didn’t want Chloe to go back to her own apartment.

Beca wanted to slap herself for all these inappropriate thoughts. She had not really expected to fall in love, but now her stupid brain had put Chloe in its wife department. Chloe, of all people, not some suitable candidate, who was at least gay, no her best and very straight friend, Chloe. Beca knew she had to talk to Chloe, but she couldn’t do it now, could she? If it made Chloe want to leave, she would basically be kicking the redhead to the curb. She made up her mind, she would talk to Chloe, as soon as her apartment was done. She owed it to her best friend.

And on the other side there was the meetings she had with the director of the New York studio. When she worked in New York, she had used her own voice for demos from time to time. When her boss had heard those demos, he had on multiple occasions tried to convince her to record your own music. That's why there was an option in her current contract to take time to record her own work with the label. In their last meeting he had asked whether she had already made progress on her own album. So far Beca hadn't been too keen to record some of her own songs, she was confident about her music writing skills but she had not found inspiration for good lyrics for a time. Recently she had made some scribbles again and was actually looking forward to taking this new step. She was still scared as hell though, but to create something that was 100% hers seemed wonderful.

Beca’s thoughts settled and she knew she could only hope for the best…On both fronts…