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“What time does her flight get in?”
Beca is putting groceries away, but she freezes as she tucks her phone between her shoulder and her ear, taken off-guard by the question heard through the soft voice on the other end of the line.
“Which ‘her’ do you mean?” Beca tries to respond nonchalantly, but she cringes at the edge in her voice that gives her away.
“Come on, Beca,” Kristen says. “You know who.”
She should know better than to try to play stupid with Kristen. They’ve only known each other for six months, but the famed singer-songwriter admittedly knew her well.
Within an hour of their first recording session together their dynamic was already comfortable, connected. The last time she felt such an instant connection was with… well, it was with the person who is the source of her current anxiety.
“Chloe lands around six,” Beca mutters. She can’t stand how see-through she is. “A little bit later than the rest of the Bellas.”
“Are you nervous?” Kristen asks gently.
Beca stands there, a bag of apples in her hand. She bought her house in the foothills of Los Angeles with the earnings from her first solo album. It’s big without being obnoxious, a line she’d felt strongly about toeing. She could have gone a lot bigger—her album had done really well—but she’d only wanted a place big enough that friends and family could visit without worrying about finding a hotel. And now that day is here. The Bellas are reuniting under her roof for the first time since the USO tour, and the first flight touches ground in a couple of hours.
“No,” Beca lies, pushing memories of the last time she saw Chloe far from her mind. “I’m not nervous.”
She knows Kristen will see right through this, too. And of course, Kristen does. “It’s going to be alright, you know. I’m just a phone call away.”
Beca sets the apples on her kitchen counter, her shoulders sagging a little. “Thanks, Kris. I really…” her voice trails. She’s never been good at feelings or words, let alone both at the same time.
“I know.” Kristen pauses before saying, “Just try to have fun, okay? You’ve missed them. Don’t let anything get in the way of this being a good weekend for you.”
They say their goodbyes as Beca goes back to putting groceries away, now beginning to regret buying enough food to feed an army. They’ll probably just order pizza as soon as they’ve had a couple drinks just like they always did in college.
She closes the refrigerator door, completely lost in her clouded mind. Kristen is right, of course. Beca misses the Bellas. But it’s not necessarily a whole truth—she misses all of them, but more than anything, it’s Chloe who she thinks about. It’s Chloe who she never stops thinking about.
Beca glances at the clock on the oven. A few hours from now Chloe will be here.
For three days.
***
It’s a four-bedroom house. That should be plenty of room. It had been plenty of room. Until Fat Amy found the money for a flight last-minute and had been able to come after all.
As people filter in, the first thing they do is pull her into tight hugs. Much later, bags are placed on beds to claim spots. The bunking goes similar to what they shared in college: Cynthia Rose takes a guest bed with Stacie; Lilly and Flo are together. Aubrey and Emily are paired up in the last guest room to Fat Amy’s extremely vocal displeasure, and Fat Amy has the couch.
They sit around in the living room, laughing and catching up as they slide back into their old rhythm. Beca tries to stay in the moment now that her friends are all here, but really she’s just waiting with bated breath for Chloe to arrive.
An Uber pulls up in front of Beca’s house, catching her eye from the window. Beca has to blink a few times to make sure she’s seeing what she’s seeing. Chloe is walking up the driveway with a bag slung over her shoulder, her light blue shorts and white button down giving her a summery look as her eyes scan the house.
Chloe’s hair is a little shorter than what she’s used to seeing, but she looks fine. She looks healthy and happy. As if nearly a year hasn’t passed since they last saw each other.
It throws her back to the last time she saw Chloe, the way she’d gone from the top of the world to the bottom of the hill just like that.
It was her last weekend in New York. Beca was packing, and Chicago was trying to be helpful, but he was always there. Beca had wanted to spend that last weekend with Chloe—they had no idea when they would see each other next. Instead of being glued to each other, eating ice cream in bed, listening to their music too loud for what’s acceptable in an apartment building, Beca packed quietly and ate an awkward dinner with the two of them.
She still remembers her last night, the way Chicago had taken Chloe’s hand and looked at her so softly. “I fly back to Germany tomorrow, Chloe. Come on, come back to my hotel with me tonight.”
Chloe had looked so torn at the time. Eventually, she had gazed back at Beca. “You don’t mind if I go, do you?”
Beca remembers this so well because it was the first time she’d ever had her heart broken. It was the moment that Beca had realized the end of the USO Tour was the end of an era in more ways than one—in the worst way, it was the end of the era where Chloe always picked Beca first.
But at the time Beca had just shaken her head. “Of course not.” She’d forced that lie through her teeth like it was nothing. “Go ahead.”
Beca blinks back to reality as Flo flings the front door open. “Took you long enough!” Flo says with a laugh, pulling Chloe in for a big hug. “We’ve been waiting for you to get the drinks started. It’s been torture.”
Chloe laughs into the embrace, and the sound cuts through Beca’s chest like a knife. She swallows the lump in her throat and forces a smile on her face as Chloe finally turns to her. Her gaze lingers on Beca, her smile unsure for a moment, before she beams and pulls her in.
“Beca,” she murmurs, holding her tight. “You haven’t changed a bit.”
Chloe’s body fits snugly against hers, the smell of her strawberry shampoo filling Beca’s senses. “Implying the need?” Beca teases through a tight throat.
Beca has to fight every misguided instinct bubbling up inside her—the instinct to run, the instinct to hold her tighter and not let go. Remembering that all the Bellas are right behind her, she loosens her arms and pulls away.
She doesn’t think twice about the sleeping arrangements being affected by the extra person until ten minutes later when Chloe is standing off to the side with her bag, not looking as comfortable as she normally would surrounded by all of her friends this way.
“What, no one saved a spot for me?” Chloe jokes.
“We all assumed you would be sleeping in Beca’s room,” Fat Amy says matter of factly.
Beca’s cheeks turn red. It isn’t even an unfair assumption for them to make… yet the way they tether her and Chloe together is altogether unfamiliar and too familiar at the same time.
“It’s fine,” Chloe says, waving her hand dismissively. “I’ll sleep on the recliner. It’s where I end up falling asleep at least half the time when I visit my mom in Portland.”
Beca curses herself mentally. This is exactly the type of situation she wants to avoid this weekend, and yet…
“You’re not sleeping on the recliner, Chlo. Come on.”
Wordlessly, Chloe follows Beca upstairs to her bedroom. She looks around, her eyes wide. “Wow, this is… impressive.”
Beca stops to take stock of it herself for a moment. She really can’t complain about the king size bed, but the rest of the room is pretty minimalist. White furniture with some local art on the walls, nothing too over the top.
“I think just about anything qualifies as impressive after you spend a couple of years on a pullout couch.”
Beca doesn’t miss the way Chloe’s mouth twitches at the corner, the way she avoids her gaze and looks at the wall art instead of Beca’s eyes. “That’s really beautiful,” Chloe says, walking up to the bed. She gestures to the three-piece print of a beach hanging above it. “I didn’t take you to be such a… naturey-art kind of person, though.”
“Please, I’m clueless about decorating. Kristen picked it out for me,” she says without thinking.
Silence fills the room. Beca kicks herself for mentioning Kristen.
She can’t shake the feeling that she and Chloe have never quite been the same since the USO tour. There’s always been a certain ease between them, one that made the boundaries between them so blurred. Ever since Chloe and Chicago got together, though, they’ve grown apart. That ease is gone.
The worst twist of fate is that Chloe doesn’t know what Beca knows. She doesn’t know that Chicago came to Beca two months ago asking for help picking out an engagement ring. Cruel doesn’t even begin to cover it.
Chloe puts her bag on the bed and they go back downstairs. Beca tries to shake off the awkwardness as she follows Chloe.
“Please tell me we can get in the pool now,” Emily groans as soon as they enter the living room, giving Beca a pleading stare.
“Have at it.”
***
Everyone is floating around after a few too many drinks, reminiscing and jamming to the sound system she had installed out there. Looking around at how happy everyone is, she thinks it’s easily money well spent, even if she does hate herself a little for the lavishness of it.
Beca is lazily riding around the pool on Cynthia Rose’s back, but she can’t keep her eyes off Chloe’s pink seashell bikini, the thin straps that hug the fabric to her body. She feels a knot wind painfully inside her, taking in the red hair falling against the bare skin of her shoulders.
She runs a hand over her face, trying to rub away the shame. Blowing out a breath, she drops her eyes and sets her chin on Cynthia Rose’s shoulder with a huff.
“Everything okay back there?”
“Yeah, I just ate too much pizza,” Beca mutters.
She pulls herself out of the water and walks to the kitchen, filling a glass with ice when she hears the back door shut. Chloe rounds the corner, smiling softly at Beca when their eyes meet. “Hey,” she says quietly. “Making a drink?”
“Yeah, gin and tonic. Do you want one?”
“Of course I do. They’re my favorite.”
Beca’s lips pull up at the corners as she pulls down a bottle of gin from the cabinet. “I know they are.”
She can feel Chloe watching her as she mixes both of their drinks. A few times she glances up at her, but it doesn’t seem to deter Chloe from keeping her curious gaze fixed. It admittedly feels so right to be around Chloe when she’s like this again. Smiling, drinking, looking at Beca with flowers in her eyes.
For the rest of the night Beca is careful not to be too open in her admiration. When they climb into bed a little after midnight, it scares Beca, how right it feels.
***
The sound of quiet humming wakes Beca. She stirs, stretching a little. Her eyes open, and she looks to the other side of her bed. Her eyebrows draw together when she sees that it’s empty.
She glances at the clock. It’s a little after 9:00am. She could sleep another hour, but she also feels the need to wake up and make coffee for everyone.
Her eyes travel further, finding the source of the humming. Chloe is in the bathroom, in her own little world as usual. The door is only open three inches—probably haphazardly closed with the assumption that Beca would be asleep for a while—and she can see the mirror through the gap in the door. Chloe emerges in the reflection, brushing her teeth at the sink.
Curiosity overtakes Beca’s instincts and she watches her silently. Chloe is standing there in her underwear and the shirt she’d slept in, Beca assumes getting ready to change.
Beca should look away, but she doesn’t. She’s frozen. As Chloe rinses her toothbrush off in the sink, she inadvertently glances in the mirror. She meets Beca’s eyes in the reflection. Just like Beca, she stills.
For a long moment, neither of them move. Beca knows she should say something, do something other than just take her in this way. The soft curves of her bare legs, the warm flush of her cheeks, they pull her in like gravity.
Part of her expects Chloe to close the door, but she doesn’t. She just gives her a ghost of a smile in the reflection and continues what she’s doing.
Almost like she’s just given Beca permission to watch her.
Everything about this encounter is wistfully domestic. The pull is overwhelming—the commanding need to push past the door. To stand behind Chloe, holding her gaze in the mirror as she hooks her fingers in her underwear, only to slide her hands up and under her shirt the moment Chloe arches her back for more. To tease Chloe until she takes Beca just to prove a point.
Beca swallows the lump in her throat. She climbs out of bed, right out into the hallway and toward the stairs before Chloe starts pulling her pajamas off.
The Bellas trudge around the house decidedly hungover, Fat Amy is sprawled out on the couch, definitely taking the worst of it. Beca has a disturbing flashback to Amy chugging liquor from the bottle last night. Despite the fact that she herself chugged exactly zero liquor, the realization along with a pounding headache hits her that handling liquor at 28 isn’t nearly as easy as it is at 18.
“Come on ladies, where’s your get up and go?” Chloe says as she comes down the steps. Always a source of sunshine, even when people want nothing more than to draw the blinds.
Beca sits down at the island with a deflated sigh, trying not to let her eyes linger on the denim shorts and white tank top Chloe chose. “Must’ve got up and went.”
She fails, of course. She fails miserably. Her mind can’t help but drift to what she might have seen had she just stayed in bed a minute longer.
Fat Amy groans and pulls herself to a seated position. “We’re better than this. Everybody, in the kitchen.”
The girls groan too, but they listen. Amy pours everyone a shot as they all watch with looks of disgust.
“The best way to beat a hangover,” Fat Amy says, “is not sobering up in the first place.”
***
They’re lounging around the pool when Beca’s own song comes onto the Spotify radio. At the sound of her own voice, she sees her friends all perk up and look at each other. Except for Chloe, that is, who slinks away from the group to get another drink.
“Skip this song for me,” Beca says to Cynthia Rose.
“Not happening. This song is a bop. I still can’t believe you did a collab with Kristen Hall. The Kristen Hall. I mean she’s been nominated for, what, like nine Grammys?”
Beca glances back to Chloe, who is spending too much time at the cooler deciding which flavor of fruity booze she wants. “Just skip it.”
Cynthia Rose’s eyebrows draw together in confusion, but she doesn’t say anything as she plays the next song.
Chloe is standing to the side, body stiff, jaw tight. Is she... jealous?
If Beca wasn’t seeing it herself she almost wouldn’t believe it—the flash of possessiveness in Chloe’s eyes.
For a brief moment, it exhilarates her to know she’s the object of it. But as quickly as it hit her, it’s swept away by the fact that it doesn’t matter. That door is closed. It was never open in the first place.
Rejoining the group, Chloe takes a drink that is a little too long. No one addresses the elephant in the room—the fact that tabloids have been speculating about Beca and Kristen’s relationship for months now.
Their music video involved them being close. Really close. They literally sang to each other on a bed, Beca at one point sliding her hands into Kristen’s platinum blonde hair and dragging her thumb across Kristen’s full bottom lip. But at the time it had been work, nothing more than following the director’s instructions.
The next thing Beca knew, paparazzi were following them everywhere. Fans have already taken to calling them “Becsten” and dissecting everything they did in the video, every tweet they send, every lunch or coffee they have together.
To Beca’s complete and utter chagrin, tabloid photos of Kristen kissing Beca surfaced a month ago. So the rumors aren’t completely baseless.
Kristen made it clear to Beca from the first recording session that she liked Beca. She remembers the day she finally agreed to a date with her. Scrolling through Instagram on a short break, a photo of Chloe and Chicago made her stop. His arms had been wrapped around Chloe from behind, both of them smiling so wide that it hurt Beca to look at. It hurt, and yet she must have stared at the photo for three minutes.
That night she’d walked around her apartment in a mood. Hating Chicago. But most of all, hating herself. For being so hurt by Chloe’s happiness. For not realizing what she wanted sooner.
She’d walked around her apartment wanting nothing more than to rid herself of the feelings.
Her phone buzzed. It’d been Kristen, texting her something flirty and easily forgettable. Then there was a thought—one that was so intrusive, so painstaking in it’s unfairness. Was this the way to get over Chloe? Replace her arms with another’s?
She’d stood there, mouth dry. And then she’d agreed to the date.
One second she and Kristen were standing in the dark outside Kristen’s penthouse, looking at each other expectantly, and the next thing she knew Kristen’s lips were on hers. And somewhere, just out of sight, had been the cameras.
***
“That’s it, take a shot!” Emily shouts.
Chloe throws her hands up. “You guys have singled me out every time. You must really want me wasted.”
Beca is sitting off to the side in a patio chair, a beer in her hand. She can’t help but smirk at the awesome dorks standing around the table playing drinking games like eight years haven’t passed since they met.
Cynthia Rose bounces a quarter into a shot glass with precision. “That we do. Better hurry up before you have to take another.”
Groaning, Chloe looks at Aubrey, who passes her a shot glass. “Even you, Aubs?”
Aubrey shrugs. “What can I say, I miss drunk Chloe, too.”
She shakes her head but reaches for the drink with a smirk on her face.
The shot glass slides out of her fingers and shatters against the concrete, her dexterity affected by the previous shots. Chloe instinctively takes a step back, her foot coming down on shattered glass and slicing her skin. “Oh! Motherfucker!” Chloe hisses.
Beca winces as she witnesses it happening too fast for her to do anything about it. She jumps up instantly. “Fuck, are you okay?”
Chloe tries, but she can’t put weight on her foot. “Jesus, that hurts.” Blood drips steadily onto the concrete.
“We’ll clean that up in the kitchen,” Beca says quickly. Chloe’s attempt to hobble toward the house is pathetic. Looking down at the steadily dripping blood, Beca lifts Chloe’s arm over her shoulder and wraps her own around Chloe’s waist. A gasp of surprise leaves Chloe as she helps her through the house until Beca can plop her down on the kitchen counter.
Chloe looks down at her foot in embarrassment. “This is going to sound controversial, but I think that went well.”
Beca shakes her head. “Always the optimist.”
Chloe can’t help but hiss a little as Beca checks the cut. Beca walks away silently, returning with a first aid kit from the bathroom, already rummaging through it. When she pulls out the peroxide, Chloe shakes her head. “Oh hell no. That’s going to sting.”
Beca pauses, glancing at Chloe sympathetically. “It won’t feel as bad as an infection.”
Chloe opens her mouth to protest. Instead she ends up nodding, gritting her teeth as Beca pours it over the wound.
Beca goes to work cleaning, butterflying and bandaging her foot. Her fingers move with a surprising delicateness as Chloe watches her gently fix her, despite Chloe’s complaining and squirming.
When she finishes she pats Chloe on the leg. “All better.”
If this had happened in college, or hell, even in New York, this would be the part where Chloe would press a soft kiss to Beca’s cheek. It feels like a million years ago now, though.
“Thanks. I feel like such an idiot.”
Beca’s hand lingers on Chloe’s thigh longer than she’d meant to allow. She glances down at her own hand. She knows the big things are what’s supposed to take her breath away—just like the movies, where lips clash and thunder booms in your chest, and it’s altogether too much. But this—this is already too much. Beneath the pads of her fingertips, Chloe's thigh is smooth, the softness otherworldly.
Beca swallows, licking her lips unconsciously. She can’t help thinking that Chloe has no business being that way, making her ache to learn how every one of her soft spots feels. So little of them is connected—five fingertips and a palm to Chloe's skin. So why does it feel so big? Why does her heart have thunder storming so loudly inside? Why does Chloe look like she does, too?
***
That night Beca slips out onto her back patio, long after everyone else is in bed. She walks to the edge and sits down, submerging her legs halfway up her calves. The illuminated water covers her skin like a hug, instantly easing some of her nerves.
She needs to relax. By the time she goes back upstairs, Chloe will hopefully be asleep, and then tomorrow everyone will fly home. Maybe then she’ll be able to breathe. Even if the idea of Chloe going home to be with Chicago is driving her absolutely mad.
She’s always known she loved Chloe in some capacity—loved her as a friend, as a found family, and eventually, and maybe always, loved her as so much more. But it wasn’t until Chloe walked away with someone else that she knew.
Beca’s stomach churns as she stares into the water. She realizes that this might be the first time she’s understood completely—how loving another person changes you. Leaving New York for L.A. was the hardest thing Beca has ever done. She felt like her heart was back there with Chloe.
An overwhelming part of her had wanted to run back to Chloe and tell her that none of it mattered. But Chloe was like water slipping through Beca’s fingers from the moment Chicago dipped her back and kissed her.
It’s funny, how one moment can change everything. How a person can go from drowning in feelings they don’t understand, to everything clicking all at once. To understanding perfectly. To understanding and drowning all the same.
Yeah, it’s hilarious.
Beca squeezes her eyes shut and pushes herself off the edge, submerging herself underwater. Bubbles pour out of her both as she slowly sinks to the bottom, her hair floating around her. After all this time, she wants to stop wanting Chloe the way she does. If she could unchain herself from that deep, unwelcome need, she would. But the universe, Beca finds, doesn’t take requests.
Her lungs are aching for air, and when she finally resurfaces she’s gasping. She pushes the hair back from her face and wipes her eyes, not noticing that she isn’t alone. Not until she hears a quiet sigh does she realize.
Turning around, her eyes land on Chloe. She stands on the concrete, her eyebrows furrowed as she looks at Beca.
“Hi,” Beca breathes, embarrassment washing over her. She isn’t sure how it looked to see her underwater for so long, but she knows it probably isn’t great.
“Mind if I join?” Chloe asks quietly.
Beca does mind. She minds a lot. She looks over the teal-blue water, illuminated by the underwater lights. The water is practically glowing, the only light they had outside. But Chloe looks ethereal in that glow, and Beca knows there’s only one answer. That she wants Chloe to join. That she hates just how much she wants Chloe to join.
She clears her throat. “Knock yourself out.”
Chloe sits crossed-legged at the edge. In the brief moments when they’re alone together, it becomes painfully aware that they’ve lost the ease they once had.
After a beat of silence, Chloe says, “It still feels weird, knowing you’re here in L.A. with this big career and this big life.” She dips her feet into the pool. Beca has to stop herself from laughing. Her music may be taking off, but that doesn’t make her life any bigger or better than it was before. Being so far away from Chloe has never made her world feel so small. “Sometimes I leave work and I almost take the wrong train, the one that I took to our old apartment. For a minute I forget you’re here and not there with me. But you are here. You packed up and came to L.A.”
Beca moves her hands back and forth in the water, trying to let the feeling of it flowing between her fingers ground her. “Yeah, Chlo, that’s how it works. That’s how I get to have a career, you know? And you had vet school in New York. It’s how we get to have the things we want.”
“The things we want,” Chloe repeats breathily.
“I mean, it is, isn’t it? You have the new apartment and the clinic and Chicago to worry about now…”
“Right…” she mutters. “Chicago.”
Beca’s heart thumps, not knowing what’s good for it. This is the first time Chloe has implied anything other than happiness with him, but right now, the look in her eyes... she seems the furthest thing from it. Beca lowers herself further into the cool water until her shoulders are completely submerged, trying not to let that information thrill her more than it should.
Chloe pushes herself off the ledge and into the water. She sinks below the surface, clothes and all.
That’s when Beca stops breathing. Chloe pops to the surface, her t-shirt molded to her body like a second skin. Beca doesn’t move a muscle, awareness and nerves making the hair on the back of her neck stand up. She doesn’t breathe, she can’t blink.
For a while Chloe just floats on her back, looking up at the night sky. Long enough that Beca is surprised when Chloe finally does break the quiet stillness.
“Can I be completely honest about something, Beca?”
Beca gulps, nerves making her stomach do flips. “Of course,” she finally says. “You can always do that, Chlo.”
Chloe chews on her lip, like she still hasn’t decided just how honest she wants to be. “Sometimes when I listen to your songs…” she says softly. “It feels… personal. Sometimes it feels like… like maybe it’s about us.”
Heart beating wildly, Beca doesn’t even know what to say. She thinks about Chloe all the time—the could haves, the would haves, the should haves. Every memory of her thousand missed chances have made itself at home in her mind. Of course Chloe has bled into her lyrics. How could she not?
Beca shifts in the water, her gaze locked onto Chloe’s. She feels so exposed, so vulnerable. It’s as though Chloe has a knife pressed to her throat while looking at her with heart-shaped eyes.
She opens her mouth to speak twice, willing the words to come out. Finally she manages, “Who else would it be about, Chlo?”
A laugh escapes Chloe’s lips, sounding so foreign in its bitterness. “Kristen Hall?”
Beca looks out across the water, biting her cheek. It’s clear that the jealousy over the song yesterday hadn’t been imagined after all.
“You know that’s not…” Beca trails off, not even sure what she means.
Chloe shakes her head. “No, I don’t know. You never even told me. I just… saw it walking by a newsstand in New York. On the front page of a tabloid— Beca Mitchell kissing Kristen Hall outside her penthouse. Going inside together. And then a month later the music video was out.”
The hurt on Chloe’s face is so clear and present. It kills Beca to see it because she’s so familiar with it. She feels it every time she sees Chloe and Chicago together.
“When you were with Jesse, I could tolerate it. I mean, it sucked. It sucked so bad. But I understood it, you know?” Chloe sighs, pushing her hair back. “I waited for you for seven years. God, I broke my heart every day holding on. You have no idea.” Her voice gets quiet. “And then Chicago was there. And I gave up on you and me. But when I saw you with her, honestly nothing has ever hurt worse than that.”
“Why didn’t you ever just… say something?” Beca asks softly. “Why didn’t you just tell me?”
Chloe shakes her head. “I thought… I thought there was no way you could be that oblivious. I thought you knew how I felt and that you just… didn’t want me back.”
Beca peers across the dark air to where the glowing water casts shadows on Chloe’s face, feeling terrified of what she knows she’s about to say. “I think I knew it even if I didn’t want to admit it to myself. But by the time I was ready for you…” Beca lets out a shaky breath. “You were gone. You had him.”
“Beca, if I’d ever thought we could—I wouldn’t have even—“ Chloe stammers.
She can see the wheels turning behind Chloe’s eyes, past hurts and old feelings coming to the surface and retreating. Her wet hair is sticking to the side of her face, making her look so vulnerable.
“You think I wasn’t pissed at myself?” Beca says. “I was. I am.”
“You shouldn’t be. I mean, you have Kristen now,” Chloe says, shaking her head. “She’s… amazing. She’s everything, Beca.”
At that Beca let out a laugh. “An amazing friend.”
“You don’t have to do that, Bec. I saw the photos.”
Beca just smirks at the irony of this. “You want to know what happened when we went up to her apartment that night? Since we’re being so honest?”
“Not really,” Chloe breathes.
“I tried to sleep with her,” Beca says, ignoring her. “Oh my god, did I try. I was this close, and then I started crying. Do you have any idea how embarrassing it was for me, curled up in a half-naked ball at the edge of her bed, telling a girl I really liked that I couldn’t be with her because my heart is yours? Because it is. Yeah, that was a lot of fun.”
It’s the hardest thing she’s ever done, to utter those words to Chloe. As the information sinks in, Chloe bites her bottom lip. “So you two aren’t—you never—”
“No. I mean, she is my friend, though. She’s a really good friend. But that’s it.”
Kristen had taken the news about Chloe like a champ. They ended up watching movies on Kristen’s couch all night, Beca spilling her guts about everything. Kristen genuinely understood. It was nice, having someone in her life who understands all the ways that loving a woman is nothing like loving a man. The way loving a woman can make you question if you ever loved anything but her at all.
Chloe wades through the water like there’s a rope pulling her straight to Beca. Her breath catches softly as she gets so close they can feel each other’s breaths. Beca can’t help but stare in wonderment at the way Chloe’s eyes seem to become lighter and darker all at once, like the horizon in those final moments before the sun sets completely.
Their noses are just inches apart, and all Beca can think about is how easy it would be to tilt her jaw in and touch her lips. She craves them. She loves them and she hates them all at once. In truth, Beca is afraid of Chloe’s kiss. She’s longed for it so much.
Beca’s heart jumps at the feeling of Chloe’s hand curving lightly, almost pleadingly, along her jaw.
“What about Chicago?”
“I left him, Bec. Months ago.”
Chloe’s words float on the surface of the water, uttered in the heat of the moment, forever irrevocable. Beca’s lips part in shock. “You what?”
“He’s great. He’s like the whole package, you know? He’s so sweet, and he really tried to be there for me.”
Beca swallows. “Then why do you look like you’re about to cry?”
“Because the way he made me feel…” Chloe pauses. “It’s not at all how it is when I’m with you. He proposed, and I couldn’t say yes. Not when I want you like this.”
Beca’s lips part slightly, her brain doing everything in its power to comprehend what Chloe is saying. “Chlo… you never told me,” Beca whispers.
“I was going to, and then pictures of you and Kristen leaked, and I just… couldn’t. I didn’t know how.”
Beca is stunned. She feels contained, so tightly wound. An image of a jack-in-the-box pops into her mind. Is she twisting the handle, or is Chloe?
She braces herself for when the music stops. It does.
The hand on her jaw is guiding Beca closer, and she melts into that hold as Chloe’s soft lips cover her own. Their first few kisses are languid and awed, becoming deeper as Beca’s lips part with a quiet whimper at the brush of Chloe’s tongue.
Beca slides her hand around to the back of Chloe’s neck, pulling her tighter, kissing her deeper. She isn’t that 18-year-old girl who couldn’t recognize a good thing if it hit her in the face anymore. That was then, and this is now.
She could have gone her whole life not understanding the ocean of difference between kissing someone back and kissing them. All this time, she realizes, she’s been kissing people back. Because she’s never kissed anyone the way she’s kissing Chloe now. Like her very life force is tethered to her, like she’s never understood the word hunger until this moment.
Beca is caught in such a feeling of wonderment that it’s nearly impossible to breathe.
Chloe is the first to pull away. She just wraps her arms around Beca in a hug, leaving no room for water between their bodies. The embrace feels bittersweet. It feels like lingering pain mixed in with so much relief. She nuzzles her face into the crook of Chloe’s neck, letting her arms tighten. Her lips are still tingling from the kiss, her chest still searching for air. She can’t help but notice Chloe is, too.
“You’re shaking,” Beca murmurs. Chloe just responds by nuzzling into her further. The thought that Chloe is supposed to be leaving in a matter of hours hits her like a train. She doesn’t want her to go. “When is your flight tomorrow?”
“Early,” Chloe whispers.
Beca’s stomach turns at the thought of her going so soon. “Don’t take it. Stay here a little longer.”
Chloe pulls back, her lips curling into a self-satisfied grin. “Not ready for me to leave yet?”
Beca can’t help but smirk back. “You’re looking awfully smug there, Chlo.”
“Sorry. Can’t help it,” she chuckles. “I kissed you and you’re begging me to stay. This is like… fantasy level 100.”
Feeling bold, Beca floats in the water and wraps her legs around Chloe’s waist snugly. Chloe’s smile widens, making Beca’s heart rate quicken as Chloe’s hands slide down to grasp her thighs.
“What happens after?” Chloe asks lightly. “When I really do have to leave?”
Beca doesn’t want to think about it. She doesn’t ever want to think about Chloe leaving. She’s already been absent in Beca’s life for too long. It kills her, how safe and protected she feels in Chloe’s arms. It makes her want to say, “Don’t go. Don’t ever go. It feels like home with you.”
It isn’t fair to Chloe to say that, but she can’t go back to how things were before. She finds herself saying, “I want to be with you, Chlo.”
She waits with bated breath for Chloe’s response. Beca knows it’s complicated. There is her career and Chloe’s vet clinic to think about now. But Chloe looks so happy right now, and Beca just wants to hold onto that for as long as she can.
“We’ll make it work. It’s only a six hour flight from New York to L.A. If that’s what it takes, we’ll do it. Just until we figure it out. Right?”
Beca nods, feeling Chloe’s hands slide up her legs. “Okay,” she breathes. Chloe holds Beca’s gaze for a moment before closing her eyes and pressing a soft kiss to Beca’s lips. “You promise?” Beca whispers against her lips. “It’s you and me now?”
“I promise,” Chloe says, kissing her again. “You and me.”
To Be Continued… Probably… Maybe?