Um hi guys. I did a thing. You should read it, and maybe check back every week for something new. I'm going to go ahead and say Pitch Perfect owns this, even though Jessica and Ashley have no background in the movie. This is the second in a universe where everyone is Pitch Perfect is dating another Bella (except Lily). Matchmakers was the first instillation and deals with events after this. I hope you guys enjoy. Please read and review. I love hearing feedback, and I'm open to suggestions for places this story can go.
Ashley took a deep breath as she stood outside her new school. It was a week after the start date and the girl dreaded heading in. She was going to be the new kid, and it was a feeling she loathed.
Her parents had moved twelve times since she was born. Following her father's ever-increasing career as a hotel manager. He'd worked himself up to the top of the chain of command, but Ashley wished they could have stayed somewhere longer than a couple of years. She was shy enough without having to deal with new people all the time.
After one last fortifying breath, she strode purposefully towards the door. Only four steps into her journey and Ashley was barreled into by a blonde whirlwind.
"Sorry. I'm so sorry." The blonde called out as she ran by.
Ashley stared after the blonde, looking around to see if anyone else had seen what had happened. She shook her head and wished the rushed girl well. Without any further incidents, Ashley made it to the main office.
With her schedule in one hand and a map in the other, she made her way to first period. The moment she dreaded the most was fast upon her. When she opened the door, the living nightmare started.
"Oh, hello. Are you the new student?" The teacher queried.
With a quick jerk of her head, Ashley searched for a seat. The only seat left just happened to be next to her run away blonde. She raised her eyebrow and moved to take the seat.
Just as she made the first step the teacher spoke again, "Why don't you tell us your name, where you moved from, and something about yourself?"
Ashley rolled her eyes and slinked towards the front of the class. "My name is Ashley. I just moved from a different city, and I go to school." She then turned to the teacher and gave her a blank look. "Is that good enough?"
The teacher huffed before frowning at the brunette. "If that's the best you have, you can take your seat."
Before the teacher had even finished speaking, Ashley had power walked to her seat. She hated having to do the whole new kid thing. It wouldn't have been so bad if they could have just moved a week earlier.
She was thinking of ways to pay her father back for once again not listening to her when she felt a tap on her shoulder. A pair of warm blue eyes stared at her as Ashley tried to figure out what the teacher had said.
Seeing the distress on the brunette's face the girl held out a hand, "Hi I'm Jessica, but my friends call me Jess. Sorry about running into you earlier. Mrs. Lands partnered us up for the semester project. We have to do some sort of presentation to show our understanding of what we learn in this class. Most people do a short video of them acting it out. Occasionally they act it out live for extra points. Lands wants it to be extra creative, so she takes points off for simple things like PowerPoint presentations."
"What?" Ashley furrowed her brows, "that sounds insane."
"Everyone agrees with you at the beginning, but by the end they love it. Besides, it's half our grade so it's important that we do well. We're supposed to be using this time to plan out when and where we're going to meet."
"Well we could always meet at my house. My dad will be at work and my mom works for home. She won't bother us, so we'll have a lot of quiet space to work."
Jessica bounced in her seat, "That sounds perfect. I have three younger brothers and a twin sister. It's impossible for me to have any quiet time. Someone always wants my attention. If we become friends you might find me begging to come over and hang out away from the crazy."
"As long as you don't bring the crazy to my house we'll see about those invites." Ashley laughed.
Before Jessica could reply, Mrs. Lands restarted the class. Ashley couldn't help think that maybe this school wouldn't be so bad.
She tried to keep that thought in her head as she called out for Jessica on her way to lunch. She had had the first three classes with the blonde, but they didn't share the same lunch class even though they shared the same lunch period.
The fact that the blonde was now ignoring her confused the brunette. They had spent three periods together and even talked in the hall. Ashley sped up to try to catch the girl when she heard her name called from behind her. When she looked behind her, she saw the blonde who was ignoring her on the way to lunch.
Ashley's head ping ponged between the two girls as she finally remembered that Jess was a twin.
"Whoa, when you said you had a twin I wasn't expecting an identical one for some reason."
"Really," Jessica queried, "most people assume we're identical twins."
"You're just so beautiful it's hard to imagine that there's someone just as pretty walking around.
Jessica stared at Ashley. Ashley blushed as she realized what she'd said, "That sounded like a line and it wasn't supposed to. I don't take it back. I just wanted you to know I was completely sincere."
"Oh." The smile was slow in coming, but it blinded Ashley with its intensity. Jessica linked arms with Ashley and dragged the stunned girl towards the lunch room.
When they got to the cafeteria, they realized they both brought their lunch. With a sympathetic glance at those stuck in line, Jessica towed the willing brunette to the only table filled with people.
"Hey." Jessica called out as she sat next to her sister pulling Ashley down next to her. "Guys, this is Ashley. She just moved here. Ash these are my friends. The goofball on the end is Chad. Next to him is Kelly, Lisa, Tom, and on the end Sam. Next to, you is Hope and on the other end is Jace. Last but definitely the most important is my sister McKenzie."
Ashley smiled and waved at the group. They all seemed nice. Well, almost all of them seemed nice. McKenzie glared at Ashley until Jess glanced over. It was only then that she smiled.
The brunette shrugged and started taking her lunch out. She was dragged into a conversation by Hope about what songs were good for a choir to sing. Overall, it was turning into the best first day that she'd ever had.
After lunch, Ashley suffered through three more classes without Jessica in them. Though she had just met the girl, the blonde made their shared classes bearable.
Her final class was the one she looked forward to the most, even before she'd ever stepped foot in the school. Very rarely did things ever go wrong in chorus. Most of the kids she'd taken chorus with throughout the world were nice and welcoming. This time she'd at least know three students. Jessica, Hope, and Sam were all in the class with her.
She managed to once again slip into class early. Her promptness had derailed several teachers' get to know you speech, simply because they didn't realize she was there until the end. With only ten kids in the class, Ashley wasn't optimistic that she'd manage to get by without it this time.
The teacher walked in as soon as the bell rang ad immediately noticed the new girl. "Ah, fresh blood. Come on down to the front so we can see where you belong. Let's hear some scales and then give us a song."
Ashley rolled her eyes and whispered something to Jessica. When she got a quick nod, she made her way to the front.
Her scales gave cover for the quick quiet conversations Jessica was having with Hope and Sam. The smiles on their faces told Ashley that her plan was good to go.
With a quick nod from Ashley, Jessica stood and started the song. "Dearest, Darlingest, Momsie and Popsicle,"
"My dear Father." Ashley intoned.
The teachers head swiveled between the girls trying to figure out when this had been planned. Her head shot back to the rest of the class when two more students joined in on the unexpected duet.
Mrs. Keel fell in her chair in shock as her entire class started backing the new girl. How they all knew how to do the background for a Wicked song escaped her. That her class had hidden talents amazed her.
When the song finished she stood and threw her hands together as hard as she could until the pain became too much. "That was amazing. How long have you planned that? When did you plan that? When were you going to tell me you could do that?"
The class shuffled looking at each other when Hope spoke up, "We, uh, we didn't actually plan or practice that. Jess, Sam, Ash and I were talking about awesome songs for choirs to sing at lunch and that one came up. Ash asked Jess if she wanted to sing it with her and Jess asked Sam and me."
The teacher turned to the instigator and raised an eyebrow. Ashley caved quickly, "I just didn't want to have to sing by myself. Besides, that song shows of my voice. I was just as surprised as you were when everyone jumped in."
Sam jumped in, "This stuff is hot right now. We've actually been trying to get you to let us sing this way for a while now. You just haven't let us show you what we can do."
Mrs. Keel looked at each of the student who were nodding and looking hopeful. "Well I guess we have a lot of work ahead of us if we're going to make this work."
The rest of class was spent learning what the group could do. Everyone thanked Ashley as they walked out. Jess jumped on her from behind and nearly took the unsuspecting girl down.
"That was the best ever! Thank you so much for getting her to give that a chance. Maybe this year we'll get to sing cool songs instead of old hymns and boring songs." Jessica squealed.
"Yeah. This year is going to be dope." Sam added as he pulled Jessica off Ashley's back. "Just as long as you don't kill the new girl."
"Whatever." Jessica said bouncing in place. "The new girl and I have plans. We have Lands this semester so we have to get started on our project. I have a feeling it's going to be music related."
The girls walked to Ashley's house as Jess pointed out anything interesting on the way. The girls lived in the heart of the wealthy side of Miami. The school only took students from its surrounding affluent neighborhood so busses weren't a thing. All the students had cars, rides, or lived in walking distance.
Ashley stopped Jessica when they reached her house, "So, uh, just a few things before we go in. My mom is probably writing or sleeping so we have to be somewhat quiet when we're not in my room. I've got the entire attic and it's soundproof so I can sing without bothering my parents."
"Oh, um, okay." Jessica shrugged. The two girls quietly made their way into the house. Jessica was more than a little creeped out at how quiet it was. She could even hear the hum of the refrigerator from the front door. In her house, there was never any silence. Five kids meant that someone was always doing something.
They quickly made their way to the attic, where Ashley immediately put on some music. A sharp breath alerted Ash that Jess liked her room. She smiled, as she looked around, trying to see it from her new friend's perspective. The room was meant to soothe, with light pastels accenting warm white furniture and walls. She knew that the décor was probably the furthest thing from Jessica's mind. The three guitars, keyboard, and recording equipment were the attention grabbers of the room.
"This is all yours?" the stunned blonde breathed out.
Ashley ushered Jessica to her study area, "Yeah, it's all mine. My mom and dad try to buy my forgiveness for moving all the time. What you just see is a collection of times I've had to pack up and leave wherever we were staying. They say it won't happen again, but I'm not sure if they mean it."
"Do you, do you ever keep in touch with the people you leave behind?" Jess questioned softly.
"I haven't really made that many friends. When I was younger we would stay in a place longer, but when people started noticing how awesome my dad was we started to move more."
Jess grabbed the frowning girl's hand, "What does your dad do exactly?"
"Well he works with hotels. When I was a baby he just managed hotels, but then he realized that he could fix bad ones. Now he travels around and is paid a lot of money to fix failing hotels. We've been all over the world because of that. He promised me when I was starting middle school that we'd move back to the States before I had to go to college. When he was offered the job here in Miami, he took it. He's hopeful that he'll find a couple of hotel's to work on while he's here. We just moved around so much, and I often didn't speak the language. It was really hard to get to know people."
"Well I'm your friend now, and you won't get rid of me just by moving." Jess said as she scooted over on the couch to hug Ashley.
After a few minutes, Jess released Ashley to go and look at all the musical equipment, "Do you know how to play all of these, or are you still learning?"
"Well I started piano when I was in kindergarten, but I'm still learning some of the new things the keyboard can do. Some of the synthesizer things can get complicated quickly. As for guitars, I started them when I was 10, though the bass is a recent addition. I have the basics down, but I'm not the best. I mostly just play simple things to accompany the songs I write."
Jessica whirled around surprised, "You write songs too?"
Ashley shrugged, "Music is kind of all I had in a lot of the places that I've lived. It's sort of become my go to things to make me happy or keep me occupied."
"Well now you have me." Jess said smiling, "I'll keep you from getting bored."
Ashley smiled back, "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Now would you like to watch a movie, or work on our project?"
"A movie sounds great. We can work on our project later. We've got the whole semester."