Is That Any Way To Speak To Your New Boss?

Intro:

Step One: Don't piss off your new boss

Step Two: You already pissed her off didn't you?

"Watch where you're going Asshole!"

Beca's snarky tone cut through the early morning air like a well sharpened blade. Hot Coffee rapidly cooled on her burnt skin. Not exactly what she needed at the beginning of what was going to be a very long shift.

"Asshole?"

The sickeningly sweet repetition of the words Beca had growled mere moments before made her stomach turn. However, as she was mostly focused on hopelessly dabbing at her now ruined shirt; with the solitary, pathetic napkin she received alongside her ridiculously large, black coffee - She had not yet offered a glance towards said ass hole.

"Is that any way to speak to your new boss?"

As that voice once again reached her ears, it wasn't long before realisation hit Beca like a ton of bricks and she wanted nothing more than to shrivel up and die in that very moment.

'Fuck' was the single word making its way around Beca's mind at that point as she apprehensively lifted her eyes to meet those belonging to the owner of what was now her least favourite voice…

"Oh"

Not exactly the noise Beca expected to escape from her throat but when her glare landed upon the taller woman, there was no other way to express her surprise. (It was even a challenge not to soften her gaze as her steely eyes met with crystal blue.)

"Chloe Beale" the other woman introduced herself sternly, reaching out a delicate hand, through habit rather than any act of courtesy towards her rude colleague. Any feelings of sympathy for the coffee drenched woman withered at the revelation of her manners and attitude.

"New Director of A&R here at Soulection." Chloe continued through a tight lipped smile.

Beca's mood only worsened at the way 'Chloe' rhymed off her full job title like some pain in the ass over achiever, thus leading her to begrudgingly extend a hand to meet Chloe's.

The tightness of the other woman's grip caused Beca's eyes to bulge comically out of her head as Chloe's thick, silver thumb ring wedged into her knuckle.

The violent hand shake lasted longer than necessary, but it allowed Beca to regain her composure and fully take in the striking woman that stood before her.

The aforementioned crystal blue eyes were Beca's first point of amazement; however, not wanting to maintain eye contact for an awkwardly long time Beca expanded her gaze to take in more. Stunning red locks cascaded effortlessly over toned, athletic shoulders. Beca stopped herself there, however, not trusting herself to look any further down the tall woman's body at risk of embarrassing herself even more. She forced her eyes to return to Chloe's face, where pink rosy lips contrasted with porcelain skin and wow, if this woman wasn't such an Asshole Beca might admit that she was gorgeous. It was then Beca realised that she still hadn't introduced herself.

"uh I… I'm uh…"

(Two 'uh's, wow Beca way to go)

"B…Beca, Beca Mitchell" she stuttered through a grimace.

Chloe's frown gained an amused look at Beca's floundering – somewhat pleased that she had that effect on the smaller woman.

"Musician, producer, vocalist, and mastering engineer… among other things"

Beca decided that since Chloe was going to be all prissy about her job tittle, she would do a little showing off too.

"Wonderful." Chloe tried her best to hide her admiration of Beca's apparent talent "Well as thrilling as this has been, I have an important meeting to prepare for, as do you." *A wink* "Best be off" Chloe chirped with a less than genuine smile, and as she sauntered away she threw behind her a quick;

"Oh and by the way, your bra is showing"

A smug, musical laugh followed her down the hallway until she rounded the corner and disappeared, for now, leaving Beca frantically covering her exposed chest and practically sprinting to her office.

Beca swept through her office door, flinging it closed with an impressive slam.

"Woah shortstack! You know you're supposed to drink your coffee, not wear it right?"

A woman's taunting voice chided in a thick Australian accent. Beca was too busy muttering incoherent obscenities about a certain red head to come back with a retort. She frantically raided her drawers for a spare shirt, to no avail; she'd conveniently forgotten to replace her emergency shirt the last time she stayed in her office all night working.

"Here I've got one"

Just as Beca turned to face her boisterous assistant Amy, she was hit in the face with an oversized bright orange t shirt that read "blow me I'm Australian" in huge yellow lettering next to a rather detailed illustration of a giant penis wearing a cork hat.

"Really Amy?"

The DJ snapped – "this is the spare shirt you keep at work?

Fuck it, it'll have to do; I suppose it's better than going to this meeting with my tits out."

"Oh, so you do know? I wasn't sure if I should mention that…" Amy trails off; Beca Just rolls her eyes and scowls.

"Alright big shot, I can tell you might be a teensy bit pissed off" Amy began,

Beca Scoffed "Might"

"So…" Amy Continued, "I just want to remind you of our rules for the day: Step 1: Don't piss off our new boss. Step 2" Amy is temporarily cut off by the guilty grimace that appears on Beca's face.

"You already pissed her off didn't you?"

Beca's eyes shift to the floor, a clear admission to Amy's speculation. Amy decided that Beca's punishment would be not telling her about the perfectly acceptable spare t shirt she had in her other drawer.

"Shit!" Beca exclaimed when she noticed the time – she'd already pissed Chloe off enough, she didn't need to be late to her meeting too.

Beca and Amy stumbled into the meeting room with barely a minute to spare, causing the quiet chatter to halt and every pair of eyes in the room to turn towards the two flustered women.

"Beca" Chloe's voice was rigid, and falsely sweet, "So nice of you to join us…" Chloe trailed off, Beca tried to figure out the look Chloe was giving her, there was contempt for sure, but there was something else underlying that Beca couldn't quite put her finger on. Chloe's glance had shifted to Amy before long and took on a much more readable friendly expression "And you must be Amy, it's a pleasure." the red head gave a polite nod in Amy's direction.

"Fat Amy"

"Excuse me?" Chloe let her professional façade slip a little in her surprise at Amy's nonchalant reply.

"Fat Amy" Amy repeated a little louder

"You… call yourself, fat... Amy?" Chloe was stunned.

"Yeah, so twig bitches like you don't do it behind my back" Amy replied, deadpan.

"Oh.. o…kay, umm, moving on. Beca would you like to take a seat or will you be standing awkwardly at the door for the duration of this meeting?"

And she was back, it didn't take Chloe long to regain her composure after learning the interesting albeit disgruntling titbit about her new co-worker.

It was then that Beca set her notebook down and revealed her unfortunate attire, giggles and mutterings erupted from her colleagues – even Lilly, a quiet and unsettling Korean-American girl, let out a quiet chuckle.

Chloe cleared her throat which silenced the room once again, but not before Amy could receive a high five from a grinning Bumper.

Beca hated Bumper; he was arrogant, self-centred, and refused to take any kind of criticism or direction from anyone. He was your typical 'All American' guy with a basic brown haircut and childish face – he looked like your archetypal, rich, white, daddy's boy, trump supporter; all that was missing was the MAGA hat and dropped sexual assault charges.

"That's enough" Chloe's voice flowed through the room, regaining everyone's attention. "I'm sure Beca feels embarrassed enough about her, outfit." Beca was almost grateful until she caught a glimpse of Chloe's lingering, teasing smirk.

*Asshole*

Chloe began the meeting by asking everyone to introduce themselves and reveal something others might not know about them.

"I'll start, My name is Chloe Beale and I was in an all-female A Capella group while I attended college" this earned a scoff from Beca that Chloe chose to politely ignore, moving forward with the introductions.

To her left sat a young, pale, bookish boy with sandy, short, curly hair and a shy smile, he introduced himself as Benji and mused that he enjoyed close up magic. Next, a tall, slender woman with exposed cleavage who was absentmindedly filing her nails announced; "Hi everyone, my name is Stacie, uhm, my hobbies include cuticle care, and the E! Network." Stacie was followed by Jesse, Cynthia Rose and Lilly. Jesse was an energetic, athletic looking boy who stated that movies were his passion and his dream was to professionally score movie soundtracks. Cynthia Rose, a heavier woman with short, bright pink hair stated in a husky voice that she had "a serious gambling addiction"

She is cut off by Fat Amy bellowing "Lesbihonest" from across the room,

Cynthia Rose continues "that started when I broke up with my girlfriend"

"Whoop, there it is" Amy responded.

Chloe took note of the knowing looks that were passed around the meeting table and concluded that there had been some ongoing bet relating to Cynthia Rose's sexuality.

"Thank you for sharing that Cynthia" Chloe stated, "If you want to talk more about that feel free to meet me in my office after this meeting" Chloe reassured in a more hushed tone directed to C.R, she received a nod from the woman and then the introductions continued.

Lilly's introduction was barely heard as she quickly whispered "Hi, my name is Lilly Onakuramara and I was born with gills like a fish."

Bumper barely waited for Lilly to finish before announcing himself and proudly stating that he could burp the alphabet.

Fat Amy had already made her introduction and so it was now onto Beca, who was wishing she were anywhere else but there.

"Yeah uh, we already met so…"

Chloe wasn't accepting Beca's avoidance however, feeling a silly need to torture the younger woman.

"Yes but all I know about you is that you're very clearly not a morning person" There was a strange tension in the air and everyone could feel it, the two women at opposite sides of the long meeting table holding eye contact, almost challenging the other to look away first.

Beca spotted an unusual gleam in Chloe's eyes which had taken on an almost predatory look since their second altercation of the morning had begun. It made her heart race and she could feel the hairs on her neck begin to stand. As much as she wanted to heed Amy's advice and not piss off Chloe any further, she couldn't help but want to do everything in her power to aggravate the other woman.

"Whatever dude, I'm Beca and honestly, I'm starting to miss Aubrey" Beca shot back with a menacing look.

The shocked gasps around the table didn't go unnoticed by Chloe, who was well aware that the Aubrey Beca spoke of, was her tyrant of a predecessor.

"Oh now I see what your problem is, you have an issue with authority" Chloe retorted, knowing that Beca was just trying to get to her, but failing to hide the bite in her words.

The others around the table could do nothing but stare between the two women, mouths agape at the scenario that was unfolding in front of them. They knew Beca was the type to challenge authority, that was largely the reason she and Aubrey clashed so vehemently, but to them Chloe seemed so nice. The thought on everyone's mind was what had happened when their two colleagues first met that caused this prickly tension between them.

"My problem? Wow okay" Beca scoffed

The pressure between the two women was palpable and Chloe let out a frustrated breath, however, she decided to hold her tongue. This was beginning to get unprofessional and she wanted to make a good first impression, at least on the others.

"Ahem, let's just get on with the meeting shall we" Chloe shot a glare at Beca as she regained her composure.

The rest of the meeting went by fairly quickly with Chloe briefly giving a rough outline of the plans she had for the label, she then dismissed everyone allowing them to get back to work as normal.

Everyone filed out of the room muttering and chatting about the animosity between their two colleagues as Beca stormed ahead with Amy following breathlessly behind her. They entered their shared office together and Beca threw her notebook across the room.

"What a fucking Asshole! Who does she even think she is?! Does she get off on aggravating me?!"

After her short, albeit, highly animated rant, Beca is left panting – a searing growl painted on her face.

"Okaaay, I'm gunna stop you there before you combust little DJ" Amy soothes as she hands Beca a glass of water and leads her to her seat. After a few minutes of Amy coaching Beca through some questionable breathing techniques, Beca manages to cool off a little and flops onto her desk with an exasperated sigh.

"This is going to be hell."

End of Chapter 1