Okay, so the sequel is officially started. Hope you enjoy it.
"Luke," Beca yelled, holding her laptop bag with one hand and the front door open with the other, "Luke, c'mon we have to go."
She watched as a pair of feet, clattering down the stairs, made their way towards her. Luke, carrying as many bags as humanly possible, dropped them down in exhaustion at the bottom of the steps.
Taking one last look at the apartment, or flat as they called it here in the United Kingdom, Luke held the door open for Beca as they walked to the awaiting car.
They both were too concentrated on their luggage that they missed a flash going off near the side of the apartment.
Their summer had been almost entirely perfect, full of new experiences and talented people and altogether a wonderful atmosphere. Coming into their positions at Replay Records had been difficult, but they both managed.
There were times of doubt, where most of their days consisted of fetching coffee or arguing with a musician's agent on the phone, but they also learnt skills that they would need to succeed in the business.
Life was good and both Beca and Luke were reluctant to go back to the United States.
Luke, already with his high school diploma, was primed and ready to take up a position at the New York offices and he couldn't have been happier. With the great recommendations he had from his fellow workers at the London offices and the experience he had built up, Luke was going to make an extraordinary asset to the label. He knew the executives and he also knew many parts of the business.
Unlike other applicants for the job, he had experience in the exact company he was going to be working for.
Beca, on the other hand, was going back to school for senior year, but she was also expecting opportunities to pop up that would halt her time in school as she jetted off somewhere to work on an album.
In the office, Beca had taken over more of the producer, hands-on side of the work and Luke had become somewhat of a manager. She did the music and he approved it and then he found the talent and she produced it. They were a team, just like they always had been.
The one thing Luke tried to push to the back of his mind was Jesse. That boy was too persistent.
Really, coming after Beca the second she was ready to have the best experience of her life? They were talking about Beca here, not some traditional woman who cared more about starting a family and settling down than she did about her career track.
Beca was the girl that ignored every guy that looked her way; the girl who poured her soul into her career and into her music. That had always been the goal; her career.
The Beca he knew would never give it up for some boy. She lived and breathed music, which was the most important thing the two of them had in common. It wasn't the 1920s when girls looked to marry before thinking about how it would affect their jobs and aspirations.
Beca had always known what she wanted. For years all she would talk about was 'paying her dues' and finding her way into the industry, no matter what she had to do. Luke wasn't going to let some silly decision to follow her heart rather than follow her dreams dictate the rest of her life.
No. That was just not an option.
When they first arrived in London, they didn't get calls or texts on their phones for a , they didn't want to pay international charges and also, the company had given them free phones to keep. It was a major bonus that they were given the latest iPhones to drop on the consumer market.
They did keep in touch with people through Facebook Chat and Skype. Beca swore by them. Those were some of the best inventions known to man.
Chloe skyped Beca the second she got off the plane, explaining that she looked up the exact time the flight would land so she would know exactly when to call. It wasn't like they had much to talk about except for the nice, elderly woman that sat next to Beca on the plane. They hadn't even made their way out of the airport yet so Beca didn't have many exciting stories to tell her, but it was nice to hear her voice.
They continued their calls together, pretty much everyday. Chloe told Beca about the crazy antics that the group got themselves into and Beca made sure to keep Chloe updated on how her british accent was coming. Beca even made sure to send a message to Amy whenever she found a guy that Amy would want to 'hump like a dingo in heat.'
Everything was going fine, except for Jesse. Even though Chloe told her that he understood her reasoning for saying goodbye before she left, she still felt embarrassed. She didn't think she could look him in the eye if they video chatted. That's why whenever Chloe tried to give the phone to Jesse, she would immediately make up an excuse.
What she didn't know was that Jesse had a plan of his own to make her respond to him. Getting back his job at the local radio station and saving up his money, and restricting himself to only buying one movie per week (blu ray, of course) Jesse almost had enough money to buy a one way ticket there.
Who knew plane tickets were so expensive? It literally cost over two thousand dollars for a one way ticket from Atlanta to London. He would get there, right?
Luke's and Beca's parents checked in on them almost daily in the beginning, making sure that they weren't dead in some alleyway. Once they realized their children were actually finding their way and learning the ropes, the calls became more scattered, but still every time Dr. Mitchell was on the phone, he would threaten to kill Luke if he let anything happen to his little girl.
The calls also began to dwindle because their parents saw how much success they were getting. After weeks and weeks of coffee runs, Beca and Luke were finally allowed to work on a project. It was an album for a boy band (insert Beca's eye roll here) that went to the top of the British charts the first hour it premiered. It wasn't the ideal talent they wanted to work with, but it put their names on the map. None of the band's fans knew who they were, but it wasn't like Luke and Beca were looking for fame.
One surprising thing did happen that changed Beca's life forever. While she was helping the boys pick songs to record and helping them change up some melodies, she had sent them a copy of her singing the melodies so they would understand how she thought they would work best.
While mixing together the different parts in the late hours of the night, she didn't realize that she kept her own vocals on the track. Hyped up on caffeine and energy drinks, Beca sent the track to the music distributer without even realizing it.
That's why it was so much of a surprise when she heard the song on the radio with her voice ringing out of her car speakers. She almost had to pull over because her mind was spinning so fast.
They band members wouldn't accept any of her apologies after she tried multiple times. All they kept saying was she made the track better and they should be the ones thanking her.
The boys had already been in the public eye for awhile, but who was the mystery girl?
No one recognized her voice as an already famous singer so the mystery continued. Radio personalities talked about the unknown girl while fangirls blogged about who they assumed the girl to be. It became so out of hand that Beca had to rub her eyes to believe she wasn't dreaming.
Everyone wanted to know who the mystery girl was and Beca finally let them.
Mark Whitman had called her himself asking to know who the girl was and Beca had to sheepishly respond it was her. Before long, he had a business plan set up for her to expose herself as the mystery girl. Mark Whitman wanted the company to become well known and he believed Beca was the way to do that.
Beca, on the other hand, was reluctant to reveal herself. She didn't want to be critiqued or interviewed. She didn't want faceless people on the internet to post all their thoughts about her. All she wanted to do was make music. But it wasn't her decision anymore and on July 22st on one of the most popular late night talk shows in the surrounding area, Beca was unveiled to the world as London's favorite mystery singer.
She never understood how to interview properly. Looking back, she thought she was too fidgety and sometimes she would say 'umm' too many times. Beca looked away after a few seconds of watching herself on the show.
She wasn't some pop star or movie actress. She was just a girl, Beca Mitchell, who just wanted to sit behind a desk and move levers and slide slides to make music.
Beca didn't think she belonged on the stage, but most people disagreed.
The next day, people were talking about her, discussing what they liked and disliked about Beca. Many people found her nervousness endearing, proving to the world that she was just a girl next door. Other people were too wrapped up in rumors of her dating one of the band members. Soon enough, she was asked to go on talk shows and do interviews for the radio. The nation was buzzing with the sounds of Beca Mitchell.
After being pushed into this whirlwind of experiences, Beca tried to refocus on her music.
She said no to more and more of the guest appearances and she eased up on her twitter account which many people seemed to enjoy. Why they cared about her day to day happenings or snarky tweets in the dead of night she would never know?
Somehow, it felt like almost overnight, the numbers of her followers rose to the sky, the numbers increasing so fast that she had to turn off the new follower notifications. Even though she was trying to move more out of the public eye, believing that she already had her ten seconds of fame, the attention only started to increase.
Photographers were now asking to shoot her for the covers of magazines and big men with even bigger cameras were following her every turn, snapping pictures and thrusting pictures in front of her face to sign.
It was just going to be nice to get away from it all. The summer had finally come to an end, an end to the race that was their everyday life. Boarding the plane with a ticket in hand, Luke and Beca buckled their seatbelts and waited for the the pilot to take them back home.
How'd you like it?