AN: Hey everyone! I started writing this about six months ago, but some things got in the way and I had a tough time writing. I originally intended this to be a one shot, but once I got my groove back I realized that it needed to be two (or maybe more, but no promises). I hope to have the next installment posted by late next week. As always, thanks to Liz for beta-ing, and thank you for reading!
Like most things, it started with a girl. And not just any girl, oh no. This girl was a different kind of girl. A half naked kind of girl. A half naked, cooking breakfast in Beca's kitchen at nine in the morning kind of girl. Which normally, Beca wouldn't be all that opposed (or surprised) to finding. Working long hours at a club usually meant late nights and later parties, and it wasn't exactly unprecedented to find an overnight guest, be it a friend or a stranger, puttering around the apartment the next morning. Once, Beca had come out of her room to find Bumper, one of the club's bouncers, passed out on the couch wearing nothing but a banana costume and tube socks. When she'd woken him up, he'd just shrugged and casually left, padding down the hall in his socked feet, the stem of his costume drooping pitifully.
This girl, however, was completely unexpected. Since Jesse, her tech man, roadie, manager, and overall pain in the ass best friend slash roommate, was out of town visiting family, Beca had jumped at the chance for some peace and quiet, quickly leaving after her set the night before. She distinctly remembered double checking that she'd locked the door before she went to bed, and, you know, not bringing anyone home last night, which made the girl's bra and shorts clad presence doubly mystifying. After a few moments of standing in hallway, staring at the girl's admittedly toned back as she opened the fridge and started, oh God, singing what sounded like the beginning of "Rock You Like a Hurricane," of all things, Beca cleared her throat.
"Shit," the girl jumped, whirling around in a blur of red hair. Her eyes met Beca's, and she shot her a bright grin. "Oh. Hi!"
"Um." Beca blinked. "Hello?"
"Hi! I'm sorry to have, you know, barged in like this, I- Do you live here?" The girl interrupted herself, clasping her hands together.
"Last time I checked," Beca cocked an eyebrow bemusedly, folding her arms. "Do you?"
The girl had the decency to flush slightly and let out an embarrassed sort of laugh, but was otherwise unruffled. "Here's the thing. Last night was my... boyfriend person guy's birthday so we had a big thing and all of our friends went out and got really really drunk and I guess I accidentally sort of broke into your place because my best friend Aubrey lives next door to you and I was here and drunk and I thought I was climbing into the right window and falling asleep on the right couch (and I did wonder when Aubrey got a cat but I didn't question it, he's very snuggly) so now I'm making hangover breakfast in your kitchen as a sort of a "I'm sorry I broke in and slept on your couch and snuggled your cat" gift so um hi, I'm Chloe how do you like your eggs?"
"Scrambled," Beca said softly as her brain struggled to catch up. "Wait, so how did you get in?"
"You know, you should really lock your windows," Chloe nodded seriously, spatula in hand. "That's usually the first place an intruder would check."
"You would know, wouldn't you?" She said with dry twist of a smile, dropping into a seat at her kitchen table. "Where's your shirt?"
"My," Chloe looked down, as if realizing her state of undress for the first time and gave an unconcerned shrug. "Oh. I got hot last night and took it off, and now I can't find it. But I'm pretty confident about all this."
"You should be," popped out of Beca's mouth almost automatically, causing her to flush a bright pink. "I'm sorry, that was... I'm sorry."
"Don't be," Chloe said with a wink, carrying a plate of food over to the table and sliding it towards Beca. She grabbed a shirt from the pile of laundry on Jesse's usual chair and held it up. "Mind if I borrow this?"
"Uh, no."
"I'll totally wash and return it, I swear." She paused, taking in the size of the shirt. "Boyfriend's?"
Beca laughed. "No, my roommate's. He won't even notice it's gone. Sorry if there's cat hair all over it, though."
"It's okay. What's his name?"
"The cat or the roommate?"
"The cat," Chloe smiled.
Beca grimaced. "Catticus Finch. Jesse's– that's my roommate– idea. We call him Finch."
"That's actually kind of great."
"Please don't tell him that."
Chloe made a zipping motion over her lips and dropped her hand to her side as an awkward sort of silence filled the room. "Well, I guess I'll head over to Aubrey's then. Sorry, again, for the whole breaking and entering thing, and thanks for the shirt."
"You can stay and eat, if you want," Beca said, surprising herself. This girl was a total stranger, one who had broken into her apartment, no less, but there was something about the girl that Beca just... trusted. "I mean, you did make it, and you are the one with the hangover, so I mean, if you want to, you can stay."
Chloe smiled a megawatt smile and nodded. "That'd be great. I'm starving."
"I'm Beca, by the way," she said around a mouthful of waffle as Chloe loaded her plate.
"Nice to meet you, Beca."
The next time Chloe broke in, Jesse found her first. He bounded into Beca's room and jumped onto her bed, bouncing up and down and sending Finch flying from where he'd been curled at Beca's feet.
"Beca Beca Beca Becaaaaaaaaaa!" He poked her repeatedly in the sides until she squirmed away from him, groaning in displeasure. "Becaw wake uuuuuuup!"
"No," she whined into a pillow. Jesse yanked it out from under her, causing her face to drop onto her ring clad hand. She sat up and shot a glare at him, her wild hair and smudged makeup from the night before diminishing its effect. "It is-" She checked her phone. "Nine in the fucking morning. What?"
"You," he grinned, poking her again. "Are the luckiest asshole in the world."
"I woke up to you, so clearly I'm not," Beca grumbled, rolling her eyes.
"Dude, your hookup is making breakfast. Breakfast."
"Wait, what?"
"God, you scored good. A girl that hot and she makes you breakfast? Jesus, you won the lottery. Keep her. Forever."
"Jesse," Beca said, shaking her head slowly. "I didn't bring anybody home last night."
"Wait, what?"
"I came home alone." Beca got out of bed, pulling a sweatshirt on over her tank top.
"Then who's in the kitchen?"
"Probably Chloe," she said, walking out the door and leaving Jesse sitting on her bed.
"Who's Chloe?"
Beca entered the kitchen with a sense of deja vu, once again finding Chloe making breakfast in her underwear. She leaned against the wall, smiling bemusedly as Chloe, unaware of her audience, danced her way around the kitchen and poured herself a cup of coffee from the full pot, humming what sounded like Britney Spears under her breath. It wasn't until she opened the fridge and stared into it for several seconds that Beca spoke.
"We're out of milk."
Once again, Chloe whirled around, hair flying behind her. "God, you scared me!"
"Serves you right," Beca pushed off the doorframe and walked to the fridge, pulling a carton of creamer from behind a head of lettuce. "Breaking and entering, and all."
"Okay, that's technically not my fault," she said, taking the creamer from Beca's hand and adding a splash to her coffee. She took a sip from the steaming mug, looking at Beca over the rim of her cup and pointing a finger at her. "You didn't lock your window."
"Oh, so it's my fault that you broke into my apartment?" Beca couldn't help but laugh as she filled her own mug, jumping when Finch wound around her ankles.
"Yes it is," Chloe said with a nod.
"Your logic is infallible."
"Ooh, big SAT word, Miss DJ."
"Hey, I went to college," Beca protested as she sat at the table.
"For a year." Jesse entered the kitchen and poked Beca in the back of the head. "Who's this?"
"Jesse, this is Chloe. Chloe, Jesse."
"Nice to meet you," Chloe smiled, sticking a hand out for Jesse to shake. "Sorry I keep breaking into your apartment."
"This has happened before?"
"You didn't tell him?"
They both turned to look at Beca, who shrugged.
"What? It wasn't a big deal."
"I want to hear this story," Jesse sat down at the table with a grin. "Because Beca dearest never mentioned it."
"Okay, so," Chloe began, settling in to tell the story. "It all started about two weeks ago when I went out for my boyfriend person guy's birthday..."
Beca shook her head and sipped her coffee, sitting back as Chloe launched into the story.
By the fourth time Chloe broke in, Beca had (finally) met Aubrey, who (finally) deduced that she was not, actually, the devil incarnate or a serial killer with an affinity for boundary-less redheads, and exchanged numbers with the blonde so she could "notify her that Chloe is safe and accounted for." Beca thought that was a little ridiculous since Chloe was twenty-four and not a child, but whenever she heard the squeak of the living room window push up, she would quickly text Aubrey that Chloe was safe, and then take the extra blanket and pillow out to the couch.
By the seventh time Chloe broke in, Beca had gotten into the habit of making an extra sandwich after late nights spinning, since Chloe typically fumbled her way through the window around the same time that Beca got home. Sometimes Chloe protested, babbling over and over that she was intruding, but Beca always countered that Chloe could make breakfast in the morning, which would get her to shut up and eat her peanut butter and jelly (no crusts) for at least five minutes.
Sometimes, though, Chloe wasn't drunk when she came over. The first time she'd climbed through the window sober, Beca had been understandably concerned. Chloe, nonchalant as ever, had simply shrugged and said that she'd gotten bored with the group she'd gone out with, and besides, she liked hanging out with Beca and Jesse better anyway. When Beca pointed that the she was welcome to, you know, use the door like a normal person, Chloe had only looked at her and said, "Beca. Where's the fun in that?"
Jesse found the entire situation both weird and hilarious, and never failed to tease Beca about what he called her "megacrush" on Chloe.
"You have to admit it's a little weird, Becs," he said through a mouthful of pizza. Beca wrinkled her nose at him, and he swallowed. "I mean, her best friend lives right next door, in an apartment to which she has a key, but instead she breaks in here and you two have a sleepover every other weekend. That is not a normal relationship."
"Okay, first off," Beca said, ticking off reasons on her fingers. "We do not have a "relationship." We're friends. Second, we do not have "sleepovers" because we're not twelve. Third, she says she likes our place better because Aubrey makes her get up and do yogilates in the morning and we just eat pancakes. Fourth–"
"Fourth, you have a massive megacrush on her."
"I do not!"
"Do too. You hang out almost every weekend, you text all the freakin' time even though you hate texting, you let her feed Finch table scraps, you played her one of your mixes, you–"
"Dude, whatever. She has a boyfriend person guy. Off limits."
"So?" Jesse shrugged. "That doesn't mean you can't like her."
"I do like her," Beca said. "As friends."
"Okay," he said, jumping to his feet and moving over to the window. "Then you won't mind if I do this." He pressed the window lock shut, the snap of the bolt clicking loudly.
"Nope." Beca crossed her arms. Jesse frowned, nodded once, then sat back down. Later that night, after Jesse had gone to bed, Beca tiptoed out of her room and opened the lock back up, just in case.