The One With the Old Married Couple in the Hotel Lobby
"You can't do that!"
"No, you do not get to sit there and tell me what to do - not after everything you have done."
"That's not how this works."
"Oh, yeah? And who died and made you queen?"
"We agreed to the terms and conditions together. Emphasis on the 'together' part."
"Then you went and cheated your way through this thing. Sorta negated the accord, you know?"
"Beca Mitchell." Chloe looked at the girl across from her through narrowed eyes. She twirled the small, wooden bishop piece between her fingers, and Beca stared at it apprehensively. Chloe Beale was the farthest thing from a violent person, but Beca harbored some concerns about her impulses whenever she was caught up in any sort of competition, board games included.
"Hey," Beca replied, holding up her hands in surrender, "don't look at me like that. I'm telling you like it is."
"We clearly established that rooks can only move three spaces forward and one space left, but you-"
"We did not!" Beca said shrilly. "We said they can move three spaces forward and two spaces right…"
"I wish you guys could hear yourselves right now, it's hilarious," Emily threw in. She was sitting on one of the couches that surrounded the table on which the game was and the comfy chairs on either side of it, and neither Beca nor Chloe had noticed her arrival. Her head rested on her hands, elbows on knees, and she watched the scene before her with a knowing smile. "This whole hotel could have gone up in flames and I'm fairly certain you two wouldn't have noticed."
"How long have you been there?" Beca demanded.
"Since you tried to jump Chloe's knight like checkers and she had to kindly remind you what game you were playing," Emily responded easily. "You both really suck at chess."
"We don't know how to play chess," Chloe pointed out. "Which is why we made up our own rules before starting the game. Rules that went on to be broken time and time again…"
"Dude, don't even start," Beca said with a shake of her head. "You're definitely the one who-"
"Hey, old married couple," Fat Amy interrupted as she sidled up to the three girls, "do you mind? I'm in the middle of looking for my next sexy suitor, but you two are seriously cramping my vibe."
Beca and Chloe glanced at each other with expressions of confusion and slight amusement.
"That's not...do you know how suitors work, Amy?" Beca asked. "I don't think you get to choose one. They typically choose you."
"Besides," Chloe chimed in, "how are we, as you say, 'cramping your vibe'? We weren't even talking to you."
Fat Amy rolled her eyes as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Yeah, but I was sitting ten feet away." She waited for a response, but received none, so she went on, "We're the three hottest bitches in this place, of course we're going to know each other." After a glimpse at Emily, Fat Amy tacked on, "Sorry, Legacy, you're still too young to be included in a category with the rest of us. Maybe next year."
"I don't think…" Emily began, but she trailed off when Fat Amy sauntered away towards the outdoor pool without so much as a backwards look. "Okay then."
"Don't worry, Em," Beca said as she and Chloe, silently agreeing enough "chess" had been played, began sweeping the pieces into their respective drawers, "you'll have your own suitor one day. And if you're lucky, you'll get to choose who it is, like Amy out there."
"Every day I spend with you people results in more questions and confusion," Emily declared. She lifted herself from the couch and walked across the hotel lobby towards the elevators lost in thought, leaving a chuckling Beca and Chloe behind.
"Do you think we've corrupted her a bit too much?" Chloe asked pensively.
"Legacy? No way," Beca told her. "If anything, we haven't corrupted her enough. Chloe, she thought we had come to Europe just to 'have fun,' so we apparently failed in converting her to a dedicated-yet-slightly-excessive competitor."
"I guess you're right," Chloe conceded. "We still have to work on that." She stood up, stretched, yawned, and waited for Beca to follow suit. They retraced Emily's footsteps and made their way through the lobby.
"Stick with me, kid, I'm always right."
"Mmm," Chloe hummed, refusing to agree or argue with the comment. "You really do suck at chess."
"Hey," Beca said as she bumped Chloe's shoulder with her own, "it's not like you knew what you were doing either. I don't want to hear it."
Chloe was about to respond, but a frantic, wide-eyed Aubrey stepped out of the elevator ahead of them. They pulled up short and scrutinized her.
"Hi," she huffed when she saw them. The doors behind her shuddered to a close with a ding!
Beca had long since become accustomed to the signs of an Aubrey Posen panic attack; she knew that one was either about to take place, or already had. Regardless, Beca braced herself for the high-pitched voice and probable gagging.
"What's up?" Chloe asked with some caution in her voice. She must have sensed the impending anxiety, too.
Aubrey took a deep breath through her nose. Exhaled out of her mouth. "So," she said, "you know how we're supposed to catch a flight back home tomorrow?" Her audience nodded in acknowledgement.
"How could I forget?" Beca inquired. "You guys jet off to the homeland, and I'm stuck here alone for another week. Every girl's dream, am I right?" The rhetorical question earned her a jab in the ribs from Chloe.
"Right, sorry about that," Chloe said sarcastically. "Leaving you here as you wait to start touring with an international star. How ever could we do such a thing?" She rolled her eyes at Beca. "Continue, Aubrey."
"Well, scratch that. We've had a change of plans." Aubrey wrung her hands together.
"What exactly constitutes a 'change' of plans?" Chloe wondered.
"The guy at the booking agency must have misunderstood me," Aubrey explained as she tried to keep her voice steady. "Because instead of getting us on a plane to New York tomorrow, he got us on a plane to New York in...eight days."
"So we're…." Chloe began.
"Stranded in the South of France for eight days?" Aubrey supplied. "Yep! There are two other flights out of here before then, but they're filled up. I told the travel agent to just wait for a flight that all of us could get on. No Bella left behind and stuff."
"What, is there only one airport on this continent?"
"No," Aubrey responded, drawing out the word, "but there are a very select few that have direct flights to New York. Between the buses, trains, and planes we'd have to take if we went elsewhere...hey, have fun with that." In true Aubrey Posen fashion, she quickly snapped out of the nervous state she was in and became upright and serious. "There are worse places to be stuck. Congratulations, Beca. You'll have your roommate here for a few more days. Make the best of it before you go out to see the world."
There seemed to be more to the words: something that made Beca's stomach flutter, but before Beca had the chance to address them, or Aubrey herself, Aubrey began walking towards the front entrance of the hotel, presumably to tell all of the other girls the news. Beca thought she was already forming an agenda in her head for the unplanned extra week.
"Oh, and Chloe?" Aubrey called back as she reached the revolving door. "Would you mind calling Chicago and letting him know what's going on? I'm sure he would be more than thrilled to continue showing us around."
Chloe nodded slowly. She pulled her phone out of her coat pocket and, almost with a trace of shyness, stole a look at Beca; she opened her mouth to say something, but changed her mind.
"Tell him I said hi," Beca forced out. She tried to make it sound genuine, but knew she fell short of the endeavor when Chloe's eyes turned downward.
"Yeah," she responded in a quiet voice. "See you in a little bit." Then she was gone - following in Aubrey's path out the front door.
"Yeah," Beca exhaled into the heavy silence.
She shouldn't be so upset at the situation, Beca thought to herself. If anything, she should be thrilled: now, instead of being in a foreign land with minimum acquaintances to keep her company, Beca had her best friends for another week - had Chloe for another week. That should be enough.
Except it wasn't. Because it was supposed to be easy. Beca had told herself it was going to be easy: the Bellas would leave for the United States tomorrow, and Beca would have a week to herself to mentally prepare for the fact she was going on an actual intercontinental tour as the opening act. Not a whole lot of time to dwell on the emotional USO journey which had just wrapped up, and not a whole lot of time to dwell on the knowledge that it would be months before Beca saw the Bellas again. A whole lot of sadness would be sidestepped that way.
Not anymore. Now, the goodbyes and parting of ways would be prolonged, and Beca didn't want to think about what that meant for her emotions. Throw in Chloe and Chicago's romance in paradise - something else Beca would have to endure for another week - and a miniscule part of Beca was tempted to bow out of the tour completely.
It wasn't that Beca wasn't happy for Chloe and her budding love. Of course she was happy for her: alongside Fat Amy, Chloe was Beca's best friend. She was worthy of every good thing the world had to offer. But that didn't stop Beca from having reservations about Chicago, a guy they had met mere days ago. He was good looking enough, and Aubrey had a point: he seemed to radiate kindness and was genuinely happy to escort the Bellas around Europe. Yet, something still unnerved Beca; she couldn't pinpoint it, but she knew it was something like the stars weren't aligned whenever Chicago was around, which fueled Beca's worries about Chloe and Chloe's emotions.
Beca had long-since convinced herself that whenever these thoughts cropped up - they occurred more often than she'd like to admit, always in the context of Chloe Beale - it was simply the overprotective-best-friend instinct rearing its head. She didn't overthink about it or overanalyze it because she didn't need to: it was nothing more than a friendly courtesy. Best friendly courtesy.
The flutter in Beca's stomach kindled by Aubrey's words minutes ago still hadn't ceased as Beca punched the elevator button with her thumb. It wasn't a new feeling, but it certainly wasn't welcomed. And if someone would have pointed out that the flutter always made itself known most of all whenever Chloe became involved with a new person or when a cryptic comment about the dynamics between Chloe and Beca was made, usually by Fat Amy or Aubrey, Beca would have denied it.