"Bree! I'm home!"

Dear god, that's Chloe's excited voice. Screw it, I'm sick of reading deposition transcripts, anyway. I've only got half the pages gathered up by the time she flops onto the couch beside me and throws her legs across my lap.

"I made new friends tonight! Their names are Beca and Jesse and they're great and you and I are invited to karaoke tomorrow night with them and a bunch of other new people and-"

"Chloe, please, take it down a notch." I say it as gently as I can and pat her knee softly. She doesn't mean to be overwhelming. She honestly doesn't even know she's doing it half the time, but I find it hard to go from 'quiet time alone' to 'nearly screaming roommate in my lap' in three and a half seconds.

"Sorry, sweetie," she says, dropping her voice to a more normal level and swinging her legs off of mine as she sits up. "How was your night?"

"The usual," I say.

"You work too much, Bree."

"We've been over this. I have to prove myself, I'm up for a promotion. Once I get it, I'll be able to have underlings do this sort of thing for me," I say, waving toward the piles of paper strewn across the coffee table. "Instead of having to do it for a slightly creepy, rather sexist old man."

"You said that guy's retiring soon, right?"

"Yes, and I fully intend to take advantage of the opening that will be made available by his departure. Now tell me about your date."

"Ugh," she says, dropping her head back to rest on the top of the couch.. "The date was horrid. His name was Brad, and he was good looking but he had way too much shit in his hair and his body spray or whatever was way too heavy. Also he was super into himself. And boring, so so boring."

This is not new. Chloe goes on a date nearly every week, and every time she comes home disappointed. It's a little tough for me to see sometimes, when she gets frustrated, but I absolutely approve of her high standards. Chloe is my best friend. She deserves nothing less than Prince fucking Charming.

"But," she continues, sitting upright and grinning, "I was sitting next to this girl named Beca and when I snuck out to call you, she ran him out. She actually paid our tab so he'd leave. So I had another beer and hung out with her and Jesse, the bartender, for a while. And the bar was great, this quaint little place with a very nicely curated beer selection. And good food. We're going to have to go there for dinner soon. Or lunch, maybe."

"Do they have any TVs?" I ask. It is baseball season, after all.

"Well, it's not a sports bar, but there is a decent TV in the front corner. We can totes go there to watch a game!"

Chloe did not grow up loving baseball. Like all the other girls we hung out with in college, she was vaguely aware that the nearest professional baseball team was the Atlanta Braves, but couldn't tell you difference between the American and National Leagues. When she found out that my family was originally from the DC area and that I'd been raised a diehard Orioles fan, she checked a book on baseball out of the library. Then she started streaming old O's games on her laptop and asking me a million somewhat annoying and occasionally repetitive questions about players and rules.

It was a bit much, honestly. I couldn't understand why she was pushing so hard to learn about a sport she'd spent her whole life not even noticing, just because the luck of the draw had placed an O's fan on the other side of her freshman dorm room. It was also a bit disconcerting to witness a person who could get super excited while watching a game that had been over for more than a year.

I tried ignoring it at first, choosing to study on my side of the room while she stared at her laptop screen on the other, only going over to her side now and again to watch whichever play she had a question about. Then I started going over to see whichever play had her squealing with glee or cursing colorfully. Eventually, I found myself sitting on her bed with a textbook on my knees, watching games I'd seen before and biting my tongue when I knew what would happen next but didn't want to ruin it for her.

I even showed her when to yell 'O' during the national anthem, and she was delighted-Chloe loves participating. I also couldn't resist the opportunity to recount the story of how The Star Spangled Banner was born, and by the end of it she had tears in her eyes. That was how I learned how Chloe feels; she feels deeply and fully and with complete abandon about pretty much everything.

By January, she had a brand new O's jersey (Adam Jones) and a pretty good handle on the game.

She went with me to see our own Barden Knights play in the spring, and it was fun in spite of the fact that those boys demonstrated quite clearly why our school was better known for acapella than athletics. As it turned out, Chloe can even muster some serious enthusiasm for a completely inept team-as long as it's the team she's chosen as her own.

When I checked the O's schedule and mentioned they'd be coming to Atlanta for three games in April, Chloe flashed me her brightest smile, pulled an envelope out of her desk and handed it to me. Inside it, I found a pair of tickets for each game. I cried and hugged her so hard she squeaked.

During the third inning of the first game, wearing my Cal Ripken jersey and screaming my head off over an Adam Jones home run, I turned my head to see Chloe screaming just as wildly as she jumped up and down and pointed to the number on her back. So I threw my arms around her, and she said, much too loudly and directly into my ear, "I am so glad you taught me baseball!"

What I said was, "You taught yourself baseball, silly," but what I meant was 'I've never had a friend like you.' I'm fairly certain she understood.

"Anyway," she goes on, pulling me away from memory lane. "We're going to karaoke tomorrow night."

"Are we?"

"Yep," she says, leaning into my side and resting her head on my shoulder. "We are."

I could argue, but we both know that will only delay the inevitable. It's really hard to say no to Chloe, and besides, singing is fun.

"OK, then," I say. "Karaoke, it is. Who are these new friends again?"

"There's Jesse, he's a bartender at Skip's. He's knows a lot about beer, he has a girlfriend named Lisa, he really likes movies, and he's really nice," she says, ticking each item off on her fingers. "Then there's Beca. She's funny, and obviously cool for getting rid of Brad, who she called a 'bag of dicks.' I love it when people swear creatively. She also saved me from falling when I leaned my stool too far back. She's kind of different, not in a bad way, but she seems a little bit hard to get to know."

"Mysterious, huh?"

"Kind of," she says thoughtfully. "But I have a really good feeling about her. I think we're going to be really good friends."

I stopped trying to figure out Chloe's unfailing optimism a long time ago. Now I just marvel at it, and smile at the thought of how this Beca person likely has no idea whatsoever of what she's in for. Chloe's already chosen Beca as her own, and she's going to infiltrate her life just like she did mine.

If Beca has half a brain, she'll be just as thankful for it as I am.

"Well, it's getting late," I say. "We should turn in. Five AM is right around the corner."

"You are so right," she says.

She helps me get my papers into neat piles before she heads for the shower.