A/N: It has been way too long since I've updated, I know, I know! I fully blame it on my exhaustive work schedule that has given me zero time to write. But I've got this story back in progress, so hopefully you guys aren't too mad at me. I hope y'all enjoy the next installment.
Chapter 7: Baby It's Cold Outside
The tree decorating was finished by the late morning, so Dianna had popped into the kitchen to whip up some lunch for the family. Sara offered her help, and the older redhead dragged her reluctant youngest son in to help as well.
Twenty minutes later and the family was seated around the table enjoying some hot soup and sandwiches.
"So what are you kids going to get up to today?" Jim asks the table.
"Get up to? Man pop, I'm so tired from this morning, I feel like I could sleep for a whole day." Caleb says through a large yawn, heightening his point.
"I see your day bro, and raise you a week." Conner challenges.
"Man after my own heart." Beca laughs at the younger boy's penchant for sleep, something they have in common. While engaged in the current conversation, Beca completely misses the slight scowl on the redhead's face at the brunette's comment.
"So you kids are just going to sleep your vacation away?" Jim asks, though not entirely surprised by his youngest son's desire to do so.
"Well we thought we'd take Cooper outside and build a snowman after lunch, if anyone else is interested." Sara chimes in from her seat.
"Ooh, that sounds like so much fun!" Chloe jumps in, excitedly. "Becs?"
"What? No, ohhh nooooo." The petite girl says, waving her hands at the idea. "What about the rest of the day being completely void of further exertion?! Those were your exact words Beale!" Beca defends.
"But it'll be so much fun!" Beca drops her head into her crossed arms laying on the table.
"Uhhhhng. But it's so cold out." She whines, her response muffled due to her position. "Plus aren't we supposed to wait like an hour or whatever after we eat?" She says, lifting her head back up.
"That's for swimming doof. Come on Becs, pleeeease?" She drags out, pushing out her bottom lip to pout. The younger Bella sighs heavily.
"Well how can I say no to that face?" Beca resigns. Chloe squeals in excitement and throws her arms around the brunette's shoulders for a hug.
"You can't. You really can't."
"WHIPPED." Caleb coughs the word loudly into his fist.
Beca shoots a playful glare towards the older man, but not before her cheeks turn a burning scarlet.
After lunch, the group makes their way outside and towards an empty space near the back porch. Dianna and Jim decide to sit out from the activity and take up shop in a pair of rocking chairs on the back deck that look out towards everyone. Charlie and Sara place Cooper on the ground and he immediately begins to fall into the snow, giggling. Sara keeps him occupied while Charlie gets to work piling up a base for their snowman. Meanwhile, Caleb and Conner set to work on some sort of snow wall, though Beca has no idea what purpose that will serve.
She watches the two guys work for a minute before hearing the redhead next to her speak up.
"So Becs, you wanna partner up and build a snowman with me?"
"Do I really have a choice?" She jokes.
"Nope!" Chloe grins.
"Didn't think so." Beca smirks knowingly. "Alright then, let's do it."
The girls spend the next 30 minutes packing snow and rolling three sections into large sized spherical shapes to stack on one another, squaring out the base slightly for stability. Once they got the body put together, Chloe grabbed some essentials from the box her mom brought out earlier, bringing over some coal for the eyes and mouth and a carrot for the nose. Chloe squints her eyes and sticks her tongue out slightly as she places the coal on the top ball to form the face, whilst Beca watches on with a grin. She always loves the adorable face Chloe makes when she's concentrating on a task.
The older Bella heads over to grab a couple final pieces of material for their decorating from a separate bag she brought outside with her. She notices Beca's attention has diverted to watching her siblings building their own snowmen, so she quickly places the two objects around the midsection and over the front chest of their creation, wanting to surprise the younger girl with her design idea. With her body blocking most of the snowman, Chloe straightens out the piece of clothing as she hears Beca speak.
"It's looking really great, Chloe."
Chloe finishes placing a gold newsboy hat on the top of the snowman and turns her head towards the brunette and gives her a wide smile, knowing the other girl can pretty much only see the head from her position behind the redhead.
"Thanks Beca. It just needs one last detail, annnnd..." she says before whipping something from her jacket pocket to wrap around the snowman's neck. "voila!"
Both girls step back a few feet to survey their finished snowman. "Are you kidding me Chlo?"
"What?" Chloe respond innocently.
"It's a freaking Bella snowman!" Beca exclaims with a laugh, seeing the object in front of her wearing what looks like a dark blue skirt and vest combo, with a gold and blue scarf wrapped snugly around it's neck.
"Snow woman." She corrects. Beca quirks an eyebrow.
"Snow woman, really? Can she also sing Mariah Carey chart-toppers?" Beca jokes, remembering the first conversation she had with Aubrey at the activities fair.
"Maybe, if you ask her real nicely." Chloe snarks back with a grin.
"You've been planning this snowman outfit for weeks haven't you?" Beca questions slyly.
"I will neither confirm nor deny that accusation." The redhead sticks her tongue out playfully.
"Whatever weirdo. Well I think we did a pretty good job, but it's still missing something. Hold on a sec." Beca says before rushing back into the house. A few minutes later she returns, a little out of breath. Beca walks up to the snow Bella and places an object on it's face. "There." She says, stepping back proudly to reveal to Chloe her new addition.
"Now she's a badass." Chloe laughs at the sunglasses that now sit on the snow woman's face, the coal that made the smile now sitting in a slightly smirking formation.
"You know what, I think it's perfect now." Chloe says with a smile, wrapping her left arm around the petite brunette's shoulders to admire their work.
"Totes." Beca bumps Chloe's hip. Something in her peripheral catches her eye, and Beca shifts her weight backwards to see Charlie and Caleb chatting closely next to what looks like a giant wall made of tightly packed snow.
"Hey, what do you think that's all about?" Beca asks the redhead curiously.
Chloe turns her head toward what Beca was referring to and sees her two elder brothers conversing quite conspicuously together. Now, Chloe knows her brothers better than anyone, and if their eyeline wasn't enough indication, the snowball Charlie was currently attempting to keep hidden behind his back made Chloe grin like a Cheshire Cat.
"I think you better prepare yourself, Becs." She warns the petite DJ huddled next to her, a slight hint of mirth in her voice.
"Prepare for what?" She asks, still confused. But before Chloe could respond, she watches Charlie take his aim from across the yard.
Sara is knelt in the snow helping Cooper straighten out a hat on top of his tiny snowman's head when she feels a surprising cold pressure hit her in the back.
"Ahh!" She screams in surprise. Jostling forward slightly, the blonde turns her head around to find the source. Spotting her husband laughing and high fiving Caleb not ten yards away, she calmly picks her up her son and walks over to where Jim and Dianna are sitting on the porch, watching their kids.
"Di, would you mind hanging onto the little man for a bit? I need to go shove a pile of snow down your son's pants."
"Of course dear," the older woman says with a grin whilst scooping her grandson onto her lap. "Give him hell."
Sara takes off in a sprint towards her husband with a freshly packed snowball in her hand. Distracted by planning their next move, Charlie catches her charge a moment too late as he receives a snowball to the side of the head before being tackled into soft powder.
Caleb takes off, leaving the couple to tickle fight and scoop waves of snow at one another.
Meanwhile, a free-for-all between the others had taken hold. As soon as Charlie went down, Conner popped up out of nowhere and began throwing snowballs at everyone who remained in the open. Taking hits left and right, each person scattered towards shelter. After about five solid minutes, the lull in battle was hitting its peak.
The defense wall Conner and Caleb had built earlier is currently being occupied by Chloe, who has managed to make quite an arsenal of snowballs. Armed with about fifteen at her feet, she covertly lifts her head up to peek over the wall and assess her surroundings. She spots Sara and Charlie wrestling about 25 feet diagonally to her left and catches Caleb crouching behind one of the built snowmen trying to roll together a few snowballs himself. Scanning the grounds, she spots Conner holed up near a large tree, and who seems to have set his sights on his older brother, but after a couple more discrete passes, she realizes she doesn't see Beca anywhere.
Where could she be? Chloe thinks.
The redhead decides to make a pouch with her shirt and load up as many snowballs as she can fit into it. After grabbing about eight balls, she starts to inch her body around the defense wall. Chloe manages to catch her younger brother's eye, and using their sibling telepathy, both nod in agreeance to attack their unsuspecting older brother. Slowly, they slink towards his location. As soon as both are about five yards away, Conner yells out.
"Now!"
"Ahhh!"
"Take that!" Chloe laughs, pelting her brother with snowball after snowball. Conner continues the assault from behind Caleb, the elder Beale boy beginning to disappear under the white slush covering him as he tries to defend his body with his flailing arms.
Running out of ammo, Chloe thinks to run back to the wall and grab her remaining snowballs. She takes off into a sprint, but not ten feet from her destination, she's hit with a force from the right side, spinning mid-air and landing heavily on top a small body beneath her in the snow.
Once the group had split after their initial free-for-all, Beca had taken cover out of view behind a fence near the shed off to the right of the backyard. The sudden snowball war had gotten her heart racing, and the subsequent laughing and running around had made her pretty out of breath. Man I gotta take Aubrey's cardio tips more seriously.
She caught Chloe dashing behind the snow-packed wall that stood about 3ft high and 4ft wide. Beca thought it was pretty impressive the guys had put that together so quickly before all hell broke out. Figuring she just needed to bide her time before the redhead revealed herself again, Beca sat patiently, drawing shapes in the snow and watching the others continue to run around and strategize. About five minutes later, she catches a bit of motion behind a tree across the yard from where she was stationed. She sees Conner looking towards the wall then towards a snowman that she assumes Caleb is hiding behind. Not two seconds later she spots Chloe and Conner slowly making their way towards their brother. Oh boy, he has no idea what's coming. Beca grins, then hears nothing but yelling and laughter and the sounds of snow hitting a body.
Beca watches on as Chloe empties out her last snowball on the man before turning her head to look back towards the base she came from. This is it. Sneak attack time, Mitchell!
Beca manages to peel around the fence covering before seeing the woman break out in a sprint and takes off on her own. Collision course set, Beca braces herself for impact as she's running, wrapping her arms firmly around the body as she tackles Chloe to the ground.
"Ahh!"
"Oof."
Chloe felt the instant impact, but only felt softness as she landed on the ground. Opening her eyes after the initial shock of being tackled, she realizes the object that broke her fall is the tiny brunette in question she had been searching for not minutes before.
Groaning slightly from the slight soreness from falling and hitting the ground, the redhead lifts her head slightly from out if the crook of the DJ's neck and notices the compromising position she finds their bodies in. Laying directly on top of the body underneath her, even through thick jackets, Chloe can feel her breasts pressing against the other woman's, who is now breathing raggedly; she can feel their legs messily entwined and hips pressed tightly together.
"Beca?" She breathes out, still stunned.
Beca opens her eyes slowly to meet the other woman's icy blue eyes. Her breathing still shallow, but slowing down in pace as she comes down from her sudden burst of exertion.
"What was that?" Chloe questions again after an extended moment of silence from the brunette.
"I uh… surprise?" She laughs airily and Chloe gifts her with a brilliant smile.
"I'll say! You knocked the wind right out of me. Have you been hiding this whole time just to do that?" The redhead laughs, looking down into dark blue eyes. Locking her gaze with the elder Bella, Beca remembers the playful banter the two women shared just earlier.
"I will neither confirm nor deny that accusation." She grins coyly, and the redhead rolls her eyes playfully.
"Dork."
"You love it." Beca responds instantly, but after a beat, she notices Chloe go quiet and the light in her eyes reflect a deep emotion she isn't sure she has ever seen there before.
The two women don't seem to take notice of the on-going snow battle as they lay entwined on the ground, breathing slowly beginning to meld together as their faces drift closer to one another. Beca could feel the thumping of her heartbeat loudly in her ears as she witnesses the centimeters of space evaporate between them. She watches as Chloe's gaze drifts down towards her lips before quickly licking her own and seeing those sky blue irises disappear behind closed eyelids. As she mirrors the action, she feels the anticipation of what she is hoping is about to happen. And as suddenly as the feeling was there, it was ripped away.
A/N: Sorry? Cliffhanger, I know. This chapter was originally longer, but I decided to split it in two. Hopefully that means I get the next one up faster, right? Right! Right? Anyways, I had a lot of fun writing part of this chapter, but honesty hour… I've never been in a snowball fight before. Mostly cause I've only seen snow like twice in my life. (Southern girl here) so I hope I did the scene some sort of justice for those of you who have.
