"She's not answering." Shane rolled his eyes, but quickly changes his expression when he saw Sheila give him another icy look. He impatiently tried to call Beca again, but it immediately went to voicemail. "She must have switched off her phone. She's avoiding me."
"Do you blame her?" Sheila coldly asked.
She was clearing the table and made a lot of noise. She was still furious with Shane for spoiling their first family dinner.
"You will apologise to Beca tonight. Not tomorrow. Not when you feel like it during the week. Tonight."
"Sheila." Shane spoke up, and he uncomfortably placed his hands into his pockets. "It's late. I'm not going over there now."
"I'm serious." Sheila stated warningly, dropping a wine glass loudly onto a tray. Forgetting completely that it was her favourite glasses and that she had it for more than 20 years. She received it from one of her best friends on her wedding day, and only used it for special occasions. Like tonight's dinner with Beca was supposed to be.
Sheila is used to being pissed with clients, lawyers and judges, but the anger she felt now was different – it was personal. She didn't like how Shane spoke to Beca, and to be honest, she has been noticing small quirks and outbursts from Shane the past few months more often as well. She didn't like it, but she ignored it to prevent arguments. When she heard him treat his only daughter so disrespectfully, she had enough.
"Tonight I honestly just wanted to warn Beca about my family that would give her a hard time at our wedding for having a girl as a date. That's all, okay?"
"Don't even begin with the 'I wanted to protect her' bullshit. You don't want her to bring a girl as date, Shane. This is your issue."
"But Sheila, I didn't mean it bad…"
"She's dying for you approval. I couldn't wait to finally have her over for dinner tonight and you spoiled everything! Beca is important to me, even though I hardly see or know her - thanks to you." Sheila gave Shane an accusing look. "Can you understand that? Or should I find a periodic table to point out the main elements?"
"I will get into my car right now and drive to the dorms. I will apologise to Beca. Happy?"
"It doesn't seem as if you are affected or realise how cruel you were tonight and that scares me."
Shane let out a frustrated sigh, and when he said nothing, Sheila continued with her rant.
"Beca will be my daughter one day, and I can't wait. She's unique and special. Chloe seems to get along a lot better with her now too and…" Sheila stopped talking. She didn't want to give voice to her assumptions about the obvious chemistry she observed between Chloe and Beca tonight.
Chloe had crushes on Britney Spears and Kate Moss when she was still a young 7 year old girl – she had posters of the Pussy Cat Dolls on her walls and never listened to their albums. It was not surprising that Chloe liked girls and it didn't bother Sheila in the slightest. She wants Chloe to be happy, because happiness can be taken away from you when you least expect it in life. You should appreciate it when it comes your way.
Or maybe I'm getting ahead of myself here. It, the tension between Beca and Chloe, could just be an infatuation... Chloe might just feel overly protective of Beca now that she will be her stepsister. I'm not even sure how their connection affects the two of them…
"If I apologise to her, can we just forget about all of this?" Shane's question brought Sheila back to reality, and she gave Shane a sarcastic look.
"I'm going to shower and read a book in bed. Don't even bother to join me, you can sleep in the spare bedroom and think about your actions tonight." Sheila waved Shane off, and walked out of the dining room, making a mental note to call Chloe the next day.
Shane walked into his study, and poured himself a scotch. He was furious with Beca. She always made things so difficult for him in his life. He sat down on his desk and downed the whole contents of his glass in one swallow.
I'm not going to let Beca spoil my relationship with Sheila. I'm going to go to her dorm room tonight and warn her not to repeat her emotional outburst again when we are all together. Sheila doesn't understand, because her daughter is not a dyke. Chloe is not a disappointment. Sheila has no right to judge me for wanting more from Beca. She has no right at all.
Shane abruptly grabbed his keys, and determinedly made his way to his car.
"Thank you for tonight, and for driving me back to the dorms." Beca thanked Chloe. The ride back from the diner was silent, but still pleasant. They were sitting in Chloe's car, and she has yet to open the door to leave. She felt an odd emptiness in her heart to say goodbye to Chloe, but knew she had to eventually. At least I'll see her tomorrow again.
"Yeah, it's nothing." Chloe smiled, and gently rested her hand above Beca's hands that were fidgeting nervously again. Beca skipped a few breaths at the contact, Chloe's hands were soft and warm compared to her cold and nervous hands. She nervously eyed Chloe who stared back calmly.
"Your hands are always fidgeting. Don't be so nervous, we had a fun night despite the dinner earlier." Chloe nodded reassuringly at Beca.
"I am calm." Beca felt stupid for being nervous. I can't help it, Chloe makes me nervous… Because I think I have fallen for her...
"Beca?" Chloe spoke up, grinning.
"Wha..? Yeah, sorry. I zoned out again." Pull it together, Mitchell.
Beca made eye contact with Chloe who was watching her closely.
"I will actually pay a lot of money to know what you are thinking about when you zone out."
Beca started to play with Chloe's hand in top of hers, stroking it lightly with her thumbs absentmindedly and Chloe smirked.
"I still feel bad for telling you to take the bus last night." Chloe changed the subject with a wry smile, letting Beca play with her fingers patiently, and silently cursing herself for feeling so turned on by it. Seriously, she's only touching your one hand.
Beca laughed. "It isn't a big deal. Forget it."
"Yeah, I was just, you know, so mad…"
"No! Honestly. Let's not talk about last night." Beca stopped Chloe.
"Okay, I guess…" Chloe tried her best to hide the disappointment in her voice.
"So, I'll text you about tomorrow?" Beca asked.
"What about tomorrow?" Chloe responded confused.
"I'm going to play you some of my mixes?"
"Of course, yeah. Right! I can't wait, text me. I'll be there."
"Cool." Beca replied, smiling.
"Cool." Chloe responded, returning the smile. Beca noticed that her smile seemed a bit forced, but decided not to comment on it. The tension in the car was palpable all of a sudden.
"I should probably go." Beca finally spoke up.
"Yeah, okay..."
"Bye." Beca removed her hands from Chloe's right hand, and opened the car door. Before she could get out, Chloe stopped her by grabbing her arm gently.
"Wait!"
"Yeah?" Beca asked, feeling quite confused.
"Beca." Chloe's voice was soft but determined. She stared intently into Beca's eyes, who stared back awkwardly, waiting for Chloe to speak up.
"What is it, Chloe?" Beca carefully asked.
Chloe dropped her eyes from Beca's gaze.
"Are we never going to talk, I mean, really talk about last night?" Chloe eyed Beca again.
"About the kiss?" Beca dumbly responded, panicking silently. Oh shit. Here we go…
Chloe nodded expectantly.
"I think we talked about it enough last night." Beca responded unsurely, and by the look Chloe gave her, she knew she said the wrong thing.
"So to be sure, it did meant nothing to you at all?" Chloe asked, feeling devastated. Again. Way to go Chloe, and here I began to think Beca had a heart.
"Not exactly." Beca replied after a while.
"Not exactly?" Chloe asked confused.
"Wait, why am I doing all the answering while you ask all the questions? It's unfair." Beca angrily responded and folded her arms.
Chloe supressed a grin, thinking how adorable Beca looked when she was angry, but she quickly got serious again.
"Yes, you're right. I brought up the topic…"
"Yes." Beca nodded, and waited for Chloe to continue.
Chloe took a big breath. Just say it.
"I think I like you."
Beca's head snapped towards Chloe.
"What?" Beca breathed. Her heart filled with joy. She likes me! What?! She actually likes me! But the issues of last night, the stepsister stuff, is still a big issue to me…
"Yeah… And I understand if you don't like me. Then we just need to keep the past in the past and forget about everything and about me confessing that I might, might, like you. And if you do like me too, then we will sort out the stepsister-thing together and work it out?" Chloe looked at Beca, her eyes filled with anticipation while she waited for Beca's response.
"Wow." Beca smirked, and Chloe frowned at her.
"Wow? That's all? After all that word vomit, you say 'wow'? Beca, I don't think you grasp this situation fully. I haven't been able to function properly since our kiss, or since the car wash, to be honest, and I need a better answer than 'wo…"
Beca jumped forward from her seat and kissed Chloe, stopping her nervous rant. She kissed Chloe as if her life depended on it, and she smiled in the kiss when a shocked Chloe awkwardly pulled Beca closer. Chloe's hesitation didn't last too long, and before Beca knew it Chloe pushed her back into her seat and kissed Beca's jawline, allowing her to take a few breaths.
"I thought you said I was a bad kisser?" Beca breathlessly asked, and smirked when Chloe lightly bit her underneath her jawline before replying, just as breathless.
"I would never say that."
"That's what you implied." Beca smirked and met Chloe's lips again, and she trailed her tongue lightly on Chloe's lips which she immediately opened, allowing her to deepen the kiss. Chloe abruptly broke away, causing Beca to huff impatiently, and Chloe smiled.
"I thought you said we had no chemistry?"
Beca smiled, and trailed her fingers through Chloe's red locks.
"I did, yes." Beca stubbornly answered, supressing a grin.
Chloe smirked, and when Beca went in to kiss her again, she stopped her.
"Do we have chemistry, Becs?" Chloe directly asked, ghosting a kiss on Beca's lips.
"Uh… Yes." Beca managed to get out. Chloe's hands were trailing patterns on her stomach again, and she could hardly think.
"There, was that so hard to admit?" Chloe pecked Beca on her lips, and the dj rolled her eyes, but soon got lost on the light kissed Chloe placed on her face and on her neck.
"I hate it when you're right." Beca managed to get out.
"I'm always right." Chloe smiled mischievously.
"Somebody is getting cocky…"
"Well, obviously. I'm making out with Beca Mitchell in my car." Chloe smiled proudly.
Beca's head rested awkwardly close to the staring wheel, and when she tried to position herself a bit better to kiss Chloe again, she unintentionally pressed the horn with her head. The loud noise made them both jump with surprise, and Chloe giggled.
"Can't we like, go to a better place? I never thought I'd be the one to get involved in a car make-out session. It feels so – dirty." Beca dryly remarked and Chloe smiled.
"Car make-outs are the best." Chloe rested her head on Beca's shoulder, but she too realised how uncomfortably they were positioned. "It's weird though, we are super uncomfortable and yet I am very comfortable."
"Me too."
Beca and Chloe were both in a trance, and they merely stared at each other for a while, not noticing the harsh footsteps that were loudly making its way towards Chloe's car.
Suddenly a very loud and abrupt knock on the passenger's seat window, caused them to break apart.
Beca tried to tidy up her hair, and nervously looked at whoever it might have been who knocked on the window.
"Chloe! Beca?! Oh my god!"
Beca tried to see who it was, and felt relieved when she saw Stacie and Fat Amy peek through the open window on Chloe's side.
Chloe tightly gripped Beca's hand and whispered, "We'll continue this later. Let's get out."
Beca opened the door and brushed her hair out of her face when she got out, causing Stacie and Fat Amy to laugh and wolf-whistle.
"Nice make-out hair, Beca." Stacie patted Beca encouragingly on the back.
"Yeah, I mean, this morning my blind grandmother called me all the way from Tasmania. She asked if you two were together already because she could see you're attraction from there." Amy explained dramatically, and pointed into a direction.
Chloe giggled and Beca rolled her eyes, but she grinned when she felt Chloe hug her from behind, holding her close.
"And then she asked me whether you two have kissed Australian yet." Amy mumbled, and Stacie laughed loudly. She has obviously heard whatever Amy was about to say before.
"An Australian kiss?" Beca asked confused.
"Yeah, it's like a French kiss but it's down-under."
"Dude! No!" Beca covered her hands with her face, and pulled away from Chloe.
Amy, Stacie and Chloe laughed loudly at Beca's reaction, and Chloe pulled Beca back to her lazily.
"Not yet, Amy." Chloe answered Amy and gave Beca a wink. They all laughed loudly when Beca gave Chloe an incredulous look.
"What are you both doing here?" Beca asked her fellow Bella's. Stacie lived in a flat close to campus and Amy lived in a mansion quite a while away. They were almost never at the dorms.
"We are planning a party on Tuesday at Amy's and we're giving out invites. We saw Chloe's car and well... You guys know what happened next." Stacie explained. "Here's your invites." Stacie handed them two flyers.
"You guys can only have sex in the spare bedrooms, though, my bedroom is off-limits." Fat Amy smiled at the two of them, enjoying how awkward the two of them were.
"Cynthia-Rose owes Amy and me, like, 50$. We said you guys would get together over the weekend, and Cynthia said that you two will get together during next week. And we were right!" Stacie lifted her shoulders, as if she knew it all along that Beca and Chloe would get together tonight.
"You had a bet about Beca and I?" Chloe asked sceptically. Were we that obvious?
"We all knew it was a matter of time before you two, you know, would jump each other."
Beca cringed. That's totally what I did. Chloe gave Beca a knowing look, making the dj feel, if possible, even more shy.
"And I finally won a bet against CR! This is the perfect night." Fat Amy lifted her hands into the sky, and slapped her stomach as she brought it back down… "Stacie and I need to get going, though, we have places to be and people to meet…" Amy explained, and Stacie nodded.
"We'll see you two dirty birds Monday at the Bella practice!" Stacie greeted.
When Stacie and Amy drove off, Chloe and Beca turned to each other.
"So, that was awkward." Chloe chuckled and Beca turned to face her. Chloe grinned when Beca rested her arms around her neck.
"It would have been nice if we could have been quiet about, us, for like a day." Beca pouted.
"So there is an 'us'?" Chloe beamed at Beca
"Yeah? If that's like, fine?" Beca responded unsurely.
"That's more than fine." Chloe smiled. "Maybe we can continue this tomorrow? When you play me you're mixes..."
"Yes." Beca pecked Chloe on the lips.
"It's going to be aca-awesome." Chloe sighed.
"But what about, uh, you know…" Beca began, and she felt Chloe's body tense.
"About the stepsister stuff?" Chloe knowingly finished Beca's sentence.
"Yeah…" Beca unsurely looked at Chloe who was watching her carefully, as if she carefully contemplated every word that she was about to say.
"We just, don't tell our parents? At least until we figure this out for ourselves. A week ago I didn't like you so much…"
"I didn't like you at all." Beca shrugged, and Chloe gave Beca a 'yeah right' look.
"You totes did." Chloe winked at Beca, who smirked.
"Did not! You were so…"
Chloe lifted her eyebrows expectantly, smiling at Beca.
"Bubbly and happy."
Chloe laughed. "And you were such a little emo and so angry at everybody when you had to sing and dance. You always looked very cute to me, though…."
"Oh, shush. You used the word 'little' and 'cute' in the same sentence again..." Beca smiled.
"Did I?" Chloe answered with playful innocence.
"Let's just kiss and figure this out about us another time…" Beca pulled Chloe closer to her.
"Mmm… You like to shut me up with kisses, and I must say, it's better than the sarcasm..."
"Don't act like you don't like it. You love the sarcasm…" Beca pecked Chloe on the lips.
"Yeah, I do…" Chloe sighed, and went in to close the gap between them, but Beca stopped her.
"What?" Chloe gave Beca concerned look.
"But I just hope that we can figure this out. I don't want us to get involved if it will cause too many problems."
"We will figure it out. Our parents will not find out, and my mom will be fine with it. Your dad, well, let's not even think about him now." Chloe tried to reassure Beca, and she kissed her tenderly. It was a kiss much different than the other kisses they shared. It was comfortable and it felt right, and yet, it was intense and electrifying. They broke the kiss simultaneously and smiled at each other.
"Wow." Beca said for the second time that night.
"Yeah… I need to get going, Beca. Aubrey might wonder where I am and well, if I don't leave now I'll…" Chloe abruptly stopped mid-sentence.
"Sure… Bye Chlo." Beca knowingly answered with a grin, she noticed that neither of them moved yet. Both of them were still clinging onto each other.
"Bye Beca-bear." Chloe smiled at Beca, who tried her best not to grin at the redhead.
"Watch it, Beale."
"Or what?"
"Or I'll never play you my mixes." Beca responded strictly.
"You might not play it to me, but I will still listen to it." Chloe stubbornly answered with a playful smile.
"Are you saying that you'll steal my mixes?" Beca mocked an offended tone.
"Maybe, I'll get into your dorm room by bribing Kimmy-Jin with a book about fungi or something…"
"I'll send you to prison if you do that, m'lady." Beca planted a kiss on Chloe's cheek.
"I've seen Orange Is The New Black. I'd love prison."
"You'll go to a shitty prison. Like, with no hot or interesting people."
"Then I'll just have to take you with me." Chloe gave Beca her signature predatory smile.
Beca laughed nervously. So Chloe thinks I'm hot and interesting? This night is possibly the best night ever...
"I'm really going now, Chloe. I'll see you tomorrow." Beca broke their embrace reluctantly and started walking towards the door.
"Wait, a final goodbye kiss, and then I'll leave you alone." Chloe smirked, and pulled Beca towards her again.
"Fine." Beca feigned an impatient tone, and smiled when Chloe kissed her again, but they broke apart when they heard a loud voice interrupting them. A voice all too familiar to Beca, and she felt as if somebody threw an ice bucket over head.
It was Beca's father and he looked devilish.
"What in heaven's name is going on here?" Shane dangerously asked Beca. He gave them both a look of absolute disgust.
"Uh, dad…" Beca panicked. Not having a clue what to say or to do, she pushed Chloe roughly away from her.
Oh shit, what am I going to do now? He knows...
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Until the next chapter then...! ;)
(Thank you for the kind reviews, I appreciate it.)