CHAPTER TEN

"Hey, Benji," Beca called as she spotted the boy in question standing behind the counter, a bright blue cape adorned with multi-coloured stars draped proudly over his shoulders, "Is that a…new cape?"

Benji turned to the sound of her voice, shooting her a wide smile as he walked over, his cape swinging wildly behind him as he bobbed his head quickly, "Hi Beca! Do you like it?"

Despite, as usual, being completely shattered this early in the morning, she couldn't stop herself from smiling in response to the boy's cheeriness; she liked Benji, she really did. He was just so eager to please and so innocent and, like Jesse, his enthusiasm for everything was truly contagious. "The cape's awesome, Benji," she replied, nodding her head affirmatively…and in a way, it was. There was just something about Benji that made the whole outfit work. Sort of.

"Thanks, Beca," he said, his smile growing wider at her words before gesturing towards the backroom with one arm, "I have a spare if you want?"

She bit her lip hard, wincing inwardly as she quickly averted her gaze from his, trying to think of the best way to let him down easy; sure, she had gotten rather fond of Benji and his love of capes and magic [and of course, Star Wars] but she was pretty sure she'd never like anyone enough to wear a cape for them, especially in public. "Oh, no, don't worry, Benji. I, uh, I don't think I'd be able to pull it off."

Benji frowned, shaking his head at her as he began earnestly assuring her that she could, in fact, pull one off and she just smiled back, not saying another word. Realising that she wasn't about to change her mind any time soon, he finally shrugged, a smile still gracing his face as he turned from her slightly to begin putting together her coffee order for her – well, okay, not her coffee order, more like…Jesse's edited version of it – whilst continuing to make small talk with her.

Several minutes later, he handed Beca a coffee cup and as she turned away from the counter to leave the coffee shop and make her way to the studio, she took a sip of her cup, suddenly freezing, a horrified expression crossing her face as her tastebuds were not greeted by the familiar, warm, comforting taste of caffeine as she was expecting but instead, a cold liquid that she recognised almost immediately as being…juice.

"What the…?!"

Beca cursed under her breath, whipping her head back round towards the counter, quickly finding Benji and shooting him the deadliest of looks even though she knew it was most definitely not his fault. Benji simply gave her a small smile in response, now too absorbed in another customer's order to notice the intensity of her glare and she gritted her teeth together hard. She was going to kill the dork. Quickly glancing at the clock, she let out a groan as she realised that if she wanted to make it to the studio on time and avoid Aubrey's wrath, she couldn't afford to wait around and ask Benji to make her a proper coffee...which, now that she thought about it, was probably what Jesse was counting on. He knew her way too well.

Don't kill Benji, it's really not his fault :)

PS - Don't kill me either.

Beca shook her head, biting her lip as she roughly grabbed a napkin from the side, quickly scribbling down a message and leaving it in the usual spot.

Oh, you are going down.

"What's up, Flatbutt—Whoa, okay, what's wrong?"

"Absolutely nothing, everything is just fine," Beca gritted out, gripping her coffee cup a little tighter than usual as she flung herself down into her seat, leaning back to glare at the ceiling, "Can you do me a massive favour and order me some coffee?"

"Uh, Beca, you're holding one in your hand," Amy said slowly, sounding her words out as if she was talking to a small child, promptly getting up from her seat and grabbing the hand holding the coffee cup, pointing at it. "Coffee, hand. Hand, coffee. Repeat after me—"

Beca rolled her eyes, quickly snatching her hand back from the other girl as she let out a long sigh. "It doesn't have coffee in it, it's filled with juice," she explained without going into any specific details about her morning because ugh, she was going to kill him. Ever since her freshman year in college, Beca had relied on caffeine to get her through the mornings and people did not take her caffeine away from her unless they wanted to face her wrath.

"Sweeeeeet," Amy said, sounding way too cheerful as she drew out the word, turning back towards her desk and holding up her own cup of coffee towards Beca, "Want to swap? I have some doughnuts in my desk that would go perfectly with juice—"

"Please," she replied, shooting the girl a grateful smile as Amy promptly swapped their cups, humming to herself as she went back over to her own desk, pulling open the top drawer and examining the doughnut stash she had inside thoughtfully. Beca watched, more than slightly baffled, as Amy took a doughnut out, holding it up to the light before shaking her head, disapproval clear on her face as she scrutinised it. She quickly replaced it in her drawer, choosing another one and going through the exact same process. It wasn't until seven doughnuts later until she nodded, satisfied, taking a bite.

"Oh, by the way Flatbutt, Scrambled Egg called for you," Amy said, in between bites of her doughnut and sips of juice. Beca blinked hard, staring at her in complete confusion before remembering what Amy had said yesterday about wanting to...scramble Luke and she groaned, pulling out her phone and tapping out Luke's number [god, she really needed to wipe that stupid chain of digits from her head], her previous juice dilemma suddenly seeming very insignificant.

"Hey, is this…Becky—Beca?"

"Uh, yes, of course it's Beca," she replied slowly before shooting Amy a look as the other girl started humming a little too innocently, pointedly looking at the wall behind her. "What do you want?"

"Hey, Beca. I managed to get Bumper to agree to a meeting…" Luke paused, as if he expected Beca to congratulate him or something and she gripped the phone hard, not allowing herself to say a single word, "…so if you're free at around one, we could meet to discuss the details.

Beca sighed, gritting her teeth as she quickly ended the conversation, hanging up before shooting Chloe a text, letting her know to expect her later and not to bother closing the shop down for her today; she had managed to survive talking to Luke yesterday and she felt confident that she would be able to do the same today. She wasn't going to let him get to her, not again, not ever. All she had to do was last through the next couple of weeks and get this assignment of Aubrey's over with as quickly as possible so she could go back to her Luke-free life again.

Shaking her head in an attempt to get rid of all thoughts of Luke, she loaded up her computer, wanting to lose herself in her work before groaning as she made the mistake of glancing at her email inbox. Today was really not her day.

To: Beca Mitchell
From: Jesse Swanson

On a scale of 1 to 10, how mad are you at me?

To: Jesse Swanson
From: Beca Mitchell

11.

To: Beca Mitchell
From: Jesse Swanson

…So, uh, I take it you're not in the mood to watch a movie with me later?

PS – In my defence, I was just being an awesome friend. It has become blindingly obvious to me that you have been deprived of juice all these years and I am just trying to rectify this great wrong. [Besides, don't tell Chloe but juice? Way better than coffee.]

Beca sighed at the screen as she read his latest email, biting her lip as she fought the urge to roll her eyes at his logic. She guessed that she couldn't be that mad at him after all he had done for her lately without knowing it, even if he had committed a serious offence this morning [in Beca's eyes, anyway]. Plus, after yesterday, she wasn't completely against watching another movie with him as the experience had been, surprisingly, quite bearable. Okay, maybe a little more than bearable, it had been…nice. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard as she tried to think of a suitable response to his email but before she could type a single word, the email icon on her browser started flashing again as multiple emails began flooding in,

To: Beca Mitchell
From: Jesse Swanson

Beca? You still there?

To: Beca Mitchell
From: Jesse Swanson

Are you really, really, really mad?

To: Beca Mitchell
From: Jesse Swanson

I'm sorry - you're always right, I'm always wrong. :(

Beca shook her head, finally succumbing to her urge to roll her eyes at him, even though he obviously couldn't see her, quickly typing out a response to placate him and hopefully stop him from abusing her email account any further:

To: Jesse Swanson
From: Beca Mitchell

And don't you forget it, dork.

To no-one's surprise, Beca had once again arrived to the coffee shop later than expected, roughly pushing the door open at quarter past one. She nodded quickly in greeting to Chloe who simply gave her an encouraging smile and a thumbs up, tilting her head towards where Luke and another boy were sitting near the back of the room, before returning to the order she was in the middle of preparing.

"Hey, you must be Bumper? I'm Beca," she greeted slowly as she made her way over to them, completely ignoring Luke's presence as she stuck out her hand to the boy standing beside him. "It's nice to meet you."

Beca frowned as she received no reply, the other boy simply grimacing in disgust at her outstretched hand. Her frown became deeper as a couple of seconds passed and still, no-one moved, the boy – Bumper – just giving her a contemplating look as he stared at her. Feeling more than a little disconcerted, Beca pulled her hand back as she continued to awkwardly wait for a response to her perfectly normal greeting. Had Luke told him something about her or…?

"—Eh, I suppose you're not bad. A little on the short side but I can work with that," Bumper eventually said, as he slowly looked her up and down suggestively, his eyes finally stopping as they landed on her…chest? "If you ever want to ride the Bumper machine, just give me call," he said, moving closer to her, his face suddenly alarmingly close to hers, his breath uncomfortably warm on her face as he continued speaking, "I'm up for anything, anywhere—"

"Ew, no! What the hell's wrong with you?" Beca exclaimed, split between being completely stunned and completely outraged at his words, as she hastily shuffled away from him, feeling extremely self-conscious under his wandering gaze, "You can't just say stuff like that to me."

"Why not? Look, little girl," Bumper retorted with a shrug of his shoulders, ignoring the almighty glare that Beca directed at him in response to being referred to like that, "I couldn't care less whether you work with me or not. I don't need you, I sang backup for John – fucking – Mayer, for god's sake. I'm only here because Luke clearly wants to get into your pants and I mean, I guess I'd be up for a threesome if—"

"—Bumper!" Luke said warningly, his hand quickly whipping out to grip the boy's shoulder hard in an attempt to stop him from speaking any further; he had done enough damage already and he had only been in the room for what? Five minutes? "You said you'd behave."

Beca just gaped at them both, a distinctively horrified expression on her face, unable to believe that this was actually happening to her. Jesus, Aubrey's assignment was quickly going from being bad to being unbearably awful.

"Let's…get down to business," Luke finally said as he gestured for them to sit down, pointedly ignoring Bumper's suggestive nod at his words. Beca sighed loudly, taking a deep breath as she dug her nails into the palm of her hand; the only positive thing about Bumper was that he was making Luke, of all people, seem ever so slightly more tolerable. "Bumper was quite well known as the lead singer of an a cappella group in college and now he does a lot of acoustic stuff—"

"An a capella group? Seriously?"

"I'll have you know that I am a legend," Bumper replied, shooting her a look of disdain, "Both in bed and out. You don't know how many pairs of breasts I've signed—"

Beca sighed again, averting her gaze from both of the boys, unable to decide who was worse. This was going to be a very, very long few weeks.

"Are you still mad at me?" Jesse called out to her, as soon as Bumper and Luke had – finally – left, shooting her a wary look as he beckoned her over. "I took a leaf out of Chloe's book and I made you an, uh, apology coffee?"

Beca rolled her eyes, making her way towards him even though she really needed to get back to the studio to get some work done, accepting the coffee he handed her. She guessed it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to sit here for a couple of minutes with the dork; after all, she needed something to get her mind off the trainwreck of a meeting she just had and, well, Jesse had proved himself time and time again to be a brilliant distraction.

"I knew you couldn't stay mad at me—okay, okay, I'll stop," he said, raising his hands up in surrender as Beca shot him a warning look. Clearing his throat awkwardly as he ran his free hand through his hair, he opened his mouth to speak again, quickly changing the subject, "So, uh, I recognised that guy you were with just now."

"Well, of course you would," Beca replied, sitting herself down on the other side of the counter, facing him, her eyebrows furrowed a little in confusion, "Luke was here yesterday—"

"—No, no, not him," Jesse said, shaking his head quickly as he continued to stack cups, glancing up at her momentarily, "The other guy that was with him. That was Bumper, right?"

Beca nodded slowly, her eyebrows raised in surprise. Jesse was the last person [with the expection of Benji] who she would have expected to know who Bumper was; they were polar opposites and she couldn't quite see how they would have ever met.

"I don't know him personally or anything, if that's what you're wondering," Jesse continued, sensing her confusion, "He just had a bit of a reputation amongst the people of…this thing I used to do at college."

Beca blinked, raising an eyebrow as Jesse suddenly stopped stacking, sticking his hands in his pockets awkwardly. "Well, that doesn't sound shady at all," she deadpanned, referring to both Bumper's alleged 'reputation' [although she was pretty sure she could guess what that was about…] and Jesse's vagueness about whatever he had done. She eyed him suspiciously, her curiosity growing as Jesse pointedly avoided her gaze, saying no more on the matter. Beca waited a couple more seconds, just in case he decided to speak as she took a sip of her coffee [and thank god, this time it really was coffee] before she sighed, prompting him, determined to get the rest of the story out, "So…you guys went to the same college?"

"No, we didn't, that's not how I know him," Jesse said after a beat, still looking completely flustered as he stumbled slightly over his words. "You know what? Forget I said anything." It wasn't that he was embarrassed about what he had done in college or anything because it had been, hands down, one of his favourite parts of his time there; no, he was slightly hesitant about telling her because he knew Beca well enough to know that she would make fun of him for it and he…he didn't know whether he'd be able to take that from her, especially when it had been something he had been so proud of and had put a lot of effort into.

"You're making absolutely no sense today, dork, you know that?"

Jesse shrugged, half-hoping that she would drop it and Beca squinted at him again, a frown on her face. Jesse was acting seriously weird right now and she wasn't quite sure what to make of it. Racking her brain, she thought back to the – frankly, disturbing – conversation that she had shared with Bumper earlier and she suddenly burst out laughing, her eyes widening as her brain started to connect the dots.

"No way, did you do a capella too?" She managed to splutter out, still laughing uncontrollably, her laughter only growing in magnitude as Jesse slowly nodded once, looking more than a little helpless as he took in her reaction. She grabbed the edge of the counter with one hand to steady herself, her shoulders shaking; being part of an a capella group at college was just so…Jesse. "Wow, I didn't think there was a way for you to seem even dorkier to me but congratulations, you've managed it."

"Hey, there's nothing wrong with a bit of organised nerd singing," Jesse retorted, a little defensively, as he crossed his arms…but as Beca continued to laugh, her eyes lighting up in amusement, he decided that even if she was laughing at him, he really didn't care. In that moment, Beca just looked so happy and carefree and beautiful—and god, he needed to get a grip on himself before he did something he would regret. Shaking his head hard, he shot her a grin; screw it, it didn't matter if he would have to endure her making fun of him for the foreseeable future, as long as he could keep her laughing like that. "You don't know what you're talking about, we were awesome, Beca. Like cooler than cool."

"Seriously?" Beca asked, eyebrows raised, giving him a disbelieving look, "I hate to break it to you but I'm a hundred percent certain that 'cool' is not the right word for it."

Jesse tilted his head to the side thoughtfully at her words before quickly walking around the counter, grabbing her wrist and pulling her to where he had been standing, sitting her down as he awkwardly rummaged through his bag for his laptop—

"—Uh, Jesse? That might be easier if you, you know, maybe let go of me?"

Jesse glanced back at her, a perplexed expression on his face and she simply looked down at where his fingers were still clasped tightly around her wrist. He blinked hard at the sight, releasing her as if he had been burnt, quickly muttering an apology; that was smooth, Jesse, so smooth. Clearing his throat, he hastily retrieved his laptop – Beca was right, it was easier to pull his laptop out of his bag with both of his hands free – and loaded it up, navigating to the Treblemakers' YouTube channel.

"Okay, watch this and tell me it's not a tiny bit cool," Jesse said as he scrolled down the page, locating the video of his last performance with the Treblemakers at the ICCAs in his senior year, ignoring Beca's choked laughter as she read the name of the group [Treblemakers, really? That was an awful pun], "I bet you won't find it so funny after you've seen how incredibly amazing we were."

Beca rolled her eyes, biting her lip hard to stop herself from replying as she turned her gaze towards the screen. She wasn't quite sure what to expect but, as always, Jesse's enthusiasm was overwhelming and she sincerely hoped that what he was about to show her wasn't some lame video of people singing lame songs completely out of tune because she didn't think she'd be able to hold back on her, uh, less than positive comments if it was.

"Dude, can you even sing?"

Jesse simply shrugged his shoulders, handing her his headphones without looking at her and Beca winced inwardly, preparing herself for the worst. She blinked, more than slightly amused, as the video started and a bunch of boys in matching maroon jackets [seriously? What was with that?] ran onto the stage. Oh dear god, this was not going to be good. Beca quickly scanned their faces as the music started up, glancing up at Jesse in confusion as she failed to spot him – he couldn't have changed that much since college, right? – but instead of receiving an answer, Jesse just nudged her shoulder gently, tilting his head towards the screen and she sighed softly, refocusing her gaze. She bit her lip as she watched the boys on stage carry out some questionable choreography, fighting the urge to roll her eyes at the sheer absurdity of it all, but as a very familiar-looking dork suddenly walked out onto centre stage, confidently flipping a microphone stand up with his foot and began singing, her mouth went dry.

Jesse was right, this wasn't funny. At all.

"Told you," Jesse said, looking incredibly smug as he glanced over and saw her watching him sing, completely transfixed. He nudged her shoulder again, shooting her a cheeky grin as he got up from his seat in order to bow at an imaginary audience, "I'm awesome, right? Not dorky at all."

Beca rolled her eyes half-heartedly in response, reaching over to punch him lightly on the shoulder to get him to shut up without taking her eyes off the screen, fighting a shudder as his voice continued to fill her ears, hoping he didn't notice how much it was affecting her…because god, his voice was good, like ridiculously good [and that was saying something, considering what she did for a living]. The dork seemed like a completely different person in the video, full of confidence and…swagger and it was completely and utterly unnerving and she clenched her hands together as she fought the urge to close the laptop screen and do something stupid like ask him to sing to her in person.

"Okay, so you can sing," Beca relented, taking a deep, calming breath as she continued to watch him completely own the stage, his voice still causing unwanted chills to run up her spine, ignoring the way his grin grew impossibly wider at her words, "But it doesn't change the fact that you're still a total dork."

A dork that kept surprising her over and over again.