I am so sorry that it's been this long between updates. But between my daughters being sick and then getting sick myself it's been nearly impossible to find the time to write. This is just a short little chapter, but I felt I should update something before writers' block settled in. And, hopefully, this chapter will be the start of Jesse redeeming himself. Lemme know what you guys think!

"Stupid. So stupid," Beca grumbled over and over as she walked barefoot down the street. All things considered, she was making good time. She was already a block and a half away from Jesse's house. She would have made it further but she had taken a couple of detours to make sure Jesse wasn't able to catch up to her.

As soon as Jesse had disappeared into the bedroom, Beca had pulled her bra and panties back on, along with her shorts, hissing at the chill they brought to her skin and cursing at how damp they still were. She had thrown Jesse's shirt on, because hers was just ridiculously wet and cold, so she carried it and her shoes and socks in her hands and marched across the foyer, opened the door and walked resolutely out of the house, off the porch, and down the road as fast as she could on her bare feet.

"Didn't mean anything. Who fucking says that?" She looked up when she heard a car splashing down the road behind her and sighed when she saw Benji's crappy Toyota heading for her. She stepped off of the road and waited for him to pull up to her. She had called him the second her foot had stepped off Jesse's porch, praising all that was holy that Benji had answered.

"So...," Benji began as Beca yanked his door open and flopped down into his passenger seat, tossing her shoes, socks, and wet T shirt into the backseat. "Are you gonna explain to me why I had to tell my boss there was a family emergency right in the middle of rotating the tires of Mrs. Baker's hideous green Cadillac? And why I am picking you up on this side of town? And why you are wearing someone else's shirt?" Beca closed the car door and sighed loudly. She looked over at Benji, who hadn't changed out of his oil stained coveralls.

"Jesse and I had sex," she stated. Benji stared at her expectantly.

"Yeah, you're gonna have to do better than that." Beca scrubbed her hands over her face, trying to exhale her frustrations.

"I kissed him and then freaked out and tried to run away but my car died. Right in front of his house. It was pouring and you didn't answer your phone...so I went back inside Jesse's house."

"And?"

"And we had sex."

"And?"

"And it was amazing. But after..." Beca hesitated. "I told him I didn't want anyone to know what had just happened. I mean, it all just kind of happened and you know how gossip spreads in this damn town..."

"BecaLee, you didn't!" Benji chided, turning to face her better. Beca glared at him, crossing her arms petulantly.

"Well, it doesn't matter anyways, because he said that it didn't mean anything." Beca huffed, looking out the window.

"He didn't!"

"He did," Beca confirmed, shaking her head.

"Ugh! Who fucking says that?"

"Right?" Beca cried, turning back to him. Benji fixed her with narrowed eyes.

"That goes for what you said too, Moron."

"Oh for Christ's sake. What do you think will happen when people find out, Benji? I still get shit about what happened in high school. Imagine what people will say if they found out we had sex. Besides, Jared knows I was head over heals in love with Jesse when I was a kid. He's not stupid. Eventually he will realize that Jesse was the one who got me pregnant."

"Jesse? Are you fucking kidding me? It was Jesse? Does Chloe know?"

"No. Actually, you're the second person to ever find out."

"Who was the first?"

"Jesse. Last night."

"And he said that shit to you today?" Beca nodded. "Oh hell no. Come on, Rebecca Lee Mitchell, we are gonna get you cleaned up and dressed for band practice. And then you're gonna take that torch you've been carrying around for Jesse Swanson, you're gonna clobber him over the fucking head with it."

Jesse had known the very minute that Beca had stopped looking at him as just her brother's best friend. Of course he had, he'd known Beca since she was three. He could tell what her emotions were by just glancing at her. And he had watched the change in her feelings towards him one evening in late August, two weeks after Beca has started her freshman year of high school.

It was a Friday night, around nine o'clock and Jesse had shown up on the front step supporting a half conscious Bumper. Both boys were bruised and bloodied, but Bumper has gotten it much worse, prompting their grandmother to rush him to the emergency room, leaving Jesse in Beca's hands.

After shaking her head she had grabbed his hand and lead him to the bathroom to start cleaning him up.

"Why on earth would you and Jared think it was a good idea to get into a fight with four guys on the football team?" She had asked, dabbing an alcohol soaked cotton ball to the cut at the corner of his left eye.

"Just to be clear, it was not our intention to get out asses handed to us by part of the defensive line," Jesse told her, his words slightly garbled from his busted top lip. Beca stared straight into his eyes with a skeptical look. "Seriously. Those guys were making fun of everyone at the party. And Bumper and I were just ignoring them-"

"This is ignoring them?" Beca interrupted, gesturing to Jesse's face. Jesse huffed in annoyance.

"No," he continued, glaring at her. "This is what happens when Bumper and I overhear them talking about the new freshman girls and your name, followed by a lewd sexual act, happened to be mentioned." Beca had stared at him, mouth open in disbelief.

"You...and my brother got your butts kicked because of me?" Jesse felt his cheeks flush.

"Uh...yeah."

"You're both morons." She had rolled her eyes, but Jesse had seen the blush on her cheeks and the smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. And for the rest of the night, every time their eyes would meet she would smile shyly and the blush would return. And later that night, as he lay in bed thinking about Beca's blushing face-and how it made his heart race-and the things those boys had said-and how angry the very thought of someone doing that to Beca made him feel...Jesse realized that he had begun to look at her differently too.

But Beca Mitchell had a peculiar way of making Jesse Swanson feel stupid. Stupidly mad. Stupidly happy. Stupidly jealous. Or, like right now, right in the middle of enjoying the afterglow of sex, stupidly embarrassed. Was it really so awful that they had sex? Would it be that terrible if people found out? And why in God's name had Jesse said that it hadn't meant anything anyway? Because you're stupid! he yelled in his mind as he walked up the stairs. Jesse could feel her eyes on him and with each step he took he felt more...stupid.

He'd felt this stupid only once before, that night back in high school when he and Beca had snuck away from his going away party. After they had finished having sex, Beca had dressed herself and told Jesse to come down ten minutes after her.

"That way no one will guess what just happened," she had told him.

As Jesse walked into the master bedroom he sighed and shook his head. He could lie to himself, he supposed as he crossed to the antique bureau, and say that it was better this way. He'd be gone in a few months, after he wrapped the movie, and to start something with anyone would be ridiculous... Hell, he'd told himself the same lie in high school. And he'd nearly believed it by the time he moved with his mother.

He pulled a drawer open, rifling through its contents to find a pair of gym shorts that could possibly fit Beca's smaller waist...her waist, which fit perfectly in his hands, and her thighs that-

"Why the fuck am I still up here?" Jesse asked himself. He should be running downstairs and explaining to Beca that he was a moron, and he didn't mean what he said and, in fact, he had been in love with Beca since he was seventeen. Jesse launched himself away from the bureau, turning quickly and marched out of the bedroom.

"Beca, look, I'm sorry," he called out nearly running for the stairs. "I don't mean that. It did mean something. I know you probably don't believe me but I-" Jesse froze as he reached the top of the stairs. Beca was gone, her wet clothes, her shoes no longer lay strewn about the foyer...she was gone. "Fuck."

Hmmm, I wonder how band practice will turn out... Update: coming soon