"Beca?"
You groan. Your eyes are heavy, dry and so very, very tired. So much that you almost never want to open them even though the bright light of morning is practically forcing you to get up, beating on your closed lids.
You feel a hand shake your shoulder. And there's also that.
You grumble. Nope, no way are you moving. You barely slept last night.
You groan while stretching, feeling your body protest- It has that almost forgotten but delightfully familiar, deliciously painful soreness. You hum enjoying feeling completely sated and satisfied.
"Beca, not that I mind because wow-but your girls are staring at me and there are more people on their way, you may want to clothe yourself."
Your eyes burst open as everything from last night floods in, and your entirely naked body clenches with a hard guilty pang.
You sit upright pulling the blanket to cover your chest.
"What happened to you last night?" comes that soft voice with a blurred face. You rub at your caked eyes, willing for it to adjust.
Everything had happened that wasn't supposed to happen. Not yet, not like this.
It had happened, hadn't it? You can't help questioning it, especially by the way you'd been having your dreams as of late, its a definite possibly it could've all been in your head. Though you hope to god that wasn't true and this wasn't some Blackswan thing where you were just masturbating. But you look at all the evidence. Your body's soreness, the scent around you, the girl-
You turn to the person to your right not trusting your own thoughts at the moment. It's only Stacie though, watching you with a knowing smirk. Wait, where was Chloe?
"Whatever it was, it seemed fun. Totally worth skipping our little powwow for. So our two favorite co-captains finally got together and banged."
You try to channel your earlier confusion, trying to wipe your face clean but Stacie's all smiles, knowing and smug.
"Whatever Becs. That straight face isn't nearly as convincing as you pretending to be straight, which admittedly wasn't convincing to begin with."
You can only manage a wry smile at Stacie. This was no longer amusing. Seriously. Not another one. At this point maybe you should ask who didn't know about Chloe and you.
"I've been watching you two. You know my hunter's always up for some action, even if it wasn't for me." she amends, "Though tripletreble, who wouldn't want to get in on some Bloe with Bechloe. So back to me and my best friend."
You channel actual amusement now. "He, as in the hunter, is who you're referring to as your your best friend."
"He's a wingman, my soul confidant. He never judges me. He knows exactly what I want. All I have to do is keep him clean and feed him and he gives me a life full of love. He's basically the whole package. Cunning, smart. He's always so attuned to any and all possibilities though he's best at following unresolved sexual tension in a person. And these past nights its been off the charts, what with Fat Amy's ruling. But it was a whole new level when it came to you guys, five years worth all bottled up, I don't know how you guys lasted so long. It was getting hard to even be in a room with you both. So damn frustrating watching you all the years standing next to boys when you only ever had eyes for each other."
You can't believe you're hearing this.
"But last night I saw our favorite redhead taking action, making her way to the girls dormitories to her own bed, to supposedly sleep. " she makes air quotes, "We both now that she hasn't been sleeping in you guys's room as her and the yummy brit Luke have been cosying up in that platonic way they do."
Wait, now that was news.
"Still?I thought they'd gotten together-"
"I know somethings different with them but the guy's chivalrous, he won't get with Chloe when she's obviously pinning over someone else. He's giving her time to get over-"
She glances at you pointedly.
"Also we both know the sleep thing definitely didn't happen. It totally smells like crazy, drunken, sex in here."
You sigh.
All that happened sounds even worse being spelled out like that.
Cos...Shit.
Chloe and you had really-you were so. Fucked.
In the back of your mind you almost want to ask Stacie what that would smell like, but you may not want to know.
You groan aloud needing actual words this time. "Stace. Too much talking. Too fast."
"Sorry to pile this on you, I'm sure you're still in some Chloe induced sex fog and wanting to rest. I came here to warn you both since the entire dingo family is on their morning surprise inspection, but it seems the redhead has left the building."
You feel queasy. She had left you in your bed naked and alone. There are some things you actually want to know like 'What was going through Chloe's head right now?' and 'Who was she with?' and lastly 'Did she regret it?'
"Sorry I should be showing sympathy or empathy, wait those two words confuse me which one of those convey my sorrow for your plight even though I have no idea how that feels, I usually do the abandoning. Do you need someone to talk to about all this. I swear I know some shit but I feel like I don't know the half of it. So bechloe got their bloe action. So what's gonna happen with Jess, will you break up and will he get with Aubrey like we're all expecting?"
In order to stop the barrage of questions, and mostly to get her out of your hair so you could go out and actually find Chloe you tell Stacie everything, as in everything from the very beginning.
You feel some sort of weight of your chest. Here was someone not so directly affected by your schemes. And Stacie you know, had a no judgement policy when it came to getting with somebody. You know she's done far worse than you. And you know that she knows you enough to know and understand that you had simply messed up, several times after another.
"I understand that you feel guilty
but do you regret it?"
"The sex-honestly is that even a question, hell no." you say semi-seriously. She mimes lifiting off her hat to you, "But do I regret the circumstances-with all my heart. Everything was already fucked to begin with and now it actually got worse."
You think of just how much it had gotten worse.
"So the two of you had sex while Chloe still thought you were with Jesse and she was having a whatchamacallit with pretty boy Luke."
"Yup and while she's sober we're not on the best of terms." Understatement. She'd seemed to hate your guts, and had been all out ignoring you these past few days.
"But then she got drunk, jumped into the bed she hadn't been sleeping in and then consequently went on to jump you." You smile at her choice of words.
She's right though. And you, mortal as you are, couldn't exactly say no.
In the long run it was two adults, saying yes to something that apparently had been a long time coming(affirmed by your friends) for both of you. And afterwards you spent a long time coming.
But yet again you remind yourself that Chloe was drunk, you weren't. You can't help feeling you took advantage of her in her inebriated state. But for those moments it had been...something out of a dream(No pun intended) but better. Sex with Chloe, the real thing, everything about it was just...perfect-she was perfect.
The way you held each other, kissed, caressed one another. Those weren't just mere actions, they meant something, conveyed everything you couldn't find the words to say. I love you. It's always been you-No one else.
And for a split second you could believe that she knew, that she responded similarly, felt as deeply. For you, there was a confirmation in the way she kissed you so softly, the way she whispered out your name like it was sacred, like saying it loudly could break you out of that moment you were both experiencing, when you reached your peak, how she held you to her as though she'd never let you go. The way she looked at you in wonder, with love. It felt too precious, fragile enough to shatter.
You remember that clearly. You could hardly believe it.
You close your eyes and reach out your hand feeling, empty, but still warm sheets, to the pillow that had been on Chloe's side. You bring it close to your cheek.
"Erm should I leave you two alone?" Stacie asks, breaking you out of your thoughts. She's staring at you and the pillow you held closely.
You flush at having been caught up- then caught-in your Chloe moment there. You roll your eyes. "Do you know where she went?"
"Usually I'd be like, its not like she'd get very far. But yeah this place is huge she could be literally anywhere. But I think of all people you'd know most likely where she'd wander of to."
"Who would wander off where?" Far Amy comes in with Aubrey, then the rest of the girls in tow.
You shrink further to the bed. There's seriously nothing between you, your naked body and them but a thin sheet.
You don't want anyone else, Aubrey and Fat Amy least of all, to know what had happened before you could discuss things with Chloe.
You look to Stacie willing for her to read your mind.
"Aubrey, have you seen Chloe?" Stacie says not understanding your silent plea
Aubrey raises her brows.
"No, I haven't seen her since last night before she went off to bed. She was completely plastered so I brought her as far as our door so she should be here or did she not make it into the room, Beca?" Aubrey's inquisitive gaze feels stifling the longer it stays on you and you feel yourself sweating.
"No, I mean...yes, I remember she definitely got here." you say willing your face to look completely innocent.
"Yeah she definitely came here alright." Stacie says eyes flashing wickedly.
"So. Where is she?" Aubrey says after looking through the room, checking the washroom, the porch.
"I don't know exactly." you say lamely. "I didn't catch her leaving. She left m-earlier when I was asleep."
"Why would she go?" Cynthia asks her eyes questioning 'What happened' and seeimg her eyes clear up with understanding. Shit, you think she knows.
"I don't know." you murmur feeling like a total idiot Feeling like you could make a good guess at the answer. Clearly she hated what had happened, and now she decided that she fully, wholly hated you.
"We'll go find her then. She can't have wandered very far. I can bring out my kangassins to hunt her down, they'll know to just find and not kill." Fat Amy offers.
"Find who?" Benji wanders in, followed by all the boys. You sink the lowest you can into the bed (if you'd gone any lower the mattress would have sucked you in by now.)
Benji makes a beeline to Amy and hugs her.
The hell. Who had decided to make this room into some unofficial reception hall.
"Chloe." Amy answers after kissing Benji, "Have any of you guys seen her at all this morning?"
No one had. Of course and maybe if they had they couldn't be entirely sure, they're still slightly out of shape; drowsy and hung over. You see them settling into the other beds. You see them glancing longingly at the one you're currently occupying filled with free new space to occupy. No way in hell are you sharing this bed.
Not like this. Not with any boy. Not with anyone else.
This can't get any worse. You can't wait for the reveal that you're naked under there- The joy.
"Twig ginger's missing?" comes Pawpaw's booming voice.
Oh god. This trip was set to make sure your ego and whatever self respect you had left, completely died so you could no longer show your face to anyone.
"You lost Chloe?" Jesse asks you. You want to be defensive. But his sentence held more to it. A deeper truth. You may have lost her forever and you never really had her in the first place.
You know when you have something slightly broken and then instead of fixing it straight away you let it stay there until more things become messed up because of it and then later when it's at its most fragile you just completely crush it to fine dust because you're sure you can't do anything else to fix it. Yup that was you did, that was you, the epic failure.
"And why aren't you more concerned, Beca. Why don't you get out of bed and we can start looking for her." Aubrey chastises, her stare bearing down on you, annoyed and judgemental.
Her stare hardens for each second you stay still- not saying or doing anything.
You internally start to panic, you look around trying to find a possible way to distract them to make a quick exit. You catch a glance of Stacie, who legit looks like she might wet herself, she's biting her lip hard trying to stop the laughter you can see is practically bursting to get out. Thanks, Stace. Really.
She shrugs in a 'what can you do' motion.
Exactly. You can't do anything. You can't even move since there's too many people blocking your way.
Fudge Nuggets. Here you go.
"Uh. I'm not decent." you say trying to put it as delicately as you can.
"Completely indecent. "Fat Amy agrees, "Get off your ass.
Look at us we're up and about when we were drinking our poor livers dead." you raise a brow looking around at everyone still strewn about every whichway in your room. The ones not on the beds had sunk to the floor littering it like booby traps, hindering you from running anywhere. Fat Amy shrugs.
"Dude, I am not being rude, I'm just nude." you half mumble the last part
"Pardon?" Aubrey asks, confused.
"She said she's not in the mood?" one of the boys say.
"You're not in the mood. How selfish are you right now Beca, what's wrong with you?'
They're really gonna make you say it out loud.
"I didn't say that I'm not in the mood." you say, barely controlling yourself, before you lose your shit and start shouting "-I said I'm nude... I'm naked. I'm in my freaking birthday suit. How else can I say it. God!"
There's a collective oh that goes around and plenty of sorry's (Pawpa stutters out an apology before quickly leaving-the most timid you'd ever seen him)and everyone looks chastised enough. You do see a couple of furtive looks.
You move the pillow closer to your chest not taking a chance with just the blanket.
You wait a beat of a second and yet still nobody else moves.
"Yeah so maybe I can get a little privacy here, get dressed then we can go find Chloe."
The boys immediately start to leave.
Jesse stays and leans close which isn't helpful.
"What Jess?" you say, leaning back and at the same time wanting to push him away.
"Nothing. Do you want to talk...about any recent developments?" he says, mentioning his head to you and your state of undress.
"Uh maybe preferably when I'm clothed so...that can wait."
He nods but his eyes say that he wasn't gonna let it past.
You look around at all your girlfriends who are still comfortably sitting around your room not at all bothered by your declaration.
"Um I know you guys are my bellas sisters but our closeness has its limits. I need to get ready."
"Beca c'mon we all have em. Some more than others but they're basically the same." says Fat Amy.
"Whatever if you won't leave can you guys throw me my clothes?"you grumble. Or maybe you'll just wrap the blanket around you and then go to the washroom.
"Fine we'll go. We were just messing with you, besides words in that there's food already laid out. We'll take turns looking after grabbing a quick bite." says Cynthia Rose. That was all they needed as they all speedily leave.
Stacie walks up to the bed then leans close, "It'll be okay. You guys will sort this out or fuck things out. Whatever happens, if you need any advice...I'm here."
"Thanks Stace." you say, she sits and then hugs you.
"My, my Becs. I can feel your nipples hardening." she laughs, you blush then push her off.
"You were the one feeling me up plus its cold."
"Yeah yeah." She laughs. " Hurry up."
"I'll follow!" you shout after a couple of moments. You finally get to move off the bed, leaving the blanket. You stretch and groan at hearing your bones pop. You move to your drawers and choose your clothes but now, with no one there you freely walk around, you choose to air out your body which had become slightly sweaty since you had no choice but to stay under the sheets.
You rush to the washroom needing desperately to take a shower.
Your shower isn't a short one. It takes a couple of minutes for the heat to get going and several minutes more for you to enjoy it.
You hear from inside the front door opening and a couple of the girls stepping inside.
They call out something but in the shower you hardly understand it.
Something like "Chloe not found, they fear.."
Whatever they meant it sounded bad. Ominous.
You clean yourself quickly and after reach for your towel on its usual place but you remembered you'd left it on your bed. You step out, still dripping and head to your bed.
"I hope nothing happened to her." You muse aloud.
" I hope they find her so I can get to tell Chloe-"
"Tell me what?"
"Chloe!?" You turn around, but quickly turn back remembering your state of undress then pull the closest thing- a curtain to cover yourself. This was so weirdly reminiscent of your first meeting.
You temporarily forget your embarrassment when you recall your earlier apprehension,the worry she put you through. "What the hell. Where have you been? Everyone's out there looking for you!"
"I was taking a morning swim."
You do look down at her in a bikini, her towel loosely hanging around her neck.
You flush even more seeing Chloe, fresh and clean and so very lovely. Her cheeks red, and pool water still clinging to her skin.
This was almost dejavu how you were both wet, both exposed. Well one more than the other. You shouldn't be staring but you can't stop, and what else can you do when no one's saying anything and the tension is so thick it could be cut with a knife.
You can't bear to look her in the eyes cos she'll immediately know that instead of feeling apologetic and guilty like you're supposed to be feeling you're completely...you can't even finish that thought. You're thinking with the wrong organ, feeling yourself getting distracted-you swallow thickly as you watch a droplet of water enticingly fall just in between her breast.
You can't help yourself and apparently neither can she cos you don't move more than two steps (the curtain follows, stretches along) and yet she's closer, close enough that you can see all of her and you see that she had marks everywhere. Scratches, bruises.
What wild animal attacked her while swimming-wait a minute those are...hickeys, nail marks.
Shit. Did you do that.
You reach out to touch them, to wordlessly convey your feelings, your regret about this, regret that you had marred her perfection, regret for all the little white lies that grew into even bigger ones. Regret that you couldn't take it all back. Your hand shakes as you gently trace from her arms, to her collarbone, to her face-you're transfixed- watching the trail of goosebumps that sprout at their wake, when you hear a gasp fall out of her lips and you realise with a jolt that you shouldn't be doing this- you shouldn't be distracted.
Talk first. Fix things first. Explain.
You move to pull your hand away but then her hand's grasping yours, holding it in place. Your eyes jumps to meet hers and you knew you shouldn't have. Its game over from here on out, you completely give up because you see it there, that she was completely sober now and it was clear that there was no regret on her end, only want.
You push away the white hot pang you feel striking through you at the thought of all the stuff you did and all you still want to do to Chloe.
"Chloe," you whisper, "I'm sorry." for a lot of things, for being weak, for being selfish. For lying to you.
She shakes her head and leans in and kisses your cheek, "You didn't do anything that I didn't encourage you to in the first place." she smiles saucily, you flush, she kisses you yet again this time on your nose. Your face is positively tomato red right manage a smile though it's still strained.
You don't deserve her or her forgiving kisses.
She shakes her head and leans in kisses your lips softly first, then with purpose as she pushes closer till she's backed you up against the wall. Her hands find the cloth of the curtain still head tightly in your hand and pulls. The cool air that hits your body makes your body shiver, but its her eyes that make you tremble inside.
"Chloe," you gasp out, nearly going into cardiac arrest when you see her fall to her knees and slowly spread your legs, "Shouldn't we talk about this first?" you say breathlessly as she starts placing kisses up your legs, to your thighs, your eyes close and your head leans back.
"This first, talk later."
"Chloe stop." you say firmly, you don't know how you manage to do it.
She senses it, as she always does with you- she sees your regret. And maybe for her sake as well as yours she gives you an easy way out.
"Don't worry. This doesn't have to be serious. Lets not label it anything-it can be two friends just enjoying each other's presence in a new casual no strings attached way." She says though her eyes, her gentle motions seem to show the complete opposite.
"We don't need to label it." you echo, then groan out when you feel her breath right there.
"Okay less talking more screaming."
You know that this was stupid you were digging an even deeper hole for you to burry yourself in. But there was a certain death waiting if you said no to anything Chloe offered you that was part of her, that included her.
But what you said was the truth you never had to label anything between the two of you. It just was.
You just hoped it'd be a ltle better with your new arrangement to ease into telling her the truth, you know in your heart you wouldn't be content if you couldn't have it all with her. For now you'd have to just show her through actions that you cared for her as so much more.