AN/ NEARLY A MONTH LATER, GUESS WHO'S BACK?! THAT'S RIGHT GUYS, I'VE FINALLY MANAGED TO WRITE A CHAPTER FOR THIS. IT'S BEEN SUPER HARD TO DO THAT LATELY, AND I HAVEN'T REALLY HAD MUCH INSPIRATION FOR THIS, BECAUSE I STUPIDLY LEFT THE FOUR SONGS ON THE ALBUM THAT I DIDN'T HAVE MANY IDEAS FOR UNTIL THE END. SO, IF YOU GUYS HAVE ANY IDEAS FOR THE STORY I CAN ASSOCIATE WITH 'GAMES,' 'SEXY DIRTY LOVE' OR 'CONCENTRATE' I'M ALL EARS.
48 DAYS UNTIL I SEE DEMI LOVATO LIVE! ANYONE ELSE SEEING HER OR BEEN TO SEE HER? I'M SO EXCITED!
THAT ASIDE, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ALL OF THE SUPPORT UP TO NOW, AND HERE'S THE NEXT CHAPTER…
"I get a little obsessive, a little aggressive, a little bit too invested,
Whatever you want, whenever you want, that's what you get cause,
You're unavailable, and I'm insatiable.
Lucky for you, I've got all these daddy issues,
What can I do? I'm going crazy when I'm with you.
Forget all the therapy that I've been through.
Lucky for you, I've got all these daddy issues…"
"Here goes nothing," Beca muttered as she, Demi and Lauren made their way into the board room of their new label.
Giggling, Lauren ran over to one of the spinning chairs, jumping onto it and making it spin as fast as possible.
"Honestly, Kittens," Demi chuckled as she watched her girlfriend, "People say I'm the kid here…"
"You're just jealous that the chair you picked doesn't spin!" Lauren laughed, the chair slowing to a halt. She stood up, staggering over to Beca. "I swear it's easier to walk in a straight line when you're hammered than to walk straight when you're dizzy."
Beca rolled her eyes, and muttered, "And that's the best of Lauren everybody."
"Lighten up, Mitchell," Demi began, "Please stop stressing, it's not a good look for you."
Beca looked at Demi threateningly, clenching her fists when Demi smiled at her.
"What?" Demi teased, "nobody will want to work for you if you're a scary boss…"
"I'm starting to see why few people want to work with you Lovato."
"I'm just too much for them to handle."
"You can say that again," Beca deadpanned, and Demi stuck her middle finger up at her. "Remind me why we thought it would be a good idea for all of us to work in the same place together?"
"According to Posen, it would be 'fun'" Lauren replied usefully.
"All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," Demi interjected, smirking as she suggestively added, "And Beca needs someone else to work with her so she can go home and play with Chloe."
"Shut up, Lovato."
Demi simply winked back at Beca, turning her attention to the various sheets on the desk in front of her.
An hour later, the trio were still sat around the table digesting the never ending mountain of paperwork.
"I hate this shit." Demi declared, swinging back on her chair. "Who invented paperwork?"
"I like to think it was Aubrey," Beca suggested.
"Well, you do blame her for everything, so it's really no surprise there," Demi agreed. "But honestly, why do we have to have paperwork?"
"Because we are responsible, independent adults," Lauren replied, flicking through the bills. "Which of you decided to spend a thousand dollars on guitars?"
Beca dropped the sheets in her hand as she looked at Demi.
"That would be me," Demi admitted.
"Why did you do that Lovato?" Beca demanded.
"Because we need good ones."
"But me and Lauren just use Garageband."
"So? I use them when I'm writing."
"Yeah, but we can't afford to spend that kind of money. Not yet, anyway."
"But why not?"
"Because, at the minute, our label is solely composed of me, you and Kittens."
"And?"
"And that means, at least until we sign some other people and drop some music, we have no money."
"But we have money…"
"That money is our own money though, not the label's."
"And that matters because?"
"And if we start spending our own individual money on the label, if one of us leaves in the future it will be a big legal mess." Beca sighed, cradling her head in her hands. "This is giving me a headache."
Lauren giggled at Beca's serious expression. "Breathe, Mitchell."
Beca rolled her eyes and sighed. "Right, I'm going up to my studio to work for a bit. You two get on with sorting this paperwork."
"Alright… Boss…" Demi teased.
"I hate you so much Lovato."
"Love you too, Mitchell."
Beca wandered into her studio, breathing a sigh of relief because – unlike everywhere else in the building – it was organised. Her equipment was on the desk, her Grammys on the wall, and there wasn't a single sheet of paperwork in sight; just how she liked it.
Switching on her MacBook, she pulled some headphones out of her bag and slipped them over her ears, preparing to do some edits on Demi's album. It was nearly done, and she was starting to get that feeling of anticipation she always did as the date they were going to drop it approached.
Letting herself get lost in the music, she started to add some synths into their latest track, Daddy Issues, finding herself begin to grin as the song hit its chorus.
She loved this song, as did Demi, because it made her think of Chloe. Like, it might be about Demi's torrid experience with an older man, but the whole concept of her daddy issues making her reckless was something Beca could relate to on a personal level.
Being reckless always took her back to Barden.
Barden: Freshman Year.
"No, Dad," Beca all but yelled down the phone, "I point blank refuse to do that."
"But come on, Becs, she's your sister." Beca swore silently at that weak argument from her father.
"Stepsister. And anyway, she's just like the stepmonster."
"I thought we had moved past that."
"No, we haven't."
"Beca…"
"Dad…"
"Come on, she's only here for the weekend, a dinner won't hurt you."
"It will if I have to sit with them two."
"Please do this Beca, she's family."
"And? What did family matter to you when you left Mum to move two states away?"
"Beca-"
"What did family matter to you when you had an affair?"
"Beca, please calm down-"
"No, don't fucking use the whole 'family' excuse on me."
"Beca, I've said I'm sorry…"
"Yeah, well, you should have made it right when I was a kid, shouldn't you?"
"Oh my god Beca, grow up."
"I did. Not that you were there to see it. See you later."
"Beca don't put that phone-"
She cut him off before he got to finish his sentence.
There was the slamming of the door downstairs, and Beca cursed. Right now, she wasn't in the place to deal with any of the Bellas, least of all Aubrey. She couldn't deal with any more people trying to control her life. This was the third angry phone call she'd had with her dad this week, and now, as she stared at the screen of her phone, she found herself desperate to just block his number.
Hearing the slam of a door in the kitchen, Beca wandered down the stairs, knowing it was probably a good idea to go and be sociable. As she crossed the lounge, she heard the sound of another heated discussion on a telephone.
"Honestly, Bree, I'm sick of it!"
Beca smiled at the sound of that voice, knowing it was Chloe, but the smile quickly changed to a frown when she realised how annoyed Chloe sounded.
"I'm sick of not being able to control my own feelings. Like, wherever I go, I can't unsee her."
At this point, Beca wandered a little closer to the kitchen door, really curious about who Chloe was talking to Aubrey about. Usually, eavesdropping wasn't her thing, but this time, she was desperate to know.
"Ever since the showers. I can't deal anymore."
Beca raised an eyebrow at that, suddenly wishing that she could hear Aubrey's reply.
"Bree, I can't stop thinking about her. She said 'you never know, maybe that brunette likes you back.' Like, what the hell kind of cryptic message is that?"
There was a brief pause, as Chloe listened to whatever Aubrey was saying.
Beca pondered about why Chloe was quoting her words, and began to wonder why she had interpreted it as a 'cryptic message.'
"Aubrey," Chloe stressed, "I swear down, if she doesn't like me back I don't know what I'll do. I can't just ask her."
Beca began to see where this was going and beamed, deciding to go into the kitchen.
"Aubrey, I can't just announce I'm in love with Beca Mitchell!" Chloe all but yelled into the phone, hanging up when she heard someone move behind her. Seeing Beca stood there, she swore. "Shit."
"Erm, hi Chlo –" Beca stammered, blushing slightly.
"How much of that did you hear?" Chloe demanded, feeling herself start to demand.
"Enough to get what was going on."
"And?"
"And it's totally cool, like, I feel the same way, sooo…"
"Wait, what?" Chloe asked.
"Yeah, you heard me."
"But, Aubrey said you're…"
"Aubrey's denying her own sexuality, so how can she judge mine."
"So what you said in the showers?"
"Totally true. All you have to do is ask."
"Really?"
"Really."
"So, Beca, would you maybe like to, I don't know, go for a coffee together?"
"What, like on a date?" Beca teased.
"It depends."
"On what?"
"On you."
"Then I'll go grab my coat, it's a date."
And that was how it all started. Everyone else might have thought it was after the showers, or at the party at Treble House, or Regionals, but it really, she and Chloe got together after Beca had a frustrating phone call with her dad.
It was the only time she'd ever been thankful for her daddy issues…
Present Day.
"Hey Mitchell," a voice called out from behind her, a voice that got so much louder when its owner pulled her headphones off. "It's been four hours, come on, we need to head home."
"Huh?" Beca mumbled groggily, shocked that she'd been so absorbed in the music for that long.
"Me and Lauren finally got that mountain of paperwork under control."
"Well done, Demi," Beca praised, standing up from her chair. "How had I been sat there for that long?"
"Must have been in deep thought."
"Yeah, something like that," Beca admitted. "So, yeah, I think we're nearly done with your album Lovato."
"You do?"
"Well I've polished off Daddy Issues, and all that's left to finish is Sexy Dirty Love, Games and Concentrate."
"And it's only a matter of editing them, isn't it?"
"Yep. That's all there really is left to do."
"Jeez, it only seems like yesterday that we started writing these songs Mitchell."
"And now the whole album will be ready to drop at the end of the month."
"That's scary."
"I know."
"We aren't the same people we were three months ago, are we Mitchell?"
Beca smiled softly. "Not in the slightest."
"It's mad how much stuff has changed."
"Tell me about it."
"Hey, you two," Lauren shouted from downstairs. "You guys coming? I've rang Chloe to say we'll pick her up on the way back to Beca's."
The pair looked at each other and shared a glance. Beca smiled softly, and they walked downstairs.
"You two look thoughtful," Lauren commented as she observed the way they were behaving.
"End of an era, Kittens." Beca mused, as they climbed into Lauren's car.
Beca couldn't quite get over the fact that Demi's album was nearly finished.
And there was no escaping the fact that in these three months, she had completely changed.
When all this was finished, and the label was up and running, where would she be in three months' time? Beca didn't know.
But she did know one thing: she'd have Chloe Beale by her side.
AN/ ALL GOOD THINGS MUST COME TO AN END, AND I HAVE A FEELING THAT IN TWO OR THREE CHAPTERS, WE'LL HAVE MET THE END OF THIS. WHAT WILL HAPPEN THEN? SHOULD I DO A SPIN OFF USING SONGS BY OTHER ARTISTS? I DON'T KNOW, BUT AT THE MINUTE I HAVE IDEAS FOR THAT IF YOU GUYS WOULD WANT TO READ IT.
AS ALWAYS, TEN REVIEWS AND I'LL POST THE NEXT CHAPTER… IT'S NEARLY FINISHED!
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING, I HOPE YOU ALL ENJOYED IT!