On Saturday morning Chloe woke up and prepared herself to make a familiar journey for another morning-after cleanup. She was not impressed with herself. Closing in on thirty years old and still she was making these types of drunken mistakes. Except she hadn't been drunk last night - just horny. But same difference, right?

Beca was not going to be impressed with her either. Besides grovelling for her forgiveness Chloe would need to make Beca believe that it had been nothing more than a momentary lapse - that she's had a really bad day and week at work, then faced with the tiniest tease she'd lost control just for a second. It was not like it was the first time Chloe had done something like this, Beca would have to understand that.

She didn't text or call, she just drove straight to Beca's.

She rang the bell and stood in front of the video intercom, with what she hoped looked like a contrite expression. She heard the intercom click and steadied herself.

"You know, there are not many people who can get away with ringing my doorbell this early on a Saturday," Beca said. She didn't sound angry. Maybe it wasn't surprising that Beca would start this with a joke.

"Beca, it's me. Please let me in, I'm so sorry about last night and I need to explain."

"Sure, come on up," Beca replied, and buzzed her in.

When Beca opened the door, Chloe saw that she was still not showered or dressed and her hair looked like a bird's nest.

"I'm sorry - I got you out of bed."

"Don't worry about that," Beca replied, "We need to talk about what happened last night. I'll make some coffee."

Beca ambled to the kitchen to prepare the coffee. She seemed relaxed. It was unsettling for Chloe that Beca was so relaxed. Perhaps she wasn't fully awake yet.

"I am really sorry Beca. It's so embarrassing - I was acting like a horny teenager last night. I regretted it instantly, and I promise it won't happen ever again. Thank god you stopped us from making a huge mistake." Chloe looked up to see if it was working, to gauge if Beca was willing to accept her apology. She couldn't tell yet, Beca was just looking at her blankly.

"I was really drained and stressed from work this week and I've been needing some relief, and then the opportunity was just right there last night. I wasn't thinking. Also it has been a bit of a dry spell for me recently."

Beca left the kitchen area then, abandoning the coffee, and she sat on her sofa. Chloe observed that she wasn't quiet so relaxed anymore and a bit distant. But Chloe had now introduced the topic of other people, something they had never talked about since Chloe had arrived in LA.

"Oh?" was Beca's response. She was the one who'd said two minutes earlier that they needed to talk about it and now she was contributing one word, one syllable, to the discussion.

Chloe nodded emphatically. "Yes. A few weeks ago, I did something similar to a colleague from work. It was out of nowhere, completely unwarranted. Lucky that we both had a sense of humour about it. And shortly after I arrived in LA, Aubrey introduced me to one of her very nervous assistants, and I misread that, badly." She laughed out the last few words.

"I seem to still have this weakness when people are completely flustered. Like you were, when I arrived last night."

"Don't worry about it Chloe. Just get you needs fulfilled elsewhere, Ok?"

Beca was making this easy for her, she was neither angry nor evasive. She was acting like this was no big deal and that it wouldn't change anything. That attitude suited Chloe perfectly, but it was hard to believe.

"That's it? I know you were upset last night Beca, I heard you crying. What's changed?"

"I wasn't upset or crying Chloe, it just really took me by surprise when you were standing there."

Maybe she'd been mistaken about the sobbing sounds she thought she'd heard. So Chloe chose to believe Beca's apparent indifference - it was the easiest option at that moment. And since Beca was accepting Chloe's explanation too was there any reason to push it?

"Oh yes, of course. I guess I did sneak up on you."

Chloe concluded that whatever Beca's strategy had been, the outcome she had been seeking must have been the same as hers. They'd agreed now that what had happened didn't mean anything and it wouldn't change anything between them. They were still friends and only friends. It was just another audacious Chloe anecdote for the future.

"Let's just forget it, ok? Your head was completely clouded by lust, and you made a mistake." Beca said.

Chloe gave Beca a playful thump on the arm. When Beca feigned a grimace, Chloe then rubbed her hand gently up and down on the site of the non-existent injury. Only when Chloe realised what she was doing did she consider that it might be a little odd. At least the timing of it was odd. They were flirting again now, because that's what they do as friends, right?

oOo

Chloe couldn't ignore Aubrey's message. It wasn't an option. This wasn't an invitation - it was a summons.

Aubrey [9.10] : I'm at your apartment. Where are you? Get here as soon as possible.

Chloe was relieved to have an excuse to leave Beca's. It had been weird at the end, with both of them agreeing to forget the events of night before, but neither able to ignore the fact that talking about it had been the sole purpose of Chloe's visit. Next time they saw each other it would be back to normal.

Aubrey was not going to be impressed with her either. Chloe hadn't been very creative with her excuse for cancelling on dinner. Aubrey would have seen through the fake illness trick and her mood would not be improving the longer Chloe left her waiting. She sped home and met Aubrey at a nearby breakfast place.

"I was at Beca's," Chloe said by way of apology.

Aubrey's stern expression was transformed by a wide smile. "Finally!" she said. It was loud enough to distract everyone else in the restaurant.

"No! I mean I had to go round there this morning. Because of what happened last night."

Aubrey's smile grew even bigger. "I can't wait to hear this," she said.

So Chloe told a condensed version of the story and explained her actions using the same rationale as she had with Beca earlier. Aubrey wanted the detailed version.

"Tell me exactly what happened from the moment you arrived at Beca's last night," she said.

Chloe wondered when Aubrey had turned into such a gossip, but she figured it could be therapeutic for her to revisit the details anyway. When Chloe got to the critical part of the story, she remembered something that she'd ignored earlier - Beca's reaction had not been instant.

"There was definitely a weird vibe, she was singing that song that she knows is my ..., anyway it seemed obvious where it was heading."

"Are you sure Chloe?"

I know the way she was looking at me, she wanted it too. Before she freaked out."

"Maybe she didn't want to ruin all the progress you've made just to get laid."

Chloe considered it for a moment, it actually made perfect sense to her now.

"Exactly! That's it!"

Aubrey put her shaking head in her hands and let out an elongated "Chloe" with her exhalation.

"It was exactly the same for her," Chloe continued with the same enthusiasm, still grasping onto her Eureka moment.

Chloe thought she had it all worked out now. That's why Beca didn't give her a hard time that morning about her overactive libido – because Beca's was in need of some release too. Fortunately Beca was a little smarter when it came to controlling hers and was able to stop them last night. One near miss would be enough to maintain the status quo from now on, whereas one mistake could have really ruined things.

Chloe had it all worked out but when she explained it, Aubrey wasn't convinced.

"Interesting theory. Here's another one – you're in denial. Can you honestly tell me that you are one hundred percent certain there is no chance that something else is going on?"

"I just need to put an end to my dry spell. And Beca needs to end hers too," Chloe insisted once more.

"How is that working out for you? Are you meeting a lot of people that you would like to sleep with more than you want to sleep with Beca?"

"Shut up, Aubrey."

They both shut up for a while, and kept occupied ordering some food and then checking their phones.

"What's your plan Chloe? Are you going to move back to New York?"

"I still haven't decided."

"Because of Beca?"

"No."

"Here's what I think..."

"Don't want to hear it, Aubrey."

"Don't care. I think that if you move back then you and Beca will stay friends but distant ones, and if you stay in LA there is no way you can remain friends. You'll either be a lot more, or a lot less."

Chloe was ignoring Aubrey now but to herself she couldn't deny some things. She and Beca were spending a lot more time together alone. She liked being at Beca's place and there was something thrilling that made it hard to sleep on those nights when she knew Beca was sleeping in the next room. She enjoyed the meals they ate together in Beca's kitchen, because it was so natural and comfortable to share that space with her. She especially enjoyed it when they shared breakfast together after staying overnight.

They had stopped being cautious about evading situations where something could happen. Was that because they never thought anything like last night could have occurred or was it because one or both of them thought it could?

Chloe wouldn't agree that she was in denial, she was just trying to protect herself. Surely that was the number one lesson from all that had happened between her and Beca before. She had to take care of her now delicate heart and that means you don't fall for the cynical alt girl. You definitely don't fall for the same one over and over.

So she couldn't let herself love Beca again.

Could she?

It would be another ride on that roller-coaster that would end up destroying everything again.

Wouldn't it?

The look she threw at Aubrey gave her away. Aubrey leaned over towards her and spoke with kindness.

"What's the problem Chloe?"

"I don't know if I can trust her again." Chloe admitted, "What if she just breaks my heart all over again?"

oOoOo

Beca had cancelled on Friday with a text too. She had spent so long sitting on the side of her bathtub after she had thrown Chloe out, that by the time she was ready to get dressed, she was already half an hour later for dinner. Like Chloe she'd also received a reply on Saturday morning demanding a proper explanation.

While Chloe was meeting Aubrey, the other half of the quartet were also meeting at another restaurant for a conversation on the same topic.

Beca expected that Chloe's story at the restaurant on Friday night matched the one that they had indirectly agreed to at her apartment earlier. That story would be that they had almost had sex, that Chloe's inability to control her desires was to blame, that Beca's good sense had been the hero which prevented them from making a "huge" mistake, that it was no big deal and that there was no risk of it happening again.

So that was the story Beca would tell too.

What happened to never lying to or about Chloe again?

The truth was that when Beca had turned to see Chloe stepping into the shower with her, she knew she wanted it too, and not just sex. That was what she was planning to talk about when Chloe showed up at her door. But Beca had also been afraid that inviting Chloe back into her bed in that impulsive moment might have been a mistake. And she'd been right. Chloe had quickly and firmly stated her position that morning - it was lust that had been driving her, it would have been just sex and it would have screwed up their friendship again. Realising that too late would have left Beca even more devastated by Chloe than she already was, so Beca had been right to throw Chloe out.

"I'm sorry about last night," Beca said as soon as she saw Jesse, "I was exhausted and I was running really late. But also I thought it might have been easier for poor Chloe if I wasn't there."

"Chloe didn't show either. She said she wasn't well. What's going on, Beca?"

"Choe was lying. She was probably too embarrassed about what happened to show her face." Chloe never mentioned that she had skipped out on dinner too. They hadn't talked about it at all. They hadn't talked about anything else except the shower incident, and once it was resolved, apparently, Chloe had quickly left.

Beca told Jesse the version of the events on Friday night that she understood to be the official story now. It was generally a more entertaining and amusing version, without any tears.

"She was so embarrassed when she came round to apologise this morning, it was hilarious. She is such an idiot sometimes," Beca concluded. Jesse didn't join in the laughter, he observed her curiously, in a way that creepily reminded her of Aubrey - eyes narrowed, lips pursed and then the head cocked to the side.

"What? Come on!" She grinned, trying to get him on board with the joke.

"So she was naked in your shower. And you hadn't done anything to encourage her to be there? And you weren't interested, not even a little bit?"

"No and I told her to get out. We are just friends now. Anyway it wasn't about me, it could have been anyone. Did you hear the part about her dry spell making her act like a horny teenager?"

"Did that bother you? That she said it could have been anyone? It wasn't just you she wanted?"

Beca answered with just a simple unconvincing "No" this time. A lie about Chloe, or to Chloe, didn't count, when it was to preserve what they had agreed the boundaries of their relationship would be from now on.

"Because you knew that it wasn't true?"

"No!"She tried a little more emphatically with this denial.

It did bother me, because I don't want it to be true.

"Let me ask you this Beca. What would happen if she told you she was dating someone?"

"She's not."

Is she?

"This game is called 'what if'. What if Chloe were dating someone else?"

"But she's not dating anyone else," Beca repeated.

I wouldn't want to know because it would make me crazy jealous.

She wasn't interested in playing this game, but he knew that and he clearly also knew why.

"Because? ...Because she won't date someone else? Because she's waiting for you?"

"No Jesse, she is not waiting for me."

I'm waiting for her, and I don't know how long I can keep doing that.

"And are you sure you're Ok with that?"

No, Beca was not Ok with that.

"I have to be because that's how it is and that's what she wants. She said that last night we avoided "a huge mistake", and besides, she doesn't think we are compatible - apparently I'm too guarded with my feelings and I take too long to figure them out."

"Sounds to me like you have your feelings figured out just fine, maybe she's the one being guarded."

oOo