"Bree, are you ready to go?" Chloe walked into the living room of the house she shared with Aubrey and found the blonde with her legs curled underneath her on the couch, scrolling through her phone.
Aubrey opened her mouth to answer but stopped when she looked up and saw her roommate. Her eyes narrowed. "Why do you look like that?"
"Like what?" Chloe's voice was innocent but she briefly averted her eyes.
"You're wearing a full face of makeup and the tightest jeans you own." Aubrey adjusted her position to stretch out her legs before standing. She went to a mirror hanging by their door as she started pulling her hair into a messy bun. "Those are not going to be comfortable at the movies. Who are you trying to impress?"
"I'm not trying to impress anyone!" Chloe crossed her arms in front of herself and let out an exasperated sigh. She started tapping her foot. "Are you ready?"
Aubrey finished tying her hair and looked at the watch on her wrist. "If we leave now we're going to be too early. Even for me." Usually it was Aubrey pushing Chloe out the door so they're not late.
"I have a super small errand I need to run so we need to leave a little earlier." There was that innocent tone again.
Aubrey frowned. "Can't it wait?" Chloe bit her lip and shook her head. "What could you possibly have to do on our way to the movies that can't wait?"
Chloe smiled brightly and started shifting her weight from leg to leg. "We just need to swing by Baker Hall and grab Beca's textbook from her dorm and bring it to the radio station."
Aubrey had turned to grab her hoodie from the back of a chair but, after hearing Chloe's words, spun quickly to face her. "Excuse me?" Chloe kept her smile bright despite the intense look on Aubrey's face. "How the hell did that happen?"
"I bumped into her at the beginning of her shift. She realized she forgot her book and started freaking out because she has a test tomorrow. I offered to grab it because I knew we were going back that way." Chloe shrugged. Aubrey stood there staring at her. "It's no big deal, Bree! It will take two seconds."
Aubrey closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. No wonder the redhead was dressed to kill. "Chloe, I don't think you can say you-" the blonde hooked her fingers in air quotes, "-bumped into someone when you went to their place of employment."
Chloe grinned as she grabbed Aubrey's hand and tugged her out the door. Aubrey jerked her hand out of Chloe's grasp and crossed her arms over her chest while she walked. Chloe glanced at her best friend, noticing her clenched jaw and hard foreward stare.
She lightly bumped Aubrey's shoulder with her own. "Don't be so grumpy." Aubrey kept walking and didn't respond. Chloe rolled her eyes. "If this was anyone else you wouldn't even care. You just hate Beca."
"I don't hate Beca," Aubrey said a bit too forcefully. "I just don't like her attitude."
The new group of Bellas had only been rehearsing for about a month but it was clear to anyone present that Aubrey and Beca had a hard time seeing eye to eye. Aubrey knew they were going to have to make it work somehow, especially given Chloe's fondness for the tiny alt girl. As they continued to walk, Aubrey idly wondered if Chloe realized how obvious her crush was to everyone. Everyone, that is, except maybe clueless Beca.
When they reached Baker Hall, Aubrey followed Chloe into the dorm building and trailed her as she walked with familiar ease around bends in the hall until she stopped in front of a door. Chloe knocked in case Beca's roommate was home but when no one answered she started searching her pockets for the key Beca had given her earlier.
"You've been here before."
Chloe found the key and paused for a second on her way to unlocking the door. "So have you."
Aubrey rolled her eyes, remembering when they had to get Beca for her initiation into the Bellas. "You've been here more than once."
Chloe opened the door and entered Beca's room, choosing to ignore Aubrey's statement. Aubrey narrowed her eyes at Chloe's back before following her into the room. The blonde looked around the small space, seeing it for the first time in the light of day. A desk covered in mixing equipment indicated what side of the room was Beca's. Aubrey looked at her unmade bed and the tangle of sheets towards the end. It wasn't as messy as she thought it would be but it wasn't tidy either. Aubrey looked to the other side of the room with appreciation for Beca's roommate's perfectly made bed and neat belongings. Even the stacks of books on the desk and nightstand looked like they were exactly where they belonged.
Aubrey drifted towards that side of the room and lightly trailed her fingers across the books on the nightstand. It briefly occurred to her that she was invading someone's privacy but she shrugged off the thought. She didn't even want to be here and she didn't know Beca's roommate anyway. Aubrey scanned the titles of the books and her eyes widened slightly. The books were all fairly heavy material, not light bedtime reads. The thick book resting closest to the bed, the one that had a bookmark sticking out about a quarter of the way through it, was one of Aubrey's favorites: Atlas Shrugged. Aubrey resisted the urge to open the book at the bookmark to see exactly where in the 1,000+ page book the roommate was.
Aubrey moved away from the nightstand, traveling along the bed, and noticed the handmade crocheted blanket folded neatly at the foot. Her lips turned up slightly when she thought about a similar blanket she had on her own bed that her grandmother had made for her when she was born. Aubrey continued casually walking toward the back of the room, looking at the items on the dresser as she passed. She wanted to smell the different perfumes that were neatly arranged but stopped herself just before taking one. Her attention shifted briefly to Chloe who was rifling through Beca's things and making an even bigger mess. Chloe threw her hands up in the air. "She said it was right on her bed!"
Aubrey smiled to herself at the slight annoyance she heard in Chloe's voice. She made it to the back of the room and turned from Chloe to scan the belongings on the roommate's desk. Unlike Beca, her roommate knew what a desk was supposed to be used for. Aubrey lifted up the left side of a textbook that was laying open so she could read the title, careful not to disturb the notebook that was partly resting on it. Her brow furrowed slightly when she saw it was for advanced chemistry. She wondered when the college started matching students from different grade levels to be roommates. She would have been so angry if a freshman walked into her dorm room on the first day of her junior or senior year. Maybe it was just a perk of having your father work for the college. Aubrey imagined anti-social Beca would want a quiet and studious roommate who wouldn't be interested in the usual partying antics that overcome most freshmen. From the looks of it, it seemed Beca lucked out on finding a roommate who would just coexist with her. Based on reading material alone, Aubrey couldn't imagine they had anything in common.
Aubrey's eyes moved to scan the pinboard above the desk. It was full of pictures, movie stubs and enamel pins. In the top left corner was a worn and slightly faded blue first place ribbon from a 4th grade science fair. Aubrey's eyes continued to roam but they suddenly stilled on a photo at the bottom of the board, eye level to anyone sitting at the desk. She recognized the brunette in the picture right away and confusion flitted across her face. It was a candid photo that caught Stacie's profile as she stood casually, her thumb hooked in the pocket of her jeans, her body leaning slightly towards someone and a small grin tugging at the corner of her lips. Aubrey took it in before her gaze finally shifted to the other person in the picture.
"Found it!" Chloe shouted triumphantly but Aubrey barely heard her.
"Why does Beca have this?"
Chloe was quickly trying to right some of the mess she had made in her search for the book but looked up at Aubrey's tone. She found the blonde frozen, her stance rigid as she stared intently at a photo tacked above the desk.
"That's not Beca's," Chloe said, frowning as she stood up.
Aubrey turned her head toward the redhead, her eyes leaving the photo for the first time since she saw it. "What do you mean?" Confusion was evident in her voice.
"Beca wouldn't have anything over there, it isn't her side of the room," Chloe said as she moved to stand by Aubrey and see what she was looking at.
Chloe's eyes widened as she looked at the picture of Stacie and Aubrey, one that she hadn't ever seen but could tell was taken during their Aca-Initiation party a month earlier. Aubrey's head was slightly thrown back mid-laugh, her hand touching Stacie's arm. Stacie was just barely leaning towards her and there was a small grin on her face. It wasn't the grin Chloe was used to seeing from her, not the confident smirk of a grin, but one that was more gentle and coy. The brunette looked utterly transfixed by Aubrey or by Aubrey's laugh, or both.
Like Aubrey, Chloe was confused about the picture. She looked over as the blonde reached out and lightly touched the edge of the photo. "It's Stacie's."
"What?" Aubrey jerked her hand back and turned her head quickly toward Chloe. "What do you mean? Stacie doesn't live here."
Chloe nodded. "Yeah, she does." Aubrey's brows furrowed and Chloe knew she was remembering when they went to pull Stacie from her dorm for initiation. "She switched with Beca's old roommate a few weeks ago," Chloe explained. "This is all Stacie's stuff."
Aubrey's eyes glanced over Stacie's side of the room as she turned back to the photo, still feeling confused. "Where did she get this?" And why, Aubrey thought to herself, did Stacie choose to pin it up on display? She figured all the new Bellas hated her; she hadn't exactly been making things easy on them. Aubrey reluctantly took her eyes off the photo again to quickly scan the rest of the board but there weren't any other pictures with any of the Bellas.
Chloe shrugged. "I don't know but it sure is cute." She smiled softly at the picture and wondered if the photographer knew that they had captured something rare. It's not easy to pull that reaction out of Aubrey. "What made you laugh?" Chloe asked, curious to know how Stacie, as an almost complete stranger, had managed to elicit a reaction that Chloe, as her best friend, couldn't normally get out of her.
Aubrey slowly shook her head. "I don't know. I can't remember."
Aubrey distractedly followed Chloe outside and towards the radio station. She was searching her memory in an attempt to replay every interaction she's ever had with Stacie since she first saw her on stage during auditions. Aubrey had been so focused over the past month with taking her little gang of misfits and trying to mold them into a group that had a shot at winning ICCAs that she didn't take the time to really notice the new Bellas as individuals. Still, Aubrey couldn't reconcile the Stacie she had seen at rehearsals with the person she had imagined when she looked at Beca's roommate's side of the room.
Aubrey thought back to the books on Stacie's nightstand and the textbook she was studying out of for class. It really would not be any kind of fair for Stacie to be that gorgeous and also extremely smart. Aubrey felt heat on her cheeks when it dawned on her that she thought of Stacie as gorgeous. She shook her head slightly. Anyone could see that Stacie is gorgeous, it's nothing that should make Aubrey's stomach flutter.
Aubrey brought her hand up to touch her warm cheek and was suddenly transported back to the moment she watched Stacie audition for the Bellas. Stacie was singing in a voice that Aubrey now knew was unlike her actual singing voice while her hands roamed over her body. Without thinking, Aubrey had let her eyes travel down Stacie's body and felt her cheeks warm when she noticed she had lost focus on the audition.
"Aubrey?" Aubrey looked around and realized she was standing in front of the doors that would lead to the radio station.
She shook her head to clear her thoughts and saw Chloe staring at her. "Hm?"
Chloe tilted her head slightly, a small, teasing smile playing on her lips. It was evident that Aubrey hadn't heard anything Chloe had said in the past 10 minutes. But she knew Aubrey well enough to know she couldn't push the blonde right now without her shutting down completely.
"You coming in?" Chloe asked.
"I have no interest in ruining my one day off of rehearsals by interacting with Beca Mitchell."
Chloe rolled her eyes and said she would be right back. Aubrey watched the ginger skip toward the door and wondered how she managed to become best friends with this ball of energetic sunlight.
Aubrey turned and leaned over to rest her elbows on the railing that separated the walkway with the grassy expanse of the campus quad. There were groups sprawled over the grass studying and bookbag clad students cutting through on their way to or from class. Aubrey watched without really seeing, her mind still preoccupied with images of Stacie. She thought back to the photo above Stacie's desk, wishing she had snapped a picture of it just to be able to see it again. She absentmindedly twirled a ring on her right index finger while she tried with all her might to remember the night of the Bellas initiation.
She was just attempting to latch onto wisps of a memory when something in the real world caught her attention. Her eyes were drawn to the familiar gait of someone walking in the distance and Aubrey felt her pulse speed up. What were the odds? Stacie was walking across the quad toward the dorms, her path perpendicular to where Aubrey was facing. She looked so different than she did when Aubrey saw her in rehearsals. Her long brown hair was loose and flowing around her shoulders instead of tied up and she was wearing jeans instead of exercise clothing. She looked more like the Stacie in the photo.
Aubrey watched as Stacie got closer but felt safe that she would still be a distance away when the brunette passed where she was leaning on the railing. Stacie's thumbs were hooked on the straps of her backpack by her hips and her head was turned towards Aubrey. She was paying attention to something being said by the guy she was walking with. Aubrey was aware that Stacie's eyes hardly had to shift for the younger girl to spot her standing there. She truly couldn't decide if she wanted Stacie to see her or not but she couldn't look away.
It wasn't until she saw Stacie laugh that Aubrey let herself wonder who it was the younger girl was walking with.
Chloe watched Beca through the glass as the brunette fiddled with the equipment in the small space that housed the core of the radio station. Her head was slightly bopping to the beat of the music that Chloe could hear only because it was playing throughout the rest of the store via speaker.
Chloe waved her hand in front of the glass to catch Beca's attention. The brunette looked up and Chloe's heart skipped when Beca gave her a grin. Chloe was motioned into the room as Beca finished whatever she was doing.
"Thanks, Chlo. You're a lifesaver," Beca said as she stood up and took the textbook from Chloe. Chloe didn't miss Beca's eyes trailing down her body to where her jeans hugged her hips.
"You owe me. This was not at all where you said it would be." Chloe grinned as she watched Beca pull her gaze back up to Chloe's face. The brunette's cheeks colored just slightly. Chloe chose to ignore it as she flipped her hair over her shoulder. "I sort of made a mess looking for it."
Beca scratched the back of her neck and bit her lip. "Oops?"
Chloe found herself glancing at Beca's lips, something she had been doing more and more often lately. She looked up and found Beca's eyes on her and realized she had been caught.
Chloe moved her eyes off Beca to look around the room as she leaned back against the doorframe. "So, I've been meaning to ask you," Chloe said in such a casual way that Beca knew immediately it was anything but. "How is it rooming with Stacie?"
Beca paused as she was placing the book down and looked at Chloe questioningly. She brought her hand up to scratch the back of her neck again, a nervous habit that Chloe thought was adorable. "Uh, fine?"
"Do you know if she's into girls?"
Beca's brow furrowed as she frowned and let her hand fall heavily from the back of her neck to her side. Chloe saw something hard to read flash across Beca's eyes before she looked away and shrugged. "Why don't you ask her?" There was something tight and tense in her tone of voice.
Chloe looked confused for a second before her eyes went wide. "Oh! No, no, no," Chloe said hurriedly, waving her hands and shaking her head. "I'm not into Stacie." (Later she'd let herself feel a sort of giddiness at Beca's reaction and what it could mean but in the moment she just felt panicked to clear up the misunderstanding.)
Beca's posture relaxed just slightly but she looked at Chloe warily as if she wasn't sure whether to believe her.
Chloe hadn't planned on mentioning the photo but she found herself rushing on, "She has a picture of her and Aubrey! Why does she have a picture of her and Aubrey?"
Beca's eyes lost their wariness as her eyebrows shot up. "Dude," she hissed. "You looked through Stacie's stuff?"
"What? No! It's pinned out in the open above her desk for anyone to see!"
Beca closed her eyes and pressed the heel of her hand to her forehead. "Look, you can't let Stacie know you saw that. She's so weird about it and I'm, like, sworn to secrecy that it even exists. She usually puts it away when she's not at her desk." She let her hand drop to her side again.
Chloe took a step towards Beca and leaned in closer to her. "Does Stacie like Aubrey?" she asked in an excited whisper, even though no one was around to hear them.
"Sworn to secrecy! And I don't ask questions." Beca sliced her hands across the air in a gesture of finality as she plopped down heavily in her seat with a sigh. "I can't imagine why she would," Beca grumbled. "Just because she's hot?"
Chloe had been about to swat Beca's shoulder when she stopped and quirked an eyebrow. "You think Aubrey's hot?"
Beca's face turned red. "No! That's not… no. No." Chloe watched with an amused smirk as Beca squirmed. "Dude, no! I don't!" Chloe continued to look at Beca with a teasing glint in her eye. Beca huffed out a breath. "I mean, she's not not hot. Like purely just as an observation. When she isn't speaking." Chloe dramatically gasped and then chuckled as Beca groaned and dropped her head to the table.
"Okay, we're definitely going to come back to that at some point but I, unfortunately, have to go," Chloe said teasingly and laughed when Beca groaned again. She was surprised she didn't feel her stomach twist with jealousy about Beca finding Aubrey hot but the idea of Beca liking Aubrey in almost any way was just so ludicrous that Chloe couldn't take it seriously. And Aubrey is hot.
"How about we not come back to that. Ever," Beca mumbled into the table before lifting her head. "Seriously though, don't say anything to Stacie about the picture. Please, Chlo."
"Okay, okay." Beca looked relieved. "But-" Beca tensed and Chloe started wringing her hands together. "I'm not the only one who saw it."
"What do you…" Beca stopped in realization. "No." Chloe grimaced. "You brought Aubrey into my room?!"
"If your book had been where you said it would be, she wouldn't even have had a chance to look around!"
"Oh my god. Stacie is going to murder me. I'm going to die."
"Oh, stop. Aubrey isn't going to say anything. What would she even say?" Chloe leaned over and kissed Beca on the cheek as a distraction before turning to leave.
The older girl took a few steps and looked over her shoulder as she went through the doorway. She smirked at the dazed brunette. "Bye Becs."