Aubrey was so furious that her hands were shaking as she ordered her Uber. How dare Stacie be so crude? How dare she mock Aubrey's sexuality with such an offensive name? The blonde was incredibly involved in her thoughts, oblivious to the world. When her ride pulled to the curb, the driver had to honk his horn several times to get her attention.
"Aubrey Posen?"
She checked the license plate and type of car before she climbed in her ride, happy that she didn't have to concentrate on driving because she'd spent all her energy being angry. By the time she arrived at her home, the spike of adrenaline she'd experienced was waning, and exhaustion was creeping in. All she wanted at this point was to get out of her shoes and take a nice relaxing bubble bath. And that's precisely what she did.
As she slid into the water with vanilla-scented bubbles, Aubrey felt her burdens melt away. The smokey, earthy smell helped to pull her concerns from her bones as she playfully blew bubbles from her fingertips. The calming music and glass of wine were the final touches to the perfect evening of relaxation.
Aubrey timed her bath perfectly – her wine glass was empty about when the water temperature cooled. She climbed out of the tub, patting most of the water off her body with her towel before wrapping herself in a thick terry cloth robe. As she went about getting ready for bed, she concentrated on keeping her mind away from Beca's friend so that she could get a good night's sleep.
Chloe called Aubrey a few days later with profuse apologies for what Stacie had said. "That was crude, Bree. I can't believe she said that, especially since she'd hadn't met either of us before."
"Well, she'd never met you."
"Oh, that's right. Stacie's the woman who bought you the drink at the club that night before leaving her phone number. What did you say to her then?"
Aubrey explained that she only said she was flattered but straight. "And it's true."
After talking a few minutes longer, Chloe changed the subject and mentioned that the weather was supposed to be mild the next Saturday. "Want to go on a run with me? It's been so long since we've done that."
Chloe and Beca had recently moved in together in a cute little cottage across from a park, which made Chloe's the best place to meet for the jog. When Aubrey pulled up in front of the house, she tensed up. Beca and Stacie were sitting on the front porch drinking beer. She'd done well to push Beca's annoying friend out of her mind all week, yet here she was.
After collecting her nerves, she grabbed
her bag and approached the house. "Morning, Beca." She ignored Stacie, of course.
"Living that velour tracksuit life, I see." Stacie's voice was teasing as she mocked the blonde.
Aubrey stopped with her hand on the doorknob and turned her head. "Did you hear something, Beca?" Beca didn't dare respond. "I didn't think so."
The moment the blonde got into the house and shut the door a wee bit hard, both the brunettes were laughing. "Dude, I don't think she likes you, Stace."
"She'll come around."
As Chloe and Aubrey were cooling down after their run, Aubrey asked about Stacie. "What's her story?"
Chloe explained she was one of Beca's friends from long ago. "Beca doesn't have many non-work friends other than our mutual friends. So I can't fault her for wanting to hang around with Stacie. The woman's a jokester but always appropriate with me for the most part."
Aubrey rolled her eyes but knew that if Beca was happy, Chloe would support her. "I'm glad Beca has someone to be around. I just wish her friend wasn't irritating as hell."
"You'll get used to her. Hey, why don't you stay for brunch? I know you love Beca's Belgian waffles, and Stacie is supposed to make a mean Bloody Mary."
Aubrey couldn't stomach the thought of more time with Stacie and politely declined before heading home to shower and change clothes, but she did so with Belgian waffles on her mind. After quickly cleaning up, the blonde decided to treat herself to brunch at her favorite weekend spot.
After looking over the menu, Aubrey decided against waffles and went with bacon, spinach, and cheese quiche with a bottomless mimosa to wash it down. When the server delivered her wedge of the fluffy egg concoction to her table, she pulled out her phone and snapped a few pictures from different angles. Earlier, Aubrey had taken a picture of her drink. After finishing her first mimosa, she snapped a photo of her empty glass before ordering another.
Aubrey enjoyed posting pictures on Instagram of anything just about. The only requirement is that the objects had to make her happy – things like food, her friends, fluffy clouds, and flowers. She was even known to take pictures of perfectly organized clothes racks in the department store like jackets lined up by texture and color.
She took her time nibbling on her meal, savoring each bite. Once she was full and working on her third champagne drink, Aubrey composed her brunch Instagram post and put up her pictures from her solo meal. About the time she hit send, an alert came up that Chloe had posted, too.
Chloe's pictures of Beca's Belgium waffles appeared fabulous with fresh fruit, pure maple syrup, and fresh whipping cream. She also included some candid shots of Stacie making her "famous" Bloody Mary's. The last picture was a selfie, obviously taken with Stacie's long arms. Chloe had her arms wrapped around Beca, and Stacie's face smooshed next to Beca's cheek.
Aubrey tapped the heart before commenting. Looks like you guys had a blast. I should have stayed. Almost immediately, a response came up to her comment from legsfordays You missed a good time. Aubrey flipped back through the pictures, pausing on the ones of Stacie playing bartender. She'd never really taken a look at the woman who was able to rile her with a simple word.
Her hair was a light brown, slightly wavy, and ended about her mid-back. She had a blistering smile that was captivating. (Why was she even looking at Stacie's smile?) As Aubrey looked at the close-up selfie of the trio, she realized that Beca's eyes were dark blue, Chloe's a crystal medium blue, and Stacie's, well she couldn't quite tell what color they were. From that one picture, Stacie's eyes could have been blue with green ring or green with brown flecks; Aubrey couldn't tell despite zooming in as close as she could.
She put her phone down, thinking about her own eye color. Aubrey had always gotten compliments on her green eyes despite feeling they didn't compare to her friends with other exciting colors, but Stacie's…. (Then again, maybe Stacie's eyes were just green like hers.)
Aubrey unconsciously picked up her phone again and found Stacie's Instagram tag and searched for her page. She stalked through pictures and videos for longer than she meant. When her waiter offered her a fourth drink, Aubrey realized she'd gone through her entire glass while looking at Stacie's pictures. (Yet she still couldn't figure out Stacie's eye color.) She waved off the mimosa refill and asked for her check.
Back at home, Aubrey tried to find things to distract herself. She started her laundry and cleaned the entire kitchen. Her phone was plugged into her kitchen island, laying there, taunting her with more pictures of Stacie. She picked up her phone, wondering if Stacie had her Facebook page locked down. As she opened her FB app, she realized what she was doing, killed all her apps, and locked her screen. She hid her phone in the drawer, hoping that out of sight would be out of mind.
Aubrey had finished two loads of laundry and cleaned almost all her apartment when she heard her phone ring. She almost let it go to voice mail before realizing it was Chloe's distinctive ring. She raced to the kitchen and answered the phone breathlessly.
"Hmmm, did I interrupt something, Aubrey?" Chloe teased.
"No!" Aubrey's response was huffy, arrogant.
"You sound out of breath, that's all. Did I catch you at a bad time?"
Aubrey explained that she was getting things done around the apartment.
"I always thought you had a schedule for those types of chores so things don't pile up on you throughout the week."
"Ehhh. I needed the distraction."
Chloe thought her friend was still upset and launched into an apology about the brunch photos she posted on Instagram. She was stumbling over her words so much that she sounded like Beca when she got discombobulated.
"Chloe!" Aubrey stopped her friend's rambling. "I commented on your post. I meant what I said. It looks like you had a good time." The redhead didn't respond. "Chlo?"
"I saw that; I hoped you weren't just playing nice. I also saw that Stacie responded, then immediately commented on your post."
"She did what?! Mine?" After spending so much time stalking Stacie's Instagram during brunch, Aubrey had tried to avoid her phone to keep from getting caught up in everything.
"Yeah," Chloe chuckled. "You have a new follower, too, I think."
Aubrey put her phone on speaker and pulled up her Instagram app. Sure enough, there was a like on her brunch post and a new comment from legsfordays: Your brunch looks just as yummy. Bloody Mary's are better. Stacie had then followed her page. "Well, I'll be."
"I hope this means the teasing stops soon, Bree. Beca and I really want you two to get along. I have a feeling she'll be around our house a lot."
Aubrey didn't dare tell her best friend that she'd spent most of an entire mimosa stalking Stacie's Instagram and analyzing her eye color. (No, that'd be weird to admit even though that's what I did.)
After the two friends got off the phone, Aubrey declared her Saturday chores done. In fact, she'd been able to finish a full week's tasks. The distraction had been much needed. As a reward, she decided to catch up on some television. She queued up the DVR and flipped through the list of shows. Once she'd decided on Chopped, she made herself some herbal tea before tucking her feet beneath her on the couch.
Before long, she felt her eyes closing as her energy faded. After she turned off the TV house safely shut up the house for the night, Aubrey changed from her cleaning clothes into her silky pajamas. She'd shaved her legs in her bubble bath the night before and liked the way the smooth cloth rubbed against her hair-free legs.
There's no better smell than freshly washed sheets, she thought to herself. She slipped into her bed and curled up, hugging a pillow to her stomach.
Aubrey woke up early Sunday, feeling uncharacteristically well-rested. She couldn't recall the last time she'd slept that well and attributed the good night to her early morning run the day before and hard work cleaning her house. Since she had a week's worth of house chores done, she decided to FaceTime Chloe to see if she wanted to go on another run.
She propped her phone up on her dresser as she began to get ready for a run and called Chloe. When Chloe rejected the FaceTime and called back with a voice call, Aubrey was confused. "Chloe?"
"What time is it," Chloe moaned. She sounded incredibly miserable like she'd been up for most of the night and woke up gargling rocks.
"I am so sorry I woke you up, Chlo. It's 8:00. I thought you'd be up since you always go running on the weekends. I called to see if you wanted to go for a jog again."
"God, no." Chloe coughed and sounded horrible.
"Are you okay? Do I need to bring you something?" Aubrey was afraid her friend was getting sick.
"No. I'm just way hungover and need sleep."
"Oh. Ummm okay. I'm sorry. Call me when you are up and moving." Aubrey wondered if everything was genuinely okay since Chloe sounded incredibly hungover, still drunk even, which was unlike Chloe. Maybe she and Beca had gotten into an argument, but surely she would have called. After a few moments of thought, Aubrey put it out of her head and moved on.
Since Aubrey already had on her running gear, she stretched out and went on a run around her neighborhood. Once done, she came home, showered, and made a light breakfast. As she nibbled on toast and bits of fruit, she launched Instagram and saw that Chloe had posted a new Instastory that chronicled her journey building the hangover she was now sporting. Rather than watching the story, Aubrey scrolled down to the pictures first.
One set of three pictures had the caption: Three dead soldiers titosvodkaforthewin. The first picture was one empty vodka bottle, then two, then three. WTH Aubrey thought. Dead soldiers are beer. Did they go through three bottles of vodka? No wonder Chloe was so bad off.
There were a few more pictures of various concoctions. Then a final photo of Stacie standing behind the kitchen counter with a drunk grin on her face with her arm slung over Beca's shoulder, who was equally as intoxicated. The caption was #vodkapals shortybeats legsfordays
Wait, Stacie? A streak of something flashed through Aubrey. She didn't know if she was mad that Stacie spent the entire day with her friends or jealous that Chloe spent the time with Stacie. Then again, why should she care where Stacie spent her time? She didn't care. (But the longer Aubrey thought about it, she realized… she did care.)
Aubrey then flipped over to Stacie's page, where she'd posted several pictures of Bloody Marys and selfies of her and Beca drinking them with the caption Bloody Mary #badassdrink. There was Chloe with a few cocktails Cosmopolitan and Vodka Tonic #frufrudrinks then she posted a picture of some cranberry juice from Chloe's fridge. Cranberry juice? #notinmyvodka
At first, the pictures were cute, but the cranberry juice one took Aubrey right back to the bar and infuriated her. Again, she didn't know why, but once more, Stacie got under her skin. This time without even trying.
Despite being hot under the collar, Aubrey pulled up Beca's page. Some of the same pictures were posted there, along with a few more embarrassing ones of Stacie passed out on their couch. When she realized Stacie had spent the night, Aubrey thought - for a split second – about going over there and waking up the entire house.
Aubrey spent the entire day analyzing her emotions around the whole situation. Once she made herself admit that Stacie's post about the cranberry juice was kind of funny, she began to relax. (Did this mean Stacie had been thinking about her?) She convinced herself that any negativity she felt was because she'd wanted to go running with Chloe and couldn't because her best friend had spent the night partying with her girlfriend and her girlfriend's best friend. After all, jealousy never looked good on anyone, especially Aubrey Posen.