CHAPTER 2: you make my dreams – hall and oats

"I mean, did you see the freshman I was paired with? Daisy?"

Beca snorted as she recalled what Daisy has done. "She couldn't tell left from right."

"Or up from down!" Stacie cackled, throwing her head back for a moment before quickly remembering that she was driving. "I think even if I completely fucked it up Aubrey would have to let me on the squad."

"Yeah, dude, for sure. Daisy wasn't even in time. I could've done better than her."

"Yeah, you and your three left feet." Stacie smirked, her mouth widening to a grin at Beca's indignant gasp.

"Take that back, Conrad."

"Why should I?"

"Because you know I can dance."

"I know you quit dance every other week for three years. I was there." Stacie scoffed.

Beca narrowed her eyes at her friend. "if you weren't driving right now I would punch you."

Stacie shrugged and raised a single brow. "Face it, Bec. You were cute and all but there was a reason you were always a reserve for dance comps."

Beca rolled her eyes. "I'm good at dance, thank you very much. Better than…Dumpy Daisy."

Barking out a laugh at that, Stacie turned into the diner parking lot. "You're such a dick!"

"It's all part of my charm, Stace." Beca mumbled, looking out the window with a frown at their beloved diner. There were new cars parked in the owners' spaces, and a guy was sitting on the concrete hammering at what looked like a sign. "What the fuck?"

Stacie smoothly turned into a space before shutting off the engine of her jeep. She whipped off her sunglasses and gasped at the sight before her. "Are they changing the diner?"

"They can't." Beca said immediately, shaking her head and ripping her seatbelt off. This diner meant a lot to her sentimentally – it had been her mother's favourite place. Not only that, but Stacie and herself went to the diner nearly every day and wasted their hard-earned allowances on fries and milkshakes (burgers on a Friday). It had been a tradition since they were old enough to walk home from school by themselves. There was no way they were changing that until after senior year when they had no choice.

"They won't." Stacie reassured her, not that she had the knowledge to reassure. "It's probably just a new sign to replace the old one. Let's go."

Beca let out a deep sigh before hopping out of her best friend's car, grabbing her backpack and walking towards the entrance with Stacie hot on her heels. Sticking to routine, Beca opened the door for the taller brunette and bowed slightly. "After you, milady."

Stacie curtseyed "Why thank you!"

Following Stacie in as she sat at their usual booth, Beca glanced around the diner to see who else was around. Her eyes flitted over a flash of red as she walked over to their booth, but Beca stopped abruptly and whipped her head back round to the breakfast bar. Standing there behind the counter placing chicken and waffles in front of someone was the redhead Beca had met earlier. She now donned a blue waitress dress and white apron and was gratefully accepting a tip.

"Bec? What are you-"

Stacie's voice sounded miles away the longer Beca stared. It was pretty rude of her to stare but she just couldn't help herself. It wasn't even as if she was thinking – her mind was completely blank. It felt as if she was in a trance. The redhead was just so…gorgeous. Like, unbelievably gorgeous. Not to mention the sun through the window was just beginning to set in the early evening, setting a soft golden haze onto the diner and adorning the redhead – god what was her name again? – in a glow perfectly complimenting her features up until the point where she appeared almost goddess-like. God.

It took a hard flick from Stacie and a simultaneous glance from the redhead for Beca to walk further forward, smashing her thigh into the edge of their table and snapping her out of her trance with a loud exclamation "Ow!"

Beca's whole being keened, leaning on their table with a pained expression as her hand flew to her thigh. She could already feel a harsh bruise beginning to form and cringed at the giggle she heard from the redhead's direction. Beca clenched her jaw and slowly made her way around the booth to sit down, glaring coldly at Stacie's chin. She'd glare right into her soul if she could, but her head was thrown back in loud laughter.

"Shut up." Beca gritted at her.

Stacie couldn't even form a sentence in reply without breaking out into laughter again. Out of the corner of her eye Beca could see the redheaded girl walking over, and she stamped on Stacie's foot. In between her heavy combat boots and Stacie's sneakers, Stacie definitely felt it.

"Ow! Beca!"

"Are you okay?" The redhead asked, clearly trying her best to keep a straight face yet failing miserably as she bit her cheeks.

"Laugh it up, red." Beca muttered darkly. "I'm fine."

"You don't want an ice pack or anything?" The redhead confirmed, allowing herself to giggle slightly at Beca's sarcasm.

Beca shook her head, sheer force of will keeping her cheeks from reddening. The last thing she needed was to look like a blushing mess in front of red. "I'm fine, thanks."

"Can I get you anything else? Fries or something? Ice-ice cream?"

Stacie let out another bubbly giggle at that, it sounded as if the redhead hadn't meant to intend the pun but both she and the leggy brunette found it hilarious.

"Do you bully all of your customers…" Beca narrowed her eyes at the girl, flicking her eyes down to the pin on her apron with her name on it. "Chloe?"

"Only the cute and clumsy ones," Chloe winked easily at her.

Beca clenched her jaw. She couldn't see herself, but she knew her whole face had turned crimson at that comment. "R-Right."

Stacie raised her brows at that and smiled. "Smooth."

Chloe waggled her own brows unnecessarily, taking out her notepad. "I assume you guys didn't come in here just to give each other bruises."

"We come in here every day," Stacie chuckled. "We always ask for the usual, but, you know, you're new so-" she suddenly cocked her head and frowned. "Were you at try-outs today?"

Chloe sent her a beaming smile. "Get out! You remembered!"

"Course, you were really good," Stacie nodded. "You'll definitely get on the team."

"I hope so. I was on it last year in my old school. Our family just moved here. Also, my cousin Aubrey's the captain so you know…it'll be a really big insult if she doesn't let me on the team, like, duh…but anyways! You'll get on the team. I'll even put in a good word for you. Stacie, right?"

"Bitchin'," Stacie replied enthusiastically. "Yeah, Stacie, and the grumpy tomato's Beca."

"Gag me with a spoon, Stacie." Beca glared at her.

Chloe giggled. "I can bring a spoon out if you want."

"Just fries and a vanilla milkshake will be a good enough alternative," Beca sighed, holding her head in her hands.

"I'll have a strawberry milkshake and fries too, please," Stacie smiled, pushing the menus already on the table to the side.

"Coming right up!" Chloe winked.

Beca kept her head down as Stacie pulled out a notebook and wrote something down.

Relax.

Beca peeped at the word and glared up at her best friend. "Dude."

"What?"

"I can't."

"Let's talk about something else." Stacie suggested. "Have you seen the trailer for Ferris Bueller's Day Off yet?"

Beca brightened up. "That girl from your magazine is in it, right?"

Stacie laughed. "The one you would totally bone, yeah,"

"Dude you know I'm not big on movies but this one actually looks good."

"You can stop pretending you don't wanna get in Chloe's pants now." Stacie smirked as she shut Beca's bedroom door and dumped her backpack on the floor, dropping into Beca's desk chair.

Beca groaned, falling onto her bed. "Was it that obvious?"

"You drooled over her for like two minutes, smashed your leg into a table and couldn't even reply to her properly when she sort of jokingly flirted with you. Which was like, whoa, by the way. No girls ever jokingly flirt with me."

"You're not a lesbian, Stace."

"But I am hot."

"You're not a lesbian and I highly doubt she is. She was just kidding around. And I was sitting there blushing. Christ! If stuff like this keeps happening, I'm gonna out myself to the whole school."

"Okay, we don't want that." Stacie said. "But Bec, don't have a cow. Just be grateful she seems to like us, you two will probably become friends really quickly."

"The second I talk to her in school Aubrey will be breathing down my neck for sure." Beca huffed. "I don't even know what grade she's in. Or her last name."

Stacie shrugged nonchalantly. "So what? You don't need to know her life story to get into her pants."

Beca chuckled at that. "I'm not you, Stace. Besides…you know what girls are like around here…c'mon Beca let's experiment, and oh my god that was so fun but you know what I'm totally straight because dykes are gross!"

Sighing, Stacie rolled over to Beca on her desk chair. "Hey. That's not what everyone's like. Layla used you when you were super vulnerable. We don't even know Chloe yet but I don't think she's do that. She seems really cool."

"Cool enough to be Posen's fucking cousin. She's probably just another dictator once you get to know her." Beca huffed. She ruffled up her hair a bit. "I'm just-it's the first day of school still. Last year was fucking shit, I'm not gonna focus on girls or whatever this year. I'm just gonna do music and-and not fail sophomore year. Or get enough lates for my dad to be contacted by social services again."

Stacie laughed loudly. "Please do the late thing again, that was hilarious!"

Beca shook her head, but she was chuckling too. "Dude, he literally got questioned about how good of a father he is."

"It was the talk of the school,"

"And the talk of the house I was grounded in for a month."

"Girls!"

Beca and Stacie's eyes met before they erupted into another fit of laughter. Speak of the devil.

"Yeah?" Beca shouted back.

"Do you two want to cook tonight or am I ordering pizza?"

Beca rolled her eyes. "Dad is that even a question?"

The next morning, Beca made sure to get up as early as she could. It was strictly to be given the all clear from her dad to drive to school, though. For her birthday in August her grandparents chipped in to buy her a 1977 red Chevrolet, and to be honest Beca still couldn't believe that the car was actually hers. It was perfect. Everyone around town mostly drove four by fours, because the snow could get pretty bad sometimes and it was better to be safe than sorry. But Beca had been dreaming about this car for the past nine years. She knew nothing about taking care of cars…nothing whatsoever, but after writing music, driving around in that car was her favourite thing to do in the world. The furthest she's driven away so far has been four hours. Her and Stacie weren't going anywhere at all, they didn't even stop. But driving to nowhere and listening to music, eating snacks with her best friend was pretty much one of the best afternoons of Beca's life.

Not that she would ever admit that to Stacie, of course.

Because she wouldn't.

Ever.

Convincing herself of putting effort into getting ready just to show her dad how organised she was wasn't an easy feat. Far from it, actually. Curling her hair, digging out a lip gloss and her best earrings all to show organisation was a little bit of a stretch, even for her. So was making sure her eye makeup was perfect and picking out an outfit from the night before. She packed her bag the night before too, and her gym bag, so it wasn't as if she wasn't organised. Cause she was. Organised enough to drive her own car to school, and definitely organised enough to look good on the one day that nobody else really bothers because the first day of school was yesterday so if anything she should look better than most of the other girls at school so maybe she'd have a chance of standing out for a change and catching people's attention. That kind of organised.

Her dad looked super impressed as she smirked at him on her way out of the house, grabbing her keys from the pot on the mantelpiece and dumping an apple in her jacket pocket.

Today was gonna be different, Beca thought as she reared up the engine and put on her sunglasses. Today she was gonna walk right in, say hi to Stacie and sign up for her music extra-curriculars. She was gonna put her gym bag in her locker and pack her bag full of the textbooks she'll need for class. She was gonna be right on time for homeroom and impress Miss Berry. She was gonna be her usual, charming, sarcastic self. She would not make a fool of herself. She would not bash her leg into a table, or not know what classes she had, or do another one of her stupid bits that always attracted the attention of pretty much everyone around them but never attracted any actual laughs. And if she sees a smidge, a slight flurry of red locks or huge baby blue eyes, she'll simply walk on by. That's it. She'll walk past, like she didn't see anything at all and like her memory is not dissimilar to that of a goldfish and it was virtually impossible for her to remember any new girl from yesterday who she didn't even know the last name of. If they meet eyes, she'll smile politely and walk off in the opposite direction. And if that aca-nazi Posen is with her she'll sneer. It'll be easy; she was doing it right now, sneering at the red traffic light she was waiting for. Hell, she could sneer at the whole street. There was a lady walking her dog on the street – sneer. There was a couple of men fixing a mailbox – sneer. There was a clearly struggling parent and four kids on their way to preschool – sneer. There was a beautiful redhead in the car next to her who was staring in amusement and giggling and-

Fuck. She forgot to sneer.

This was gonna be harder than she thought.