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Chapter Three
The third thing at Christmas that's such a pain to me:
Hangovers
(Rigging up the lights
And finding a Christmas tree)
Beca wakes up with a pounding headache that's being exacerbated by two things. The first is Amy snoring a few feet away. And the second is the Christmas music being played on several of their wireless speakers throughout the house. At the time, battery-powered speakers had seemed like a good idea. This morning, however, Beca wonders if they kept the receipts.
She groans and rolls over, nearly crushing her phone beneath her. Shit. It's probably half dead. She's going to need to use somebody's car to charge it. Not willing to roll back over, even though that would take way less effort, she tries to pull it out from where it's wedged beneath her. All she wants is to check the battery percentage – but when she turns on the screen, she's bombarded by a string of text messages and several missed calls, every single one of them from…Aubrey?
What does she want?
Groaning, Beca presses the call button and cringes at the sound of ringing as she presses the phone to her ear. It rings one and a half times before she's met with a cold, clipped tone.
"Aubrey Posen speaking."
"Aubrey, he-" There's a click and the phone falls silent. Beca pulls back the phone just in time to see the words 'call ended' flash across the screen. Aubrey would answer the phone for the sake of being able to hang up on her. "Good talk." She drops her phone onto here face where she lets it stay for a moment before deciding to pick it up again and look at her texts.
There are a lot of them.
Beca scrolls up until she reaches the top where the conversation begins with a message she now vaguely remembers sending before falling asleep. It's when she rereads it that she realizes the problem.
'stay the fuck home'
Beca can see how that might be taken the wrong way. She doesn't need to scroll back down through the perfectly punctuated essay Aubrey responded back with to know what it says. She can already sum it up in three simple words: fuck you, Beca.
xxxxx
God knows how long Chloe has been waiting for her in the hallway, but the moment Beca opens her bedroom door, there she is – hands on her hips, glaring at the doorway. That's how Beca knows she's pissed; she didn't burst into Beca's room like she would at any other moment in time. 'Ever the optimist', she plasters on a tight smile, ducks her head, and tries to make it to the bathroom before she can be fully berated.
"Stay the fuck home?" Chloe quotes her and follows her down the hallway.
The bathroom door is closed and when Beca tries to handle, it's also locked.
"That's low, Beca."
Beca leans her forehead against the door. "I can see how that could look kind of…harsh."
"Really? Kind of harsh?"
"It's not what it looks like."
"Explain it to me then," Chloe demands, "Because from the screenshot Aubrey sent me, it looks like you told her to stay the fuck home."
"I did say that." There's no use denying it. "But that's not what I meant." She had meant something along the lines of 'stay home' without 'the fuck' and maybe with a slightly desperate sounding 'please' in there somewhere. "Can we talk about this after I shower?"
"Stacie's in the bathroom."
"Why do we have a giant mansion with only one full bathroom?!" Beca turns around. "I just meant..." There's really no way to word this that's going to save her ass is there? "There's ten days until Christmas, and this place is a disaster. The Christmas tree is hanging from the ceiling, there's no electricity, and you want Aubrey, Aubrey who hasn't been here in years Aubrey, to see this?"
Chloe frowns.
"She's going to think I'm completely incompetent – again!"
"She knows you're not completely incompetent. We've won the ICCAs every year since she left."
"And now look at us. We're not even supposed to be doing A Capella on campus and she's about to walk into a Christmas themed horror movie."
"Is this still about the basement ghost?" Chloe asks.
"It said my name."
"Look," Chloe says, "Her dad was deployed on some mission to god knows where, and she either spends the holidays here or she spends them alone. You have to call her and apologize. We can have everything fixed before she gets here."
"I tried to call her." Maybe it wasn't exactly to apologize, but that's besides the point. "She hung up on me."
"So try again. You hurt her feelings."
"Aubrey doesn't even have feelings," Beca hisses, "She has…goals and motivations."
"That doesn't mean she doesn't have feelings too."
"If we removed her skin, there would probably be a robot under-"
"Beca."
"Fine! I'll try calling her again!" It's not like the shower is going to be available for the next three hours anyway. Beca places her clothes for the day on the table next to the door then retreats back to her room to retrieve her phone – and her jacket, because it's cold in here. She wrestles it on then sits down on the edge of the bed. After this, she's going to need some Advil. Thank God they have a gas stove so she can still make herself some coffee.
She grabs her phone and finds Aubrey's number again, then presses it up to her ear.
"Aubrey Posen speaking."
"Look, Aubrey, I'm-"
Click.
Beca throws herself back down on her bed and drags her pillow over her face in a lame attempt to smother herself.
xxxxx
The bathroom door opens with a familiar creaking noise, and Beca sits up in bed. Finally. She drags herself back into the hallway, picking up speed when she realizes Flo is about to walk inside. "I was in line next."
Flo stops in the doorway. "I didn't see there was a line out here."
"My clothes are right there." Beca motions to them, and Flo looks down at the table.
"Oh," she hums, "Maybe next time if you make a line with your body…"
"Flo."
"Back home, we used to have to shower in the rain," Flo says, "I can shower in ten minutes." She pauses. "Forty-five at most."
Beca just stands there as the door shuts.
"Did you call Aubrey?" Chloe asks for somewhere behind her.
"Can you just text her and tell her not to hang up on me?" Beca asks, "Also, I need your car keys. My phone is about to die."
xxxxx
Chloe's car may be slightly a mess and smell like cheap air freshener, but at least it's warm. Beca curls up in the driver's seat after she plugs her phone in and connects it to the Bluetooth. "Hey, Siri, call Aubrey."
'Calling Aubrey Posen.'
Beca leans her head back and closes her eyes as she listens to the ringing.
"Aubrey Posen speaking."
"I know-"
Click.
Beca puffs out her cheeks as she exhales. "Hey, Siri, call Aubrey."
'Calling Aubrey Posen.'
"Aubrey Posen speaking."
"You know it's me," Beca says, "Why do you answer the phone like that every-"
Click.
"Oh my god. Siri, call Aubrey."
'Calling Aubrey Posen.'
"Aubrey Posen speaking."
"You're enjoying this aren't you?"
Click.
Beca slides her hand down her face. "I hate you too."
xxxxx
Beca only managed to charge her phone to 78% before Chloe needed her car to run an errand. The house is still dark and cold. She's had no luck with Aubrey. But, at least she managed to heat some coffee over the gas stove and the bathroom door is open a crack when she gets there.
Unfortunately, 'open a crack' does not mean 'unoccupied'.
The door swings open and Lilly turns to look at her from where she's hovering above the sink…shaving her face and her…lower arms?
"Uh, sorry," Beca sputters then pulls the door shut all the way.
There are some things in this house that just aren't meant to be questioned, and Beca recognizes that as one of them.
xxxxx
"This will cure your headache," Flo says.
Beca looks at the tall glass of green something that was poured out of the blender. "Is this meant to make me want to vomit?"
"That's just the hangover," Flo says and walks away to clean up.
No. Beca is pretty sure it's the smoothie making her feel this way. "Thanks," she mutters and tastes a sip. She chokes it down then pushes the glass a few inches back across the table. "I think all the coffee filled me up."
Her phone vibrates on the table and an incoming call sets off her ringtone.
Aubrey.
Beca quickly answers and presses the phone to her ear. "Finally, you-"
Click.
It takes every ounce of self-control not to drop her phone into that smoothie. She calls Aubrey back, cutting her off in the middle of her ridiculous greeting. "Do you know how" – click – "infuriating this is?!" She tosses her phone across the table.
"Jesse?" Flo asks.
"Aubrey!"
"Oh, sex dream girl."
"No! I don't have dreams about Aubrey! Or about anyone!"
"Now that's just sad," Cynthia-Rose says from across the table, "Anyone?"
There was that one time about Chl- "Not anyone," Beca confirms, "It's not sad; it's completely normal."
Cynthia-Rose and Flo share a look. Before either of them can say anything else, the sound of the bathroom door opening upstairs has Cynthia-Rose getting up out of her seat. She stops halfway across the kitchen though and turns to look back. "Maybe if you told her about these dreams, it would clear up some of all this tension between you."
"The last person who mentioned Aubrey's name in front of me now haunts the basement," Beca says.
Cynthia-Rose just shrugs and takes the next turn using the bathroom.
xxxxx
Around lunch time, Beca decides it might be safe to make another attempt to shower. This is why they need some sort of schedule.
The door opens as Beca reaches the top of the stairs. "All yours, Shortstack," Amy says, walking out. The smell that follows her is…less than pleasant, to say the least.
"I think I'm good."
xxxxx
"There's a toilet downstairs!" Beca cries when Emily claims she'll only be 'five minutes', "You don't even live here!"
xxxxx
"Beca? What are you doing on the floor?"
Beca opens her eyes as the bathroom door opens and Chloe hovers over her, oblivious to the water droplets falling from her hair onto Beca's face. "I'm staking my claim." She sits up. "Nobody else is going into this bathroom before I have a chance to shower."
"You know you could have joined me in there. It might have made it a bit warmer."
"Did you know that Jessica and Ashley shower together to conserve water?" Beca bypasses the suggestion entirely.
"No." Chloe steps to the side to allow space for Beca to slide past her once she's in her feet. "Are you sure that's why they're showering together?"
"That's what they said," Beca answers, "And that's the only explanation to seeing them go into the bathroom together that I want in my head. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go wash away thoughts of what you were just insinuating."
"Enjoy your cold shower." Chloe turns and leans against the doorframe. "Maybe it'll wash away those hot dreams of Aubrey as well," she adds with a wide grin.
"Fuck Aubrey – and not in that way." Beca shuts the door on her. Once she's standing in the bathroom in the dark, it finally sinks in that all this time she spent fighting for a spot in line, she did during a power outage. There's no hot water anyway.