Happy Holidays!
Chapter Twelve
The twelfth thing at Christmas that's such a pain to me:
Singing Christmas carols
(Stale TV Specials
Batteries Not Included
No parking?!
-crying-
Charities
Gotta make 'em dinner
Five months of bills!
I'm not sending them this year, that's it!
Shut up, you!
Fine, you're so smart, you right up the lights!
And finding a Christmas tree)
Beca has never woken up so comfortable. Every inch of her is warm, surrounded by soft pillows and bunched up blankets and two other people, meaning she definitely isn't in her own bed. Shit. The more she wakes up, the clearer it becomes that she's in Chloe's bed, pressed up against the wall with Chloe slumped over against her and the back of Aubrey's head a few inches away from her face. She tries to stretch without waking them, but Chloe stirs and she freezes. Well, fuck.
"Chloe." Beca is going to have to wake her – that or risk her waking up on her own just in time to see Beca making a beeline out the door. "Chlo."
"Mm." Chloe curls in closer then drifts back off, making this even harder.
"Dude, the house is on fire."
"What?" Chloe mumbles.
That wakes up Aubrey as well, who turns to squint at Beca in confusion and irritation.
"It's not on fire," Beca takes it back, "I don't know why I said that. Can I get up?"
"You can shut up," Aubrey decides and buries her face against her arm.
"So you're just going to go back to sleep and not acknowledge that we're all in bed together?" Beca asks.
"I'm counting on you being gone when I wake back up."
"Well, that's not going to happen if Chloe doesn't get off," Beca says.
"You offering?" Chloe asks.
Aubrey exhales a heavy sigh and pinches the bridge of her nose. "If you're going to do that, take it somewhere else."
Beca isn't sure if Aubrey is referring to making sexual references or the act of sex itself, but that doesn't stop her from replying, "Why? You don't want to get in on the action?"
No answer.
"You know, some people say a person's drunk actions reveal their sober thoughts." Beca doesn't actually believe that for a number reasons – the main one being that right after she says it, Aubrey sits up then clambers over both her and Chloe to get to the bathroom. "You think this is what happened after she saw me naked?"
"I think she's hungover," Chloe answers, "I'm gonna go make sure she's okay."
xxxxx
Beca waits until the toilet flushes and there are no more puking sounds coming from the bathroom before she knocks on the door. "I brought some water," she announces her presence, "I'm coming in." When no one argues, she pushes the door open and slips inside, feeling a little bad when she sees Aubrey with her face buried in her arms against the side of the tub. But she supposes that's the price for being good at everything – including Cheer Pong.
"Uh, here." Beca places the glass of water and a bottle of ibuprofen on the floor next to Chloe.
"Is everyone gone?" Chloe asks and continues rubbing Aubrey's back.
"Yeah, it looks like it." Beca steps back. "I'm just…" She points behind her toward the hallway.
Chloe nods.
Beca gives a lame sort of wave then closes the door behind her again after she ducks back out. This is…100% what she would have expected to happen if she ever thought about Aubrey waking up in bed next to her prior to this – which she has never actually thought about, because what the fuck. They fell asleep watching a movie though. There's nothing weird about that. Except that Beca had just gotten out of a cold shower prior to that because she had accidentally pinned Aubrey to the bed and – nope, she's not thinking about that. She's also not thinking about all the times she's slept next to Chloe over the past week. She's going to think about...coffee.
She grabs the last gingerbread man from the table and chomps its head off as she sets to work on brewing some 'holiday' coffee that, in her opinion, just tastes like regular coffee. But slap a label that says some variation of 'Christmas' on something and people will pay a ridiculous amount more than it's worth. It'll taste more like the holiday once she dunks her gingerbread man's body in it.
"You're about to go swimming in boiling hot liquid," she warns him as she waits, "I should have left your head on." She fixes her coffee with cream and sugar once it's done then carries the mug and cookie to the table. "Don't do it, Beca. I'll do anything you want. What I want is to eat you. Ahhhhhh!" She dips one of his legs in the coffee.
"That's brutal," Chloe says from behind her.
Beca quickly pulls him out and bites off his leg, mumbling something incomprehensible even to herself.
"You ate them all, Beca?"
…they were really good. "You want an arm?" Beca breaks one off and offers it to her.
Chloe fixes herself a cup of coffee then takes the gingerbread man's limb. "Aw, this one was Gingey."
"You named them?"
"I couldn't decorate them and not give them names," Chloe says, following it up by mumbling, "And intricate personalities and back stories."
"Well, Gingey is dead now. Did you want to say a few words?"
Chloe thinks for a moment. "I'm glad Beca enjoyed you enough to not share with the rest of us."
"I gave you an arm – and you had plenty of chances to eat them," Beca points out.
"It was too hard to eat them with their heads attached," Chloe says, "They always looked so happy to see me. It felt like betrayal."
"So what you're saying is I should have eaten all the heads and left the bodies." Just like she used to when she was a kid…
"That's terrible, Beca."
"Right now, I'm giving this one third degree burns." Beca dips his other leg into her coffee. "So did Aubrey go back to bed?"
Chloe nods. "She'll sleep it off and be fine."
"I guess it's just us then."
Chloe smiles and nods. "What do you want to do?"
"Remix ourselves into all the songs on Snoop Dogg's Christmas album that I'm not already in?"
"Yes."
"I'll go get my stuff."
xxxxx
"What are you guys doing?" Aubrey asks.
"Christmas caroling the right way," Beca answers, "No cold weather. No awkwardly knocking on people's doors. It's just us and Snoop Dogg."
Aubrey sits down on the couch her next to her since Chloe is sitting on one of the sides.
"Are you feeling better?" Chloe asks.
"Yeah," Aubrey mouths with a somewhat embarrassed smile. She must have showered because her hair is damp and she smells like Chloe's shampoo, and when she pulls her legs up onto the couch to sit crisscross and one of her knees ends up touching Beca's, Beca has to shut her laptop.
"Beca," Chloe scolds her.
"Whatever, Beca." Aubrey stands back up. "I have better things to do anyway."
"Is one of those things making more gingerbread men?" Beca dares to ask.
Aubrey frowns – hard.
"Because if it is, it can wait." Beca changes to a mumble. "But you really should make more because those things are like crack. This is weird, right?"
"Editing ourselves in Snoop Dogg's music?" Chloe asks, "Not really. It's not different than the time we decided to sing along with Ke$ha."
"Not that. This. Just sitting normally on the couch pretending Aubrey and I didn't almost make out on my bed last night."
Aubrey folds her arms. "I was drunk."
"So that's all it was? You were drunk and Chloe wasn't standing in the doorway enjoying the view."
"No, I was definitely doing that," Chloe says.
Aubrey doesn't say anything.
"Maybe you should try it sober," Chloe suggests and ignores the flustered looks she receives in response, "See if you feel something."
"Besides loathing?" Beca asks.
Chloe nods.
"Fine," Aubrey says.
Beca stares at her, dumbfounded. "Fine?"
"Well, if you don't want to…"
"I didn't say that." Beca stands up. "You just blamed it on being drunk."
"Weren't you the one who said a drunk person's actions reveal their sober thoughts?"
Beca had been kidding… "Wait. You think about kissing me?"
Aubrey doesn't answer. She exhales a loud sigh as she rolls her eyes, then grabs Beca by the front of her shirt and crashes their lips together. Her lips are really fucking soft and they taste like some sort of chocolate peppermint chapstick and – she pulls back.
"Well?" Chloe asks.
Aubrey sniffs and rubs her nose. "Nothing." She folds her arms.
She's lying. Beca can tell she's lying. "Yeah, it was really…mediocre."
"Aca-scuse me?"
"Super lame."
"It didn't look mediocre from my end," Chloe says.
"It lasted two seconds," Beca replies.
"So you wanted it to be longer…" Chloe suggests.
Beca opens her mouth to speak then shuts it again. "So is this your thing?" she changes the subject, "Voyeurism?"
"No," Chloe answers, "But it's not not my thing."
"Okay, fine, maybe I would have liked the opportunity to at least kiss back!"
"Like this?" Chloe takes the opportunity to kiss Aubrey, and Aubrey sort of just melts into her – and, okay, watching them, Beca kinda understands Chloe's point of view now. They break apart and Aubrey's cheeks flush. "Definitely not mediocre. You taste really good. What is that?"
"It's from Target," Aubrey answers.
Beca is curious now – curious about both of them. She looks back and forth between them because how the hell does that work?
"It came in a pack of five holiday flavors," Aubrey continues, "You should try the sugar cookie one."
"Do you have it upstairs?"
Aubrey nods.
"Guys!"
They both turn to look at Beca.
Fuck, Stacie was right. "So, what, you've both been just DTF the past four years and I've been clueless?" Okay…so maybe she wasn't exactly clueless when it came to Chloe, but Aubrey?!
Aubrey looks confused.
"Down to fuck," Chloe whispers.
"Oh. Um…"
Maybe that had been a little crass… "Wow."
"Is that a good wow?" Chloe asks, "Or…?"
"It's just wow." Aubrey?! Beca looks at her. "Dude, did you masturbate to my picture?"
"That's disgusting."
"Good," Beca says, "Because, for a second, I really thought this conversation was implying-"
"You don't just dial the rotary phone-"
"Dial the rotary phone?"
"-to a naked picture that was sent to you by accident when you don't know if the sender would want you to be doing that."
"Sorry," Beca says, "I'm still caught up on the fact you call it dialing the rotary phone."
"What do you want me to call it, Beca? Auditioning the finger puppets."
"That is so much worse," Beca breathes.
"What about a self-guided tour?" Chloe suggests, "Or tapping your own potential?"
"Nice." Aubrey nods approvingly.
"My favorite is Lone Rangering." Chloe turns her attention back to Beca. "You have to have some sort of euphemism for it. Come on. What is it?"
"Sometimes I call it procrasturbating, but that's still better than what Aubrey just referred to it as, and now we're really off topic."
"I'm confused about what the end goal of this conversation is," Aubrey says bluntly, "Do you want to hook up or not? Because now it's out there in the open and I don't have the same patience Chloe has to play it off as a joke and wait around while you try to figure out if I'm being serious or not."
So Chloe does want to have sex with her…like, for real. Like, it's confirmed. Actually confirmed.
"Can you give me a minute?" Beca asks.
Aubrey nods. "It's a big question. You don't have to answer it right now. But preferably answer it before I leave or I'm going to rescind the offer. It's difficult to have sex miles away from each other."
There was still cybersex and long distance relationships. Beca's eyebrows raise at her own thoughts. Who the hell said anything about a relationship? This was strictly sex, no strings attached…right? "And beyond sex?"
Aubrey looks at Chloe – with the same question in her eyes.
"It doesn't have to just end with a hookup if we don't want it to…" Chloe says, "We can just roll with it and see what happens…"
"Seriously, just give me a minute," Beca says, "Like meet me in my room in sixty seconds. I have to go do something."
xxxxx
Beca thinks too much. It's a problem. By the time she hits the second step, she's already questioning the decision. She's not questioning whether or not she wants to try it – not after the sensation of pinning Aubrey to the bed engrained itself in her mind followed by the feeling of Aubrey's lips against hers and Chloe staring at them both times. She's questioning their feelings on it – which is absolutely ridiculous because Aubrey couldn't have been more clear. It's like the opposite of how she feels with Jesse. Always questioning if she feels the same way he does, never really being sure. Now the more she thinks about it, the more she realizes she's constantly questioning how Chloe and Aubrey feel. Which is ridiculous. She should be questioning herself. Only it's also not that ridiculous, because she knows what's going on inside her own head. And what's going on is a lot of curiosity and a level of thrill that she's never felt with Jesse. It's kind of fucking terrifying. But in a way that's so much better than boring.
She squeezes around her tree, laptop in hand and opens up Snoop Dogg's album. "I just kind of get the vibe that you would support me with this," she tells his face.
"Support you with what?" Chloe asks.
"That was not sixty seconds." Beca takes a breath. "I want to listen to Christmas carols with you guys."
Aubrey folds her arms. "You asked us to follow you all the way upstairs to tell us you want to screw around with Snoop Dogg?"
If Beca is being real specific about it… "My keyboard is up here," she says, "I thought we could use two Double A batteries."
"Oh," Chloe chimes in, "Well, in that case…"
"– but I have one condition."
"Okay…" Aubrey agrees.
Beca looks at the fake pine needles jabbing her in the arm. "No one in this room is getting off to any song that even remotely has anything to do…with a Christmas tree."