Kailor: Hey again! And thank you all SO MUCH for the reviews and PMs! Now, slightly unrelated but happy news! I edited a book! It's a collection of short stories coming out soon and it's up for pre-sale on Amazon right now! Very cheap and the author is an amazing writer! If you're interested, it's "Little Birds" by Hannah Lee Kidder and I'll post the stupidly long link in my Author Bio here!

NOTE: Please check out the trigger warnings before reading this book. It's just one story in the collection, but still. You're my babies. Take care of yourselves. 3

As always, I love you guys and I'm so glad you're enjoying this story. See you tomorrow!

It's her imagination, she's sure. There's no way Chloe's gaze lingers on her lips as the last chords of the song fade away. No way she leans in just a little. It's got to be a trick of the light or something, because there's no way Chloe Beale wants to kiss her right now.

There's no question that that's exactly what she wants Chloe to do. And that's so startling a realization that she nearly takes the leap, headlong off a cliff she didn't know she was standing on.

"That was awesome!"

Eli's voice breaks the moment and Beca rocks back from the piano-and Chloe-so violently she almost flips backward off the bench. Chloe gasps, snatching her forearms and pulling her back up straight. Her thumb brushes across the headphones on Beca's wrist and the room suddenly feels a little too small.

"I've, uh. I've gotta-"

Chloe must see something in her darting gaze and quickened breathing, because she releases her and slides off the bench, backing up a few steps. "Did you eat yet?" She motions to Eli, calling him to her side. He doesn't question it, hopping off the bench and joining her. Her hand lands on his head, fingers carding through his hair.

Beca takes a deeper breath. "Yeah, we ate."

"Okay." Chloe smiles. "I'm gonna go have breakfast. Feel free to play some more. It's a nice piano." Her eyes linger on the smooth black finish. "Nobody really plays it anymore. Mamma gets someone to keep it tuned but it could use some love." She smiles brighter, pushing Eli's head to the side. "We'll see you after breakfast?"

"Yeah, I'll be down in a bit."

Eli smiles as he leaves, signing that they'll play catch later. Chloe stays a moment longer, rocking forward on her toes like she wants to reach out. But she keeps her hands tucked behind her back. "Take your time." She shuts the door behind her.

Beca inhales deeply, holding it for a seven count, then releasing for six. She loves that Chloe always seems to know when she needs a moment, a breath alone. Even when Chloe was on her mission to make Beca like cuddling, she'd never pushed her too far. Or she'd always known exactly how hard to push. It's one of the reasons Beca accepted her as her best friend. Her only friend that really got it-that Beca doesn't hate people and touch and closeness. She just can't do it all the time. Sometimes it builds up. Too much noise, too much touching her, too much to take in and process. Overstimulated, her dad used to call it on the rare occasion he was up to talking. He even suggested a few times that she might fall somewhere on the autism spectrum.

Usually all it took to come down from what Stacie had coined, "a fit of 'don't fucking touch me'", was a few minutes alone, a little quiet.

Admittedly, she has never minded if her alone time was spent with Chloe. Whenever she'd had too much back home, she would move to a corner or her room to breathe. And sometimes Chloe would follow, quietly settling nearby with a book or her phone. Never touched. Never tried to pull Beca out of it. Just gave her the minute she needed.

Which is why it's super fucking inconvenient that she thinks she might like her.

Because Chloe is her best friend. And this is the worst possible time to be rereading over her feelings-that swoop in her stomach when Chloe gets home from work, the restless energy in her legs when Chloe laughs too close to her ear-because she is literally surrounded by Chloe's family and friends. All of which think they're dating. So she can't exactly take a step back and figure all this shit out right now. She's always had terrible timing, but damn! This takes the cake. The wedding cake, as it were.

She rolls her eyes at her own thoughts, leaning back over the piano. She picks her way through the beginning of "Fast Car" by Tracy Chapman, humming along.

She's thinking herself in circles. Maybe she does like Chloe. Maybe it's just that kiss yesterday messing with her head-because she knows for sure that that was good. Maybe it's the atmosphere here in the Beale house, where she kind of feels like she can do anything and it would be fine.

None of that matters, though. Because there's no way Chloe likes her. She's Chloe. If she felt anything like that for Beca, she would have acted on it already. Chloe doesn't hide how she feels or let something she wants pass by. She brings home stray animals and helps them with their broken wings and their mange or whatever. She stops random people on the street to tell them she loves their hair. She befriended Beca when all Beca wanted in the world was for people to leave her alone and let her make music.

But she'd walked all over Beca's protests that she didn't need friends, that she didn't need a new apartment, that she didn't want to cuddle. Because, somehow, she'd known none of it was true.

If she liked Beca, she would have said so. Right?

"So I remember we were driving, driving in your car," Beca sings softly, closing her eyes and sinking into the piano's dulcet tones, because she knows those. She's sure of those.

Beca's just hopped off the last stair when Dana sweeps into the foyer, tugging a baseball cap down over her red hair.

"Better hurry, soldier. Troops are moving out pretty soon."

"I don't know what that means, so..." Beca twists her face in a faux-apology.

Dana laughs, her grin a little more crooked than Chloe's, but still so similar. "The lake? The girls are getting ready to head out. Better go get changed." She kicks open the door and follows her leg out of it so fast that Beca's not sure she didn't fall out.

The kitchen is empty except for Jessica and Ashley, who are both dressed in bathing suit tops-green and blue, respectively-and basketball shorts. Ashley's thumbs are flying over her phone so fast she can only be playing a game, while Jessica looks on. (She thinks she's got their names correct.) She pauses. She'd met them both the day before and they seemed really nice. "Hey."

Jessica (the blonde's Jessica, right?) looks up from Ashley's phone and grins. "Hi! Beca! Going get ready?"

"Uh, yeah." She taps the tops of her thighs with the heels of her palms, one after the other. "Is Chloe-?"

Ashley, glancing up momentarily from her game to smile at her, says, "She's getting changed. She said to tell you she's waiting for you, if you came down."

Beca bobs her head. "Okay, cool. Thanks. See you." They wave the exact same way at the exact same time and Beca hurries out. After yesterday, she's noticed that a lot of the Bellas do that-move and act in sync. Burst into song at the same moment. Make each other laugh with just a specific look. It's a little creepy.

She's starting to wonder if "a capella group" is codename for "cult". Of all the people she knows, Chloe, Stacie, and Emily would be in a damn cult.

The garage door is unlocked, so she pushes it open and steps inside, shutting it with her heel. The lights are on upstairs and she can hear rustling and soft humming. "Chlo? You decent?"

The humming stops and suddenly Chloe's top half is leaning out over the rail that lines the loft. "Define 'decent'."

She's holding a shirt to her bare chest. Beca's plaid button-up, she's pretty sure.

And though she looks away immediately, throwing a hand over her eyes, it's too late. There's an imprint of Chloe's bare shoulders and collarbones behind her eyelids, like the blue spots that linger after looking directly into a light. Beca shakes her head, blinking rapidly. "Dude! You could have just said no!"

Chloe's laugh trips down the stairs to her, warming her cheeks. "Where's the fun in that? Give me two seconds." There's some more rustling and the sound of a drawer shutting, then Chloe calls, "Okay, Mitchell. It's safe to look now."

Slowly, just in case Chloe is messing with her as she is wont to do, Beca climbs the stairs. At the top, she shuts her eyes and waits a breath before opening one.

Chloe's dressed now, in a bright pink bathing suit top with a matching coverup knotted at her hip. And Beca realizes with a jolt that Chloe looks amazing in it. When she shifts, Beca can see the faint outline of her legs through the silky material. The knot in the coverup sits right in the soft curve of her hip bone and Beca trails that curve up and across Chloe's flat stomach to the other little knot at the front of her top. It barely looks like it's up to its job of holding together the two sides and Beca's mouth suddenly feels a little dry. Chloe turns to tuck the clothes she'd been wearing into the bright blue laundry hamper by the bathroom door and Beca eyes where the thin shoulder straps are tied together at the base of her neck. Chloe's hair is tied up in a loose bun and her back is bare, every dip and sweep of muscle on display. Beca's gaze gets stuck somewhere between the dimples at the base of her spine and the bikini back and she stares, trying to remember why she came up here.

"See something you like?"

Chloe's voice rips her from her daze-because, oh my god, that's exactly what she'd been in-and she looks up, blinking rapidly. Chloe is smiling over her shoulder, her nose scrunched up.

"Wha-No, I was just-"

"Staring, Beca. You were staring." Chloe turns on the spot, grinning in that way. That stained glass smile.

And Beca has no idea what she wants this time, but some very quiet voice in the back of her head tells her she's absolutely willing to give it.

"If you're done looking at the artwork," Chloe says, tilting her hips back and forth playfully. Beca's stomach twists along with them. "Then I have a request."

"Ah," Beca rocks back on her heels, tucking her hands in her back pockets so she doesn't have to think about how clammy they feel. "I don't know if you could afford me, Beale."

Chloe's head tilts back as she laughs and Beca absolutely does not run her eyes down the lines of her neck. Nope. Her head comes back forward and she saunters across the room-because "saunters" is really the only word for the way she's moving, her toes peeking from under the coverup with every step, her hips swaying a little more than usual. "I'm sure we could set up a payment plan."

Insanely, Beca wonders if she'd survive if she just leapt over the railing right now. It's not that far to the ground and the Cobra would break her fall, right? "There's a safety deposit," she says, instead of trying. Because Chloe likes it when she plays along.

Chloe nods like she's following the beat of a song. Her hands are clasped behind her back and Beca tries not to notice that her entire body subtly rolls along with her head nodding until it's more like she's dancing over to her than walking. Then Chloe is right in front of her, and still bobbing her head. Beca wonders what melody is playing in her head. "I can cover that."

"Oh, okay then." Beca finds herself nodding along, then stops, leaning back a little. "Wait, what did I just agree to?"

But Chloe just hums, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth as she reaches out and rests a flat palm over the curve of Beca's collarbone. When Beca doesn't pull away, she slips it up and over her shoulder. "Shoulda read the fine print, Becs." And without warning-or maybe she just missed all the warning signs, too distracted by how ridiculously blue Chloe's eyes are-Chloe slips her arms around Beca's shoulders and pulls her in.

Chloe hugs differently from anyone else that Beca's ever let close enough. Maybe lots of people in the world hug like this, but she only knows Chloe that presses in until their bodies are completely flush and there's nothing for Beca except Chloe's hair and the smell of sunscreen and syrup. Only Chloe sinks into hugs like hot baths and leaves them with the same reluctance.

Beca's eyes flutter closed as Chloe turns her face into her neck and breathes deep. She hadn't even realized her hands were on Chloe's back until she feels the tension in her shoulders slide away, rippling through Beca's fingers and down to her elbows. And Chloe always hugs like this but something feels off. "Are you okay?"

Against her neck, she feels Chloe's lips pull up into a smile. And, wow, that list of hers is just getting longer every day. But this is really not the time. "I am now," Chloe says, her voice almost lost in the bend of Beca's shoulder. "We saw Tom at the gas station on our run."

Flames lick at the inside of her rib cage and she wraps her arms more securely around Chloe, pulling an appreciative hum from her. She feels like there's something missing, something she doesn't know about Jesse's dick cousin. Because Beca's been cheated on before. She knows it sucks, knows that "I don't want to be around them" feeling. But the way Stacie had hedged around talking about him at the airport and the way she'd seen Aubrey glaring at him yesterday and the way Chloe had originally told her about him ages ago are all striking the same chord inside her now. And it's a tune that sounds familiar somehow.

Beca's not a pusher. She doesn't care to know most of what people do tell her, much less what they don't. But Chloe's finger is absently following the line of her spine, dipping just below her t-shirt and coming back up and it pulls the question out before she can overthink it. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Chloe pulls back just enough to look her in the face, the rest of her still pressed as close as before, and her hand hooks around the back of Beca's neck as if holding her up. Beca's earrings tinkle as Chloe's thumb brushes over them. She's wearing a smile Beca doesn't think she's seen before, one that tilts a little as her eyebrows lift. "Really?"

Beca shrugs lightly, not wanting to jostle Chloe's hold on her. "Yeah, dude. That's what best friends are for, isn't it?"

Now that smile, she knows. It's the one Chloe wears when she comes home from work and talks about a puppy finding a great home, or when she aces an exam at school, or when one of her (many) favorite songs comes on the radio. And her hand flexes against Beca's neck as she leans in.

It's like every gear in Beca's body grinds to a halt, leaving her lungs empty and a ringing in her ears. All systems shut down and she couldn't react if she wanted to. Chloe's eyes slip closed and Beca can't look away. Because Chloe Beale is about to-

Chloe presses her lips to Beca's cheekbone, forcing one eye closed as she lingers, her breath fanning over Beca's skin. Then she tips backward out of Beca's arms and her hands slide down to cup her shoulders and squeeze softly. "You're sweet."

It takes a moment to force the expected reply out because her body is just starting to work again, sluggish and unsure. "Shut the fuck up, I am not."

Chloe laughs loud, one hand fluttering to her chest. "Yes, Beca. You are." Her other hand slips away and Beca shivers against the cool of the room. It hadn't been this cold when she arrived, had it? "And I would love to talk about it. But not today. We've got a lake party to get to!" She lifts her arms over her head and twists her hips in a way that belongs in a Shakira video. "Get dressed, Mitchell. We're about to get wet!"

Just like that, she's off, her coverup fluttering behind her as she slips on a pair of sandals and hops down the stairs, throwing a kiss over her shoulder.

And Beca sucks in a deep breath for a seven count, then lets it go for six. "Fuck."