M/T for language.
Monday came slowly.
(For no reason.)
Chloe figured that it was because The Bellas were back on their social media game. They spent all Saturday getting dressed up in different outfits just so they could film multiple trends that Jessica would release on TikTok over the next week.
(It didn't have anything to do with the paparazzi photos that came out.)
They took google quizzes on each other, picked out who was "funniest" or "smartest" or "most likely to confuse a Diva cup for a shot glass."
(The ones with Kalina Val hanging all over Beca, at some fancy sushi place that Chloe couldn't even dream about going to.)
They did the most recent Taylor Swift/Celine Dion/OOTD trends.
(They arrived together, left together. Had "amazing chemistry." Giggled as they held hands across the table.)
They all pretended to be singing so people could guess who was singing.
That one would probably be the easiest for their actual fans, considering each woman had a distinct voice.
(And Beca was wearing a suit - like a custom, fully-tailored suit. And Kalina looked really hot too.)
Lots of smiles, and posturing, and sucking in guts for Instagram selfies.
(They were rumored to be the "hot new couple of 2022.")
By the end of the day, Chloe wasn't the only one feeling emotionally drained. All of them went to their own apartments and rooms, choosing a quiet night alone where they didn't have to think about each other for a while.
(Or anyone else, for that matter.)
Sunday wasn't supposed to get any better; they'd spend the whole day with Ashley and Aubrey, getting ready for recording next week.
That, at least, kept Chloe away from the gossip sites.
They were scheduled to be in the studio every day, and Chloe didn't know if she was going to be able to handle it. She was already dreading seeing Beca after- well, after everything. It'd be one thing if it was just a crush, but with the insane attraction, professional respect, personal distaste, jealousy, and career dependency, Chloe was about to pull her hair out.
And Beca still had her notebook.
That was what Chloe was hyper-fixated on Monday morning, as she aimlessly scrolled through Instagram while they waited for Beca. She wasn't even seeing the posts as she held a soft focus on the screen. She wasn't listening, either, as The Bellas and their support crew chatted excitedly.
All of Chloe's attention was on the door of the Popcorn studio.
Had she read the whole notebook? Probably not. She said she was going to work on their song. And she had other clients besides The Bellas.
She probably didn't even open it.
I bet she doesn't even bring it up.
The door opened, and Chloe put an immense amount of effort into focusing on her phone. It was an ad for some indie shoe company. They weren't even cute.
But that didn't stop Chloe from looking at them like they were the second coming of Madonna.
"Hey, shortstack! You look like shit!"
"Fat Amy," Beca cooed back sarcastically. "Always the charmer."
Chloe glanced up then, seeing that Amy was right. With a smile that was more grimace than glad, Beca was back in the hoodie from last week, and the big glasses. The bun had been traded for a banana clip, and she wore athletic leggings in lieu of jeans.
And Beca wasn't alone. The other producer - Allen - was there with her.
Aubrey barked out a laugh at the intensely casual version of their producer before she said, "Mondays aren't your thing, are they, Miss Deejay?"
Chloe swallowed against the urge to protect Beca, to defend her. It wasn't her job to make sure her friends weren't mean to her.
Beca pushed the glasses up to rub the corner of her eye.
"Astute observation," she deadpanned before taking a deep breath. "Right, so I'm not staying long. I didn't work on Scared of Happy-"
"Too busy this weekend?" CR joked, and Amy made a series of wet kissing noises.
Beca's eyes darted to Chloe - too fast for Chloe to make any expression beyond a general look of discomfort - and then she went on.
"I was busy, yes. I'm going to go finish it now. But I do have tracks for you guys, and I've got Bumper in here to help you out."
"What is up, ladies?" the smarmy producer said, waggling his eyebrows. "Now, which of you are single again?"
"Ugh, anyone but him," Amy groaned. "He's worse than you are."
"Uhhhh, no, I think-"
"Yeah," Beca sighed as she ambled across the room. Bumper let out a noise of shock, but Beca continued.
"I know. He's actually one of the shittiest people in the entire building. But I don't have time, and I know better than to leave you dumbasses unattended."
Shouts and shrieks of dismay went up around the room. Bumper and Amy immediately got in a strangely physical stand-off, and Aubrey and Stacie were attempting to quote contract over an indignant CR.
In the chaos, Chloe felt something fall into her lap. Discreetly, it seemed, Beca had carved a path to pass in front of her so she could quietly give Chloe her notebook back.
She's just giving it back to me? Chloe thought. Already?
With no teasing, or back-handed comments?
Or compliments?
"Anyway, children," Beca said loudly, crossing quickly to call attention back by the door, away from Chloe. Taking the hint, Chloe shoved her notebook into her bag without opening it. If Beca was being secretive, she'd go along with it.
Even if she didn't know why.
"Get the vocals done," Beca ordered, but it didn't have the normal bite. The producer was obviously haggard. "Focus on building off each other, and don't be afraid to take some risks. Try. Please. I know it's hard to do this for days in a row, but do what you need to stay fresh. Raid our food in the lounge. Talk to Jesse if you want more - Stacie, I think you have his number? Good. - and feel free to bring in, like, movies or whatever normal people like. We're not too busy this week, so the room shouldn't be locked down at all. Do social media, if you have to, for some dopamine. Oh, and don't kill each other, because it costs too much to get this room cleaned."
She was already out of the studio by the time she finished talking.
And Chloe was more confused than ever.
She had been expecting a full week of heated glares and meaningful looks. Or, at the very least, she expected Beca to corner her to talk about what she'd written.
It was almost worse, then. Seeing Beca for thirty seconds without any actual talking.
And why had she been so secretive, giving Chloe her notebook back?
Maybe she hated it all, Chloe thought. Maybe she didn't want to embarrass you.
But that didn't work with everything that Beca had said before.
Beca had said she was going to go work on their song. Maybe she'd still be in the building, and she'd come find Chloe later. She was probably just hungover this morning.
Any more considerations were swiftly wiped from Chloe's mind as Fat Amy loudly proclaimed something about doing crystal meth.
"-and then I think, mmm, better not," she said, and the other women laughed.
"Yeah, well, I'm in charge," Bumper asserted, being every bit the douche-b that Chloe thought he was. Fat Amy let out a loud, high-pitched non-committal noise, and Bumper doubled down.
"I want everyone here to listen to me!" he shouted. "I have very important things to say, and I'm not afraid to slap a hoe."
"Well you damn well should be!" Aubrey responded sharply. "And do not call my performers hoes!"
Bumper only wavered for a moment before he cleared his throat.
"Beca-" he started but his voice cracked, and Fat Amy laughed loudly as he tried to go on.
"Beca put me in charge, and I'm kicking out all non-performers!" he commanded. "She did it, so I can too!"
Amy tutted condescendingly.
"Yeah, that's not going to work," she said. "We aren't scared of you. You're like a big, squishy baby."
"I am not!"
"You are though."
"I'm a man!"
"A boy, at best."
"…noooo…"
Chloe sighed.
It was going to be a very long day.
Days, it turned out.
Days of Bumper offering gross, disrespectful feedback as Ashley tried to give them actual, actionable advice.
Days of Jessica saying that her footage was unusable due to the unsavory comments from both sides of the mixing table.
Days of warm-ups over cold coffee.
Days without Beca.
On Thursday, Chloe finally broke with a frustrated huff.
"What is she playing at?"
Stacie raised her eyebrows from further down the expensive grey couch.
"Amy?" she asked slowly, a grin ghosting her features. "She's planning on sleeping with him."
CR cursed, shaking her head as Chloe shivered. She glanced into the booth of the fancy studio to see Amy laying on her side, gyrating slightly as she pursed her lips. Bumper was shouting into the mic, but Chloe had been able to tune that out since Monday afternoon.
"Can we go somewhere else?"
Stacie nodded, and the pair turned to CR to see if the buxom woman would join them. She sighed, tousling her bright red hair.
"I can't leave Jessica alone with Prince Dickwad and the Australian equivalent of Little Mermaid," she said, resigned. Jessica shot her a grateful look from her position up by the booth window, not even bothering to look at her screen as she recorded the loud bickering.
"I'll make sure they don't fuck in the booth."
Chloe whispered a word of thanks before she and Stacie ducked out, following Stacie down the hall. They'd finished their vocals this morning - she, Stacie, and CR - but Amy hadn't stepped into the Popcorn studio booth during the last few days.
She had demanded somewhere with "better acoustics" to accommodate her "full timbre."
Bumper had pulled some strings to get them into the Fancy studio today, the one Beca had brought Chloe into almost two weeks ago. Chloe couldn't tell if Bumper was trying to impress Amy, or if he had actually forgotten that she had already recorded in the other studio and it had sounded just fine.
Beca had indeed finished working on Scared of Happy on Monday, and the whole team listened as they munched on popcorn. Chloe let a smile bloom across her face as she thought back to when she heard it for the first time.
What had been a good, solid song, with trap-style hi-hats and blown out bass, was now something so much more.
Some kind of modded vocal opened the song, and a clap/snare combo started up under that, with round, sonorous keyboard. Like a kalimba, almost. It sounded like summer - clean and open, and happy. It was a great juxtaposition to the troubled lyrics. Then, on the chorus, which Beca had made into something of a pre-chorus instead, the backing became muted until it broke open into wobbling, heavy dubstep beat.
And the vocals!
Chloe wondered if they had been recording on tin cans with string before, because they sounded good on the studio equipment. Better than she expected. Better than she actually thought they would in person.
Usually, Chloe listened to their tracks dutifully, putting them on playlists with other popular songs and letting them play at least thirty seconds before skipping back to Doja Cat. She loved their songs, but she wasn't going out of her way to listen to them.
But this one - this version… it had Chloe entranced. She listened for every ounce of sound that made it onto the final cut. She played it nonstop. She fell asleep to it, ran to it, made toast as it played through a small bluetooth speaker.
She'd probably heard it 500 times in the last three days.
Too bad it wasn't on Spotify - although, Chloe thought suddenly, I'd rather Beca not see the metrics, lest her ego gets any bigger.
But that was part of it, too; this song was the only real glimpse of the producer that Chloe had seen in days. As far as she could tell, Beca wasn't even in the building most of the time. Or, at least, the producer wasn't anywhere near the studio spaces. The Bellas had taken over almost every communal space on that section of the floor, and everybody said they hadn't seen Beca once.
Except for the interview.
It had been late last night, when Stacie sent her the clip. It was a TMZ-style video, where Chloe could see Beca walking to her car in the dark, late at night. A bright light was shining at her, probably mounted to the camera, and she squinted at it as she walked.
(In the studio parking lot, so she was here!)
"Beca Mitchell! Tell us what you're working on!"
"Well, right now, I'm definitely firing our night security guard," she bit sarcastically.
The guy behind the camera laughed.
"Wild horses couldn't keep me away," he said back, equally deadpanned, and Beca's tense, sarcastic smile melted into a real one as she rolled her eyes.
"Besides the usual… I've got a new group," Beca replied. "Bellas. They're big on social media, I guess. I can never keep up with those things."
"The Bellas?" the cameraman asked. "Aren't they pretty green?"
"You can say that again," Beca grumbled in response, and the cameraman laughed again.
"Are you whipping them into shape?"
Beca threw a devilish grin over her shoulder as she approached her SUV, pressing a button on the handle to unlock it.
"They're putty in my hands."
That cocky persona was back, the one Chloe despised so much, but the cameraman was eating it up. Beca opened her door and climbed into the front seat, leaving it open as she kept talking.
"They're new to LA, and let's just say you can tell," she laughed. "They believe anything you feel like telling them."
Beca shut the door, started the car, and took off as the video faded to an end.
Stacie cleared her throat, bringing Chloe back to the present.
"So I'm guessing this is about Beca."
Chloe closed the door of the formal green room/lounge. It was a holding space for anyone whose studio wasn't ready for them, but with Residual Heat so quiet this week, The Bellas and some of their people had set up camp. The recording studio kept it stocked with food, drink, and a plethora of media to consume.
Secluded, sound-proof, and sparsely populated with comfortably-furniture and a huge TV/sound system, it was the perfect place for them to warm up, chill, or even nap.
"Yeah," Chloe sighed as she lowered herself onto the edge of a seat cushion.
No use denying it.
"When I see her again, I'll kick her ass," Stacie said as she settled into an armchair. She crossed one leg over the other delicately before leveling a stare at Chloe.
"Was it the video?"
Chloe squinted toward the corner, mouth gaping open before she shut it, then spoke.
"I mean that's part of it," she sighed. "Yeah, I guess that's mostly it. She's just so… ugh!"
Undeterred, Stacie narrowed her eyes.
"She's a conniving, selfish, talented little hottie," Stacie drawled. "If she wasn't so important to you- I mean, to us-"
"Important isn't the right word," Chloe replied, then she laughed helplessly. "I feel her absence. I miss her. Is that stupid? We've known her for two weeks, and she's been such a pig, but I'm sitting here obsessing about where she is, what she's doing, who she's doing… It's driving me crazy, Stace."
Stacie's face fell, but she tried to hide the expression as she rolled her lips into a tight line.
"Chloe, she said it herself, in the interview," she hummed. "She's manipulating us."
Chloe blew out a big breath. She knew what Stacie was saying, of course. That Beca was lying to her, to keep Chloe unsettled, to get her to perform how she needed her to. That's what she'd said in the interview. She'd admitted it.
And yet…
Could Chloe believe everything the producer had ever said to her?
Absolutely not.
But there was something there, a kernel of truth. Some sliver of Beca that was real. Chloe knew it when Beca apologized to her last week, both in the studio and in the booth. She saw it when they had worked together on that song, when Beca watched her sing.
Whatever she was thinking must have been written all over her face, because Stacie sighed impatiently.
"Maybe you could try writing about it?" she tried instead. "I know Beca still has your notebook, but you could-"
"Actually," Chloe started, then stopped. It'd been days since Beca had given her the notebook back, and Chloe had been too tired to write, so she forgot about the book she'd shoved into her bag on Monday.
But Beca had been so weird about giving it back, and if Stacie didn't even notice…
Maybe she was supposed to keep it a secret?
"-that's a really good idea," Chloe finished, standing up suddenly. "I'm going to go… somewhere. Maybe down the street or something. I'm just going to try find somewhere I can work some of this out. Alone."
Chloe shouldered her bag and started out of the room, stopping in the doorway to turn back to Stacie.
"I know I sound like a lunatic," she said. "I love you. Thank you for listening to me when I can't even make sense of all this craziness in my head."
Stacie rolled her eyes as she pulled a nail file out of her pocket.
"Duh," she replied, starting in on her nails. "I'm, like, your best friend. Just let me know when you bed the egomaniac, and be ready to tell me all the deets. I bet she's incredible with her-"
Chloe didn't wait for Stacie to finish, slamming her hands over her ears and humming loudly as she walked out of the lounge. As she closed the door, she looked both ways down the hall.
Where should I go?
Her mind racing, jaw tight, she started off towards the lobby stairs. She wanted to be alone, not sitting in some LA coffee shop like a wannabe. Without thinking, she turned, at the bottom of the stairs, going behind the lobby.
This is stupid, it's going to be locked.
But when she tried the handle, the Broom Closet studio was open. And empty, which was relief.
A relief… right. I wasn't expecting her to be here or anything.
She turned on the overhead light, choosing to sit at the stool at the desk in lieu of the couch for the moment. She threw her bag on the couch, though, after pulling her notebook out and setting it on the mixing board in front of her.
She flipped towards the back, words already brimming off the top of her conscious, but something caught her eye.
Red ink.
She turned back slowly.
Lots of red ink.
Around her words, scribbled in the margins in concise, messy scrawl.
"Reminds me of early Lady Gaga."
She turned another page back.
"Too repetitive, but I'm willing to hear it if you have a melody. Guessing you do, since it's the same thing over and over."
Back, again.
"I like this one, but it's not enough. Maybe we can get a feature? We could get Bieber to help. He owes me a favor."
All over her notebook, Beca had made little notes. Compliments, comments, fixes, concerns. Like a complete map of her thought process as a producer. Every page had something, that careful red tucked into a corner, or up in the header by the date. She had edited the words in some sections, and had even completed some of the stanzas that Chloe had written, adding new verses to half-finished songs.
Even the sexy ones had notes, but they weren't gross like Chloe expected. They were purely asexual comments on structure, word choice, or production ideas.
Heat burst over Chloe's neck and chest.
Beca must have spent hours pouring over her notebook, over her words. Every comment was like a window into the producer's mind. Chloe started from the beginning, where her earliest works were - works that pre-dated Beca, and LA, back when The Bellas first met - and even those had notes.
She was reading before she could decide if she was upset or not.
Two hours later, Chloe arrived at the last passage she'd written and turned to the next page. Beca had taken the liberty of writing a full note on this page. Chloe took a deep breath before she started reading it.
"Hey Chloe Beale,
I'm sorry. I really couldn't help myself. I was just reading them when I started, I swear. I was making my notes somewhere else, to talk to you about later. But then I got to the song we worked on together, and I just had to tell you what I'd been thinking about. And then the next one, I knew exactly what you were going for, so I added some stuff and then… man. I really hope you aren't mad at me, but I basically ruined this notebook haha. That's so screwed up. Shit. I shouldn't even give this back to you. Maybe I'll tell you I spilled coffee on it. Or burned it. I'll just keep it and never tell you the truth.
Only problem, we wouldn't get to make these songs then. Or we could, but I'd have to explain how I have every line memorized. That might be just as embarrassing as giving this back to you.
I'll give you the notebook back. This stuff is too good to hide.
Come find me if you don't hate me. I'll be in my office til Wednesday at least.
- BM"
"Oh my gosh!"
Chloe jumped up from her chair, throwing her notebook into her bag.
"You've got to be kidding me!" she shouted, throwing open the door to the Broom Closet door as she sprinted down the hall, up the back staircase. She flew up the stairs, two at a time, and burst in through the side door of Beca's office.
It was empty.
Chloe was panicking. She didn't know what she was feeling, she just knew she needed to see Beca.
Now.
She ran out the other door of the office, into the hallway, and directly into Jesse.
"Chloe!" he said quizzically. "Fancy seeing you here, so far away from the studio… can I help you with something?"
"Where's Beca?"
Jesse looked behind Chloe, towards the open door behind her, and sighed.
"Well, it looks like we're both out of luck," he replied, pushing a hand through his short hair. "She must've left town already."
Chloe inhaled sharply.
"She's gone?"
"For a week, yeah," Jesse explained reluctantly.
Chloe felt pressure building up behind her eyes, and her face flushed. She didn't know, she didn't read it in time, and now Beca was gone-
"Her number," Chloe exclaimed, and Jesse jumped. "I need her phone number. I need to talk to her."
"I don't think-"
"Ask her, then, if you can give me her number."
He sighed again.
"She's on the plane until late tonight," he said. But one look at Chloe's puppy-dog eyes, and the man was nodding.
"I'll shoot her a message, and I'll let you know tomorrow," he said, head bobbing. "I just- she's so scary. Once I gave her number to Ye and she got mad at me, ya know?"
Chloe laughed breathlessly. Yeah, that sounds like Beca.
"Is there anything else?"
Chloe shook her head, saying goodbye before she made her way back through the producer's wing and across the hall. She stopped in the lounge, finding it empty, and finally thought to check her phone.
It was already after four. They were probably wrapping up for the day. She went into her messages, finding a recent one from Stacie saying that they were all in the Fancy studio, packing up. She went that way, hearing Bumper before she opened the door.
I thought these things were supposed to be sound-proof.
"-so we basically just have some more ad-libs and Amy's other dumb vocals tomorrow," he was saying. Amy, for once, let the comment go. "So it should be a pretty chill day. Good shit, slutbags!"
"Hey, Chlo," Stacie greeted her as everyone moved towards the door. "How'd writing go? And why are you so pale?"
Chloe took a deep breath, letting it out slowly.
"I need a drink."
It was later, when all nine girls were packed around a table at the bar near their apartments, that Chloe threw her notebook on the table.
"Ladies, this is a crisis," she chirped. She downed half of her drink and put her head in her hands.
"Beca gave it back?" Stacie asked. "When?"
"On Monday," Chloe said as she pushed the book across the table. CR picked it up slowly, shooting a questioning look at Chloe before opening it. Flo leaned to read over her shoulder, as did Aubrey, briefly, before resuming focus on Chloe.
"Wait, since when do you let anyone read your notebook?" Aubrey asked skeptically.
Amy laughed as she took a large swig of her drink.
"Since she decided she wanted some of that surly twat."
Aubrey sniffled disapprovingly while the other women laughed.
"Shiiiiit, Red," CR cursed as she read. Flo's eyes were wide next to her. "These lyrics are hot."
Chloe blushed as Jessica and Ashley jumped up from their stools, moving around to stand behind CR. Lilly didn't move, and neither did Stacie as the tall brunette regarded Chloe severely.
"Bree, I gave it to her last week, after our writing session," the redhead explained hurriedly. "She wanted to see what else I'd written, so I gave it to her."
"And you didn't think to tell me?"
Chloe inhaled to speak but stopped short. She'd let Aubrey read some of her stuff, early on, but she hadn't let her read anything recently. She could tell her friend was hurt.
"She's the expert," Chloe said softly. "I trusted her- her professional opinion."
"Who added the red notes?" Flo asked. "They are also a very good writer."
Chloe went to answer, but Stacie got there first.
"Give me that," she pulled the book from CR's hands, and the group cried out in protest.
"It was just getting good!" Ashley whined.
"Did you see the note in extra lines?"
"No! What did it say?"
The other women went on as Stacie opened the notebook on the table, laying it out for everyone to see. Everyone leaned in to read as Stacie read it aloud.
"'This gave me chills, literally so, so, good,'" she said incredulously. "If we don't use it, I'll buy it for Halsey.'"
The table went silent as realization set in. Chloe stared at her glass as she moved her little straw around the drink.
Nobody spoke up, so Chloe did.
"I didn't open it until today," she said. "There's hundreds of notes in there. Some of them are like that. There's some extra lyrics, too. Revisions and questions. And an apology for ruining my writings with her comments."
"Pretty ballsy of shortstack," Amy offered, sucking at the ice around where her drink used to be.
"Anything in there about her wanting to rock your world, non-platonically?"
Chloe shook her head.
Silence resumed as Stacie continued to turn pages, and in that silence, Chloe took stock of her emotional well-being.
Or, lack there-of.
She was so confused. The comments that Beca had left- sure, they were a little braggy, with all the name-drops. But the lyrics, and the revisions…even without hearing them, Chloe knew they were perfect. Like, billboard-topping perfect. The ideal blend between real and catchy, alluring but predictably coy. They were the type of lyrics that she'd come to expect from a Beca Mitchell song.
And some of them, she could swear they were about her.
Like the one she finished, about Chloe following her down the hall, where Beca had continued the motif. A teasing line about coming to the dark side, and a promise to be good that could be playful or sexy, but then the lyrics shut it down, saying "I don't expect you to see / I'm trying to protect you from me."
It was like Beca was speaking to her.
"'Can't wait to hear this,'" Ashley read aloud.
"'Like Taylor, but better,'" Jessica added, reaching a hand over CR to point to the next comment.
Aubrey silenced them with a harsh hand movement, and, gesturing to Stacie, motioned for her to shut the book. After a moment, the brunette obliged, folding the book closed.
"Okay," the blonde said carefully. "Chloe, put the book away for now. Amy, Stacie, more drinks. Shots. Tequila."
Multiple sets of brows went up, but Aubrey ignored them as she stared at Chloe.
"You're going to tell us everything," she threatened. "And we're going to figure this out."