T, pretty sure.
Chloe straightened her sparkly dress as her friends tittered beside her in their dressing room.
"At least we don't have to eat bull testicles," CR sighed.
"Or do the crosswalk thing," Stacie agreed. She pulled her strapless top up, then, thinking better of it, pulled it back down the half inch that she had sought to correct.
Aubrey shot her a withering look, reaching over the pull the top up again as she assessed the group.
"I'm just glad you're getting the interview done first," she said with an encouraging smile. "Because the performance will be phenom."
Chloe returned the smile.
"He said he'd take it easy on us," Chloe replied. "And we already approved the topics last week. We're going to do great."
Someone gave them a two minute call through the door, and the group moved into position. She knew they had a recorded intro first - a virtual interview with Jason Sudeikis who was still filming in England - and then they would introduce The Bellas.
"I mean, Corden can't be worse than Hoda, right?" Fat Amy said suddenly. "I was just glad she let me have some of her brekkie wine."
The group turned to her slowly. They were waiting for the knock on the door, when they would get introduced, but they couldn't help but gawk at their friend.
"You were on the Today Show?" Stacie asked. "When? Why?"
The Australian attempted to stall with a careful hum.
"It wasn't a big deal," she hedged. "My one-woman act went slightly viral, before university. You probably watched it - 'Australian singer flashes her fanny at president'?"
"Your what?" CR exclaimed.
"We've done everything we can to bury it," Aubrey said, confirming Chloe's worst fear: that the story was actually true and not a Fat Amy fabrication. "But we have a plan if it ever comes up."
Aubrey nodded at Fat Amy, and the heavyset blonde returned the gesture with a pained expression.
"What's the plan?" Chloe asked hurriedly.
"We let Amy say whatever she wants," Aubrey replied sadly, and Amy nodded again. "It was the only thing we could think of."
"Twenty seconds!" the voice called through the door again.
Dumbfounded, Chloe glanced between Aubrey and Fat Amy, but before she could say anything, there was a knock at their door.
She plastered on a smile as CR answered it. The film crew was there, along with a PA, and Chloe blinked rapidly in the bright light, hoping that she didn't look absolutely crazy for her first national TV performance.
TikTok was one thing, but this?
This was the big time.
"Bellas! Good to see you! You all look fantastic!"
James's voice rang out in their ears, and Chloe had to keep her hands plastered to her sides to not fiddle with the ear piece. Thankfully, the women had chosen CR to talk first, not her, so all Chloe had to do was smile as she stared into the camera. She heard her friend laugh - a beautiful, lilting sound - before she responded.
"We're excited to be here," CR said gracefully, and Chloe nodded adamantly.
"Well we're excited to have you," James replied. "Now let's see, we've got CR, and Stacie, and Chloe, and - now, Fat Amy, what are you wearing?"
CR stepped back as the Australian moved to the center of the door's opening. She extended a leg out seductively, showing every inch of her leopard print skit. She had a bustier red plaid top and a black beehive wig, and her skin was covered in temporary tattoos, resulting in what they fondly referred to as-
"Yeah, I'm Fat Amy Winehouse," she replied, dropping a shoulder towards the camera as she began to sing. "I'm a sexy star with a dirty secret."
Chloe heard the audience laugh through James's audio, and she rolled her eyes playfully.
"Well, legally, we're going to label this parody, okay?" James replied. "I'm not sure we can represent persons, living or dead, so let's just call you Fat Amy for the evening."
"Right, okay," Amy agreed. "I'm doing the Bellas thing mostly for exposure anyway. It's good to use my stage name."
Again, the audience laughed. The PA next to the camera gave them a signal for ten seconds left, and Chloe assumed that James was getting the same.
"Well, we're going to talk about exposure later," James teased, and immediately Chloe knew they had found whatever clip Amy had just told them about. "We're going to sit down with Bellas, and we're going to get a live performance too, right?"
CR elbowed Amy off to the side as the Australian tried to respond. But she was too far away from CR's mic now, so it barely picked her up as CR began to speak.
"That's correct," she said.
"Fantastic," the host replied. "We'll see you soon!"
The group waved as the crew shut off the camera, and then a PA was approaching to tell them to take twenty minutes, that they'd call them backstage. They watched James cover the news and interview Jason while they desperately tried to figure out what Amy should say about the flashing clip. Eventually, the Australian said she would just "wing it" as they were ushered backstage, and then they were being introduced.
The stage was bigger than Chloe expected - maybe because of Covid, they were more spread out - but thankfully Amy immediately took focus away from the group as she did the sprinkler towards James Corden. Chloe was grateful; as much as she liked to take charge in the studio, these staged interviews still felt pretty foreign.
They'd only done a few radio interviews so far, and even that was almost too much.
"Bellas! Bless you for being here, look at us!"
The audience applauded as James fell into host mode easily, and Amy - who sat in the middle of the couch with Chloe, with Stacie closest to Corden and CR on the far end - followed the host's lead all too easily as she gestured to both sides of the couch.
"I hate to say it, James, but this is probably the sexiest couch of performers you'll ever have," she said, and the audience laughed. "Though, I suppose you've had them 1D boys quite often, haven't ya?"
"Oh, I think they'd agree with you," James laughed. "I don't think anyone would doubt that you Bellas are hot!"
The crowd cheered, and James glanced down at his cards as he moved into his first question.
"Now, while most of us had a rather terrible year or so - myself especially, because you try to host a TV show alone - you girls sort of- owe your success to this pandemic, yeah? Explain this, explain who you are and how you kind of got started."
Stacie leaned forward, flashing an ample amount of cleavage towards the camera as she addressed the question.
"Well, we're The Bellas, we're a singing group, and yeah, like you said, we started during the quarantine-"
"On TikTok," James cut in excitedly.
"On TikTok, yes," Stacie confirmed.
"And we actually showed you on this show before, I believe it was one of those videos where you react to something, like, really excitedly, and-"
"And you used the duet to show us the grossest, worst things in the world," Stacie finished for him, turning to the audience. "I believe one of them specifically had toe hair?"
The audience started to laugh, and James joined them. Chloe chuckled too, but it was mostly out of nerves. Amy blew out a rough raspberry.
"You put the feet pics online, Corden," the Australian scolded. "People would pay good money for that, and you just put it out there for free."
"No!" James objected, turning to the crowd, and the audience laughed as they agreed. "No, they might pay for your feet, but I'm not sure-"
"You never know what's going to go viral…"
"Speaking of which-"
Chloe tensed as James flipped to his next card.
"We actually have one video of The Bellas that was going viral a couple of months ago, can we show that?"
Chloe and the rest of the group turned to the monitor to see they had cued up a TikTok of them in the Popcorn studio. And it must've been early - maybe one of the first days they were recording, because Beca was there, and Chloe was in the booth. She was singing Scared of Happy, and Chloe quickly realized this was her first time in the booth, that very first day, the first time she had sang for Beca.
She stopped singing, and the track ended.
After a beat, Amy shouted, "I wonder what it's like being God's favorite."
Jessica caught Beca spinning around, sending Fat Amy a toothy smiling before resuming her focus on Chloe in the booth.
The audience applauded cordially, and Chloe watched as James set his attention on her.
"Now, the caption for that was 'First Bella in the booth' - Chloe, are we to assume that was your first time recording professionally?" he asked incredulously.
"Well, we did the EP a while ago, but- well, yes, that was the first, like, real recording," she replied, flustered. They had said they were going to do a segment on TikTok, but Chloe figured they were going to show their goofy, trendy ones. She should've known that they'd pull some of the recording ones too, especially because Beca was in them.
And with the way Beca had been acting recently…
"Wow, just wow," James said, and the audience applauded again. "And that was Beca Mitchell, you Bellas got to work with her?"
He was still looking at Chloe, so she swallowed and nodded.
"We did, yeah," she said. "She's incredibly talented."
"Did you get to party with her at all? Because from what we've seen-"
Chloe was shaking her head, but it didn't deter the host.
"No? Oh man, I would've loved to hear some Mitchell party stories," he sighed. "We tried to get her here, to come on with you girls, but she declined. She looks like she's having a good time though!"
Chloe bit the inside of her cheek to keep from frowning.
It'd been no secret that the producer had been partying nonstop since they had last spoke in January. She wasn't even deejaying at the club anymore, just bringing dates there so they could "get caught" sneaking out together. There must've been five of them in as many weeks, and Beca was always seen with them for a week or two, maybe sharing a sweet kiss or a walk down the other woman's block.
But by the same time the next week, she was out with someone else.
As hard as Chloe tried to avoid any mention of Beca's name online, she inevitably caught a paparazzi photo on Twitter or Instagram. And it hurt, to see Beca chasing drinks with women and vice versa, even though she knew it wasn't real.
And as hard as she tried to act like it didn't affect her, her friends knew. They did everything they could to keep her preoccupied, and no one said Beca's name unless they absolutely had to.
Chloe knew they knew, and so she let them coddle her.
Just for now.
Except right now, apparently, because Chloe saw James was still looking at her, and Chloe's mouth opened with a stray vowel - she would say something, surely, she'd think of something by the time she finished stalling - until she suddenly didn't have to, because Stacie cleared her throat beside him.
"We haven't seen shortstack since, like, six weeks ago, so…"
"'Shortstack', is that what you called her?" James jumped at the bait. "Oh, I can't wait to call her that when she comes back here."
"She'll love it," Stacie beamed, and the audience laughed.
"Sensational, I love it," James replied, and, catching the eye of his producer, he turned to address the crowd fully. "We're going to take a quick break, and when we come back, The Bellas will perform their hit new single Something in The Water. I caught the rehearsal earlier, you will NOT want to miss it, stay tuned!"
Thankfully, the rest of the show went fine - except when James came over at the end of their stellar performance and quickly introduced Fat Amy's mishap before closing the show, playing the most palatable frames of the inappropriate video.
They were all laughing hard as they came offstage, and Aubrey met them, saying they were definitely going to have to address the video now, but she was laughing too. The group fell into a huge hug as adrenaline pumped through them from their first real performance - even though it wasn't full out, like they would have to do over the summer, it was exhilarating to put it on in front of a real crowd.
They had a few other things that they had to do before they could leave. They took a picture for The Late Late Show's picture wall, and they signed a few things for a few people who had kids on TikTok who recognized the group. Then, finally, they were allowed to go home.
Stacie and Amy wanted to go out, but they were overruled by the rest of the group - namely Aubrey, who insisted that the next day's photoshoot was too important to be hungover for. Eventually Chloe appealed to the vanity of the two wannabe partiers, and they relented.
After the brief respite of being dolled up and posed for the majority of a day - along with an actual night out, with good food and even better drinks - they were back in the rehearsal space, putting together the pieces of their forty minute set.
The few weeks leading up to the release party were some that Chloe hoped she never forgot. They'd wake up early and do their workouts - even Amy, who finally realized that a live performance would warrant some level of cardiovascular training - and then they'd get warmed up and sing through the sticky points of a song before rehearsing the full number.
Sometimes they'd spend a full day on one number - Tequila with Lime took two days, even after they'd learned all of the choreography in February. And then they started building out segments of the full show. The first twenty minutes were a doozy, but then they would slow down, with Scared of Happy and the new version of Clout Chaser, before they ramped back up for the last third of the show.
By the end, they were even practicing covers they would sing a cappella if they got a chance, because they wouldn't start rehearsing with a full band until after the release party.
And unfortunately, as they got closer to April - as they started getting more and more followers, and their single started climbing the charts - Chloe found herself online a lot more.
The first few days after Corden, she'd been so curious about whether Beca had seen the show, or if she was watching anything they were putting up, so she started to lightly stalk the producer.
But Beca had gone dark.
Since the night The Bellas went on The Late Late Show, Chloe hadn't seen one paparazzi photo of her. Not even at the studio, or at restaurants that she knew Beca liked. It was like the producer fell off the face of the earth.
She asked Aubrey about it one day, and the manager sighed before turning to Chloe.
"I don't think it's healthy for you to obsess over her," she scolded, and Chloe scowled.
"I'm not obsessing! I noticed that she completely disappeared, and I'm asking if something happened."
Aubrey huffed.
"All I know is that Residual is pretty upset with her," she sighed. "She refuses to hold up some contractural obligations, and she's apparently working from home almost exclusively. They said they don't even know if she'll come to the release party."
Chloe swallowed and nodded, turning away from Aubrey. Was Beca was trying to fight back against Residual Heat's stupid PR team?
And even though it'd only been a few weeks, they were already mad?
She didn't think about it before taking out her phone and beginning to text.
Hi, she wrote. I hope you're okay. I miss you.
She erased the last sentence, then she erased the whole thing.
Thinking about you, she typed.
She erased it.
How's the hangover?
Erased.
I miss seeing your face, even if it's in sickly sweet staged PR photos.
She tapped the screen like she might actually send that one, then she erased that one too.
Finally, she straightened out her shoulders and decided to write a real message.
I heard you might not come to the release party, she wrote, and then she sent it without giving herself time to doubt herself.
I hope you come, she added.
She stared at the messages, hoping that the little dots would pop up again, showing that Beca was typing, but they never did. And then she was getting called back into the rehearsal space with her friends.
When she checked her phone later, she saw that the messages had been read, but there was no response.
And so Chloe continued on, trying her hardest to focus on the task at hand. She wrote a little, but lyrically, she felt like she was in somewhat of a stagnant state. So she tried to learn piano - and then she asked Ashley to help her learn piano - and she was making some progress on that while the words eluded her.
Well, 'eluded' was probably the wrong word.
She had the lyrics.
Months ago, she only had a chorus, and then Beca took her notebook. And when Chloe had gotten her notebook back, it was a full song.
Beca's song.
She didn't know what melody the producer had applied to it - didn't even know if Beca had thought of it as a song or a poem, but as Chloe had read the words, the song had materialized around her.
Now, she was trying to learn piano so she could play what she heard in her head when she read Beca's words. The producer would likely have a hundred different ideas, from a production standpoint, but Chloe just wanted to make it a little more real.
Just like everything around her was becoming a little more real.
It was weird, to have all of her music dreams coming true, only for Chloe to feel like she had a producer-shaped hole in her picturesque landscape. Whenever she thought about it - that she didn't really know Beca, that this had been The Bellas dream for some time before working with Beca was even a possibility - she knew it didn't make sense.
But to her, Beca was integral to this success. It was her fingerprints all over the tracks, and she was the inspiration for most of the new songs.
Residual Heat - and Beca, first and foremost - was one of the main reasons that they were kicking butt and taking names the way they were.
So in that respect, it didn't make sense that Beca wasn't there.
She thought about it as she sat in the Residual Heat lobby, at another party (more pinks and blues this time, less reds), on the same couch that she'd been sitting on four months ago.
It was their release party for their album.
There were people from the press there, and almost everyone from the studio, along with a few plus-ones. Thankfully, most of the formal interviews had already taken place, and now, they were just killing time until seven, when the songs would go online - and when they would perform a few of the new songs for Jessica to put up as promo.
Chloe tugged at the sleeves of her flowing red sleeves, then she began to pull together the material suspiciously missing at her chest.
"You better stop messing with that. You know you look too hot to cover up," CR said as she leaned over the back of the couch, handing her a new drink. Chloe smiled gratefully as she grabbed it, pulling the small straw to her lips as she took a drink.
"You think she'll show up?"
Chloe craned her neck back to look at CR fully.
"Who, Beca?" she asked, and the other woman nodded. She sighed before she said, "I hope so. She deserves all of this as much as we do."
"Ehhh, I don't know," CR replied, scrunching her face. "Don't get me wrong, she's crazy talented, but I think she knows how much we brought to the table. One of us in particular, if our new single is any indication."
Chloe felt a flush of heat as she hummed around her straw. CR huffed as she squinted around the room.
"Have you talked to her?"
Chloe shook her head.
"Not since January," she sighed. "I tried to text her, but…"
She let the conjunction hang there, open-ended. She didn't really know what the end of the sentence was.
-but she couldn't even agree to come here, to her work, for a work thing?
-but she's too busy sulking somewhere? Or fighting her own battles?
-but she ignored me?
She dashed the thoughts away.
"C'mon," she said, setting her drink on the table before she stood, pulling CR towards her. "Let's go warm up."
Chloe collected all of The Bellas, along with all of their support staff and Aubrey for good measure, and dragged them down, around the corner towards the back of the building. She spared a look at the Broom Closet studio door, but she passed it, choosing instead to weave them through catering staff and into the back stairwell.
"Awh yeah," Amy cried out as they stepped into the concrete well. "These acoustics! Chloe always finds the good spots."
Her voice echoed up and down the stairs, and the rest of the group laughed.
"Yeah," Stacie said suspiciously. "How do you know this was here, Captain?"
"Okay!" Chloe jumped in, ignoring Stacie's questions. "So I just want to say something before we start."
She paused, glancing around the group to make eye contact with everyone before offering them a watery smile.
"This is a huge deal, and we wouldn't be here without each and every one of you. We have something really special, and we deserve every good thing that they write about us tonight!"
The group cheered, with Amy's whooping echoing loudly all around them.
"I am just so proud of each of you," Chloe went on. "And I could go into specific detail, but I need my make-up to stay together, so I'm not going to do that."
The group laughed, and at the edge of her hearing, Chloe swore she heard a door open. She paused again, glancing up the stairs and down between them, then waited to hear footsteps. Hearing none, she continued.
"So much has changed already, and this is just the beginning," she said, and she had to blink against the tears forming in her eyes. "I can't wait to get started on all of it. You ladies, this team… you mean everything to me. You're my family."
The group crooned lovingly, and Stacie wrapped an arm around her.
"We actually got you something-"
"No!" Chloe cut her off sharply. "Do not make me cry right now, seriously, I'm so close to sobbing."
The group laughed again, a real laugh, and the noise felt rounder, louder somehow. It made Chloe feel happier than she ever had.
"Okay, well let me just say," Stacie continued. "On behalf of all of us, thank you, Chloe. You made this happen. You made all of us better, in our own ways-"
"Yeah, I barely even black out anymore," Fat Amy said.
"And I've got my gambling under control," CR added.
"Wait, you're a gambler?" Jessica asked.
CR gave a sheepish look.
"Not since last year, when Chloe found me watching the Falcons game, curled in a ball, bawling my eyes out because I was broke," she admitted. She met Chloe's eye and winked.
"I owe you everything, Red."
"Okay seriously, we need to stop!"
Everyone laughed at Chloe's plea, but Stacie put her hands up in defeat.
"Okay, are we ready to warm up then?"
They didn't do much - they were only going to sing Something in The Water, Eating Me Up, and All in My Head - and besides Something in The Water, they weren't that vocally challenging songs. And with all of the rehearsals they'd been doing, it was easy to fall into their voices - easier than it ever had been, and Chloe felt herself smiling as she sang.
Until she realized they weren't alone.
Fat Amy saw the person first, with the way they were all standing on the stairs, and the Australian trailed off her note with a quiet "ohhh noooo." CR turned then, to look down the next flight of stairs, eyes flashing up to Chloe before she and Jessica stepped aside to let the person through.
And suddenly Stacie and Chloe were staring down the flight of stairs at Beca Mitchell.
She was wearing almost all black, with a black blazer over bright red blouse, and her eyes had far less make-up than they usually did. Even from their distance, Chloe could see she looked tired.
Tired, and sad.
"Sorry, I had to-" she started to say as she made her way up the stairs between them. She cut off her own sentence as she approached the landing, where Stacie and Chloe had stepped aside. "You sound amazing, seriously."
She was talking to all of them, but she wouldn't make eye contact with anyone as she slipped into the kitchen at the back of the lobby.
The stairwell was quiet as the door shut, its slam echoing loudly.
"Aca-awkward," Fat Amy sang, and Ashley elbowed her sharply.
"What?" The Australian protested. "We were all thinking it."
"Okay," Aubrey cut in, and Chloe released a harsh breath. Bree would handle it. She could always handle it. "You guys are warmed up, head back inside. No shots until after the performance- I'm looking at you Amy."
Amy went to protest but seemed to see the truth in Aubrey's statement before she verbalized anything, instead opting to shrug and mumble something affirmative.
"Chloe? You want to stay?"
Chloe hung back as the rest of the women filed out until just her and Bree were left in the quiet stairwell. Immediately, the blonde wrapped her in a hug.
"I know this is hard, and I swear I'm not trying to make you cry," Aubrey said softly into her hair. "But you're so strong, and you've been such a tentpole for this group. I'm amazed by you every day."
Chloe squeezed tighter.
"This is you trying not to make me cry?" she rasped against her friend's neck, and Aubrey huffed out a laugh, leaning out from the hug.
"Get through your performance, then go talk to her, okay?" Aubrey asked as she held her shoulders. "You need to talk to her, for both of your sakes."
"Yeah?" Chloe asked.
Aubrey sighed.
"If what I hear is true, she's miserable, and not in the normal way," she said. "She could probably use some sunshine."
An alarm went off on Aubrey's phone, and the pair glanced down to see that they only had a few minutes before The Bellas were performing.
"Okay," Chloe nodded. "Yeah. Let's go kill this."
Aubrey squeezed Chloe's shoulders once before sweeping an arm around her, ushering her through the door and back into the kitchen.
They made their way back out into the main room, and Chloe ambled towards The Bellas where they stood at the edge of the small, raised platform. Usually, there was a table or two up there, but the space had been cleared of everything except the four stools topped with handheld mics, where the singers would perform.
Her eyes scanned the room, quickly finding Beca on the other side of the reception desk. She was in a heated discussion with Jesse, who kept gesturing towards The Bellas. Beca finally followed his gesture once, meeting Chloe's eye and turning away quickly.
Aubrey approached the pair slowly, and Jesse made a final comment to Beca before turning his full attention to Aubrey. He ran a hand through his short hair, straightened his tie, and moved towards the dais.
"Everyone, if I could have your attention!" he shouted, but it wasn't abrasive, just commanding. Immediately, the music dropped, and Jesse clapped his hands together once.
"Welcome, everyone, to The Bellas self-titled album release party!"
The crowd clapped politely, and Jesse nodded along with them.
"Yeah, it's pretty sweet, right?" he said. "We are so excited to have them on board with us here at Residual Heat. I don't think there's a better group out there - on either side of the mixing table!"
The crowd seemingly agreed, as they started clapping again.
"Now I'd like to ask if anyone has anything to say, prior to turning this over to our new favorite girl group…?" He pointedly looked at Beca, but Chloe saw the producer kept herself tucked away in the back, eyes downcast, and Jesse barely disguised his curse as a cough before he looked up and smiled again.
"Great, then without further ado, I give you - The Bellas!"
They picked up their mics as they took their seats to slightly more enthusiastic applause, and in spite of her own mixed emotions at seeing Beca, Chloe smiled broadly. Then, all three of the other women onstage turned to face her.
"Oh, I guess I'm going to introduce us," she said, and the room echoed with laughter.
"That part already happened, Strawberry Tart," Fat Amy said into her mic. "You just always count us in."
Again, the crowd laughed, and Chloe blushed a little as she rolled her eyes.
"Right. Totes," she said in her mic, and she glanced towards Beca. She found the producer's eye and saw that she was smiling. Maybe grimacing a little, but definitely smiling.
"Okay, one, two, three, four, one, two, three-"
The four women broke into a beautiful, four-part harmony version of the All in My Head chorus, and Chloe saw Beca's grimace give way to a real, relieved smile.
She tried not to focus her attention fully on Beca as they sang, but she found the task difficult to say the least. She found herself trying to use the producer as a barometer for her performance, like she had when they recorded. But with how far away Beca was, and the way the producer kept biting her thumbnail and covering her face, Chloe couldn't see everything that she wanted to.
So she looked to Aubrey, and to the other Bella crew, who all bobbed and smiled so sincerely that Chloe had to look away so she didn't cry.
And then, before she knew it, they were done.
They had performed the songs as a medley again, like they had for Beca. So when they finally stopped, the crowd burst into applause. There were a few hollers from the crew corner, and Chloe even saw Bumper wiping a corner of his eye surreptitiously. As they stepped off the stage, they were forced to pose for pictures and give a few sound-clip type comments about how excited they were.
When Chloe finally got out of the throng of people, she'd lost sight of Beca.
But it turned out that didn't matter, because she wasn't quite done being a Bella just yet.
"Chlo! We're doing shots!"
Chloe laughed as she pushed her way through the group, joining her friends at the bar.
"To beginnings!" Fat Amy cheers'd.
Chloe laughed, raising her glass to her friends, and then-
Found her.
Beca looked frustrated and trapped in a very one-sided conversation with one of the journalists, but when she caught Chloe's eye, she smiled broadly.
Chloe tipped her glass towards the producer.
"To beginnings," she repeated, then she shot the drink back. "I'll be right back."
"I said shots, not shot!" Fat Amy called after her, but Chloe was already gone, darting through the crowd in a way she hoped Beca recognized, and she smiled graciously at everyone as she moved past them, past the dais, and down the hall towards the bathroom.
She waited there, in the hallway, until Beca came around the corner.
She was smiling, but it didn't meet her eyes. Chloe noticed she looked nervous, more than usual, and Chloe could see that her under-eyes were puffy.
She looked like she needed a hug.
Chloe clenched her fists to hold back from pulling Beca into her arms. She had a mission. She had something more valuable than a hug, hopefully.
"Can we…?"
She cast her eyes down the hall, and Beca fiddled with her sleeve for a moment before she nodded.
"I just- there's something I want to show you. To play, for you."
Beca gave her a curious smirk as she passed her, using her keys to unlock the Broom Closet studio and holding the door open as she let Chloe go inside first.
"Play for me?" the producer asked as she pulled the door closed, and Chloe gasped at the sudden darkness.
"Okay, I don't actually know where anything is in here," Chloe giggled, and Beca huffed out a laugh too.
"Sorry, let me just-"
Chloe tried to flatten herself against the mixing table to let Beca by, but the producer opted for the overhead light instead, groping in the dark for the pull string.
And that just happened to be where Chloe was standing, so when Beca waved her hand through the air, she connected with Chloe's face instead of her intended target.
"Ow," Chloe sputtered, and Beca gasped.
"Oh my gosh, I'm so-"
"It's fine, it didn't-"
"-sorry, I can't find the-"
The hand came up again, gentler this time, and Chloe felt it against her temple, and then it slid down her cheek, and Chloe felt her pulse quicken.
Beca's hand was still on her cheek when Chloe raised her hand to hold it there, leaning into the soft fingers. She heard Beca inhale sharply, and she was so close, if Chloe just-
There was a click, and then the light turned on.
Chloe blinked against it for a second before her eyes adjusted, and then she started giggling again.
Beca's left hand was on her face, and she had used her right to pull the light's pull string. But the string was up, and further away from Chloe, across from her, and so Beca had her right arm crossed over left, and she also had eyes so wide that they were basically saucers.
And they were close, but not, like, really close.
"-string. I found the string," Beca quipped quietly, and Chloe had to fight to get her laughter under control.
She kept her hand on Beca's, and their hands on her face, but the producer dropped her other hand away from the pull string.
And those huge eyes just watched her, and Chloe was struck with how she looked so nervous, so afraid of how Chloe would react, to their current position.
So Chloe took a deep breath and put on her most open, honest expression.
"Hi," she breathed.
Beca's whole body sagged in relief, and another honest smile graced the brunette's features. Chloe felt herself mimicking it automatically.
It was so good to see her.
It hit her hard. It'd been weeks since she saw Beca in person, and the producer looked so stressed and sad that Chloe felt herself viscerally responding to the pain she saw in Beca's eyes. All she wanted to do was help take it away.
"Hey," the brunette sighed.
Chloe closed her eyes tight, squeezing Beca's hand in hers before letting it go.
The song would help.
She knew it would.
"In there?" she asked, barely hiding her enthusiasm as she pointed towards Beca's office. "It's on piano."
Beca bit her lip as she nodded, and Chloe moved back to let Beca by. The producer moved across the space, grabbing the concealed handle that allowed the wall to give way.
Chloe walked over to the piano slowly, taking in the beautiful cityscape below her before settling at the edge of the piano bench. She could feel Beca behind her, watching her, but she was suddenly too nervous to pay attention to the producer. Her fingers twitched, reaching for the keys once, but then she resettled her hands in her lap. She spun around on the bench to look at Beca, who she found leaning against the desk.
"I'm not good," she said.
Beca raised her eyebrows with a small laugh. She reached behind her for a pen and started carelessly spinning it between her fingers.
"I didn't even think you could play," the brunette said. "So I'm already impressed."
"I, uh, I kinda learned, just for this," Chloe replied, fighting her blush. "Just, don't make fun of me."
Beca stopped spinning the pen and dropped her smirk as she considered Chloe seriously.
"I would never," she swore, and Chloe swallowed around the knot in her throat.
"Okay, let me just- okay."
Chloe turned her back to the producer, facing the keys. She took a deep breath and let herself start playing.
It wasn't Mozart - it was barely even chords, and it was only one hand - but it was really hard to play and sing at the same time, so she kept her chords on the main beat as she sang. She stumbled a little as she closed her eyes, so she popped them back open. Her gaze was fixed on the keys as she focused - G, and D, and B, probably, she thought so, anyway.
She wondered if Beca even recognized the words, considering she'd written them so long ago.
But then, as she finished Beca's pre-chorus, she felt a weight drop onto the bench next to her.
Beca was sitting at the higher end of the piano, and she started playing a simple melody on top of Chloe's. Chloe couldn't look up, though, because she knew she'd mess up more than she already had, so she kept her eyes down.
And her chorus - one about shining a little bit brighter and singer a little bit louder when no one was there to hold them back - gave way to Beca's words that she sang.
"Why do we do this, why do we let them make every decision that ain't really theirs to make," Chloe sang again, repeating the first verse. "Why are we still here? Why are we working late? We ain't the people that they can manipulate."
And Beca picked up enough to hum underneath her as Chloe sang the pre-chorus again, and when they got to the end of the chorus, Beca was singing with her.
"It's our life; we are the writers."
Beca reached around Chloe to play a few low octave notes, and Chloe leaned into her arm as the notes faded.
She heard Beca sniff beside her as her hands fell away from the keys.
"I really missed you," Beca hummed quietly, her voice shaking, voice thick with emotion. "Is that stupid?"
Chloe chuckled as she reached down, pulling Beca's arms around her. They came willing, and she felt Beca lean into her as she took a deep, gasping breath.
"No," Chloe replied. "Because I missed you too."
And as Beca let out a watery laugh against her shoulder, Chloe finally let herself cry.
Song is "The Writer - Chilled Mix" by Four of Diamonds. It's also on the playlist that I made for the album, which is on Ch 10. Thanks for reading! Can't believe it's almost done.