Prompt: "Bechloe first encounter at the beach."

The Life Guard

"Fucking sand" Beca cursed through gritted teeth, frustrated by the offending grains constantly landing on her towel.

Beca wasn't a beach person.

The bright hot sun was never kind on her skin and the thick layer of sunblock covering her it just made the sand situation ten times worst.

"C'mon, Becs, the fresh air will do you some good. Besides, your laptop will still be here when you get back."

Beca remembered Jesse words as he mumbled them smugly whilst leaning on the door frame of her bedroom. After moving to LA together from their small town on the outskirts of Atlanta, Jesse and Beca had managed to secure an apartment and paid jobs in their chosen fields – Beca at a recording studio and Jesse at a movie production company.

Albeit not their most desired positions, but at least they both had their feet in the correct doors, right?

After countless sleepless nights and crammed days-off dedicated to making just the right mix to finish her demo, Jesse had barged into her room of their shared apartment and somehow convinced her to brace the outdoors and venture along to the beach.

That was when Beca first saw her.

The lady in red… OK, so that wasn't an intentional song reference, but Beca wouldn't particularly object to the lifeguard dancing with her "cheek to cheek."

Beca rolled her eyes at her own thought, before standing up to shake off her towel for what felt like the millionth time that afternoon.

The beach wasn't exactly the most practical place to sit and read a book, but Beca's sure she wasn't really fooling anybody as her eyes danced over the words without much concentration and found themselves wandering to the lifeguard station on their own accord.

"You know, you could go and talk to her?" Jesse nudged her arm as she threw herself down on the once again sand infested towel.

"Yeah and you could stop talking but sometimes we don't all get what we want" she huffed out, reopening the book beside her.

"Touché.'

It had been almost a week since Beca and Jesse's first trip to the beach and now she had been joining her best friend down here every day since, just on the off chance that she would finally gather up enough courage to strike up conversation with the most beautiful person Beca had ever seen, ever.

OK, so maybe she was getting a little carried away and allowing this little crush to completely consume her, but whatever.

"All I'm saying is you're not going to find out her name sitting over here, Becs."

This wasn't the first time Jesse had offered his motivational but mostly unwanted words of encouragement.

"Jesse, go catch a Frisbee or grab an ice cream or something."

He was right.

God damn it, Jesse was usually always right when it came to this kind of stuff.

Beca returned her attention – well half of it – back to her book and let out a sigh. A couple of minutes passed before Beca was marking her page and trudging slowly through the sand. The grains were hot on the soles of her feet and found their way in between her toes, but she plunged on, watching the lifeguard station get closer with each step.

Before she knew it, Beca was standing by the high raised chair, squinting her eyes from the sun as she looked up to the redhead sat down. The other woman hadn't noticed her yet and it was only a matter of time before she did. Beca attempted to speak, but her voice had somehow disappeared and all her train of thought vanishing with it.

"Everything alright?"

Beca was snapping her head back to the blonde on ground level and frantically nodding her head, "Yeah, all good in the hood" she drawled out, instantly berating herself for her chosen words.

The blonde gave her a tight smile before almost pushing past her and calling up to the woman in the red bathing suit.

"Hey, Chlo, you can go for your break now."

Beca wasn't really sure how she ended up sitting back on her towel after that, but she left spluttering something about looking for the food shack (even though neither the blonde or "Chlo" asked) and was now mentally kicking herself for not seizing her golden opportunity.

But she knew her name now, that was something, wasn't it?

Chlo had to be short for Chloe, Beca thought, whilst gather up her things.

She kind of looks like a Chloe.

XXX

Over the next few days, Beca returned to the beach with her book – the same page still folded over at the top – and replayed their almost interaction on loop.

There really had been much progress made since then, but Beca had maintained eye contact and even shared a smile with the woman she was obviously "crushing on" (Jesse's words) and daydreamed about what could have happened if she had been able to speak to her when she had the chance.

"You coming in?" Jesse asked, gesturing to the sea behind him as he stood in front of Beca with a smile.

"I think you already know the answer, Jess."

"Come on, the sea can't annoy you as much as the sand does" he teased, kicking some of said sand onto her towel.

Jesse was more than aware of Beca's disliking towards a deep body of water. Ever since their first swimming lesson when they were younger, the brunette had sworn off swimming after a particular unfortunate mishap in the deeper end of the pool.

"Nah, I'm good."

"Look at it this way, if you relive your drowning incident from first grade, Chloe will come and save you. Then you'll have no choice but to talk to her" he smirked, crouching down to brush the sand off Beca's shin.

"Ha-ha, very funny" she mumbled.

"You and Chloe could get wet together" he added, wriggling his eyebrows suggestively before bursting into a fit of laughter at his best friend's horrified expression.

"Oh my god" Beca stuttered out, pulling the headphones from her bag and flashing him her middle finger.

"Fine, suit yourself!" he yelled before making his way to the ocean.

This whole thing was ridiculous and Beca knew it. Spending every free hour of the day she had to lounge on a beach and watch the lifeguard was borderline stalker behaviour. Eventually she allowed herself to get lost in the music filtering out from her headphones and finally started to register the words she was reading.

Six pages and even more songs later, Beca was well and truly engrossed in the pages of her book when a dripping figure was dropping down on the towel next to her. A couple of seconds passed until she was unable to ignore the cold droplets of water falling onto her knee.

"Jesse, please could you dry off somewhere else" Beca snapped, spinning around to the person beside her.

"Hi."

Beca froze, the coldness of the water against her leg was forgotten and the music of her latest mix faded out into nothing as her eyes stared into the bright blue ones next to her. The eyes that did not belong to her childhood best friend, Jesse.

"Hey" she choked out, closing her book and pushing the headphones off her ears, letting them fall into the golden sand.

"What you reading?" Chloe asked with an upbeat cheeriness, as her hands retrieved Beca's abandoned headphones and placed them on her own ears without so much as a second thought.

Before Beca could pull her eyes away from Chloe's sun kissed legs, or answer her question, the life guard was speaking again, "Nice song" she shouted over the music and gesturing to the headset.

"Um, yeah."

Why did she sound so pathetic and why were her eyes obviously lingering on parts of Chloe's body that they probably shouldn't?

"So, you come here a lot?" Chloe asked, setting the headphones back down on Beca's towel.

"No" Beca lied, unable to get a handle on her own thoughts.

"I saw you here yesterday and the day before that…" Chloe smirked, "…and Sunday and then last Friday, and the day before th-"

"Yeah, I come here a lot" Beca interrupted with a blush.

Chloe laughed, maintaining eye contact, which Beca is sure anyone would call intense.

"So, seen as you come here a lot and stuff, I was just wondering if you could do my back?" she asked, magically pulling a bottle of sunscreen from behind her.

If Beca was blushing before, she was sure her cheeks were an even redder shade of Chloe's bathing suit, "I-well-I…" she was nervously pulling the corner of her book as her eyes scanned the rest of the beach, almost certain this was some sort of prank, or dream. Yeah, that must be it, she's totally fallen asleep and her imagination is currently subconsciously running riot.

"I usually ask my friend Aubrey, but she's kind of preoccupied with throwing her guts up right now."

"Oh, is she sick or…?"

Great distraction, Beca.

"No, she just has this stress vomit thing…" Chloe replied, before thrusting the bottle into Beca's hands, "…but enough about that" she smiled, rubbing her back dry with a towel.

Before Beca had a chance to kindly decline or think of an excuse, Chloe was laying on her stomach beside her.

Her eyes immediately traced Chloe's bare skin, and drifted to the fabric of the backless one piece at the small of her back. Beca quickly stiffened as the other woman pointed a finger to the top of her shoulders with a teasing, "Whenever you're ready."

As if those words suddenly sprung Beca into motion, she was popping the cap and squeezing a blob of the cream into her hand, before rubbing it into her other palm nervously.

She was shamelessly stalling right now, but Beca really just needed a minute.

She took a deep breath; carefully sitting on her knees; before letting her fingers sink into the skin she had fantasied one too many times about touching lately.

OK, so that thought really wasn't helping right now.

Her delicate and hesitant touches grew more confident and Beca was gently rubbing the sunscreen into Chloe's shoulders with precise movement as she tried to apply the correct amount of pressure. The pressure that said "I'm not uncomfortable but I haven't thought about touching you before."

Shaking away the awkwardness, Beca tried to clear her head.

Beca wasn't exactly sure how long she had been applying sunscreen to Chloe's very naked and non-surprisingly soft skin until the life guard was abruptly sitting up and closing the cap of the discarded bottle.

"Thanks" she smiled, watching as the brunette awkwardly wiped her hands on her denim shorts with a wonky smile.

"I'm Chloe."

"I kn-I'm Beca."

Beca turned her attention to the corner of her towel furthest away from Chloe as she rolled her eyes at her almost slip-up.

"So, do you usually ask strangers to touch your body?"

OK, actual slip-up. That was a complete and utter blunder.

"I mean…" she rushed out, unsure how to save herself the embarrassment.

But Chloe was laughing. The kind of laugh that was whole hearted and genuine and Beca couldn't help but get lost in it's beautiful medley.

"No, not all strangers, just the ones that pretend to read whilst checking me out" Chloe retorted with a grin once she had sobered.

"I knew I should have worn sunglasses" Beca thought aloud, bringing her knees up to her chin.

And there was that laugh again.

It actually made Beca smile and feel reassured.

"Maybe, or you could have come and spoke to me?" Chloe asked with a wink.

"Wow, you sound like my friend Jesse" she sighed, letting out a laugh of her own.

"So, should I do your back now or are you going to ask me out?"

Beca buried her head in her knees as she attempted to keep the blush from returning to her cheeks. This was so not how she imagined today going. It was supposed to involve very little reading and more pining, but she wasn't exactly complaining about the unexpected fold of events.

"I don't know, do you want to maybe, like only if you're up for it, grab a drink sometime?"

"Sure" Chloe hurriedly replied with a small smile, keeping her eyes fixed on Beca's for a moment.

"And then maybe after you can do my back?" Beca asked, failing to suppress the sudden new confidence dripping from her lips.

"Well I guess it is only fair" Chloe dragged out with a shrug.

Holy shit, today was becoming something else.

XXX

A/N: My chapter names are growing more and more simple by the update. I was actually going to just call this "Fucking Sand" for fun but decided on stating the obvious instead…

Just a quick thanks for the reviews and follows and faves lately – I know I haven't mentioned it for a while and I'd hate to think you guys thought I was becoming ungrateful.