Author's note: Hello all! I really appreciate your support over these past few days. I love hearing back from all of you and I hope you enjoy this chapter. I made it much longer than my other ones just for you all! Plus, I had been waiting quite eagerly to write the end of this chapter ;) Please give me some feedback so I know if this story is worthwhile for my fellow fanfiction readers.

Love you nerds!

Chapter Three: Competition and Curly Hair

The door burst open- slamming against the wall and one of her posters fluttered to the ground on the moment of impact- and her Bella's- well Fat Amy, Stacie and Lily- spilled into her room. Fat Amy spoke first, with a crude grin directed at her and Jesse, "Get it, gurl!" Beca felt a flush rise on her pale face and shot Fat Amy one of her pointed, raised eye brow stares that usually frightened all- all except Fat Amy apparently because she continued to wag her eyebrows at the rest of the Bella's.

Jesse, with his atypical easy going manner, flashed the group an amused grin. She felt her heart give a slight flutter. Beca wished she didn't feel that flutter or the rush of affection that he was unruffled by her rather crude, brash friends. It seemed, again, surreal that she had spent the large part of last year trying to deny her affections toward Jesse; she had pushed with all that she had to keep him at a distance but he had wormed his way in with his juice boxes, dorky smile, and moviecation. And now, here he was, in her dorm room and didn't have any qualms about denying his own affection toward her- his hands were still touching her waist and she didn't even try to push them away.

"Seems we interrupted some Trebleboning," Stacie chimed in. What was it? Pick on Beca Day? Embarrass Beca Day? Ruin her chances at her-something- with Jesse Day? Stacie, with her low cut shirt with overflowing breasts and tight cut jeans, winked at Jesse. Seems the hunter had no qualms about getting its flirt on with a Treblemaker.

Beca turned her back to Jesse, shot the girls a look that promised she would assign massive amounts of cardio at their early morning Bella practice, and finally managed a mumbled greeting to her fellow acapella members.

"Dudes," Beca felt her patience thinning and she probably would have a permanent scowl on her features if the day did continue to unravel the way it had. First Shelia and her fake motherly feelings and now the Bella's embarrassing entrance into her dorm room. "What happened to meeting later?"

Jesse actually laughed at her when she crossed her arms at the girls. His hands squeezed her shoulders (damned flutter was back. She should get that checked out. Perhaps it was a heart murmur) and she felt a kiss actually being planted on her head.

"I will see you later weirdo," he was so close that she could smell his aftershave. "Have some girl time." Girl time? Who did he think she was? She made a noise of disgust at the term because it was the only thing she could actually do. She felt frozen after his lips had pressed against the top of her head and the only thing she could actually do was make an incoherent noise.

He practically bounced, yes, bounced, through the door whilst giving the Bella's a final cocky grin. Fat Amy and Stacie watched him go in a rather leering manner. Lily was examining her lava lamp, mumbling something about molten lava and kittens. She liked the girl but sometimes she really creeped her out.

"Mhmmmm," Stacie practically moaned as she watched Jesse's retreating back down the hall. "You are lucky to have that otherwise the hunter would like to track down that prey." She winked at Beca's vaguely (read: extremely obvious) look of annoyance at her leering. Fat Amy plopped down on her unmade bed already rooting through her items as if they were her own.

Beca must have been in a fog, still thinking about his lips pressing against her head, and his large hands that had been wrapped around her waist. She had barely gotten startled when Fat Amy discovered her Little Black Dress. Her mind still floated around the feeling of his hands on her waist.

"What is this Shankshaw?!" Fat Amy crowed. Stacie immediately darted to Fat Amy's side, examining her modest black dress.

"Sexy yet conservative," Stacie commented, holding it up, "pair it with some good heels and he will be eating out of the palm of your hands."

"Or other places," Fat Amy wiggled her eyebrows at her. Beca glared and went to take her dress out of Stacie's hands but it was held out of her reach. Damn tall leggy brunettes.

"Someone wants to get Trebleboned," Fat Amy cackled. Beca felt a flush erupt on her face.

"We are- just friends?" Beca felt that it came out as a question because she was not sure itself. Stacie sensed her hesitation and cocked her head to the side.

"Friends? Or friends?" The second word was followed with inappropriate air grinding and rather obscene hand gestures.

Beca pursed her lips and took back her dress.

"I say Beca should wear that to our mixer next week," Lily actually spoke up from the corner of the room, her eyes still affixed on the lava lamp. Beca still couldn't believe Lily actually spoke beyond a whisper- it had taken beat boxing to get Lily to open up to the Bella's.

"Good plan," chirped Stacy, "and then I could lend you these sexy heals I have." She looked positively ecstatic about having someone to lend her clothing to and even though Beca would rather refuse than hobble around on heals all night, she found herself nodding.

The next few days were spent unpacking, movie watching with Jesse ("No Jesse, I do not want to watch Rocky! Turn it off…. Fine. You owe me lunch then.."), gathering supplies for the mixer with their fellow accapella groups on campus, and avoiding her father. Dr. Mitchell had taken it upon himself to involve himself in her life even more this semester- perhaps because he was suspicious of the devious activities she could be getting into with the Bella's. The amount of alcohol the Trebles had sneaked past the campus security was enough to get the whole campus pleasantly buzzed; thus, Beca predicted this small mixer was going to be filled with some very drunk, sexually frustrated acapella members.

Sadly enough, she could be considered in that category.

She did not understand what it was about Jesse that caused herself to become so unhinged. Just this morning, she had spent a good half hour in the shower, calming her racing mind from a highly sexual dream she had. She knew if she didn't calm her thoughts, the next time she saw Jesse and his goofy grin and soft brown eyes, she may just do something that their undefined relationship couldn't handle. They had barely done anything beyond a light peck on the check and some simple, homely cuddling and all she wanted to do was some hardcore making out that would quench the thirst for her need to have his hands rooming her body.

But, she wondered what he thought they were doing. He obviously enjoyed her presence-

No, she snapped herself out of these dreary, girlish thoughts. She wasn't a girly girl who worried about a boy. No she was earspike wearing, dark eyeliner Beca.

Her cellphone was buzzing when she finally stepped back into her dorm room. She towel dried her hair, tightened her robe and prepared for the worst.

Six messages from Jesse. At 8 a.m. This boy seriously needed to dial back on the caffeine.

7:30

Hey weirdo!

7:31

Wake up

7:32

No seriously. I will be coming over soon. Need to be ready for the mixer

7:35

Hmm… I think the "The Circle of Life" will wake you up

7:40

NAAAANNTTTT ingonyama bagithi Baba….THE CIIRCCLLLEEE OOOFFF LIIFFFEEEE

TIME FOR BECCA TO ASWER HER PHOONNNNEEEE!

Beca shook her head and texted him back

8:01

Ever heard of patience, dork?

She managed to throw on her workout clothes in a record time. For some horrible reason, ever since Aubrey had enforced cardio last semester, she had begun actually running on her own. It helped her focus on her mixes better.

She hated when Aubrey was right.

8:04

What r u up to? Are you actually wearing workout clothes?!

"What the fu-" she trailed off when she heard a chuckle. Jesse stood at the door way. Her heart clenche and that annoying flittering was back.

"Stalker," she gave him a half glare. "And, unlike some lazy people, I happen to run."

"Oh really," Jesse's grin made those flutters seem like butterflies. She needed pesticides to get rid of them now. "Let me join you. You think I get this sexy body without some effort." He mocked flexed at her.

"Hurry it up then!" Becca pretended to huff in impatience, "god you take so long to get ready." She strode past him and out the doorway.

"'Isn't that my line?"

The run did not clear her mind at all. When Jesse met her outside his dorm, his cut off sleeved shirt and running shorts sent a flash of heat down her spine. She tried to banter with him about his dorky cut off shirt, but she couldn't advert her eyes from his biceps. Were they always so muscular or had she been blissfully ignorant of them last year?

He was much faster than her but he held back. Her short legs never had been this much a disadvantage than right now. She felt he was deliberately running just in front of her to ruin her concentration. Stacie had been right- Jesse's buttock was admirable.

They looped around the campus. Beca had taken a few walk breaks and Jesse had taunted her by running around her. Her competitive streak kicked in and she ran as hard as she could back to the dorms- but he'd managed at the last moment to beat her to the front door. Her breathe came out in ragged breathes and she felt winded. He looked barely ruffled from their 3 mile run.

"Aright there Mitchell" he mocked. "You seem a little winded for such an unlazy individual."

"Well, if you must know Swanson," she panted, stretching out her legs, "running has been a newly acquired activity to clear my head. Helps with my mixes. And you are not helping at all."

"Oh," his voice dropped and came closer, his eyes darkening slightly, "and why is that?"

For a few seconds, Beca actually considered pushing him up against the tree and kissing him until he was just out of breathe as she was. But she straightened up, looked up into his eyes and said, "You talk too much, anyone ever tell you that?"

His hand brushed a strand of her hair that had escaped the pony tail and fallen into her eyes. His tilted head and twitching lips told her that he didn't believe the lie she had just told him.

"Oh really,"' he moved closer. She could almost see the different flecks of brown in his eyes at this point. They were a warm, dark brown mixed with flecks of hazel. It was beautiful and she hated him for it.

"How about you-" before he could finish that sentence there was a shout across the quad. Donald, damned Donald, jogged up to them.

"Dude, where the hell have you been? Meeting in ten!" Jesse looked frustrated and Beca was sure that Donald had a smirk on his face when Jesse mumbled a goodbye to her and disappeared to get changed for this alleged 'meeting'.

"Cockblock," grumbled Beca as Donald followed Jesse upstairs. Did she really just say that? God, Fat Amy was rubbing off her in a seriously bad way. Next thing she knew she would be calling everyone Flat Butt and analogizing everyone to dingoes.

The Bella's were not happy with her. Fat Amy especially. Beca had been feeling frustrated ever since Donald had interrupted her and Jesse earlier this morning; she decided to take out her frustration on her Bella's- by making them run around the auditorium for 20 minutes while she lounged in the chair pondering her mixes.

"Sweet dingoes," panted Fat Amy when Beca finally had them stop. The girls were hunched over in various states of pain. Fat Amy looked especially pained and was practically curled up in a ball on the floor. "What has gotten you panties into such a bunch."

Stacie managed to laugh through her pants and said with a wicked glint in her eyes, "It's more like what hasn't gotten into her panties." Beca shot her an evil glare and narrowed her eyes at her.

"Oh, I'm sorry Stacie. You want another five laps? Go ahead," Beca practically snarled. Stacie pouted, but thankful took off in a sprint to finish her laps. Beca had a good suspicion that Stacie worked out much more often than the other Bella's and held back to make them feel better about their obvious out of shape lifestyles.

Fat Amy just smirked at her and said, "So, Shawshank, ready for the mixer tonight. I heard from a certain Treble this morning that their house is packed full of goodies."

Beca ignored her and direct her other member's attentions to the white board.

"Now ladies- lets mix this year up…."

Jesse readjusted his button up shirt. He mused his hair and examined himself in the mirror once more. He felt off. Nervous. Jittery.

This was the first Treble party he hosted as the leader of the Trebles. This party would make or break his reputation as the badass Treble leader. He wanted this party to be remembered for years. Donald had known a great supplier of cheap, good beer and Benji had come through with his connections to a local catering business. Apparently Benji had performed a magic show for the caterer's granddaughter's sixth birthday over the summer for free and this was their way of thanking him.

But, this party was not the only reason why he felt so nervous. Tonight he was going to ask Beca to put that label on their relationship. He wanted to be her boyfriend. To show her off to the whole campus. He wanted the little spitfire to be labeled as his and only his.

Jesse felt another wave of nerves overcome him and he fiddled with his collar again.

"Yo Man!" Unicycle called from across the room, "calm yourself. Your little Bella will say yes." Jesse shot Unicycle a scowl. Well, not at his words, but at the fact that the whole house had taken it upon themselves to involve themselves with his –something—with Beca. They'd cackled and made jokes all last year about his infatuation and now they were pushing him to make an actual move.

"If not, I will hit that," Bumper said from the kitchen. Bumper had surprisingly come back to Barden for his graduate studies and was reluctantly accepted back into the Trebles- mainly because they enjoyed his wealth that came from his trust fund. They had only accepted him after some very unmerciful pranks concocted by Jesse himself that involved naked streaking through a gay bar, getting his nails done at the campus nail saloon, and drinking his weight in prune juice and sending him on a three hour bus tour with the elderly to New York. Needless to say, Bumper knew his place in the Trebles now and was willing to accept Jesse as a leader.

But he was still Bumper and couldn't refrain from crude comments.

Jesse just flipped him off. His cell buzzed in his pocket.

9:04 p.m

Done fixing your hair dork? It won't look any better no matter how hard you try

Jesse's eyes shot up from his phone and looked around rather suspiciously. Did she have cameras in here?

"Over here dork."

And his mouth went dry when he saw Becca.

Damn. Damn. Triple Damn.

The dress she wore sent his hormones into a frenzy. It was sexy, short, and showed more skin he had seen from her in the past year. The black heels she wore made her legs longer and her black eyeliner made those electric blue eyes pop. Was that lip gloss on her lips? Her curly hair looked mused and his brain created an image of his hands running through it and musing it up further as his mouth pressed against her lips.

He could have sworn the house went silent. Perhaps it had. Until-

"Damn." Bumper chimed up, his voice sounding suspiciously high pitched, "you want a chance on the Bumper train?" Beca's eyes narrowed at him and thankfully the Bella's filed in behind her before Bumper could make any more inappropriate jokes at her expense.

Jesse finally opened his mouth, still very dry and he shoved his hands in his pockets to hide his slight (okay, extreme) arousal at her looking so damn sexy in that little black dress.

"You, uhm," Jesse actually fumbled over his words, "want something to drink?"

Beca cocked her head to the side, her curls swishing over one side of her shoulder and onto her back, and said her tone sarcastic, "You think you have enough to drink for everyone?" His eyes were focused on her tiny shoulder where he could see she was not wearing a bra. Only those damn sexy straps to that little black dress that was going to be the death of him.

"Mhmm," Jesse tried to find the right words. They were stuck in his brain blocked by images of Beca and her dress. "I, uh, yeah. We got like five kegs and some-" he was fumbling. Why was he fumbling with his words? He was supposed to be smooth. If he was already at this point this early on the evening with such a low word count, as the night progressed he would not even be able to ask her to be his girlfriend.

The party became quickly a rager. There were people here Jesse did not even recognize. The music was blaring and the acapella groups had banded together and sang, drunkenly, to the music. The High Notes were dancing on the tables and he could have sworn he had seen Bumper and Fat Amy grinding and trying to out sing each other. His eyes, however, rarely left Beca. She was not much of a drinker- she had one cup of lukewarm beer and told him that she would rather not puke on their morning run thus she was cutting herself off. Jesse had smiled at her, leaning close and getting a whiff of her body lotion (same as always, a light scent that was just enough to want him to pull her closer and feel how smooth her skin was with those daily applications of lotion. God he was such a creeper), and said into her ear, hoping his breathe would tickle her neck and give her shivers, "You competitive much Mitchell?"

He saw it immediately. Her eyes went wide and her lips formed a sort of "o" at his close proximity. And then her expression closed off slightly and her trademark smirk erupted on her face.

"Never in the slightest. There is nothing to compete with."

The party was almost too loud to speak. The music was blaring, there was drunken singing, and he could see several couples making out in the hot tub. He had long lost track of several of his Trebles, but he knew that the party would progress long into the night. Beca was fake laughing at a guy he didn't recognize with a considerably creeped out expression on her face and that flicker of jealously flared through his body. Perhaps it was the alchohol making him bolder, but he found himself next to her in mere seconds and saying, rather loudly to make his point to this punk, "Want to walk back to the dorms soon? Don't want to miss out on our early morning runs?"

Beca looked strangely at him as if he had suddenly proclaimed that he loved Spongebob and was having a shot gun marriage with him. But, then she nodded and looked thankful for his rescue.

"Are you okay? A little too much alcohol for our lightweight?" Beca asked once they'd freed themselves from the house. He was glad to be outside of the house. The warm weather had given away to a crisp summer night and he offered her his outer coat. She had, at first, scoffed but accepted it without much complaint beyond a sarcastic, "Aren't you a gentleman?"

The walk back was shorter than he had hoped it to be because he still hadn't asked her that damn question. He had prattled on about random topics the whole way back filling the air with his nervous chatter and her amusing responses. But the words he really wanted to say was stuck in his mouth.

They stopped right outside her dorm room door. He had his hands shoved in his pockets and was watching her face for any indication that he was getting creepy. She looked up at him and said, with a little bit of hesitation, "Would you like to come in? I have-" but he cut her off. The question he wanted to ask her slipped his mind when he leaned down and kissed her without even thinking about it first. Lightly at first and then- well- then it became urgent.

His mouth met hers harder than the first, light kiss and his hands wove their way through her curls. She responded, surprisingly rather quickly, and pressed her tiny body up against his. A moan came deep from his throat as her tongue darted out and found entrance into his own. His hands made their way to her waist and she stumbled slightly backward toward the door. He pressed her up against it, his hands tightening around her waist, and then his hands found her round bottom (so damn tight and round under his hands) and he hitched her up, her legs wrapping around his waist and arms wound around his neck, hands curled into his hair. His mouth strayed from her lips to her soft neck. He nibbled and sucked a line down to her shoulder and back up again. Her moan, a soft, low, pleasured moan, sent him into an almost frenzy. Her hands rubbed circled into his hair and then slipped down to his shoulders. Her small hands squeezed his shoulders when he nibbled on her ear (thank god she had taken out her earrings for the night). Her legs tightened even further around his waist when his mouth finally met hers again. The door became their support as his one hand strayed from her waist to her thigh, rubbing up her leg until it reach the hemline of her dress and then slide down again. His hands wanted to stray further up her thighs, but he felt some reluctance. She slid down him and fumbled with the door for a second. She opened the door behind her, recapturing his lips and tugging him into the room by the front of his shirt, and they stumbled into her room. He shut the door behind them and the room plunged into darkness; the only light that shone was through the window from the campus quad lights.

With her hair wild and untamed and electric eyes staring at him with unmistakable lust, he knew that question that he wanted to ask her was going to have to wait. Her hands gripped his collar and pulled him close, her lips against his once more.

He felt her undoing his buttons on his shirt and he shrugged it off once she'd undone them all. She broke off from him, looking up at him unwaveringly, before her eyes wandered down his chest. He was glad for the workout routine that he had followed over the summer when he saw her eyes widen and she looked close to jumping him. But when her hands actually wandered down his neck, shoulders, and chest and touched him abdomen, running her hands over the outline of his abs, he couldn't resist it any further.

He lifted her up by the butt and let her wrap her legs around his bare torso as he mouth kissed her neck and made way down to her chest. His legs moved them to her bed and his hands unzipped her dress. Her skin felt just as soft as he predicted. Her pale, luminescent skin seemed to shine in the darkness of her room.

God what was he doing? This was not the alcohol for sure. It was the feelings that they both had been repressing all last year finally culminating into this one event. But this was something they should be doing after he asked her that damn question. After he had wooed her with a few dates and cheesy gifts that showed his true affection for her. But when he saw her lacy underwear and her hands undid his belt, these thoughts escaped his minds.

But, when her small hands gripped his back as his body pressed up against her small, supple body, he broke his lips away from her own and whispered into her ear, "Do you want this?"

There was no pause. She looked him straight in the eye and said, "God yes."

That question would have to wait until morning.