"I'm not gay. I'm not gay," Beca Mitchell repeated to herself again and again while pacing around her cramped dorm. She practically tore off her werewolf costume and threw it across the room. The brunette angrily stepped into her pajamas. She stopped pacing and blew some hair out of her face with her hands placed on her hips. "No, this isn't right." She continued her pacing. "This isn't how college is supposed to go. Beca, you promised yourself. Get through it with no attachments and get to LA." She bit her lip. No matter how hard she tried to get Chloe out of her mind, her efforts always ended in failure. She needed a distraction.
"Hey Stacie."
"Beca! Hi! What's up?" a very drunk Stacie yelled through the phone.
"I was, um, wondering if you knew of any parties happening tomorrow?"
"Oh, yeah, definitely. I'm invited to parties every night. Why?"
"I was wondering if I could tag along?"
"Sure! Aren't you still here at the Halloween party? I'm over by the music! You should come over here!"
"Stacie, I left literally an hour ago."
"Oh. I'll come by your dorm tomorrow to drive you to the party, okay?"
"Thanks."
"I always need someone to hold my hair back, so thank you," Stacie slurred. Beca rolled her eyes and ended the call. Parties definitely weren't her thing, but if they could take her mind off the redhead, she'd go.
"I shouldn't be under this much stress," Beca whispered to herself, falling onto her bed.
Fat Amy and the trio's hot chocolates were long gone by the time Chloe finally climbed into bed. The girl took out her iPod from her nightstand and put in her earbuds. She scrolled through her songs, but her finger lingered over a very specific track. She glanced over towards the door to make sure it was shut. She parted her legs and let her hand find its way to her underwear. She closed her eyes, getting lost in the music, and let her hand do its job, except this time, she imagined it was Beca's fingers instead of her own. She could almost feel the phantom kisses along her collarbone. She was close...so close, but was interrupted by a knock on the door followed by a "Chloe?"
Shit.
Chloe grabbed her blanket and pulled it up to her chin. She ripped out her earbuds as Aubrey walked through the doorway. "Hey," the blonde said with a soft voice.
"Hi."
"I just wanted to tell you that I'm sorry for saying you've been slutty recently. You really haven't been. I'm just under a lot of stress," Aubrey explained, running her fingers through her hair. "The Bellas don't seem to listen to me, you know? They don't seem to respect me much." She rubbed her hand up and down her arm, looking to Chloe for some sort of recognition that the conversation was actually going on. Chloe fidgeted under the blankets; she just wanted Aubrey to leave so she could finish herself off. Aubrey realized this and her eyes got wide. "Oh, God, Chloe. Oh my god! Were you...before I...?" Chloe nodded. Aubrey hands rushed up to rest on her temples, "I'm sorry. We'll talk tomorrow." She turned and left, shutting the door behind her. "Gross," she murmured once she was sure she was out of earshot.
"What are these?" Chloe picked up one of the many flashdrives from a small basket on Luke's desk.
"Beca's flashdrives. She keeps giving them to me."
"Have you listened to her stuff at all? It's fantastic."
"Not yet. I've been busy; things to do, people to see."
"More like people to fuck." Luke smirked at her. "Anyways, you should really listen to her stuff. Maybe even put the ones you like on the radio."
"If you say it's good enough to check out, I'll listen."
"Thanks, Luke," Chloe smiled brightly. He gave her a weird look.
"Beca should be the one to thank me, not you." Chloe rolled her eyes.
"She can't thank you until her stuff is on the radio. Duh!"
"I'm really surprised you asked me to go party with you, Beca."
"It's more like me partying with you. I just need to let loose," Beca smiled over at her fellow Bella who was driving her to yet another frat house. "I might even drink...if it helps," she mumbled just loudly enough for herself to hear.
"Whatever, Lilly. Anyways, what's got you so stressed? You're always so laid back. It's weird to see you like this." Beca looked a little confused. "I can tell by your body language there's something bothering you, and it has been for a while. So spill." Beca looked down at herself. She was tense; her hands here folded over each other, her back was straight, her legs were crossed. Oh god, I look just like Aubrey.
"My dad's been getting on my back about grades and shit like that. He doesn't understand what 'resentment' means," she lied.
"Why do you resent your father?" Stacie glanced over for a second before looking back at the road.
"I'd rather not talk about it."
"That's fine. I'm cool with that." She parked the car. "We're here."
"Here?" they were at the same frat house from the night before.
"Yeah. Why?"
"It's just, last night I sacked one of these douchebags for being an idiotic air-head."
"If anyone gives you a hard time, I'll take care of them for ya." The pair exited the car and entered the all too familiar house. "So what did you dress up as yesterday? I was a sexy mouse."
Beca laughed, "I totally get that."
"Get what?"
"You and Aubrey were fighting like a cat and a mouse because you were fighting over the cat costume idea."
"What?" Stacie looked genuinely confused, which caused Beca to laugh even more. "Oooh! Look at that man! I'll see you later, Beca."
"Wait, what?" Beca cried out, but Stacie was already gone. She groaned and grabbed a drink. She was going to be needing a lot more if she was going to be alone all night.
An hour and a few drinks later, Beca grew tired of the music blasting through the house. She searched around and found the laptop hooked up to the speaker system. She took out a flashdrive from her pocket and put it in, hitting play. After the third song, Beca realized this wasn't the normal flashdrive of mixes she took with her everywhere, it was a whole flashdrive full of her "Titanium" mash-ups. She ripped it out of the computer and shoved it in her pocket before thoughts of Chloe arose. "That was your music? It was pretty rad." Beca whirled around to find a boy with the classic attractive hipster look about him. He had scruff on his face and dark brown eyes. His brown hair was spiked with gel and he seemed like he was trying to grow sideburns. He was nothing like Chloe. He smirked at the small girl, seeing she had the classic badass music chick thing about her. He nodded towards the couch. "Wanna sit down?" She followed him over and plopped down, amazed someone noticed her. "I'm Bradley. And you are?"
"Beca."
"Beca. That's nice. You mix music?"
"Yeah."
"Cool," he grinned, purposely drawing attention to his lip ring before he took a sip of beer. He looked around the room for a second before bluntly asking, "Wanna make out, Beca?"
She almost spit out the tiny bit of beer in her mouth. "What?"
"That's not a no." He swooped in before Beca could even think, smashing his lips against her. He tried to soften the kiss a bit. Beca gave into her surprisingly strong sexual frustration and wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him closer. He ran his tongue over her bottom lip, and she opened her mouth, letting him in. The warm sensation of alcohol on his tongue made Beca cringe, but she was just tipsy enough to not care. The kiss continued for another minute before their bodies were smashed against one another. He left her lips and planted warm kisses on her jawline, headed south down her neck. Beca's eyes snapped open when his hands reached up to pull down her shirt to reveal her collarbone. This was wrong. It was all wrong. The house. The party. The beer. The music. The boy.
Beca jumped up, "I'm sorry. I gotta go." She adjusted her shirt as she ran out.
"Beca! Beca! Wait!" Stacie ran out after her. "What's the deal with you and parties? You always run away when it just starts to get fun."
"I need to leave."
"Just like you needed to leave at aca-initiation night?"
"Not exactly. Alcohol makes me uncomfortable."
"There wasn't alcohol at initiation."
"What?" Beca searched Stacie's face for the truth.
"Well, there was, but Aubrey restricted us to one beer since we had our first practice the next day. She's such a bitch sometimes. Only she was allowed to get drunk off her ass."
"So The Bellas weren't drunk?"
"Sadly no."
"I need to go."
"Come back to the party. I know that Bradley kid. He's nice."
"Stacie," Beca shook her head, backpedaling towards campus, "I can't." She turned and ran towards the student apartments. She remembered Chloe had mentioned her room number once in a conversation because some new kid thought that it was their room and had walked in the first day, claiming one of the bedrooms for himself.
Beca stood outside the door numbered 37. She took a deep breath and knocked. Chloe opened the door a minute later. "Hey! What a nice surprise."
"Hi. I need to talk to you."
"Come in and sit down."
"No time. I need to say this now." Chloe nodded with a concerned look on her face. She leaned against the side of the door-frame. "First off, I'm sorry for running off on aca-initiation night. I thought you were drunk and I hate dancing."
"That's okay; it wasn't a big deal."
"Yes, yes it was."
"Oh?"
"I don't really know how to say this, but- oh my god!" A very naked Benji came into view in the background, which was the kitchen, to get some coffee. Chloe turned around to see what Beca was so freaked out about.
"Benji!" He whirled around with wide eyes.
"Oh God!" He grabbed the towel sitting on the counter and covered himself up before running back to where he came from.
Chloe muttered, "I'm going to have to throw that away once he leaves."
"I'm sorry. I'll go," Beca said turning away. Chloe grabbed her arm.
"He's not here for me." Beca raised an eyebrow.
"Aubrey? But isn't he a Treble?"
"No. He wants to be a Treble, but Bumper didn't let him in. I don't see why; he has a lovely voice. Anyways, what were you saying?"
"Okay, what I was going to say was- Benji, what the Hell?!"
"Sorry, forgot my coffee!" He grabbed the mug and headed back to Aubrey's bedroom.
"Jesus Christ...okay, let's see if I can finally get this out." She took a deep breath. "I...I went to a party today and made out with a stranger..."
Chloe quirked and eyebrow. "Okay..."
"...and I couldn't get into it, even after I drank a bit."
"You drank? I thought you didn't drink?"
"I have a lot on my mind. Okay, so, I ran away from him and realized the reason I couldn't get into it because I'm into someone else. They've been in front of me for so long, I didn't know what kind of feelings I was developing. I thought it was just the same old infatuation you get when you get a new best friend, but I was wrong. You see,-"
Aubrey screamed from the other room, "JUST KISS ALREADY!"
Beca turned a shade of red and said, "Aubrey's pretty damn smart," but never got to finish because Chloe had grabbed her and softly placed her lips on Beca's.
She pulled away a few seconds later. "I have feelings for you too, Beca," she laughed lightly. Beca looked into her big, blue eyes and couldn't take it any longer. She closed the small distance between her and Chloe and kissed her again, this time with more passion. Neither girl wanted to pull away. The kiss felt so natural, like it was the simplest and easiest thing in the world. Their movements were so in sync. It was like magic. Their lips parted again to allow them to catch their breath, but it wasn't long before Beca was on Chloe's neck, sucking and nibbling on her skin. She hadn't realized she needed Chloe so badly. "I need to go to bed," Chloe whispered in the smaller girl's ear.
"Can I come?" Chloe laughed, not used to Beca's new-found confidence.
"Not tonight. I have an exam tomorrow," she took Beca's face in her hands and placed one last passionate kiss on the girl. "Good night." Chloe smiled and shut the door slowly, taking in every inch of Beca she could.
Beca stared at the number 37 for over five minutes with her fingertips on her lips. The kiss was like electricity. After all this time, she had given in to her secret desires, and that was definitely the best decision she had ever made.