Worlds Collide
Chapter Three – 'Texts and Blushes '
Hi everyone! I'm so pleased that my story is having a positive response – thank you to all those who have read, favorited or followed I hope you continue to enjoy! Please feel free to review – all comments are greatly appreciated and if you have a tumblr account come say hi on there; life-music-love xoxo
As Chloe waved the customers goodbye from her shop she was grateful to see Emily walking through from the back returning from her lunch break. Chloe had started her business at the age of 23, and four years later it was doing really well. Chloe had been sensible and picked a prime up-and-coming location, it was surrounded by other shops and properties and in general the whole area was usually buzzing with life. Once business started picking up after the initial opening, Chloe was quickly advised to hire some staff to help her on the busier days and cover holidays etc. Most of Chloe's business advice came from her best friend Aubrey; they had met during their first year of University and had been inseparable since.
Now that Emily (a 22 year old girl who was her most experienced and longest running member of staff) had returned to the store after her break, it enabled Chloe to go through to the back of the shop and take a quick lunch break herself. She smiled as she passed the younger girl and grabbed the coffee cup from off of the counter top along the way to her office, and then slumped into the small leather chair situated behind her desk. Chloe's office was small, and namely consisted of a desk with a photo frame with a picture of Aubrey and her sticking their tongues out at each other on top of it (photography was a new passion of Chloe's so she was in the process of putting her work up all over the walls of her office as well as any flat surfaces), a silver lamp, the before mentioned chair, a book case and a small filing cabinet that she kept all of her order forms, delivery notes, receipts etc.
Chloe leaned back in her chair and pulled her phone out of her pocket and entered the scribbled telephone number from the side of the cup into her contact list, checking carefully three times that she did indeed copy the digits correctly. She saved the number under the name 'Coffee Cup Cutie'; nearly everyone in Chloe's contact list had a special nickname, she regularly changed them to whatever was a fun topical name for them at any given time, however this had proven to be a source of contention with Aubrey as she could never find who she wanted to contact when using Chloe's iPhone. Aubrey's phone was in Chloe's words 'archaic' and quite often her blonde friend would use Chloe's phone to make Skype calls or to face time, a function that her own phone did not have. But Chloe didn't mind, she loved the fact that her and Aubrey shared things, in fact she had one of Aubrey's dresses sitting in the back of her office that she had picked up from the dry cleaners only yesterday after borrowing it the previous weekend.
Chloe sat looking at the number in her phone, she was smiling ear to ear and remembering the little details from earlier that she had taken in; the look of nervousness in Beca's eyes when she first noticed her on the other side of the counter, the faint smell of coconut coming from Beca's hair whilst Chloe had her arms wrapped around her tiny frame, the glint of excitement and hope in her stunning eyes as she winked turned her back and walked out of the shop. Chloe took a deep breath and started to type a message to the brunette. After five failed attempts and multiple huffs and shakes of her head as she deleted each message she finally gave up. She wanted the message to be cute and sweet, but everything she was typing was coming out a little creepy or just plain not good enough in her mind, she wanted it to be perfect. She scrolled through her contact list until she found the person she was looking for and hit the call button. After three rings a friendly familiar voice answered at the other end of the line. "Hey Chlo-bear, what's up? And what name am I under today?" Aubrey asked her best friend. "Hey Aubs, I'm sorry for calling while you are working, it's just I need a quick pep talk and I don't think a text will cut it". "Oh and you're under 'Show Me the Money Posen'" Chloe giggled. "I knew I shouldn't have let you talk me into watching 'Jerry Maguire' with you last night" Aubrey chuckled to herself.
Chloe spent the next fifteen minutes filling her friend in on all the details of that morning, how she 'literally swept a beautiful brunette off of her feet' by clumsily smacking straight into her, buying her a coffee but forgetting to ask for her number, right up to when Beca left the shop a mere half an hour ago. Aubrey listened quietly, chuckling when she heard about her friend being such a klutz and warning her that she should have been looking where she was going, at the end of the story, Aubrey took a deep breath and stated "Are you having difficulty finding the right words to text her?". Chloe smiled to herself, of course Aubrey would know the reason she called her right away, they had known each other for so long that the tall blonde woman knew exactly what Chloe would be thinking and that she would be worrying about saying the wrong thing...it was one of the things Aubrey loved about her friend, but also one of the things she worried about the most; Chloe was always so willing to please people, she constantly puts everyone first, even if that means sacrificing her own happiness. So Aubrey gave her best pep talk, well in the time that she had, after all she was at work and she was supposed to be concentrating on the client file currently open in front of her.
Chloe ended the phone call with Aubrey with a happy goodbye, and the promise of popping around to her apartment later with some Chinese takeaway. She felt a lot better about what to text, and as Aubrey advised her, she typed what she wanted to say, it didn't need to be a big deal, Beca had given Chloe her number so she obviously wanted the redhead to talk to her...she added the last kiss to the text and hit send.
Beca was sat at home on her comfy corner sofa with her laptop resting on her legs, her headphones were on her ears and she was part way through creating a new mix bopping her head along to the chorus of the current song. After she left the flower shop she had decided to head home. She didn't have any Studio work scheduled and was planning to stay in for the rest of the day readying herself for the usual Friday night ritual of Stacie skyping her whilst she got ready to go to yet another party or launch night's grand opening, with her latest gossip of the day, it had become a thing for the two of them to do, even if they had seen each other at the studio during the day, they would always make time to check in with each other every other day to make sure the other was doing ok. Sometimes they only video chatted for a few minutes, but other times Stacie seemed to sense when Beca was feeling lonely and they would end up chatting for an hour or two. Beca was embarrassed to admit that on more than one occasion Stacie had witnessed the small brunette drop off to sleep mid conversation if the hour was late enough, something that would gain her a good ribbing the next day from her close friend.
As Beca tapped her foot to the rhythm of the prominent beat that was swirling through her beloved headphones she felt a buzz coming from somewhere under a cushion. Upon arrival home, Beca had noticed that the Redhead had not yet text her. Beca knew she was busy at work, so to avoid constantly checking her phone for a message; she had hidden the device under a cushion. Beca lunged for her phone; nearly knocking her laptop off of her lap 'Jeeze Beca, calm down, it's only a text and you don't even know if it's from her yet' Beca internally scolded herself. As she looked at her phone's screen she saw a pop up alerting her of a new message from a number that she didn't recognise. Her heart started beating overtime and her palms began to sweat. She wiped her hands in her skinny jeans and entered her passcode into her phone. As she tapped on the message her smile grew tenfold. 'Hey Becs, thanks for the coffee earlier, you have no idea how pleased I was to see you! Chloe xxx'.
Beca typed a message in response and hit send straight away. 'Hey there Red, I'm glad it was a nice surprise then! I was a little nervous, I wasn't sure if you were going to try and floor me again with a sweep kick or something ;) Beca xxx'
Chloe sat in her office beaming at her phone, she and Beca had been texting back and forth for the last twenty minutes and Chloe couldn't be happier. The conversation was flowing easily, it seemed that there had been no need for her earlier worrying, there was plenty of banter and even some flirting, something that Chloe was ecstatic about. She knew she was definitely attracted to the brunette and she was thrilled to think that Beca might be feeling the same way too.
The latest text from Beca lit up her screen 'I'm sorry you WHAT?! You were in an acapella group in Uni?!'. Chloe had learnt from a text a few prior to this, that Beca was a music producer and so she wanted to let the woman know that music was a big part of her life too - Aubrey and her had even made it to the final round of the NACC's in their last year of university, although unfortunately they came in second place to group called the SoCal VoCals from the University of Southern California and honestly, although Chloe was upset to not win, the SoCals were just amazing! 'Yeah we were called the Barden Bella's and we competed in national championships and once we played the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre! xxx' Chloe proudly explained. 'Although we did sing a fair amount of Mariah Carey and Ace of Base, I would have preferred to sing something from this century lol! Xxx'.
That was it, Beca couldn't contain her grin any longer, she and Chloe were getting on great and now that Beca knew that the redhead was also passionate about music she knew that she needed to learn more about the beauty. Beca backed out of her messages and hit the face time button on her phone. Chloe almost jumped when she heard her ringtone loudly playing Titanium instead of the expected 'ding' of her message tone. She saw the invitation on the screen to accept a face time video chat with 'Coffee Cup Cutie' and rushed to brush her fingers through her wavy hair before hitting the accept button and holding the phone up to her face so that the two women could see each other. As the image of Beca's face filled the screen Chloe's face felt like it was going to split with the extent of which she was smiling, she had almost forgotten how beautifully intense Beca's dark stormy eyes could look, but also managing to look soft at the same time as she gazed back at the redhead with an equally large grin. "Hey" Chloe managed to breath out, it was almost a whisper as she felt her breath taken away from the beauty radiating off of Beca; she was slouched on what looked like a sofa, with her headphones still looped loosely around her neck, and there was a light illuminating half of her face from what Chloe guessed was a window with the sunshine filtering through. "Hey yourself Red" Beca almost drawled in her best flirtatious tone. She had spent enough time around Stacie to know how to direct a flirty glance up through her eyelashes; however she was nowhere near as practised as her tall friend and so when she saw a slight blush rising up across Chloe's cheeks, the brunette could only barely contain a huge goofy lopsided grin that Chloe found adorable.
"So to what do I owe the pleasure?" Chloe enquired about the sporadic change of communication. "Couldn't wait to see me again huh?" Chloe teased, secretly hoping the answer from the gorgeous brunette would be yes. Beca smirked at the confidence that was now replacing the shy comments made by the redhead previously and with a smirk firmly in place she said "Actually, I had a question to ask you but it felt like more of a face to face request rather than by text".
"You can ask me anything" Chloe smiled with a wink.
A/N: I had very little time to get this chapter together as work has been crazy! Any mistakes are my own and I apologise! xoxo