I had a few requests for a continuation of Birthday Blues...

Waking up with cotton mouth was on Chloe Beale's list of pet peeves. Waking up with cotton mouth and a splitting headache thanks to a vodka induced hangover? Probably well deserved. She whined pitifully, trying to nudge her face under the pillow to shade her eyes from the early morning sun streaming through the curtains. "Fine! I'm up," she grumbled, kicking the quilt from her legs. She sat up, gazing groggily around the room trying to put together the night before.

Her birthday was the one night per year that Chloe allowed herself the chance to write herself off, and it seemed like she'd managed it last night. She untwisted the tee that she'd clearly had some help getting into the night before, if the dress hanging over the desk was to be trusted. Normally Chloe would have dumped it on the floor, or heck, even slept in it. Beca probably helped her.

Beca.

Why was thinking about her best friend giving her heart palpitations? Chloe tapped her head lightly. She vaguely remembered Beca disappearing around one. It had been just after Chloe had messaged her a candid snap of Aubrey pinning Stacie to one of the large amplifiers. She'd said goodbye to Jesse, he'd been a little out of it. Certainly not his cheery, cheesy self. He'd leaned over and whispered happy birthday, before letting her know that Beca was hiding out in the back behind the stage curtains.

Of course. Chloe had waved him off. She'd been stopped on the way to the curtains by one of the bar staff, so she'd slammed two more of those ridiculous jelly shots, the ones you basically had to be a gold star lesbian to knock back in one go.

Jelly shots. Then she'd ducked into the curtain… Fuck.

There was a timid knock at the door. Chloe closed her eyes, hoping to hell that her brain was mixing up reality and fantasy.

"Chlo?" The door cracked. Chloe breathed in deeply as the smell of fresh coffee wafted into her room, "Made you coffee."

Chloe grinned up at Beca, who, much like Chloe, was still sporting bed hair and conveniently lacking a pair of sweatpants. "Thanks."

Chloe watched Beca shift slightly, handing over the mug before seating herself at the foot of Chloe's bed. "How's that head?"

There was a beat, Chloe took the moment to ground herself before continuing what had the potential to be a severely awkward conversation. Finally, settling on the words, Chloe let out a chuckle, "Confused?"

Chloe grabbed Beca's foot as it jabbed lightly at her thigh, "Why did that sound like a question and not a statement?"

She looked up, noticing that Beca was thoroughly focussed on a loose thread that had escaped the quilt seam. "Because I don't really want to ask what's going through my head right now."

Beca nodded. Chloe could read that woman like a book. Right now, the book was telling her to just ask. Like a band aid, Chlo. "Did we… Behind the curtains… That happened right? I'm not just imagining myself pinning you to a wall?"

Surprisingly enough, Beca chuckled and actually made eye contact. "Yeah… That happened. I'm…"

"If you apologise, I'm going to toss this coffee at you. Which would be a shame, because it's really good. Thanks."

Beca nodded and sipped at the cup in her hand, before glancing coyly up at Chloe, "I have a confession to make."

Chloe slid back into the bed, that was never a good phrase to hear. She pressed her lips together, steeling her still cloudy head for any number of let downs that were surely about to start spewing from Beca.

"So I wasn't… entirely honest with you last night," Beca said. She was tapping her fingers against her coffee mug, a sure sign that she was nervous. "Do you remember… what you said? Why we stopped?"

Chloe closed her eyes, mentally replaying the scene in her head, attempting to fight the flush that warmed her body. "You're Jesse's girlfriend."

Beca nodded, "So about that… I was hiding. Because I'd just had a fight with him."

"Oh, Becs…"

Beca held up a finger, "He asked me to choose between moving to New York with him or staying here with my best friend."

Chloe's heart sank, "Oh."

"So I broke up with him."

Chloe's eyes snapped open, boring into Beca's. Beca nudged Chloe's thigh with her toe again, her eyes begging for Chloe to say something. "Oh."

"Oh?"

Chloe drained the last of her coffee and placed the empty cup on the bedside table, anything to keep herself from making a horribly presumptuous move. "Oh. Are you okay?"

Beca snorted and leaned across Chloe, sliding her own cup onto the table, "You're actually asking me that?"

Chloe leaned back onto her elbows, Beca had somehow ended up straddling her thighs and was grinning deviously. "Uh… Should I not be?"

"Well, I know there is something you should be doing with that mouth… Asking me stupid questions isn't what I had in mind…"

It clicked.

There it was.

Beca hadn't been Jesse's girlfriend last night.

Beca had wanted to kiss her last night.

"Well, Beca kinda wants to kiss you now… If you're cool with that…"

Chloe blinked up at her friend, "I said that out loud?"

Beca laughed, "Kinda."