Guys you're all the best for reviewing (and for waiting this long for me to update). I've got a shit tonne of school work to do and all the usual excuses (with the added bonus of my laziness) but I promise not to leave it a week again before I update next!
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"How was philosophy?" Chloe's voice rang out musically across the student parking zone.
The red head was biting back laughter as she leaned against her red convertible, watching as Beca fought with the case she was dragging across the rough ground. She couldn't help but notice how good the brunette looked as well. She was in her usual skinny jeans and checked shirt combo, but today had opted to comb a pair of sunglasses in through her chocolaty locks rather than flatten the hair to her head with her earphones (she was obviously expecting sunshine the second they drove out the gates).
It was something about the way this made the hair fall around Beca's face that caught Chloe's eye though. It seemed to brighten her up, and make the permanent half smirk look more like a shy grin.
"Sucked…" Beca waited until she was right up at the car to respond, not being as comfortable with shouting (and by default drawing attention to herself) as Chloe was. "But I expect nothing less of a class that talks constantly about the great mysteries of our existence," she added with an eye roll that made Chloe giggle.
"Why pick it then?" Chloe questioned as she lifted the DJ's case for her and threw it into the back seat (her own case having used up all space in the boot).
"Careful with that!" Beca ignored Chloe's question completely as her eyes went wide. "My laptop's in there," she whimpered, as if the case being thrown had personally wounded her (you'd swear it was her child Chloe had so carelessly flung).
"You know they have laptops in Florida." Chloe quirked her brow. "Plus facebook won't go anywhere without you on it for a few days," she teased.
"A laptop is wasted on you if all you use it for is facebook and twitter," Beca commented, finally recovering from her shock as she looked back at Chloe. "I have other stuff on there."
"Oh, how cryptic." Chloe paused for a moment, considering what it could possibly be. "Bet it's porn," she finally concluded, smiling happily when Beca's jaw dropped.
"Ew, Chloe! What?" Beca's face scrunched, as the red head pushed herself off the side of the car and moved around to the driver's side, smiling.
"Oh don't ew me," Chloe scoffed as Beca slid into the seat beside her. "We're both grown-ups here, we all do it." She either didn't sense Beca's discomfort, or didn't care.
"You're so weird," Beca huffed. "What I do is my business," she added, her ears now feeling the heat form her face (you could probably fry egg's on her cheeks at this point).
"Oh but sweet heart, for the next five days it's my business too." Chloe fluttered her eyelashes lovingly.
"I will get out of this car right now," Beca dead panned. "So help me god I will."
"I guess rule number one is no pet names then." Chloe feigned disappointment.
"And rule number two is no talking about porn." Beca was firm with her demand.
"As you please." Chloe shook her head smiling and put the car into reverse as they pulled out of the carpark.
They were silent for a while. It was too cold to have the roof down just yet, so Chloe instead rested her arm out the window and allowed the wind to whistle through her fingers as she drove. Beca of course set to work finding a station she actually liked (she'd almost given up hope by the third time she'd come across a station playing Call Me Maybe, and was about to plug in her iPod to something when an underground station playing re-mixes cracked through the speakers).
"So…" Chloe hummed over the soft bass coming from the radio. "What is on the laptop?"
"My music…" Beca replied simply, staring out the window rather than looking Chloe in the eye.
"Seriously? You know it's the twenty first century. You've got an iPod for music." Chloe glanced quickly at Beca to notice the half smirk grow on the side of the brunette's face.
"The music I mix Chloe…" Beca couldn't help but laugh. "I uh… I make song remixes. You know, because I want to be a DJ." She looked across the car just in time to see the red head's lips form an 'o'.
"Shut up you do not!" Chloe was in genuine shock at this revelation for some reason.
"I do too," Beca replied feigning the same shock for a moment before she started to laugh. "I've been remixing songs since I was fifteen or sixteen. I make some of my own original stuff too, but that's not up for listening to," she finished seriously.
"Oh my god… you're like a little ball of mystery." Chloe's slack jawed expression morphed into a grin. "I have a feeling this week's going to be a lot of fun."
"Just don't go too hard on the quizzing," Beca pleaded. "I like my little ball of mystery. It's dark, and murky, and perfectly safe," she informed the red head. "Plus I need to get my questions about your family in at some point before we get there."
Chloe nodded and smiled at the brunette, though didn't reply. She looked back at the road, her mind still on what Beca had just said. Something about Beca not wanting Chloe to find out all her secrets set a challenge in the red heads mind. A goal she was now determine to achieve, with or without revealing secrets of her own (though preferably without).
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Beca had been complaining for an hour before Chloe finally spotted somewhere they could pull in and eat (apparently the brunette had gone from being a perfectly healthy eighteen year old, to the brink of death in a matter of hours). The red head sent her thanks to god as she pulled into the spot just outside the quaint looking diner.
She turned to Beca, ready to tell the brunette that lunch was on her. The other woman was gone though, and Chloe was instead met with a door slamming in her face. She turned, and watched through the windshield as Beca walked to the red double doors leading to the restaurant (though a jog was probably a more accurate term for how quickly she was moving).
Chloe shook her head and followed suit, stepping through the doors soon after Beca, to find the DJ already seated at a table with two menus, and an eager grin on her face.
"Hungry?" She smirked, slipping into the opposite side of the booth and opening her menu.
"Shut up." Beca knew the red head was already aware of the answer, and was merely winding her up - thus taking away from time when she could be looking at the menu.
"You know if I'd known you were this bad I'd have brought snacks with me," Chloe commented, flashing a grin over her menu.
"It wouldn't have been the worst idea." She was only half joking.
"At this rate we'll never make it to Tampa by tomorrow you know." Chloe rolled her eyes, having an uneasy feeling that once she started feeding the brunette she wouldn't be able to get her to stop eating.
"Wedding's not til Saturday," Beca reminded her.
"Rehearsal dinner's tomorrow evening," Chloe countered.
Beca shrugged, and was about to reply when a waitress came to take their order. Of course the brunette's eyes lit up at this site and she instantly lost all train of thought.
Chloe watched with a small smile as Beca rattled off her order, barely even having to look at the menu to know what she wanted. Her face was so animated, so enthusiastic. Even if it was an enthusiasm that stemmed from the thought of the pizza she'd just ordered it was still mesmerising.
"Chloe?" Beca's words broke through her bubble. "Dude, place your damn order before I starve." Beca motioned to the waitress who was standing awkwardly, unsure how to take the banter between the two.
"I uh… the vegetarian pasta." Chloe recovered quickly, pointing out her order to the waitress with a smile, and giving the young woman time to write it down before adding on her drink order.
"Vegetarian pasta?" Beca quirked her brow when the waitress left.
"Mhm…" Chloe nodded. "First little snippet of information, I've been vegetarian since I was ten so if my mother asks where we went on our first date, please don't say a steak house."
"Like hard core vegan?" Beca seemed intrigued.
"Well no… I used to be when I was in high school, but I couldn't afford to have such strict views when I went to college, so not so hard core anymore," Chloe shrugged.
"Soy milk's not as cheap as the good old cow's stuff, huh."
"Precisely." Chloe's lips quirked into a smile.
"Quitter." Her comment earner her a quick slap to the forearm. "Hey!"
"I am not a quitter," Chloe huffed. "I haven't eaten meat in twelve years. And I still only eat animal products if it's absolutely life or death," she added, crossing her arms over her chest.
"Well hey, you done better than me." Beca waited for Chloe's eyebrow to quirk with curiosity (it was that predictable now) before she continued. "I became a vegetarian for three months when I was fifteen to piss my parents off," she smirked at the memory.
"… Not eating meat was the best way you could think to rebel?" Chloe snorted with laughter. "That's probably the most middle class thing I've ever heard."
"Hey, it was just a warm up for the master plan," Beca smiled, tapping briefly at the grasshopper on her arm.
"Oh god, tell me you weren't one of them kids that got a tattoo just to piss your parents off." Chloe couldn't help but frown.
"Well no, not exactly," Beca replied, hesitation evident in her tone. "Though that is what I told people to stop them asking me what I got it for." She'd come to the decision somewhere in her subconscious that she was going to be spending almost a full week with Chloe, she may as well open up a little.
"Oh? You going to tell me what it was for?" Chloe's desire to get to know Beca was poking it's head out.
"Uh…" Beca's face scrunched. "It's kinda… personal." Wow this whole opening up thing was a lot more awkward than she'd thought it'd be.
"S'okay, you don't have to." The red head gave her a reassuring smile.
Their food came then. Each woman got lost in their dishes for a moment (Chloe hadn't realized how hungry she'd been as well), and the table fell to a comfortable silence. The red head couldn't help but shoot quick glances at Beca though. She'd never noticed just how intriguing the brunette was before, and only fully appreciated it when faced with the challenge of really getting to know her.
It took her a moment, but finally she realized the obvious way to proceed.
"I've a bug tattoo as well you know."
"What?" (Though it sounded more like "f-wit" with a mouthful of pizza).
"I've a bug tattoo as well," Chloe repeated, shoving her wrist in Beca's face to show off the dainty ladybug that was inked into her skin.
"Congratulations," Beca managed as she swallowed her mouthful of bread and cheese.
"It's an Irish symbol of protection," Chloe continued, ignoring the other woman's sarcasm.
"Why're you telling me this?" Beca placed down the half eaten slice on her plate again, deciding to devote full attention to the red head for a moment.
"Just." She wasn't actually sure herself, but if there was one thing Chloe knew, it was that if she just kept talking her rambling seemed to always make sense in the end. "I figured it'd make you feel less uncomfortable telling me about whatever meaning's behind your tattoo, if you knew the meaning behind mine," she shrugged.
"Oh…" It was all Beca could say for a moment, as she mulled the (not entirely crazy) concept over in her head. "It kinda symbolises moving to a new period in your life without fear… like jumping ahead with confidence or whatever." She felt dumb for having a tattoo that was so deep.
"Why'd you get it?" Chloe knew she was prying now, but had never been one to leave with half a story.
"Why'd you get yours?" Beca countered instantly.
"It's… private." Chloe could feel the blush creep up her cheeks (damn Beca).
"So's mine…" Beca smirked, picking up her slice of pizza and taking a victorious bite.
Again they fell to silence, though now Chloe only picked at her pasta. She wanted to know more, but wasn't really sure how ready she was to open up just yet. It was dumb, and it shouldn't both her, but it did. She took another tentative look at Beca and caught her eye by mistake.
"Oh to hell with it," Chloe sighed, giving in to her curiosity.
"What?" Beca again threw her pizza down on her plate, wondering if she'd ever get to finish a slice in peace.
"I got my tattoo because when I was a teenager there was a lot in my life I felt like I needed protection from, and my mom's half Irish, so it made sense I guess," she shrugged,
"Cryptic." Beca nodded her head but said no more.
"Oh don't hold out too much hope," Chloe smiled. "I'm still the bubbly person you know and love, not even the theatrics of being a teenager could change that." There was no way she was going to do anything but make light of her past.
"Know and get stalked by you mean," Beca corrected, though again, didn't comment further on what she'd just been told.
"Okay, now you're just killing me here," Chloe laughed to hide how uncomfortable she felt. "Do you've nothing more to say?" It wasn't that she particularly wanted to open up, but she could see the glint in the brunettes eye, and knew there was more being left unsaid.
"I'm figuring it out," Beca replied honestly, taking a long beat before she continued. "You just… You never seemed like the one with the twisty past. I mean I know they say the happiest people hide the most tears and all that, but you just seemed like one of the genuinely happy ones."
"I am." Chloe rolled her eyes at how much Beca was reading into this. "I am that happy, bubbly person, I swear. I was never depressed, or reclusive, or anything like that, I just… I just sometimes needed my little ladybug to protect my eternal happiness for me," she shrugged.
"I suppose if I ask why I'll not get an answer?" Beca, unlike Chloe, wasn't a pusher.
"For now, yea." Chloe saw no point in lying. "It's not even that it upsets me to talk about or anything… I just don't want to bring the mood down. Do I really seem to you like the kinda person that can deal with a sombre atmosphere?" She quirked her lip into a challenging smile.
"Not in the slightest." Beca barked a laugh.
"Exactly." Chloe was triumphant. "I'm sunshine and eternal optimism… I bet you can't wait to spend five days with me." Her smile was wicked and knowing.
"I literally think I'd have more fun spending five days with my therapist." Beca's complaint morphed into a noise not unlike a grunt towards the end.
"You saw a therapist?" Chloe was like a moth to a flame at this point when it came to new snippets of knowledge.
"And we've come full circle," Beca snorted. "I did, and that story goes hand in hand with my little grasshopper friend," she explained, pointing once more to the bug on her forearm.
"You don't actually have to tell me," Chloe winced at how pushy she was being. "I'm sure I'll wangle it out of you some other time anyway." (Lightening the mood was always a pretty solid back up).
"No, no… I suppose you told me, even if it was only half a story." Beca shot the red head a playful glare.
"More than you've given me so far," Chloe muttered, crossing her arms over her chest indignantly.
"With that attitude you'll hear nothing," Beca threatened, laughing when Chloe diligently sat forward in her seat and made a zipping motion across her lips (also for the record, Beca so did not think Chloe happened to look really cute when she done so). "When I was fourteen my parents split. For a really long time it was tough for me to cope with it because, you know, you can't be a teenage girl without a good solid dose of angst. So yea, the tattoo's about moving, and like… accepting that it happened or whatever… and being able to do it all with, ya know, confidence… or something." This was the exact reason she'd avoided explaining it before now, she sounded like a tool.
"So articulate," Chloe scoffed.
"Screw you," Beca scowled, flicking a piece of her crust in Chloe's general direction.
"Honey, please, wait until we're back in the car at least!" Chloe timed her retort just as the waitress came to check on their table, smirking as she gauged whether it was their server or Beca that went more red (seriously, did she have no shame?).
"I'm going to put meat in your food." It was Beca's best attempt at intimidation as she tried desperately to cool her cheeks.
"You know there's only one kind of meat I like," Chloe winked and Beca choked on her own saliva.