"Hey, weirdo," Jesse called out as he entered the station, raising his voice above the volume of the on-air music currently broadcasting. Luckily, Luke had another DJ in the booth on Wednesdays, and Jesse was always glad to get out of his usual lunch run.

Good thing, too – his mind was likely too preoccupied to get the standard burger order correct. On his way out of his film lab, a cute blonde girl whose name he really wasn't sure about (Jen? Jenna? Jamie?) had stopped him in the hall to ask him out. Girls asking guys out – this was the new frontier of college. He was so startled he gave her a "yeah sure!" without really thinking. How did this all work – was Jen/Jenna/Jamie going to plan the date and pick up the tab? Was he supposed to put too much thought into his wardrobe and get a manicure prior? Was he going to be expected to put out?

He needed to ask a girl, who was a friend. A friend-girl.

Hey wait…speaking of – where was that Beca?

"Beca?" he called again, to be greeted with a resounding sound of silence (since the DJ was currently favoring Simon & Garfunkel in the booth).

Huh, no answer. He walked over and turned down the volume in the studio, and then could pick up her voice. She was softly singing, probably with her headphones on and drowning out the station's current offerings. He grinned to himself as he picked up the classic Cheap Trick lyrics.

I want you to want me,
I need you to need me,
I'd love you to love me,
I'm begging you to beg me.

Not a Beca standard…was it retro 70s Wednesday? Though it didn't seem like her usual, her voice did it justice, and the way it broke over the words sent a small shiver down Jesse's back. It wasn't often he heard her sing, she not being as overtly bold as he was at belting out any tune that came to mind. Regardless of her rare performance, his need to pick her brain about girls and Sadie Hawkins-type dates overrode his interest.

Jesse slid his bag at the desk and pulled a crate of music to be shelved toward him. Culling through, he pulled all the music that belonged upstairs and took the steps two at a time, following her voice to the back corner of the mezzanine. The heat was already cranking in this old building, though it was only November in the South, and he felt a line of sweat bead up at his hairline.

Working with Beca was easy and fun – he knew he could always get a good flirt in, and took it upon himself to see how often he could get her to break her "absolutely no laughing at nerds to encourage weird behavior" rule. They often made sarcastic cracks at each other, at Luke, and at pretty much anything available. Though she wasn't as chatty about her personal life, he shared a lot and they talked about classes and daily stuff. Well, he talked, mostly. She did a lot of eye rolling. He looked forward to their witty repartee, and now, was glad to have a female friend to bounce this entire novel situation off of.

Now on the second floor, Jesse spotted Beca backing to the end of an aisle, belting out the end of the song, where it slows and dramatizes, as she shelved. She had removed her normal bleak outer layer as a nod to the rising temperature of the office, probably believing herself alone. The black (of course) tank top she had underneath was artfully sliced, horizontally, from neckline to hem, the skinny bands of jersey bouncing a bit as she grooved to the music.

For some reason, this tiny glimpse of never-before-seen skin accelerated Jesse's heartrate. Sure, he knew Beca was pretty, openly acknowledging it at their first meeting, and he had a small crush on her voice, that was certain…but this opportunity to see her, unguarded, presented a whole new angle to his growing interest in this girl.

He ducked in the row behind and across the aisle from her so he could see her through the racks from an angle. When she bent over to shelve some lower albums, the bands of jersey draped and slid to expose a large section of her back, revealing yet another tattoo, definitely some kind of grouping of words. The swath of porcelain flesh, interrupted by the dark ink, made his stomach clench in a not unpleasant sensation. She stood again, this time reaching for the very highest shelf. The tank rose up at her waistline, showing another glimpse of skin, as did his gaze…up, up, up to catch the angle of her graceful neck as she leaned back and reached, bare-armed, to get the CD into the right slot.

What was he coming up here to ask her again? All thoughts of Jen/Jenna/Jamie (maybe Jeannie?) exited, stage left.

He swallowed hard and brought his eyes back to his own sorting, throwing a few CDs on the shelf. Stop being a creep. You could be George McFly spying on Lorraine right now…

His mind drifted off the movie reference when his eyes were drawn back to her through the shelf as a new song must have rolled to her playlist, and he quickly placed the chorus as Aretha Franklin:

There's no, no looking back for us
We've got a love that, sure nuff, that's enough
You're all, you're all I need
You're all, you're all I need
You're all, you're all I need
You're all I need to get by

It suited her hearty voice quite well, and the slow style suited the sultry heat of the mezzanine. She was facing his direction now, and was raising her arms to gather all her hair up into a very high, very un-Beca-like ponytail on the top of her head. A startling amount of skin was on display here: arms, shoulders, neck…the jersey stretched across her breasts and clung in bunches, so that when she was finished, she pulled the material away from her body a bit, to straighten it again as well as bring a breeze to her flushed skin.

This effectively drew Jesse's gaze to her neckline, her standard low-cut number that indicated she either didn't seem to know what a nice rack she was sporting, or she didn't care if she showed them off. Whenever she wore something like this, he always guessed it was an odd mix of both of those sentiments, just as Beca herself was a bit of an odd mix of many things. Not that he really kept tabs on her wardrobe.

He followed her neckline to the cord of her headphones, to the headphones themselves, which he was just now noticing were not on her head, but casually draped around her neck. His gaze continued to rise until he met her eyes. And realized she was watching him, watching her, through the shelving.

He swallowed hard again. Did it literally just get hotter in here?

"Hey, creeper," Beca addressed him. "Next time, take a picture, it'll last longer."

"What? I don't know what you're…"

"Yeah, you know exactly what I'm…" she cut him off, a smirk growing on her face, raising her eyebrows at her inference.

"I'm just shelving CDs," Jesse said, staying in his safe spot. "If you happened to be in my line of sight at that exact moment, well that was just fortunate for all of us."

"Huh," she huffed. "Yeah, ok."

As he continued to shelve diligently to the end of the row, she brushed past him headed back toward the stairs with her crate, being sure the warm skin on her arm came in contact with his.

"I'm headed back down," she called over her shoulder. "Need anything? More CDs? A cold shower?"

He cringed and dropped his forehead to the shelf in front of him. "If you could bring me the Barry Manilow stack I think that would be an all-around assist," he called back.

Her genuine laughter floated up from the stairwell, which only served to heighten his response to this girl. Maybe instead of worrying about Jen/Jenna/Jamie, he should delve deeper into the girl downstairs.

If she would even let him. Oh well, he shrugged, as he finished his stack and turned to follow Beca downstairs; if there was anything he was up to, it was a challenge.