Chapter Text
A light spring breeze whispered through the gaps between city towers, fluttering Chloe’s curls which added a fiery contribution to the bright hustle and bustle of LA. She walked with a bounce in her step, attempting to dissipate the familiar tired ache throughout her body with the prospect of being able to shun her scrubs, shower, and curl up on the couch with her seemingly guarded but ever-willing brunette roommate.
Chloe smiles at the thought of Beca, who’d probably already ordered some greasy takeaway for the both of them, eagerly awaiting Chloe’s arrival so they could indulge in their Friday night ritual of non-nutritious dinners and conversations only two people who’d lived together for almost two years now could concoct. For example, three weeks ago they’d spent their evening arguing playfully about if the new painting Beca had hung on the wall – Chloe’s choice from their weekly trip to the Sunday downtown markets – was sitting slightly to the left or not.
“Look Chlo, I hung up your painting up for you,” Beca had said before Chloe had barely made it through the door, clearly proud of her efforts. “Hammered that nail into the wall better than a freaking builder. Maybe I should consider a career change.”
Chloe smiled at her friend’s antics, passing through the small walkway into their smaller living room to find the wall to the right of the television, which now donned a bright painting. She paused to admire Beca’s handiwork, her smile slipping into a teasing smirk as she found her head tilting ever so slightly to level the painting in her eyeline.
“Oh Becs, I don’t know if you should give up your day job just yet,” her voice dripping with harmless mischief.
“What? Why not,” Beca whipped her head around to face Chloe, her expression mirroring one of a kid who’s sandcastle just got taken by the waves.
“It’s on an angle,” Chloe grinned at her.
“It so is not!” Beca’s eyes widened with disbelief, head darting between the redhead to her side and the painting in front of her.
“Yes it is, it’s tilted slightly to the left,” as she spoke, Chloe tilted her head even more, “Did you even check it with a leveller?”
“Check it with a leveller! What am I some freaking builder?” Beca shot back, riddled with incredulity.
“I believe you were claiming to be one about two minutes ago.” Chloe’s neck was beginning to cramp with how angled she had made her head, still beaming with affection for her domestically-challenged best friend.
“Yeah and I believe you claim to be a vet, not a freaking engineer,” Beca’s trademark stubbornness was beginning to emerge, which only made Chloe smile harder.
“You don’t have to be an engineer to tell this painting is on an angle, just have basic access to your eyeballs.”
“IT IS NOT ON AN ANGLE!”
All in all, Chloe loved living with Beca. After graduating, she was a little terrified (okay maybe more than a little if her behaviour in their senior year was anything to go by) that she would loose the closeness she had with the Bellas. Chloe was a people person, and living with her best friends had filled her heart with so much love, she felt slightly like she might die if that closeness was taken away. Luckily Beca, who had always planned on moving to LA after graduating, was offered a job at LA’s branch of Residual Heat after her and Emily’s success with ‘Flashlight’. And when Chloe was offered a place at a Vet school a few suburbs over from Beca’s studio, accepting was a no-brainer.
Living with Beca made her feel safe, like no matter how hard life could get, she’d always be able to come home to someone who was only in her corner. Chloe smiled at that, the security of her thoughts a contrast to the somewhat stingy door to her apartment building she now pushed open. Beca and Chloe’s apartment itself wasn’t bad – they’d spent months after they first moved in making it filled with colour and personality, decorating it with little bits of themselves.
Chloe’s favourite addition to the apartment was the big windowsill across from the kitchen that was mainly responsible for the apartment’s natural light. A few weeks after first moving in, she’d bought about 10 different small plants to sit on the sill. Beca still refused to have anything to do with them, claiming she could, “kill those things just by breathing on them,” a sentiment she truly believed despite Chloe’s many attempts to get her to so much as water them.
The brunette’s favourite part of their apartment was their vintage record player that they had found one weekend at the markets. It now sat proudly upon a small shelf to the left of the couch, beneath it filled with vinyl records that the roommates had slowly collected over their time living together. It was Beca’s pride and joy.
However, the apartment building was a different story. The wall skirtings of the stairwell Chloe now ascended up were lined with growing mould, an inescapable sight given that the building’s elevator was continuously broken, much to Beca’s disapproval. After what felt like an eternity, red hair finally surfaced on level five, feet dragging as the tiredness of the day finally caught up to the vet student. Chloe unlocked the door to apartment 503, the warm smell of Chinese takeaway enveloping her as she walked inside.
“Yummm Becs, God that smells so good,” she nearly moaned, realising how hungry she’d become on her walk home. She ducked into her bedroom, placing her coat and bag on the bed. She walked back out into the kitchen, surprised to find no brunette waiting for her at the table.
“Beca?” She looked about, hearing no response. Finally, her eyes caught movement beneath the stretched blanket on the couch. Her forehead twitched into an expression of bemusement, approaching the blanket that hid her tiny roommate.
She sat down on the couch edge and pulled the blanked back, a dishevelled looking Beca staring back at her wordlessly.
“Becs, what’s wrong?” Chloe cooed, reaching out to stroke the brunette’s hair.
“Everything!” Beca cried woefully, pulling the blanket back over her face. Chloe bit back a giggle at her dramatics. This side of Beca always made her smile, always allowing Chloe to realise how far she had been able to pull down the walls of the DJ.
A few seconds passed before Beca spoke again through the blanket.
“Okay so maybe not everything. Well really, nothing is actually wrong it’s just stupid!” she harrumphed, the blanket fluttering above her mouth, angry air pushing and pulling the cotton-wool mix.
“Well why don’t you tell me about it so we can be upset at how stupid it is together?” Chloe said, pulling the blanket away a second time.
Beca’s stormy blue eyes meet hers, making Chloe’s cheeks flush slightly. No matter how much time she spends with the brunette, the intensity of her eye contact always has a strange effect on Chloe, making her lungs contract slightly and colour flood her face.
Beca takes a deep breath before expelling her next words in a constant stream, “Jesse just texted me to say he’s coming to LA for a couple of weeks with his new girlfriend for a work trip and he wants to stay near us because they don’t know anyone else in the city and I don’t want them to come.”
Chloe frowned slightly at her last words. “But I thought you were over Jesse?”
“I am.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“The problem is the fact that he wants me to hang out with him and his girlfriend like an awkward third wheel because, news flash!, I don’t have a new boyfriend,” Beca lifted herself up on her hands, leaning in towards where Chloe was sitting.
“Yeah, but you’re okay with not having a boyfriend at the moment,” Chloe still didn’t understand the problem despite how obviously worked up the brunette was about all this. “You say it to me all the time.”
Beca rolls her eyes at her friend. “Yeah, I am fine with it, but when my ex-boyfriend comes to town with his almost yearlong girlfriend and asks to see me, who hasn’t had a real boyfriend since the two of us broke up, it makes me look a bit pathetic,” she says, her tone bordering one a person uses when explaining a simple concept to a small child who still can’t seem to grasp it.
Chloe pursed her lips. It’s true, Beca had gone out on a few dates since moving to LA, even getting to three or four with a few of them before she called it off. The situation didn’t qualify as anything near pathetic in Chloe’s eyes, but she could see where Beca was coming from.
Her lack of response fuelled Beca’s despair, the younger girl falling back against the couch with a groan.
“What the hell am I going to do Chlo? I actually cannot do this, but I can’t say no. It’s Jesse.”
Chloe stared across the room, thinking. Her eyes landed on her and Beca’s picture wall, donning photographs of both all the Bellas and just the two of them. Multiple candids of them smiling and selfies of Chloe’s showcasing a beaming redhead next to a scowling Beca. An idea flickered across Chloe’s mind, the impulsive side of her brain blurting it out before long buried feelings could contribute to a rationalisation of the suggestion.
“I’ll date you.”
Beca scoffed, “Yeah right.”
Chloe smiled back, not even mildly deterred by the brunette’s immediate dejection, “I’m serious. We already live together, and people have asked us if we’re dating for years."
Beca laughed at that, acknowledging that the latter was very much true. For some reason, everyone had a hard time believing people as close as Beca and Chloe could just be good friends.
"What's the harm in pretending we're together in front of Jesse and his girlfriend?” Chloe asked again, convincing herself more and more that this was a good idea with every word she spoke.
“Are you sure Chlo?” You’re not scared of that getting weird?”
Chloe smiled, taking the brunette’s hand. “How could it get weird?” She swiped her thumb across Beca’s knuckles, ignoring the slight fluttering in the pit of her stomach as she stared into midnight blue eyes. “We’re best friends. What’s the worst that could happen?”