Long way round

Chapter 3

4 months earlier.

Beca sighed as she looked at her reflection in the mirror. She wasn't sure, really, what she was doing getting all dressed up, but she had a feeling it was the right thing to do. It was, after all, graduation day. Looking over her outfit one more time, a dress, dark blue, that hung loosely down her body, dropping low in the back, but cut higher in the front, a v-shaped dip in the front combined with that new bra, made her cleavage look even more impressive than normal. Still unable to believe she had allowed Chloe to talk her into buying the dress, and the bra, when they had been shopping the other day, Beca sighed one more time before picking up her purse and heading outside to meet Jesse and the rest of the Bellas on the quad.

As she walked out of the building the other Bellas all turned, and Fat Amy whistled loudly, causing the brunette DJ to blush profusely. Blushing she spotted Jesse standing just to the side of the Bellas with a dumbstruck expression on his face. She felt herself throwing a shy smile at the look on his face, her inner loner a bit nervous at all the attention being showered on her.

"Just shut up, guys. It's only a dress. Now come, if we're late to graduation Aubrey will find a way to come back to the Bellas next year and make all our lives hell." Beca said, trying to cover her blush, and smile, with brave words and action, as was her way generally speaking. When Jesse walked up to her and offered his arm like a prince, or something, she just rolled her eyes at him and muttered that he was a weirdo, but it didn't stop her from taking the proffered arm anyway.

She was still in a little bit of a daze after everything that had happened after Nationals. Everything seemed to have happened so quickly, and yet so slowly as well. Allowing herself to get a little lost in thought as the group walked towards the amphitheatre where the ceremony was being held, she trusted that Jesse wouldn't let her walk into anything, or so she hoped.

She had woken up the following morning in what might be the most comfortable way imaginable, except for the splitting headache. When at first she tried to move she found herself wrapped tightly in slender arms that definitely did not belong to Jesse, for which she was thankful, though she didn't really allow herself to think that. It didn't take much detective work to figure out whose arms they were as just shifting her position made a lock of flaming red hair drift into her vision, and she couldn't help a chuckle at the sight, either. Sadly, she didn't think it was the first time she had woken up in such a position, nor would it be the last she expected. Well, maybe not EXACTLY this position, but Chloe had crashed in her dorm more than once over the last eight months. Especially, it seemed, after the redheaded personal-space-invader seemed to realize how much it discomfited the usually reserved DJ. Usually, though, they were in a similar position because of the size of the bed in Beca's dorm room, here however there was apparently plenty of space for both bodies, but they seemed to have wound up in the middle of the much larger bed wrapped tightly around each other.

A laugh from across the room startled Beca and she jerked in Chloe's arms, causing the redhead to wake up, mumbling sleepily about "too early, so comfy..." Beca, now more or less released from Chloe, saw a couple of the other girls up already, and Stacie and CR both were standing at the foot her bed, eyebrows raised. Ever the bold one, CR spoke up first, "Really, Beca? You kiss the Treble last night, and here we find you shacking up behind his back with Red? For shame! You should have at least invited me."

The sound of voices woke Chloe more completely and the redhead also sat up, blinking sleepily as she put one hand to her head. Realizing where she was, Chloe moved away quickly to sit on the edge of the bed, hanging her head in her hands as she asked softly, "Did anyone get the license plate on that truck? Cuz it did a number on my head."

"We didn't, I mean, I wouldn't... Oh, whatever, just please don't talk so loud. It's not what it looks like, just sleep. See, we're both still wearing clothes." Beca said as Chloe moved away, trying to cover her frown at the loss of contact with the redhead by being grumpy about her hang-over.