Long way round

chapter 11

One week later.

Aubrey jogged up the stairs towards her apartment and turned to head down towards the door as she looked at her watch. Stopping in front of the door she checked the time. Forty-five minutes and twelve seconds. Just twelve seconds over her goal. Pausing to check her heart rate, she made a mental note of it before fishing her keys out and unlocking the door. Wiping a loose, sweaty lock of hair off her face Aubrey made her way across the living room towards the desk where she kept her workout journal. Planning to write down the details of her nightly jog before jumping in the shower she paused as she saw the tv was on, but muted. Sighing heavily, the blond craned her neck and sure enough, spotted a fan of bright red hair covering one of the armrests of the couch.

After jotting down the details of her run, Aubrey turned and with another sigh made her way towards the couch. Lifting Chloe's feet out of her way, the blond girl slid onto one end of the couch, looking towards the other side as the redhead woke up from her nap.

"Seriously Chlo, you need to stop this." She said as the redhead woke up and sat up, looking sheepish.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Bree." Chloe said, her words somewhat slurred by sleepiness.

"Yes, you do. Today is Friday. What has been your normal Friday routine for the last month and some change?" Aubrey asked, knowing that her friend was still going through her "mourning" period, but determined to help her move on, or forward.

"Homework." Chloe answered, which caused Aubrey to chuckle. But when the blond said nothing else Chloe sighed and continued. "Open a bottle of wine and watch tv with my bestie?"

"Nice try, but you know I get back from my run at precisely 7:22 and shower until 7:35. THEN we open the wine and start with the tv." Aubrey said, raising her watch for emphasis. As she went on, though, she pointed towards the already half-emptied bottle of wine on the table and the muted episode of The Voice. "But it looks as though you started without me, and finished off your half of the bottle already. Just call her, Chloe!"

"I don't know, Bree..." Chloe said, sighing as she picked up her phone and looked at it. Before she could do anything with it though, Aubrey reached over and snatched it from her hands. The redhead was so shocked that she didn't even react at first, until she saw Aubrey unlock it and start typing something. Scrambling up from her sitting position, Chloe lunged across the couch and tried to grab the phone from Aubrey's hand, but the blond knew what was coming and managed to fight her off long enough to finish whatever she was doing. A few seconds later she handed the phone back, and Chloe frantically searched her message log to see who the blond had just texted.

Before she could figure it out though, the phone vibrated in her hand and she saw an incoming text pop up. From Beca. "Sure, meet you in 10"

"What the hell did you do, Bree?!" Chloe said opening her messages to see one sent less than a minute ago to Beca that just said "coffee?"

Growling in frustration and muttering curses under her breath at her friend, Chloe glared at the blond as she got up off the couch and started walking towards her bedroom to change. Of course, as soon as her back was turned Aubrey just shook her head. Ten minutes earlier Chloe had been all set to spend the entire evening on the couch, and now without even arguing the redhead was getting ready to go out. Oh yeah, she had it really bad for that DJ, if only Aubrey could do something to make the idiotic hobbit realize what she was missing out on and come to her senses.

It wasn't even until Chloe was about to walk into the café fifteen minutes later that she realized she hadn't even protested what her roommate had done. Not really. Shaking her head she just pushed her way into the diner and looked towards "their" table. Sure enough she spotted Beca sitting there with her headphones on, and the redhead had to make sure that her face didn't break into a goofy grin as the DJ looked up at her and smiled. They hadn't seen each other all week, Chloe's doing, and the younger girl looked honestly delighted to see her.