Long way round

chapter 21

By the time two in the morning rolled around Beca had completely forgotten about the nerves she'd felt when the unexpected surprise had brought her up into the DJ booth. Since the first announcement of her arrival at the decks to when she finally had to call out that the night was over the dance floor had been steadily packed that she had seen. In fact, it had almost seemed that as the night went on more people had come into the club as it seemed distinctly more crowded as she had wished everyone a fantastic night and thanked them for letting her spin for them tonight. Beca had been thoroughly mesmerized by the feelings she had been receiving, every time one of her songs had ended she had felt a surge from the crowd. An unspoken longing, a craving need for the impending emptiness to be filled with more music. And Beca was able to provide it.

After the months she'd been with Chloe, and even longer simply as the redhead's friend, the older girl knew Beca's DJing equipment nearly as well as she did herself. Well, maybe not how to run it, or make mixes and all that, but she knew everything that Beca needed to make her mixes. She had even managed, somehow, to find all the thumb drives Beca had tucked into her desk with various tracks and mixes stashed on them. Because of the amazingness of one Chloe Beale, Beca was able to pick and choose any song in her "arsenal", easily transitioning from bass heavy techno beats to smoother, more flowing dance mixes. Throughout the night the DJ had, on occasion, looked over towards the VIP section just to see how her friends, the most important people in her life, were doing. Every glance was met with views of smiling faces or dancing and singing aca-people. Hell, at one point she even saw that her dad seemed to be nodding his head in time with the music, shocking though that was.

It was an unnecessary gesture, of course, because each of them had wandered up to the booth at one point in time or another over the course of the night to laud praise upon her. Chloe had shown up at least every fifteen minutes to wrap her in a hug and kiss her neck, or cheek, or really any piece of skin she could get her lips on. Beca didn't mind in the slightest, though. Laughing and playfully trying to swat the feisty redhead away while she was "working".

Beca played solidly from ten o'clock, when the house DJ had stepped down, until the club manager had come up to announce that it was almost time to close just before two. For four hours Beca had woven a lyrical tapestry for every ear in the house, and by the roaring cheer of the crowd when she cut open her mic for the last time and gave a final word of thanks, she had done a good job. As she started packing up her equipment, a broad grin on her face that she had finally done it, she felt slim, strong arms wrap around her waist and the grin, if possible, grew larger. Leaning back into the embrace, Beca didn't need the lips pressing against her neck to know who it was, nor did she need her girlfriend's voice that said, "Oh. My. God. Beca."

Turning in Chloe's arms, Beca smiled at the look of unbridled joy on the redhead's face and said, "Yes, babe? What's up?"

"Shut up! That was amazing, Beca! Like, wow..." Chloe said, pulling Beca tighter against her and capturing her lips in a searing kiss. The lingering cheers and applause still occasionally breaking out from the crowd, the voices making up the constant background noise, even the chink of glasses from the bar-backs cleaning up piles and piles of dirty glasses, all of it faded to nothing as Beca's whole world focused down to the feel of Chloe's lips moving against her. The way the redhead's breath exhaled from her nose tickled over her skin, the sudden squeeze of Chloe's arms as Beca ran her tongue over the older girl's lip, the soft gasp shared by both women as their tongues met and danced over each other. Beca's hands unconsciously drifted over Chloe's body, one sliding upwards to cup the redhead's check as her thumb brushed softly over Chloe's smooth skin. Her other hand had slipped around the taller girl and underneath her shirt, fingers running up Chloe's spine as sparks of electricity seemed to run through both women. After an undeterminable amount of time, the girls separated, but not far as Beca felt Chloe lean in again to press their foreheads together.