The pizza fell out of Beca's hand with a saucy splat.
She rereads Chloe's response. Then reads it again. Then scrolls back a few messages and rereads the entire conversation one more time.
Come over? In response to that?
Beca wasn't entirely convinced Chloe hadn't been replaced by a kidnapper or serial killer or roommate trying to be funny.
She wipes her pizza greased hands off against her sweatpants and types a reply.
Beca - uh. now?
Chloe - Now :)
Fucking hell.
Beca glances at the time. 2:02 AM.
Kind of a weird time to be propositioned by your best friend, but Beca has witnessed stranger things in the early morning hours, so.
With one last glance at her texts, confirming that Chloe does, in fact, want Beca to go eat her out, Beca grabs her keys, checks her breath, and heads out the door.
It isn't until she's standing in front of Chloe's apartment door that the nerves set in.
"Jesus Christ," she says under her breath, staring at the only thing standing in the way between her and an - apparently - Down To Fuck™ Chloe Beale.
Beca should really go home and text Chloe in the morning that she tragically hit her head and passed out right as she was leaving. She should tell Chloe that Stacie got ahold of her phone and was pulling a prank. She should tell her that Beca's 2 AM appetite extends exclusively to shitty frozen pizza that has been sitting in the back of her freezer for two months, which does not include any aspect of the female genitalia, thank you very much.
And really she should stop getting high and texting her hot best friend who she's been crushing on for months late at night. That would be most important.
Beca knocks on the door.
Chloe opens the door with a smile, looking not at all like it's the literal middle of the night.
"Hey!" she greets, grabbing Beca's arm and pulling her inside. Beca stumbles in with a yelp, not even getting a word in before Chloe is talking a mile a minute.
"Thank god you came. I was honestly getting so desperate. I just finished writing a paper and I just feel so wound up, you know? Like, you know that feeling when you just need a break, ugh. But it's the middle of the night! It's like, what was I supposed to do, you know?"
She walks over the kitchen as she rants, facing away from Beca. And honestly Beca is only half listening, because holy shit she's in Chloe's apartment and Chloe is probably expecting excellent head and maybe Beca is going to suck so spectacularly at this that Chloe ends up being physically repulsed by her forever.
Unsure what else to do, Beca shrugs out of her jacket and kicks off her shoes while Chloe continues to talk.
"So anyway-" Chloe opens a cupboard and pulls out two plates - plates? -"thanks for coming, Bec. You seriously have no idea how much I'm looking forward to this." She turns around and cocks her head to the side. "Where'd your shirt go?"
Beca flushes and crosses her arms over herself, standing in her bra and sweatpants. "Uh..."
Chloe's brow furrows. "And where's the pizza?" Bafflingly, she seems more perplexed by the lack of pizza than the lack of shirt.
"Pizza?" Beca asks, now confused as fuck.
"Yeah?" Chloe says, totally lost. "I thought you were going to bring your pizza over?"
"What," Beca croaks.
Chloe pulls out her phone and walks over to Beca, uncaring of her state of undress. Beca squeaks a little and grabs her shirt off the ground, holding it to her chest for some modicum of modesty as Chloe comes to a stop beside her, phone open to their text conversation.
And there it is, clear as day.
Chloe - Samee what u eating?
Beca - pizza
Beca - how about you?
Chloe - OH I WANT PIZZA TOO
Chloe - Come over :)
Beca wishes the floor would open up and swallow her.
She points to the traitorous text accusingly. "No! That didn't send! It said it didn't send!" Her voice raises hysterically, and then she points at the text where Chloe mentions wanting pizza. "And that definitely didn't send!"
Chloe raises an eyebrow. "Okay, so you didn't get the pizza memo," she says slowly, like she's calming a wild animal. "That still doesn't explain why you took your shirt off..."
Beca gestures uselessly at Chloe's phone a few more times, sputtering incomprehensibly. Then, she pulls out her own phone and shows the conversation from her end, and buries her face in her hands, defeated.
She can tell the exact moment Chloe puts it all together; she slaps a hand over her mouth, glee in her eyes.
"Beca..." Chloe starts, holding back laughter.
"Please kill me," Beca mumbles into her hands.
"Beca," Chloe says again, grabbing Beca's arm. "Did you come over here thinking this was a booty call?"
Beca invokes the Fifth and contemplates suffocating herself.
"Because if you did..." Chloe continues, trailing off until Beca risks a peak.
Chloe looks far less teasing than she did a moment before, bottom lip caught between her teeth and eyes hooded meaningfully. She gently pries Beca's hands away from her face and steps into her space, and by god Beca can feel the heat radiating off of her like a goddamn furnace.
Beca gulps, mouth dry, and Chloe grins, tilting Beca's chin up with a finger and bringing their faces close enough to brush noses. She finishes her thought before closing the gap entirely.
"Well, maybe we can arrange a late night snack after all."
i love it when im rereading a story and i find these little breadcrumbs of foreshadowing the author left. everytime im like “ohoho!!!! i wouldve gotten that before if i had the big picture!!! and now i do!!! delightful!!!” and idk i just love being able to read the same story twice but have two different experiences. i like when a story has so many layers that it can keep you entertained for a long time as you unravel all its secret nooks and crannies. thats a good story.
In mine and many other east Asian cultures, the dragon traditionally symbolises things like power, wealth and strength (imperial symbol and all)
I think we often forget that in the story of the Great Race, the dragon came in fifth because it'd stopped to give people rain. Then it'd stopped again to push a rabbit adrift on a log across the wide river so it reached the shore safely (that's why the Rabbit year comes before the Dragon).
Dragons aren't meant to just be powerful - they are meant to do good with such power, and to help those in need.
So in this lunar new year, I hope you gain more power, so that you might be able to help others. I pray you have abundant resources so you may give to yourself and those around you. I wish you courage, endurance, kindness and generosity, for yourself and your people.
I hope you, and I, will be rain givers, life preservers, joy bringers.
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