The day before this scene from Pitch Perfect 4
The key slid into the lock with a perfect clack, twisting smoothly in place until she heard a click and the metal give way slightly. Gone were the days of having to shunt the door open with her hip at a particular angle to get into the apartment. Now Beca stepped inside freely, releasing a breath of air she hadn’t realised she’d been holding.
Home. She was finally home.
All the nostalgia from years gone by, prior to her fame and mass-success, came flooding to the forefront of her mind. A tired smile swept across her face. The September light that trickled through from the main window of the studio apartment was exactly how it had always been at this time of day in years gone by - a soft orange glow from the sunset touching upon the furniture and objects on and around said furniture.
Beca gently pushed the door closed behind her, flinching at the loud bang it made at the end of its move. She was used to doors closing far softer and more silent than that. Perhaps she needed to invest in a new one? Though this door was only a couple of years old, so some would say a new one so soon would be wasteful…
Her eyes moved slowly from one aspect of the apartment to another, drinking in all the details she’d missed so desperately while she’d been away:
A mass of coats to address every type of weather Brooklyn had to offer across the year, all hung haphazardly on a tall free-standing coat stand, reminding her of a board-game (Buckaroo) that she’d once played with her friends back in college. Just one more jacket and she was sure it’d topple.
An expensive wooden shoe rack that looked fit to burst with heels, flats, sandals, boots, sneakers. All of which belonged to one person, and that person wasn’t her.
A collection of hair pins and earrings and hair elastics and a rogue hairbrush. All gathered in a chaotic pile, with random strands of long red hair, on the small table by the door, clearly having been discarded there each evening after a long busy day, for goodness knows how many days. Possibly weeks.
Photo montages adorned the walls nearest to her. Even with the emergence of modern phones, there appeared to be something so comforting about looking at physical photos that had been thought about and chosen to be specifically printed at The Brooklyn Snap Store a couple of blocks away. Photos from almost a decade ago. Photos from a few years ago. Photos from recent months. Beca had had enough exposure to her own image that she no longer felt an ‘ick’ when seeing herself on a wall. Especially when, in each photo, she had her arms draped affectionately around the waist or shoulders of a very familiar person. Her person.
With a soft smile spreading across her face, Beca slowly stepped further into the room, noting the familiar creak of the floorboards, each with their own particular sound. Her eyes drifted down and she let out a light chuckle and a gentle tut when she saw a damp towel pooled in a heap at her feet. Picking it up and opening it out, she caught a waft of the vanilla and jasmine shower gel she loved, the smell of which made her heart skip a beat. There was something so comforting about that smell she’d known for almost a decade.
She flopped the opened towel over the back of one of the dining chairs to her left, her smile remaining as she noticed a half eaten toasted bagel abandoned on a small plate on the small dining table. Collecting it, she moved slowly over to the kitchen sink, tipping the stale food into the trash. Her hand automatically shot out towards a handle and she tugged the small dishwasher open, poised to find a temporary location for the dirty plate.
“Chloeee.” she mumbled with a chuckle, as she was met by a dishwasher filled with cool clean dry ceramics, glass and cutlery. Chloe had never been one to empty a dishwasher unless absolutely necessary. Not even back in college. So Beca placed the dirty plate on the surface beside the sink, suddenly aware that it wasn’t the only piece of dinnerware that was awaiting a turn in the dishwasher.
Seven…no eight coffee cups, a precariously stacked pile of cereal bowls, too many spoons of varying size to count, three kitchen knives, two chopping boards, three plates, and four casserole dishes. All waiting for the dishwasher to be emptied.
Many would be mistaken for thinking that this apartment needed a bigger dishwasher. But Beca knew it wouldn’t matter if there were ten dishwashers in this tiny apartment, Chloe would still put off emptying them. And it was this unintentionally rebellious quality that Beca loved about her. Well, one of the many qualities Beca loved about her.
For the next three and a half minutes Beca happily busied herself, emptying the dishwasher and finding great relief when she quickly discovered that none of the contents in the cupboards had been switched around since she’d last been home. So coffee cups went into the cup cupboard, along with a wine glass, and several colourful plastic cups; plates went into the plate cupboard, closely followed by cereal bowls; spoons, more spoons, a few forks, and a couple of dinner knives went into the cutlery draw; the large silver mixing bowl was returned to the kitchen aid in the corner of the worktop, then Beca realised the kitchen aid’s attachments needed to be locked into the machine before placing the bowl, so she did just that; and finally a soap dish…which Chloe had always maintained needed fortnightly dishwashing, was returned to the bath edge, beside the taps, where it’d always lived between wash cycles.
Then, as methodical as she had been when emptying the dishwasher, she set about filling it with the dirty items. It wasn’t full enough to justify switching it on, so Beca closed the door, and let out a sigh of content. There was something so satisfying about doing housework, especially as she no longer had a need to do it when she was away from home. Which was for a lot of the year, unfortunately.
Reaching for a nearby cupboard, Beca’s eyes glossed over the contents, a soft smile growing on her face when she honed in on an A5 sized black tin. She pulled it out, her fingertips lightly gripping the metal, just as they had done for as long as she’d owned it. The tin was dented in many places, the lid barely fitting correctly on top of it, and on that lid there were heaps of doodles and patterns that had been carved into the metal with a mathematical compass, exposing the silver beneath the black coating. Despite its age and its obvious frailty, she spared it no second thought as she lobbed it down onto the kitchen work-surface beneath the cupboard, turning her attention to another cupboard to search for her favourite coffee cup.
Her coffee cup, as it turned out, was towards the back of the cup cupboard, which was a sign of how long it had been since she’d been home. Thirty three days to be precise. Which, when broken down into weeks, was technically only just under five weeks, and not the longest time she’d been away. But any time away from home was excruciating for Beca right now. Especially with an impending World Tour on the cards. It was anybody’s guess how long she’d be away for that.
Lifting the lid of the tin, a familiar coffee musk emanated from within, and she stared down at a collection of very expensive coffee pods. Her most favourite coffee. The coffee she saved to drink here. Nowhere else felt enough like home to warrant drinking it there. No, it had to be here. Another home comfort.
Then she had to familiarise herself with the Nespresso machine. People usually made her coffee or sent out for coffee. She rarely had the luxury of being able to make her own.
Luxury. Funny, most people would class luxury as fast cars, supermodel girlfriends, super yachts, fine dining, not having to worry about money… Beca classed luxury as a simple pleasure: making her own coffee, unloading the dishwasher, being able to exist in a space without her record label demanding to talk to her every other minute of the day.
As she slotted the coffee pod into the machine, she felt a momentary sense of unease. There was no escaping that fact that she’d be in trouble with the label tomorrow. Walking out on a meeting with execs was probably not a good move on her part. But, she internally argued, it was pretty rock n roll, right?
She turned on the spot and leant back against the work surface, folding her arms comfortably. Her ears honed in on the coffee being poured into her favourite cup. Then, as she remained in one place, she began to hear more. The honks and beeps of the Brooklyn traffic outside; the clang of water pipes as neighbours above and below the apartment showered after a long working day; the light hum of the Smeg fridge, still stood in all its glory - Beca’s first ever appliance purchase after signing her recording contract three years ago; out in the hallway, a meow coming from Twinkle (one of Ms Oakridge’s cats) asking its owner to be let inside.
Beca took hold of her coffee cup, and slowly made her way over to her side of the bed. She placed the cup down carefully on her favourite coaster - the one Amy had made for her with a photo of her performance character ‘Fat Amy Winehouse’ on. “To keep you grounded when fame gets to your head” Amy had said with every ounce of seriousness that her expression exuded. It definitely kept Beca feeling grounded, that was for sure.
She shuffled back round to sit at the foot of the bed, to drink in the sight of her perfect little home. It was the last place anyone would expect a multimillion dollar recording artist to live. Which was what made it all the more perfect.
It was little more than eighteen months ago when she’d finally gotten around to buying the place. Turns out it was a bit of a steal compared to other apartments in the area, but Beca didn’t care. With the help of Chloe she’d managed to upgrade it all: new waterworks, a new kitchen, new bath (“I love having a bath too much Beca!” Chloe had exclaimed. Beca hadn’t argued); a proper in-built floor to ceiling screen to separate the bath and toilet area from the rest of the studio apartment; the old tatty couch that folded out into a bed had been replaced by an expensive modern couch (which also happened to fold out into a bed for any visiting guests) - Beca had even warmed up to its ‘burnt orange’ colour that Chloe had picked out. But the best upgrade had to be the windows. It may have cost Beca way more money than most would deem necessary spending on a run-down studio apartment in the middle of Brooklyn, but it had been a game-changer, keeping the apartment cool(ish) in summer, and loads warmer in winter.
Beca’s attention drifted down to the large colourful rug that had been a surprisingly impulsive buy on Chloe’s behalf, the woman having stalked the departments of Macy’s Black Friday sale last year. She remembered the looks on the delivery guys faces when they’d reached the apartment door, entirely out of breath with the rolled up rug over their shoulders, grunting about the building’s broken down elevator. Beca had tipped them handsomely and Chloe had practically burst into tears she was so thrilled with how well the large rug fitted their apartment.
Her Mom, as it turned out, actually really liked the rug. Which had surprised Beca because Lynn had never really been a lover of any colours beyond black, dark grey, navy, and at a push a very dark green. Chloe’d said she had probably just been polite when reacting to the sight of the new feature in the apartment that looked as though it was something taken from the costume department of Joseph and his Technicolor Dream Coat, but Beca knew her Mom. She knew her facial expressions and mannerisms and what they all meant. Her Mom didn’t just like the rug. Her Mom liked Chloe too.
Turned out Beca had been right and Chloe had been wrong, Lynn hadn’t reacted that way just to be polite. Lynn genuinely liked her only daughter’s girlfriend, which had been a massive relief to both Beca and Chloe respectively. The woman didn’t visit Brooklyn much, but when she did she often kept Chloe company while Beca busied herself with work, joining her for shopping trips in Manhattan and visits to the local farmers market for fresh produce.
Luckily for Beca, money was now no bother. And as such it was no bother for Chloe either. Beca had assured Chloe a long time ago that her earnings were now totally at Chloe’s disposal, which to most would seem a risky proposition, but Beca trusted Chloe implicitly. Both with her finances and with her life.
Beca no longer needed to buy things - things just turned up for free from advertisers or businesses or fans or generous colleagues, all through the label. Credit to Chloe, the woman hadn’t gone crazy with Beca’s money and had actually been living a relatively modest life while her millionaire girlfriend paid her vet school fees and living costs, then financed her lifestyle.
Her eyes drew over to a framed photo on the windowsill behind the couch. A photo of her proudest college achievement. A photo from the night she and the rest of her friends, together, won the World Championships of Acapella. 2015, the year they were World Champions.
The frame that photo was in was the very frame used to store that particular memory back in her final few weeks of college. It had been given to her by Chloe as a ‘goodbye’ gift, that the woman had bought and given to each of the girls in their collegiate acapella group, just before they left college for good.
Beca smirked at the way the light from the window touched upon the slight dent in the top left of the frame. Chloe had been devastated when Fat Amy had accidentally held the moving box wrong, thus having the bottom of the box falling open, and the contents within spilling down the staircase of the apartment block they were just moving into that day. Beca had been impressed that the only casualty from that box had been the photo frame, and even then it’d only sustained a small dent. Chloe eventually got over it.
Approaching footsteps could be heard in the corridor outside and Beca found herself sitting upright a little more. She knew those footsteps, the sound of which had her heart rate increasing in excitement. She was home a day earlier than planned. Chloe was going to be over the moon.
The lock mechanism sounded and Beca silently sucked in a breath to hold as she watched her girlfriend step happily into the apartment. She watched in fascination as Chloe kept her eyes squeezed closed, swaying her hips to the beat of a song she was singing along to while AirPods sat snugly in her ears. Closing the door carefully behind her, locking the door up, throwing her handbag and light jacket towards the arm of the couch, then jigging over to the fridge were all movements that came so freely to Chloe that it was obvious this was what she did every single day she got home from Vet School.
Beca recognised the lyrics her girlfriend sang. How could she not? She’d sung them far too frequently since she’d released the song a few weeks ago.
Chloe stopped suddenly, her brow lightly furrowing as her gaze set upon the appearance of the sink area of the little kitchen. More specifically the cleared sink area. A cleared sink meant only one thing. And it was in that moment, Chloe clearly noted the scent of Beca’s favourite coffee that was only present when the woman was finally home.
A yelp of delight, paired with a beaming smile, was produced by Chloe, and Beca couldn’t help the loud chuckle that fell from her mouth as her girlfriend immediately launched her way over to her, knocking her back onto the bed with her body weight.
“You’re home early!!!” Chloe squealed in glee, her lips immediately finding their way to Beca’s, pressing firmly against the flesh over and over again while they both giggled into one another’s mouths.
Beca, with her arms already wrapped comfortably around Chloe’s waist, allowed her face to be peppered with mini kisses. Previous to the time they’d started dating this form of affection towards her would’ve been a big no-no for Beca. Kisses kept to a minimum unless specifically getting intimate. Definitely no ‘pickle-kisses’ as Chloe called them (“Why ‘pickle’?” Beca had asked with an amused smirk. “Because ‘pickle’ is such a cute word to say!” Chloe had attempted to justify with a nonchalant shrug, her pupils blown with desire.) But after a couple of years of dating Beca was a changed woman when it came to affection - both receiving and giving - and would take all the pickle-kisses Chloe had to offer, especially now after thirty three days apart.
“I just couldn’t wait any longer.” Beca replied with a chuckle, her eyes reluctantly closed as her girlfriend continued the onslaught of pickle-kisses now aimed at her neck. “I had to get home. I had to see you.”
Suddenly Chloe let out a huge gasp, launching herself off the bed to stand up, entirely embarrassed. Beca, confused, propped herself up with her arms.
“Oh God Beca, I’m a mess!” Chloe motioned to her hair, then to her body. Beca hadn’t a clue what her girlfriend meant. Her often unruly red hair was tied up into a loose top-knot, and her clothes looked as though they’d been barely worn (which Beca knew they wouldn’t have been because she knew Chloe was part-way through her latest college placement, so would’ve worn her farming gear).
“You’re not a mess!” Beca protested, a gentle smile of affection on her face as her girlfriend brought her hands to her nose to check they didn’t smell of cow faeces.
“You’re probably blinded by love, or-or probably can’t smell properly because of your favourite coffee-”
“So what if I’m blinded by love, Chloe?” Beca interjected kindly, knowing all too well the signals of her girlfriend beginning to panic: her arms would flail, her body would stiffen, her brow would knit, tears would glisten in her eyes, her words would sound a little higher pitched, and for the most part she looked something similar to a deer trapped in headlights.
Chloe blew air from her mouth, directing it up with her bottom lip to create enough of a draft to allow the rogue wisps of hair near her forehead to drift gently back in place. Her hands were resting on her hips, then flopped down to her sides.
“I’m sorry,” she whined, and Beca rose to her feet, “I just had visions of getting myself looking really pretty for you and-”
“But you’re already pretty!” Beca insisted, reaching for Chloe’s hands.
“And I was going to tidy the apartment up properly, and-and make your favourite meal, and get your favourite beer in and-”
“Chloe!” Beca looked earnestly at her girlfriend, and Chloe appeared to take a deep breath in an attempt to settle her anxiety.
“You’re beautiful. And I love you. And I’ve missed you so damn much that I skipped out of a meeting today with the label so I could get to you sooner.”
Chloe’s face contorted into a look of horror at the latter confession, knowing full well how much trouble Beca got in any time she walked out of a meeting. But Beca battled on, trying to convince her girlfriend to calm down.
“And do you seriously think I don’t know you well enough by now to know that you’d planned on doing all those sweet things for me before I got home?”
It was true - Chloe always looked tip-top whenever Beca first got home after time away with work. She always made the apartment look spotless, and cooked spaghetti bolognese from scratch because it was Beca’s absolute favourite. And she always, always made sure Beca’s favourite beers were chilling in the fridge.
“So don’t freak out, babe.” Beca noted the way Chloe’s shoulders relaxed, and it helped her own stress seep away while she gently squeezed her hands.
“You’re sure I don’t smell of cows?” Chloe mumbled, and Beca couldn’t help the chuckle that fell from her mouth.
She didn’t lie to Chloe. Well…sometimes she did, but only in instances like this, where Chloe was feeling insecure and needed a little confidence boost. So yes, Chloe did smell a tiny bit like livestock, but Beca didn’t care. She’d missed her girlfriend too much.
