Fiancee.
Beca didn't think she would ever get used to saying the word.
Or thinking it for that matter.
Every time the word came up she found herself grinning like a maniac, which is exactly what she was doing right now.
She was currently propped up on her and Chloe's shared bed, laptop carefully balanced in front of her. Her attention, however, was directed above the laptop at her aforementioned fiancee. Chloe was changing for bed and honestly, it wasn't Beca's fault if she looked right?
Her fiancee was hot.
Model hot.
So if she happened to get distracted while her model hot fiancee was practically naked in front of her then who could really blame her?
"I can feel you staring. Perv." Chloe's voice was disapproving, but the way she turned to to give Beca a full frontal view as she spoke let the DJ know she wasn't serious.
"What? I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you over your boobs."
Chloe rolled her eyes and tugged a t-shirt over her head, effectively blocking Beca's peep show. The DJ rolled out her lower lip.
"Aww, you ruined all my fun!"
"It's freezing in here!"
"I know, I could tell!" She waggled her eyebrows a gave a pointed nod towards Chloe's chest.
"Oh my god, I can't believe I'm marrying you!"
"Me neither! I have to pinch myself everyday to make sure I'm not dreaming."
"See, I can't even be fake mad at you because you go and say romantic things like that!"
She slid into bed beside Beca and the DJ winced as cold feet came into contact with her shin.
"Jesus! You are cold!" Shutting her laptop down, she placed it on the bedside table before rolling over to face Chloe.
"C'mere." She pulled the redhead into a hug and their legs tangled together. "Better?"
"Better." the word was mumbled against her neck and she felt hands wiggling to get around her waist.
"Chlo. What are you doing? Chlo?" The hands tugged her shirt up. "No. No. Do not-" She hissed as icy fingers came in contact with her warm back.
"That is so rude!"
"That's what you get for making nipple jokes."
"I stand by it!"
"Then you suffer the consequences!"
"Contrary to my badass reputation, I am more than happy to be your personal space heater for the next 70 years."
"Aww, you think you have a badass reputation! You're so cute!"
"You're lucky I love you."
Chloe pulled back to rest her forehead against Beca's.
"I am. Very lucky."
She pecked a kiss across the freckles on Chloe's nose to return the sentiment before re-arranging their positions so that they were on their backs, Chloe's arm tucked tightly around her shoulders.
"I'm so glad tomorrow's Friday." She groaned. "This week has been exhausting!"
"It has! But the weekend is just around the corner."
"I can't believe we're going wedding dress shopping Saturday." Beca breathed, trying to still the pounding of her heart that came with the words.
"It all seems so real, the closer it gets." Chloe's words were quiet and Beca froze, breath suddenly caught in her throat.
"Any regrets?"
Chloe's fingers tightened on her shoulder.
"Never. . . you?"
"Nope! I'm nervous as shit - but not about marrying you." She added quickly before turning on her side to once again face the redhead.
"I'm just freaking out about the day and how huge this is - I mean I'm only getting married once. The press coverage is going to be crazy and invasive." She knew she was rambling, but the sudden nervous energy she felt was overwhelming.
"Not to mention my mom and dad are going to be in the same building, and can't forget all those meddling Mitchells. I think that we weeded all of the homophobic assholes off of the guest list, but what if we missed one? And what if they show up and cause trouble?"
She took a breath and Chloe spoke up, her hand rubbing soothing circles on Beca's waist.
"I'm going to ask you something and I want an honest answer. No judgement. No disappointment."
"Okay." She nodded, wondering where Chloe was going to go with this.
"Aubrey's just a few hours away, we can fly Amy and our parents in, and we can just get married on the beach. Just a few people, no big crowds, no press to worry about."
She thought about it. It did sound tempting.
"No. I think that all of the craziness is good. This is a big moment and I want to experience all of the emotions that come with it, even the not so good ones. I want to go dress shopping with Aubrey and Stacie; I want to have our bachelorette party and champagne brunch with the Bellas. I want see what see what you look like in your wedding dress for the first time, and with bird seed in your hair. I want to hear your uncle Andy's stupid wedding jokes and my dad's cheesy toast." She smirked. "I want to make you scream my name in the guest bathroom during the reception."
Chloe's jaw dropped and her hand made a smacking noise where it connected with Beca's hip and she laughed before continuing.
"I want it all with you. Just promise we won't let things get too hectic that we don't enjoy it. I mean who cares what flavor the cake is! I'm marrying the girl who thought it was appropriate to barge in my shower and make me sing her lady jam after barely meeting."
"We won't stress the big stuff." Chloe agreed.
"Nope."
"Or the little stuff."
"Nope."
"We're just going to let the craziness happen."
"Yep. And we're going to leave all the freaking out to Aubrey."
Another slap.
"Ooh! I wanna make a wedding day bet!"
"Okay?"
"How many times can I make you come before we leave for the honeymoon?"
Chloe snickered.
"Umm three, that's what I'm going to go with."
"I say more than five but less than ten."
Chloe's nose crinkled.
"That seems excessive. Don't forget that the wedding and reception are being held at my grandmother's house. So I don't know where you plan on having all these sexy times."
"That's for me to know and you to find out!"
Chloe's hand dipped under the waistband of her underwear and she raised her eyebrows questioningly.
"We need to get some practice in if you plan on winning that bet."
No one should ever have to get out of bed before 9 AM on a Saturday.
Beca was sure that she had told Aubrey that countless times over her freshman year.
Yet the blonde insisted that they meet at 7:30 sharp to begin the hunt for wedding dresses.
Beca's wedding dress.
For Beca's wedding.
Hers.
And she was being forced by her dictator of a future-best-friend-in-law to be awake at this ungodly hour.
It just wasn't fair.
"Chloe . . . " she moaned from the passenger seat on the way to the bridal shop. "Will you get me coffee?"
"Aubrey said there would coffee provided, did you not read the email? You should really read them, it makes her so much easier to deal with when you're up on all the memos."
"If by email you mean the ten page dissertation on the cultural significance of wedding dresses and how white used to be for virgins but nobody really does that anymore - then yes, I read it."
Chloe's eyebrows raised as she glanced over at Beca.
"I'm impressed, you actually read it! Then you should know that you can have coffee there."
"But it won't be my favorite coffee." She pouted. "It'll probably be cheap, shitty coffee. How am I supposed to function on shitty coffee?"
It was a long shot, Smooth Joe's was on the complete opposite of town than the bridal shop; and she knew how much the redhead hated to upset Aubrey, even after all these years.
But Chloe flicked on her blinker and shifted lanes to turn around at the next red light.
"Text Aubrey and tell her we're stuck in traffic."
Beca grinned.
"You're the best, you know that?"
"That's what you keep telling me!"
It was a generic to-go coffee cup. Out of all of the possibilities available, Beca really didn't expect that to be their down-fall.
"You weren't stuck in traffic, you went to Smooth Joe's!" Aubrey shouted as soon as they walked in the bridal shop, coffee cups in hand.
"How does she do that?" Beca wondered quietly to Chloe before raising her voice so the blonde could hear her.
"How did you even know it was from Joe's?"
"Because you raved about that place everyday for a week on twitter when you first moved here - I think the whole country knows that's your favorite coffee shop. The question is why did you have to go there today and be late? We're losing precious time!"
"We needed caffeine." Chloe said calmly.
Aubrey gestured angrily at a table of refreshments set up in the corner.
"If you read the memo, you would know that coffee was being provided."
"We read the memo!" Beca couldn't help but interject, which only served to make Aubrey's face more red.
The blonde took a breath, no doubt gearing up to put Beca in her place; but Chloe interrupted with a soothing hand on her best friend's arm.
"It's her wedding too. And if she wants special coffee, she gets it. We are not stressing about this wedding. It is going to be a fun and magical experience. And there will be no stress vomiting from my Maid of Honor. Capiche?"
"Capiche." Aubrey looked sufficiently scolded and Beca couldn't resist sticking her tongue out in a mocking fashion.
Chloe snickered.
"And apparently, I'm marrying a five year old! Where do we start?"
Of course, Aubrey had a scheme to have them both try on dresses in the most efficient way. There were two dressing rooms and a small seating area- Beca would get one dressing room and Chloe would get the other. Aubrey would have Chloe's mom on facetime and Stacie (Amy's chosen bridal party representative) was facetiming Beca's mother. The two brides would then take turns modeling dresses until they both found one that they (and the audience liked). It was simple, really. . . at least in theory.
In reality, Chloe spent a lot of time discussing the pros and cons of her dress with the girls. Which left Beca a lot of time alone in her dressing room doing, well, nothing.
"Guys . . . . my phone battery is almost dead and we aren't even through the first set of dresses yet!"
A phone charger was tossed over the door and landed at her feet.
"I take back all the mean things I said about you, Posen!"
"Your welcome, Beca; see, I can be reasonable."
The next obstacle came when she tried to get into the dress.
It was big and puffy and awkward. It was itchy, in all the wrong places, and it made Beca sort of feel like a cloud.
An unattractive cloud to boot.
She stood on the pedestal in front of the half dozen mirrors and shook her head.
"I don't think this works guys."
"I specifically set out these dresses for you based on the most popular styles that would work with your measurements." The sales girl informed her somewhat indignantly.
"You know, Beca - I always pictured you as more of a tux kind of girl." Aubrey observed thoughtfully from her perch on the couch.
"I'm not going to lie, I kind of assumed you would go for the tux too." Piped her mother from the iPad that Stacie was holding up.
"Just because plaid is my favorite color doesn't mean I don't want to look like a princess on my wedding day."
Stacie studied her for a moment before walking over to a rack of dresses, looking between them and Beca for a minutes before letting out a cry of accomplishment and carrying one of the over. "I think you should try this one on next." She turned to the wall of shoes and stood on her tiptoes to snatch a box off the top shelf. "And put these on with it so you can get the full effect."
Beca smiled gratefully and took the items before shuffling back to the dressing room to wait her turn.
She barely had time to change dresses before Aubrey was calling her out again, obviously Chloe had had no luck with her last option.
The second dress was much more manageable. It was strapless, and while Beca felt a little weird with that much of the girls hanging out, she knew Chloe would appreciate it. It was slim and definitely not bulky like the one before it, so it hugged her curves in a flattering way. The heels gave her the added height to avoid stepping on the small train, and the best part was that it was silky and smooth - definitely not itchy.
"It's perfect." Her mother called out.
Beca could only nod, entranced by the view in the mirror.
She knew that other people found her attractive, Chloe told her as much too often for her to ever doubt it.
She didn't always feel attractive, rather the opposite most days.
Occasionally Chloe would look at her with such adoration in her eyes and she would know beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was beautiful.
But she never had the thought of her own volition.
She never just woke up, looked in the mirror and thought 'Hey, I'm pretty fucking gorgeous.'
Until now.
Because she was.
Pretty fucking gorgeous that is.
She knew that she would never hold a candle to Chloe on their wedding day - or any other day for that matter - , the redhead was on a whole different level of beauty. If Beca was a princess, then Chloe was a goddess, and there was simply no comparison.
But with this dress?
She could come pretty fucking close.
She inexplicably felt her eyes well up with tears.
"Beca . . ." Aubrey's voice cut through her thoughts. "You look stunning."
"I wanna see!" Came Chloe's muffled screech from the dressing from the dressing room, sending the group into a giggles.
"You know the rules, Chlo. No seeing each other in our dresses until the wedding day!" She sniffled.
"Are you crying?!" Chloe demanded.
"No!"
"Bree, is she crying?"
"Yep!"
"Awww, Bec." Now Chloe's voice was watery.
"No, no, you can't cry too! This isn't even important! It's stupid, it's just a dress."
"Your wedding dress!"
"Ugh. No. We are not doing this. I'm going back to my dressing room and you're going to find a dress and then we're going to lunch. That's how this works."
Without waiting for a reply, she stepped down off the stand, enveloping Stacie in a hug on her way to the dressing room.
"I don't know how you did it, but you did it. Thank you."
"That's what honorary maids of honor are for!"
She ended up falling asleep on the bench in the dressing room while she was waiting on Chloe to find the perfect dress. She started to get a little bored after the fourth round of 'I don't know, does this one have too many sequins?'; and somewhere between her latest level of Temple Run and Chloe's big moment, she drifted off. Aubrey claimed that she was out for an hour, but she felt like that was a bit of an exaggeration - probably payback for the coffee.
She was slightly disappointed at missing Chloe's big moment of discovery, but she knew that would have made it that much harder to wait until their wedding day so she tried not to let it bother her.
Since they had finished well within the 4 hour appointment window, they used the leftover time to look at bridesmaid dresses, this time with Aubrey and Stacie as models. They eventually decided on black dresses with grey sashes for Beca's side, and grey dresses with black sashes for Chloe's side. Cynthia Rose had requested to wear a tux, and Beca snapped numerous pictures until they finally decided on classy dark blue coat with black pants. CR promised to go to her local tailor and get fitted as soon as possible.
With all of the wardrobe issues taken care of, she was feeling quite accomplished as they sat down to lunch at Chloe's favorite sushi place; but something was nagging at her.
She looked around the table.
Chloe and Aubrey were talking animatedly about some development with Aubrey's camp and Stacie was . . . texting?
"Who ya texting, Stace?"
"Huh? Oh, nobody."
She didn't miss the look that the brunette shot towards Aubrey and Chloe.
"Nobody?"
The taller girl shrugged.
"Last night's conquest?"
Another shrug.
Suddenly it clicked.
"Oh my god! You have a boyfriend!"
"N-n-ooo?"
"Girlfriend? You have a girlfriend!"
She saw the nervous glance that Aubrey and Chloe exchanged and Stacie was obviously distracted by something over Beca's shoulder, but she refused to fall for the obvious ploy and be distracted.
"Who?!"
"I . . . don't . . I don't kiss and tell."
"That was literally your motto in college."
Stacie stood abruptly, pushing back her chair.
"I'm going to the restroom, I'll be back."
And uncomfortable silence fell over the table.
"Did I miss something? I mean she calls her junk 'the hunter'! Since when does she get offended at sex talk?"
Her companions were suspiciously silent.
"I'm just going to go check on her."
"Bec-"
"No, no, I need to apologize, I obviously upset her."
She weaved her way through the tables towards the bathroom and pushed open the door.
"Stace, I'm sorry I - woah!"
She didn't know what she expected, but it most certainly wasn't Stacie propped up on the counter, lips locked with a tall brunette.
"Emily?!"
The two girls jumped apart.
"What - what - how - but - but- she's - a BABY! She's a baby! Stacie what are you doing!"
"I'm 22." Emily stated calmly before turning back to Stacie. "I told you we should have told her."
"Wait, How long has this been going on?!"
"Two years? Give or take?" Stacie shrugged.
"Two years?! Holy shit . . . Chloe knew! Aubrey knew! That's why they were acting so weird!"
"Everybody kind of knew . . ." Emily admitted sheepishly.
"Why didn't you guys tell me?"
"We were keeping it a secret from everyone at first, and then when word got out, alternate universe you was here; and when you got back and we realized you didn't know we all bet on how long we could keep it a secret."
"So. . . you guys are happy?"
They both nodded.
"You know if either of you hurt each other, I'll hurt you; right?"
They nodded again.
She thought for a moment.
"When did Chloe bet that I would find out?"
Emily pulled out her phone.
"If you find out anytime this month then she wins."
"Why didn't she just tell me?"
"Against the rules."
"Right, well, I won't be mad that you guys kept it a secret if you agree to not tell anyone that I know until after the end of the month."
The two love birds shared a look.
"Deal."
They shook on it, and made their way back to the table.
"Hey! look who showed up!" She waved a hand towards Emily. "Em's going to eat with us."
"That's right, bitches! Pay up!" Chloe held out her hands out to the other girls.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm getting my money, because I know you know."
"How could you possibly know I know?!"
"Because I know you and you know."
"God, it's like we're already married!"
"Nope! But close! And I can't wait!"
Chloe's grinning face smashed against her cheek in a sloppy kiss, and she had the vivid realization that she couldn't wait either.