Beca came to her local dive bar at the same time every week. Friday nights after work, she'd walk through the single glass door to "Pickin's" and promptly take a seat at the bar. She'd order food around 8 before some beers, then she'd evolve to buying multiple drinks as the night passed.

She easily became friends with all the other regulars as they'd sit on the dark wooden stools and complain about their office jobs. Beca had a mock secretarial role for a slimy music producer who never actually called her by her real name. Her friends spanned from salesmen to accountants to bellboys to c-list editors. Misery was company.

That Friday night, Beca had a particularly difficult night at work. Producer Slimeball listened to one of Beca's demos, for once, but he actually hated it. Practically spat in her face, claimed she had no talent, and that even the most incompetent pleb with a laptop could replicate her work.

Beca wanted to just brush off his opinions out of a sense of both desperation and hurt. Obviously she wasn't terrible, since she landed at the company in the first place, but her boss's opinion actually had some significant weight to it since he had significant marks within her industry. But Beca couldn't even call him out for being myopic – for not even seeing the musical genius it took to construct the heavily crafted and detailed foundations of lyrical editing. But he did have a point: none of her sources were original. Thus, Beca was drinking a little more heavily tonight.

Pickin's bartender Silas could sense something was marginally off for his favorite petite regular, which prompted him to walk to her side of the bar and lean over the slightly wet countertop.

"What's wrong, munchkin?" Silas laid out his affectionate pet name for Beca through a thick, southern drawl.

"The fucking usual, I guess." Beca picked at the label around her beer bottle, using the condensation on the glass to peel at the paper.

"Work troubles again?"

"Captain Asshat proved that I have no talent and the only thing I can do right is fetch coffee. And sometimes I get even that wrong. There's this one fucker who decides he wants THE most complicated fucking thing on the 'off-menu' that requires 8 special ingredients like why can't you just get a regular coffee like everyone else?" Beca spat in a seething tone, trying to keep her voice from overriding the normal chatter around the bar.

Silas looked at Beca for a moment before deciding to answer.

"If one drink cost more than $4, it ain't worth it. Unless its beer." Silas decided, leaning against his hands on the counter.

Beca simmered down a little bit, realizing her bartender friend didn't deserve her incessant complaining about work.

"You know, Silas, sometimes I wonder if that job is even worth it."

"I think about that every time y'all get wiley or when something ugly brews out." Silas clicked his tongue before adding: "But moments like this, they're all worth it. We're all one in the same – same problems, different day. Only thing separating us is this counter but I'm the same as you. Brings us on a human level. That's connection."

Beca reflected for a moment, fulling comprehending what Silas was referring to before seeing if it applied to her own life.

"Where's your connection?" Silas challenged once more, stepping back towards the wall before grabbing a dirty glass from the counter.

Beca sighed, unable to find an answer.

"For tonight, just in a drink." Beca stood up to look beyond the backlit wall of bottles for her temporary remedy.

"I'm telling you, Chlo, you need to just go for it."

Chloe and her 5 friends decided to start their night at a random bar by her place before making their way to a nightclub closer to downtown. Even though it was still relatively early in the night, one of the girls insisted that the group pre-gamed before leaving Chloe's apartment, so the lot was already relatively tipsy.

"Just sack up your lady balls and strut right up there."

"Thanks, Fat Amy, I get the picture." Chloe replied to her friend's encouragement with a slight blush.

Fat Amy was referencing a noteworthy figure sporting a black leather jacket and dark blue jeans leaning against the bar. The girl was alone with her drink but seemed relatively friendly because she was chummy with the bartender.

Chloe had only recently came out as bisexual to her college buddies, and they were only more than positively acceptive of it. Almost too much, in fact, since they kept trying to push her onto random women they spotted in public. Encouraging, yes, but effective, no.

"She's probably not even gay." Chloe muttered to her friends, shyly speaking in a hushed tone across the table.

"With that jacket? Come on." Another friend spoke, rolling her eyes and going to sip the last of her mixed drink through the straw before realizing her glass was empty. "We also need more driiiiinks."

"Stacie, please…" Chloe whined. Her nervousness about approaching women still hadn't changed.

"She's right Spice Tot, we need some shots." Fat Amy decided, with other girls nodding their heads in agreement.

"Ugh, fine. I hate you guys sometimes." Chloe stood up, swiping crumbs off her skirt. "What am I getting?"

"TEQUILA!" Fat Amy shouted as Chloe started to walk towards the bar.

The volume was loud enough that the same figure at the counter heard it, and she ended up turning around to find the source of the noise before making eye contact with Chloe. The next 5 feet of distance was mildly awkward, but Chloe ended up strolling right next to the girl at the bar.

"Sorry." Chloe mumbled to the girl beside her, apologizing for the rudeness of her friends.

"Bachelorette party?" The girl nudged her beer towards Chloe's back table, eyeing the group of girls who were all laughing excruciatingly loudly.

"Oh, ha, no." Chloe nervously laughed, moving to match the pose of the leather jacketed brunette. "Just a normal night out."

"Ah. Yikes." The girl muttered, sipping her drink with a cock of the eyebrow.

The girl wasn't charming per se, but she exerted an odd sense of Big Dick Energy that Chloe had a hard time placing.

"Are you friends with the bartender?" Chloe tried to maintain conversation but using the venue as small talk wasn't that successful. She was also trying to feel just how hard it would be to flag down the bartender to get her friends shots and flee back to her table.

"You could say that." The girl finished the bottom of her drink before letting it rest back on the counter. "I come here a lot."

She felt pity for the failed efforts of the lost ginger puppy next to her, so she flagged down Silas from the middle of the bar down to their end.

"Hey Silas, I'll take a double IPA on draft and this little lady would like…" The girl cocked her head in Chloe's direction, prompting her to reply.

"Um, 6 shots of Patrón?"

"6?" Silas asked for confirmation, holding up fingers on his hand to motion for six.

Chloe nodded with a smile before Silas left to get their drinks.

The girl scoffed in disbelief. "You can pound 6 shots?" She wanted to admit she was a little impressed, but she wouldn't start the ovation until she witnessed it herself.

"For the Bachelorette party." Chloe giggled, fiddling with her credit card in hand. She saw how the girl slyly grinned at her.

"I like the way you think."

"Here's yours, Beca, and I'll be back with the shot orgy." Silas dropped off Beca's beer before turning back to grab clean shot glasses and the handle of Patrón.

Chloe felt a weird sense of internal satisfaction now that she heard the bar girl's name, even if she couldn't ask for it herself.

When Silas returned, he filled each of the glasses in front of the pair before topping off the rims with a lime wedge.

Chloe leaned in towards Beca, awfully close, and with a cupped hand pretended to whisper: "I could just down these all now and not share with my friends. Would sum up the amount of bad news I've gotten this week."

Beca noticed the sudden intrusion of space, but she chose not to back down from the pretty redhead now orbiting her eyeline.

"Bad week too, huh?" Beca asked rhetorically. "Would you share one with me at least?"

Beca knew she was being forward, in a way that was still pretty coy. She had a hard time deciphering what the ginger's deal was, but you didn't exactly approach a loner at the bar to make friends. Plus Beca was at the Fuck It point in the week where it was almost if consequences didn't apply to her anymore.

"Maybe I could spare…" Chloe whispered gently, hovering before Beca's lips and glancing at them with soft eyes.

Beca broke the distance slowly, lazily kissing Chloe's lips before dragging away in a downwards swipe as a tease. Chloe hungrily searched back, and their lips met again.

It wasn't long before they started gingerly making out at the end of the bar. Beca's hand was cupped firmly at the nape of Chloe's neck, and they were rolling lips along one side of their faces. Beca even went so far as to open her eyes for an extended period of time, watching how Chloe's eyelids were loosely closed and how her forehead would somehow furrow as their lips tumbled together.

Beca resumed her more concentrated effort, and the sight of the pair wasn't hard to spot. Silas gave a short whistle as he was drying glasses with a rag, and even Chloe's friends were starting to notice. Fat Amy's eventual loud cheering caused Beca and Chloe's makeout session to abruptly end – with Chloe pulling away with swollen lips and a noticeable blush.

Beca wiped the side of her own mouth with her thumb. "Well. You should probably deliver those." She nudged at the collection of shots next to Chloe's elbow.

Chloe gave them a quick glance before meeting Beca's gaze one again.

"They don't need them." Chloe answered before grabbing Beca's face and picking up right where they left off.