Work Text:
“Please let me do your belly button? It’d be totes sexy.”
“For the last time, dude. No.”
Chloe pouts at her and Beca shakes her head, turning back to her Spotify account on the shop’s iPad. She’s been trying to pick a playlist for like ten minutes, randomly clicking on songs to play in the meantime. They bump out of the speakers on the walls, specifically installed custom for Cynthia Rose.
Speaking of whom, the owner pops her head out of her office just off the main room. “Girl, will you pick a damn song? It’s hard to jam when you keep changing it in the middle.”
“Sorry,” Beca mutters, finally just settling on a playlist. She’s not really feeling it, but whatever. She just works here.
“Okay, so I was thinking,” Chloe says, settling on the corner of Beca’s table and whipping out a nail file. “You give me the Superman crest and have CR do the Batman logo on you.”
Beca bites back a small smile. “Are you ever going to let this go?”
“Of course not,” Chloe grins at her. “It’s our ten year friendiversary. At five years, we got our bugs, and this year we need to renew our friendship vows. I don’t know what’s so hard to grasp about this concept.”
“We were drunk when we got those.”
Chloe’s mouth falls open. “Are you saying you regret our matching tattoos?”
“No,” Beca says. “And they’re not even matching.”
“They’re kind of matching. We got them at the same time. They’re both insects.” She pouts. “They’re on us… forever.”
“Wow, tattoos are on you forever?” Beca gasps, looking down at her half sleeve. “Shit why didn’t anyone tell me?”
Chloe gives her shoulder a little push and hops off the table. “Face it, Beca, you’re stuck with me just like you’re stuck with all your tattoos.” Then she heads back to the piercing station to prep for an appointment she has in a little bit.
“Whatever, Jordin Sparks!” Beca calls after her and she hears Chloe’s giggle echo back at her.
Of course, Beca’s just messing. She’ll probably give Chloe whatever matching tattoos she wants. As she always has, ever since they became friends when Beca was just a nineteen year old college dropout trying to make it as a music producer in LA.
She’d needed a place to stay and found Chloe’s ad on Craigslist to rent a cheap broom closet of a room. It wasn’t much but it was all she could afford at the time. And when it was clear she didn’t have the patience or the right connections to make it in LA’s music scene and she went totally broke, Chloe let her stay rent-free while she apprenticed at a tattoo shop and tried to make her way in the world.
That’s just the kind of person Chloe is.
So to pay her back, Beca gives her tattoos for free whenever she wants. It’s a pretty normal custom for artists to give their friends free tats, but to Beca, it means something.
See, she has three ride or dies in life:
Music, art, and Chloe damn Beale.
Those three things have always been there for her, and Beca has never strayed from them, loyal ‘til the end.
So if Chloe wants to get matching superhero tattoos, well, then, they will.
“Hey, Beca, are you free?” A voice calls out from the front, and Beca looks up from her station to see their receptionist Jessica trying to get her attention.
“Yeah, what’s up?”
“We got a walk-in.”
She gets up and heads to the front. As she approaches, she sees two girls leaning against the counter in the waiting area, flipping through the bound books showing their artist portfolios and samples.
They seem close, leaning into each other to point at examples they like. Beca immediately guesses it’s the taller one getting the tattoo, bets it’s some flower print or something probably. She has a keen sense for things like this.
“Hi,” she says as she walks up. “What can I do for you?”
“I’m looking to get a tattoo,” the taller one says, and like, yeah, Beca nailed it.
She raises her eyebrows. “Uh, nah you’re in the wrong place, we don’t do that here.”
“She’s kidding,” Jessica yells from the front desk and Beca smirks. Yeah, Jess. No shit.
“Alright, well what were you thinking?” Beca leans her forearms on the counter as the girl pulls up a picture on her phone.
“I was thinking something like this,” she says, holding her phone out to Beca.
She expects something cutesy and is utterly surprised when the picture is this vicious looking serpent tat.
“Whoa,” Beca murmurs, unable to help herself. She grabs the phone, pinching her fingers across the screen to zoom in. “Shit, dude. Alright.” She nods and hands the phone back to the girl. “Where were you thinking and what size?”
“Well, I want it to span across my shoulders and back, with the tail maybe wrapping around my upper arm.”
“Okay,” Beca says, the idea of it already forming in her mind. “Well, that’s going to be a multi-trip deal. I’m thinking probably three sessions, four hours apiece if that works for you.” She meets the girl’s eyes. “And it’s probably gonna get pretty pricey at that size and depending on the detail.”
The girl shrugs. “I figured. I’ve got the cash for it.”
“Cool,” Beca says. “Then let me get started. We’ll do some preliminary artwork for it as a consult, see how you like it, then set up your first appointment. How’s that sound?”
“Sounds great,” the girl says and Beca motions for her to follow her back to her station.
“I’m Beca, by the way,” she introduces herself, motioning for the girl to grab a seat and pulling up another chair for the friend.
The girl smiles at her. “Fits you,” she says. “I’m Stacie.” She tilts her head in the friend’s direction. “And that’s Emily.”
“I’m just here for support,” Emily chuckles, and Beca nods, pulling out her materials and starting to outline the tattoo.
“Support is good, as long as you don’t pass out on me. You’re not afraid of needles are you?”
“Nope,” Emily grins. “Just those giant ugly fish that live in the deep ocean, but that’s not really relevant in this situation, I don’t think. Unless like, they had needles on their bodies? That’d be scary.”
Beca raises her eyebrows but Stacie laughs. “I love you, Em.”
“Aw I love you, too, Stace. Are you excited? It’s gonna look so cool.”
Beca grins over at them. “She’s right, this is a sick tattoo.”
At that moment, Chloe comes out from the piercing station in the backroom, sucking from the straw of her water bottle. “Ooh, I wanna see.”
She leans all up in their personal space, which like, Beca’s talked to her about, but there’s no stopping the girl. She gasps. “Oooooh, that is gonna look great. Which one of you?”
Emily points over at Stacie. “It’s Stacie’s.”
Chloe narrows her eyes for a second before nodding. “Yeah, I can def see that. You’re gonna love it. Beca is great. She’s done all of mine.”
Beca rolls her eyes as Stacie and Emily lean forward and Chloe starts pointing out all of her tattoos. She doesn’t really have any big ones, no sleeves or anything like Beca, but she does have probably fifteen little ones that Beca’s given her over the years, some requested, some just because Beca wanted to practice and Chloe’s always willing to be her test body.
“...And this one Beca did when she was in this watercolor phase and she wanted to practice on me. I think it looks like one of those laser guns the aliens have in Space Jam.”
“I like that one,” Emily nods. “It’s cool that you let her practice on you.”
Chloe winks suggestively. “Oh, she lets me practice on her, too.”
Beca almost chokes. “Chloe.”
“What?” She pouts and looks to Stacie and Emily. “Who do you think gave her all those ear monstrosities?”
Beca sighs. That part is true. She’s got about twelve pieces of jewelry in her ears right now, all thanks to Chloe’s trigger happy piercing finger.
“I like the spike,” Emily grins at her. “It’s kind of badass.”
“Thanks,” Beca mutters. “But careful or she’ll coerce you into one, too. She can be very persuasive.”
“So true,” Chloe beams mischievously. “I really am.”
Stacie raises an eyebrow, looking Chloe up and down. “I bet.”
They make eye contact for a second and Beca tries to meet Emily’s gaze, wondering if she’s seeing this. Emily, however, appears oblivious, staring at Beca’s work so far.
“My mom says she’ll kill me if I ever come home with,” she makes air quotes, “those weird buttons in my ears.” Emily scrunches her nose. “She means gauges.”
“Yeah,” Beca smirks. “I assumed.”
Beside them, Chloe and Stacie launch into a conversation about which piercings Chloe likes giving best and Beca tunes them out, focusing instead on shading the edges of the snake just right.
“Have you always wanted to be a tattoo artist?” Emily asks her, clearly not that interested in the piercing conversation either.
“Nah, not always,” Beca shrugs. “I’ve always liked art, though. Doodled in class too much.” She chuckles. “It’s probably why I was almost failing out of college. Well, that and philosophy was just so fucking boring.”
“Huh,” Emily nods. “That’s cool. How long have you been doing this?”
Beca thinks about. “Guess about nine years now. Ish. Been here at Bella Ink for six.”
“I read on the Instagram page that you guys only hire female artists,” Emily says, and Beca can feel her eyes on her.
“Yeah, that’s CR’s doing. She owns the place.” Beca jerks her head toward CR’s open office door. “I’ll tell her you checked out the Insta. She’s always wondering if the social media does anything.”
“Course I did.” Then Emily’s voice hushes a little and she leans forward. “I wasn’t going to let Stacie get a huge snake on her forever without finding a place with talented and trustworthy artists.”
Beca looks up at her and their heads are a little closer than she anticipated. She notices Emily has really dark eyelashes. They’re pretty. She feels herself grinning. “You’d be surprised to know that you’re smarter than about sixty percent of the people who come in here then.”
Emily seems surprised. “Really?”
“Yep,” Beca says, turning back to her sketch. “A lot of people walk in with no plan. And that’s cool sometimes, no biggie. Spontaneity is fun. But we also get a lot of drunk people, and we have a policy against that kind of thing of course, but sometimes you can’t really tell. And sometimes people need liquid courage, but I usually try to avoid those people if I can help it. Had a few too many puke on my shoes, to be honest.”
“Gross,” Emily crinkles her nose in disgust.
“Right?” Beca chuckles again. “It’s wild.” Then she clears her throat and pushes the paper with the finished sketch on it over to Stacie. “So what do you think about this?”
Stacie stops mid-sentence in her conversation with Chloe to look at it. Then she beams at Beca. “I love it.”
“Cool.” Beca grabs the iPad again and pulls up her calendar. “So… obviously I’ll scale it up to fit the size you want. Do you want to make a first appointment? Oh, and we do a lowkey deposit that eventually comes out of the final payment…”
Stacie sets it all up to come back in three days and get started. Then she and her friend walk out into the bright LA sunshine, conversing excitedly and giggling at each other.
“They were cute,” Chloe says, coming up behind her.
Beca rolls her eyes and fights off a smile. “You say that about every person who comes in here.”
“Well there’s a lot of cute people in the world.”
Beca shakes her head and starts back toward her station just as Chloe’s piercing appointment walks in. Chloe grins and taps Beca on the butt as she walks away.
“So about that belly button piercing,” she calls over her shoulder. “Just think about it!”
Beca pretends she doesn’t hear her.
//
“Okay so which side do you want the head on?”
“Left,” Stacie says, looking over her shoulder. “I want the tail wrapping around my right shoulder.”
Beca settles herself near the left shoulder. “Alright then, let’s get started.” She looks over to Emily. “You wanna hold her hand or something?”
Emily smiles and reaches her fingers toward Stacie, who awkwardly grasps them from her current position on her stomach.
“Don’t make me laugh, Em.”
“Okay,” Emily smiles at her friend. “Just don’t look at my face. I know you think it’s funny looking.”
Stacie’s body moves with a small chuckle. “Shut up, I’m serious.”
“Okay, okay!” Emily uses her free hand to zip her lips. “I’m being quiet.”
Beca purses her lips in concentration and gets to work, touching the gun to Stacie’s bare shoulder. For her part, Stacie’s taken everything like a champ so far. She slipped her shirt off like it was no big deal when Beca told her to, and then easily hopped up in the chair on her stomach. Sometimes people are awkward about taking their clothes off, even when Beca needs them to, because like, hello, what is she gonna do, tattoo over their clothes? But apparently this is no issue whatsoever for Stacie.
And now, Beca touches the buzzing needle to her skin, and there’s barely a flinch, just a slight hiss of air through her teeth, and Beca braces for the muscle tightening below her hands.
“Try to relax,” she advises, something she probably says a hundred times a week.
Stacie’s body relaxes underneath her and Beca continues, blotting at the ink and blood now congealing under the gun.
She works for a while, settling into her groove and half jamming to the music in the background and half listening to Stacie and Emily’s conversation in case they ask her something.
Halfway through the session, Chloe comes back from a lunch run, stopping by to admire Beca’s work and pass her a sandwich and her midday caffeine boost. “Ham and Swiss and your iced coffee, two splashes of milk.”
“Thanks,” Beca says, peeling off her gloves and letting Stacie take a break for a few minutes.
“Always, babe,” Chloe winks at her and moves to where Emily is holding a mirror up so Stacie can see the snake on her shoulder. “Ooh, it looks great so far,” she gasps excitedly, her hand squeezing Stacie’s uninked bicep.
Stacie looks Chloe up and down. Chloe grins coyly. Beca takes a sip of her iced coffee.
Emily fumbles the mirror she’s holding, just barely catching it and breaking Stacie and Chloe’s eye contact. “Sorry, sorry!” She blushes, gingerly setting the mirror down on the chair next to her.
Beca bites back a grin and sets her coffee on her table. “Careful or you’ll have seven years of bad luck.”
Emily’s eyes grow wide. “That’s just superstition.”
“Beca’s very superstitious,” Chloe interjects. “She always puts her left shoe on first. And that’s why she gave me this ladybug.” Chloe holds out her wrist where one half of their bug tattoos are. “It’s lucky.”
Emily crinkles her eyebrows and gestures to Beca’s ear. “Is that why you have a rainbow behind your ear? They’re lucky, right?”
Beca’s hand goes up to her ear instinctually. “Uh, no.”
“That’s because she’s hella gay,” Chloe whispers loudly, and Beca swats at her.
Chloe just giggles and jumps out of the way. Beca doesn’t really mind though and Chloe knows it, or she wouldn’t have said it.
Stacie looks back and forth between them, eyebrows raised in interest. “Oh, I see.” Her eyes flicker between them suggestively, but Beca’s quick to shake her head.
“Nuh uh. Nope.”
Chloe sighs forlornly. “Not that I haven’t tried.”
“Chloe.”
“What?” She shrugs back at Stacie and Emily. “Beca has a type. I’m much too forward for her.”
“Dude!” Beca’s face falls in her hands. “TMI!”
Chloe just grins. “See?”
Then she laughs and walks toward the back room. Stacie and Emily watch her go with interest and Beca wonders for the fifty billionth time in her life why fate made her favorite person someone as infuriating as Chloe Beale.
After a second she pulls herself together and turns to Stacie.
“Alright,” she says begrudgingly. “Let’s get back to it.”
//
She gets the outline of the serpent complete after a few hours of work and calls it quits for the day.
Stacie seems very satisfied so far, so Beca’s really encouraged. The girls leave Bella Inkorporated with smiles on their faces, chatting about getting something to eat. Beca settles back in her chair and adds the in-progress picture to her Instagram.
When she looks up, Chloe’s perched herself on the end of Beca’s table, as she always seems to do.
Beca gives her a look. “How many times have I told you, dude. You can’t hook up with the clients.”
Chloe schools her expression into something bordering innocent. Or it would be, if Beca didn’t know her so well. “What do you mean? I didn’t.”
“You were making bedroom eyes at that girl for like two straight hours.”
Chloe raises her eyebrows. “I’m naturally flirty, Beca. I didn’t realize that was illegal.” Beca grumbles to herself as Chloe continues. “Besides, she’s your client, not mine.”
Beca fixes her with a glare, but that just causes Chloe’s smile to grow and her eyes to glint playfully.
“Chloe...”
“Hey, Cynthia Rose!” Chloe calls before Beca can stop her. “Are there any rules about me flirting with Beca’s clients?”
CR’s voice comes from the office. “That girl was fine, Beale. Hit that.”
“You two disgust me,” Beca mutters and Chloe just laughs.
“Live a little, Bec. When was the last time you even went on a date?”
Beca scowls. “You know when. I live with you. You know every freaking detail of my pathetic life.”
“I know, right?” Chloe is much too pleased for Beca’s taste. She jumps off the table and wraps her arm around Beca’s shoulders, gesturing in front of them with the other. “The possibilities and opportunities for you are endless, honey. You’re young, you’re hot, you have super sexy piercings, if I do say so myself.” Beca snorts. “Flirt a little. It’s fuuuuunnnn.”
Beca shrugs her arm off and sticks her tongue out. “Easy for you to say. You speak flirty girl.”
“I know. I love being bilingual.”
“Oh stop.”
Chloe hip checks her and starts to walk toward CR’s office. “Don’t hate, Beca. Just try it!”
“That’s what the drug dealer says right before they get you hooked on meth.”
Chloe ignores her and steps into CR’s office, waggling her fingers a little over her shoulder.
Beca sinks lower into her chair, her scowl deepening, and tries to pretend that some small part of her doesn’t think Chloe is right.
//
Beca has a busy week. She’s got appointments lined up back to back every day and she stays until ten every night.
She doesn’t really have time to think about anything other than tattoos and pricing and consults, food and showering and sleeping.
Still, as the days pass, she can’t stop thinking about what Chloe said. Her comments have apparently wiggled their way deep under Beca’s skin and her brain scratches at them like an itch, constant and irritating.
When was the last time she went on a date? She honestly can’t remember. She doesn’t want to admit that it’s been three years, at least since she broke up with her ex, Jesse, but the more she thinks about it, the more she realizes that it probably has been that long.
And it’s not that Beca hasn’t wanted to date. She’s just been busy and honestly, she’s just never in to anyone. Sure, she finds people attractive or whatever, but usually the more attractive they are, the more they bug Beca.
She just has a really low tolerance for people in large doses. Pretty much the only person she can handle on a constant basis is Chloe, and that’s really only because Chloe’s pruned her to be that way, hacking away at the parts of Beca’s tolerance that finds Chloe’s forwardness and flirtiness annoying until they’re gone and Beca’s left thinking they’re just endearing.
And she has no idea how Chloe pulled that off… Like some sort of magic trick, an illusion Beca can’t figure out.
No, Chloe is an outlier, one that doesn’t belong on the annoyance v attractiveness spectrum. And Chloe… Beca’s considered it, but well, Chloe is her best friend, and something in this lifetime just isn’t lining up for anything romantic between them.
And it sucks, because a person like Chloe is one in a million.
Beca doubts she’ll find another.
//
“Ham and Swiss and iced coffee, two splashes of milk.”
Chloe sets her usual lunch down on her table before pulling up the spinny chair from the station next to her. It’s Lilly’s, but she’s off today.
“Thanks,” Beca murmurs, still focusing on what she’s doing. There’s a good song playing in the background and she’s in the zone.
“Always, babe,” Chloe volleys back, as usual. “So how are we doing here?”
“Well, my fingers might fall off from being squeezed so hard, but other than that… great,” chirps Emily’s voice, and Beca bites back a smile.
She hears Chloe laugh. “Yeah, that’s a tough spot.” There’s a slurping sound as Chloe takes a drink, then, “I’ve seen all kinds of people cry when getting a tat on that spot.”
“Really?” Emily asks.
“Yep,” Chloe answers. “But between you and me that’s probably because Beca rejected their attempts at flirting by stabbing them with the tattoo gun.”
Stacie’s body shakes with laughter and Beca pulls the gun up. “Chloe.”
“Does she always say your name in that tone?” Stacie says through another laugh and Beca watches as Chloe smirks.
“Oh yeah. I often wish she’d say it in another tone, but you can’t win ‘em all. At least I escape getting stabbed by the gun.”
Beca scowls and points to her ears. “No, just as punishment you stab me with yours.”
“You guys are kinky, are you sure you’re not a couple?” Stacie looks over her shoulder, grinning.
Beca holds the gun up menacingly in response.
“Just asking,” Stacie tssks, popping on her gum and lying back down. Beca continues adding the interior details to her snake.
“Stacie’s much too forward, too,” Emily comments in Beca’s direction. “Looks like our friends have that in common.”
“And we’re both hot, don’t forget that.” Stacie’s voice floats back to them from her position on her stomach.
Chloe grins much too wide, a pleased sound escaping her throat as she struts to her backroom.
Beca pauses her work and meets Emily’s eyes. Emily smiles at her knowingly and tilts her head as if to say, see?
Beca shakes her head in amusement, laughing a little at the exasperated expression on Emily’s face.
She likes Emily. Well, as far as friends of the person you’re tattooing goes. Pretty much everyone that comes in to get tattooed brings some sort of support. Usually it’s a friend (or a few), and Beca’s had her fair share of clients with shitty friends.
Not that she’s one to judge, but she can just tell.
There’s the college kids who are on their own for the first time and rebelling, bringing whichever roommate was free that day to hold their hand and brag about how their mom is going to kill them. There’s the people who lose a bet and bring the friends who won, making them get something stupid tattooed on their butts. Beca’s always happy to be part of a funny story - it’s part of her job not to judge - but she lowkey thinks those friends are kind of shitty, too.
And there are friends like Emily, who tag along because they want to, because it’s fun and they want to hold their friend’s hand, chat up the tattoo artist to distract their friend from the pain.
Beca likes those friends.
And Emily is just nice, genuine in her questions and eager to help Stacie in whatever way she can. Beca respects that.
She’s also cute. Not that that has to do with anything, but it helps the likability thing, nudges Beca in the direction of fondness. Emily is tall and energetic, her long, dark hair always falling over her shoulder with a shiny sleekness. And Beca thinks she has pretty eyes. They hold an earnestness Beca isn’t used to seeing in most people. Like Emily is always exactly who she is, never putting on some show or persona. She just seems very real to Beca.
So Beca likes her.
“So what do you do? You in school or something?” She asks Emily after a minute of concentration. Chit chat is an unfortunate part of her job. She has to be a people person. Which is why she’s making conversation.
Not because she’s interested.
Nuh uh.
“Me? Oh, no, I graduated a while back. I’m actually a songwriter.”
Beca raises her eyebrows, impressed. “No shit? Anything I’d know?”
“Uhhhh,” Emily hums. “No, probably not.”
“Oh, come on, Em,” Stacie admonishes over her shoulder. “She’s lying,” she addresses Beca. “She wrote that song Flashlight? You know, that Jessie J one.”
“Oh, hell yeah, I know that.” She lifts the gun up and spins in her chair toward the iPad on her table. Then she scrolls through her generic tattooing playlist and clicks on the song. She turns back with a smile as it starts to play out of the speakers mounted on the walls. “Got it on my playlist.”
Emily turns sheepish, blushing and looking away. “Oh. Yep… that’s… that’s mine.”
Beca nods her head to the beat. “Right on, that’s awesome. You sing too?”
“No,” Emily says at the same time Stacie says, “Yes.”
Beca looks between them, before shaking her head and putting the buzzing gun back to Stacie’s shoulder.
“I mean,” Emily clears her throat. “I do some backup for some people. Like uh, I danced and did some singing for Niall Horan last year.”
“The One Direction guy?”
“They’re best friends,” Stacie interjects.
Emily whips around. “That’s not true. You’re my best friend.”
“Well, besides me.” Stacie winces a little as Beca runs over the bone. “And she’s a really good singer. I keep telling her to stop selling her stuff and sing it herself. And listen, I’m the smart one and I’ll -”
“Be my manager, yeah, yeah, I know,” Emily laughs. “She never shuts about this,” Emily murmurs to Beca.
Beca grins. “Yeah I know the feeling. That one,” she jerks her head to Chloe’s backroom. “Never shuts up about piercing my belly button.”
“IT’D LOOK SEXY! LET IT HAPPEN!” Chloe’s voice calls out from the back.
Emily’s eyes go wide. “How did she hear that?”
“I HEAR EVERYTHING!”
“Ooh, I like her,” Stacie hums in approval.
“EVERYONE DOES!”
Beca sighs as Emily bursts into laughter.
//
“Do you think it would be like, unethical to get that girl’s number from her liability form and ask her out?” Chloe says a few minutes after Stacie and Emily leave.
“Yes.”
Chloe tssks. “You are no fun sometimes.”
“All the time, really.”
“No, not all the time. You’re fun when you’re drunk.”
Beca glares. “Ha ha.”
“You could ask out her friend and we could double date.”
Beca blinks. “What? No.”
Chloe pouts. “Why not? You like her.”
“I don’t even know her.”
Chloe grins slyly. Like she knows something Beca doesn’t. Beca doesn’t like it. “You have her song on your playlist.”
“So?” Beca starts to clean up all the materials on her table. “That’s just a coincidence.”
“You think she’s cute.”
“I... what. I mean,” Beca sputters and Chloe’s smile grows. “I don’t know how you could even ascertain that. You were barely in the room!”
Chloe waggles her eyebrows and kicks out at Beca’s chair so she spins away across the tiled floor. “I can read your mind, babe.”
Beca slides back and swipes at Chloe’s cheek with her pointer finger. “I’m going to get ink on you.”
“Your ink is all over me, anyway,” Chloe gestures at her tattoos, giggling. “And that color looks amazing on me.” Beca braces her feet on the floor as Chloe pushes her chair again. “Don’t change the subject.”
“I will if I want to,” Beca scowls like a pouty twelve year old, but Chloe knows her too well and isn’t bothered in the slightest.
“You think she’s gorgeous, you want to kiss her, love her and marry herrrrrr.”
Beca feels heat rush into her cheeks at Chloe’s ridiculousness and she laughs. “Chloe.”
“Let’s watch Miss Congeniality tonight.”
“Only if you stop this.”
“Hm,” Chloe grins. “Deal.”
Then she gives Beca an obnoxiously wet smooch on the cheek and disappears into her backroom.
//
Stacie struts in for her last appointment with a grin on her face. It reminds Beca of Chloe for some reason, all knowing and coy and suspicious.
She narrows her eyes, but Stacie just whips off her shirt and crawls up on Beca’s chair before she even says hello.
Beca pauses, then shrugs. “No Emily today?” She asks, but just as the words come out of her mouth, the door swings open again and in stumbles Emily, holding one of those drink carriers with four cups in it.
“Oh she’s here,” Stacie says in a voice to match her smile. “The way she asked to come you’d think it was her appointment.”
Beca watches as Emily scurries up to her station, practically skidding to a halt in front of them. “Hey!” She grins. “Hi. I uh.” She grabs one of the cups from the drink carrier and hands it over to Beca. “Iced coffee, two splashes of milk.”
Beca just stares, her hand tentatively reaching for the coffee.
“That’s your order, right?” Emily suddenly seems uncertain and Beca nods, dumbfounded.
“Uh. Yeah?”
“Okay, cool.” Then she scuttles off to Chloe’s backroom. There’s a moment of nothing and then…
“Oh my God, I love you!” Chloe’s voice screeches.
Beca snorts as Emily returns, a blush seeping into her cheeks and another cup absent from the carrier.
“Iced caramel macchiato,” she whispers. “I was right.”
Beca chuckles as Emily flops down into her designated chair. “You didn’t have to get us coffee, you know.”
“I know,” Emily murmurs, her blush still present. “I just thought it’d be nice.”
“It was,” Stacie interjects. “But you’re holding mine hostage. Pass it over.”
“Oh right.” Emily shifts in the chair, taking a third cup from the carrier and handing it to Stacie. Stacie sips from the straw and sets the cup on the floor. Emily wiggles her own coffee out and cups her hands around it, setting the empty carrier off to the side.
Beca clears her throat. “Alright, well, let’s get started. Or… finished, I guess.”
She gets to work and they sit in silence for a while. Stacie appears to be semi-napping, even as Beca guides the buzzing tattoo gun over her shoulder bone, which Beca thinks is impressive. Emily’s scrolling through her social media feed on her phone and humming along to the playlist Beca has going in the background.
Beca looks up at her every few minutes, whenever she needs to adjust or take a breath. Emily’s slouched in her chair, sweatpants-clad legs spread wide. Her biceps are toned and tan in her tank top and she’s got a snapback pulled over her forehead.
She’s really fucking… cute.
Beca has to keep telling herself to focus because she can’t fuck up Stacie’s tattoo, obviously. Not that she would, but she can’t afford to be distracted by some girl in a snapback and baggy sweatpants. How gay is that?
She decides to break the silence as a different kind of distraction, like maybe if Emily’s speaking, Beca won’t find that she wants to look at her so much.
“So what have you been up to today?”
Stacie’s still semi-out of it, so Emily takes it as a cue to answer. “Hm, was just working and now we’re here. I’m not sure if I have plans in the evening or anything. Probably not.”
“Working? Like writing your songs or whatever?”
“No, not today,” Emily laughs. “I was dancing actually. I’m in this Julia Michaels music video, so. Choreo.”
Beca nods. That explains the outfit. “That’s cool.”
“Yeah, I like it,” Emily says, her voice all soft and happy, and Beca’s not sure why she thought Emily speaking would make her not want to look at her.
Now she just like, wants to look more.
Stupid.
She grits her teeth and keeps her eyes on what she’s doing. If she focuses, then she’ll be done soon.
Then it occurs to her that she’ll be done soon. Like, after this, Stacie’s tattoo will be complete and the two of them will have no reason to come back anymore. At least regularly. Maybe they would in the future, but there’s no guarantee Beca will see them again.
And okay, fine, it makes her a little disappointed. She’s not too proud or cool or whatever to admit she’s grown fond of Stacie and Emily. They’re funny and good company. And giving someone a tattoo for a compiled like, twelve hours is an intimate thing. Beca’s always known that. Tattoos become a part of someone, like a merging of what someone wants most, the trust they place in the artist, and what the artist creates.
It’s like music in that way. They’re connected.
And it’s not just with the person getting the tattoo. It’s like the whole experience. The place and the colors and the conversations they had. It’s Beca and Stacie and Emily, and Chloe walking over for a few minutes every hour just to chill and see the progress.
It’s CR in the office and the music they’re playing every time Beca touches gun to skin.
Getting and giving a tattoo is just really romantic to Beca. Not romantic in the love sense, but in the sense that every time is a significant moment, something to hold onto like you hold a breath, precious and temporal, even after you let it go.
And okay, maybe she’s dramatic or emo or fucking PMSing or some shit, but she’s always looked at life this way. Through art and music and these… experiences.
It’s all she’s ever had.
As she puts the finishing shading details onto Stacie’s skin, she can’t help but feel a little nostalgic.
For what, though, she’s not sure.
She doesn’t usually get like this when she’s finishing a tattoo.
“Alright,” she says, turning off the gun and sitting back. “I think it’s done. Here, have a look.”
Stacie sits up and faces the wall mirror while Emily holds the hand mirror up for her. She twists her torso gingerly, checking out one side of her body and then the other.
Then she beams over at Beca. “This is the best fucking thing I’ve ever seen.”
Beca laughs at that, smiling happily. “Then that’s the best fucking thing I’ve ever heard.”
And Beca admits, that snake does look awesome. It looks like it’s slithering across Stacie’s back, the head resting on her shoulder, its jeweled eyes red and terrifying. The tail gets skinnier as it reaches her right shoulder until it wraps up and under the arm, the end just peeking out by Stacie’s collarbone.
Beca’s pleased, especially if Stacie is.
They get things squared away, Beca taking a picture for her Insta and portfolio, Stacie finishing up her payment. She gives Beca a hefty tip and Emily gives her a hug, quick and enthusiastic.
Beca’s uncomfortable for the first half-second of it, then she wraps her arms around Emily’s waist and hugs back, smiling when they pull apart.
Stacie’s gone to show Chloe her finished tattoo and Emily shifts on her feet awkwardly, glancing at Beca every few seconds like she wants to say something, but she never does.
Beca’s getting the same feeling, but has no idea what she’d say if she opened mouth.
Hey tell Stacie to come get another tattoo just so I can see you again?
Yeah… okay.
Instead, they just stand there, staring at the tattoo samples on the walls, until Stacie struts back, a smirk on her face and a shine about her eyes.
Then the two leave the shop and Beca watches them go.
Well, she thinks. Another satisfied customer.
And that’s that.
//
Or so she thought.
It’s a Tuesday two weeks later, and Beca’s lounging on the couch in the waiting area. She’s on walk-ins today, her schedule free until the evening, and she can hear the sound of Lilly’s gun coming from her station. But Tuesdays at noon aren’t super busy, so Beca’s just singing along to the music and trying not to die of boredom.
The door opens, followed by the tingling of the bell, and Beca stills as Jessica goes through her receptionist spiel.
“Yeah, I’m looking for Chloe. I’m here for a piercing.”
And Beca knows that voice.
“She’s in the back right now, let me get her for you,” Jessica says.
“No problem, she knows me. I’ll just go back.”
Then another familiar voice: “Is Beca here?”
“Uh yeah, she’s -”
“Emily?” Beca peeks over the counter separating the waiting area from the front, and yeah, there’s Emily, tall and pretty, gesturing toward the back.
Emily turns in her direction, a wide smile breaking over her face. “Hey,” Emily says, and Beca stands up and walks closer automatically.
“Hey,” Beca smiles back. “What are you doing here?”
“Uh,” Emily’s eyes flicker toward Chloe’s room and she shrugs. “Stacie’s getting a piercing.”
“Oh,” Beca nods. “I thought I recognized that voice.”
Emily rocks forward on her toes. “Yep. So whatcha doing?”
“Nothing, actually,” Beca says wryly. “I’m bored.”
“Oh. You wanna give me a tattoo?” Emily teases and Beca grins.
“Yeah, okay, if you want one.”
Emily pauses. “Uh.” Her lips twist in thought. “I mean, I was kidding, but…”
“So was I,” Beca laughs.
“Right.” Then Emily frowns to herself. “Well actually now I kind of want one. Is that weird?”
“Everyone who walks into a tattoo shop asks themselves if they want a tattoo, so I’m gonna say no.” Beca gestures for Emily to follow her and she walks back to her station. “Okay, so let’s just say, hypothetically, you wanted one, what would you get?”
Emily gives her a fond look. “You ask everyone that don’t you?”
“Yeah, it’s my job,” Beca grins. “But I’m curious anyway.”
“Well, I don’t know. I guess…” She points at Beca’s wrist. “I really like your headphones and I always kind of wanted something with music. Not headphones but maybe in the same place. Music notes or something.”
“Sit,” Beca tells her, pointing to the rolly chair. “And put your arm up here.” She pats the tattoo chair and lays down a towel.
Emily turns apprehensive, but does as she’s asked. “You’re not like…”
“No,” Beca laughs. “It’s on you forever, dude, I wouldn’t just like, go at it without your permission.”
“Right,” Emily relaxes. “So, what are you doing?”
Beca holds up a Sharpie. “Temporary tat. Middle school style.”
Emily smiles and shifts forward in her chair more. “Is this some marketing tool? Draw on all the potential customers so they realize how much they like it and come back and ask for a real one?”
“Yep.” Beca uncaps the Sharpie and looks at Emily. “But also I’m just bored.”
“Okay,” Emily says softly, and her eyes flutter shut when Beca takes her hand.
Beca smirks. “Keep still.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Beca leans closer and presses the Sharpie into Emily’s skin, watching the ink bleed into it. Then she starts to draw, pulling Emily’s skin taut so the marker doesn’t catch any wrinkles.
She’s only been going for about thirty seconds when Emily starts to hum quietly to herself, matching the pitch of the song playing from Beca’s playlist, some Maroon 5 song. Then she starts to sing, barely, just enough that Beca can hear.
“Stacie’s right,” Beca says after the chorus passes. “You do have a nice voice.”
“Thanks,” Emily smiles. “I still don’t wanna be a popstar, though.”
Beca tilts her head in question. “Doesn’t everyone want to be famous?”
“Not me.” Emily shrugs, her fingers fidgeting against Beca’s. “I just want to write without any pressure. And I actually really like writing for other people. I feel like just writing for yourself is so limiting, unless you’re like Beyoncé or Lady Gaga or something. I’m stuck with my own sound and what I can do and my own limitations. But if I write for other people, there’s so many options and like, directions I can go in, depending on who it’s for and what genre and their range and stuff.”
Beca hums in understanding. “That makes sense. Paparazzi would suck, too.”
Emily grins widely. “Yeah, exactly.”
“I tried to make it in the music world, once upon a time.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” Beca nods, thickening one of the lines of Emily’s Sharpie tattoo. “I wanted to be a producer.”
Emily meets her eyes, genuine and interested. “What happened?”
“Uh, I quit,” Beca laughs. “I couldn’t handle working with snotty musicians all day and I didn’t have the connections to work with any big names who understood that you need producers to make your songs not sound like shit.” She kind of smiles at the memory even if it drove her crazy all those years ago. “Final straw was when I was working with this new rapper and his song was like, garbage, right? And I cleaned it up as much as it was gonna be cleaned up and then he hated it, and when I tried to tell him what I did was necessary, my boss told him to ignore me because I was on my period.”
“No way.”
“Yep,” Beca snorts. “It was so stupid. So I quit. And now I do this.”
They fall into silence for a moment, lost in their thoughts. Then Emily says, “Do you like it?”
“What?” Beca glances up. “Being a tattoo artist?” Emily nods. “Yeah, I love it.”
They smile at each other, and the moment seems to stretch. Finally, Beca clears her throat and pulls back. “There,” she says. “Finished.”
Emily immediately holds her wrist up, taking in her temporary tattoo, the spiraling treble clef and the staff, empty. “No notes?” She asks, looking back up at Beca.
Beca shrugs. “Didn’t want to limit you.”
Something changes in Emily’s face, from curious and teasing to wondrous and uncertain. Beca, against all instincts that tell her not to, looks down at Emily’s lips.
“Umm.” Her throat is dry. “I…”
There’s a loud laugh and Chloe and Stacie suddenly exit the backroom, jolting Beca backward. She stutters over a breath as the two of them appear in her line of sight. Emily reluctantly tears her gaze from Beca’s and smiles over at them.
“Hey,” she says. “Did you get it?”
“Oh yeah, I got it,” Stacie replies, her voice laced with suggestion. And that’s when Beca notices that while Stacie’s sporting a nice new industrial piercing, Chloe’s sporting the beginnings of pinkish hickey on the side of her neck and a wide smile.
Emily seems to notice this, too. “I see… I mean… nice! Yeah. It looks great. You look great. I mean. You always look great. Yeah.” She visibly cringes and Stacie pats her on the shoulder.
“Thanks honey.” Then she gasps, grabbing Emily’s wrist. “What the fuck! Did you get a tattoo?”
“Uh, no.” Emily blushes. “It’s just Sharpie.”
“Girl,” Stacie releases Emily’s hand. “I was about to say. That’s a little extreme for a crush.”
Emily’s cheeks somehow get redder and her eyes flicker to Beca.
Beca blinks. Does Stacie mean her? She glances back at Emily, but Emily’s avoiding her gaze like she’s Medusa or something.
“ANYWAY,” Emily says loudly. “Are you ready to go? I’m ready to go! Let’s go.”
Then she grabs Stacie’s arm and calls “BYE!” over her shoulder, before pulling Stacie out of the shop.
“Did she pay for that industrial?” Beca asks, dumbfounded.
“Totes,” Chloe gushes in a way that makes Beca think Stacie didn’t pay with money.
“Nice hickey.” She pokes at Chloe’s neck.
Chloe just cocks her hip out, staring after Stacie and Emily and popping her gum. “Got her number,” she beams at Beca. “Did you?”
“Uh. No?”
“Beca!” Chloe whines, turning toward her and shaking her by the shoulders. “But she’s cuuuuute. And you’re cute. And you like each other!”
“You’re going to turn my brain into a milkshake,” Beca groans, yanking away from Chloe. Chloe just looks at her with these big disappointed eyes and regret swims in Beca’s stomach. “Ugh, well maybe I would’ve, but you guys burst out of your room without any sensitivity for what was happening out here!”
Which is, you know, totally what happened, but Beca’s pretty sure she wouldn’t have gotten Emily’s number anyway. She’s lame like that. But still.
Chloe hmphs and whips out her phone, her fingers tapping away at the screen so intensely she might be diffusing a bomb instead of texting. It immediately buzzes in her hand and Chloe turns to her triumphantly.
“Here,” she says, thrusting the phone in Beca’s face. “Got her number from Stacie for you.”
Beca blinks down at the screen, the ten digits looming at her from a text bubble. “Uh.”
Chloe huffs and grabs the Sharpie Beca used to draw on Emily’s wrist and uncaps it. Then she takes hold of Beca’s arm and starts scrawling the number across it.
“Dude!” Beca tries to pull away, but Chloe’s got a firm grip and she’s almost done with the number anyway. When she finally lets go, shooting Beca one of her most endearing smiles, the numbers are printed in Chloe’s sprawling handwriting in dark permanent marker.
Beca gapes, like truly, opening and closing her mouth, sputtering until an incomprehensible sound pushes its way out of her throat.
“Chill, babe, it’s just a number.” Chloe cups Beca’s cheeks in her hands and stares into her eyes. “I want you to be happy and have fun. Please. She makes you smile, and do you even know how rare that is?”
Beca grumbles. “I smile.”
“Beca, you sneer and you smirk and you roll your eyes. I mean a real smile, like, hurts your cheeks and makes you soften into mush smile.”
“I do that,” Beca protests. “I do that with you all the time!”
“You need more than one person in your life who makes you feel good, Bec.” Chloe gives her this sad little look, Beca’s cheeks still in her hands. “And unfortunately, you can’t handle all of this.”
Beca’s shoulders drop. “We’d be a whirlwind, wouldn’t we?”
“A freaking tornado, honey.” Chloe beams like the idea pleases her so, so much. “A goddamn disaster.”
“I love you, you know,” Beca says in a moment of vulnerability because it’s Chloe.
Chloe pats her cheeks softly before releasing them. “Oh, I know. You’re my favorite person in the world. So step out of your comfort zone for five minutes and let yourself be happy. Just try.”
“Okay.” Beca reluctantly looks at the numbers scrawled on her arm. “I’ll… try.”
“Good,” Chloe says. “I love you.” Then she blows Beca a kiss and heads up to talk to Jessica. “Hey Jess! You’ll never guess what just happened…”
Beca sighs and takes out her phone. Then she sets it on her table. Then picks it up again. Types the numbers into a new message. Sets the phone down again. Puts her head in her hands. Takes a deep breath.
Why is this so hard?
She can do this.
//
Beca: Hey is this Emily… this is Beca
Emily: :O Beca!
Beca: Yeah hey. I got your number from Chloe who got it from Stacie
Emily: lol….. They hooked up in your backroom i’m soooooooo sorry
Beca: it’s fine… not the first time tbh
Emily: HAHA
Emily: ya they have… a lot in common
Beca: yeah it seems like that. so i was just wondering if you wanna hang out sometime or something
Emily: like… a date?
Beca: well it sounds lame over text but yeah. if you want to
Emily: i’d love to :)
Beca: great
Beca: :)
Emily: tonight?
Beca: oh. Well i have an appointment tonight at work and i think it ends at 10. I’m okay to go out after that if you want to though…
Emily: ya that sounds fun :) meet you at your work at 10 then?
Beca: okay… cool
Emily: see you then!! :)
//
“DID YOU ASK HER OUT YET?!”
“YES AND SHE SAID YES NOW LEAVE ME ALONE BEALE!”
//
Beca doesn’t have time to be anxious or nervous or whatever because she’s too busy focusing on giving some college girl a tattoo of a piece of pizza, which she thinks is hilarious.
So, yeah, she’s pretty unprepared when she hears the tingle of the bell and in walks Emily in these dark skinny jeans and a red flannel, her makeup all dark and thick. She waves and Beca waves back in a daze, turning back to the college girl with her mouth dry. She finishes up the pizza and gets the girl’s payment and the whole time she’s wondering how in an afternoon Emily went from point blank cute to… well. Like.
Beca’s not sure she even wants to say hot. It’s like, not even enough of the right word.
And Beca just looks like she’s been at work all day. Her hair’s probably a mess and she’s got on her comfiest but not sexiest pair of jeans and an old Beck concert tee she got like four years ago.
Oh yeah, and Emily’s number is still on her arm in fucking Sharpie, so.
That’s just great. Why didn’t she think this through more?
The college girl leaves and since Beca’s closing tonight, it’s just them, and Emily gets up off the couch and heads over to Beca’s chair. Beca’s trying to put on her zip up jacket so Emily doesn’t see the number on her arm.
“Hey,” Emily grins at her and now Beca’s nervous. Which is weird because Beca’s not really a nervous type of person. She’s too chill to be nervous.
Or whatever.
“‘Sup?” She says back and like jesus fuck… ‘Sup???? What is she… a fifteen year old skater dude?
But Emily just smiles wider at her and sits down in the chair she always sits down in. “Are you done with all your appointments and stuff?”
“Yeah,” Beca nods. “I’ve just got to clean this stuff up.”
“Okay,” Emily says. She spins around in the chair and Beca laughs.
“Okay,” she says back. And okay, maybe she’s not that nervous anymore. This is just a chill time with a super cute girl who is kind of dorky. Beca can roll with that.
She starts putting the needles and things in the sanitary waste and cleaning up the ink. When she looks back, Emily’s leaning over the tattoo gun.
“Was it scary to give someone a tattoo for the first time?” She asks, her voice kind of hushed.
Beca chuckles. “Yeah, totally. I mean what if I fucked up? But you kind of start slow and you’re really supervised and shit. And I mean, the first tattoo I gave was to myself and it was actually just a stick and poke, so. Maybe not the first time. But with the gun, yeah.”
Emily looks up at her, eyebrows furrowed. “What’s a stick and poke?”
“Like… a do it yourself tattoo with like, a needle and some ink.” Beca shows her the tiny diamond tattoo on her ankle. “I did it in my high school friend’s bathroom with a sewing needle and pen ink.”
“Oh my God, what?”
Beca laughs fully. “I can’t believe you haven’t heard of that. They were all the rage in middle school.”
“Wait so you just like… take a needle and put it in ink and… poke it… into your skin?”
“Yeah,” Beca grins.
“Does it hurt?” Emily asks, her mouth wide.
Beca shrugs. “I mean, a little. It also depends where you put it. Just like any tattoo.”
“Weird.”
Beca hesitates, then for some unknown reason she will never understand, asks, “You wanna try?”
Emily gapes at her. “Try?”
“Yeah,” Beca smirks. “I’ll let you give me a tiny one.”
And Emily’s eyes light up before she hesitates, but the quick flash of excitement decides it for Beca. “For real?”
“Yeah, I mean,” she gestures over her body. “I already have a shit ton. What’s one more?”
“Is it… sanitary?” Emily scoots closer, her hands tapping on her knees.
Beca shrugs. “I mean this is probably the most sanitary place to do it. I have all the materials and we can use like, a real needle and ink instead of pen ink.” Beca rolls over her to material cabinet and pulls out a needle. Then she rolls back and hands it to Emily. “What color?” She asks.
Emily’s holding the needle like it’s a foreign object she’s never seen before. “Uh. Black? Black is good.”
Beca gets some black ink and all her sterilizing stuff that she’d just put away. “Where do you want to put it?”
“Uh.” Emily glances over her body for a second. “I mean, you decide? It’s your tattoo, right?”
Beca thinks about it for a second, then takes her jacket and shirt off so she’s just in her tank top. “Alright how ‘bout here?” She points under her collarbone where her arm and shoulder meet. “It’s just a little guy.”
“Okay,” Emily smiles. “This is so wild.”
Beca just chuckles and starts sanitizing the area. “Here, put these on.” She takes the needle from Emily and hands her some gloves. Then she sanitizes the needle and places it on a paper towel. She grabs one of her felt tip markers from her table and hands it to Emily. “Okay, first step, you draw it on in the marker.”
Emily taps the marker against her chin. “I don’t know what to draw. I mean… it’s gonna be on you forever.”
Beca smirks. “You’d think people would have realized by now that I’m aware of that.”
“Okay, well,” Emily rolls her eyes at herself. “I mean, what if I mess up?”
“Then I’ll get Lilly or CR to do a fix-it job.”
Emily sticks her tongue out. “‘Kay well don’t be a dick about it.”
A laugh bursts from Beca, shaking her chest. “Sorry.” Then she softens. “I’m sure I’ll like it. It’s a good story, right? And like I said, it’s just a little one.”
Emily hesitates, then her smile turns shy. “Okay, but no peeking.”
“Deal.” Beca reaches for her phone to play some music, and then lets Emily start to draw on her. She’s really close and Emily smells like clean laundry and perfume. Beca picks a good song to distract herself.
Emily only spends about a minute drawing, then she caps the marker. “Okay.”
“Okay? That was quick.” Beca goes to look down, but Emily covers it with her hand, her skin warm against Beca’s.
“Hey! No peeking!”
“Right.” Beca looks back up sheepishly. “Sorry.”
Emily smiles at her, all wide and toothy. “Okay, now what?”
“Uh. Now you just… do it.” She hands Emily the sterile needle and the ink. “So like, dip it in the ink and then you just, poke it? Over the parts you drew. And don’t go in all the way, like you don’t wanna stab, you know? Just poke. It might bleed a little, but not like a whole bunch.”
“Okay…” Emily dips the needle in the ink and scoots really close to Beca. Beca can feel her take a big breath.
“Don’t stab me,” Beca repeats and Emily laughs.
Then, moving so slowly Beca almost can’t take it, Emily touches the needle to her skin. Beca bites her cheek.
Emily pulls back. “Sorry, did that hurt?”
Beca shakes her head. “No more than it should.”
“Alright…” Then Emily starts poking her again, tracing over the marker. After a second, she laughs to herself. “This is so crazy. I can’t believe I’m giving someone a tattoo.”
Beca takes the opportunity to look at Emily up close, taking in her long eyelashes, her dark eyes, the freckles on her cheeks. She’s like, really pretty. Like, Chloe pretty, but different. Like less coy and more earnest. Beca kind of wants to sink into it.
“If you don’t stop staring at me, I’m gonna accidentally stab you.”
Beca coughs out a laugh. “Sorry.”
Emily smiles softly, still focusing on what she’s doing. “It’s okay, I was just kidding. I mean. Sort of. You make me kind of nervous.”
“Nervous?”
“Yeah,” Emily nods. “You’re just like really cool and beautiful and stuff. And I’m so awkward.” She laughs to herself again. “And wow I can’t believe I just said that. It’s way easier to talk when I have to focus on not stabbing you and can’t see your face.”
And Beca is like, mush. Like for real. She doesn’t know what to say. She clenches her fingers in and out, taps them against her jeans, tries really hard to sit still.
“I’m awkward, too,” she says at last. “Like so awkward. And not in a cute way like you. Like in a not-likable way. Like in a standoffish way. Chloe says I need to smile more.”
Emily hums thoughtfully. “I guess I don’t know anything about that. But I don’t think you’re standoffish. You’re just serious about your work.” She smiles at Beca briefly before focusing again on what she’s doing with the needle. “I am, too.”
And Beca can’t look away, feels her heart beating like a snare drum in her chest, wonders if Emily’s hand, the one right on top it, can feel it tapping away. Beca tries to slow it down, tries to breathe deeply.
Emily seems so soft, so fucking genuine. Beca wants it to overflow out of the girl like some kind of liquid she might be able to gather up in her hands and just hold for a little bit, if only so this moment won’t seep away into the next like water down the drain.
As if she can read Beca’s thoughts, Emily pulls back, her eyes meeting Beca’s. She hesitates for a moment, her expression turning from soft to intense, and then she’s leaning forward, this stuttering of a movement that leaves no room for confusion about what she wants.
Shaking and gentle and clumsy, Emily presses their lips together.
And it is awkward, just like them. It’s not some cinematic graceful kiss. Emily exhales against her lips, trembling, and Beca fumbles to reciprocate, anxious and wanting it to be perfect. It isn’t, but somehow also is.
Emily pulls back, her cheeks red and smile wide. She looks down, her hand coming up to cover her eyes as she laughs a little. “Um,” she says and she’s so cute Beca wants to kiss her again. “Now what?” Emily asks and Beca blinks in confusion.
“What?”
“I…” She gestures to the area of Beca’s skin she’s been poking at. “Now what?”
“Oh did you finish?”
“I think so.” Her eyes skitter to look at Beca before glancing away again. “Sorry, my heart is like, about to burst from my chest.”
Beca bites her lip around a smile, then grabs another towel and wets it with her soapy water bottle. “Here,” she hands the towel to Emily. “Now you wipe the marker off and see how it looks. Then you go over it another time with the needle to darken it.”
“Okay.” Emily gently runs the towel over the spot. Beca pretends it doesn’t sting a little. “So now I just…?” Emily dips the needle in the ink and starts poking at Beca again.
After a minute, she starts singing along to the song playing out of Beca’s phone. Beca grins at her. “You know the bird and the bee?”
“Well,” Emily says, pausing her singing. “I know this song?”
“It’s a good song.”
“Yeah,” Emily agrees, a smile in her voice. “It makes me think of you.”
Beca frowns in confusion. “Really?”
Emily giggles. “No.”
“I was about to say…”
Emily looks up at her again from under eyelashes, flirty and cute. “I’ll make you a playlist of songs that really do make me think of you, though. But they might be too cute to play here, so you’ll have to listen on your own time.”
Beca grins. “This song is gonna make me think you now, though, so make sure you add it.”
“You got it, boss,” Emily smiles, this big cheesy thing, all teeth and dimples. “Umm, okay. I’m done now. Do you wanna see it?”
Beca looks down as Emily leans back. “Oh. I can’t see it, it’s too high.”
Emily laughs and stands up, spinning Beca’s chair around so she can see in the wall mirror. Beca peers closer at the freshly black ink on her skin. Then she laughs.
“It’s a flashlight.”
“Yeah,” Emily shrugs. “So you can remember how the girl who wrote that Jessie J song that you like was super into you.”
Beca meets Emily’s eyes in the mirror. “More like so I can remember how I was super into the girl who wrote that Jessie J song I like.”
Emily shifts her weight back and forth. Then she spins Beca around again so they’re facing each other. “I’m like, totally about to kiss you again.”
“Okay,” Beca murmurs, watching as Emily puts her hands on the armrests of the chair. She towers over Beca like this, her long frame looming over the chair. It slides a little on the floor until the wheels bump against the wall, and then they’re kissing, Emily’s hair falling in Beca’s face and her hands on Beca’s cheeks.
Beca’s fingers fumble at Emily’s waist, looking for some kind of grip so she doesn’t feel like she’s floating away. Kissing Emily is like sinking into her. Beca can feel the earnestness seeping into her bloodstream, like this is one of the most present and real moments she’s ever experienced. It leaves her feeling dizzy and she exhales against Emily’s mouth, her tongue slipping between soft lips.
Emily’s breath catches, but then she’s tilting her head and deepening the kiss, her fingers scratching up behind Beca’s ears and into her hair. The music continues to play from Beca’s phone and her heartbeat can’t keep the rhythm, can’t slow down enough to find the beat.
She squeezes Emily’s waist before pulling back, out of breath and vision blurring like she just spun around in the chair for a minute straight.
For a second she feels fifteen again, her body heating up from her first kiss.
When she opens her eyes, Emily’s staring at her arm. “Um. Is that my phone number?”
Beca crashes back to reality. “Oh. Shit.” Her other hand slaps over the Sharpie on her arm. “Chloe did that.”
Emily grins at her. “Here let me see. I’ll give you another stick and poke.”
Beca gasps out a laugh. “No way, back off, dude.”
“Come on. Then you’ll literally never be able to say you forgot my number,” Emily teases, her hands clamping back down on the armrests, effectively trapping Beca in the chair.
Beca playfully scoffs. “What makes you think I want to forget it?”
Emily smiles at that. “Cool, so you’ll let me tattoo it on you, then?”
“I mean in this in the nicest possible way, but fuck off.”
Emily bursts out laughing, then leans down and gives Beca the softest most gentle kiss on the cheek. “Alright,” she says, her voice in Beca’s ear. Beca can smell her perfume again and she shivers. “I guess this is goodbye, then.”
“Goodbye?” Beca asks, suddenly caught off guard.
Emily just raises her eyebrows and gives Beca a small smile. “I mean, it’s like midnight and you guys have been closed for like, two hours.”
“Oh. Oh shit. Yeah.” Beca chuckles. “It’s late.”
“Yeah,” Emily nods. “And I have rehearsals tomorrow, so.” She shrugs cutely.
Beca softens, her hands reaching out for Emily’s waist again. “Well, uh. Can I see you again?”
“I hope so,” Emily smiles. Then she crinkles her nose and points to Beca’s arm. “Like I said, you have my number, right?”
“It’s in my phone,” Beca deadpans and Emily laughs.
“Good. Now, don’t forget to properly take care of that tattoo.” She gestures to the stick and poke flashlight. “Wash thoroughly and apply unscented lotion until it’s fully healed.”
Beca shakes her head in amusement. “Thanks for the advice.”
“Thanks for a really fun first date.” Then Emily smiles happily. “Goodnight, Beca.”
“Goodnight, Emily.”
Then Emily kisses her sweetly on the lips, laughing against Beca’s mouth, and heads out of the shop with one last wave over her shoulder.
Beca spins around in the chair again and looks back in the mirror, her eyes finding the new tattoo under her collarbone. Then she glances up at her own eyes, trying to see if she can notice the happiness in them that she feels spreading through her body, deep inside her core.
After a second, she rolls her eyes at herself, and looks away. She better knock that off now, or Chloe will be insufferable when she goes home.
Still, she can’t help it, and through her whole drive home, during Chloe’s maniacal interrogation for details, and even as she finally pulls back her covers and crawls into bed, she can’t stop smiling.