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Naturally, Fat Amy figures it out first and wastes no time spreading the news like wildfire.
It doesn’t matter that they’re on vacation on a private tropical island that Amy had bought as soon as she’d come by her massive fortune. It doesn’t matter that Stacie had labeled this 4-day getaway a “stress-free, work-free, drama-free vacay” for all the available Bellas. It doesn’t matter that they’d partied for hours the night before and were hungover as hell.
Bursting through the door with the force of a tornado, Fat Amy speeds into the spacious living room and skids to a halt where everyone’s slumped over and strewn across the couches like cadavers.
“She’s married!”
She slams her phone down on the coffee table and steps back, clearly expecting the rest of the Bellas to crowd around eagerly. The only person to react is Cynthia Rose, who opens one eye and comments idly, “Dang, that was the fastest I’ve ever seen you move.”
“Guys, get up off your butts and look,” Amy says through gritted teeth, violently shaking the couch Jessica and Ashley are passed out on.
Arguably the most hungover but the most curious, Chloe drags herself off the couch first to crawl towards the table and peer at the phone. Her gasp and deafening “WHAT?” piques everyone’s interest.
“What? Who?” Stacie asks groggily, eyes still closed, hugging a couch cushion.
“It’s Beca!”
“What? ” all of the Bellas scream in unison, a delayed echo to Chloe’s own exclamation. Hangovers forgotten, they all scramble up to get a look at Fat Amy’s phone.
“Beca’s married!” Chloe yells, though her announcement is redundant with everyone gaping at the enlarged photo of Beca’s hand. There on her ring finger, hidden among the multitudes of rings on her other fingers, is a thin gold band. Chloe zooms in even more so it turns into a blurry rectangle.
“How do you know that’s a wedding ring?” Flo asks, squinting at the picture. “She wears so many, this could just be a regular old ring.”
Fat Amy shakes her head. “Nuh uh, it’s her left ring finger, there’s no way that’s a coincidence.”
“But since when?”
“More importantly, to who?”
“Well, whose post is this? What does the caption say?” Stacie presses, trying to take the phone from Chloe. “What even is the actual picture?”
She zooms out so the whole photo is visible. It’s of Beca, sitting on a poorly constructed throne of cardboard boxes, posing faux-regally in sweatpants and a ratty T-shirt, chin resting on the heel of her left hand as she gazes into the distance. The caption is short, reading “moving out of the shoebox studio into a slightly bigger shoebox studio so now apparently she’s royalty.”
“It’s Emily’s, she just posted it this morning,” Amy says as Chloe bats away Stacie’s hands. “They’re moving into their new apartment this weekend, remember? That’s why they skipped out on this amazing tropical getaway. Not that I’m offended by it or anything. Ditched by my best friend, whatever.”
“Aw, I’m gonna miss that little place,” Chloe says wistfully as discards Fat Amy’s phone and starts furiously scrolling through her own. “But I guess it’s time for it to go to another group of underpaid broke college grads. But wait...unless ,” Chloe gasps, smacking the table. “It’s all just a ruse and only Beca’s moving out! What if Emily’s in on the secret?”
“She has to be, they live together!”
“Yeah, but you know Beca. She has a way of hiding pretty big things.”
“Okay, but it’s one thing to hide a shitty internship. Hiding a marriage? A wedding? Damn, bitch really didn’t invite any of us to that?”
“Maybe it was more private? Or, or!” Chloe exclaims, hitting the table again. “She eloped! Oh my god she eloped!”
“I’m seeing nothing about a wedding or marriage on her Insta,” Cynthia Rose announces, similarly scrolling through her phone. “So yeah, probably. Anyone else find anything?”
There’s a brief silence as everyone combs through Beca’s social media to get any inkling of her new relationship status. It’s not long before they reach their Barden years; out of all of them, Beca posts most infrequently.
“All I’m getting are posts from that time she was fake engaged to Emily,” Jessica says after a while.
“Can’t believe that was a thing,” Ashley mutters.
Ester, who everyone suspects was repossessed by Satan and reverted back to Lilly, whispers something about being engaged to an oil baron in her past life. Or maybe something about engaging a boy named Maron in a knife fight.
“Man I was rooting for them to get together,” Stacie muses absentmindedly, but after considering her own words, her eyes widen. “Wait, you don’t think they got...” she trails off as if she can’t even finish the thought.
“Beca and Emily?” Cynthia Rose scoffs, screwing up her face. “Someone like Legacy tying the knot with someone like Mitchell?”
“Wait, no, that’s totally possible!” Chloe jumps to her feet, too excited to sit still. “Maybe they realized they had feelings for each other after that whole April Fool’s prank! And then they dated and eloped and now they’re moving into a...a—” She cuts off her own sentence with a dramatic gasp. “What if they’re moving into a house together?”
“Easy, Chloe,” Fat Amy calls from the kitchen where she’s throwing together a batch of Bloody Marys. “This isn’t one of your gross heterosexual romance novels.”
“Yeah, I dunno,” Cynthia Rose says, still skeptical. “I get that Beca’s the type to not want a huge wedding, but Emily? That girl threw a whole damn party when she got her second hamster.”
“True. But to be fair, Legacy’s always looked up to Beca,” Stacie points out. “And she’s a pretty go-with-the-flow type of girl, she’d follow through with eloping if that’s what Beca wants.”
“Well I don’t see anything on Emily’s Insta either.” Chloe sounds discouraged. “Eloped or not, that’s the kind of thing she’d post about, right? Like, at least something.”
“Kay, no.” Stacie claps her hands and also rises from her seat, looking more serious and alert than humanly possible considering her hangover. “When was the last time we saw them together? Not just a dinner or drinks, but like an extended period of time?”
There’s another round of silence as they think back to their recent reunions. Fat Amy finishes up in the kitchen and carries over a tray of Bloody Marys for everyone. “Wasn’t it Chloe’s wedding?” she asks.
A small chorus of ohhh goes up and everyone nods slowly with recollection. “What was that, like last month?”
“It was last September, Stace.”
“Wow. Shit.”
“I don’t remember them acting any sort of married,” Cynthia Rose says, “but then again, we were pretty focused on another marriage happening.”
“And September was a whole five months ago,” Flo adds. “They could’ve eloped after we saw them last.”
With the fair and valid point being made, they sink back into their hangover positions, giving up on the social media search.
“Ughh! This is gonna bother me forever now. Thanks a lot, Ames,” Stacie says bitterly, snatching up the cushion she’d been cradling. “I don’t get why they’d keep it from us? If the deed is already done then we can’t bother them about wedding stuff, right?”
“That’s why I’m thinking...what if it’s not Emily?” Chloe suggests.
“Well, it’s not any of us here,” Amy shrugs, looking around the living room, “the only other one missing is Aubrey and I doubt she could stand being married to her worst nightmare.”
“It also could be a man,” Flo shrugs, “she swings both ways, doesn’t she?”
Chloe narrows her eyes skeptically. “True...but there’re only so many men in her life that she tolerates. And none of them enough for her to marry.”
“Man, fuck this.” With a grunt, Stacie pulls her phone back out. “I’m just gonna text this bitch and ask her what’s up. Probably gonna get ghosted again, just watch.”
“Wait. Wait wait wait wait.” Chloe holds up a hand. “There has to be a reason Beca hasn’t told us, right? And it could be something private and personal, but my guess? She’s just being really stupid. So!” A coy smile tugs at her mouth. “Let’s test the waters a bit and poke at her until she cracks. Same with Emily.”
“So...we’re not telling Beca that we know?” Flo asks, confused.
“Not yet.”
Stacie sits up, Chloe’s smile mirrored on her face. “Ohoho, I like the way you think, Beale. Let’s turn the secret-keeping game around on her. I can schedule a lunch with Emily to ‘catch up’ and you can grill Beca on who the new Mitchell is.” She holds out a hand and waits for Chloe to high-five her.
“Y’all...bitches are crazy,” Cynthia Rose says, throwing her hands up. “You really didn’t learn from senior year that nothing good comes from keeping secrets?”
Stacie’s too busy tapping away on her phone, smiling a few seconds later when it buzzes with a response. She shows Chloe the screen and the conversation with Emily on it. “Next Saturday. It’s a date.”
“It’s a date,” she agrees.