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For the most part, celebrity musicians suck at throwing parties. Their taste in decor is usually crap, their food is always catered from some “hip” new vegan place, and their music ironically blows because they either play their own songs or try to appeal to all of their guests by playing radio top 40s.
This is a Beca Mitchell opinion, so obviously no one really considers the validity of this observation.
DJ Khaled’s backyard barbecue party isn’t much of an exception. Technically it’s not anyone’s backyard and technically it’s not a barbecue, and Beca’s been to enough legitimate backyard barbecues to actually have standards when it comes to this theme. It’s a beautiful outdoor venue with a huge lawn and a pool and shit, sure, but the food is still catered and everything feels too formal for it to be considered a casual company hangout.
But it’s fucking beautiful out, so whatever — she’ll enjoy the hell out of it. An ideal 75 degrees, the perfect balance of sun and shade, just enough of a breeze to keep the air from settling into the heat.
“You look strangely happy today,” Theo remarks, handing her a beer.
Beca raises an eyebrow. “Okay? Sue me.”
“No, no, it’s a good thing. It’s just odd for you. You usually hate the sun. And people. And any occasion that lets Khaled wear cargo shorts.”
“I do,” she agrees, averting her eyes from where the man in question is wearing the shorts in question. “But nice weather and good beer go a long way.”
“Cheers to that.”
They clink their bottles and Beca leans back in her seat, immensely satisfied with the moment. Perfect weather, a cold beer, good vibes, Emily out on the lawn, running around with a bunch of kids. If she ignores the other half of the venue, Beca can almost imagine this as a typical backyard barbecue.
“Are you going with Emily to the shoot tomorrow?” Theo asks, immediately ruining that moment.
“God. Do we have to talk about work?”
“Well, it’s a company barbecue, you’d think that’s all any of us have in common.”
Beca grunts. “No, I’m not going. Someone filled up my schedule for the next few days,” she says, gesturing with her head because she still doesn’t want to look at the host and his atrocious choice in wardrobe. “But she’ll be fine on her own, she’s got a solid film crew. I’ll catch up with her later in the week or something.”
“Noble of you,” Theo observes. He raises an eyebrow at the look Beca shoots him. “What? It’s a music video for a love song, Beca. And her love interest is a guy. Doesn’t that bother you?”
“Should it?” she asks nonchalantly, though she can see where he’s going with this.
“Hm. No, guess not,” he says, equally nonchalant.
The implication hangs heavy in the air, and Beca hates how her peaceful moment was just ruined by this annoying-ass man wearing skinny jeans and a blazer in 75-degree weather.
So maybe she’s lowkey in love with her friend and roommate and informal client. Maybe she does have reservations about Emily’s filming schedule tomorrow, set to take place in a diner where her character acts all lovey-dovey with the guy of her dreams.
Maybe Beca wants to be there to see their fake relationship, to see them fake kiss, to see Emily’s fake happiness through it all. Maybe she wants to see how it compares to the real thing, to how Emily looks at her with that smile and that light in her eyes and that —
Ugh. And maybe Beca’s just stupid as hell.
She looks over at Emily again, observing her awful attempt to keep up with a game of soccer with a bunch of little screaming kids. Her feet stumble clumsily over the ball, clearly not used to kicking and running at the same time, but her excitement and joy are palpable even from this far away.
As if she senses Beca watching her, Emily suddenly looks over, offering a shy wave and a huge smile. It’s like an arrow straight to the heart, like a direct beam of sunlight to the naked eye. Beca inhales sharply without meaning to, a stupid little lovesick gasp, before she has the sense to lift her hand and wave back.
God, she’s so —
“Pretty, isn’t she?” Theo says, following her line of sight and voicing her exact thoughts.
Beca whirls on him. “What?”
“What?”
“Are you checking her out?”
“N-no, god, no. I was just commenting,” he stammers, “I mean, it looked like that’s what you were thinking, so —”
“So, what, are you checking her out for me?”
“Okay, you know, maybe I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“Yeah, maybe not.”
“I’ll just. I’ll never speak again.”
“Good. Don’t.”
Beca hopes she’s not as red as she feels. God she really hopes she’s not as red as she feels. Because it feels like her face is on fire and she hates, hates, hates that Theo just read her like that, that Theo might know anything about any of this mess, that Theo’s even here, in this moment, thinking the same thoughts she’s thinking.
Slamming down her beer a little harder than necessary, Beca heaves herself out of her seat. She can’t be here. She can’t be next to Theo and his stupid wiggling eyebrows and implicit comments.
“I’m gonna —”
“Go tell her that she’s pretty?”
She jabs a finger in his face. “Watch yourself, Theodore,” she growls. “And watch my beer.”
By the time Beca wanders over to the lawn and the makeshift soccer field, Emily is hunched over on the sidelines, gasping for breath.
“Hi,” she says, a hand placed over her heart like she’s 80 years old. “These kids. They’re so fast.”
“Really? You got those ten-mile legs and they’re outrunning you?” Beca teases. “Lame.”
“Hey, you try matching their energy,” Emily fires back. She looks legitimately winded; Beca frowns, thinking about Emily’s upcoming schedule.
“You have a tight-ass schedule of filming starting tomorrow,” she says. “Are you sure you should be wearing yourself out like this?”
“Oh, psh. This is nothing.”
“Okay sure, but you sound like you’re dying.”
The kids eventually come running over en masse to gather around Emily, demanding she rejoin the game. “Come on, Emily! We gotta beat these guys!” one of them yells, punching a fist into his palm.
“Yeah! We know you’re a grandma,” another one says, rolling her eyes, “but we have to make new teams if you’re quitting.”
“Hey! I’m not quitting!” Emily says indignantly as Beca fails to hold back a laugh. She shoots Beca a glare before her eyes flash, a lightbulb visibly going off in her head. “Actually…” she starts, throwing an arm around Beca’s shoulders.
“Ew. Don’t touch me, Sweaty,” she whines. But Emily ignores the complaint and pulls her in closer. Which is, like, fine. That’s not overwhelming at all.
“Actually, I’m subbing in my friend Beca here,” she announces happily. “Red Team, raise your hands!”
Four of the kids raise their hands high. The other six — Beca figures the numbers are uneven to accommodate the vastly overage and overgrown Emily — trade knowing smiles and nods with each other, marking Beca as easy prey.
“Mmk, that’s your team, Beca.” There’s a smug grin on Emily’s face and Beca can’t stand to look at it for more than two seconds because her heart starts doing backflips.
“Fine,” she snaps. “Whatever. Bring it.”
Emily turns to the kids. “Now, Beca’s not that good, so she’s not gonna be much help either,” she says pointedly before looking over at her, still with that infuriatingly adorable self-satisfied smile. “Go easy on her, okay?”
Beca returns what she hopes is an equally smug grin. “Speak for yourself, Legacy.”
Without another word, she surges forward and kicks the ball away from one the boys, already forgetting whether he’s on her team or not. She’s halfway across the lawn before the kids start following her, delighted to be facing an adult opponent who can actually dribble the ball more than five feet without tripping over it.
“Whoa, she’s actually good!”
“Catch Beca!”
“We gotta surround her!”
“You guys cover that side!”
Feeling ten years younger and cackling like a maniac, Beca weaves through the gaggle of kids with relative ease, keeping the ball close to her feet and swerving sharply when one of them gets too close. They’re very poorly-executed moves — a sloppy step-over here and a barely-controlled scissor there — and anyone with eyes could stick their foot between her shuffling sneakers and kick the ball away.
But they’re kids, so she manages to keep control of the ball.
The goals are marked by a pair of picnic chairs, barely far apart for the ball to pass through with a goalie blocking it. It takes a couple tries, but Beca eventually taps the ball in past the boy’s feet to score a goal.
Then she scores two more goals before she comes down from her high and backs off a bit to actually let the kids play.
It’s a rush, running around like this. No limits in movement, no prearranged steps, no strict timing. Dancing to choreo is fun and exhilarating in its own way, but it’s nothing compared to the childish energy generated by simply running after a ball and trying to score points with it.
Apparently they’re only playing to a certain limit; the game ends after their seventh goal. Even some of the kids are panting now, exhausted and collapsed on the grass, as the Red Team celebrates their victory.
“Why are we the Red Team?” Beca asks one of the kids as they collect the picnic chairs and start dragging them off the lawn.
The boy shrugs. “I dunno. We just went with whatever color shirt the team captain was wearing.”
Beca squints at the four kids on her team, none of whom are wearing red. Then she looks over to the sidelines. “Wait. You made Emily your team captain?”
“She was the oldest and tallest,” a girl says defensively. “We thought she’d be the best.”
“Yeah, she’s a trickster, isn’t she?” Beca snorts.
They’re close enough now for Emily to hear, and she narrows her eyes at Beca’s words. “Who is?”
“Don’t worry about it.” She shoots her teammates a wink, and they giggle with the secret. “You guys know where these things go?”
“Yup, we got it!”
“Good game, Beca!”
They wave over their shoulders as they continue dragging the picnic chairs away, still somehow hyper and energized after all that running around. Must be nice, being a kid. Not that Beca would ever want to be that young and clueless again.
She turns to see Emily staring at her. “What?”
“You just like, demolished those kids.”
Beca pretends to grimace. “Yeah, they fucking sucked. Their parents should be ashamed.”
“Wh — Beca.”
“I’m kidding. Emily, they’re like nine years old. Of course I demolished them.”
“Yeah, but I mean…I didn’t know you even played soccer.”
Emily’s looking at her with a peculiar expression, a mixture of confusion, surprise, and — dare she misinterpret something like this — something close to…attraction? Or maybe it’s intrigue. Or just plain old curiosity. There’s no reason to overthink it, which, of course, only makes her overthink it even more.
Beca clears her throat. “I played up until high school. My dad made me.” She shrugs and nods towards the abandoned ball. “Here, I can give you some pointers.”
“Uh, I don’t think…” Emily trails off, glancing down at her feet. “I mean. You saw how terrible I am.”
“You sing and dance to complicated choreo like, 20 hours a week. You can kick a ball.” Beca jogs backwards about five yards, rolling the ball back with her as she goes. “Okay, so you gotta use the inside of your foot, like this,” she says, doing just so to pass the ball to Emily.
“Okay, I know that,” she says, rolling her eyes.
“Good. Now plant your left foot next to and a little bit behind the ball. A little further back. Yup. And then point your toes towards where you want the ball to go.” Beca motions to herself. “To me.”
“To you,” Emily confirms, muttering to herself. She kicks the ball straight to Beca. “Hey! That felt good. That felt correct.”
They pass the ball back and forth, Beca slowly inching back to widen the space between them, Emily’s aim improving with each pass. Soon enough, they’re more than twenty feet apart, the repetitive thump of their kicks blending into a comfortable rhythm.
The absurdity of the moment hits Beca then, how insane it is that she’s so casually kicking around a soccer ball with Emily at some fancy outdoor venue in the middle of Long Island for DJ Khaled’s “backyard” “barbecue.” All the wild events that led to this point in her life replays in her head and Beca can feel her own face twist into a disbelieving frown.
“This is weird, isn’t it?” Emily calls, reading her mind; which is just dandy, everyone’s just flexing their telepathy on Beca today. “I mean it’s nice, sure, but super weird, right? We’re just. We’re just playing soccer at Khaled’s party?”
“Pretty weird, yeah. But comparatively, with all the shit we’ve been through with the Bellas, this is frighteningly normal.”
Emily laughs. “True.”
And it might be an absurd moment in her absurd life, but Beca wouldn’t trade it for any other moment in the world. Because while all of this is everything her eighteen-year-old self could’ve ever hoped for — a successful career in music, a kickass apartment in the city, casual acquaintanceship with a major-name celebrity — none of it tops this simple, mundane activity of kicking around a soccer ball with someone she likes.
With someone she likes a lot.
It’s unfair how perfect Emily is, how everything she does makes Beca’s stomach swoop like she missed a gigantic step going down the stairs. How insanely beautiful she looks, backlit by the sunset, her silhouette traced by the warm glow of the golden hour.
Mind wandering, Beca kicks the ball a little too hard and a little too far to the left. She makes a half-hearted attempt to chase after it while wincing out an apology, but it’s barely out of her mouth before Emily takes a giant sideways step to stop it.
“Ha!” she says proudly. “Got it! Don’t underestimate me, punks! I can block a shot from the soccer superstar Beca Mitchell! I’m unstoppable!”
Beca rolls her eyes. “I mean. That was just supposed to be a pass, but —”
“Unstoppable!” Emily yells.
Suddenly she rushes forward, haphazardly dribbling the ball and charging at Beca like she’s about to demonstrate just how unstoppable she really is. It’d be like taking candy from a baby, the way Emily’s awful dribbling leaves so many openings, but Beca gives her until the last second before sticking out a foot to knock the ball away.
Except she times it wrong.
They both kick at the ball simultaneously in opposite directions, effectively tripping each other over it — Beca, with her other foot planted firmly on the ground, just stumbles a bit before reflexively grabbing Emily’s arm to steady her.
But Emily doesn’t just stumble. She legitimately loses her balance and topples to the ground, and because Beca isn’t fucking Hercules, she’s dragged down to the ground with her. She manages to catch herself on her hands and knees, whereas Emily lands roughly on her side and slides a few inches along the grass.
“Shit,” Beca curses. “You okay?”
“Ugh.” Emily grunts and gives her a thumbs-up. “I’m okay.” She sits up slowly, clearly dazed, and touches a finger to the streaking grass stains on her jeans. “Guess 20-hours of weekly choreo doesn’t actually make me that great at soccer.”
“I said you can kick a ball, I didn’t say it’d make you great at it!”
“Okay, fine,” she huffs. “Hm. But.” She smiles, all soft and happy. “I really swept you off your feet, didn’t I?”
Beca stops breathing.
She closes her eyes, helpless to the smile that pulls at her lips, releasing her breath with a laugh because she doesn’t know how else to play it off. It’s a poorly-hidden, incredibly telling reaction to such a stupid line but she can’t control it, can’t stop smiling, can’t stop blushing, can’t stop falling.
It really is unfair, Beca thinks, throwing all caution to the wind and pressing her forehead against Emily’s shoulder as they laugh at the dumb joke together. Unfair that Emily can effortlessly make her feel this light, make her not care about maintaining her cool and collected image, make her this drunkenly happy in love.
She knows she’s being obvious, initiating physical contact like this, but for once in her life, Beca doesn’t care if she’s wearing her heart on her sleeve. If she’s being honest, she wants Emily to know.
“God,” she says, groaning to act like she hated Emily's comment when they both know better. “You’re killin’ me, Smalls.”
Beca feels it when Emily shifts. Her head turning, her nose nuzzling into Beca’s hair, her breath in Beca’s ear, quick and sharp.
But then she’s gone, pulling away, popping to her feet, breaking the spell.
“Wrong sport,” she says brightly. She extends a hand for Beca to take. “But a good attempt, Movie Hater.”
Still reeling from how close Emily was, Beca doesn’t even notice her hand until she’s wiggling her fingers. She takes it numbly, feeling like she’d been hit by a truck. Her heart is going insane, beating so hard she can hardly hear her own thoughts over the pounding in her ears.
But it’s not just her. She knows it’s not just her because Emily’s averting her eyes too, her cheeks tinted pink, her mouth working to hold back a smile. And maybe Beca doesn’t know what the hell she’s doing with these big feelings or how she even wants to begin expressing them, but it’s enough to know that maybe…maybe there’s no rush.
She has time. They have time.
So she squeezes Emily’s hand once before letting go, offering a reassuring smile and nodding back towards the barbecue.
“Ready for ice cream?”
Emily beams. “Always.”