The Right Time

Chapter Thirty Eight

It was late in the evening, and Beca was in bed editing a track for a project she was working on at the studio. The duvet was tucked under her armpits, and her laptop was perched on her stomach. She was listening intently to the music coming through her headphones.
Chloe meanwhile was sitting at the desk in their room, working on a lesson plan for the following week at school. For a couple of hours she had been jotting away on her notepad, adding doodles and coloured annotations here and there.

Beca peered over at her girlfriend, hoping that she could come over and give the song she was editing a listen. Chloe's feedback mattered a lot.

'Um, Chlo?'

'Yeah?'

'Could you maybe come over and tell me what you think of this please?'

Chloe didn't need to be persuaded- she loved hearing Beca's work; it never failed to impress her, and she always felt proud of the DJ. So, she went over to the bed and was passed a pair of headphones. After the song, Beca asked the redhead what was missing.

'Perhaps you could bring the vocals back...', Chloe suggested, 'After the instrumental break', she said, using the laptop cursor to search through the song, 'It might make the ending a bit more powerful'

The brunette nodded her head in approval, then swiftly pressed a few buttons and drag-and-dropped a few sections before passing the headphones back to her girlfriend.

'That sounds great!', Chloe beamed.

'Thanks, Chlo'

'I'm still amazed at how you do all this'

'It's not too difficult. I just match the tempos, downbeats, chord progressions etc. and add whatever needs to be added- vocals, fades, filters, you know'

Beca moved the laptop so that it faced Chloe.

'You can play around with it, if you want, Chlo. See what you can come up with', she offered her girlfriend.

'I wasn't very good the last time I tried', the redhead answered, pursing her lips to one side.

'It doesn't matter. I was pretty bad the first time I tried', Beca said, 'Here, I'll give you a five minute tutorial'

The DJ gave a brief explanation of how she produced the song that Chloe had just listened to, pointing and clicking on the laptop to help it seem clearer. Then, putting one arm around the girl's back, she watched, transfixed as Chloe gave it a go. When Chloe had finished, she handed over the headphones, and waited patiently for an opinion.

'Woah, when did you become good at this?', Beca exclaimed, shocked at the quality of what she had made.

'Thanks, Becs', the redhead smiled, feeling rather pleased with herself.

'You've used the FX really effectively, actually'

'You're too kind'

Chloe could sense that her cheeks were turning a rose colour. She had always loved the passion that Beca had for DJing, and relished the times when she witnessed the raw excitement that came if one of her tracks was played on mainstream radio. For someone who seemed so 'cool' and 'not bothered' about the majority of life, Beca's eyes lit with a flame, white and burning bright, when she talked about making music. To get the approval from her super cool, DJ girlfriend on something she was such a perfectionist about made Chloe feel as if she was walking on air.

'How's your lesson plan going, red?', Beca asked, breaking Chloe's moment of reflection.

'You could take a look at it if you like'