Let's go (WNBA) Lesbians!

The morning of the Providence game brought a crisp, blinding New England winter sun through the hotel curtains. For the first time in what felt like months, Paige didn’t wake up to the heavy, familiar weight of anxiety pressing down on her chest. Instead, there was just the quiet hum of the room’s heater and the steady, comforting rhythm of Azzi breathing beside her.

They had to un-combine the beds and throw the room back into its official layout before team breakfast, a frantic, laughing scramble of tossing pillows and dragging mattresses across the carpet that left them both breathless before they’d even laced up their sneakers.

When they walked into the hotel conference room for the morning meal, Paige felt a brief, instinctive urge to drop Azzi’s hand and slide into a seat unnoticed. The old habit of hiding died hard. But before she could pull away, Nika caught her eye from across the buffet line.

Nika didn’t make a scene. She just raised her coffee mug in a silent salute, a smirk playing on her lips, before turning to load up her plate with scrambled eggs. Caroline waved them over to a round table where a few spots were open next to Aaliyah.

"Morning, roommates," Caroline said smoothly, her eyes dancing with mischief as Paige and Azzi sat down.

"Shut up," Paige muttered, though she couldn't hide the flush creeping up her neck or the smile pulling at her mouth.

"Hey, I'm just stating facts," Caroline laughed, leaning back. "You both look like you actually slept for once. You're welcome, by the way."

Aaliyah looked up from her phone, sliding a glance between the two of them. "Look, as long as that energy translates to the court tonight, you can thank us by giving us ten assists each. Deal?"

"Only ten?" Azzi teased, reaching for the orange juice. "I think we can manage that."

The ease of it all was dizzying. There were no hushed whispers, no judgmental glances, no walking on eggshells like she had done in Montana. Her teammates didn't look at her like she was a stranger or a problem to be solved; they looked at her exactly the same way they always had—as their guard, their sister, their friend. They had erected a protective wall around her and Azzi, making the hotel feel like an unbreakable fortress.

By the time the bus pulled up to the Alumni Hall arena a few hours before tip-off, the lighthearted banter shifted seamlessly into business. The familiar scent of floor wax and popcorn filled the air as they walked down the concrete tunnels to the visitor's locker room.

Geno was pacing near the whiteboard, a marker clipped between his fingers. He gave Paige a sharp, assessing look as she walked in, his eyes lingering for a second as if checking the temperature of his star player. Whatever he saw in the relaxed set of her shoulders must have satisfied him, because he just nodded once.

"Alright, gather up," CD called out, clapping her hands. "We know how Providence plays at home. They’re going to try to muddy the game up, slow down the pace, and physical us out of our rhythm. Paige, I want you pushing the tempo from the jump. Don't let them set their defense."

"Got it," Paige said, her voice steady and resonant.

During the warm-up lines, the contrast from two weeks ago was night and day. The heavy fog that had clouded Paige's mind during the early part of December was entirely gone. Her shots were snapping cleanly through the net, her passes precise and sharp. But the real shift happened the moment the referee tossed the ball up for the opening tip.

Free. That was the only word for how Paige felt.

With the secret out to the people who mattered most, the suffocating fear of being exposed vanished. In its place was a clinical, lethal focus. When Providence tried to trap her at half-court on the third possession of the game, Paige didn't hesitate. She didn't even have to look. She looped a blind, over-the-shoulder bounce pass through the teeth of the defense, perfectly anticipating the exact half-second Azzi would cut baseline.

Azzi caught it in stride, rising up for a smooth, textbook reverse layup that left the Providence center grasping at air.

As they ran back down the court on defense, Azzi pointed a finger directly at Paige, a brilliant, uninhibited grin on her face. Paige met her halfway, their hands connecting in a high-five that smacked loudly over the roar of the crowd.

"Like water," Nika yelled, hustling past them to pick up her player at the top of the key. "Keep it moving!"

They blew the game open by halftime. The "instinctive language" Paige and Azzi had cultivated over the summer wasn't just back—it was amplified. Every cut Azzi made, Paige found her. Every time Paige drove into the lane and drew the extra defender, Azzi was already drifting to the open spot on the three-point arc, waiting for the kick-out. It was a masterclass in chemistry, a tangible expression of the absolute trust they had locked into place the night before.

When the final buzzer sounded, the scoreboard read a decisive twenty-four point victory for the Huskies.

In the locker room afterward, the celebration was loud, fueled by the adrenaline of a good win and the relief of surviving the holiday transition. While the rest of the team was busy shouting over a rap track playing from the speakers, Paige sat on the wooden bench, untying her sneakers with a slow, deliberate calmness.

Azzi slid onto the bench right next to her, her shoulder pressing against Paige's. They were both sweaty, exhausted, and sporting ice packs on their knees, but Azzi’s eyes were incredibly bright.

"You played out of your mind tonight," Azzi whispered, leaning in close so her voice wouldn't carry over the music.

Paige looked over at her, letting her gaze trace the familiar lines of Azzi's face, completely unbothered by who might look over. She reached down, her fingers briefly tangling with Azzi’s under the cover of a draped towel on the bench.

"I had a really good reason to," Paige murmured back, her voice thick with an emotion that had nothing to do with basketball. She let out a soft, breathy laugh, looking around the chaotic locker room at Nika doing a ridiculous dance, at Caroline laughing, at the coaching staff smiling near the doorway.

The sting of Montana wasn't entirely gone—it would take time for that wound to scar over—but sitting here, anchored by the girl beside her and the team around them, Paige knew the truth. She hadn't lost her family. She had just finally found the one that was willing to love her exactly as she was.

"We're good, Az," Paige said softly, squeezing her hand tightly under the towel. "We're really, really good."

The press room at Alumni Hall was drafty and smelled of old paper, but under the bright, humming television lights, Paige didn’t feel the chill. She sat at the long table, the plastic name card reading PAIGE BUECKERS sitting right in front of her.

To her right, Aaliyah sat like a protective buffer, her massive frame taking up space, relaxed and grinning. And just beyond Aaliyah was Azzi.

Every time a reporter directed a question down the line, Paige didn't feel the old, familiar tightening in her chest. She didn't have to carefully scan her own words for hidden meanings, or worry if a smile lasted a second too long, or wonder if someone was going to read between the lines. When a local beat writer asked about the apparent "telepathy" between her and Azzi on the baseline cuts tonight, Paige just chuckled, leaning into the microphone.

"Honestly, we’ve played together so much at this point, I think I just know her footsteps," Paige said easily, glancing past Aaliyah.

Azzi caught the look, a soft, knowing smile crinkling the corners of her eyes. "She's just giving me good passes," Azzi added into her own mic, deflection as smooth as her jumper. "Makes my job easy."

Aaliyah snorted, leaning forward so she was speaking directly into the center microphone. "Don't let them fool you, they've been doing this since they were kids. It’s annoying for the rest of us, honestly."

The room erupted into easy laughter, and Paige let out a breath that felt like it had been trapped in her lungs since she first touched down in Montana. She could breathe. The air felt lighter. The world felt wider.

Once the microphones were switched off and the digital recorders were pocketed, the three of them stood up, stretching out their stiff legs. They made their way down the quiet, concrete back hallway of the arena, their sneakers squeaking softly against the floor as they headed toward the exit where the team bus was idling in the cold night air.

But they didn't make it to the door.

Standing near the security barrier, looking entirely out of place in the sterile arena hallway but completely at home nonetheless, were Tim and Katie Fudd.

Azzi’s face lit up immediately, speeding up her pace. "Mom! Dad!"

Tim caught Azzi in a massive, sweeping hug, lifting her slightly off the ground, while Katie stepped forward. But Katie’s eyes weren't just on her daughter. Her gaze locked directly onto Paige, seeing right through the post-game adrenaline and the lingering, quiet exhaustion in the blonde girl’s posture. Katie had known about the trip to Montana. She knew what had happened.

"Hi, sweetheart," Katie murmured.

Before Paige could even offer a standard, polite greeting, Katie stepped past the boundary and wrapped her arms tightly around Paige’s shoulders.

It wasn't a quick, polite booster hug. It was total, enveloping warmth. It was the kind of maternal embrace that smelled faintly of vanilla and winter air, a hold so secure that it felt like an anchor dropping into a stormy sea. It was the exact, fierce, unconditional hug that Paige had desperately, agonizingly craved while sitting on the frozen ground beneath the Montana pine trees.

Paige froze for a fraction of a second, her hands hovering, before the last remnants of her emotional armor completely shattered. She buried her face into Katie’s shoulder, her fingers gripping the fabric of Katie's jacket like a lifeline. She didn't sob, but a heavy, shuddering sigh tore out of her throat, her shoulders dropping three inches as the tension finally drained out of her heels.

"You did so good tonight," Katie whispered near her ear, her hand coming up to gently rub the back of Paige's head, smoothing down the stray pieces of hair that had escaped her ponytail. "We are so proud of you, Paige. Both of you."

When Katie finally pulled back, she didn't let go completely, keeping her hands resting firmly on Paige’s upper arms, grounding her. Her eyes were warm, fierce, and entirely devoid of the conditional, heavy disappointment Paige had faced just days prior.

Tim stepped up next, throwing a heavy, comforting arm over Paige’s shoulder, giving her a rough, affectionate shake. "Hell of a game, kid. Your dad texted me during the second quarter—said he was watching the stream from the truck. He's thrilled."

Paige swallowed the lump in her throat, a genuine, watery smile finally breaking across her face. She looked from Katie to Tim, and then over at Azzi, who was watching her with an expression of pure, unadulterated devotion.

"Thanks, you guys," Paige said, her voice a little thick, but clearer than it had been in weeks. "For being here. For everything."

"Always," Katie said softly, giving her arms one last gentle squeeze. "Now go get on that bus before Geno starts honking the horn."

As Paige turned toward the glass exit doors, her hand naturally drifted down, her fingers finding Azzi's and locking into place out in the open, right there in the hallway. This time, Paige didn't even think about letting go

The low hum of the bus engine vibrated through the floorboards as they merged onto the highway, leaving the bright lights of Providence behind. Outside the window, the darkness of the New England winter was absolute, broken only by the occasional sweep of headlights from passing cars.

Inside, the cabin was dark and quiet, the post-game adrenaline finally giving way to exhaustion.

Paige leaned her head back against the headrest, staring up at the patterned ceiling of the bus. In the quiet, the echoes of Montana tried to creep back in. She could still hear the sharp, defensive intake of air her mother had taken. She could still feel the freezing weight of that suffocating silence in the living room, the sting of being looked at like a stranger.

But as she replayed it, she realized the volume of her mother's disappointment had been turned down. The memory didn't have the same jagged, cutting edge it had carried twenty-four hours ago. The warmth of Katie’s embrace, the proud crinkle in Tim's eyes, and the effortless, open acceptance of her teammates had wrapped around the wound like a shield. The rejection still existed, but it didn't define her room anymore.

She shifted slightly, careful not to disturb the weight on her right shoulder. Azzi was sleeping soundly, her curls spilling over the fabric of Paige's UConn hoodie. One of Azzi's hands was loosely tucked into the pocket of Paige’s sweatshirt, her breathing deep and even. Looking down at her, Paige felt a profound wave of peace.

"P."

The soft whisper came from across the narrow aisle. Paige turned her head.

The dim blue floor-lights of the bus caught the sharp angles of Nika’s face. She was leaning across the aisle, her chin resting on her hand, watching Paige with that intense, fiercely protective look she only ever used for the people she considered family.

"How are you doing? Really?" Nika asked softly, her accent rounding out the words. She offered a small, uncharacteristic grin. "And don't give me the media answer, twin. I know you."

Paige let out a tiny, breathless laugh, the old "twin" nickname warming her chest. She looked from Nika down to Azzi’s sleeping face, then back to Nika.

"I'm okay," Paige whispered honestly. She swallowed, adjusting her shoulder just a fraction to keep Azzi comfortable. "Honestly. It’s… baby steps, I think. My mom's voice is still kind of stuck in my head, but… it doesn't hurt nearly as bad as it did. Especially after tonight."

Nika’s expression softened, the tough-guard exterior melting away completely. She nodded slowly, understanding the weight of what Paige was carrying without needing her to catalog every painful detail.

"Good," Nika murmured, leaning a little closer across the aisle. Her voice was steady, leaving no room for doubt. "Because you know we are here for you guys, right? Whatever you need. Always. If your family doesn't get it, that's on them. You have us. We're your family too."

Paige felt a sudden, familiar tightness in her throat, but this time it wasn't from sadness. It was the overwhelming gratitude of being completely seen and completely kept safe.

"I know," Paige whispered, her voice cracking just a little. "Thank you, Nika. Seriously."

Nika just flashed her a warm, reassuring smile and patted Paige's knee across the aisle before leaning back into her own seat, pulling her headphones back over her ears.

Paige closed her eyes and let her head rest back against the seat, her cheek brushing against the soft crown of Azzi’s hair. The road back to Storrs was long, and there were still hard conversations waiting for her in the future, but as the bus rolled on through the dark, Paige finally fell asleep knowing she was exactly where she belonged.

.

The hum of the bus tires against the highway was the only sound cutting through the dark cabin. Most of the team had drifted off, exhausted from the physical grind of the Providence game and the sheer emotional weight of the days leading up to it.

Across the aisle, Nika had finally pulled her headphones back over her ears, leaving Paige alone with her thoughts. Paige shifted her shoulder just a fraction, ensuring Azzi’s head didn’t slip from its resting place against her neck. Azzi’s breathing was deep and even, one of her hands loosely curled into the fabric of Paige’s UConn hoodie.

For months, a moment like this would have filled Paige with a suffocating panic—the fear of someone looking too closely, of a coach seeing them, of the whispered rumors starting up again. But tonight, as the bus rolled past the exits for the Connecticut state line, the air felt clear. The secret wasn't a weight tearing them apart anymore; it was just theirs, safe and out in the open. Paige rested her cheek against the soft crown of Azzi’s curls, letting her eyes close as the rhythm of the highway permanently pulled her under.

When the brakes hissed and the bus finally jerked to a halt outside the Werth Family Basketball Center, the spell broke. The cabin lights flickered on, harsh and blinding.

Azzi stirred against her, blinking rapidly against the sudden brightness. "Are we back?" she mumbled, her voice thick with sleep.

"Yeah," Paige whispered, a soft smile tugging at her lips. "We're home."

The team unbuckled in a chorus of groans and stretching limbs. As they moved into the aisle to grab their backpacks, Paige didn't hesitate. She reached down, her fingers sliding into Azzi’s, locking their hands together. Azzi looked up, a momentary flash of old instinctual panic crossing her eyes, but Paige just squeezed tightly, holding her ground.

Walking down the steps of the bus and out into the freezing Storrs night air, nobody stared. Aaliyah bumped her shoulder against Paige's with a sleepy grin, and Caroline gave them a quick wave before tramping toward her car. The acceptance was quiet, normal, and utterly grounding.

But as they rounded the corner toward the parking lot walkway, a pair of headlights flashed from just down the road.

Leaning against the hood of a familiar, salt-streaked truck parked just outside the athletic complex was Katie Mah, buried inside an oversized hockey jersey that practically swallowed her hands. The passenger door clicked open, and JJ stepped out, a steaming cardboard tray of coffees balanced in one hand.

"Look at that," Katie called out, her breath pluming in the winter air. "The Providence conquerors return."

Paige stopped, her jaw dropping slightly. "What are you guys doing here? It's literally two in the morning."

"You think we're letting you two walk back to your dorm alone after everything that happened this week?" JJ said, stepping forward. She handed a hot cup to Azzi and another to Paige, her eyes scanning Paige's face with that steady, protective scrutiny she always had.

"And we're just up the hill," Katie Mah added, sliding off the hood of the car and wrapping Azzi in a fierce, one-armed hug. "We’ve got the apartment warmed up and I made herbal tea. Well, I boiled the water. JJ bought the tea. But the sentiment is there. Come on, skip the walk to your building. We're going to our place first."

JJ and Katie’s campus apartment up at Hilltop was a cozy, lived-in sanctuary. Unlike the stark, uniform look of the regular student housing, theirs was a chaotic mess of stray hockey sticks, stacks of textbooks. It smelled like cinnamon, old wood, and coffee.

"Shoes off, jackets on the rack, sit down," Katie ordered, hovering over them like a mother hen as Paige and Azzi untangled themselves from their winter layers.

Paige sank into the worn corduroy couch, the warmth of the apartment instantly making her muscles ache with fatigue. JJ sat on the coffee table opposite her, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees.

"How's the head, Bueckers?" JJ asked gently, her voice dropping into that familiar, grounding tone she used when Paige was spinning out.

Paige looked down at her hands, the phantom echo of her mother’s sharp, disapproving voice from Christmas break still lingering at the edges of her mind. "Holding Azzi's hand in front of the team is one thing. They love us," Paige admitted quietly. "But my mom's voice is just... stuck in my head. Telling me I'm ruining everything. I'm terrified of the spotlight here. If the media or the fans find out, they aren't going to be kind."

JJ reached out, placing a firm, grounding hand on Paige’s knee. "Listen to me. There is no handbook for this. The media is going to talk about your basketball, and if they find out about this, they're going to talk about your life. But the only opinion that matters inside the lines is the team’s. And outside the lines? It's hers. You have to protect the foundation, Paige. Public pressure can erode a relationship if you let it into the house. When you're out there on the court, you're teammates. When you're in this room, or your dorm, you're just Paige and Azzi. Keep those boundaries fiercely."

While JJ spoke with Paige, Katie quietly caught Azzi’s eye from the kitchen counter. She gestured toward the small dining table tucked into the corner of the room. "Az, come help me grab the mugs?"

Azzi nodded, grateful for a moment to step away from the heavy intensity of Paige’s immediate grief. She walked over to the table, her hands trembling just slightly around the warm ceramic of her coffee cup.

Katie set down a plate of cookies, then leaned against the edge of the table, looking at Azzi with a soft, knowing expression. "You're quiet tonight. Even for you. How are you doing with all of this?"

Azzi swallowed hard, looking back toward the couch where JJ was still talking quietly to Paige. "It felt... amazing on the bus. Like we could finally breathe. But walking off it, my chest still feels kind of tight. It's like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop." She leaned her hip against the table, her voice dropping to a whisper. "I spent so long praying for God to take these feelings away from me, Katie. Long before Paige and I ever even talked about it. Being out in the open like this... it feels wonderful, but it also feels like I’m breaking a rule I’m not supposed to break."

Katie’s expression softened completely. She reached over, covering Azzi’s hand with her own. "I know that feeling, Az. Trust me, I do. You spend so long building walls to protect your soul that when you finally tear them down, you feel completely naked. Every draft of wind feels like a threat."

She tilted her head, ensuring Azzi was looking her in the eye. "But you need to unlearn the guilt. You've been conditioned to think your love is a sin or a distraction, or that it makes you less faithful. It doesn't. Look at how you love her. Look at how you protect her. Does that look like a sin to you? God made your heart capable of that depth, Azzi. Don't let old fears tell you otherwise. You're allowed to be happy."

Azzi let out a breath she felt like she’d been holding since they left Providence, a small, tearful smile finally breaking through her exhaustion. "Thank you, Katie."

"Anytime," Katie murmured, giving her hand a supportive squeeze. "Now go sit back next to your girl. She needs her anchor right now."

By the time they finally left JJ and Katie’s apartment, walking the short distance back to their own building, the sky was just beginning to turn a faint, bruised purple at the horizon.

The dorm building was dead silent as they unlocked the door to their room and slipped inside. The familiar space felt different now—lighter, somehow. The heavy, unspoken boundaries that used to dictate how they moved around each other had completely evaporated.

Paige kicked off her sneakers and collapsed backward onto her bed with a long sigh. Azzi laughed softly, a tired, beautiful sound, as she changed into an oversized t-shirt.

"Come here," Paige murmured, reaching an arm out.

Azzi didn't hesitate. She climbed into the bed, sliding easily into the space next to Paige. She curled her body against Paige's side, burying her face into the crook of Paige's neck.

Paige wrapped both arms around her, pulling the heavy comforter up over their shoulders. For the first time in as long as either of them could remember, they didn't lie awake staring at the ceiling, calculating the risks or rehearsing lines to defend themselves. Resting in the quiet certainty of JJ and Katie's advice, Paige closed her eyes, breathing in the scent of Azzi's hair, and let them both fall asleep exactly where they belonged.

The quiet didn't stay quiet for long.

The transition from being public figures to a public couple happened at the speed of a fiber-optic connection. Before Providence, the internet had spent years cataloging Paige and Azzi through a very specific lens: the two number-one recruits, the inseparable duo, the best friends who shared a court and an unbreakable bond. Social media had always been a constant hum in the background of their lives, a predictable stream of fan edits, highlight reels, and wholesome press conference clips. They were used to the noise. They had learned how to smile through it.

But the storm that hit them in the weeks following January wasn’t a hum. It was a gale-force wind.

Suddenly, the narrative shifted from best friends to something far more ravenous. The boundary between their public basketball lives and their private existence didn't just blur; it felt like it was being actively dismantled by thousands of strangers behind phone screens. Rumors grew legs and ran before they could even finish morning shootaround.

"Don't look at it," Paige would say on a Tuesday afternoon, her voice light, almost flippant, as she tossed her phone onto the mattress between them. "It's just TikTok algorithms doing what they do. It’s mostly teenagers with too much time on their hands who think they're investigators."

"Yeah," Azzi would murmur back, offering a quick, practiced smile that didn't reach her eyes. She would manually lock her screen, slipping her device beneath her pillow. "I know. It's just background noise."

They became master performers of the unbothered act. In public, walking across campus or stepping off the team bus for a road trip, they carried themselves with a casual, impenetrable ease. If someone held up a phone at a weird, low angle while they walked into Gampel Pavilion, Paige would smoothly adjust her grip on her gym bag, and Azzi would pull her drawstring hood up, both of them sharing a timed laugh at an inside joke as if they hadn't even noticed the glare of the lens. They pretended the sudden influx of blurry, zoomed-in photos on Twitter—captions debating the exact geometry of how close their hips aligned at a campus smoothie shop—were just a silly joke. They acted like the TikTok compilations analyzing every high-five, every lingering glance on the bench, and every post-game embrace were just harmless fan devotion.

But the pretense was a grueling second job. And underneath the armor, the noise was getting through.

For Paige, the storm felt like a constant invasion of the fragile peace she was trying to build after her mother’s freezing holiday rejection. Every rumor, every speculative Reddit thread about whether her family approved or why she looked "tense" in a certain warm-up snippet, felt like a direct threat to the foundation JJ had warned her to protect. The spotlight she had once commanded so effortlessly now felt like a searchlight, tracking her every movement, waiting for her to slip up, waiting to turn her real, raw emotions into content for a midnight timeline. At night, even after she threw her phone into her desk drawer to keep from scrolling, she could still feel the weight of a million eyes watching her sleep.

For Azzi, the impact was quieter, heavier, and deeply internalized. Every whispered rumor or invasive comment on their old Instagram posts felt like a physical weight pressing down on her sternum. The old, familiar anxiety—the voice that told her she was breaking a rule, that she was exposing her soul to judgment—found a loud, chaotic echo in the comments sections of strangers. She found herself overthinking everything. Could she put her arm around Paige's shoulders on the bench, or would that spark a five-hundred-tweet thread by morning? Did she look too distant in the post-game interview? Were people looking at her with judgment in the student union, or was it just her imagination?

One evening, the silence in their dorm room was heavy, broken only by the blue light of Azzi’s laptop screen mirroring against the far wall. She was staring at a notification, her thumb hovering over the trackpad, frozen.

Paige rolled over on her side, watching her. The easy, unbothered expression Paige had worn all day during practice evaporated, replaced by a deep, weary line between her brows.

"Az," Paige said softly, her voice stripping away the defensive armor she wore for the rest of the world. "Put it away."

Azzi didn't close the laptop immediately. Her shoulders were tense, curved inward as if she were trying to make herself smaller. "Someone took a video of us at the dining hall yesterday. When you reached over and took a fry off my plate. It has eighty thousand views, Paige. People in the comments are arguing about..." She trailed off, her throat tightening. "They're arguing about whether we're going to ruin the team's chemistry. Someone said we're a distraction to the program."

The word hit the room like a cold draft. Distraction. The exact word Paige’s mother had used. The exact fear that Katie had told Azzi to unlearn.

Paige swung her legs over the edge of the bed and crossed the small expanse of the room. She gently closed the laptop lid, cutting off the blue light, and sat down on the carpeted floor right at Azzi’s knees. She reached up, taking both of Azzi’s hands in hers. They were freezing.

"It bothers you," Paige said, not as a question, but as a quiet confession they had both been avoiding for weeks.

Azzi looked down, a single tear finally slipping past her lashes. "It bothers me so much, Paige. I hate that they're talking about us like we're a storyline in a movie. I hate that I feel like I have to look over my shoulder every time I want to touch your shoulder or give you a look."

"Me too," Paige whispered, her own voice cracking. She squeezed Azzi's hands, letting the mask drop completely. "I hate it too. I look at those comments and I want to scream at all of them to leave us alone. I want to tell them that this is my real life, not their entertainment."

She leaned her forehead against Azzi's knee, letting out a long, shuddering breath. "I'm sorry I kept saying it didn't matter. I was just... I thought if I pretended hard enough, it would stop hurting."

Azzi shifted, sliding off the desk chair to sit on the floor next to Paige, pulling her knees up so their shoulders locked together. The relief of finally admitting the truth out loud didn't make the internet go away, but it cleared the air between them. They weren't fighting the storm alone, and they didn't have to pretend for each other.

"We don't look at it anymore," Azzi said, her voice shaky but firm, echoing the boundaries JJ and Katie had given them. "No more checking. No more scrolling."

"No more scrolling," Paige agreed, turning her head to press a soft kiss into Azzi's shoulder. "Let them build whatever story they want out there. In this room, we know what's real."

The next afternoon, the reality of the social media storm followed them right into the Werth Center. The basketball facility was usually their ultimate hideout, a fortress of hardwood and steel where the outside world couldn't reach them. But during a midday film session, Coach Geno Auriemma hit pause on a clip of the Providence game, the projector freezing on a defensive breakdown.

He didn't look at the screen. He turned his eyes directly toward Paige and Azzi, who were sitting two rows back, their chairs technically separated by Nika, though their sneakers were nearly touching under the row.

"You two," Geno said, his voice flat but carrying that trademark weight that made everyone in the room straighten up. "You're playing like you've got ghosts chasing you on the perimeter. Paige, you're passing up open looks because you're forcing the extra ball to the wing. Azzi, you're hesitating on the catch-and-shoot. What's going on?"

The room went dead silent. Nika shifted slightly, her eyes darting between Paige and the floor.

"Just trying to make the right basketball play, Coach," Paige said, her voice dropping into its standard, composed athlete tone.

Geno stared at her for a long, agonizing five seconds over his reading glasses. "The right basketball play is taking the shot when you're the best shooter in the country, Bueckers. And the right play for you, Fudd, is not overthinking the closeout. I don't care what the circus outside this building is whispering about your chemistry or your focus. If you let the noise into my gym, we're going to have a problem. Clear your heads. We have DePaul on Friday."

He clicked the remote, and the film resumed, but the message had landed like a lead weight. Even Geno was seeing it. Not because they were failing, but because they were trying so hard to appear perfect, to appear completely normal, that they were suffocating their natural rhythm on the court.

When film ended, the team filed out toward the locker room. Nika lingered back, grabbing Paige by the elbow while Azzi walked ahead with Aaliyah.

"Hey," Nika whispered, her Croatian accent sharp and intense. "He’s not mad about you. He’s mad because he can see you guys carrying the internet on your backs while you run the floor. You look like you're playing in quicksand, Paige."

"We're fine, Nika," Paige said, pulling her practice jersey over her shoulder.

"You are not fine," Nika countered, blocking her path to the hallway. "You look like you haven't slept in three days. Azzi looks like she’s apologizing just for occupying space on the wing. Stop reading the garbage. If anyone on campus tries to take a picture of you guys at the student union again, tell me. I will break their phone. I am not kidding."

A small, genuine laugh broke through Paige’s defense. "I know you're not. Thanks, Nika."

"Do not thank me. Just make a shot on Friday," Nika grumbled, giving her a rough shove toward the training room.

That evening, the walls of the dorm felt smaller than usual. The pact of no more scrolling was holding, but the silence left behind by the absence of their phones was filled by a restless, buzzing tension.

Azzi was sitting on her bed, a theology textbook open on her lap, but she hadn’t flipped the page in twenty minutes. Her fingers were twisting the silver cross necklace around her throat, a nervous habit that had returned with a vengeance over the last week.

Paige watched her from across the room, sitting at her desk with an ice pack strapped to her knee. "We need to get out of here," Paige said suddenly, untying the velcro straps of the ice pack.

Azzi looked up, surprised. "Where? If we go to the cafe, people are just going to look."

"Not on campus," Paige said, pulling a heavy black hoodie over her head. "We're going up the hill. Grab your coat."

Ten minutes later, they were knocking on the door of the Hilltop graduate apartments. When the door swung open, JJ was standing there in a gray pair of sweatpants and a oversized Montreal Canadians shirt, a pair of reading glasses perched on her nose and a half-eaten bagel in her hand. She took one look at Paige’s tight jaw and Azzi’s guarded posture and simply stepped aside, opening the door wider.

"Katie!" JJ called out toward the back bedroom. "Put the kettle on. The kids are spiraling."

"I am not spiraling," Paige muttered, though she walked straight into the apartment and dropped her forehead against JJ’s shoulder in a rare moment of physical vulnerability.

JJ let out a soft huff, wrapping her free arm around Paige’s back and squeezing. "Sure you aren't, Bueckers. Come on in."

Katie emerged from the hallway, already holding a fresh box of chamomile tea. She walked straight past Paige and grabbed Azzi by the hands, pulling her into the warmth of the kitchen. "Geno had a film session today, didn't he? How are you doing? You look like you guys have seen a ghost."

"He noticed it on the film," Azzi whispered, sitting down at the familiar small dining table. "Geno. He said we're playing like we have ghosts chasing us. He brought up the outside noise."

JJ sat down on the couch, pointing at the spot next to her for Paige to take. "Geno doesn't care about who you're sleeping with or who you're holding hands with, Paige. He cares about whether you're letting external factors dictate your pace. Right now, you two are playing like you're trying to prove a point to a jury of anonymous Twitter accounts."

"We made a pact," Paige said, her voice fiercely defensive. "We stopped looking at the comments. We don't scroll anymore."

"Stopping the scrolling is just step one," JJ said calmly, leaning back against the cushions. "But you're still letting the fear of what they're saying control your movements. You're over-correcting. You're thinking, 'If I don't pass to Azzi here, people won't think we have favoritism.' Or, 'If I don't look at Paige after this whistle, nobody can make a compilation about it.' Am I wrong?"

Paige opened her mouth to argue, but the truth died in her throat. She looked across the room at Azzi, who was staring down at her lap, her silence giving away her total agreement.

"You're not wrong," Azzi said quietly from the table.

Katie set two steaming mugs between them, sitting down next to Azzi. "The hardest part of being out in a high-profile space isn't the hate, guys. It's the performance of normality. You spend so much energy trying to look 'just like friends' or 'perfectly professional' that you lose the actual joy of the connection. You're treating your relationship like a liability that you have to manage."

"How do we stop?" Paige asked, her voice small, her eyes fixed on JJ. "Every time I look at her on the court, I love her so much it hurts, JJ. But then I see thirty cameras on the baseline, and I feel like I'm putting a target on her back just by being near her."

JJ’s gaze softened completely. She reached out, her hand resting flat against Paige’s shoulder, steady and unyielding. "You remember why you fell in love with basketball in the first place, Paige? Because inside those lines, nothing else exists. The crowd is just background blur. The cameras are just plastic. You have to treat your love the exact same way. When you look at Azzi, you aren't looking at the number-one recruit or the girl from the TikTok edits. You're looking at your person. The girl who knows exactly how you take your coffee. The girl who stayed up with you when your knee was throbbing after surgery."

She looked over at Azzi. "And Az, God didn't give you a spirit of fear. He gave you a heart capable of choosing this. Don't let people who don't know your soul dictate how you move your body. If you want to high-five your girlfriend after a three-pointer, you high-five her. If you want to run the floor and trust that she’s going to drop the ball perfectly into your pocket, you run it. You have to reclaim your space."

Katie reached over, gently untangling Azzi’s fingers from her silver cross necklace. She held Azzi’s hand, her thumb rubbing over her knuckles. "You aren't breaking any rules, Azzi. The only rule in that gym is to play hard and protect each other. You've already got the team. You've got us. The rest of the world? They're just spectators. Stop letting the spectators into the locker room."

The walk back down the hill was silent, but it was a different kind of silence than before. The heavy, pressurized air had dissipated, replaced by a quiet, determined focus.

When they reached their room, Paige didn't go to her desk. She walked straight to Azzi’s side of the room, reaching out and pulling the theology textbook out of Azzi’s hands. She tossed it onto the desk, then took Azzi by the waist, pulling her up from the bed.

"What are you doing?" Azzi asked, a faint line of confusion between her eyes, though she didn't pull away. Her hands automatically found refuge against Paige’s chest.

"Reclaiming our space," Paige murmured. She leaned down, pressing her forehead against Azzi’s. "No more managing liabilities. No more overthinking the closeouts."

Azzi let out a soft, breathy laugh, her arms sliding up around Paige’s neck, locking her fingers behind her collar. "Geno’s going to kill us if we don't hit our shots on Friday."

"Then let's make sure we don't miss," Paige whispered.

She tilted her head, her lips finding Azzi’s in a deep, unhurried kiss that tasted like the chamomile tea and the cold winter air from the walk home. It wasn’t a hidden kiss born out of panic or a rushed moment before a roommate walked in. It was steady, deliberate, and entirely theirs. When Paige pulled back, her eyes were bright, the heavy, dark circles under them seeming to fade under the warmth of the room.

"I love you," Paige said, the words clear and loud in the small apartment space. "Not as a headline. Not as a teammate. Just you."

Azzi’s smile finally reached her eyes, bright and beautiful enough to clear out every shadow that had been lingering in the corners of her mind since Christmas. "I love you too, Paige. Exactly as we are."

On Friday night, Gampel Pavilion was a wall of sound. The student section was packed to the rafters, a sea of white shirts and painted faces, the baseline packed with photographers and local news cameras. The DePaul game was always a physical, fast-paced track meet, and the energy in the building was electric.

During the starting lineups, when Azzi’s name was called, she ran out through the tunnel of her teammates, high-fiving Nika and Aaliyah before turning toward the center circle.

Paige was waiting for her at the free-throw line.

A month ago, Azzi would have given her a standard, professional slap of the palm, keeping her eyes forward to avoid the lenses. But tonight, as she reached Paige, she didn't look down. She looked straight into Paige’s blue eyes, a brilliant, fearless smile breaking across her face.

Paige didn't just high-five her. She grabbed Azzi’s hand, pulling her in for a brief, hard shoulder bump, her fingers lingering on Azzi’s wrist for a fraction of a second longer than necessary. On the baseline, a dozen camera shutters clicked in unison, the strobe lights flashing against the hardwood.

Azzi didn't even blink. The noise of the crowd, the flashbulb glare, the looming specter of the internet—it all receded into a harmless, gray blur.

"Let's go," Paige muttered, her voice sharp and competitive as she stepped into the backcourt.

From the opening tip, the quicksand was gone.

Two minutes into the first quarter, Nika pushed the ball up the left sideline on a fast break. The DePaul defense scrambled, dropping back to protect the paint, leaving a gap at the top of the key.

Paige caught the ball at the elbow, her back to the basket. In the past, she would have hesitated, scanning the perimeter to make sure her pass didn't look too deliberate. But tonight, she didn't even have to look. She knew the exact cadence of Azzi’s stride behind her. She knew the precise square inch of hardwood where Azzi liked her laces to line up.

Without turning her head, Paige whipped a blind, no-look pass over her shoulder.

The ball zipped through the hands of two defenders, landing perfectly, squarely into Azzi’s palms at the three-point line.

Azzi caught it in one smooth, continuous motion. For a split second, the old voice tried to whisper—if you miss, they’ll say you’re distracted—but she drowned it out with the memory of Katie’s voice: God made your heart capable of that depth. She rose into the air, her release flawless, her wrist snapping with absolute, mathematical precision.

The ball cleared the rim with a sharp, clean snap of the nylon.

The stadium erupted.

As DePaul called an immediate timeout to stop the run, Azzi turned back down the court. Paige was already running toward her, her arms raised, her face alight with pure, unadulterated joy. When they met at the three-point line, Paige slapped both of Azzi’s hands fiercely, her grip locking tight as they walked toward the bench side-by-side.

On the sideline, Geno Auriemma stood with his arms crossed, watching them walk into the huddle. He didn't say a word about their focus. He just picked up his clipboard, a faint, satisfied smirk touching the corner of his mouth as he tapped the plastic with his dry-erase marker.

"That's the rhythm," Geno said, looking around the circle of jerseys. "Keep that pace. Don't let them slow you down."

By midnight, the game was over, a twenty-point victory safely in the books. The post-game press conference had been a breeze, Paige and Azzi sitting at the microphone together, answering questions about their court vision and their transition game with the easy, practiced chemistry of two players who had been doing this since they were fifteen.

When they finally got back to their dorm, the building was quiet again.

Azzi set her gym bag down by the door, her body aching with the good, clean fatigue of a hard-fought win. She walked over to the desk, her eyes falling on her laptop, which had remained closed and dark all evening.

She felt a momentary pull, the old instinctual urge to check the post-game threads, to see if the internet had noticed their high-five or their shoulder bump during the intros. She reached her hand out, her fingers touching the silver lid.

Paige walked up behind her, her sneakers soft on the carpet. She didn't say anything. She just reached around Azzi’s waist, pulling her back against her chest, her chin resting comfortably on Azzi’s shoulder.

"Don't do it," Paige whispered, her breath warm against Azzi’s ear. "The game’s over, Az. We won."

Azzi let out a long, peaceful breath, her hand dropping away from the computer. She turned around within the circle of Paige’s arms, looking up at her face. The weary, strained lines from the beginning of the week were entirely gone, replaced by the soft, familiar glow of the girl she loved.

"You're right," Azzi said softly. "We won."