buffalo1221

chapter one - mon.

Paige is sixteen the first time she brings it up. Baby faced and tall, a drivers license heavy in her pocket. She’s at the dinner table with her dad and stepmom. Forks clink against ceramic dishes, Drew’s voice momentarily quieted by the food he shovels into his mouth. “Wait, I feel like Azzi would really like the cabin,” she says.

Her dad immediately nods. “Oh, yeah, I bet she would. We should bring the Fudds up there one day.” He says it around a mouthful of food. Her stepmom nods with him, jaw working to chew. Drew just looks at them all blankly.

Paige feels her brows furrow a little. She looks down at her plate, at the steak she’s already nearly finished and the potatoes she’s been stirring around the ceramic for a little while now. “Well, yeah, maybe, but I was thinking, like, just Azzi. And just me.” Her voice comes out a little quiet. She can feel her dad looking at her.

They’re quiet for a moment. “Paige, you just got your license. And Azzi doesn’t have hers, she’s fifteen. I wouldn’t feel safe leaving you guys in the middle of the woods over an hour away.” Paige looks up at her dad. His own brows are also furrowed. Paige forces the creases in her forehead to relax at the sight of him mimicking her expression.

“I know, I know, ‘m not saying it has to happen right now. Just, like…I dunno. It’d be fun.” She looks back down towards her plate. Her stepmom hums halfheartedly. She feels her dad look at her for a moment longer and then watches him shrug a little out of the corner of her eye. Drew asks for help cutting his steak up. Another topic soon wraps itself into the dinner table. Paige’s conversation is soon forgotten.

The cabin is as close to a family heirloom as she thinks she’ll ever get. Located in Ely, Minnesota, the plot of land her family owns had been purchased by her great-grandfather a very long time ago. He and her grandfather had built a cabin there. It’s a little thing, wooden and without very trustworthy plumbing, but she had visited it at least once every summer since she could remember.

She remembers going up with her cousins and spending hours at the lake nearby or climbing the pine trees circling the area for as long as they could before their parents would catch them and yell at them to get down from there. The mountains are beautiful and the lakes are clear and there are so many random little games they’d play. It’s beautiful up there. Rustic, and a little hard to get to, but beautiful. And she knows Azzi would like it.

She’s seventeen the next time she brings it up. It’s late spring and her father is leaving to go turn back on the plumbing. They turn it off every winter when it gets too cold for anyone to go up there and let the water run without bursting the pipes. He’s loading the car with a cooler of beers when she catches him.

“Dad,” she starts, and he just lazily hums at her as he tries to push the toolbox around in his trunk to offer enough space for the cooler, “I really think we should bring Azzi up to the cabin eventually.” She leans up against his car. Her arms cross over her Hopkins basketball hoodie.

Something clatters a little where his entire upper body is leaned into the trunk. He grunts a little. “Oh, yeah,” he mumbles, straightening up. He looks over at her. His face is screwed up a little with both effort and thought. “Um…I can text her parents, if you want. They mentioned trying to send her our way or vice versa for a little this summer so you guys could hang out.”

Paige nods slowly. “Okay,” she says, still looking at him. He puts his hands on his hips and squints at her a little bit. The spring sun is starting to shine brighter and Paige can see the glare of it reflected in his slightly narrowed eyes. “And…could it just be us going up there?”

He sighs. Lowers his head a little, exhaling through his mouth as Paige watches him for an answer. “I dunno if her parents would be comfortable with that. And honestly, I dunno if I’d be comfortable with that. It’s just…not close enough and the service isn’t good enough.” He looks back up at her. The squint of his eyes has turned slightly apologetic.

It’s not enough to make her actually feel like he really cares. She bites the inside of her cheek and fights the urge to roll her eyes. “Okay, yeah,” she says. Slight irritation tries to flare in her. She pushes it down and straightens up off of his car. “It’s fine. I’d honestly rather just go to Virginia, anyway, so,” she says, turning around to walk back into the house. She can hear him sigh again behind her.

She’s eighteen the last time she brings it up. It’s early June, Hopkins warming to something a little closer to summer than it has been for months. They’re eating dinner again. Pasta with salad, red stains smearing the corners of Drew’s mouth. Conversation has been coming and going throughout the meal like the ebb of a wave against the shore.

Paige knows what she wants to talk about. She’s been brainstorming ways to bring it up with Azzi for a few days now. “Dad,” she starts, and he looks up at her from his plate. He says nothing. His eyes are a little wide as if to encourage her to go on. She swallows. “So, I know we’ve talked about this a few times. But I really want to take Azzi to the cabin this summer. Just us.”

His eyes narrow a little. “Paige,” he says. It’s almost warning. She shakes her head a little.

“I know, I know. But think about it. I’m about to go to college in Connecticut. I’m gonna be off on my own. And the service there is prolly better, but I’m way farther away if I need anything. Also, I know there’re more people at college than there are in Ely, but I still know people. There’s still some service and I still know the neighbors and we’re barely a twenty minute drive from a bigger town.” It comes out in one big gust.

She watches her dad as he looks towards her stepmom, who just stares back at him, and then to Paige again. The table is quiet. She thinks the only reason it is is because Drew is shoveling more pasta into his mouth. Her dad sighs a little. “I just don’t know about taking Azzi up with you. Without an adult. We’d have to talk to her parents.”

“I know. But I’m about to leave for college and she is, too. I dunno if she’s committing to UConn. I’d really like it if she would, but I dunno. We might not see each other a lot. We already barely see each other. And spending time in the cabin would be a chance for me to show her Minnesota and parts of my life she hasn’t seen yet before I’m gone to Connecticut and she goes wherever she’s going.”

It stings a little to say the words because they’re true. Her father just looks at her over the table, face blank. Paige’s voice softens a little. “I have, like, three months until I’m living in Storrs. All I’m asking for is a few days. Up in Ely. That’s it.”

He looks at her for a little longer. His jaw starts slowly moving. Paige watches him closely, waiting for something to be said. Her stepmom and Drew are quiet. “I’ll talk to her parents.” He sighs a little with it. Something within Paige swells.

And this is how Paige finds herself driving her beat up Toyota along the dirt roads of Ely with bags of food and clothing and other miscellaneous things stuffed into the backseat and Azzi reading in the passenger seat. Her chest is so full she thinks she could burst. The cabin has been something important to her since she was little. To get to show her best friend where she spent the best days of her summer is a dream.

The road crunches beneath her tires. Dust tries to haze her vision a little, but Paige persists, gripping the wheel tightly and squinting. She’s driven this road many times: right after getting her license, her dad had insisted on her driving the family to and from the cabin almost every time they drove up there. That, paired with the fact that she’s had the highways and streets and paths memorized since she was little, has gotten her to the point of comfort she’s at.

Azzi does not have this experience and therefore does not have this comfort. They wind around the edge of a smaller mountain and Paige can see her look up from her book and peer out the window, down to the throngs of forest that will grab their car if Paige turns too sharply. She can sense Azzi’s anxiety. “Relax. It just feels worse if you look down,” she says over the soft song humming to them through her speakers.

Azzi looks forward again. “No, this also isn’t helping, ‘cause now I see exactly what you’re tryna do in this giant SUV and I’m getting scared you’re not gonna turn well and we’re gonna fall down there.” Paige laughs quietly despite herself.

“Relax, Azzi. I’ve driven here before. And all the times my dad drove me, no one has ever fallen off. They’d add railings if it was a common issue.” She thinks Azzi’s anxiety is cute, if she’s being honest. Which she probably shouldn’t be. Her chest flares and it’s a different swell than the excitement that had warmed her body all the times her dad and Azzi’s parents had confirmed that they’d be able to take this trip together.

Paige isn’t the smartest girl in the world, but she’s fairly certain she’s gay for Azzi Fudd. It’s a horrible thing to be because it’s incredibly hard to hide. She’d been wondering for a while if she was a lesbian or not, but after realizing just a year or two ago that she was catching feelings for her long distance best friend, she had confirmed it for herself. And she has no clue if Azzi even remotely feels the same.

Azzi makes a noise of exasperation to her side. “That’s not reassuring. They should’ve added railings anyway, even if people weren’t falling off. Now I just feel like no one’s taking care of this road.” Paige laughs a little. They round the end of another long bend and start driving up a different mountain, trees leaning down to get them. The sun filters through the branches.

“They prolly aren’t. It’s Ely. Literally, like, three people take this road per day.” As she says this, a squirrel tries to run out in front of the car. Her foot moves to hover over the break pedal. She decides to not hit it until the last minute in fear of scaring Azzi, and is glad for this decision when it scurries backwards before her tires near it. She returns to the gas pedal.

Azzi groans again. “Why would you say that?” She reaches out and whacks Paige lightly on her bicep. Paige laughs, continuing to lead them up the dirt road. It’s been getting more and more secluded the longer they drive for. She likes it. It builds the anticipation, to go from suburban streets to highways to cracked and rural asphalt to dirt. They’re less than ten minutes away now.

It’s nearly three in the afternoon. They had left just a few hours after Azzi had landed at the airport. She had slept most of the ride both from the airport and to the cabin. Paige doesn’t mind. She likes it when Azzi sleeps in her presence because it means she’s comfortable, which automatically makes Paige comfortable. They continue winding up and around the foothills as they bleed into bigger mountains, continue rounding big bends, continue escaping the clutches of long drops into the trees below.

She knows they’re super close when she has to turn off of real dirt roads and instead just drive through general clearings of trees, dirt still spitting up under her tires. Thick roots and big rocks make the car wobble a little on their journey. Azzi says nothing. Just looks at Paige with wide eyes that she can see through her peripherals, which makes Paige laugh more at her and therefore get whacked more by her.

They pass a familiar bunch of trees, one of which with a nasty gnarled trunk Paige remembers climbing more times than she can count. A smile breaks across her face without a second thought. “Look,” she mumbles, pointing out the windshield. She slows the car down. Through the clearing of trees, the deep wood of the cabin cuts through the evergreen of the pines surrounding it. “It’s through there.” Warm excitement spills through her like the breaking of a yolk, runny and bright.

She parks the car behind a few trees. It’s about fifty feet away from the cabin, but anything closer would be right on the edge of a hill and she knows better than to try and park along there. The car powers off. She opens the door and steps out onto the dirt below, breathes in the scent of the trees and the rocks and the mountains. The same dopey smile grips her face.

Azzi’s car door shuts as she steps out. “‘m hungry,” she says, voice carrying over the car. Paige laughs a little as she stretches her arms up above her head.

“Dude, we got Chick-fil-A on the way here,” she says. Azzi moves a little to look at her over the hood of the car. She, too, is stretching, arms swinging as she twists her spine. Her face screws up a little at Paige’s words in teasing frustration.

“I know. But I barely had breakfast, that and two pieces of toast are all I’ve had today.” She pouts a little with it. Paige truly is not a strong woman, because she was already planning on feeding Azzi whatever she wanted, but now she knows there’s definitely no getting past giving in.

She smiles a little at Azzi. Drops her arms back to her sides, gripping her keys in one hand. “Okay, grab the food bag and your stuff. I’ll grab the food cooler and my stuff. We can come back after eating a snack for everything else.” She steps back to start riffling through the second row. Azzi follows on a slight delay, the other door opening just a few moments after Paige pulls hers open.

There are coolers and duffels and other bags all stuffed in the back. Azzi’s suitcase sits at the bottom of it all and Paige laughs as she knocks her backpack into the dirt trying to lift both of them out at the same time. Paige grabs her own duffel and backpack, slinging both over her shoulders to leave space to carry a cooler. Once they’re both situated, they round the car and start walking down the dirt towards the cabin.

It’s not a very beautiful thing, but it’s not necessarily ugly. It’s old and wooden and the steps up to the wraparound porch creak loudly as they both step up them. The cabin is made of logs and Paige smiles a little as she shoves the key into the rickety screen door. It’s so homemade, so reminiscent of her childhood and carved by the hands of two men she’s never met but shares blood with, and she loves it. The door opens. She unlocks the sturdier one behind it, too, and then lets them both in.

It opens up immediately into the living room on one side and the kitchen on the other. She smiles at all the leather furniture, at the colorful and slightly dirty rug sitting in the center of the living room, at the way sunlight streams in through the window over the sink and paints the inside warmly. “Wow,” Azzi murmurs. Paige turns and grins at her.

“It’s so fun here, Az. We’re reconnecting with nature. Oh my God, I really think you’re gonna love it here.” Azzi laughs a little as she speaks, but Paige doesn’t even care. She can’t stop cheesing as she walks towards the little living room and dumps everything she’s carrying onto the couch. She leaves her things and picks up the cooler to carry it onto the table used as a kitchen island. Azzi mimics her. She thinks it’s cute.

Paige sets the cooler down. She opens it up to peer in. It’s full of sandwich meat and cheese and fruits and vegetables. There’s ice cream buried down there that she’s more than excited about. She looks up at Azzi, who’s setting their duffel full of food down next to the cooler. “Okay, you can look in here. I might look around the fridge and pantry. My uncle’s family was just up here, like, a week ago. I dunno if they left anything.”

She turns around to start looking through what they have in the kitchen. “I’m worried if they’re leaving stuff in the fridge,” Azzi says as Paige pulls it open. It’s white and the inside light is weak.

Paige shrugs. There’s not much in there. She turns over her shoulder to look at Azzi. “No, no, it’s usually just, like. Condiments ‘n stuff in there. Maybe a few microwave meals or a loaf of bread if we’re lucky.” She looks back inside. And as if she’s manifested it for herself, a half-used loaf of white bread sits in the back next to a small carton of eggs.

She pulls it out triumphantly and turns again to face Azzi. Azzi just gives her a weird look. There’s a smile pulling at her face as she does so. “You put your bread in the fridge?”

“No. But he does,” she says, shrugging a little and then turning to set the bread back in the fridge. She looks around a little more as she does so. Other than those two items, many condiments, and a single jar of blueberry jam, it’s pretty bare. She straightens up again to shut it.

“What’s that on top of the fridge? That big, purple bag?” Paige turns to face Azzi. She’s pointing up above Paige’s head. Paige steps back and looks up to the top of the fridge. When she catches onto what Azzi’s looking at, she reaches up to start pulling it down. “A giant bag of peanuts?” She sounds confused.

“Oh, those are for the chipmunks.” Paige pulls it all the way down and moves to set it on the table where the rest of their food is. When she turns and sees Azzi looking at her with slightly furrowed brows and a hesitant smile, she grins at her. Her cheeks warm a little. “There’s, like, an opening in the deck ‘cause there’s a big tree right there and sometimes chipmunks will come out onto the deck. We keep peanuts to feed them.”

Azzi’s smile slowly deepens, the shape of her lips spreading like putty. The expression is adorable. Paige can feel herself warming a little more. “Can we feed the chipmunks?” She moves to paw aimlessly at the bag of peanuts. Paige laughs quietly.

“Of course. The world is your oyster,” she says, turning around to start looking through the pantry. She hears Azzi laugh behind her. The sound sings to her sweeter than the birds outside do. The pantry door creaks when she pulls it open. Azzi hums quietly as she starts to unzip the duffel and open the cooler.

They stay there and eat for a little while. Elbows rest against painted wood and get a little sticky with sweat. They pull open a bag of potato chips and eat arguably too many before Azzi is laughing and moving to roll it up, shooing Paige away from them. Smiles and laughter are easy. They’re always easy between the two of them, best friends for years now, their dynamic rewarding for both of them.

They walk back up to the top of the short hill and start to pull more things out, taking it down to the cabin in trips. Paige drops her water bottle and watches in silence as it rolls down, kicking up dust as it goes. Azzi laughs when it passes her. Paige rolls her eyes, grinning a little to herself. It comes to a stop when it bumps a raised tree branch near the foot of the porch. She stoops down to pick it up when she gets closer.

The cabin smells the same as it always does. Woody, and a little dirty, and a little like their own excitement as they step in with wide eyes and big bags. Paige continues slinging her stuff onto the couch. Azzi does the same. When the car has been emptied, she locks it and they walk down with the final backpack. It’s Paige’s hiking one. She wears it slung over one shoulder as they make their way back, talking and laughing.

“So,” Paige starts as they walk back in, the screen door slamming shut the same way it always does. They leave the bigger door open. Sweet summer air starts to circulate. “It’s kinda late already today, so I thought we could just take it easy. I could show you around outside, we could play a few games, maybe wander around outside for a little. And then grill hot dogs for dinner.” She clasps her hands together as she speaks.

Azzi turns around and smiles at her. Her dimples sink into the softness of her cheeks the same way they always do. Paige feels herself getting a little giddy just at the sight of her. “Sounds perfect,” she says. Paige’s lips twist slightly as she tries to fight a big grin.

Her hands wring out a little in front of her. She looks down and away from Azzi under the guise of focusing on the couch to slip her backpack off onto it. “We have that pass for the hike Wednesday, and that one on Saturday. And I wanna take you to the lake eventually. But other than that, we’re free to do literally whatever we want up here for the next week.”

Paige looks back up at Azzi. Azzi is still grinning at her. “I’m so excited,” she says, and it’s so soft Paige can’t help but get a little flustered at the way she’s speaking. She looks back down at the couch, lips pressed thin with the warp of her smile, eyes pressed to slits. “It’s so cute up here. I feel like I’m off the grid.”

She laughs a little at this. “WiFi’s so bad, you might as well be.” Azzi laughs. Paige smiles back. She reaches up to scratch at the back of her neck. “I downloaded a few movies on my iPad, though. And we have a projector with some CDs.”

She can hear Azzi clap her hands together with something like delight. It makes her grin widen a little, eyes dragging back up to look at her. “Oh, good. We can have movie nights.” Azzi smiles at her in a way that Paige knows will make her stomach flip before she even feels the wobbling of being flustered. Her face heats a little at the shadows of her dimples and the softness of her bunny teeth.

Paige scrunches her noise at her. “Hope you know we’re also having game nights. You ever had your ass kicked at Gin Rummy?” She jerks a thumb behind her at the small, circular table sitting to the side of the kitchen. There’s a lazy Susan with multiple decks of cards kept on it at all times and she can see Azzi’s gaze lifting over her shoulder to check what Paige is pointing at.

Her mouth quirks up with a smile. She looks back at Paige again and there’s an edge to her eyes Paige recognizes. A competitive one, a glimmering one that she’s seen all too many times while playing basketball. There’s a hoop out back. She’ll have to show it to Azzi. “I’ve never played. But if anyone’s getting their ass kicked at anything, it’s you.” Her brows raise teasingly, lips curved.

Paige crosses her arms and parts her mouth in faux shock. “Me? I’m good at everything!” If she’s being truthful, she’s not even good at that card game. But she’s never one to back down and so she just keeps her voice as incredulous as possible, laughing and grinning dumbly at Azzi.

Azzi laughs at her. “Keep telling yourself that. Okay, show me around,” she says, leaning forward and nudging Paige. The tail end of her laughter spills to giggling. The sound is sweet. Paige smiles back and she can feel the way it’s gummy and her eyes try to shut with how thinly they’re pressed with the expression.

She does show her around. She takes her to the deck and shows her the opening with the tree the chipmunks will eventually visit them from, shows her the awkward hut built from dead sticks her aunts and uncles had built a few feet into the forest behind the cabin, shows her the rocks one of her cousins had fallen off of and broken his arm on. She shows her where they keep the outdoor toys for the kids and laughs at the delighted sound Azzi makes when a pogo stick falls forward out of the cabinet as they open it.

Paige feels so warm. So, so warm for being able to share this big piece of her life with Azzi. She walks her around the cabin she had grown up spending days of her summer at and feels like something in her chest is blooming. She loves Azzi. She really does. And as she walks around with her, dragging her around the property and pointing out the important spots and sharing her memories, she can’t help but feel just how deep that love runs.

Her general tour comes to an end a little before five. They spend a while just sitting around in the living room, sprawled out on couches and complaining about how tiring driving – flying, too, in Azzi’s case – was. Their phones aren’t reached for. Conversation is easy. Sleep-deprived laughter flows out of them. And then it’s past six and Paige’s stomach is rumbling and Azzi is sunken deep into the couch with fatigue, lids heavy and lips barely moving as she mumbles something about jet lag. Paige drags her up off of the couch and out onto the porch.

The air is a little cooler outside. There’s a gentle breeze that has started to sweep towards them and it softens the heat of the summer sun as it pours down on them. It’s still objectively warm, though, and so Paige feels like she’s baking a little bit as she crouches near the grill to fiddle with the container of propane she’s just pulled out from beneath the deck. Azzi watches from a chair nearby.

Paige squints as she screws the tank in. The sun beads along the line of her brow bone and draws some sweat out with it. Her lips purse a little with effort, bony knees digging into the hard wood of the deck. She can feel the rough texture dragging against the softness of her skin with every movement. Her t-shirt feels hot along her back. It’s nearly evening, which means it’s definitely starting to cool down, but she still feels the sun everywhere. She’ll be glad for it to go down.

She straightens up when she thinks she’s done. Sniffs a little as she stands back to examine her work. The charred lines of the grill are dull in the sunlight. The grill’s guts are exposed to her. She bites the inside of her cheek and then steps forward again to turn the gas on. It clicks a few times and then the grill lights itself, fire starting to dance beneath the bars. The flames lick heat up. Paige squints harder.

Azzi, from a few feet away, makes a small cheering noise. Paige’s face immediately softens into a grin as she turns around to make eye contact with her. She’s sipping from a Diet Coke, one arm raised a little in celebration. The sun shines against her tanned skin. She looks like a goddess, already fitting into the deeply earthy tones of the mountains, her complexion and hair matching that of the sandy dirt and the sturdy tree trunks. Paige’s stomach flips a little.

“I’m so excited for a hot dog,” she says from her chair. And at this, Paige laughs, the sound open into the large mouth of the mountains. Azzi giggles a little with her. It’s soft and tangles with Paige’s. “Stop it, I feel like you’re making fun of me. I’m excited for your food. It’s not even funny or anything.”

“No, it’s just, like…I just like your enthusiasm. About hot dogs.” Paige turns away and snorts a little to herself again. Azzi scoffs quietly. On the side of the grill, the red paint of it peeling and dirtied, is a plate with four hot dogs glistening in the sun and a pair of tongs. She reaches for the utensil and undoes the lock to play with it. The metal ends click together every few moments.

Azzi just sighs after a little bit of silence. It’s content. The quiet vastness of the mountains, of being up here alone, has threaded a bit of something almost like relief between them. It’s easier now. Easier and harder at the same time, because while Paige feels like she has more space to let her chest expand with every breath, they’re coming quick because of how flustered she gets by just being in Azzi’s presence.

The hot dogs are on the grill quickly. Paige cooks them. Azzi gets up to get a speaker after a while, deck creaking under her footsteps. Paige hums softly to herself as she prods the sausages. She shifts her weight back and forth. The wood makes quiet noises beneath her. They’re familiar, ones she’s been hearing since she was a toddler running around on this same patio. Azzi comes back out and starts playing music to soften the silence. The notes play over the same creaking.

When the hot dogs are done, Paige goes inside to grab the buns, condiments, and a fruit salad they had packed. They eat with casual conversation coming and going. Paige likes that Azzi eats what she’s cooked. It feels domestic in a way that almost feels like betrayal to let herself enjoy. Here they are, the two of them sitting outside a house only they’re in, eating a meal Paige had prepared and Azzi had watched.

“So,” Azzi starts after a while. Watermelon juice is dribbling down the corner of her mouth. It’s wet and just barely tinged pink and when Paige turns to look at her, it’s incredibly hard to fight the urge to do something gay like reach over and thumb it or lick it away. There’s a small curve to her lips that makes Paige feel almost sick with stupid giddiness. “Hike in two days? You’ve been on it before?”

Paige nods. There’s a smile trying to pull itself across her face through the mouthful of hot dog she’s currently working on. Azzi wipes at the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand. “Yeah. Pretty much every time we can while we’re up here. It’s not really that hard. It’s kinda long, but the incline isn’t that bad at all. I think it’s, like, five miles long with about a thousand feet of incline.”

Azzi nods once, twice, movement a little slow with clear understanding. She picks her hot dog up and Paige watches the slight give of the fluffy bun as her fingers, long and sturdy, press into its sides. “Oh, yeah, that’s not bad. What about the one on Saturday?” Azzi’s eyes are on her own. Paige looks up quickly to avoid getting caught staring at her hand.

She nods again. They’re doing a lot of that. Paige feels stupid for noticing, even stupider for warming with slight embarrassment at it. “I’ve never been on that one. I think that one’s six and a half miles and two thousand feet of incline. Still not bad, though.” She shrugs.

Azzi hums. “Yeah. Okay, sounds good.” Paige fights the urge to nod again. She instead raises a piece of cantaloupe to her mouth, teeth sinking into the orange flesh of it. Azzi nods at her. Paige tries not to laugh. “So that’s, what, four hours of our day Wednesday? Including driving and stuff?”

She chews for a few moments. “Yeah. So plan is leave around ten thirty, start at eleven, end prolly around, like, two, two thirty, be back around three. And we can go after showers and stuff to get some stuff. If we go a certain way, it opens up to, like, as close to a real town as you’ll get. There’s a grocery store and a gas station and a few little random stores. We’ll prolly just get some food and maybe some other random stuff.”

Azzi sighs softly. It’s content. Paige leans back in her chair and looks forward again. The wood runs along her back and the paint on it is cool through her t-shirt. “Great. So we can sleep in tomorrow?” She can hear the smile in Azzi’s voice and feels a similar one immediately start to pull at her lips.

She glances over at Azzi. The girl is also looking forward, also starting to lean farther into her chair, also relaxed and eating. “Yes. And eat lunch on the hike.”

A slight shift in the shape of Azzi’s face. A dimple pressing itself into the soft skin of her cheek. She’s smiling wider, eyes squinted, teeth barred forward. “Fun,” she says, and Paige laughs a little before turning to face ahead again. The pines stare back at them. “I wish we could grill hot dogs on a hike.”

Paige squints and scrunches her nose a little. “Sorry. Peanut butter and jellies for hikes. And trail mix.”

“And maybe a few of the chipmunks’ peanuts.” She turns to Azzi at this, nose still wrinkled. It turns slightly teasing as a smile tries to pull up the edges of her mouth. Azzi looks ahead still.

Paige exhales a soft snort. “Dude, if a PB and J and trail mix isn’t enough peanut for you, you might as well be a chipmunk.” Azzi laughs at this. She turns to Paige when she does. Her eyes are gleaming, the whites of them shining with the glow of the sun, her irises warm and bronze and alive with light. Her bunny teeth peek from beneath her full lips. Paige laughs back, stomach flipping a little.

They stay outside eating dinner until the sun is setting and the sky is dim and yellowing. There’s a little bit of smoke still lingering in the air towards the west because of a forest fire the previous week Paige had heard about. She promises Azzi a prettier sky later in their trip. Azzi just nods sleepily.

The cabin is quiet but still full of goodness when they grab their plates and walk back in for the night. The windows are darkened with the loss of natural light. Paige flicks on the kitchen lights when they walk in and warm light spreads like something melting, yellow and runny. Azzi yawns loudly as Paige locks the door behind them. The blonde tries not to laugh at the sound. She can’t try to fight off the warm feeling that floods her the same way the yellow light does the kitchen.

They walk to the couch. Azzi grabs her duffel. Paige grabs Azzi’s suitcase. They wander to the hall in silence. It’s comfortable. It’s a short hallway, only holding a bathroom, a storage closet, and the bedroom. The doors are all ajar. Azzi peeks into them as they pass them to the one Paige is looking for.

Paige opens up the door to the bedroom farther. It’s a small room, a queen sized bed taking up most of the space. There’s a nightstand to the side of it and a dresser in the opposite corner. Windows stretch across one wall. The sheer curtains are drawn and shield the already little light from entering the room. Paige flicks the light on.

“Oh. There’s only one bedroom.” Azzi says it almost dumbly, a statement made with dull surprise. It’s said just as the light turns on. More light splashes through the room. Azzi’s hair is slightly frizzy and Paige tries to not find it endearing.

She reaches up and scratches at the back of her neck. Azzi, who had been barely a few steps ahead of her, starts to turn around to face her. “Yeah. I thought…like, just ‘cause you’re the guest, you could take it and I’d be on the couch.” She shrugs a little as she says it. Her nails scrabble against her skin.

Azzi catches her eye and frowns a little at her. He grip on the strap of her duffel tightens slightly and Paige notices it in the flex of her fingers, the shift in the tendons running evenly beneath the veins running wild on the back of her hand. “You don’t have to use that ‘guest’ bullshit with me, Paige. This is your cabin, you deserve the bed. I’m fine on the couch.”

Paige frowns back. “‘m not gonna banish you to the couch.”

Azzi shakes her head. “Well, I don’t wanna banish you, either.” Paige says nothing. She just looks at her, still frowning, the handle of Azzi’s suitcase in her hand. Azzi is not going to sleep on the couch. Paige won’t let her. “We can switch off. Every other night.”

She pauses for a moment. They’re quiet, looking at each other, the beginning of the evening trying to cast its way over them as they disagree over the bed. “You get it tonight. ‘Cause you flew, so you’re more tired.” Paige wants to be the bigger person. She wants to give Azzi the world.

Azzi frowns back. Her brows furrow. “No, you get it tonight, ‘cause if we start it on you tonight, you’ll sleep here the night before you drive us back. You need to be rested to drive us. I can just sleep in the car like I did today.”

Paige thinks about it. Azzi’s right, if she’s being honest with herself. Sleeping in the bed will probably give her better sleep, because while the couch isn’t necessarily uncomfortable, the bed is better. And Azzi is looking at her with those doe eyes under the hood of her sharp brow bone, almost pouting, and Paige is starting to get a little flustered looking at her like this. “Fine,” she eventually says, looking away and raising a hand to scratch at the back of her neck again.

Azzi hums, satisfied. Paige looks back up. The pout of her lips and furrow of her brows are both gone, smoothing her skin. Paige doesn’t like that giving in has given herself more physical comfort than it gives Azzi, but she’s grateful that she’s at least happy. They drop Azzi’s things in a corner and then go back for Paige’s, bags slouching against the walls they’re set against.

Azzi looks up from their things. She turns to face Paige, the gentle light of the room splashing down onto her face and drawing highlights against her skin and etching shadows in beneath them. She looks every bit as tired as she’s complaining about being. Paige wants to reach out and hold her, but she knows that would be weird, so she just clasps her hands together in front of herself. “It’s time for bed?”

A small smile curls itself into Paige’s face at the question. She looks at her best friend, at the bags under her eyes and the slight hood of them and the frizziness of her hair and the way she so clearly wants to sleep, and she grins a little. Her chest feels warm. And a little tight. Heartburn, in the most romantic sense of the word. “I dunno. Are you tired?” She cocks her head to the side, teasing.

“Very.” Azzi seemingly doesn’t pick up on the sarcasm. Paige laughs a little, the small grin blooming into something bigger. Azzi only seems to catch on after the word has left her mouth. She laughs with Paige, a soft exhale through the nose. Paige drops her head a little. She feels fuzzy with affection. “Oh, shut up. Come brush teeth with me and then let’s go to bed. What time are we waking up tomorrow?”

Paige raises her head again to look at Azzi, who’s squinting a little at her through the bedroom. Her nose is scrunched slightly. It’s really adorable and Paige is finding it harder and harder as they progress closer to night to stop herself from wanting and wanting, heart clawing at her ribcage, threatening to burst at the sigh of Azzi. “I dunno. Prolly around nine, nine thirty. And I can make us coffee.”

Azzi sighs. It’s not to do anything but relieve the pressure in her chest, body calming as she presses air out of herself. “Okay, sounds good. C’mon.” She points towards their bags in the corner and then steps towards them to start digging through them. Paige follows. She tries not to laugh and disrupt the silence between them as they search for their toiletries. The air grows sleepy. Azzi is falling victim to it quicker than Paige is.

They get ready for bed at the sink together, shoulders occasionally brushing. Any physical contact is immediately followed by eye contact through the mirror and soft laughter exhaled through noses. Toothpaste is threatened to spit everywhere. One of the warm bulbs flickers every once in a while. The frosted window set into one of the walls melts from cobalt to navy as they continue their nightly routines. Nighttime finds them.

Paige returns to the bedroom. She offers it to Azzi one last time, but she declines it. Paige digs around in the closet and finds an extra blanket and pillow to add to what Azzi herself had brought. She follows her into the living room and watches as she settles herself on her own pillow and pulls her own blanket up over herself, and then Paige pulls the one she had found over her body.

Azzi snickers a little as Paige makes a show of tucking her in, biting the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing too hard. She pulls the blankets up to her chin and tucks them under her shoulders. Azzi’s eyes shine with the light of the short hallway that spills into the main space and can crawl over her. She’s so beautiful. Paige is so warm.

Paige leans down and dramatically kisses the top of Azzi’s head. Azzi squeals a little, laughing more. The fabric of her bonnet is smooth where her lips find her. When Paige pulls away, she’s smiling down at Azzi, who smiles back up at her. “G’night. Sleep well.” Her stupid grin is so gummy she can feel it. She straightens all the way up.

“You’re such a freak,” Azzi says, her laughter still loud in her voice. Paige just smiles and turns around. The hallway beckons her. Sleep beckons her. Her pajama shirt is loose around her frame and yawns all around her. “Love you, g’night,” Azzi calls to her back. Her voice is still holding the echo of more laughing.

Paige turns around herself. “Love you, too,” she calls over her shoulder. She catches Azzi’s eye from where she is and sees her grinning at her where she lays on the couch, blankets hiding the shape of her. She looks so stupid. Paige loves her. She hits the light switch in the hallway and steps into the room, leaving Azzi illuminated in only what the moon and stars can pour in through the windows.

She shuts the bedroom door behind herself. And the moment it clicks shut, the light within it contained, she groans and hits that light switch, too. She’s so in love with Azzi. So much so that it’s almost impossible to believe, that it feels almost absurd for her, at eighteen, to know that she’s this in love with someone. But Azzi is her person. She has been for a few years now. She flops into bed, frame creaking beneath her weight.