Repeat Rewind: Chapter 13
A/N: long time no see? luckily cutesy fluffy things come to those who wait lol
Paige raised her shoulders in a small shrug, blinking as she readjusted to the light and let her view sharpen into an image of swollen lips and deep brown eyes. “I mean, our clothes are still on.”
Leaning in close, Azzi lifted a hand to Paige’s chin to tilt her head back.
“Yeah, but your hands are kinda… PG-13 right now,” she mumbled as their lips brushed again.
“My fault.” Paige slid her hands back up and rested them along the stretch of empty denim belt loops, lips twitching into a small smile. “Shouldn’t have worn these tiny ass shorts for me if you wanted to keep it family friendly.”
“But I made ‘em just for you,” Azzi replied, poking her lower lip out into a soft pout.
She pressed in closer for a proper kiss and lingered there for a long moment, then slowly began to scatter tiny pecks across Paige’s cheek and down behind her jaw.
“I feel like we have a rule about…” Paige’s mouth dropped open in a silent exhale, voice trailing off as Azzi’s mouth reached her neck. “About provoking me with the way you dress.”
“We have a rule about me not wearing purple,” Azzi corrected between pecks.
“Nah, but it’s like… the principle of the thing.”
She let herself soak it in for a second—warm breath against her pulse point, soft curls brushing the side of her face, thick thighs anchoring her to the couch. If it weren’t for Azzi’s body in her hands, Paige would’ve been convinced she’d landed in some sort of alternate reality. Something she’d only ever be able to dream up for a brief sliver of time, then watch as it vanished.
But with everything she’d ever needed seated right there on her lap after more restless, sleepless nights than she could count, she’d never felt more deserving of something so perfect.
“Then you got the nerve to make me stop in the middle of the road ‘cause you wanted a kiss,” she added, retracing the way they’d ended up intertwined in her living room in the first place. “You’re telling me the ball’s in my court and I gotta pass up an open three?”
Azzi chuckled lightly, the sound buzzing against Paige’s skin. “Aren’t middies your thing anyway?”
“Yeah,” Paige agreed with a small sigh.
She slid her thumbs higher on Azzi’s waist, stroking just under the edge of her tank top.
“But on second thought,” she murmured as she inched up slowly, her hold on Azzi’s hips delicate and firm, “if I could just… get in the paint…”
Paige paused as her fingertips continued to rise until they brushed against cotton lace and wire, landing there to wait for approval. Azzi’s lips held their position against her neck—careful, hopeful, maybe.
“I could be cool with a layup,” Paige whispered.
Azzi brought her face back up to Paige’s, curbing her smirk with a forced eye roll and a quick shake of her head. “Get the fuck out my face.”
Paige slid her hands down compliantly and let them settle in the curve where Azzi’s thighs met her hips. “I don’t think you want me to.”
She waited patiently for a response as two sets of fingers interlocked around the base of her neck, as two eyes slowly traced and mapped her lips, scheming with no apparent interest in discretion.
“I don’t,” Azzi muttered, letting their lips meet again in quiet surrender.
Paige let herself melt into it. Her lips parted reflexively until they fit snugly between Azzi’s, opening wide and pulling in tight in tandem. How she’d mustered the restraint to pace herself was completely beyond her—she’d never even seriously imagined Azzi’s reciprocity, let alone having the patience to hold off on playing out every fantasy she’d dreamt up over the years.
A soft hum slipped from her lips as Azzi’s tongue grazed hers gently, then retreated teasingly. Paige mirrored the stroke and pulled away quickly. She hovered her mouth in front of Azzi’s in anticipation of the next move, for confirmation that Azzi was ready to feel her deeper, hotter.
Azzi opened her mouth wider, bridging the gap between them by lightly swiping her tongue across Paige’s lower lip. It wasn’t as taunting this time—more explorative, like a baby step. Paige paused to give her space, to let her take her time feeling it all out, only sliding her tongue back out once Azzi reached in for it again.
She’d forgotten how it felt to really want someone. For every touch, every kiss, every taste to buzz across her body like a shockwave. For pure desire to lead her into reckless abandon and weigh her back down to Earth just as quickly.
But every square nanometer of warmth against warmth and wet against wet sent it all rushing back to her, welcome enough to leave her wondering if it was nostalgic or something completely brand new. Had it always felt this good to just make out? Had she ever really seen the beauty in mapping another woman’s mouth out with her own? In tracing each edge and crevice and ridge and groove and knowing the softness of the voice still lingering her ears only existed because of how carefully, delicately, expertly they were formed?
She didn’t remember it feeling so… heavy. So deep. It wasn’t with Anaya, at least, or anyone recent enough for her to really remember. It was fun with them, and light. Something hollow and vain sat at the core of it all, not that Paige minded it then.
But the contrast struck her hard. It didn’t feel fair to draw that comparison between something so simple, and…
With that inexplicable, inescapable pull that defied all of Paige’s better judgement no matter who got caught in the middle.
With soft lips and smooth skin that left Paige burning with hunger even when their bodies already touched in seven places at once.
With such complexity that Paige seriously wondered if she’d be able to reach the core of it all in a hundred lifetimes of loving her.
It was useless—she was completely beyond compare. So Paige stopped bothering.
“You taste good,” she mumbled when she came up for air. “Like mango. Somethin’ tropical.”
She vaguely remembered Azzi filling her cup with a bright orange soft drink a few hours prior, though most of the evening was already blurry. Her short-term memory couldn’t seem to reach beyond “I think I’m falling for you.”
“And you taste like…” Azzi paused for a moment to duck her head back down and slid her tongue along Paige’s parted lips, reaching in deeper with gentle swipes as she smiled a bit at the lack of resistance on the other end.
“Aspartame,” she concluded as she came back up.
Paige chuckled, shaking her head lightly. “Leave me and my Coke Zero alone.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t like it.”
Paige’s smile softened, the buzz in her chest mellowing out as her eyes flicked across Azzi’s face.
“You don’t understand how happy I am right now,” she murmured. “Like, I’m just ecstatic.”
Azzi averted her eyes to Paige’s hairline and began to brush a few baby hairs into place, inner cheek pulled between her teeth as she fought a grin.
“You don’t know how much I used to dream about this,” Paige continued, running her hands along Azzi’s thighs. “About having you right here on my lap.”
“I’m happy you’re happy,” Azzi replied softly after a moment, bending down to drop a quick kiss on Paige’s temple. “I’m happy, too.”
Paige narrowed her eyes and cocked her head dramatically. “What, you don’t dream about me?”
Azzi opened her mouth to reply, squinting like she needed to think hard about how she’d respond, and Paige watched as a deep blush began to spread across her face.
“I mean, I do a little more than dream,” Azzi muttered under her breath after a moment, a smirk playing at her lips.
A familiar tightness crept across Paige’s chest at the nebulosity in Azzi’s reply. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Azzi’s lips parted again, but this time she held her position for a split second before swallowing hard and leaning down to press her lips against Paige’s.
“Don’t worry about it just yet.”
Paige rolled her eyes. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Mmmm,” Azzi hummed in approval, eyes narrowing as she nodded slowly. “So polite. Makes me feel… powerful. I like it.”
Paige scoffed. You don’t even know the half of it, she thought to herself.
“You are,” she replied, holding Azzi’s gaze with more seriousness than before. “Ask me to jump and I’ll bring the moon down here for you.”
Her breath caught as Azzi leaned in closer, friction building where their legs intersected.
“But what if I want the stars?”
“How many?” Paige murmured.
She shivered as Azzi’s lips landed next to the corner of her mouth, then just below her cheekbone, then right over the top of her jaw before hovering in front of her ear.
Paige flexed her fingers reflexively, suppressing the urge to let them stray out of bounds.
Azzi chuckled softly as she sat up straighter, twisting her back to each side to stretch it.
“You don’t think this is a little…”
Her eyes drifted across the apartment while she searched for the right word, lips pursed thoughtfully as she crossed her arms against her chest. “Fast?”
Paige shrugged. “I’m just following your lead.”
“Might seem fast to you,” she added a second later. “I’ve been waiting around here for a while.”
Azzi shook her head softly, eyes falling back to Paige again.
“It’s still just so insane to me,” she said after a moment, awe and humility threaded through her tone. “You had… I mean, God knows how many perfectly decent girls right in front of you, and you just…”
“Well, yeah,” Paige chuckled. She paused and used her knuckle to gently sweep away a curl that had fallen in front of Azzi’s eye, holding her gaze steadier once it was completely unobstructed. “None of them were Azzi Fudd.”
Azzi’s cheeks reddened at the honesty in Paige’s reply for a second, then faded back to their normal hue as her expression faltered into something more unreadable a moment later.
She coughed to clear her throat, squinting at something in the distance before locking her eyes back onto Paige’s.
“So, speaking of other girls…”
“I ran into your little girlfriend last night.”
Her voice hung in the air for a moment. Paige tensed and stared back blankly, opening her mouth to ask, “Who?” before letting the gears turn until the words started to make sense and her face turned a warm, deep red.
“She’s not—I mean we were kind of together, but we were never actually exclusive, so it’s not like—“
“Relax,” Azzi laughed, pushing Paige back against the couch. “I just didn’t know she worked at Baylor. Wasn’t expecting to see her.”
“Yeah, she teaches and she has a… lab, or something.” Paige’s words tumbled out in a flustered, breathy cascade, half-humiliated and half-relieved that Azzi had taken it all so well. “You didn’t, uh… talk to her, did you?”
Azzi’s brows lifted as a smirk stretched across her face. “Mmm, why do you ask? She leave you a bad report card?”
“She probably thinks I’m a piece of shit,” Paige mumbled, staring at her apartment reflected back through the blank TV screen behind Azzi, still too disconcerted to make eye contact again.
She caught a stifled grin in her peripheral as Azzi composed herself before replying.
“Oh, no, believe me. She only had good things to say.”
Paige’s eyes darted back to Azzi’s, wide with apprehension. She’s fucking with me, she decided. No way in hell.
Even as it left her mouth, she wasn’t quite sure she wanted to know what exactly had transpired. But her tension began to fade as it occurred to her that whatever words had been exchanged, Azzi didn’t seem to feel any differently about her.
And it put a smile on her face, so… there was that. Paige couldn’t be mad at it, no matter how ridiculous she’d found it that the stars had aligned in all the wrong ways.
Azzi shook her head lightly as if to wave Paige off. “We’ll, uh… ride that horse when we get to it,” she mumbled.
Paige raised a brow. “That’s… a new one.”
“What isn’t new right now?” Azzi countered with a small chuckle, lowering her head until Paige felt the now familiar sensation of their lips meeting again.
She latched on reflexively, keeping Azzi close for just a little longer, one hand gripping the thigh to her left while the other found the side of Azzi’s face.
Now, her kisses oozed with something like control. With more certainty, and less tentativeness. Her body rose with a quiet inhale, then settled back down as her breath trickled through her nostrils and onto Paige’s cheeks.
But Paige’s lips stayed frozen. It was too overwhelming, somehow—the tickle of a warm exhale against her skin, Azzi’s body weight in her lap, the strange softness of the moment they’d both spent so long circling around.
Azzi brought her palm up to Paige’s chest. Not pressing, or demanding, just there. Relaxed. Steady.
The contact pulled Paige back into herself, and her fingers loosened a bit against Azzi’s thigh as she began to kiss back. Her response was cautious at first, almost apologetic.
But then the nervousness she’d carried into the moment sharpened into a sudden, aching hunger for closeness. For more. She leaned forward, following Azzi when she shifted, unwilling to let even an inch of distance creep between them.
Paige’s breath caught as she felt Azzi’s hand slide from her chest down the length of her body and rest against her ribs, fingers curling lightly through the fabric of her shirt. She tried to keep it going, tried to match the confidence Azzi’d found, but every delicate movement of Azzi’s fingers felt more intense than it should’ve—the faint drag of them against her side, the slightest flex when Paige leaned closer.
Until something inside her just… tipped. And, muffled by Azzi’s lips between hers, the quietest moan escaped before she could stop it.
Paige pulled away, eyes still shut, an Azzi-shaped gap between her lips, as if distance was an undo button.
Like I haven’t faced enough humiliation for one night, she wondered as her cheeks began to burn. There’s something seriously wrong with me.
Azzi laughed a moment later—a quiet, uncontrollable giggle breaking through such excruciating silence.
“Literally nothing is funny right now,” Paige muttered with a slight shake of her head. “You just love stressing me out.”
She tried to hold the line of her own embarrassment at first, but she didn’t stand a chance with Azzi’s laugh in her ears. Within seconds she’d joined in, too, eyes easing open so she could watch Azzi’s amusement for herself, and for a moment neither of them could stop.
Azzi climbed off her lap, slow and careful, and settled onto the cushion beside her instead. The space where she'd been felt colder than it had any right to. Disappointment flooded in quickly.
Azzi pressed her palms flat against her knees, not quite looking over. "I’m sorry."
"For what?" Paige asked as she turned toward her.
A small shrug. Azzi's eyes stayed down. "That was… a lot. Too much, maybe."
Paige didn't answer right away. She was deciding how to organize the tangle of thoughts crowding the front of her mind into something neat, and presentable, and… not too heavy.
But this time, she gave up easily. She reached across the cushion and caught Azzi's arm, pulling her gently back in until their shoulders touched again.
"No," Paige said. "You were right, earlier."
She looked down at where their hands had ended up, resting together in the space between them, and made herself say it: "Too fast."
Something in Azzi's face eased at that, like she'd been bracing for a different answer. "Okay."
"We’ll find the right pace," Paige said next. “We have time. I’m not going anywhere.”
"Me either,” Azzi replied softly.
Paige let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding, then sat up straighter.
"I could use a sweet treat right about now," she said, stretching her arm out to the side. "I think I have some ice cream—we could do shakes, maybe. Pretty sure there's a sleeve of Thin Mints in the freezer, too."
Azzi lifted her head, eyebrow raised. "Wasn't Girl Scout Cookie season, like, six months ago?"
"Probably." Paige shrugged, completely unbothered. "I stay stocked year-round. It's a whole system."
Azzi laughed and shook her head, the sound landing somewhere between disbelief and fondness. "Of course you do."
"Stop laughing at me and pick something," Paige replied with a nudge. “God forbid I support young entrepreneurs.”
Azzi squinted hard, like the question required a deep level of thought, then leaned further into the couch.
"I guess I’ll take some of those Thin Mints, then."
Paige scoffed and leaned back to study her, a slow grin spreading. "See, I just can’t figure you out. Five seconds ago you were worried we were moving too fast. Now you're choosing the one option I offered you that’s made of an aphrodisiac."
Azzi opened her mouth to protest, but the color came up in her cheeks too quickly.
Paige pointed at her triumphantly. "There it is. And now you're all shy again."
"Where did this come from?" Azzi asked, half-laughing. "What happened to sweet, respectful Paige?"
"She's still in here." Paige sank deeper into the couch, utterly pleased with herself. "You just unlocked Whipped Off Her Ass Paige."
Paige slung an arm around Azzi’s shoulders and pulled her in. She went easily, still smiling. “‘Cause she’ll stick around for as long as you’ll let her."
Azzi's expression warmed, but before she could say anything back, Paige had grabbed the remote from the coffee table and pressed it into her hand.
"Find something for us to watch," Paige said, pushing herself up. "I’ll be back."
She headed for the kitchen, grateful for the excuse to move, to do something with her hands while the rest of her caught up to everything that had just happened. The heat in her face had mostly faded by the time she’d reached the freezer. She huffed out a laugh at herself anyway, located the familiar foil packaging, and pulled the cookies free before she headed back up for two glasses.
She reached into the fridge for some milk, pouring it an inch from the rim in both glasses before shoving the carton back inside and shutting the door with her hip. For a second she just stood there, listening to the TV buzzing faintly from the other room, letting the small, ordinary sound of it settle something in her chest.
She tucked the cookies under her arm and carried both glasses back out to the living room. Azzi had curled into the corner of the couch, the remote balanced on her knee as the light from the screen flickered across her face. Paige set the milk and cookies down, dragged the coffee table closer, and dropped onto the cushion beside her.
Without a word, she stretched her arm out along the back of the couch and pulled Azzi back into her side. Azzi came without any resistance, tucking herself in casually like it was something she was used to.
Paige reached for the cookies and tore open the packaging with her free hand, loosening the cookie at the top of the stack. Only then did she look up at the screen to find that Azzi had selected a corny, low-budged horror movie.
Paige stared as she took a bite. "Seriously?"
Azzi reached past her for a Thin Mint. "What? It's hilarious."
"It's supposed to be scary."
"Thanks, Captain Obvious,” Azzi mumbled with her mouth full. “That’s why it’s funny."
It was truly horrible, in every single sense of the word—lousy effects, awful dialogue. But every few minutes Azzi laughed under her breath at an anticlimactic jumpscare or a character’s bad decision-making, and every time, Paige felt her own mouth pull into a smile on instinct.
Her fingers found the curve of Azzi's shoulderblade, tracing slow lines through the fabric of her shirt without really thinking about it. Azzi leaned into her further, settling more fully against her side.
It hit Paige somewhere low and quiet—the ease of it, the way Azzi had folded herself in like there was nowhere else worth being. She looked down at her for a second too long, feeling the entire evening rise up in her chest again: softer now, but no less overwhelming.
She tightened her arm and turned back to the screen, willing herself to stay in the moment and actually feel it all instead of letting it slide by the way good things did sometimes.
Halfway through the sleeve of cookies, the one character Paige had been silently rooting for opened exactly the wrong door and met his fate.
Paige sat up. "Oh, come on."
"You knew that was coming,” Azzi chuckled through a stifled yawn.
"Well, he was the only one making decent choices."
"He walked into the basement… alone… in the dark."
“Yeah, well, compared to everyone else he’s a rocket scientist,” Paige muttered back.
Before Azzi could argue, Paige's phone buzzed against the coffee table and rattled the half-empty glasses.
She leaned forward to check it.
Azzi turned toward her, already reaching for the remote. "You okay?"
"I told Lyss we'd hop on the game tonight." Paige glanced over, guilt landing heavy. "Completely lost track of time."
Azzi paused the movie mid-frame and muted the volume. "It's okay. Pick up."
Paige hesitated for half a second, then lifted her phone, angled it away from Azzi, and swiped across the bottom of her screen. "Hey."
NaLyssa’s face loaded onto her screen, a black headset resting around her neck. "Hey, you good?"
"Yeah, sorry, I totally spaced," Paige replied as she glanced at Azzi, the guilt setting in deeper. "Give me, like, half an hour. I'll call you back."
NaLyssa paused for a moment. "Alright. I’ll be here."
Paige ended the call and lowered the phone slowly, the apology already written on her face before a single word had reached her lips.
Azzi shook her head before she could get it out. "I don't want you blowing her off. It’s okay."
Paige nodded, her thumb moving absently along the edge of her phone. "Yeah. Thank you, for… understanding."
She could feel the shift the moment Azzi gave her a small smile in lieu of a reply—the cozy little bubble of the evening fading out at the edges, turning translucent sooner than either of them wanted it to.
"Come on," she said, quieter than she meant to, as she stood and reached a hand out. "Lemme get you home."
I could get used to this, Azzi thought.
Paige's hand rested on her thigh as she drove, fingers shifting every now and then with the motion of the car—small, absentminded adjustments, like she wasn't even aware she was doing it. The playlist Azzi had put together earlier was still running through the speakers, but none of the awkwardness from the drive over had followed them back into the car.
Everything was out in the open now. Or enough of it, anyway.
She'd braced herself for the honesty to make things heavier, but she only felt lighter. She slid her hand beneath Paige's arm and held on loosely, tracing slow, idle lines along her forearm with her fingertips. There was no calculation behind it. No quiet questioning of whether she was allowed this level of comfort. She simply wanted to touch her, so she did.
Paige squeezed her thigh and glanced over, her lips curving into a crooked smile. "You're cute."
"Eyes on the road,” Azzi scolded.
"That's exactly what people say right before they hit a curb."
Paige laughed, shaking her head. "You would know, wouldn't you?"
Azzi huffed out a laugh of her own and shifted her body toward the center of the car, faintly amazed at how easy this felt. Every glance between them earlier in the night had carried weight. Every accidental brush of awkward, jittery hands had left her pulse stumbling.
And now, somehow, she was folded against Paige's arm like she'd always belonged there. Like the last several hours had quietly rewritten some baseline setting in her, in them, and this was simply where she lived now.
She let herself sink into it. She'd missed this—the ease of being close to someone without having to manage it. Silence that felt full, not strained.
Her mind drifted, albeit unwillingly, to Brianna.
How long had it been since she'd felt anything close to this with her? A year, maybe? Closer to two?
It was hard to put a date on it, because the distance hadn't shown up all at once. It arrived in increments: conversations that got cut short and just… stayed that way, touches that quietly stopped happening and never appeared again, entire evenings spent an arm's length apart yet on opposite coasts all at once.
She couldn't remember the exact night she'd first noticed the gap, just how long she'd gone on pretending not to.
Her fingers tightened around Paige's forearm, almost without her permission.
Paige glanced down at the movement. "You okay?"
Azzi breathed in slowly. Let her cheek fall against Paige's shoulder.
The words came out small, nearly swallowed by the music. She almost took it back the second it left her. It sounded whiny in her own ears, pointless, the type of thing put out there for comfort more than continuity of the conversation. But it was real. True.
Paige tilted her head toward her, eyes catching soft and gold in the passing streetlights. "Azzi."
"Not with Brianna still…" Azzi swallowed and turned to watch the buildings blur past the window instead of looking at her. "Still lingering there. I'm so over it."
Paige didn't answer right away. Her hand stayed on Azzi's thigh, thumb moving once in a slow stroke, like she was giving the silence enough room to do whatever it needed to do before she moved to fill it.
Azzi shook her head. "Night shift, I think. I just—"
She stopped. Too many words crowded the same doorway, none of them willing to go first.
Just that. As if she actually did.
She lifted Azzi's hand from her forearm and brought it to her mouth, pressing a brief kiss to her knuckles, gentle enough that something in Azzi's chest came loose at the contact. She melted into the touch without deciding to, shoulder pressing harder into Paige's arm.
"But soon, right?" Paige asked. "She's moving out?"
"Yeah." Azzi watched their hands as Paige lowered hers back down, but didn't let go. "Less than a week, now. Tuesday."
Paige nodded, eyes returning to the road. "Good. Just a few more days."
Azzi traced her thumb over Paige's knuckles and tried to picture Tuesday—the guest room empty again, the pantry free of mysterious superfoods, the apartment belonging only to her for the first time in longer than she wanted to count.
It should have felt like relief. Instead, there was more uncertainty there than she’d anticipated.
Paige squeezed her hand, like she'd felt the thought even without being told what it was. Azzi leaned closer and let the quiet hold her up for a bit.
"Can I pick you up tomorrow?" Paige asked eventually. "We could get there early. Get you settled in a little before everyone else shows up." Her thumb moved over Azzi's knuckles again, absent and soothing. "I know you haven't been too happy with how scattered you've been feeling lately."
It was thoughtful. Paige had listened to her complain—actually listened—and filed it away, and had already started to make room for her without being asked. The only problem was the best friend-shaped thorn in her side.
"I mean…" Azzi drew the word out, eyes fixed on their joined hands like the answer might be written somewhere in the crevices of their fingers. "Sure, but…"
"Nai?" Paige guessed, like she'd already worked out the details before the offer had even left her mouth.
Azzi glanced over. "Yeah."
Paige gave a small shrug, attention fixed on the road. "Tell her how it is. You said you've been struggling. I offered to help. Doesn't have to be anything more than that."
It was technically true. It didn't have to become an announcement, or a confession, or one more complicated thing she'd eventually have to sit down and explain to someone who already noticed too much. But the hesitation lingered anyway.
Paige glanced over again, her expression softening. "It's fine. I'm not trying to make things harder than they need—”
"No, it's okay,” Azzi decided abruptly. “I'll tell her."
Paige's fingers tightened around hers. "You sure?"
"Mm-hmm," Azzi hummed. "Thank you. I really needed the push, honestly."
Azzi rested her head back against Paige's shoulder, turning the thought over and over—how naturally Paige kept showing up for her lately. No pressure behind it. No unspoken expectations tucked into her kindness. Just steady invitations, placed carefully within reach, left there for Azzi to take whenever she was ready and not a second sooner.
She looked up, half expecting a red light, and felt her stomach dip when she recognized the front of her building half a block away instead.
Disappointment moved through her before she could do anything about it, quick and unflattering. She stretched slowly, stalling a few seconds after Paige had come to a full stop, then unclipped her seatbelt. The click of it unfastening sounded strangely final in the quiet car, like punctuation on a moment she wasn't ready to end yet.
She turned and leaned across the console, wrapping both arms around Paige instead.
"Thank you," she mumbled into Paige's hair, a whiff of shampoo meeting the cool edge of the night air that had crept in through the half-open windows. "I had a really good night."
Paige's arms came around her without hesitation, automatic and certain.
"Couldn't have been better than mine," she said, a soft laugh threaded through it.
Azzi smiled against her shoulder before pulling back. She lingered a beat longer than necessary, studying Paige—the dashboard lights smoothing the sharp angles of her face, catching in her eyes, warming her skin.
She looked relaxed, like the night had loosened something in her, too, some knot she'd been carrying around for longer than she'd been willing to let on. Azzi's chest did something unexpected and sort of embarrassing at the sight of it.
"Eight okay?" Paige asked.
"Okay." Paige's hand brushed her arm quickly before dropping back to the center console between them. "Go get some sleep, then."
"You too,” Azzi replied. “Hope NaLyssa doesn't keep you up too late."
"That sounded so wrong on, like, so many different levels."
Azzi's mouth hung open in a silent laugh, her head shaking with both amusement and disbelief. "God. You have some serious problems."
"Rude," Azzi said, though she only began to laugh louder.
She pushed the door open and stepped out, cool air pricking at her bare arms.
"Good night, princess,” Paige called out before she could shut it.
Azzi rolled her eyes, unsuccessful at curbing her smile even still. "Good night, Paige."
She closed the door and let herself turn toward the building, carrying the warmth of the night in with her the entire way up to her apartment.
Even the hallway looked different tonight—brighter, somehow, despite the same flickering light bulb ahead of her door and the same stillness waiting behind it. She let herself in, locked the door behind her, and headed straight for the shower before she could let herself begin picking the night apart.
Steam began to cloud the room as Azzi let her hair down and stepped under the water, eyes closed, letting it run over her while she worked shampoo into her scalp. The night replayed in loose fragments as she did: dinner, confessing her feelings to Paige, her playlist, the first kiss, and then all the ones that came after it once neither of them bothered to be too careful anymore. She smiled to herself as she played it all back, suds dissolving until streams of clear water trickled from the ends of her curls.
When she moved on to washing the rest of her body, her thoughts drifted, unhurried, to Paige's hands in the same places less than an hour ago—the steady pressure at her waist, the careful way they’d moved along her ribs, the warm weight of one resting naturally on her thigh just minutes after they’d settled into the car.
The memory left her aching for more closeness—for another couch, another slow drive, one more excuse to lean into Paige and just stay there for a while.
Azzi opened her eyes before realizing they’d shut at some point during her recollection of the night’s events.
Slow down, she urged herself, frowning at the tile in front of her.
They'd already nearly overwhelmed each other once tonight, so she really didn't want her own excitement devolving into carelessness. Didn't want to take something this new, this fragile, and put her whole weight on it before it had any idea of how to hold her. Paige mattered too much to rush.
Still, she couldn't talk herself out of the anticipation buzzing beneath her skin. Morning suddenly felt absurdly far away. There were more conversations waiting for them out there in the future, more tiny, unplanned touches, more moments neither of them had begun to build yet.
She finished rinsing and shut the water off, pulling the curtain back before reaching for her towel. Whatever came next, she decided, she'd let it arrive on its own terms—carefully, honestly. One moment at a time instead of trying to grab the whole thing at once.
Azzi dried off slowly, towel secured around herself before she grabbed her phone off the counter and carried it into the bedroom.
She swung her arm a few inches back to toss it onto the comforter, but… then realized she should probably let DiJonai know about her plans with Paige in the morning before she got too cozy in a fresh set of pajamas to stay awake for much longer.
Azzi took a few steps forward and leaned onto the bed, opening her messages with DiJonai and pausing before typing out her first message.
She stared at the screen once it delivered, half-hoping DiJonai was already asleep. Or preoccupied. Or, for once in her life, had put her phone down somewhere out of reach.
Azzi exhaled through her nose, eyeing her keyboard reluctantly. Too late to back out now.
you can sleep in a little tomorrow, she typed.
i'm gonna ride to practice early with paige
The typing bubble appeared before she'd even finished rereading her own message.
Her stomach tightened instantly.
She sat down on the edge of the bed, one hand pressed flat against the towel at her chest, as she watched the bubble blink in and out.
Nai: random, butttttt okay
Azzi blinked at the screen, then hurried to keep typing before DiJonai had a chance to start connecting the dots Azzi wasn't ready to hand her quite yet.
just need to work on my discipline
been kinda out of whack since everything got hectic
but it came up during the presser the other day and she offered to help
The bubble returned. Azzi held her breath without meaning to, then released slowly as the dots stilled.
Nai: that was nice of her
Nai: okay i'll see you there then
Relief rushed through her in a quiet laugh.
She set the phone down beside her on the comforter and leaned back on one hand, letting out a long, drawn-out breath.
That had gone easier than she'd braced for. Or… maybe she just couldn’t get an accurate read on DiJonai’s body language from a few short texts.
Either way, the last thread of nervousness she'd been carrying finally unwound all at once, and for the first time in longer than she’d wanted to admit, Azzi felt like there was nothing standing in her way. Tomorrow could just be tomorrow—an early ride, some extra work, more time with Paige, and absolutely nothing more complicated than that.
She smiled again, alone in the quiet of her room, at her willingness to get herself back on track. At her eagerness to finally, finally feel free again.
Azzi paused outside the elevator and opened the front-facing camera on her phone, pretending to check a notification while she actually studied herself on the screen: hair pulled back the same way it always was for practice, clothes ordinary and comfortable. Exactly what she wore any other morning of her life. She had never once thought this hard about how she looked in baggy shorts and a t-shirt.
Except now, for reasons completely beyond her, she cared whether Paige thought she looked cute. A brand new problem. Her same old wardrobe. It was already exhausting.
She frowned at her own reflection, irritated at herself for caring. Paige had seen her sweaty and barely conscious more times than either of them could count. There was no logical reason to suddenly be worried about how her sleeves sat on her shoulders, or whether her shorts were too loose, or whether her ponytail looked deliberately messy or like she'd just rolled out of bed—which, to be fair, she had.
Still, she tugged the hem of her shirt down just an inch before shoving her phone back into her pocket. Like that settled anything.
The elevator doors opened onto the lobby. Through the glass entrance she spotted Paige's car parked along the curb again, in the same spot as always. Paige was leaned back in the driver's seat with one hand draped loosely over the wheel, reggaeton blasting loud enough that Azzi could feel the bass the second she stepped outside.
She laughed under her breath, then shook her head. Wish I could be that hyped at eight in the morning, she thought to herself.
"Good morning," she yelled over it once she’d crossed the sidewalk, pulled the passenger door open, and slid inside.
Paige’s whole face opened into a grin as she turned—unguarded, instant, the kind of expression people usually tried to dial back just a little before someone caught it. She reached for the volume and brought it down until the lyrics were just barely audible.
"Morning,” Paige replied.
Azzi leaned across the console and looped an arm around her in a quick hug. Paige smelled faintly of mint and clean laundry, and there was something unreasonably comforting about how familiar her scent had already become—like Azzi’s body had long registered it as something known, and safe, without consulting the rest of her first.
She pulled back and settled into her seat. Paige didn't move.
Azzi reached for her seatbelt, then glanced to her left when she registered the stillness on the other side of the car. Paige was still looking at her, one hand resting on the gear shift, her expression caught somewhere between hopeful and faintly stunned.
Azzi raised an eyebrow, a teasing smirk beginning to form at her lips. "What? You waiting for something?"
Paige blinked once, then rolled her eyes and turned to the windshield a beat too quickly. "Nah, I'm good. Let's go."
Azzi laughed, and something in her chest did a small, satisfied flip at having caught her so completely. But before Paige could put the car in drive, Azzi reached over and lifted her hand off the gear shift.
Paige looked back at her, surprise flashing across her face for half a second before Azzi leaned in and pressed a quick kiss to her cheek.
"Happy?" she asked as she settled back, deliberately casual.
Paige's smile returned slowly. It didn’t look like there was a single version of it she could've hidden even if she'd tried.
Azzi buckled her seatbelt and turned to look out the window. She could feel her own mouth doing something she hadn't authorized, but thankfully it was far out of Paige’s sight.
She let herself sink into the seat, one knee angled toward the door as she watched the city slide by in the pale light of the early morning.
"How are you?" she asked. "What time'd you sleep?"
Paige shook her head, eyes on the road. "Not too late. We called it around one, I think."
Her grip shifted slightly on the wheel—a small adjustment, but Azzi caught it.
"I missed her," Paige admitted. "It was… nice. To actually talk and goof around instead of just texting for once."
Azzi watched the softness move across her face, honest and unobstructed.
"I bet,” she replied softly.
Her own thoughts drifted back to her short conversation with DiJonai the night before. She hadn't exactly lied, or… maybe that was just the technicality she kept circling back to, the small comfort she kept handing herself. Everything she'd said had been true. Paige had offered to help. She did want to work on her discipline.
She’d just left out everything underneath that. All the parts that actually mattered.
But strangely, the guilt she expected never quite arrived. What she felt instead was a curious kind of unease—not in the omission itself, but from how easily it had come to her.
It wasn't the most pleasant thought. She stowed it away for later, let her attention fall to the song still sending vibrations through the whole car after being quieted.
Abusadora, ese Jean Paul Gaultier
Te queda cabrón, pero en el piso es que parte
Azzi let out a small scoff, amazed at how Paige could listen to something so… bold, before the sleep had even left her voice yet.
But there she sat—head bobbing, eyes squinted thoughtfully, steering with one hand while the other smoothed back a few flyaways. Energy on ten first thing in the morning. Azzi found it sort of inspiring.
She set her gaze ahead again, one knee beginning to bounce to the beat. It was a good song. She set a mental reminder to look it up in their blend later on.
To’ esto’ te tienen gana’ y yo te tengo brincando
Me textéo, “Qué se repita, ¿qué va’a hacer ahorita?”
Ya está mojaíta debajo’e la cinturita
Con ese culo que en el mahón ni le cabe
Hoy vino en trajecito pa yo ver el paisaje
Paige glanced over. "Hmm?"
"Can't get those shorts out of your head, huh?"
Paige's smile faded as her eyes grew wide, color rushing up her neck and into her cheeks so quickly that Azzi had to let a chuckle slip through before she could even finish enjoying the reaction.
"What, you forgot I married a Latina?"
Paige let out a nervous laugh, adjusting her grip on the wheel. "I did, in fact."
Azzi began to laugh harder, thoroughly pleased with how far she’d caught Paige off guard.
"How do you even know Spanish?" she asked.
Paige shrugged, visibly trying to recover some of her dignity. "Figured it was a good idea once I landed in the southwest. Just to… immerse myself in the culture, you know?”
Azzi glanced at her sideways. "That sounded rehearsed."
"It wasn't,” Paige argued.
“My Duolingo begs to differ, actually. Just finished up Section 7."
Azzi’s brows rose. "You’re good, then. Consistent.”
“I work hard and put in the time for the things I care about,” Paige said as she lifted her shoulders in a small shrug. "Exhibit A: the pretty girl in my passenger seat."
A shy chuckle slipped out before Azzi could force it away, her head immediately tilting toward her window to hide the blush in her cheeks from Paige’s view.
All that fussing about whether I looked okay, she thought to herself. Wasted energy.
Paige’s hand found her thigh again, just as it had the night before—resting loosely at first, then gripping a bit tighter as Azzi shifted her legs toward the center of the car. She covered Paige’s hand with her own and traced gently with her fingers as they drove.
The security stuck with her. Security in Paige’s attraction to her, and in the patience she’d continuously been offered from the start, but deeper than that, too. Azzi knew it would take time to fully let someone new in—to trust with every part of her—but Paige made it easy to feel safe. Valued. Desired.
The sun nearly blinded her as it peeked out from behind a few high-rise buildings in the distance and Azzi shut her eyes instead of pulling the sun visor down. She barely moved for the rest of the drive, her skin warm with sunlight and Paige’s touch, her heart fuller than it had been for a long, long time.
Their arrival felt like a rude awakening. It was humbling to realize she’d forgotten what the practice studio looked like this early in the day—morning light pouring in through the high windows, the overhead fixtures tossing clean reflections across the freshly waxed hardwood. It held that unique sort of hush that only empty gyms had, like it was awaiting permission to break into its usual thumps and squeaks and swishes.
They set their bags down near the sideline once they walked in, and Azzi took a moment to stretch while Paige adjusted her shoes. She grabbed a ball off the rack and bounced it once, listening to it echo out across the empty space and come back smaller every time.
And then, for… no reason at all, she launched it from way beyond half court.
The ball arced high under the lights, dropped clean, and shot through the net without so much as grazing the iron.
Paige snapped her head over to Azzi, shoulders dropping as she ran a hand over her face and began to jog after the ball. "You're not real."
Azzi threw her head back as she laughed aloud, her ponytail swinging against her back. "Light work."
For just a second, Azzi felt a burst of old pressure flicker back to life in that familiar place under her sternum. The tightness she used to carry back at the start of the season, when every miss had felt less like one missed shot and more like a verdict on something much, much larger. Mistakes had felt permanent, like evidence stacking up toward a conclusion she was already partially convinced of.
The feeling still showed up sometimes, even still. But it didn't control her the way that it used to.
She felt steadier these days, more willing to take a shot and miss it and just let it be a miss—not a pattern, or a habit, just one possession out of thousands. There was enough love and noise and laughter in her life to hold her up now. One bad rep didn't get to write the whole story anymore.
Her attention caught on Paige sprinting toward half court, grinning in a way that promised nothing good.
Paige ignored her completely and took a shot with far more confidence than the form beneath it warranted. It clanked hard off the front of the rim and bounced sideways back to Azzi.
Paige threw both hands up immediately. "They gotta check the rims. You fucked with the rims, I swear."
"The rims were fine ten seconds ago,” Azzi laughed. “I didn’t even touch ‘em.”
"Something’s not right,” Paige maintained as she walked back over to Azzi.
"Agreed. It’s your form."
Paige shook her head. "That was disrespectful."
"I invited you here to help you."
"And somehow I'm already helping you,” Azzi shot back. “You're welcome, by the way."
Paige chased the ball down, smiling hard while clearly trying not to.
"Keep yapping," she said as she tucked the ball under one arm. "We'll see who's laughing when we’re finished here."
Azzi was already tightening her ponytail.
Paige spent most of practice in a low, steady state of disbelief.
She'd seen Azzi play more times than she could count by now, knew the scouting report by heart, knew what the highlight reels promised before they even began. Everyone did. But watching her from this close, especially after the extra work they'd put in before the rest of the team came in, made all the small details impossible to ignore in a way film never really captured.
Azzi moved with a kind of precision that made difficult things look like second nature. Like the ball simply preferred her, like the net knew her shot by name.
Her footwork stayed clean even when her defender had forced her into something awkward. Her release came quickly and unhurried all at once. When a pass arrived just a half-step off target, she adjusted without losing rhythm for a fraction of a second—catching and rising like the ball had landed exactly where she'd already decided it would.
Paige kept catching herself watching.
Not the way teammates watched each other—not just scanning for the next read, not anticipating where to roll on the next pick. She wasn't doing the same mental math as everyone else on the floor.
She was just watching Azzi. Full stop.
And then—of course—she'd remember, with a small jolt, that the entire team was right there with her, and she'd jerk her attention anywhere else. The scoreboard. The rim. A coach's clipboard. Her own shoes, which had never once in her life been this interesting. Anywhere but Azzi.
By the time practice wound down, she'd lost an honest count of how many times she'd had to physically redirect her own eyes somewhere safer. So she was grateful when a handful of them peeled off toward the weight room afterwards, grateful for a stretch of time without her gaze drifting somewhere it shouldn’t.
The familiar mix of rubber flooring, cool metal, and disinfectant hit the second Paige swung the door open. Music played low through the overhead speakers, mostly buried under the clink of plates sliding onto bars.
Paige settled into her usual spot beside NaLyssa and began adjusting her cable machine on autopilot.
"You looked good out there," NaLyssa said, pausing to chug some of her water without looking up.
Paige kept her eyes down, but she beamed as she tested out the resistance she’d set her machine to. "I was locked in. You know how it is."
“You did, too, though. I saw that—”
Paige stopped mid-sentence when she realized NaLyssa had already tuned out, turned away from Paige as she messed with her weights and grunted in frustration.
So Paige’s attention stayed split—half on counting reps under her breath and watching her form in the mirror, and half on the section of the room she was very deliberately trying to block out of her frame of consciousness. A few feet behind her, as she’d seen and tried to avoid when she walked in, Maddy was stretching beside Azzi, the both of them folded forward over one extended leg.
"How've you been doing?" she heard Maddy ask under the noise.
Casual. The kind of question people asked a hundred times a day without expecting much beyond fine or tired in response.
But Paige still found herself listening anyway.
"Really well, actually,” Azzi replied.
There was something steady in how she said it. Not performed, or inflated for anyone else’s comfort. Just stated plainly.
"Yeah,” Azzi’s voice said again. “I'm really happy, actually. I keep waiting for it to feel complicated and it just… doesn't, right now at least."
"Okay, that’s, like… huge."
"I think I'm healing, you know. Not just telling people I am because it sounds better than the alternative."
Paige heard Azzi huff out a small laugh at herself. "I spent a long time doing the second one."
"I noticed,” Maddy replied, softer now. “I wasn't gonna say anything, but… yeah."
"Yeah, I figured, ‘cause you're not subtle. You stared at me for, like, four full seconds the first time I said I was fine and very clearly wasn't."
Maddy laughed, her voice louder than before. "My bad for being concerned.”
"Yeah,” Azzi said with a chuckle. “But I'm ready to move on. Get back to whatever my normal self even looks like at this point. Or the new version of it, I guess, since I don't think I get the old one back the same way it was."
"You seem lighter," Maddy said next. "Like, physically. The way you've been carrying yourself."
"I feel lighter." Azzi considered that for a second, like she was checking the statement against how her body actually felt before committing to it. "It's weird. You don’t really realize how much weight you’ve been used to carrying until some of it isn’t there anymore."
Paige looked down at the handles in her fists before anyone could catch her listening that closely.
Warmth spread slowly through her chest—different from the admiration that had been sitting in her all through practice, sharper and more immediate. This one was calmer. Steadier.
She reminded herself that Azzi's healing belonged to Azzi. That time had done the bulk of that work, and so had honesty, and distance, and the people who'd loved her through all of it long before Paige had shown up and started parking outside her building at eight in the morning.
And still. She felt something that, if she was being fully honest with herself, looked a lot like validation.
She'd helped. Maybe only a little. Maybe a fraction of a percentage of the actual work, most of it already well underway by the time she’d arrived in Azzi’s world.
But she'd listened. She'd made Azzi laugh hard enough to forget about her hurt for a few hours. Paige had given her somewhere soft to land when lightness hadn't been in abundant supply.
So it wasn't nothing. She was choosing, for once, to let herself believe that without talking herself back down from it.
"You resting or quitting?" NaLyssa asked, nudging Paige's shoe with her own.
Paige blinked back into the room and tugged at her handles again, adjusting her form.
"We just got here,” she laughed. “I’m good."
Across the room, Azzi caught her eye standing over by a rack of weights.
Her smile was small. But it came instantly, no delay at all, like it had been sitting there ready the whole time just waiting for Paige to look up.
Paige smiled back and dropped into her next set, feeling considerably lighter herself.
Paige spent the evening stretched out across her couch, trying to convince herself she was perfectly content with the quiet.
Her dinner sat balanced on a plate in her lap, mostly forgotten, with the TV playing low in front of her and her feet propped up against the edge of the coffee table. She’d tried to get back into some show she'd fallen behind on weeks ago and had completely forgotten the plot of, but it wasn’t going too well. Too many blank spaces for anything to make sense anymore.
She tipped her head back against the cushion and let her eyes close, just for a second. Immediately, without her permission, she was transported back to the night before.
Azzi sitting in that exact spot. Azzi's weight settled in her lap, arms looped around her shoulders, close enough that Paige could feel the rise and fall of her breathing between them. The laughter that had followed. The warmth that stayed pressed into the cushions even after Azzi moved off and sat beside her instead, like the couch hadn't yet gotten the memo that she'd left.
Paige opened her eyes. The space beside her looked unusually, specifically empty—not just unoccupied the way it typically was on a Tuesday night, but empty in a way she hadn't noticed before last night gave her something to compare it to.
The realization arrived without any extra fuss attached to it, simple and impossible to argue against. They'd seen each other that morning. They'd spent hours together at practice, sweat through the same drills, hit the weight room at the same time. And still, some quiet, insistent part of her kept wishing Azzi were curled into her side right now.
She set her plate down on the coffee table and picked up her phone instead, then opened Instagram almost without consciously deciding to. Her thumb found the search bar on muscle memory alone and typed Azzi's name.
The profile loaded instantly, and Paige sank deeper into the couch as she scrolled. Game-day photos, mid-celebration, jersey damp with sweat. Candid shots with teammates, someone's arm always slung around someone else's shoulders. Carefully posed pictures where Azzi looked dead into the camera with an unbothered confidence that made something deep in Paige's stomach turn warm and a little stupid.
Every photo had something new to notice if she looked long enough—the particular sharpness in her eyes when the light hit them just right, the asymmetry of her smile when it was real compared to when it was just for the camera, the way she somehow managed to look composed even mid-laugh with her head thrown back, completely unguarded.
Paige's thumb paused on a close-up.
Azzi's face filled the majority of the frame, her expression soft as sunlight caught gold along one cheekbone. Paige caught herself smiling at her own phone like an idiot.
"Beautiful," she murmured to the empty room.
Her thumb moved gently across the screen, tracing the line of Azzi's jaw without any real awareness of what she was doing. It was ridiculous. Embarrassing, maybe, if anyone had been around to witness her grown self petting her phone screen.
Her shoulders loosened against the cushions. The low tension she’d been carrying all evening drained out of them in one dragged-out exhale, and her eyes softened looking at the photo. Like her whole body had collectively decided to relax around the idea of Azzi, even secondhand though a thin sheet of glass.
She let herself imagine Azzi there beside her again—close enough to actually touch, weight settled against her side, a low laugh vibrating through them both at something stupid on the screen.
The show kept playing in the background, fully abandoned now as she kept scrolling. For a while it stayed easy: practice photos, blurry group shots from some team trip a few years back, a video of Azzi laughing so hard the camera shook with her. Paige smiled at it all, in no hurry to stop as she lingered longer over each post than she really needed to.
Then her thumb stopped again, for a different reason altogether.
She could tell how old the photo was before she even checked the timestamp—something about it felt like it belonged to an earlier version of both of them. Azzi looked younger in it, not so much in her face as in the openness in her expression. She looked unguarded in a way that read, in hindsight, like someone who hadn't yet known she'd eventually need to guard herself. She was smiling into Brianna's shoulder with eyes nearly shut, one hand resting against her arm like there was nowhere else it needed to be.
Paige took a slow breath.
It wasn't jealousy, exactly—she turned the feeling over a few times to make sure, and that wasn't quite the shape of it. What actually hurt was how happy Azzi looked in that picture. How safe. How completely unaware, in that one frozen second, of everything that would eventually follow.
Paige tried to look at it with some kind of detachment, tried to just see two people on vacation, but something sharper flared up low in her chest the second her eyes landed on Brianna's face. She couldn't separate that face from everything Azzi had told her in pieces over the last few weeks: the slow erosion, the disappointment that later calcified into something permanent, the way Azzi had quietly taught herself to expect less and less until less became the baseline.
Her jaw set without her telling it to. Out of some impulse she quickly regretted, she opened the comments.
Most of them were harmless—old compliments, strings of heart emojis, people gushing about how good the two of them had looked together, all locked in whatever year the photo belonged to.
Then the newer ones started to pop up, dated within the last few months.
wait are they even still together?
haven't seen them post each other in forever, honestly
Another sat a little further down, posted just three weeks ago.
this aged well. but i always thought she was kind of a player tbh
Paige’s thumb drifted toward the reply field before she could register what she was doing. She could already feel the words assembling, sharp, unnecessarily personal, the type of comment that would absolutely come from an account with her name on it and would absolutely make the entire situation a thousand times more complicated than it already was.
Her finger hovered there, ready for action.
She backed out of the comments and sat there for a second, her phone resting flat against her palm like she needed a moment to physically separate herself from it.
The irritation took longer to fade than she would've liked it to. She hated, genuinely hated, how easily strangers turned someone's actual life—their real grief, real disappointment, real healing—into something they got to have opinions about. Hated even more, the more she thought about it, that Azzi had probably seen at least some version of this herself.
She went back to the profile and kept scrolling, more deliberately now, until she landed on another photo. Azzi was alone this time, smiling up at a wide stretch of blue sky, with nobody else in frame.
That was better. No speculation underneath, no history standing just outside the frame waiting to complicate things. Just Azzi.
The tension in Paige's face eased back out as she sank back into the couch and let herself just look for a while.
And then her phone buzzed in her hand.
FaceTime Video: Azzi Fudd
Her whole body reacted before she could stop it. She sat up straighter on instinct, then ran a quick hand over her hair, then checked her own reflection in the tiny preview window with the kind of scrutiny she'd never willingly admit to. But the angle was awful. She adjusted the phone and rolled her shoulders back, trying to arrange her face into something that didn't look like she'd just spent several seconds frantically preparing to answer a phone call.
She let go of the breath she’d been holding and picked up.
Azzi appeared on screen in an oversized t-shirt, hair gathered into a loose, slightly lopsided bun near the top of her head. She looked comfortable and a little tired, her bare face lit warm and soft by whatever lamp she had on in her bedroom.
"Hi." Azzi tilted her head. "What are you up to?"
"Having a… very glamorous little TV dinner." Paige glanced toward the plate she'd abandoned on the coffee table. "What's up? You okay?"
Azzi shrugged, and the picture shifted as she climbed into bed and lowered herself onto her side. For a few seconds, Paige got a screen full of blanket and a slice of shoulder before Azzi repositioned the phone in front of her face again, propped up against something.
Heat rushed up Paige's neck and into her cheeks embarrassingly quickly. She shook her head and looked away, reaching for her glass of water like she urgently needed something to do with her hands.
Azzi chuckled softly. "What?"
Paige glanced back at the screen to find Azzi watching her with a pleased, knowing little smile, clearly not going anywhere until she got an answer.
"It's just…" Paige’s voice trailed off as she exhaled through her nose. "So surreal to hear you say that. Out loud, like it's normal or something."
"I missed you, too," Paige added then, quieter.
The words pulled Azzi's smile wider, and Paige had to look at the TV again for a second before she got any more flustered than she already was.
"How was your day?" she asked, mostly to redirect.
"You spent, like, seventy-five percent of it with me."
"No shit,” Paige laughed. “I meant the other twenty-five."
Azzi giggled, dropping her face into the pillow for a second before surfacing again. "It was good. Practice went well, I guess."
"I'm trying not to overthink it,” she said slowly as her fingers toyed with the edge of her pillowcase. "It's weird. It feels like nothing ever even happened, like I just slipped back into myself without having to force it or anything."
Paige shook her head slowly, something warm settling in behind her ribs.
"You're something else, you know that?"
Azzi narrowed her eyes. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"You just make it all look so easy."
Paige let her elbow drop to the arm of the couch, pressing her cheek against her palm. "I love watching you play. It doesn’t get old."
Azzi went quiet. Her eyes dropped, a shy smile tugging at one corner of her mouth.
"There she is," Paige murmured. "Shy again. The cycle repeats.”
Azzi glanced back up, still smiling despite herself. “Guess I did."
She shook her head after a beat, her expression turning thoughtful as her gaze shifted toward something past the edge of the frame. One hand lifted a moment later to smooth a few loose strands back toward her bun, an absent, unconscious gesture.
There was something disarming about seeing her without the sharpness and focus she carried onto the court, or the careful composure she wore for everyone else. This version was for no one but Paige.
She took in the whole picture: warm light pooling across the comforter, the pillow pressed under Azzi's cheek, the worn neckline of the oversized t-shirt… and the fabric pulled just taut enough under her arms for the outlines of her nipples to show through.
Paige's breath caught, faint and involuntary, and she curled one hand around her own thumb and squeezed like that might’ve somehow kept her face from doing something it wasn't supposed to.
Azzi's eyes drifted back to the screen. She studied Paige for a second, her mouth curving with quiet suspicion.
"You haven't blinked in, like, thirty seconds. I counted."
Paige shook her head and looked down a half-second too fast. "Nah, I was just, um… looking at something on my phone," she mumbled.
Which made no sense given her phone was currently between them as the entire mechanism of the call, and she knew it the second it left her mouth.
Azzi's eyebrows lifted. "Mmm."
Paige could hear every bit of disbelief packed into that single syllable.
A quiet beat passed. The TV murmured faintly behind Paige while Azzi's ceiling fan hummed through her phone's speaker, two small, domestic sounds running in parallel from their two apartments.
Paige risked another glance. Azzi was still watching her, amusement still warm in her brown eyes, clearly not letting this go anytime soon.
"What?" Paige asked, a little defensive.
Azzi tucked one hand beneath her cheek, mirroring Paige's earlier posture without seeming to notice. "Nothing, it's just… so surreal hearing you pretend you weren't looking at me. Considering the whole monologue you just gave about how you love watching me."
Paige's face went warm all over again, but Azzi didn't laugh this time. She just smiled—soft, certain, a little knowing—and let the silence stretch between them instead of rushing to fill it.
But her expression shifted a moment after she’d dropped it. She opened her mouth like she was about to say something, then stopped herself.
Paige caught it immediately. "What were you gonna say?"
Azzi shook her head, her gaze drifting somewhere off-camera. "No, it's stupid. This apartment just feels… huge, when it's only me here."
Paige's eyes softened. "You'll get used to it, eventually."
"Yeah," Azzi murmured, though she didn't sound fully convinced of it yet.
It went silent again. Paige could still hear the fan, steady under the soundtrack of the show she’d been watching.
"So… why the apartment?" she asked, mostly to give the silence someplace to go. "You two never wanted a house?"
Azzi shrugged, pressing deeper into her pillow. "Not really. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, you know?"
Paige nodded slowly. "Mmm… yeah, but elaborate."
Azzi thought about it for a second. "We could've afforded one pretty easily, it just never felt necessary. We had plenty of space here, and it meant we could travel a lot, give back, help our people out, still get ourselves nice things without being tied to a mortgage forever."
She paused. "I don't know. I liked the freedom of being content with just enough, if that makes sense."
"Kind of." Paige shifted on the couch, propping her head a little higher. "Continue, though."
"There's not much more to it,” Azzi replied with a shrug. “Apartments just always felt like less shit to manage. Less to lose, I guess, in hindsight."
"That's kind of beautiful, actually," Paige said. "Having so much and choosing to keep it modest. Takes a lot of discipline."
Azzi gave a small smile. "Yeah. I've just always been sort of a less-is-more type of person, I think."
Paige adjusted her camera, realizing she’d been holding the phone up in front of her face at an angle that was probably a bit unflattering.
When she looked back down to the screen, Azzi's expression had gone distant again.
"On one hand," Azzi continued, gesturing vaguely at something out of the frame, "I don't know what to do with all of this by myself. The whole apartment just feels like it's sized for two people."
She paused, her fingers freezing against the pillowcase.
"But then part of me feels like even giving her the car was… way too generous."
"It was," Paige said without hesitating.
Azzi laughed, short but honest. "You have opinions about my property division now?"
"I have opinions about her getting to walk away with something nice after she put you through hell."
Azzi's smile faded at the edges, something heavier moving behind it.
"I'm angry at her." Azzi's eyes dropped to the pillow under her hand, her voice losing some of its lightness. "Like, seriously so angry, sometimes. And then five minutes later I'll remember some trip we took, or the way she used to make me laugh. It’s just annoying to have both of those things sitting in my chest at the same time with neither one canceling the other one out."
Her fingers tightened slowly around the edge of the pillowcase.
"And then I feel guilty for being angry at all. Not… often, but sometimes."
"You don't have to feel guilty for that,” Paige reassured her.
"I know." Azzi swallowed, eyes still down. "It’s just like… the divorce doesn't erase the parts that were actually good. And the good parts don't erase how lonely I felt by the end of it, even when I was still lying right next to her some nights. I think I just want it to be simpler than it is."
Paige stayed quiet, letting the words sit rather than rushing to patch over them.
Azzi took a slow breath, like she was deciding whether to keep going, and then did. "Sometimes I miss how we used to be. Not right at the end—God, definitely not that version, but… I miss believing it was permanent. I miss being someone who got to assume that without it being naive."
"That makes sense,” Paige replied quietly.
Azzi said it fast, almost preemptively, like she needed Paige to hear that part clearly so nothing she followed or preceded it with could get misread. "That's the one thing I'm actually sure about, out of all of it."
Something in Paige's shoulders loosened, though she tried hard not to let it show on her face.
"But I still mourn it, I guess," Azzi continued. "All the plans we'd made. The version of myself who thought everything in her life was already set in stone, like the hard part was already behind her. I thought I knew exactly what the rest of my life looked like."
"And now I don’t." Azzi gave a dry, humorless laugh. "Which is… honestly, it's terrifying, if I let myself sit with it. Still feels like someone pulled the rug out from under me."
Paige adjusted the phone and brought it a little closer, like proximity through a screen could do anything at all. It felt like it mattered anyway.
"It can be terrifying," she said slowly, "and still end up being better. They’re not mutually exclusive."
Azzi looked at her for a long moment, eyes narrowing thoughtfully.
"You don't need to feel bad," Paige went on, careful now, like she was handling something fragile. "And you don't have to pretend that the whole marriage meant nothing just to prove to anyone—including yourself—that you're moving on. It mattered. It hurt. And then it ended. You don’t need to… explain yourself, or apologize for anything you choose to do with that."
Azzi's eyes went softer, something vulnerable easing into her expression.
"See, what would I even do without Dr. Bueckers, PsyD?"
Paige huffed out a laugh. "Good thing we'll never have to find out."
It landed gently, with no real edge behind it. Azzi watched her for a long beat with something raw and unguarded still sitting in her face.
"You really mean that, don't you," she said.
Not quite a question. More like restating a fact.
Paige's smile faded into something quieter, a little steadier. "I mean it."
"All of it,” Azzi pressed. “Not just with the cute, easy shit in mind."
Paige held her gaze through the screen, no joke behind this one, either. "I knew it would be… messy. I signed up anyway."
Azzi's breath caught faintly on the other end of the line—Paige could hear it, small but real, even through the speaker.
"That's a lot to say to someone at…" Azzi’s eyes flicked upward just an inch or two. "Ten thirty at night, over FaceTime, while I'm wearing what just might be my ugliest shirt."
"I stand by all of it. Ugly shirt included."
A real laugh escaped Azzi that time, and some of the heaviness in her face eased out with it like the teasing had given her somewhere to set the weight down for a second. To breathe.
"Okay," she said quietly, once it faded. "Okay, then."
She tucked her hand beneath her cheek again, eyes fixed on the screen.
Too cute, Paige thought as she looked at her—heavy eyes, one cheek smushed against her pillow, lips plump and soft and perfectly kissable. Without thinking twice, she tapped the camera button at the bottom of the screen.
“Paige,” Azzi said immediately, eyes widening.
“Oops,” Paige lied as a smirk stretched across her face.
“Delete it. I look crazy.”
Paige pursed her lips for a moment, narrowing her eyes to look like she was thinking hard. “Mmm… no can do. Sorry.”
While Azzi rolled her eyes on the other end, Paige tapped the thumbnail of the screenshot she’d taken and expanded it. A strange possessiveness washed over her at the realization that she’d secured a photo of Azzi that was all her own, of a smile that she’d created and that no one else would ever get the pleasure of seeing.
“Too cute,” she said aloud—more to herself, out of contentment and satisfaction, than to Azzi. “Way too fucking cute.”
Azzi moved through her morning routine mostly on instinct, her body running before her mind had fully caught up to being awake.
The bathroom light felt too bright when she flicked it on, and she squinted hard at her reflection before reaching for the faucet and running cool water over her hands. She splashed her face once, then again, and stood there for a moment with her palms braced against the edge of the sink as she blinked into focus.
Somewhere down the hall she could hear the building's pipes ticking as the heat kicked on, a sound she'd stopped noticing months, maybe years ago and had only started hearing again recently now that the apartment held fewer noises to bury it under.
She reached for her toothbrush lazily and began to brush her teeth, the sharp bite of the mint against her tongue a bit too harsh for her liking. A familiar cluster of nerves had already started to gather low in her stomach under the fog of sleep, right on schedule.
Usually, that tension arrived like a warning—a tightening across her body that instructed her to brace, to expect the worst version of herself to show up uninvited and to power through regardless. Today it felt different: sharper in some specific places, but lighter, overall, in a way she was still getting used to. It felt more like anticipation buzzing under her skin than dread sitting heavy and stagnant in her chest.
A yawn caught her halfway through reaching for her cleanser, wide and unglamorous. She began working the soap into slow circles along her cheeks, her forehead, the bridge of her nose, the motion almost meditative at this hour of the day. She rinsed her face and looked up at herself again, staring hard for a moment as water dripped off her jaw.
She dried her face and slicked her hair back into a bun before she headed to the closet to finish packing her bag, checking twice for everything the way she always did. Shoes. Headphones. One nice outfit and tons of loungewear. Two chargers—triple-checked, because she'd forgotten to pack one exactly once her rookie season.
Azzi heard the front door open while she was still in the bedroom, keys jangling against as they were pulled free from the lock.
Her whole body tensed reflexively, every muscle locking into place before her brain had even finished processing the sound.
For a second, she actually considered staying exactly where she was until Brianna retreated to the guest room—camping out in her own bedroom, as if she was the one who didn't belong there. But then she checked the time on her phone and felt a new wave of frustration layer right on top of the first one: DiJonai would be there to pick her up in under ten minutes, and there was no version of this morning where she avoided a run-in.
So Azzi took a slow breath, lifted the straps of her duffel bag onto her shoulder, and forced herself to step out into the hallway.
Brianna was in the kitchen unpacking empty plastic containers from her lunch. The refrigerator door hung ajar behind her, pale light illuminating the island countertop.
"Hey," Brianna said, turning quickly to look at Azzi while she tossed a melted ice pack into the freezer.
It landed flat between them, neither warm nor cold. Just small, and careful.
Azzi stepped over to the refrigerator, mostly to have something else to give her attention to. Awkwardness filled every corner of what was once one of the warmest rooms in the apartment—where Brianna would cook dinner with Azzi as her sous chef, leaned against opposite counters while they traded stories about their days. But now every movement between them felt measured, like they were both silently negotiating how much space they owed the other.
"You got a game tonight?" Brianna asked as she switched the faucet on and began to wash her containers.
Azzi nodded at the refrigerator shelves. "Yeah. Golden State."
She grabbed a cup of yogurt, found a spoon in the drawer beside her, and peeled the lid back before taking a bite she barely registered the taste of.
"How've you been?" Brianna asked over the noise of the water. "Like… what’s new?"
The question sounded harmless enough on the surface, but there was too much Brianna didn't know anymore and too much Azzi had no intention of handing over voluntarily—not in that kitchen, and definitely not at seven in the morning with the clock already running.
Azzi swallowed hard. "Not much, I guess."
She moved to the pantry and pulled out a bag of granola, shaking a few clusters into her yogurt before resealing the bag and tossing it back onto the shelf. She stirred slowly, watching the pieces disappear under the surface like it required her undivided attention.
"Just working on… getting back into a rhythm again," she added, just to have something true to offer, too. “The team’s been the greatest support system, though. I'm super lucky. "
Brianna's shoulders shifted at that, although Azzi couldn't really tell if it was from her reaction or just from scrubbing the dishes.
"That's good to hear," Brianna replied without turning around. "I'm really glad."
Azzi stood there gripping her yogurt cup a little too tightly, hyperaware of every inch of distance between them in a kitchen that wasn't even that big. IT felt deliberately built, layer by layer, one dodged conversation at a time, until even small talk required visible effort from them both.
Brianna cleared her throat with a quick cough. "I keep seeing clips of you and Paige from the other night.”
Azzi's spoon froze halfway to her mouth.
The comment came out casually, but her body reacted before her mind had time to decode whether anything sat underneath it. Her shoulders went tight, her lungs still.
At the sink, Brianna turned her head just enough to look over at Azzi.
"You two had a great game," she added, like that was the whole point of bringing it up in the first place.
Azzi searched her face for something underneath the compliment—an edge, a flicker of something sharper. Brianna's expression stayed calm, and maybe a little too carefully so, like she'd rehearsed how to hold it steady before she came in the door.
"Yeah, she’s…" The pause stretched out longer than she'd meant for it to, loud in the quiet kitchen. "She’s amazing. We’ve been getting to know each other a little better lately, I guess.”
Brianna said nothing for a moment as the water kept running. Azzi could hear the brush of the sponge against plastic, the steady spray of the faucet, the whir of the refrigerator in front of her. Every ordinary sound in the room seemed sharpened by how much weight the silence inside of it carried.
Brianna set her dishes on the drying mat and shut the faucet off, patting her hands on the sides of her scrub pants before turning to face Azzi fully. She braced against the edge of the sink with both hands, her weight resting on her palms.
"I saw you kiss her the other day."
Azzi nearly choked on the bite she’d just taken.
She coughed once into the back of her hand and focused hard on swallowing properly, heat shooting straight up to her face.
"Um…" she said as she stared across the kitchen into Brianna’s eyes. "Sorry?"
Brianna let out a small laugh, shifting her weight onto her lower back as she slipped her hands into her pockets. "I was stopped at the light when she came to pick you up. I'd just gotten back from work."
Azzi's stomach sank, then twisted hard.
The morning was still vivid in her memory: the music spilling out of Paige's car, the quick hug across the center console, Paige pretending, albeit horribly, that she hadn't just spent the whole night waiting for the next kiss she’d get. Azzi leaning in and giving her exactly that before either of them could overthink it.
It had felt private, in the moment. Just theirs.
But in reality, it never was. It had been witnessed by the last person Azzi wanted to have any insight into her personal life.
"It's not—" Azzi started.
She stopped herself and took a breath before continuing, setting her yogurt down carefully on the countertop.
Why was she panicking, exactly? She hadn't done anything wrong—the stacks of paperwork documenting the end of the end were already filed away, and Brianna was leaving in a matter of days. And still, the instinct to soften this, to reassure, to manage Brianna's feelings before her own was hard to override even.
"We're taking it really, really slow," Azzi said, her voice shakier than she would’ve liked. "Nothing's being rushed. It's… not what it probably looked like."
"You don't need to explain yourself to me," Brianna replied.
She paused for a long moment, her lips parted long before words could slip out.
“But you looked really happy.”
Something shifted in Azzi's chest at that—not relief exactly, but something more complicated.
She glanced down, her thumb tracing the rim of the yogurt cup.
"I am," she admitted, her words quieter than she’d anticipated.
She lifted her eyes to Brianna’s again. "Like I said, we're taking it slow. There's still a lot I'm figuring out."
Brianna nodded faintly, taking that in.
"But, um…" Azzi's mouth softened, some part of her unable to keep it contained any longer. "She's incredible, Bri."
Brianna gave a tiny, uneven smile, something almost fond hidden in the center of it. "Sounds kinda serious."
"It isn't." Azzi hesitated, turning her spoon over in her hand. "Not yet, at least."
"But it could be,” Brianna pushed.
Azzi didn't answer right away. She could’ve denied it—a few weeks earlier, she probably would have.
But this time, she nodded.
"Yeah," she agreed. "I think it could be."
Brianna looked out at the window past Azzi, her jaw tightening slightly, and Azzi stared a bit harder until she caught sight of the shine gathering in her eyes.
Brianna blinked quickly, pressing her lips together like she was irritated with her own reaction. She reached for the dish towel behind her even though her hands were already dry, searching for something reasonable to do with her hands.
Her voice broke slightly on the last word, the fracture small yet undeniable. Azzi felt her own eyes start to burn in response.
"No, I mean it." Brianna inhaled sharply and offered a fragile, unconvincing laugh. "Seriously. You deserve to be so, so happy."
She looked at Azzi fully now, her eyes glassier but still firm.
"I know I didn't make you feel that way. Not toward the end, and… honestly, not for a while before the end."
Azzi swallowed hard, the lump in her throat dense and sudden.
"I'm really happy for you," Brianna said again. "And I want you to know that that's real. I’m not just saying it ‘cause it feels like the right thing to say, or something."
Azzi tried to smile. It trembled visibly at the edges, but it was all that she could muster.
She wanted to leave it there. To take Brianna’s kindness at face value and not open the door to everything still waiting on the other side.
But the curiosity kept pressing up against her throat, nagging, insistent.
Her phone buzzed against the counter—probably DiJonai sitting outside, a reminder that the clock had kept ticking the entire time whether the conversation was finished or not—but one last question stayed lodged behind her teeth, refusing to let her leave without its release.
She could’ve walked away without asking it. Some part of her badly wanted to.
But instead, she tightened her grip on the bag hooked onto her shoulder and looked back across the kitchen.
"And…" Her voice came out too thin, so she cleared her throat and tried again. "Tess?"
Brianna went still, completely frozen in a way that answered the question before she could say a single word.
Azzi watched the recognition move across her face followed almost immediately by an unmistakable wince.
She couldn't quite bring herself to land on together.
The word felt too neat, too settled, for something that had begun in the middle of so much disorder. Something that had shattered the foundation beneath their marriage in the first place.
Brianna looked down at the dish towel in her hand and smoothed it flat against the edge of the counter, buying herself a few more seconds before she finally nodded.
Azzi let it sit for a moment.
She'd suspected as much. Maybe, if she was being honest, she'd already known—in that instinctual way you just know things you haven't let yourself confirm yet. But hearing Brianna actually say it out loud gave the thought more edge than it ever had when it was merely a suspicion, gave structure and solidity to something that was once abstract and so avoidable.
She dragged the spoon through what was left of her yogurt, though she'd lost any real appetite for it minutes ago.
"Are you happy?" she asked.
The question surprised them both. Azzi heard it leave her own mouth a beat after she'd actually spoken it aloud, like curiosity had outpaced her better judgment.
Brianna's eyes lifted, startled.
Azzi wished, for a brief, useless moment, that she could take it back. It sounded too intimate, entirely too much like something from an earlier version of the two of them
But Brianna considered it seriously rather than deflecting.
"Yeah," she said after a long pause. "I am."
Azzi's chest tightened, squeezing hard beneath her ribs. Brianna inhaled, then continued, like the admission had cracked something wide open.
"Honestly, it's hard to actually feel secure in it sometimes, though. If I'm being real with you."
She folded her arms, then unfolded them, restless. "I have this thing in the back of my head, like, all the time, where I'm just convinced I deserve to lose her the same way I got her."
Azzi thought of a dozen different responses available to her in that moment. The cruelest one arrived first, most naturally, sitting right there ready to use:
She could’ve said it. Some small, unforgiving part of her wanted to—not because she believed saying it out loud would actually fix anything or make her feel better in any lasting way, but because Brianna's fear felt, in that instant, like an appropriate consequence finally landing. Proof that she understood, even a little, the same instability she'd helped create.
Azzi said nothing. She only nodded once, even and slow.
Brianna looked toward the window again. "I know that's not really your problem to carry."
Brianna flinched at the bluntness of it—just slightly, but she accepted it without arguing. Almost as if she'd been bracing for a sharper blow.
Her expression eased despite the tension still sitting visibly in her jaw.
"But she makes me really, really happy," she said. "I wanted you to hear that part too. Not just the… scared part."
Tears gathered in Azzi's eyes faster than she could stop them from forming.
She forced them back before they could actually fall, pressing her tongue against the back of her teeth and willing her face to stay composed for just a minute or two more.
It hurt. Badly. There was no reasoning around that part, no clever reframe that made it untrue.
It hurt that Brianna had found joy within the exact situation that had caused Azzi so much pain. It hurt to hear real tenderness in her voice when she talked about someone else. It hurt because there had been a time, not too long ago, when Brianna had spoken about her that way. With that same uncomplicated certainty, like loving Azzi was the easiest thing in the world for her to do.
But Azzi also recognized, somewhere underneath the hurt, that she'd also just described Paige with that same softness.
And maybe that was the only thing that made the rest of the conversation bearable at all.
They were both moving forward now. Neither of them had managed to do it cleanly. Neither of them probably ever would, not completely. But any progress, however staggered, was real.
Happiness didn't erase the hurt. But it did mean the hurt didn't get to be the only thing left standing. Azzi reminded herself of that until the pressure behind her eyes started to ease.
Her voice wavered on the single word, so she cleared her throat and tried again.
"Good. I'm happy for you, Bri. I mean that."
Brianna searched her face for a long moment.
Azzi wasn't entirely sure how convincing she actually looked—she wasn't even fully sure her words were completely true yet, not all the way down to their core. But they held a truth she wanted to grow into, eventually, and saying them out loud felt like a reasonable place to start.
"Thank you," Brianna said softly.
Azzi nodded, two quick, solemn bobs of her head.
Her phone buzzed again on the counter, and this time she checked the screen.
The message pulled a shaky breath of laughter out of her, unexpected but welcomed.
"Nai’s waiting. I have to go."
"Yeah." Brianna replied as she pressed her lips into a tight smile. "Sorry. I didn't mean to hold you up."
Azzi glanced back at her yogurt and ate the rest of it quickly, more out of habit than hunger, before dropping the empty cup into the trash and the spoon into the sink.
She wiped her hands over her shorts and adjusted the bag on her shoulder.
"Good luck tonight," Brianna said.
Azzi started to step toward the door, then slowed.
Leaving without touching her at all felt… cold, after everything that had just passed between them. A full hug felt impossible, so she settled on something in between and stepped closer with one arm open.
Brianna understood immediately, moving into an awkward side hug that barely lasted two seconds before they both let go. Their shoulders touched. Brianna's hand rested lightly against her back for the short stretch of time. There was no familiarity to it, no old instinct inclining either of them to linger there longer than necessary.
That absence hurt too, in its own way, but it also clarified something that Azzi hadn't let herself admit until then: that they’d once known exactly how to hold each other, easily, without even thinking about it, and now they didn’t anymore. And that, more than anything else said that morning, felt like the real ending.
Azzi pulled away first. "I'll see you later.”
She left the apartment and closed the door gently behind her. Her face finally crumpled once she reached the empty hallway now that there was no one left to watch her hold it together.
Everything from the conversation arrived at once. There was anger. Grief for the marriage that had once made her happy enough to believe, without question, that it would survive anything thrown its way. A reluctant, complicated relief that Brianna had admitted to the fear trailing her into this new relationship—that she wasn't simply walking away unscathed, untouched by any of it.
It wasn’t clean. Not the type that arrived soft and sweet and perfectly gift-wrapped. Not forgiveness—not yet, at least—and definitely not forgetting.
Just an understanding, finally falling into place, that neither of them was waiting around for their old life to return.
Azzi walked toward the elevator slowly, each step putting a little more distance between herself and the kitchen—between herself and Brianna's fragile smile, between herself and the sound of Brianna’s voice saying that someone else made her happy now.
Her phone buzzed again right as she arrived at the elevator.
nai: i’m deadass about leave you
Azzi laughed quietly to herself, wiping beneath one eye with her thumb before any actual damage could show.
She straightened her shoulders when the ding of the elevator arriving sounded above her head, then stepped inside right as the doors opened.
The sadness came with her. So did the anger, the relief, the unfinished beginning of something that felt like acceptance.
And none of it felt strong enough to stop her.
