#iwkpa

AN: um hi hello! this is my first ever published fic so please be kind 🙏🏻i'll try and shorten the manifesto authors note i have in ao3, but basically this is just meant to be a silly little story! i don't think this is canon in any way i just really like angsty gays being stupid, so. this would theoretically be during azzi’s rookie season (so summer 2026) and operates under a reality in which p+a are very much not together and were never messing around, so make some mental edits to the pazzi timeline if you so please. i hope you enjoy this little labor of love ❤︎

it starts, as many things do, with dinner and one too many glasses of wine for azzi. she and a few teammates had decided to have a girls' night- a real girls' night, as aaliyah had called it, meaning dinner at a nice, secluded cocktail bar downtown during their few days off. they were grown ups now, or at least pretending to be, and what better way to celebrate getting through half of the season than by getting wine drunk and munching on slightly overpriced hors d'oeuvres. 

they’re mostly through their food at this point, which is to say, pleasantly tipsy, maybe even teetering on the edge of drunk, and azzi leans back into the booth with a contented sigh, lazily sipping on the remaining wine in her glass. 

kiki and georgia are discussing kiki’s new boyfriend, and azzi is only half paying attention, finding the buzz in her system making it difficult to really enjoy hearing the phrase “ i’m just so in love with him ” for the third time in the last five minutes. 

georgia is amused though, and azzi lets her handle it, up until georgia turns to her and asks, “what about you, fudd? got anything going on over there? any new suitors?” 

azzi rolls her eyes, sighing. “no ma’am. answer hasn’t changed since the last time you asked it.”

it should bother her, really, how little action she gets, how uninterested in casual dating she’s been. but she’s content, for the most part, with her friends and her family and the occasional one night stand. sometimes it feels like her friends are more invested in her dating life than she is.

“come onnnn, when’s the last time you dated someone,” kiki pipes up, and azzi thinks here we go again.  

“bro i don’t know. the whole dating and boys thing isn’t for me, okay,” she whines, and even though that’s the truth, dating has never been something azzi cared about, the words feel a little sour on her tongue. 

she glances at aaliyah, who’s looking at her curiously. 

“what?” she asks, at her imploring gaze. the wine is making her bolder, more inclined to be blunt about her disinterest in boys, and she thought aaliyah kind of understood that about her, anyways.

aaliyah opens her mouth, as if to say something, and then closes it, and azzi feels herself flush a little bit, though she doesn’t really know why. aaliyah is looking at her like she can’t quite figure something out, and it unnerves her. 

azzi squirms, and repeats “no really, what? now you have to tell me.” its followed by a chorus of agreement from the other two girls, and aaliyah sighs. 

“how many times have you been in love? we got kiki over here yappin’ about her second guy of the year and yet i’ve never heard you interested in a guy for more than a week.” she says it like she’s trying to clue azzi in on something, yet all she can focus on is the first part of the question. and she’s embarrassed . 

she flushes, and tries to ignore the anxiety that her biggest insecurity raises to the surface, steeling herself for her answer. her limited dating experience has never been embarrassing, because she’d always been a busy athlete and could brush it off as something she never had time for. but being 23 and never having been in love was secretly something that kept her up at night. 

the wine makes her bold, though, so she lifts her head and mumbles out a quick “i’ve never- i’ve never been in love.” 

the table is silent for a brief second, her words sinking in, but instead of shock or judgement gazing back at her, azzi is met with confusion and almost amusement . 

kiki is the first one to speak up. “well we know that's not true.” her tone is playful, as if azzi is kidding.

azzi stares at her blankly. “what d’you mean?” she laughs a little at their disbelieving looks, and then adds, “don’t rub it in. it's not exactly something i’m proud of.”

still, she’s met with unnerving eyes. finally, aaliyah blurts out “i mean. we know you and paige…” she trails off without finishing, but the damage is done.

“what the fuck are you guys on about?” she immediately says in response, half laughing, trying to lessen the tension. she ignores the way the unexpected mention of paige cuts at her heart. they haven’t spoken in, god, probably two or three months at this point, and the reminder twists something ugly in her chest as she waits for what promises to be a weird joke that falls flat. 

all three faces peering back at her seem entirely humorless though, and azzi starts to get the idea that she’s missing some sort of crucial piece of information. “i wasn’t in love with paige,” she gets out, ignoring the way her voice catches on the name.

aaliyah’s face softens. “we don’t have to talk about it of you don’t want to but… you don’t have to hide that from us, azzi.” 

she splutters in response. “you guys don’t actually think that-” but the look on their faces belays that, in fact, all three of them somehow think that azzi was in love with paige.

 “guys. come on. that was just some weird internet theory. paige and i were just best friends.” she’s defensive now, because what the fuck is going on. 

her pulse is buzzing under her skin, no longer from just the wine, and she suddenly feels like the restaurant around them is really quiet, and everyone is listening in on this conversation. the ac must not be working properly either, because she’s sweating, legs sticking to the leather of the seat below her. 

georgia, graciously, breaks the silence, but the relief is short lived when azzi hears the nonsense that comes out of her mouth. 

“azzi, come on, i wasn’t even with you guys at uconn and i know you were more than friends. you don’t gotta pretend in front of us.”

and then kiki is chiming in with “i mean everybody kinda knew it…” and azzi feels like god is playing some kind of twisted prank on her. 

she turns back to aaliyah, hoping she can defend azzi, except her face looks a little horrified. like she’s realizing that in fact azzi wasn’t aware that everyone thought they were more than friends. she looks for support anyways, knowing that aaliyah had seen them at uconn, had understood that they were just intensely codependent and not dating, for the love of god. 

“c’mon, tell them we were just friends,” she pleads to the older girl, expecting back up on at least this. 

“azzi…” she trails off, and azzi can only gape at all of them. “i mean, you guys were attached at the hip. you had sleepovers like 4 times a week…” she trails off, and azzi realizes three things in quick succession. 

one, aaliyah thought her and paige had been actually, truly dating, or hooking up, or something. two, this means that probably multiple other people on the team also thought they were something. and three, if kiki and georgia also thought that… somehow azzi had missed the memo that not only did random fans on the internet think they’d been in love, but that everyone had. she feels like she’s going to throw up. 

“you guys are wrong. we were just best friends,” she says, with as much conviction as she can muster, and it is the truth, even though her audience is making it feel like a lie. they had been just best friends, truly, except . 

except the one night azzi can’t remember , after the championship, when she’d woken up in paige’s hotel room with a blinding hangover and spotty memory. that in itself hadn’t been weird, but the mark on her collarbone had been new, and the way paige wouldn’t meet her eyes had been different, and, and. azzi shuts down the thoughts of that horrible morning and ensuing weeks.

she blinks back into the restaurant to look at her teammates, and she sees the dawning realization on their faces that she’s telling the truth, or most of it anyway, and they all look, well, a little shell-shocked.  

she asks for clarification, even though she knows the answer already, “i mean did everyone- did everyone think we were-” she can’t even finish the sentence, and doesn’t need to. She gets three nods immediately, and the playful mood that had existed at their table only minutes before has evaporated into the low lights above them. 

and they’re all wrong, they all have to be wrong, because azzi isn’t even really into girls, and hadn’t been in love with paige, because she would have known. surely she would have known, or at least someone would have mentioned it to her. this feels like a bad dream that she can’t wake up from, because now she can’t stop thinking about paige, and how much she misses her laugh, and the curl of their fingers together, and how they haven’t gone this long without speaking since, well, ever. 

she forcefully shuts down thoughts of the blonde, because she’d been so good at blocking out how much she missed her, and this conversation is just messing with her wine-addled mind. she had not been in love with paige. she just hadn’t been, couldn’t have been. 

“you guys are wrong,” she says, extremely convincingly. because it's true, obviously. and the looks she receives in response are disbelieving, but they seem to understand that this isn’t something azzi wants to get into right now. 

“okay. if you say so,” kiki replies gently, words laced with pity, and azzi hates everything.

she nods, trying to ignore the fact that she kind of feels like crying, and manages to get out an “i do” without her voice cracking. 

aaliyah gives her a long, searching look, before deciding to drop it. mercifully, she begins asking georgia about the date she went on a couple nights before, and the attention shifts. 

for the short rest of the dinner though, azzi is lost in a subtle, wine-induced panic. the girls leave her alone to her thoughts for the most part, seemingly understanding that she doesn’t have much to add, and she sighs in relief when the bill gets paid and the ubers begin to be called. 

outside, the muggy dc air hits her face and does nothing to cool the heat that's been simmering in her veins. as they disperse in front of the restaurant to go their separate ways, aaliyah hesitates for a second before climbing in the car that's awaiting her. “if you ever want to talk about it… you know i’m here right?”

azzi doesn’t have to ask what she means. she nods, and pastes on the most convincing smile she can muster. “i’m fine, really, lili. there's nothing to talk about.”

at her disbelieving look, azzi rolls her eyes. “really. i mean it.” she pauses, and then allows a meek “but i’ll let you know if i change my mind.” 

aaliyah hums, and reaches out to squeeze her hand, before finally climbing into her car. “if you say so, fudd. g’night. love you. i'll see you at practice.”

“'night. love you too,” she responds, and shuts the door gently, before looking up and searching for her own uber. 

the drive home is spent staring out the window trying not to cry. and it doesn’t make sense, she wasn’t in love with paige, but for some reason, out of all the times she’d ever been accused of dating paige, this one has rattled her the most. 

she’d always thought that the rumors had been kind of funny, in a ridiculous, distant way, and though they’d stopped joking about them as they’d gotten more intense in the later parts of their friendship, azzi had always thought that paige kind of thought they were amusing too. 

except, now that she really thinks about it, she’d stopped joking about the speculation because it used to make paige fidgety. and azzi had always thought it had just been because the rumors were so rampant, that it was awkward because they were so wrong, but now this stupid dinner and the stupid wine is making her not so sure. 

but no. she knows she wasn’t in love with paige. because. because she would have known. 

her mind feels like it's going at a million miles a minute, flashes of paige’s smile and the way her head would always come to rest on azzi’s shoulder, and how safe she’d always felt next to paige, and-

her impending anxiety attack is put on pause when the car gets to her building, and as she thanks the driver and heads up into the elevators, she tries to reassure herself that it's just the wine, and the surprise information that it hadn’t just been strangers thinking they were together, but friends, close friends , too. 

and it's already late, but when she is finally engulfed by the silence of her apartment, azzi does the only thing that she thinks will bring her any sense of clarity and drags her phone out of her purse.  

katie picks up on the second ring (she ignores the part of her that’s first instinct is still to call paige when anything is wrong because god fucking damn it ), and azzi feels moderately better at her mom’s familiar “hello” on the other side of the line.

“hi,” is the only thing she can come up with in response, and she mentally curses her vocal cords for breaking on the singular word. so much for not revealing to her mother that she’s upset. 

“azzi honey, are you okay?” comes the response, gentle with concern. and she is, she is okay except she kind of feels like the rug has been ripped out from under her, and she just needs her mom to tell her that everyone else is crazy. 

“i’m fine, i’m okay,” she releases, but that feels like a lie so she continues. “can i- can i ask you a question? and you can’t. you can’t laugh or think it's stupid or whatever.”

katie hums in confusion on the other side of the line, and azzi just needs to say it before she loses the confidence of the wine sliding through her system.

“did you ever- did you ever think i was in love with paige?”

from the strangled sound on the other side of the phone, it's clearly not what she expected azzi to ask. 

“azzi. sweetheart. did you- were you not?” and that. that gets her to finally shed the tears that have been brewing since dinner. 

her panicked “no!” sounds a lot less convincing than she intends it to be, and she doesn’t- she doesn’t understand what the fuck going on. 

katie’s voice is gentle when she continues, understanding the fragility of the moment (and azzi’s sanity ) and she states quietly, “i mean. i always thought the two of you were a little bit in love with each other. less so when you were younger, but. azzi . i mean, you guys lived out of eachothers pockets for years. i always kind of thought you guys were more than friends.” her words are soft, like she knows azzi can’t handle anything else, but they still pierce her heart like knives against a target.

and what the fuck ever. 

she’s really crying now, though she’s trying to keep it quiet and preserve the barest amount of pride she has left. it's just. everything everyone is saying isn’t making any sense because it's impossible to be in love with someone without knowing it. 

and yet, here azzi is, on the phone with her mother and maybe possibly coming to the realization that maybe she and paige weren’t exactly the most platonic of friends and it's at least a year too late. and then that last thought hits her square in the chest: the fact that she and paige haven’t been alone in the same room together in over a year, haven’t called in maybe longer, that it very well might be too late, and then her tears aren’t so silent anymore. 

she lets out a sob over the phone and her mom’s voice sounds worried when she says “oh, azzi. we thought you guys broke up last year. you never wanted to talk about what happened and we just assumed you were dating in secret and something happened. you’re telling me you weren’t- you never…”

she cuts her mom off with another “no!” and this really might be the worst thing that’s ever happened, because her mom thought they were dating. and then, because she needs to know for sure she asks again, voice thick with tears “so you think. you think that i was in love with paige?” 

there’s silence on the other side of the phone for a second, as katie processes how to respond. and then her mom must hate her or something because all she says in response is “honey, only you can answer that question. but i think that if you’re asking me, then you already know.” 

and, well, she’s right. and isn’t that just fucking awesome.

after hanging up on her mother and swearing up and down that she’ll call tomorrow when she’s more calm and coherent and not losing her fucking mind , azzi takes a long, still slightly tipsy shower. 

she thinks of paige six different times in the span of twenty minutes and contemplates slamming her head against the tile walls. 

it’s as if aaliyah had uncovered this part of azzi’s brain that had been locked away, unbeknownst to her, and now that it was released it was determined to wreak as much havoc as possible. 

she knows she won’t be able to sleep right away, the buzz of adrenaline, alcohol, and unexplored feelings too potent to let her rest, so she does probably the dumbest thing she can think of and grabs a bottle of wine and the blanket that paige bought her when she was 17 and plants herself on the couch. she figures she deserves the pinot something-or-other that someone had gifted her when she’d had her little housewarming party in the spring. 

and then she’s reminded of said party, and the last minute invite she’d sent to paige as a peace offering, as a plea for normalcy. the older girl had been in the area, azzi knows because drew had mentioned it to her brothers, and she hadn’t exactly expected paige to show up and be normal, relaxed and funny paige, azzi’s paige, but she also hadn’t expected the text saying she couldn’t come with a half hearted excuse. 

that had been the nail in the coffin for azzi, the sign that she should stop trying. because as much as the unanswered texts and awkward interactions after uconn visits and stilted hugs after team trips to watch the wings had hurt, the realisation that paige had decided not to be there for azzi on a night that was supposed to be a celebration of her accomplishments had made her understand how wide the gap between them had really grown. paige had never chosen not to be there for azzi. 

and now she’s beginning to understand that it had been heartbreak, in its truest form, that had settled into her bones that day, not merely disappointment. she’d cried in the bathroom at her own party, briefly, when she’d realized that paige wasn’t coming, and. 

and so many things about their relationship are starting to make sense. 

the way they’d told each other everything except anything to do with love interests or hookups because it was an unspoken rule between them that the other didn’t want to know. the way azzi had been completely comfortable with nudity in front of teammates except around paige, always turning around when the blonde was changing and vice versa. the way they didn’t gone more than a couple hours without communicating unless one of them was asleep for like. eight years. the way paige had slotted so seamlessly into her life that she’d felt like family, except the word sister had never seemed like an appropriate word for what they were to each other.

and then. and then azzi is suddenly angry. angry at herself for not figuring this out sooner. angry at her friends for never informing her that she was in love with her best friend. and most importantly, she was fucking furious at paige. because the more she thinks back at their relationship, and the good and the bad, the more she realizes that paige had to have known. she’s struck with the thought that paige had probably been in love with her too, but instead of comfort, all azzi can feel is the grief of losing her before they were ever even something more, and the fury at paige for letting them fall apart . 

because it had been paige that had stopped responding to text messages. paige who had subtly put a stop to any and all physical contact that azzi had tried to instigate. and it had been paige who had started and ended their dizzying, agonizing conversation about the championship night. 

azzi knows she’d fucked up by refusing to aknowledge the fact that they had definitely kissed, definitely more than kissed that night. except it had been hazy. she couldn’t remember the details of how they’d gotten from the after party in the hotel to paige's room. she couldn’t remember what they’d said or done or even what the time frame of that night had looked like. she only remembered blurry snapshots of paige’s mouth against hers, and the feeling of her hands tangling in the blonde’s hair, and the proof, stark against her chest, that paige's mouth had moved lower and meant it.

and then azzi hadn’t acknowledged it the next morning, because what on earth do you say when you’re pretty sure you made out with your best friend of eight years but you can’t actually remember. and paige had been in a horrible mood, and they’d fought, like they never did, about something entirely unrelated, and azzi had been blindsided, like she was missing something throughout the entire argument. 

and now. azzi is starting to understand that it hadn’t been that paige didn’t care when she’d put distance between them, flitting off to the league and leaving calls and texts unanswered, but that she’d cared too much. 

still, this doesn’t make azzi feel better, and she’s pissed. because how very dare paige fuck off without telling azzi that they’d been in love, and leave her to think that paige hadn’t needed her. 

she must be drunker than she thought she was, because suddenly her anger boils over and she’s doing probably the stupidest thing she possibly could, which is picking up her phone and dialing the number still pinned at the top of her contacts list. 

its late now, like beyond a reasonable time to be calling anyone, let alone your ex best friend who you don’t speak to anymore, but somewhere in azzi’s hazy mind she knows that paige is an hour behind and that she always picks up the phone for azzi. 

it rings four times, and each one causes her heartbeat to pick up even faster, and azzi doesn’t know what would be worse, paige answering or paige not. (she does know. it's not the former)

and then the line clicks midway through the fifth ring and paige says “azzi?” and azzi hears her voice for the first time in months, since they played each other in may and could barely look at eachother, and all the fight and anger that was simmering in her blood seems to disappear at how broken her name sounds coming from paige’s lips. 

she can only muster up a strangled “hi” into the phone, really eloquent, azzi, great job , and she realizes when she says it that she’s crying again because she sounds like she’s crying , and isn’t that just perfect. 

immediately, azzi can sense the shift in paige’s energy over the phone as her voice rings out in a worried “azzi? are you okay?” and azzi has forgotten entirely why she called in the first place or what to say.

“no, yeah, m’fine,” she answers, but she know she doesn’t sound convincing, and wow, okay, this pinot something-or-other must be like, at least 15% because azzi then blurts out a pitiful “m’just drunk and i miss you.”

paige exhales sharply into the phone, the ensuing silence deafening, and azzi feels humiliation curl in her gut, regretting everything between the day she was born and now that has led her to this moment. 

but then paige says, weakly, her voice slightly muffled over the distance, “i miss you too, az. so much.” 

she expects to feel relief at the words, the knowledge that paige misses her too, probably just as much, but it’s only a reminder to azzi of how badly they’ve fucked everything up. 

and then she suddenly remembers that they have an away game in dallas, in only a week or so, and she really needs to get a grip but instead she hears herself speaking again, before she can process the words. “when i’m in dallas next week, can we maybe-”

she’s cut off by a woman’s voice in the background, on the other end of the phone, asking, “paige? are you still staying over?” 

azzi feels like she’s been thrown off the side of a mountain. 

or rather she wishes she was thrown off the side of a mountain because that probably feels better than the absolute devastation currently coursing out from her heart and into her bloodstream and clogging her lungs. 

she makes a choked off sound in the back of her throat, just as paige stammers out an uneven “can you give me a second?” her voice sounds distant, because it's not meant for azzi, and for the second time in the span of a minute, azzi regrets being born at all. 

she hears movement through the phoneline, imagining paige moving through this unknown woman’s house, and fuck, why hadn’t she considered this? that paige had moved on? here azzi was, finally figuring out her shit, and calling paige in the middle of the night like some desperate ex-something and paige might have had a whole girlfriend. 

azzi feels bile rise in her throat. 

somehow, she musters up the courage to croak out “no paige, it's okay. you go. i’m sorry for calling so la-”

“no, no, azzi, it’s fine, it's never too late for you,” and. well. that might just be the fucking joke of the century.  

“no, really paige, it's okay. i need to sleep too.”

there’s resigned silence between them for a second, and azzi thinks paige is going to simply hang up, and then the older girl whispers “were you gonna ask to hang out? in- in dallas?”

azzi’s “yes” is embarrassingly quick to tumble from her lips. 

paige lets out a quiet laugh, and it's brief and small, and really probably more of an amused exhale through her nose than anything else, but she laughs, and azzi feels the twisted fluttering of hope bloom in her chest, despite herself.

“okay. text me tomorrow, then. if you really want to do something.” there's a challenge in paige’s words, like she doesn’t think azzi will, and that stings, a little, but she tries not to let it. 

“i will. i promise.” a pause, and then when the other girl says nothing, “g’night paige,” she whispers, and she means that promise. she knows she’s drunk, and she guesses there might have been a similar exchange all those horrible months ago, hence paige’s quiet mistrust, but she knows in her bones that she’ll remember this tomorrow, that she’ll want to see paige.

“goodnight, azzi. sweet dreams.” and then, the dial tone. 

in the silence of the room, masochistically, azzi realizes that that’s the first time they’ve hung up the phone without saying i love you since they were fifteen. the irony is not lost on her. 

she falls asleep that night curled up into a ball, cheeks wet and the blanket paige got her still tucked around her feet.

AN: ummm thank you for reading! and please tell me how you liked if you so please! i am a people pleaser to my core so it might make me write faster. there should only be one more part and i'm about halfway done writing it! i hope this inspires you freaks to post stuff on ao3 bc it is NEEDED. xoxoxoxo

azzi wakes to a pounding headache, a crick in her neck from sleeping on the couch, and an overwhelming sense of dread at everything in the world ever. 

hanxiety doesn’t even begin to capture the feeling that curdles in her stomach when she goes to confirm that last night wasn’t a hyper-realistic dream, the words outgoing call, 1:47 reflecting back at her bleary eyes underneath paige’s contact. she’d called her at two in the fucking morning. good god. 

she’s not sure if the wine or the hours of crying is the cause of the absolute knife between her temples, but it doesn’t matter because she needs three advils, like, now, before she begins processing the nightmare that the previous night really was. 

she drags herself off the couch, wincing at the ache in her muscles, and heads to her bedroom to change out of last night's pjs and try and dig up the pain killers that she knows are somewhere in her bedside table. 

briefly, humorously, she contemplates the tub of miscellaneous, much stronger drugs that she’s accumulated over her years of surgeries and injuries. maybe if she overdoses on the opioids she’d been given but never taken after her acl tear she won’t have to deal with this whole L-word realization that is sure to ruin the current stability of her life. 

as she mentally picks through the haze of wine over her memories from the night before, the pit in her stomach grows. she had been a lot of things the prior night- stupid, emotional, drunk, but wrong about the truth of her complex web of emotion surrounding paige? 

she wasn’t so sure. (she was actually kind of sure she hadn’t been wrong. which. fuck.)

after swallowing her pills (advil, not the oxycodone), she picks up her phone and fires off three texts to aaliyah in quick succession, needing her to know how much her line of questioning had caused azzi to spiral.

azzi: u suck btw. 

azzi: the all-star break isn't the time to make me over analyze my friendships

azzi: or my sexuality for that matter

the older girl responds in a matter of seconds.

lili: BRUH I THOUGHT U KNEW

lili: come shoot before practice w me and we can talk it out

lili: but jsyk uve been moping for A YEAR my bad for thinking it was cause yall broke up

azzi: brooooo everyone always says friendship breakups r worse anyways

she releases a long suffering sigh to the mirror above her dresser. she looks a little bit like shit, eyes puffy and cheek creased, posture slumped over looking at her phone. the picture of i don’t want to have this crisis right now but i fear it’s too late. 

screw everything. she looks back down at the buzz of her phone in her palm:

aaliyah: that’s only for straight girls dumbass

azzi: ok well i thought i WAS a straight girl

lili: [screenshotted image of her profile photo for azzi: her, sitting on the ground in the uconn facilities, propped up against the base of her locker, legs spread comfortably. her head is tilted up at the camera, a smirk lopsided on her face, and one hand is throwing up a four, the other splayed out across the top of her trucker hat. she’s wearing a huskies sports bra and sweatpants, slung low enough on her hips to exhibit the the thick band of her basketball shorts and the v of her lower abs] 

lili: does this look like a straight girl to u 

it's almost funny how obvious the answer is. azzi types out a succinct kill youself and throws her phone across her bed.

she feels like she should be concerned with how easily the knowledge that she’s into women (or at least one specific woman) settles into her skin. but somehow it feels more like something she’d known about herself and simply buried, waiting for the right time to fully process. and this doesn’t necessarily feel like the right time, but it's happening whether azzi likes it or not, and she supposes that accepting that you’re gay is a lot easier when every single person in your life already knew and thought you knew before you actually did. 

the only person she really has to solidly come out to is herself (she ignores the voice in her head telling her that she will also maybe have to come out to paige at some point. if they talk and y’know. things go the way azzi is somehow already desperately hoping they will), and she’d always kind of known, in an abstract sense anyway, that she was attracted to women, but she’d never really had a crush on one or had the inclination to actually do anything about that thought so it had sat on the backburner, something she only really thought about when she was drunk, or lonely,  or some combination of the two. 

she figures she can work out whether she’s ever even been into men at all at a later date. all she can think about right now is paige anyways, and it's childish, but she’s almost annoyed at how cliche she feels for having her gay realization be the blonde, like she’s just another fangirl in paige’s tik tok comment section writing some variation of ‘i'm straight, but its paige bueckers!’ 

and it’s stupid, but it feels like she’s feeding into paige's ego by just acknowledging this space that’s been carved out in her chest. paige had always been droning on and on about how much rizz she had, how everybody wanted her, and azzi had loved nothing more than humbling her, calling her conceited and egotistical and stupid, and well. it seems azzi had been the stupid one all along. 

she knows, though, that this feeling, this thing in her chest that has somehow ballooned inside of her overnight, runs much, much deeper than the silly, surface level attraction that most people attributed to paige. and she also reasons that she knows paige, both her flaws and her insecurities and the parts that make her so wonderful, in a way that none of the teenage girls on tiktok could ever begin to even dream of. 

being in love with paige (and she guesses she’s really acknowledging it now, so that's. cool.) didn’t feel like a fluke, but rather something that was simply innate inside of her, ever humming under her skin. 

she curses the universe for giving her this mid-life crisis eight days before she has to hop on the flight that will take her directly to paige’s city, but there's an underlying feeling of hope, too, that she tries to squash. she firmly ignores the thought that it feels a little bit like a cosmic sign. 

paige having a woman she was almost certainly sleeping with, minimum, in the background of her phone at 1am also kinda felt like a cosmic sign. a sign that meant it's too late. 

and. oh god. she needs to text paige about dallas. 

and what the fuck to you say to your ex best friend who you hypothetically were (are?) in love with and drunkenly called crying after a year of not speaking one-on-one to try and plan a hangout? your ex best homoerotic friend who maybe has a new girl? 

but paige had insinuated that she wasn’t expecting azzi to actually reach out, which, aside from the fact that azzi did want to, also made it somewhat of a competition, and azzi didn’t lose competitions. especially against paige. 

it's already nearing 10 am, and even though paige is an hour behind, she wants to make it clear that she’s true to her word. paige had seemed like she’d wanted her to text, too, and. she’d said she missed her. a lot.

she types out the first thing she thinks of, u gonna show me your cowboy boots collection or what, and sends it before she can talk herself out of it.

the anger at paige from the night before is still simmering in her blood, a little bit, because what the fuck? they haven't talked in a year and it was paige’s fault. but also. azzi knows paige, even after all this time, and. she has a growing hunch that instead of the callous disregard for azzi and their friendship that paige had tried so hard to portray, azzi is starting to think that it had been hurt, not indifference, that had caused paige to distance them.

when paige doesn’t immediately respond to azzi’s text and profess her undying love for azzi and azzi only, she tries to convince her immune system that she did not, in fact, just drink poison and she was not, in fact, having a heart attack. 

and god, was it normal to feel like she was dying after sending a text? yesterday-azzi was lucky as fuck that she thought she hadn’t been in love because this fucking sucked. 

she makes breakfast with her anxiety at an all time high, checking her phone every sixty seconds and nearly burning her omelette. as the minutes tick by, azzi tries to resign herself to the reality that maybe paige had told her to text because she didn’t believe azzi would, not in spite of it. 

but then, as azzi is throwing things in her bag to leave for the facilities and bombard aaliyah with questions and a borderline mental breakdown, she feels her phone buzz in her pocket. she drops her water bottle on her foot in her haste to check what it says, and it hurts like a bitch, but paige responds with ‘unfortunately only one pair of boots. but im sure my hat collection will impress u’ and well. 

azzi’s foot could be broken for all she cares, because paige responded and she’s texting like old paige, and maybe it's flirting, maybe it's not, azzi clearly has no idea, but it's a million times better than the one-word messages she received throughout last year, and.

hope blooms, slow and steady, in azzi’s heart, despite her attempts to squash it.  

…

azzi: please tell me you don’t actually wear any of them outside the house

paige: u have to wear one here at all times or they’ll kill u

paige: texas is no joke

azzi: so i guess i’ll need to borrow one when im down there then

paige: when do u fly in 

paige: ill give u the pick of the litter 

…

(azzi does not shriek when she sees that text after practice. she does not.)

…

three days before azzi flies to dallas (and potentially lights herself on fire), she has a moment of weakness. after a particularly tiring lift and a day without more than a few new texts from paige, she settles into bed freshly showered with her laptop propped open on a pillow. she means to put on the rest of the abbot elementary episode she’d been watching earlier, but her fingers apparently aren’t connected to the rest of her body because they type in “paige bueckers and azzi fudd” into the youtube search bar instead. 

a couple nonsense videos pop up before her eyes catch on to the SLAM interview they’d done together right before azzi’s freshman year season. she clicks the link before she can chicken out.

it's a behind the scenes, with interview anecdotes thrown in between clips of them messing around, and they look so young. and jesus the way paige is looking at her. like she hangs the moon in the sky. and eighteen year old azzi isn’t much better, and she can’t keep her eyes off the blonde for more than five milliseconds, and they’re, well, they’re flirting right in front of current azzi’s face, and good god. no wonder everyone had thought something was going on. 

if azzi hadn’t lived through it, known the way they’d only ever tiptoed the line, never crossing, she would’ve thought so too. 

she makes it six minutes into the video before she slams her laptop shut, rolls over, and screams bloody murder into her pillowcase. 

…

the mystics don’t fly down until the night before, and their game is in the afternoon, so she and paige make tentative plans to hang out after azzi ‘find[s] out what happens when you mess with texas.’

paige is a dork, and an unfunny one at that. she hearts the message when azzi tells her as much, and azzi has to hide her smile in the hood of her sweatshirt so georgia doesn’t ask any pestering questions when paige adds ‘unfunny maybe but a loser? never.’

azzi really, really hopes that this text-flirting or whatever they’re doing means that paige doesn’t have a girlfriend. she doesn’t think her heart could take it if she did, and she doesn’t understand how paige (maybe? she’s being optimistic. sue her.) lived with these feelings for so long and didn’t act on them because it's been a singular week of occasional texting and only that has azzi feeling like she’s going to tear her hair out. 

the flight to dallas and subsequent restless night of sleep in a mediocre hotel room crawls by so slowly that azzi feels like she’s been physically transported to a planet in which every minute that goes by is actually an hour. or something. she doesn’t remember the plot of interstellar but she feels like messy time travel and space stuff like that was part of it. maybe it's happening to her. stranger things have occurred.

(like not knowing you were in love with your best friend for eight years)

(she doesn’t remember the plot of interstellar because the uconn team had watched it one slow off-season afternoon, and azzi had let paige coax her into taking an edible, gotten ridiculously high and scared, and had spent the entire movie with her face tucked into paige’s shoulder, letting the hands rubbing her back and stupid commentary in her ear lull her into safety) 

(fuck everything)

…

and then the most dreaded and anticipated day of azzi’s short, miserable life so far is upon her. thank god it’s a saturday game, so tipoff is at 2:00, and she doesn’t have to drown in anxiety for a whole day beforehand, because breakfast and the pregame meeting in the hotel is tortuous enough as is. 

kiki has to forcefully put her hand on azzi’s leg on the bus to get it to stop jumping up and down, and everyone knows not to bring up anything related to paige in front azzi, and she hasn’t said anything to anyone other the aaliyah about how they’re speaking again, but she can feel the sideways glances her teammates are sharing behind her back and her brain itches. 

they warm up on the court after the wings are done with their shooting drills, meaning azzi only gets a glance of paige disappearing back into the tunnel when they head out to stretch, but it's enough to transform her anxiety from a level 6 on the richter scale to a solid, nauseating 8. 

there’s signs of paige everywhere: posters with her face all over the walls, her number plastered on the sides of the hallway they have to walk down to get to the arena, and, worst of all, fans milling about, decked out completely in #5 jerseys and paige paraphernalia. several have carefully drawn out posters and clever slogans, clamoring in the stands to get as close as possible in an attempt to gain the one and only paige bueckers’ attention. and azzi can’t even fucking blame them, as pitiful as it is, because she wants paige’s attention on her, too. probably more than any of these fans combined.

a twisted, irrational seed of jealousy takes root in her heart when she thinks about how these fans have gotten to see paige grow and blossom over the last year and a half, how paige had left connecticut and the team and azzi and come here and immediately charmed the hearts of this entire stupid city, not caring what, or rather, who she left behind.

and fuck texas and their stupid cowboy boots and hot weather and their ability to win over really pretty blonde girls and entrap them in their clutches. 

her shots are off during warmups, and it takes everything in her not to turn around and look for a familiar blonde head when they announce the starting lineup and paige’s name is called, but then that effort is entirely futile because paige’s face is suddenly plastered on every single god-forsaken screen in the entire arena as she runs back out through tunnel. and she looks so cool and confident and definitely not like she’s having a tweak-fest about her ex best friend being in such close proximity. and life isn’t fair. 

and azzi loses her breath for a second at how stunningly beautiful paige is. she’s always been gorgeous, even self-proclaimed-straight-azzi had known that, but something about paige in the center of the basketball court, completely in her element, has always made her look more magnetic than usual. 

paige’s eyes flit across the visiting team’s bench for a second, like she’s looking for someone, looking for azzi, and she wants to jump up and wave her arms or do something equally as ridiculous to get her attention, but it turns out she doesn’t need to because then blue eyes find azzi’s without any help, like a magnet, and, wow, azzi had thought that she’d mentally prepared herself for this as much as possible, but she’d been horribly, terribly wrong. 

paige seems almost bashful when her face tilts into a lopsided grin, and azzi’s heart is doing this weird little flipping thing inside of her chest, which, it's never done that before, or maybe it had and she’d just never noticed because she’s an idiot, but regardless, azzi grins back, eyes probably all squinty and everything, and she really hopes no one is paying attention to them right now because she knows she looks absolutely sick in the head. 

she feels bolder than usual all of a sudden, adrenaline coursing through her and the high of having paige’s attention on her after all these months must be messing with her brain to mouth filter, because then she’s mouthing “you ready to lose?” to the blonde girl across the arena. 

paige’s smile drops in exaggerated offense and she’s getting nudged by her teammates to pay attention to something else but she smirks lazily, and flips azzi off before her attention is dragged into their huddle. 

and azzi feels woozy- like a fucking cartoon character with little birds circling her head. lord give her strength. paige flips her off and suddenly she’s acting like the blonde girl came over and proposed or something. this whole thing is so. stupid.

the anthem and pre-game huddle is a blur of nerves and trying not to get caught staring at the back of paige’s head. and then it’s tip off, and blessedly, graciously, they’re not guarding each other, and azzi tries valiantly to focus on the ball and her teammates’ positioning and not on the blonde in her peripheral vision. 

she’s off balance though, only making one of her first four shots, and she knows exactly why that is and it's so frustrating because paige already has seven points and seems entirely unaffected. 

and then, six minutes into the game, paige knocks the ball away from kiki in a breakaway, and azzi is the only one who has a chance at stopping her from a simple, uncontested layup. they run up the court together, paige just out of azzi’s reach until they get to the paint. and azzi knows exactly the move paige is going to pull, could draw it up in her sleep, and the only real way to stop it is to throw her hip out and jump up at the exact second she knows paige will release the ball and pray that her hand makes contact with rubber and not skin.

and she does knock the ball away, fuck you, paige blockers, but her hip also makes contact with paige’s side and she goes sprawling, sliding across the linoleum. azzi has a split second of panic that she’s actually hurt paige, but paige is grinning up at her, the drama queen, and azzi groans when she hears the familiar whistle of a foul call somewhere behind her. 

azzi’s hand grips paige’s to pull her up, other hand going out to steady her hip, and the first real skin on skin contact in a year shocks her to her core. her fingers are tingling, and how on earth was she able to ignore the feeling that arises in her whenever paige is close to her for so long because it feels like the world has stopped spinning on its axis for a second. 

nothing had ever been able to pry azzi’s attention away from basketball before, except for paige, (which. add that to the list of things that probably should have clued her in years ago) and it’s even worse now that azzi understands why that was the case. 

and they are in the middle of a basketball court on live television with thousands of people watching their every move and azzi is still gripping paige’s hand. and someone needs to put her in a psychiatric hospital or something. 

she regrettably pulls her fingers away from the taller girl’s grasp and immediately misses the contact. 

“you playin’ dirty cause you don’t think you can win?” paige taunts, but she’s grinning at azzi like she knows it was an accident, and her face is flushed from the first few minutes of running and she looks positively edible and. how azzi thought of herself as immune to paige’s charm for so long is well beyond her now because she wants to do. a lot of things, actually, but she needs to focus on basketball right now. because again. middle of the basketball court.  

“shut up, cheater. you’re the one flopping around trying to get a call,” is her very mature and reasonable retort.

and oh. azzi realizes again, in real time, what everyone was talking about when they used to say that her and paige were constantly flirting. because her hand is still on the taller girl's hip (just to steady her. yeah right.) and paige is smirking down at her and azzi is teasing her and- oh my god she’s been so stupid. 

the familiar spark of competition (and probably some other things. like attraction. whatever.) lights up between them like no time has passed since they were staying late after practices and running shooting drills just the two of them, and azzi feels herself settle for the first time since she caught sight of paige warming up. 

she’d been worried that she’d be too distracted by paige’s presence to play well, but the feeling of blue eyes on the back of her neck whenever she has the ball, and even when she doesn’t, fuels her like nothing else. 

by halftime, she has 19 points. 

and when the mystics finally edge out an unexpected, much needed win, there’s a 34 next to azzi’s name in the box score. she only misses two shots after her exchange with paige in the first quarter. 

and it's merely an out of conference win, but it's a close one because paige had played well too, and she can feel the satisfaction of a well-fought game settling in her bones, and the added bonus of beating paige, specifically, is making her feel like she's on cloud nine.

they keep their post game hug short and cordial (or. as cordial as a paige burying her face in azzi’s neck and azzi gripping her shoulders as tight as possible can be) (azzi might be delusional but she swears the crowd gets louder when they hug)

she kind of never wants it to end, and misses her instantly when paige pulls away, but then paige stays close when they separate, and looks nothing but proud when she congratulates azzi, asking “you tryna outdo my rookie of the year performance?” 

azzi is grateful for the flush on her cheeks from the game, so it masks how hot her blood gets at the question. “maybe, we’ll see,” is the only thing she can come up with in response, and it sounds coy even to her own ears. 

“i know we will” is paige’s fond response, and there’s cameras surrounding them and azzi’s not stupid enough to bring up their post-game plans right now but she wants to so she just hums and stands there, probably looking like a fucking adoring idiot. 

paige smiles, big this time, despite their loss, and tugs azzi back into a much briefer hug. it’s friendly for the cameras, and quick, but paige manages to tuck an “i'll text you” into azzi's shoulder before she’s pulling away and leaving azzi to watch helplessly after her as she’s immediately swarmed by teammates and media. 

and winning the game was fun and great and awesome or whatever, but the mile-wide smile on azzi’s face has a lot more to do with residual tingling of paige’s hugs than anything else. she is so stupendously screwed. 

…

the press conference goes by torturously slow because azzi doesn’t have time to check her phone beforehand, but they only ask her one question about paige so she counts it as another win.

(they ask azzi if this victory is sweeter because paige is on the other team and azzi answers with a really eloquent “yes,” and doesn’t elaborate when asked. her teammates nearly wet themselves with laughter)

azzi almost falls out of her chair in her attempt to get up as fast as possible when they’re released from press, and it takes everything in her not to sprint back to the locker room to check her phone. aaliyah doesn’t even try to hide her laughter.  

three texts from paige from 10 minutes prior are waiting for her when she finally gets back to her locker. 

paige: about to hop in shower

paige: wanna j do something straight from here

paige: or we can do something later if u wanna go back to hotel first idc  

the three separate texts means that paige is nervous, and some satisfaction settles in azzi’s stomach, but it’s overshadowed by the fact that she’s left the decision making to azzi. 

she debates it for two seconds before deciding she might run into oncoming traffic or something equally as gruesome if left to her own thoughts for more than 5 minutes. she hearts the second text.

azzi: if u wait for me to shower i can be ready in 20

and then she’s only 20 minutes away from being one-on-one with paige for the first time in a year. her shower goes by in a haze and she hopes she remembered to like. use body wash but she can’t really recall because her mind is an abyss of nausea and stress and the little glimmer of hope that she keeps trying to make shut up. 

paige’s ‘kk call me when ur ready and ill tell u where to go’ is waiting for her when she gets out, and she curses herself for only packing a pair of old sweats and a tank top. whatever. it’s not like she needs to impress paige anyway- she’d seen her in every state of dress from black tie evening gowns to pajamas- but still. she’s stressed. 

and then she’s slipping out of the locker room (she’s not doing anything wrong, but she still feels a little bit like she’s sneaking around, trying to avoid questions on where she’s going from her teammates), and calling paige, and letting her voice guide through a hallway and out a couple doors and into the parking lot. 

she hangs up when she sees paige’s recognizable grey jeep ahead of her, and something settles in her stomach at the familiar sight. she’d been in the passenger seat of this car a million and one times. 

but then she’s opening the door and, wow, she feels the furthest thing from settled because there is paige, sitting in the driver's seat and looking clean and nervous and adorably small in an oversized hoodie and shorts. her hair is down and still damp, and she’s wearing glasses, and her hands are fidgeting with her phone in her lap, partially covered by the cuffs of her sweatshirt, and azzi feels something crack in her chest. because how had she not realized that this was exactly what she’d wanted all along?

“hi” paige greets her, voice small and a little shy. 

azzi’s answering “hey, loser” sounds just as bashful and wow, what have they become? 

but then azzi climbs into the passenger seat as paige groans and says “i knew that would be the first thing you’d bring up” and they fall into the ease of bickering about the game and the music paige is playing, and as they pull out of the garage and into the bright afternoon dallas sun, azzi relaxes a bit into her seat. 

they decide to drop their stuff off at paige’s apartment before potentially heading out to find some dinner, and it’s weird- how normal it feels, even though they haven’t done this in forever. azzi still has an undercurrent of panic coursing through her, and she knows she’s looking at paige a little weirdly because the blonde keeps glancing at her funny, like she’s trying to figure something out and can’t quite place what’s changed, but despite that, they fall right back into the simplicity and comfort that each others company has always held. 

until paige decides to ruin the ease of their conversation by glancing across the car at a red light and asking “you gonna tell me why you’re looking at me funny?” 

azzi squirms. debates jumping out, ladybird style. decides against it only because the risk/reward ratio is particularly low. she could deny it, call paige crazy, but that seems useless when she plans on bringing it up when they get inside in 10 minutes anyways. she was planning on waiting until after dinner, but the thrill of having paige within arms reach is making her antsy and she knows she won’t be able to wait that long. 

“no,” she replies. at paige’s sideways glare, she relents, “when we get inside.” 

paige hums, drumming her fingers on the steering wheel, and the relaxed environment turns tense in seconds. the remainder of the drive is silent, and it's not awkward, necessarily, but anticipatory, tension clogging azzi’s lungs. 

she fiddles with the ac vents and tries to stop herself from thinking at all. she fails, obviously, and her mind is a mess of paige and random moments from their time at uconn and, the girl in the back of the phone call, and. somehow her hands are shaking. perfect.

she is somehow both thankful and miserable they’re almost there.

they finally pull into paige’s complex, and the mostly silent walk through the garage and elevator ride only further serves to heighten her anxiety. and then paige is pulling out her keys and opening the door and. 

they barely get inside before azzi is rounding on her, dropping her bag on the floor and backing up to lean against the opposing wall. she’d planned this part out in her mind a hundred times, dissecting all the possible pros and cons of asking in different ways, figuring out how to slowly work up to the question that’s been eating her alive since the the all star break, but one look at paige’s confused face and the adrenaline that's been coursing through her veins throughout the whole car ride has her sidestepping logic and reason entirely and blurting out a strangled “were we in love?” 

she’s pretty confident she knows the answer, but the ensuing silence is agonizing anyway. 

azzi can see the second paige processes her question, her face dropping in utter disbelief, and something like heartbreak splinters in her eyes at azzi’s words. paige’s arms go limp at her sides, her keys slipping to the ground beside her, and the jangle of metal against the hardwood floor is deafening in the silence of her entryway. 

“azzi,” paige chokes on her name, like it causes her physical pain. she looks shell-shocked, like she can’t breathe, and azzi can’t breathe either, but she needs to know anyway.

“were we in love, paige? were you in love with me?” she asks again, more desperate this time, the words ripping out of her chest almost without her permission. she feels out of control. between the two of them, paige was always the one to push things too far, press and press until azzi was forced to answer her questions or shut down, and the whip-lash of that role reversal is clear on the older girl’s face. 

still, paige is silent, gaping at her in shock. 

just as azzi opens her mouth to ask a third time, paige closes the gap between them with two steps and seals their mouths together in a desperate, searing kiss. 

azzi’s hands fly to paige's chest immediately, and the blonde’s hands find their place on the sides of her face, cupping her cheeks. azzi opens for her in seconds, and paige makes a wretched, helpless sound in the back of her throat as their tongues meet. she drags one hand down to azzi’s waist and pulls her closer, fingering the gap between her sweats and tank top, and azzi’s hands grip her shirt in return, needing her as close as possible. 

and wow. okay. if there was any lingering doubt in azzi’s mind about whether or not she was into women, into paige, it evaporates into thin air, heat pooling immediately in her stomach. 

and also. paige probably doesn’t have a girlfriend if she’s kissing azzi senseless in her foyer. the relief of that makes her needy, desperate. 

she feels wild with it, with the sudden release of this desire for paige that's been hibernating just under her skin for years, and as paige presses her back into the wall, all azzi can think to do is tug her as close as possible. her hands move again, this time sliding up to the back of paige’s neck, everywhere they can reach, and when they separate from each other for a second to breathe, foreheads pressed together, azzi’s eyes flutter open to probably the prettiest version of paige she’s ever seen. 

she looks absolutely ruined, cheeks flushed and mouth swollen, and azzi feels drunk on the look in her eyes, gazing at her like azzi is the sun and the moon and the whole fucking solar system too. and she’s struck with the thought that they probably could have been doing this for years, probably should have been doing this for years. 

“did you- azzi- did you not know?” is the first thing paige gets out, voice sounding wrecked with emotion and something else, and if azzi had a nickel for every time someone had seemed incredulous that she hadn’t known about paige and her being in love, she’d have five fucking nickels. five nickels to place on the shelf next to her #1 stupidest person on earth trophy. 

azzi can’t help but sound indignant when she sputters out “well no one told me!”

paige just looks at her for a second, like she’s trying to cement this as real, and then she smiles, small and beautiful and just for azzi.

“you’re stupid” is her only retort. and, well. yeah. 

and she looks like she’s about to cry but in a good way azzi thinks, and then azzi can’t see her face anymore because they’re kissing again. she makes a sound in the back of her throat that she will not be recounting when paige slips a hand underneath her tank top, pressing her fingers to her ribs, and jesus, they’ve been making out for maybe a total of two minutes max and she already feels like she’s going to melt into a puddle on the floor. 

paige kisses her like she means it, like she’s starving for it, and azzi didn’t know it until right now but it's exactly the way she likes to be kissed. 

paige wedges a leg between azzi’s, somehow pressing closer, and this is really nice and azzi really doesn’t want to stop but also. they need to actually discuss this before she lets paige do something stupid like finger her in the hallway or drag her off to her bedroom. she might be jumping the gun but also. one of paige’s hands is sliding underneath the waistband of her sweats to caress the smooth skin of her hip, teasing. and, and. she really needs to stop this before her fingers dip any lower because she knows any coherent thought she has will crumble into nothingness. 

she tugs her mouth away for a second, and murmurs out a breathless “paige” in between kisses. she receives a contented grunt in response. 

“paige-” she tries again, except the older girl simply hums and moves lower, pressing open-mouthed kissed down her neck instead. azzi’s brain goes blank for a second, nothing but thoughts of paige’s mouth on her neck and her hands on her waist. but. 

they do need to talk about this. regretfully. 

“paige, we need to- to talk about this,” she stutters out, and when paige still seems undeterred, having moved down to attempt to suck a mark into azzi’s collarbone, she adds, “before we have sex.”

she tries to look away, so she doesn’t have to see the smug grin that she knows will spread across paige’s face at her words, but a consequence of furiously making out with the blonde is that their faces are still inches apart, so she still sees the sly smirk on paige’s stupid, self-satisfied face. 

“who said anything about sex, hmm?” she crows, and azzi blushes, and then looks down pointedly at paige’s hand that is currently slipping under the waistband of her sweats.

“oh i’m sorry, was that not on your agenda?” she asks, teasing, and pushes herself out from underneath paige, walking down the hallway towards the living room, smiling to herself at the immediate feeling of paige’s hands back on her hips, grasping at her to keep her close. 

“no, no, azzi, c’mon, i’m jus’ playing, come back here,” and she actually sounds a little bit worried, as if azzi will somehow change her mind or something ridiculous. 

she spins back to face paige when she gets to the couch, and laughs at the look on her face, hopeful and kind of like a puppy dog. it's definitely a diversion tactic and it almost works, she almost says fuck it and drags paige further into the apartment in search of the bedroom, but she stays strong.

“talk first, and then you can give me a very thorough tour of the rest of your apartment,” she assures, and paige relents, but not before pressing a short, close-mouthed kiss to azzi’s lips, as if sealing the deal.  

“‘kay. i’m holding you to that,” she adds, but she looks unsure of herself, and then they’re just standing there like idiots in the evening light of paige’s apartment, looking at each other. 

azzi decides she wants to be sitting for this, so she kicks off her slides and drops onto the couch behind her. 

for a second, paige looks like she doesn’t know what to do or where to sit, and she’s never been unsure of invading azzi’s personal space before, so azzi just rolls her eyes and tugs her down onto the couch next to her. paige flops down, sprawled out next to azzi, and they settle into the cushions, azzi curled underneath paige’s arm, facing her, legs crossed and socked feet tucking under paige’s thigh. 

paige is quiet, waiting for azzi to formulate how she wants to start this, and she’s grateful for the silence as she mentally grapples with how to open this particular can of worms. 

she settles on “can you tell me what happened the night of the championship?” 

might as well start out with the big guns.

paige inhales sharply, and she looks like she really doesn’t want to recount that night, so azzi gently takes one of her hands in her own and tangles their fingers. 

“you don’t remember?” she mumbles, and her voice sounds so small, not at all like the confident paige that had just been giving azzi shit and kissing the living daylights out of her. 

“no, only. only that we kissed, but even that’s hazy. and i had a mark,” she reaches up with paige's hand still tangled in hers and presses at her collarbone, “right here.”

“yeah.” paige’s voice breaks on the acknowledgement, and she looks like she’s gonna cry at the reminder, eyes watery where they gaze at the spot that her fingers are pressing into. azzi’s heart squeezes in her chest. she looks a little relieved, though, that azzi can’t recall what happened. 

“if i’d known you were that drunk i wouldn’t have…” she trails off, voice shaky, and azzi cuts in. 

“you were drunk too paige, s’not your fault.” 

paige hums. when azzi squeezes her fingers, she continues. “it was such a good night until then. we were so drunk, and you were so happy, and you were clinging onto me like it-” her voice breaks, and azzi leans further into her side to try and comfort her. they’re both already crying a little bit, and her heart squeezes, again, but she needs to hear this before they go any further. 

“like it meant something. something more than usual. and then you wanted to go upstairs and i kept thinking finally. and. and i kissed you when we got to my room and you seemed so into it. and then i said-” she cuts off again, and azzi feels dread pool in her gut. she isn’t sure she actually wants to hear this story but she can’t stop listening. 

“i told you i was in love with you, like an idiot, and you-” she inhales, through her tears, like she’s steeling herself, and azzi squeezes her eyes shut in preparation, gripping paige’s hand tighter. 

“you asked me why i had to ruin it, why we couldn’t just kiss without it meaning anything.” 

azzi makes a wounded sound, curling closer, and paige is sobbing now, and this is so, so much worse than she’d thought. 

“paige.” is the only thing she can get out as comfort, and now she's sobbing too. god she’d been so, so stupid.  “i didn’t know.” she shifts, and then climbs all the way into paige’s lap, trying to ease the hurt that her unconscious drunk mind had caused and pressing a messy kiss to her hairline. she tries to get as close as possible as a reminder that they're here now, not in a shitty hotel room in tampa.

god. no wonder paige had distanced herself. azzi doesn’t even know what she’d have done. probably run straight out of that hotel and thrown herself off a cliff

paige isn’t done, though, and azzi briefly wonders how it could possibly get worse, before regretting her curiosity instantly. 

“and then you got mad when i wouldn’t. wouldn’t just keep going. and i asked if we could jus’ talk about it in the morning and you promised that we would.” paige presses the words into azzi shoulder, bring her arms up to wrap around the younger girl’s back. her tank top is wet from paige’s tears and. this whole thing has azzi sick to her stomach. 

she presses a sob into paige’s hair, and she knows the next part but she lets her finish anyway. 

“and then you didn’t say anything the next morning and i didn’t know if you didn’t remember or if you just didn’t want to talk about it, but either way i just. couldn’t do it anymore.” her voice is shot, and she’s still crying, but she looks relieved to have finished. 

azzi lets the silence sit for a minute before responding. “i thought you regretted kissing me. or whatever happened, i couldn’t remember. and then you just. stopped, like, wanting to be friends, and i thought you’d decided you didn’t need me anymore,” azzi releases through tears, and her heart breaks for both of them at the stupidity of the last year. 

a “no!” rips from paige’s chest, insulted, and she laughs humorlessly. “az, i’ll always need you. for god sake, i pretty much just moped for the entire year plus. arike banned your name ‘cause she got tired of listening to me whine about how much i missed you.” she looks up at azzi through her eyelashes, tears clumped together, and she looks so beautiful, despite them, that azzi’s heart breaks all over again. 

“if it makes you feel better, i missed you just as bad, except i wouldn’t talk to anyone about it. the whole team knew not to bring you up around me cause i would just shut down.” 

she knocks their foreheads together, gently,  in affection before continuing, “one of the freshmen got your old room and i wouldn’t go anywhere near it.” 

paige smiles, brokenly, at that. “bet she didn’t decorate it as well as me.” 

it's not really funny, but azzi lets out a watery giggle anyways, pressing it into the curve of paige’s brow. “she probably didn’t have a blanket over the blinds though.” 

paige hums in agreement, and motions for azzi to continue before starting to trace lines on azzi’s back. 

azzi takes a deep breath before speaking. “over the break we went to dinner, me ‘n lili and a couple others. and somehow like dating and stuff got brought up and she asked me if i’d ever been in love. and i said no.” 

paige tenses under her, but azzi squeezes their hands that are still tangled together and waits until she relaxes again to continue. 

“and none of them believed me. they all thought we’d been dating in secret or whatever. and i couldn’t believe it but then i started thinking about it and. and then i got home and called my mom, and asked her if i’d been in love with you,” she pauses for a second, trying to get her words straight. paige’s hand on her back falters for a second, before continuing, slow and steady, and it grounds her. 

“and she said if i was asking her than i already knew.” 

paige laughs a little bit, commenting “‘course she did.” 

“i know,” she agrees, “and then. well. i got really drunk and somehow thought it was a good idea to call you.” 

paige smiles, a little crookedly. “wasn’t your worst idea, though.” 

azzi hums in agreement. “no, it wasn’t”

paige opens her mouth to say something and then stops, reconsidering. 

azzi narrows her eyes. “what,” she prods, needing to know everything. 

paige hesitates again before continuing. “i thought god was punishing me when i saw who was calling. i’d just made the first step in so long to try and get over you, finally relented to all my teammates telling me to get laid for the first time in over a year and. here you were calling me for the first time in forever like you knew i’d just spent half an hour pretending the girl on top of me was you.” she shakes her head, laughing a little. “i left as soon as i hung up. cried all the way home.” 

and azzi knows it’s fucked up, but satisfaction settels in her bones at the knowledge that paige hadn’t been sleeping her way through texas in azzi’s absence like she’d thought, even if the reminder of the girl on the phone kills her a little.

“i wanted to die when i heard her voice. almost hung up you,” she gets out, and paige presses a kiss to her shoulder in response. 

“baby, i haven’t wanted anyone but you since i was like, sixteen.” 

the word baby echoes inside azzi’s head and she smiles, ducking her head. 

“maybe if you’d ever told me that-”

“-i did tell you-” paige protests, but azzi’s having none of it.

“sober- if you’d told me sober i probably would’ve figured out i was in love you a lot quicker.” 

paige huffs. “azzi, the entire world knew i was in love with you. obviously i thought you knew, too, ” and then, when azzi’s words sink in a bit more, and she adds, a little in awe, “you’re in love with me? like, forreal?”

azzi doesn’t bother correcting her verb tense. it might seem stupid to already be saying i love you when they haven’t actually had a conversation in a year, but she knows with more certainty than anything ever that this is a past and a present and a future kind of thing. 

“obviously.” is her only response, gesturing to where she’s sitting on paige’s lap, their fingers still curled together. 

and paige’s smile is positively blinding as she leans up to press their mouths together, murmuring “s’ fire.” 

honestly. you’d think she’d be a little more romantic. 

and their faces are both damp from tears, but it doesn’t matter because paige is kissing her like her laugh is the best thing she’s ever tasted, and maybe it is.  

and paige flips them somehow (azzi isn’t really paying attention to the logistics, too focused on the patch of skin she finds below paige’s ear that makes her keen) and they end up pressed into the couch, paige laying on top of her. 

azzi finds paige’s mouth again, fingers tangling in her hair, and paige presses their hips together, swallowing the brunettes' moan at the contact. 

and then paige pulls back above her and grins. 

“so can we have sex now,” she questions, and azzi rolls her eyes, shoving at her shoulder.

“way to be a romantic, p,” she responds, but it just sounds fond instead of annoyed. 

“excuse you, i am such a romantic,” she retorts, and at azzi’s unimpressed look, she tries again.  “azzi jazlyn, i am very much in love with you, can i please make sweet, sweet love to you?” 

azzi groans, but it’s kind of a futile attempt to seem like she’s not utterly charmed, because she lets paige tug her up off the couch anyways. 

and there are still residual tear tracks on their faces, and more conversations to be had, but as she chases paige down the hallway to her bedroom, laughter flowing freely from them both, she figures they can figure that out later. right now, this is enough. 

update: chapter 3

AN: suprise, surprise, these two wouldn't leave me alone. at the expense of my gpa. happy finals? ummm. this is entirely plotless. like completely. hopefully I managed to capture their dynamic shift the way I was intending? idk you guys tell me. I wanted to make sure they were still paige and azzi at the end of the day. ummm I'm not as proud of this as I was about the other two chapters but I can't tell if that's because it's actually not as good or if I just really like writing monologuey angst and hate writing dialogue/smut. uh. without further ado, six thousand words of pure nonsense!

the thing about being best friends for eight years and teammates for at least half of that time is that you see each other in various states of undress quite often. (especially when you’re an eensy weensy teeny tiny bit more than best friends and practically live inside each other’s skin.)

you would think this fact would have at least minimally prepared azzi for the whole getting-naked-to-have-sex thing. this is tragically not the case. 

like. okay. azzi knows, objectively, that paige is a very attractive person. has noticed the cut of her abs, and how nice her hands are, and how biteable (yeah. she said it. biteable.) her jawline looks when she tilts her head. but the difference between thinking all those things and having paige actually underneath her, with miles of smooth skin to put her hands (and mouth. hopefully. if she can pick it back up off the ground, where it’s been for the last minute.) is entirely overwhelming. 

she feels dizzy with all the things she wants to do, doesn’t even know where to begin. paige is looking entirely too smug, however, laid out underneath azzi in just sweat shorts and an old, thin calvin bra and smirking like she knows every thought buzzing around in her head, so azzi decides kissing her is a decent place to start.

(azzi called her a slut when she discovered that paige hadn’t worn a shirt underneath her sweatshirt. paige had simply said yeah, for you. and well. here they were, fifteen seconds later, azzi straddling her on the bed.) 

this kiss is slower than their previous ones, less desperate, but it stokes the fire that’s been burning in azzi all the same, and it only burns hotter when paige’s hands slide up underneath her tank top to cup at her breasts. 

evidently, paige gets tired of the material in her way after approximately 10 seconds and mumbles out “ off ,” tugging at azzi’s shirt. 

she tugs it up over her head, but before she can busy herself with the skin below paige’s collarbone that’s been calling to her, she gets distracted by the look on paige’s face, like azzi just made a half court buzzer and not that she’s merely exposed her nipples. 

“ azzi,” paige practically moans, looking dazed.  

and then she blinks and all of a sudden she’s looking up at paige from underneath her, both arms pinned above her head with one of paige’s hands, the other dragging featherlight touches down to trace at azzi’s nipple, goosebumps erupting across her chest. 

paige kisses her again before she has a chance to protest her inability to touch, and it distracts her decently for a few minutes, until paige begins trailing her mouth down to suck a bruise into azzi’s throat and her mouth is freed.

“ paige,” she whines, “wanna touch.” she wriggles her hands a bit, testing her grip. if azzi really wanted to, she could break free in seconds, and by paige’s eyebrow raise when she pulls her head up from azzi’s neck, she knows it too.

“can’t concentrate when your hands are on me, baby. you gonna be good f’me? ” and. okay. that’s. azzi feels herself throb. 

she swallows back the whine that desperately wants to rip from her throat and lets out a “yeah,” voice high and breathy. 

paige’s “ good,” is pressed into the skin of her collarbone, and then she trails lower, mouthing at one of azzi’s nipples. 

she doesn’t think she’s ever been this turned on in her life and and paige has barely touched her yet. fuck’s sake.

paige releases her hands when her mouth moves south, migrating down azzi’s stomach and bringing the hand that was just pinning azzi’s up to thumb at her nipple, dragging her mouth across the smooth, dark skin of her abs. she takes her time tracing the ridges of muscle with her tongue and overall being a general tease, but azzi’s hand stay above her head, hips twitching whenever paige nips at her navel.

the blonde pauses her descent down azzi’s stomach when she gets to her waistband, looking up at her through half-lidded eyes.

“we don’t. we don’t have to have sex if this is all like. too much.” paige says, and despite how much effort it looks like it takes for her to say it, azzi knows with certainty that she means it, would roll off of azzi in an instant if asked and just bask in her presence. 

the sincerity somehow makes her impossibly wetter. 

she throws an arm across her face to try and mask how much the sentence affects her.

“paige- i swear to god if you don’t touch me ,” she muffles, through her forearm, and she can hear the smirk in paige’s reply. 

“eager, are we?”

“ yes,” and she can’t even bring herself to be embarrassed because then paige makes an approving noise in the back of her throat and tugs off azzi’s sweats. 

it is entirely impossible to feel self conscious with the laser focus of paige’s eyes on the wet patch of her panties, but azzi squirms anyway, suddenly almost entirely bare to the heaviness of paige’s gaze.

“ jesus, az.” she breathes, hands flying out to trace at the patch of moisture. her touch is feather light but azzi is already a livewire, and the brush of her fingers against her clit isn’t enough to do anything except make her keen quietly, desperately. 

paige seems content to just look, which would be nice. if azzi wasn’t already soaked through and needy.

she decides getting paige out of her clothes is a good way to move this show along, so she reaches out to drag the older girl back up and strip her out of her shorts and bra to even the playing field a little bit. she tugs paige’s shorts off first, and then pauses, a slow grin spreading across her face. 

“paige madison bueckers, are you wearing a matching set?” her grey, simple calvin underwear matches the faded fabric of her bra, and. azzi is so, so gone for her. 

she grins, not even a little bit embarrassed, and says, proudly, “nothin’ wrong with bein’ an optimist, ma,” before crawling fully over azzi and bending to slot their lips together again. 

paige planks above her with one arm next to azzi’s face, the other tracing lines down her abdomen, pausing when they get to her panties.

“can i?” 

“ please,” is all azzi can muster, hips shifting in anticipation. her blood is simmering already, from paige’s kisses, but she needs more like she needs the air in her lungs to breathe. 

paige smiles, tipping her head down to azzi’s shoulder to watch as her hand slips under the silk of azzi’s underwear and slides into the wetness she finds beneath. 

they both moan at the contact, and azzi’s hips twitch again, begging for more. 

and then paige's thumb is pressing on her clit and she sees stars , keening high in her throat. paige pulls her head up to watch azzi’s reactions, and slips a finger inside, gazing in awe as azzi arches her back up in a bow, drawn taught with need. she slides her finger out, before curling it right back in and repeating the motion, all the while rubbing at azzi’s clit, and azzi feels wetness slide out of her and drip onto paige’s hand. 

and then paige adds a second finger and she goes from turned on to desperately close in a matter of seconds, moaning paige’s name and reaching up to grip at her blonde hair as her mouth returns to azzi’s chest. 

she watches the veins on paige’s wrist move with the motion of her hand, and listens to the slick sound of her fingers moving in and out, and. fucking hell she’s going to come. 

paige fingers curl particularly hard on one thrust, and she’s suddenly aware of the ring still on one of paige’s digits, now probably covered in azzi’s slick, and.

“paige, paige, m’gonna come, fuck.”

and then paige tears her hand away from azzi’s cunt, leaving her clenching around nothing, and she whines in despair, finger scrabbling at paige’s back.

“shhh, baby, wanna taste you that's all,” paige says, mouth already dipping lower to drag across azzi’s breast.

“ mean-” is all azzi can get out in response, still reeling from the taste of her high in such close reach. 

“i’ll make it up to you,” paige promises, from her navel, and azzi knows she means to sound cocky but it comes out breathless instead, like she’s just as affected by this as azzi is.

azzi believes her.

paige traces the waistline of her panties with her tongue, before reaching up to tear them off and exposing azzi fully to her gaze. her hips twitch at the weight behind her stare, and her cunt throbs in anticipation as paige reaches out to drag a finger down through azzi’s soaked folds.

“ fuck,” azzi breathes , just as paige mumbles out a dazed “you’re so wet for me, hmm?”

azzi is going to combust. and then, paige drops a kiss to her clit, before attaching her mouth for real, and forget combustion. azzi has ascended to a higher plane. 

paige takes her time with it, tracing her tongue up and down azzi’s folds, and she feels like she’s being lit on fire by her mouth, trying to wriggle her hips to get closer to the flame. she was so close just a minute ago, and she still is, but she needs more to get off, itching for a finger, more pressure on her clit, anything .

“paige, i need it” she whines, and she doesn’t even know what she’s asking for, exactly, just knows that paige can give it to her. 

“you need more, baby?” she questions, words vibrating into azsi’s core. 

she moans in affirmative, but before she can give a verbal agreement, there are two fingers back inside of her and all she can do is wail instead, surrendering to the pleasure that paige is pulling out of her.

and then all of a sudden paige goes from light strokes of her tongue and only minimal pressure on her opening to sucking on azzi’s clit, hard , and thrusting her fingers inside at the perfect angle, and azzi sees stars, thrashing a little bit in ecstasy. 

her words are incoherent now, just a mush of paige’s name and various pleas, and lightning builds up again in her abdomen in no time, heat curling in her core. 

and then paige nips, slightly, at her clit, timed perfectly with a curl of her fingers, and azzi shatters, entire body tensing up as she comes. 

she feels paige flop down next to her, but the world is still buzzing, toes tingling, and she can only muster up the energy to squeeze their fingers together in thanks, vision still white. 

she’s never come that hard in her life.  

when her breathing returns to normal, and her body starts to feel less like she’s floating away on a different plane, she’s reminded of the feral part of her that wants to touch and pleasure the girl lying next to her, and she straddles paige, leaning down to kiss her and moaning at the taste of herself. she breaks the kiss for a second to finally drags paige’s bra off and fling it behind her, and then miles of unblemished skin are staring back at her, just begging for her mouth.  

she bites at paige’s collarbone, before dipping down to take a nipple in her mouth, smiling a bit at the hitch in her breath. she explores a little more, leaving marks as she goes for good measure, and then she brings her fingers to the waistband of paige’s underwear, asking silent permission. paige nods, and azzi moves back up to kiss her for a bit as she traces her fingers through the pool of slick, dipping her fingers under the elastic and swallowing the quiet moans that paige releases.

paige is so, so wet, and azzi needs to put her mouth on her right now. 

“can i eat you out?” she mumbles, pressing the words into paige’s skin.

paige’s hips twitch, and she moans, wantonly, before breathing out “ c’n do whatever you want, az.” 

she doesn’t need more encouragement. 

“‘ve never done this before, can you- can you tell me how to make it good?” she asks, voice shy. 

paige just looks at her for a second, wild and turned on, before replying, voice hoarse, “s’you, azzi, it’s gonna be good.” 

azzi rolls her eyes, because: unhelpful, but allows it for now anyways, and scooches down, mouth catching everywhere she can on her descent. 

she tugs the offending material off, eyes catching on the meat of her thighs, and then situates herself between her long, endless legs, just looking for a second, admiring paige splayed out before her and exposed, just for azzi . 

she’s not even trying to be a tease, but there’s just so many things she wants to do and she can’t keep her mouth on one place for too long, sucking a mark into the pale, unmarred skin of paige’s pelvis, and then one on her inner thigh for good measure, leaning back to admire her handiwork. 

“azzi, baby, you’re killing me,” paige moans, sounding wrecked, and she hums before finally focusing on the patch of wetness at paige's core. she curls an arm under paige’s thigh and drapes it back across her hips to hold her steady, and then licks a tentative stripe up paige’s center, humming happily at the taste and intentionally sending vibrations into paige’s cunt 

she blonde makes a high, needy sound azzi’s never heard before above her, and she doubles down at the encouragement, sucking at paige's clit into her mouth and humming again in warning when her hips try and lift up to grind against azzi’s tongue. 

she looks up, and notices that paige’s eyes are closed, so she lifts her head briefly, requesting, “wan’ you to look at me, p,” and savors the way her blue eyes fly open, strangled sound escaping her mouth. 

“ jesus christ,” she whines, when azzi’s mouth returns, and she mumbles out a string of curses when her tongue trails down to trace at paige’s hole, but doesn’t break eye contact. 

a secret, possessive part of her mind relishes on the thought that paige has probably been fantasizing about some version of this moment for a long, long time. azzi is determined to live up to her dreams. 

she drags her mouth back up to paige’s clit, and slides the hand not currently pinning paige’s hips down on the bed down to run her fingers against the wetness pooling at her opening, sliding her fingers back and forth. 

“ please- azzi-” is all paige gets out, but it's enough, and azzi slides a finger in, sucking lazily at her above it. paige is so wet, and her walls clench down on azzi’s finger when she crooks it, and she knows she just came, but azzi may or may be getting off on this too. no one has to know. 

she adds another when paige lets out a particularly delicious whine, and she feels drunk on the sounds coming out of paige’s mouth, of the taste of her cunt on her tongue. (she is definitely, definitely into women. one hundred percent confirmed.)

it only takes another minute of azzi’s mouth on her clit, fingers curling inside, before paige is coming with a cry, thighs clenching momentarily around azzi’s head. she keeps her fingers pumping slowly, working her through it, until paige whines in overstimulation and drags azzi’s head away with the hands that are still tangled in her hair. 

she looks ruined, pupils blown and chest heaving, and azzi takes a second to kneel above and admire how pretty she looks like this, flushed and covered in marks.

“tha’ was nice,” is what paige decides to say first, still breathing hard, arm thrown across her face. idiot. 

azzi hums, amused. “should do it again sometime.” 

“i’d prolly be down.” 

azzi just rolls her eyes and crawls up paige’s body to lie closer to her, tangling their legs together and curling up under her chin. “yeah, yeah. prolly. okay, champ.”

“you did not just call me champ.”

azzi presses her laugh into the nook between paige’s neck and shoulder, like she has a million times before, but now there’s sweat cooling on their skin and pleasure still buzzing through her veins, and she feels a new kind of comfort in her favorite place. 

she smiles into the open skin in front of her, nipping at it lightly, and paige giggles- giggles - above her. she feels giddy with all the happiness radiating off the blonde, her own contentment settling into every crevice of her mind. 

“you’re gonna be a problem f’me aren't you,” paige mumbles into her hair, affection ruining any chance at seeming annoyed.

azzi hums, dragging her fingertips through the hair at the base of the blonde’s neck and lets contented silence settle around them. 

and then, because she can’t help it: “i made you finish faster.” 

paige squaks and rolls them over, planting herself above azzi and looking like the picture of indignation. 

she gloats again, “i’m just sayin’. i’ve never even gotten a girl off before and you only lasted, what, like, four min-” 

paige cuts her off with a kiss, pressing the brunette back into the mattress and slidling a leg between azzi’s to nudge her between her thighs, right where she’s already wet and waiting again. she detaches their mouths for a second, mumbling out a “four minutes, i’ll show you four minutes ,” and starts mouthing kisses down the column of azzi’s throat.

…

round two (or is it three? she doesn’t really know how to keep track of when one starts and another begins) comes to a begrudging halt when azzi hears paige's stomach grumble, loudly, for the second time in under a minute. and then she thinks about how she hasn’t eaten since 11am, and it's probably getting on to be 7pm, and she makes an executive decision to extract herself from paige’s limbs and go find them something to eat. 

both objectives prove to be difficult. 

extracting herself, because paige has decided that now that she can touch azzi whenever and however she wants, she has to be touching azzi at all times, however she wants. she allows this until paige actively tries to stop her from putting on a shirt, claiming that she’s being unfair and latching onto azzi’s back to press kisses to her shoulder and making it impossible for her to pull the faded graphic tee she finds thrown on the desk chair over her head. 

this results in some light making out against paige’s dresser until her stomach rumbles for the third time and azzi is reminded that they’ve both played a full 40 minutes of basketball and gone multiple rounds without sustenance, and despite paige’s insistence, azzi is not sufficient enough for dinner. 

they compromise on clothing by each throwing on a pair of faded boxers that paige digs up, and azzi steals the calvin bra that paige had been wearing earlier, which delights paige, who in turn  throws on the tank top azzi had been wearing. 

she smacks paige on the shoulder when she nudges their socked feet together and drawls “thank god we didn’t take our socks off. was worried we was bein’ gay.”

ridiculous. she’s ridiculous.

her “you’re not nearly as funny as you think you are,” lacks heat and is muffled into paige’s shoulder, because smacking her had turned into being pulled into a hug, just because. 

“you sure you believe that?” is the response into her hair. azzi pinches her waist and ignores the subsequent yelp. 

and something warm and fuzzy solidifies in her stomach at how easy this already is- the coexisting and the sharing clothes and the physical intimacy. 

it’s not like she was worried that it would be awkward, that the sex would be bad, but the reassurance that she and paige are just as compatible as they’ve always been- even more so now that they are solidly on the same page- makes her feel like shitting rainbows or puppies or some equally as idiotic metaphor that is always used for people who are ridiculously happy. 

she buries her grin in paige’s shoulder and just takes it in for a second. 

but also. food. 

finally dressed enough to brave the massive windows that line the kitchen, azzi pulls herself from paige’s embrace and goes to walk through the door, but is stopped by a hand on her hip. 

“nah, nah, wait a second, baby. gotta give you the proper attire.” 

paige disappears into her closet, and azzi is left standing in the doorway, confused, because paige had just been throwing an absolute fit about azzi hiding any more skin, before immediately groaning when paige returns wearing a large, wide brimmed brown cowboy hat and holding an equally as ridiculous looking tan one in her outstretched hands. 

“i am not wearing that.” she crosses her arms in protest, mouth twitching to hide her grin.

“i told you. it’s mandatory here, az. this one’s my favorite.” she flips it, to show off the paige written across the side. “hat police are gonna getcha if you don’t. i’m just protecting you.”

“you just wanna see me in a hat that has your name on it,” is her response, but she lets paige place it on her tangle of curls anyway. 

she still feels a little bit like she needs to be sent to an asylum, because hello, but as her and paige traipse down the hallway, bumping hips and hat brims every five seconds and laughing like it’s the funniest joke in the world, she figures paige will have to be sent there right along side her, and. well. that doesn’t sound half bad at all. 

she leaves the other girl to the task of fishing their phones out from the various spots they were abandoned in the living room and wanders into the kitchen to evaluate the food situation. 

and here comes the difficulty of her second objective, because paige has, like, nothing to eat. their mini fridge in storrs had more nutrients than the empty monstrosity that is paige’s stainless steel refrigerator. 

“i don’t understand how you’re alive,” she states, when she hears paige’s feet on the hardwood floors returning back to the kitchen.

“ummm door dash. obviously,” is her response, as she places their phones on the counter and hooks her head on azzi’s shoulder. “think there’s chicken in there that hasn't expired, though.” their hats bang together, almost knocking them both off, and paige’s hands shoot immediately from azzi’s waist to the tops of their heads, fighting to keep them both balanced. 

affection wells up so strongly in azzi at the stupid gesture that she just has to turn around and kiss her. 

this does knock paige’s hat off, and it falls to the floor behind her, but it's fine because her hands have returned to azzi’s skin where they belong and her tongue is tracing azzi’s lower lip and actually. maybe this is enough sustenance. 

she shivers, partly from the finger currently brushing her nipple through the thin cotton of her (paige’s) bra, and partly because she’s standing directly in front of the open fridge . 

which beeps. loudly. because it’s been open for too long. and okay yes. food. they need food. 

“gettin’ cockblocked by my own damn appliance is a low,” paige mumbles, when azzi pulls away to turn back around. 

“we’re not having sex again until you can go more than five minutes without your stomach grumbling.”

“bro. you kissed me .” 

her stomach rumbles. 

at azzi’s pointed look over her shoulder, “yeah, yeah. lemme see if i have tortillas.”

paige hip checks her on her way to the pantry and the domesticity of it all has azzi grinning like a fucking lunatic as she pulls the ( barely non-expired) chicken and some cheese from the drawers and finally closes the doors. 

there is nothing even remotely resembling a vegetable in paige’s kitchen, but azzi figures chicken quesadillas are as good as they’re gonna get for now and lets paige bumble around getting a skillet on the stove while she sits on the counter to supervise and check her texts. 

she has 27 from the team group chat which she ignores in favor of the 3 waiting for her from aaliyah.

5:09 lili: bro where’d you go 

5:21 lili: azzi fudd u little slut

6:48 lili: so im guessing ur not coming to team dinner

she giggles at her phone, and, just as it always used to be, summons paige in exactly four milliseconds, the blonde sidling up beside her to peer over her shoulder, never one to miss out. 

she laughs, too, when she sees the texts, and snatches the phone from azzi’s hand when she nods at paige’s silent request. she backs up and takes a photo of azzi, sitting on the counter, cowboy hat askew and probably smiling at paige behind the camera like a freak.

paige shows her the photo before she sends it, and. jesus. azzi looks positively debauched, hair wild around her face under the hat, the paige on the brim front and center, and marks littering her neck. she’s looking at the camera like the sun is shining out of paige’s ass, and. 

she looks so happy . and so utterly paige’s.

she doesn’t realize that paige sends the photo accompanied by she’s looking at her dinner until after.

“ paige,” she whines, when she sees, but paige is already reopening the camera and sending another photo, this time of herself, tongue sticking out and self satisfied smirk present across stupid, beautiful face, marks of her own visible on her collarbone. 

they watch, in real time, as aaliyah sends back a string of nonsensical letters. and then, simultaneously, both their phones start buzzing incessantly. aaliyah has apparently decided that their old uconn group chat that had fallen out of disuse when the two of them stopped being able to interact needs immediate updating. snitch.

CD’s favorites +paige 😛✌️

lili: [2 screenshots of her texts with azzi]

lili: GUYSFHDSJKALFG

lili: WE PRAYED FOR TIMES LIKE THIS

kk: NO FUCKING SHOT

nika: RU SERIPUS 

ice princess: YALL R BACK TG?????

they watch in amusement as more people begin to chime in, and even though some of them are under the impression that they’re back together, it doesn't matter. the responses get particularly funny when people start sending in tweets of clips of the two of them from the game. 

caroline: should’ve known yall were back on ur bs

caroline: [link to a tweet with the caption oh they are soooo back tg above a video of their interaction in the first quarter: giggling at each other and touching for way longer than necessary under the pretense of azzi helping paige up. it has 5k likes.]

azzi sends a simple im never texting you anything ever again aaliyah. 

kk: dont u have dinner to enjoy

paige, who has grabbed her phone while azzi was crafting her text, giggles at her own phone next to azzi. 

paige: yes. she does. 

paige: muting this gc now 

paige: nosy freaks

and then, she plucks azzi’s phone from her hands, mutes the gc, and drops their phones down on the counter. 

“not ready to share you. we can text them later.” she grins at azzi, and tries to slide between her legs, head coming in for a kiss.

azzi gives in to a chaste peck before pulling back. “dinner first. kissing after.”

paige groans, but obliges when azzi shoos her back to the stove, hopping off the counter after her to assist with the assembly. 

as she digs around in the cabinets to find cooking spray, she prompts, “so. tell me how dallas has really been.”

the chat as they cook, filling each other in on the bigger things that have happened in the last year as they move seamlessly around the kitchen, like bob getting promoted and azzi getting a new car. and it’s a little bittersweet, at the reminder of the distance that’s grown between them, but azzi finds herself simply wanting to know more, share more. they can’t change the past, redo the last year and figure their shit out earlier, but she’s surprised to find herself beginning to be okay with that as long as she has paige now, and in the future. 

the warm simplicity of it, the domesticity of moving around the kitchen in sync, makes azzi’s heart feel like it's about to burst out of her chest. and she knows she must be really gone because paige gently smacking her ass every time she passes by is somehow cute. lord help her. 

“missed this,” she says quietly at one point, when paige comes to stand behind her at the stove to flip one of the quesadillas. it's the understatement of the century, but she knows paige will understand the thousands of meanings embedded into the two words.

“yeah,” she agrees, dropping a kiss to azzi’s shoulder. “me too.”

they decide to eat on the floor, backs against the kitchen cabinets, because it allows for them to be touching in multiple places, paige’s legs splayed out in front of them and azzi practically in her lap, balancing their shared plate on her knees. she ignores how ridiculous she feels at the fact that being able to be as close as possible to paige takes precedence over the convenience of sitting at an actual table. 

her prefrontal cortex has been replaced by a picture of paige’s face. whatever.

as they scarf down their quesadillas, azzi hears one of their phones vibrating on the counter above them with a call. she reaches above her, fumbling around without looking to try and find it so she doesn’t have to stand up, and smiles triumphantly when her hand makes contact with the buzzing plastic. 

of course it’s her mother. 

paige grins, and swipes to answer it before azzi can protest. 

katie’s opening line is “34 points! i’m so proud of you, honey!” and they can hear tim echoing his agreement in the background. azzi knows very well that this is a front and that the last thing she’s calling about right now is basketball, but she plays along. 

“hey, mom, thank you,” she says, suspicious. 

“any particular reason you were playing so well, anything to do with that phone call we had last week?” 

and. ah yes. there it is, not even ten seconds into the call. paige looks like she just won the lottery, the bitch , shit-eating grin sliding across her face. azzi mouths don’t and tries to feign innocence. “nope, just. y’know, felt good today.” 

tim’s voice adds on to the humiliation ritual that is azzi’s life, asking, “not showing off for anyone or anything?”. 

“nope.” she says, popping the p and letting them sit in silence for a second. 

she sees paige open her mouth in her peripheral and lunges to try and cover it but its too late, and paige’s cheerful “hi katie, hi tim!” is muffled through azzi’s hands.

paige is so, so dead. azzi is going to withhold kisses from her for like. at least 10 minutes. 

her parents are immediately a chorus of smug hellos and laughter on the other end of the line. they all suck. 

“so you guys finally figured your shit out, huh?” her mom asks, and what is happening? why is azzi being subjected to this?

“azzi’s fault,” paige claims, amidst the younger girl’s protests. “do you know how dumb your daughter is?” she continues, showing off for azzi’s parents like the absolute kiss up that she is. azzi mentally extends the no kissing time frame by another 10 minutes.

“well of course! that’s why you’re the favorite.” says her dad, laughing on the other end, and azzi groans into paige’s arm. 

“ oh my god. i’m hanging up on you guys. we’ll call you tomorrow,” she whines, but the laughter only continues. 

her parents and paige chat briefly, getting updates on their lives with azzi chiming in occasionally with commentary, and her mother begrudgingly lets them hang up after informing them she was going to call amy like the absolute gossip she was. 

paige tries to kiss her in the silence following the dial tone, but azzi’s mental timer is still running and she’s not about to let paige start something on the floor of the kitchen, so she pushes paige up off the ground to start the dishes. 

she decides to put on music while the blonde begins loading the dishwasher, and slides back onto the counter, grabbing paige’s phone so she can connect to the speakers she knows are hidden somewhere in the room (paige has too much money for her own good, but at least she has taste.)

“what’s your password?” she tosses at paige. it's weird having to ask, and it's a melancholy reminder of the last year, but then.

silence in response. she glances up, confused, and immediately laughs at paige’s caught expression. 

“ oh my god. you love me so much,” she exclaims, typing in 3505, the same as it's been since that first summer session before azzi’s freshman year. “this is a new phone, too, i can tell.”

“yeah, yeah, okay. chill. changing it felt wrong.” her voice is bashful, almost embarrassed, and, well, that just won’t do.

she pulls the blonde over and traps her between the vee of hips by tangling her ankles behind paige’s back. her arms wrap around paige’s neck, and azzi takes in how beautiful she is, faint blush painting her cheeks. she knows there must be some lingering insecurity, god knows azzi would need centuries of reassurance to come back from the amount of time paige spent pining, and she tries to pick her words carefully to squash as much doubt as she can in one go. 

“i’m sorry it took so long for me to figure out, but i am so, so in love with you. like a concerning amount.”

paige’s blush deepens, and azzi’s heart swells at how happy she looks, here in the dim light of her kitchen in azzi’s tank top.

“ sap.” paige tucks her grin into azzi’s shoulder, before pulling back to look at her. “s’okay. we got here eventually.” 

and, yeah. they did. 

she leans in to kiss azzi, who meets her halfway, and then the open dishwasher and pan in the sink is forgotten in favor of paige’s mouth on her throat, her stomach, her thighs, her cunt.

she eats azzi out slowly, reverently, like she’s trying to memorize every sound she makes, every nerve ending, every shift of her hips. paige works her up in mere minutes, azzi’s back arching against the marble countertop and paige’s name tumbling from her lips. she keeps her there, on the edge for a second, just looking up at azzi, taking it in.

and it's nice, or whatever, that paige wants to savor the moment, but azzi wants to come. she doesn’t even know the words that are coming out of her mouth, begging for paige to do something, anything, babbling incoherent strings of baby and paige and please. 

her fingers curl in paige’s hair and tug, and then paige is slipping two fingers into the heat of her and sucking her clit in her mouth and that’s all it takes for azzi to break, the world around them ceasing to exist.   

paige pulls away, dazed, and azzi drags her back up for a kiss to taste herself, licking into paige’s mouth and humming in content. (azzi has her so pussy drunk that she doesn’t even make a dessert joke. life is so beautiful.)

but then paige frees her mouth from azzi and mumbles “just so you know, i’m winning. it’s 4-3,” sly grin spreading across her face. azzi is confused for all of three seconds before she shrieks and shoves paige off of her. 

“are you counting orgasms?”

“i’m just saying -”

“oh my god. you’re keeping track of orgasms . paige madison-”

“you’re just annoyed ‘cause you’re losing, ma,” she shrugs, and pats azzi's thigh in mock consolidation. azzi loves her so much that she feels like she doesn’t know what to do with all of it.

she figures a good place to start is to drag paige down the hallway and back towards her bedroom to even the score. she’s never been very good at losing.