chapter one: sugar houseâthat night has never finished happening.
president's daughter!paige x older!art historian/professor!azzi. men and minors dni.
wc: 20.2k.
synopsis: against the backdrop of her mother's re-election campaign, america's first daughter finds that she wants something different. to lose is not in her nature.
cw: age gap (student/professor, paige is in her early 20s/azzi is in her early 30s), power imbalance, secret relationship, dark romance, unreliable-ish pov (p), obsessive & intrusive thoughts, mild stalking-adjacent behavior, theft (low-stakes), non-graphic mention of paternal death, controlling/emotionally manipulative behavior, mommy issue!p to tha max, wealth disparity, dubious consent, secret identity, slow burn (medium?), vibes-forward pacing, dom!p, sub!azzi.
notes: this is a vaguely political au, and i do mean vaguely. i did not do the homework on how any of this actually works, mechanically, legally, politically, and i'm not going to pretend otherwise. the political backdrop here is mood lighting, not a civics lesson. if you're the kind of reader who wants a deep dive into campaign law or executive protocol, this isn't the fic for that, and i say that with love.
this is also, as tagged, a dark romance. some of what's in here is meant to be uncomfortable. it is not a blueprint; it is certainly not aspirational. it is two people who are, in various ways, bad for each other and also somehow the best thing either of them has ever had. please read the content warnings. take what you need from them and leave the rest. i trust you to know your own limits better than i do, and i'd rather you skip a work than push through something that isn't good for you.
lastly: this fic is nonlinear on purpose, especially early on. it jumps around in time and pov more than once, and it's meant to. a close read will treat you a lot better than a skim will, particularly in the first couple of parts. if something feels disorienting, sit with it before assuming you lost the thread; you probably didn't, i promise, i did that on purpose too, i'm a little cruel like that.
this fic is a labor of love, so please let me know what you think. see you in chapter ii (its completed, just need to edit.)
okay. go. x
prologue i. â± albrecht dĂŒrer, âmary among a multitude of animalsâ, c. 1503.
you have to know this first.
it ends, as these things always do, with a picture, with a phone. itâs the digital age after all.
it isnât her personal. âbâ has long learned to be careful with her things, has been careful for a year and then some, has a second one âkâ doesn't know the number of that lives in a battered jimmy choo shoebox at the back of her closet - remnants of when her mother ached for her to be a real girl - forced into hiding; a thin glass-metal body, devoid of weight, shameful and small.
so, it starts with someone else's phone, a staffer's, a boy from the comms team who is desperately young, twenty-one and not yet devoid of ambitions, and he finds a photograph he was never meant to, while doing exactly the job he was hired to do: which was to look.
âbâ leaving a building on the west side at eleven in the evening in a floor-length black khaite coat called roth on the website, a quarter polyamide with a classic collar and open front; a khaite coat that isn't hers. âbâ again, four days later, same building, same hour, different coat - mouth fallen open wide at the sky as she laughed, so wide the moon couldâve rolled right down and sat like a pill at the base of her throat. a laugh with a strength that shook her whole face, a high swing of her usually raspy voice, authentic in a way the family's photographers had never once managed to capture in four years of political portraits.
and she has to laugh, really, though she can see the blowup that will reverberate through this townhouse they use as campaign headquarters, yet another detonation; yet another western-kissed bomb. she laughs because she has siblings and theyâre all much messier than their mother would like for presidential children, a spill of humanity, caught out in more mortifying ways.
she still remembers last summer when the mockingbirds in her motherâs dust-drowned aviary caught a hook on the word sweetheart, sang a chorus of endearment all summer long: sweetheart, sweetheart, sweetheart. and then theyâd learned her eldest brother was seeing a man twice his years lived, grey at the temple, a mouth that trembled when he said âplease, sweetheartâ after her brother had sobbed out that he had to let him go.
she hasnât seen that brother in a week or so.
anyway, the staffer. so, he takes it to someone who takes it to someone else, and by the time it reaches âbâsâ mother it has already stopped being a simple good-time photo and has transformed into a liability, a large one; a line item, a problem with tangible shape.
and itâs her mother, so she has to curse at her eldest daughter, storming the house with her claws out. and âbâ has to let her draw blood or itâll never be over. the confrontation happens in âbâsâ favorite room, the one with the 290 grand piano (imperial bösendorfer) no one plays and the portraits of several presidents who are decidely not her mother yet but will be again, god willing, in nine monthsâand âbâ stands in the middle of the carpet like a sixth-grader called to the headmistress's office while her mother reads the room the way she reads everything: optics first, feelings somewhere a little further down the line, heart in the grave.
âtell me it isn't what it looks like.â
âbâ doesn't answer fast enough, and that alone is an answer, and thereâs a cleave in her mother's face, a sudden drop that occurs when whatever she's been most afraid of turns out to be true. no softening, never a softening, just recalculating, fast, blank arithmetic spinning; a woman trained in decisions for survival, facing a fact rather than feel it.
âdo you ever think? do you ever, for one fucking minute, think about what you do?â
âbâ closes her eyes, baby blue shut tight, mouth twisting as she feels the ocean rise in her throat. her dad used to call her gaze blue lace agate, chalcedony. he could name all kinds of rocks, did a lot of digging for them.
he died cutting one right wide open.
the backs of her eyes turn from black to that scarlet splatter scored against an emerald geodeâs innocent face.
âdo you understand what you've done? do you understand what this does to us, six months out, do you understandââ
âiâm always thinking,â âbâ says, and that's the mistake, that's the exact wrong thing to say, and her mother's voice goes up and up until it isn't even her voice anymore. it's just sound, raw and furious and completely unfamiliar, the kind of scream âbâ has not heard since she was small enough to hide from it behind furniture - curled up against the herculean back of a settee, eyes blank and wide to the wall.
in the aviary off the east hall, where her mother keeps the birds she never has time to enjoy, the mockingbirds catch it. they tend to catch the loudest thing. they will keep it, turn it over, offer it back all week in fragmentsâa shriek here, furious syllable thereâlong after the actual fight has been snuffed, hachet still visible in the snow; long after âbâ has been sent upstairs to think about what she's done like sheâs gone back to nine years old, like sheâs never been twenty-two, like there is anything at all to think about that she hasn't already, privately, permanently decided.
she goes back down anyway. she always goes back down. it's the only apology her mother has ever taught her how to give: no use for words, but the body arriving, chastened; âbâ in the doorway, white-blonde braid swinging, asking permission to be forgiven for something she intends to do entirely again.
âdo you have anything to say for yourself?â her mother demands, and âbâ knows the staffers are all huddled outside the door. some of them just canât stand her.
and she feels like a little girl again, hair loose, barrel curls a shower of gold as her head tilts to the floor and she bores a hole into the shiny tips of her loafers. if only rockwell could paint her now. the reference makes her bottom lip tremble; âkâ would like that she made the connection.
she looks up from beneath her lashes, tongue pink and sweet against her teeth, pushing at the front two the way she pushes at âkâs when they kiss. behind her, the mockingbirds are still mimicking her motherâs scream from earlier, over and over, a chorus of agony.
she has to keep the smile back as she softens her face and says, âpromise you won't be mad?â
she knows she's not in a position to be promised anything.
prologue ii â± âfrom blood, wingsâ, susie benes, c. 2021.
you have to know this second.
it started as a practicality, and paige turned it into something else before azzi could even notice the shift occurring, agree to its happening.
they needed a way to text that wasnât a way to text: no names, no nicknames, nothing a stranger could screenshot and place, because paige was already pumped full of paranoia, born and bred of being a public figure whose sentences got decoded by people who were never meant to have read them.
so, it's paige insisting, but then azziâs idea, actually, the letters; dry and practical the way azzi is dry and practical about anything that frightens her.
âletâs just use initials. how about⊠âbâ and âkâ? itâs nothing. nobody looks twice at nothing.â
paige considers this for exactly four seconds before she ruins it.
âthereâs always something in the nothing.â
azziâs face falls, and paige feels a roll-over in her chest like fire, dog on its back, a score of disappointment, and she shifts closer so that she can hold azzi by the hand.
ââbâ and âkâ,â she tries again, turning it twice over like a coin, testing the weight. âb for baby.â
she says it easy, teasing, watching azziâs mouth teeter to-and-fro because she wants to smile and won't quite let herself. her lipstick is nearly gone (cliniqueâs almost lipstick in black honey) and paige wants to kiss the rest off, lick the wax off of her thumb.
âand âkâ forââ a beat, theatrical, drawn out for effect. âkryptonite. obviously. you're the only thing that could take me down.â
azzi huffs something that isn't quite her normal laugh, swats paige with the essay draft still in her hand, says something about how paige has clearly spent too much time constructing a bit instead of finishing her final project, and that's the end of it as far as paigeâs concerned.
itâs a joke, filed away, the kind of nonsense paige produces when she's pleased with herself and wants an audience.
it is not the end of it for paige.
because what she doesn't sayâwhat she has absolutely no intention of ever saying, not now, maybe not for a long time, maybe not until it's already too late to take backâis that she'd meant something else entirely on the drive over, lying in the back of a car she wasn't supposed to have requisitioned for a âstudy session,â running the letters over in her head like a rosary.
k for kryptonite is the version she hands over, funny and small and safe, a joke sized to fit in âkâsâ palm without cutting her.
k for keeps is the one she actually means. itâs what sheâs playing for.
she doesn't examine that too closely. sheâs gotten good, âbâ, at not examining things too closely this past year - at holding a feeling the way you'd hold something too hot, quick, glancing, never quite settling her full weight onto it because she knows herself well enough by now to know what happens when she does.
so sheâs âbâ.
âbâ is not a person who wants things a little. she has never once, in her entire life, wanted anything a little.
and so she keeps it there, filed under the joke, under kryptonite, under the easy laughing shorthand of two letters on a phone screen, and lets âkâ believe it's nothing, because âkâ believing it's nothing is the only way âbâ gets to keep having it.
that night she texts âkââcontact name just the letter, nothing else, the way they've agreedâand stares at it on the screen longer than it warrants, a wave of something silent and enormous moving underneath her like water beneath ice.
and âkâ texts back and she forgets, because sheâs sometimes messy like that. âkâ texts and says, i love you, paige; all formal like sheâs written an email.
and âbâ puts the phone face-down, because she is paige, because she canât be anything else, codename shallow, and she tries her hardest to make herself stop.
so, you know, now.
part i. â± stephen mackey, 'we only come out at night', c. 2014.Â
paige had no illusions about the university chosen for her.
it was far, tucked into the recesses of northernmost vermont, dead center in a town called orlaith that seemed to exist mostly in fog and the constant wet moan of church bells crying a second too late. a town small enough to be walked end to end before the cold really found you, population somewhere around four thousand, which meant most of her professors could keep a wide eye on her, and paige would be incapable of enacting her disappearance the way she had grown so stellar, over the years, at doing.
it was the ideal scenario for her motherâa presidential candidate campaigning for a second termâwho had learned, more than once and always the hard way, that a child was easiest to manage when they were at their smallest and watched by everyone around them, all at once.
paige could already feel the dread of it settling low and cold in her stomach, not unlike swallowing water too quickly, that inside-out-burn as you drown, that particular drag of understanding that you are about to waste away somewhere airless and obstinately beautiful.
because orlaith was beautiful, she would give it that much: slate roofs done up in sea green, pine teal, carbon black, charcoal blue; old maples crisping at the edge, passing into the endless amber, nearly left too long in brine; a cold that arrived early in the year and meant every bit of the business it promised, nothing like the manicured warmth she spent a childhood honing for cameras - god in the flash.
she had managed, somehow, to avoid orientation in the flesh, loath to be beholden to the wasp's-nest hum of whispering and the less-than-subtle staring, her back aching against cherry-wood pews set into the amphitheater like church furniture repurposed for hours of excruciating instruction. so far she had met all but one of her professors, and of those she had met, she liked exactly one: dr. taurasi, who took a single look at her, rolled her eyes, and told her, without any warmth, to sit up straight and produce a report on bergman's through a glass darkly within three weeks whether she liked it or not.
paige had liked it despite herself, the tart plainness of being handled like another student rather than a spectacle.
for now, she was living in her brother's apartment, an arrangement her mother had agreed to with visible reluctance, only because paige had fought for it as though it was the last good thing left to her - because, in a way, it was.
ingemar (mar, to the shrinking list of people who loved him) was technically only her half-brother, the product of their shared father's first marriage, gone from the house years before paige was old enough to know him as anyone but the name pinned and scrawled in shaking cursive on the backs of old photographs. but there had been a strange overlapping window, onceâwhere paige was still small and he, already halfway out the doorâand something about those years had stuck to them both, permanent without either of them ever choosing it, or managing to get it off their backs.
he was the only one of her siblings who had never once made her feel like competition, and the only one who had left the family circus entirely and come out the other side looking, if anything, lighter.
he was, in a way, her biggest dream.
ingemar lived with nikolaev. niki, to everyoneâhis full name a name borrowed from a city on the black sea that neither paige nor mar had ever visited. he was older than mar by a stretch wide enough that their mother had had opinions about it for the better part of a year before conceding, silver threading in at his temples like frost finding a windowpane, and an unhurried, immovable calm about him that made paige understand immediately why mar had chosen to disappear into a life this small and warm. niki called him âingeâ or âsweetheart,â and mar blushed at both - pale skin sanded with texture and a mole at his right cheek, neck flushed a heavy insectile red.
their apartment sat above what had formerly been a hardware store, built on orlaith's one real street, drafty, and it smelled, almost constantly, of woodsmoke and the coffee niki made far too strong and refused, on principle, to apologize for. the only time it erred from that profile was when it smelled strongly of the fig bath salts mar used after a particularly hard day.
from what paige understood, niki came from moneyâsome hedge fund family or anotherâand had urged mar to live, only live, and if he must work then to do something he loved. so, her brother had become a piano teacher, and the apartment showed it.
it was two levels (maybe three if you counted the foyer when you entered), the store now converted, and covered almost feverishly in carpet. there was a small touch of dark wood when you first stepped in, so that shoes could be toed off before continuing to the upstairs. the carpet itself was shagged and pink, or maybe only appeared pink in the lightâalways soft and yellowed, never harsh. though paige would never confess it, she loved going up and down those stairs, toes curled against the landing and usually shielded by whatever oversized trousers sheâd chosen to pair with her sweater of the day.
right as you entered, there was a darkness ahead of you. the lower level, which held a bathroom and some space paige never fully got around to exploring. it had seemed frightening to her at first and then grew steadily more compelling the longer she inhabited the flat, though never any less mysterious.
upstairs, the upper level was flooded with light and held a grand piano. a steinway, black and coaxing, lid kept open and propped so you could see its insides; strings gleaming, ribs pulsing red and black as the students pressed a key here and there. that was always paigeâs favorite part, when she sat in quietly on a lesson: the punch of a pedal resulting in the jerk of the body, bone lifting from muscle, all that blood resolving into a melody that flowed beautifully if the child had put in enough time to properly learn it.
the room was surrounded by a spread of furniture either covered in sheet music or frames, glass slipped over the smiling faces of people she didn't know. the musical deluge spilled into the dining room, the kitchen, which paige could see from her perch on the navy suede couch against the far wallâespecially when her posture was perfect, back ramrod straight.
they had a dog, a little maltese named suzy, who hated anyone who wasnât niki or mar. she could never be let out while paige was ghosting through the house, and certainly not on the nights mar invited parents to sit in and watch their children play; a first discomfort and embarrassment for many of them, but a good solution to stage fright all the same.
the day paige first arrived, there was a housewarming invitation from some months back, still propped in its frame on the entry table. niki's doing, sentimental in a register he would never have admitted to owning, cardstock gone soft and pale at the corners. in embossed script, it read: the blessings request the pleasure of your company.
paige had stopped dead in front of it.
blessing was niki's surname, not mar's. they were bueckersâ blood, through and through.
her phone was out of her pocket before her coat was even off, a single photograph sent with no caption, and the reply arrived quickly enough that she knew she'd caught him somewhere unguarded, somewhere he wasn't braced for this unforeseen ambush.
» so youâre the one taking his name, then.
« it was not my choice. he had the invites made. i didn't ask him to.
» didn't say you did.
« p.
» you didnât correct him?
« paige.
» i didnât mean anything by it. just saying it's sweet.
« well, don't.
she read well, don't three times over, turning it in her head the way you'd turn a stone looking for the smooth side, and knewâthe way she knew so much about her family without ever being told forthrightâthat it wasn't really an order to stop.
it was an old, tired kind of request. their whole family had always spoken about love this way: sideways, at an angle, withheld, terrified of the noise it made once acknowledged. you learned early on to hear the actual sentence underneath the one presented.
what mar meant, she was fairly sure, threading through the single clipped syllable of it, was please don't make me acknowledge this affection, i am not built for it. i have only just learned how not to flinch from its grip; i barely look at it in private.
she saved the photograph anyway. she had a feeling she would need it later: for blackmail, or a moment closer to comfort. possibly both at once.
most things in her family eventually turned out to be both at once.
now she sat nested dead-center of the lecture hall for the single course she had chosen for herselfâarth 3692, art history colloquium, a curriculum so extensive it ran the length of the entire sophomore yearâtaught, apparently, by a newcomer by the name of professor fudd, who was by every account as much an enigma as paige herself and, infuriatingly, rather beloved for it.
every alumnus who had taken her class across the six years she had taught here guarded her like one would guard a priestess, kept her half-secret and precious, closing ranks the moment anyone new so much as asked after her, and had already, in the four days paige had been on this campus, found some way to fault her personally simply for having asked.
for her first day of classes, paige had dressed as though she had arrived somewhere far more highbrow than a lecture hall: oversized fendi sweater in a color like wet bark, pinstriped wool trousers of the same brand pooling loose over polished coal-black loafers, dark leather gloves in the same shade that she had no real reason to keep on indoors except for the fact that she liked the slight rebuke of being fully accesible; a slim gold watch chain at her hip, inherited from a man three generations dead.
she looked, she knew, like she was arriving at a funeral, all of her colors so dark.
she liked that about herself. she had always dressed like a harbinger.
she was unsuspecting of what professor fudd would be wearing when she walked into that colloquium, didn't know yet about that black turtleneck dress, modest at first glance, hem falling well past the knee as if she taught in a convent, the cream curve of the peter pan collar sitting at its neck. didn't suspect the sheer over-the-knee socks beneath it that would only ever be visible in flashes, a slip of dark at the ankle when she crossed the room too quickly or leaned to write something on the board, gone again before anyone could be sure they'd seen it at all.
she didn't know yet that the first time she caught that flash (just a glimpse, just a hint), something in her stomach would flip, would exhale a small, stupid, undignified oh, entirely against her better judgment.
she knew only, sitting there in the amphitheater's flat morning light with her spine straight because dr. taurasiâs voice was still somewhere at the base of her skull telling her to sit up, that she had already decided to act as her default: unimpressed, uninterested.
she would be wrong about that. she was aware, somewhere beneath her familiar fortification, of having been wrong before she had even had the chance to be right.
that peek, that hintâit was the miniature beginning of a sprawling scavenger hunt. she was at the site of discovery, and no one had handed her a shovel. sheâd have to lower herself, get on her knees, and feel the twinge in her back as her hands snarled into the dirt.
yes, sheâd dig.
the girl didnât care, and it drove azzi quite mad.
it wasnât that she was inattentive, exactly. she had never once been caught on her phone, never slouched so far as to be reprimanded, never given azzi the easy satisfaction of an obvious target. it was worse than that. she sat constantly with the aggravating air of one who had already decided the entire enterprise was beneath her, chin propped on one gold-ringed knuckle, gaze fixed somewhere just past azziâs shoulder as though the real lecture was happening in the middle distance and this one, the one azzi was actually delivering, was simply background noise she was too polite to interrupt.
azzi had taught difficult students before. she had taught bored ones, brilliant ones, cruel ones, sad ones dressed up as bored ones. she had never quite had one who made a show like this, shrouding herself in an outfit of indifference, put on with the same care paige clearly put into everything else about herself.
todayâs slide was a photograph of aurelio cabrera y gallardo's san sebastiĂĄn, the marble saint bound wrist-high to his post, body arched back in a line that could as easily be agony as ecstasy; mouth fallen open on something unresolved between the two, rope biting soft grooves into unmarked stone. azzi had taught this sculpture for six years, this interpretation of saint sebastian, and it had never once failed to snuff out a roomâthe audience uncomfortable with the detailing of torture and the idea of pleasure found in the act.
azzi allowed the silence to steep, settling backward until the underside of her thighs kissed the cutting edge of her desk. her dark gaze flickered up to where paige was always situated, though today her hair was mussed into two aureate plaits, the braids pinned hastily around her head as though she were a farmerâs daughter. later she would undo them, the mass like nectar poured around her head, and azzi would think of a painting: circle of jean-baptiste regnault, french, âdanaĂ«â, c. 18th-19th c., detail.
âcould someone tell me what themes are being depicted here?â azzi asked, having finally remembered herself, and let the ensuing silence linger a beat too long, waiting to see who would break first.
no one did. paige, predictably, appeared the least inclined of anyone to be the one who broke it. azzi decided, with a perversity that belonged to every teacher whoâd ever run out of patience, to aim the next lobby at her.
âalright, you, give it a go. what first stands out to you?â
paigeâs eyes came back from the middle distance slowly, almost insultingly slowly, her gaze like pale ice as she assessed azzi in her entirety, face thinly twisted with an expression shy of a challenge but not far from it either.
âwell, it's a guy tied to a tree, professor fudd, with a bunch of arrows in him,â she said flatly. âlooks like it hurts.â
a current of laughter rippled through the room, grateful for the release. azzi didnât join it, only crossed and re-crossed her ankles.
âthat's a description. i asked what stood out to you, what called.â
âi mean, same thing everyone else does. a martyr. suffering for god, or whatever.â a small shrug, deeply bored, painstakingly put on for an audience of one. âit's not that deep.â
âit is always that deep. never make the mistake of assuming otherwise,â azzi snapped, and something in her own voice caught her slightly off guard, the vehemence. she pushed past it, past the sudden flowering of pink across paigeâs cheeks as she minimized under the sudden onslaught of shame. âlook again. iâll instruct you. look not at the wounds, but at his face.â
paige looked, harder this time. azzi observed her study, saw her brow furrow and disrupt her affected disinterest, her face disturbed in the way of a pond's surface holding dead calm right up until a nÀkki finally moved underneath.
âum, he doesn't really look like he's in pain,â paige spoke slowly, boredom dropping away like a coat. âor, i mean, he does, of course, but it's not just that. his mouth is open likeââ she stopped, restarted, selecting her next words with more care than azzi had seen her extend to anything other than a lecture in four weeks.
azzi wondered if she was opening her mouth just like san sebastian, trying to feel her way through his agony.
âlike he's somewhere past the objection to it,â paige continued. she sat up straighter without seeming to notice she had done it. âit's a whole conversation, isn't it. god's always pushing. always asking: can i cut a little deeper here, can i take a little more, ouch, look honey, look what you'll get to become if you let me - a saint, a whole halo, your name on a stained-glass window next to mine, somewhere some kid will stare at during a homily, bored to tears in four hundred years.
âyou have saints for days built exactly like this. agony and ecstasyâŠthey're not opposites at all, whatever anyone tells you. they're sisters. they used to be sisters. now they're basically twins; nobody can tell them apart anymore, not really, not if you're honest. but honesty doesnât make the myth.â
she was speaking faster now, words nearly dribbling out, warming to it, rising to it; outrunning whatever guardrails she usually kept up. âthat's what's actually being depicted, why the body first draws you in, why his face is hidden, so far back. itâs the illusion. the truth is: heâs not suffering, or not totally, i donât knowâwillingness. heâs not fighting his ropes; he'sâleaning into them, kind of. like the only way to prove you'd take absolutely everything for someone is to actually take it, in front of witnesses, and let them watch you not flinch.â
the room had gone very quiet in the midst of her analysis. azzi didnât dare move.
something crossed paigeâs face then: an understanding, delayed, a second too late to the realization of how much of herself sheâd just handed over to a room full of near-strangers. and the color rushed up her throat in a fast, ungovernable tideâcarmine floodingâand she looked down at the desk, at her hands on the flat of it, as if the desk itself had personally betrayed her.
âanyway,â she muttered, duller now, retreating. she sat, making them all wonder when she had stood up. âbut it probably isnât that deep. some things arenât, i don't know.â
no one else in the room said anything for a long moment. azzi was aware, distantly, of twenty-nine other students she was meant to be teaching at the moment, and of the fact that she had not thought about a single one of them in the last ninety seconds.
âouch?â azzi repeated, letting a smile play about her mouth. paige glanced up and found its gentle curve before it fled.
âouch,â she echoed, a confirmation.
azzi nodded, smiling fully now before turning away.
âwell done,â she offered, tossed over her shoulder, and it came out quieter than sheâd meant it to, quieter than her usual praise, which she engaged in generous volume for lesser insights all the time.
paigeâs mouth tugged up, pleased, trying incredibly hard not to look so pleased, and for one second a note of something else underneath that azzi didnât have time to get a handle on before it was erased. clearing her throat, azzi reached for the syllabus bound and spiraled atop her own desk, an ordinary shape for that of her own authority.
âsince apparently some of us do have thoughts that develop past a shrugâfive hundred words. pick two works discussed in class from the semester so far and argue for a relationship between them. due in two weeks.â
there was a chorus of pained groans, and azzi relaxed at the familiar sound of her studentsâ whining, crossing behind to her chair as the theater emptied in the edgeless scrape and shuffle of bags and chairs. paige took her time gathering her things, unhurried, always last, and was nearly at the doorânearly clearâwhen azzi, not once looking up from the roster in front of her, called out.
âif you want to punish yourself with a dedicated lack of attention and failing this course, that's entirely your business. feel free.â a pause. âbut i will punish you for acting as though you're stupid when i need you to rise to the occasion. i only take thirty students, paige. you aren't here for decoration.â
paige stopped in the doorway, turning laggardly, a flicker of emotion playing over her face before she tamped it into an expression like stone.
âare you insinuating, professor,â she said, âthat next time you'll humiliate me?â
azzi glanced up then, and held paigeâs gaze for far longer than the question strictly required.
âgod is always pushing.â
for once, paige had nothing at the ready to say back, her own words turned against her. she stood there a second too long, light coming in behind her eyes; a bulb changed, product of being caught out twice in one hour. and then,
âthe first day? i liked your socks.â
azzi froze, her pen suspended in mid-air, mind struggling to clamp down on the conclusion that paige had somehow been privy to what was under her dress. and it was only when the door eased shut on its own weight that she found the ability to look up again, only to find an empty threshold, the door itself cracked open to allow in a shadow of the real world.
hum of the hall outside it, no paige in it at all.
the assignment really was nothing: five hundred words minimum, comparative visual analysis, pick two works from the syllabus and argue for their relationshipâand yet.
paige turned in four hundred and twelve words of something so carelessly, infuriatingly good that azzi sat with it open on her laptop for a long time after the rest of the submissions had been graded. she wasnât quick to anger by nature but close to it now; a body dressed up as anger, wearing it badly, really a cousin. that was the head of the feeling. the heart of it, she found, sitting there in the grey light of her shitty one-bedroom studio with all other essays long finished, was nearer to delight.
and the fury, she'd admit only to herself, was mostly a form of offense, like handing over a gift and watching someone shrug at the wrapping, holding yourself hostage from the urge to rip their throat clean out.
because paige hadn't tried. that was the thing that got her.
it was a garden of sentences hidden, rather cleverly, in the dirt of an assignment that otherwise fell apart. fruitless, possibly written at two in the morning, one paige hadn't bothered to finish developing, because why would she? it was due at nine, and she had better things to care about than a class she'd chosen as neutral ground in an otherwise fraught schedule.
god, it was like pulling teeth, azzi thought, scribbling madly.
see me after class in red at the top, and underneath it, smaller, because she couldn't help herself: this is not a c+ idea. it is a c+ execution of an a idea, which was arguably an inch too much taken.
paige read the note on her walk to her week's sole biochemistry lab, brows raised, and showed up to office hours highly armed; chin up, ready for a fight she'd decided to instigate and enjoy well in advance. she'd had her hair redone that week, ice blonde, the dye still fresh enough to catch light differently than it had before, and she was dressed, as always, like a symbol of death: black prada turtleneck sweater, wool trousers in a soft slate grey, prada loafers that had never once touched anything undignified, not even a little rain.
azzi had learned by now not to react to any of it, though it cost her something immeasurable and private every time.
her office was small in the way most of the humanities offices were small and underfunded, one narrow window facing the quad, a radiator moaning through the space in ancient argument, and books stacked in tremulous towers that only needed a bare breeze to topple. but it was hers in every visible way a rented room could be.
azzi hadn't planned on anyone being in to see her that afternoon beyond the ordinary trickle of office hours, and so sheâd dressed for herself rather than for a lecture hall: black ribbed sweater, mellowed and shapeless with wear, a grey pleated skirt sheâd owned since graduate school, tall black calfskin boots, a single thermal glove she'd forgotten to take off after crossing campus, sitting discarded now on the corner of the desk - shed skin.
"i don't see the problem,â was paigeâs greeting.
azzi closed her eyes, prayed briefly for strength.
"youâve gotten a grade that reflects what you were willing to give it," she answered, peering intently at a fresh stack of freshman essays she was trying, with some difficulty, to grade fairly, "which is not the same as what it's worth. sit down."
"i have somewhere to be."
"according to the scheduling office, you have approximately four hours until your next commitment, and we both know it." azzi finally looked up. "sit down, paige, and read this to me."
paige sat, body rigid with discomfort, disgruntled at not being let off easy, a pale hand coming forward to angle the red-marked paper toward herself.
ââthe man who holds her remains only partially visible, yet his presence reinforces her constrained position, implying a loss of agency even as she occupies the center of the composition. rather than depicting the audience directly, chagall locates the mechanisms of control within the performance itself, where the rider's body becomes the focal point of spectacle and an object subject to another's authority simultaneously.ââ
âmmm," azzi said. she leaned back, tapping a long plum nail against the desk's dark face. âand why was this thesis dropped so carelessly into the generally shoddy work you turned in to me, rather than expanded and centered upon? there are places, marked in green, where your work reads as genuinely exceptional. and places, marked in pink, where your care bleeds through. the circus is a pressure point for you. you struggle to stay impersonal about it. why? and why are you ignoring that? this could have been an easy a, paige. honestly.â
and this, this was the part azzi would turn over later, on her stomach in the dark, once things had gone somewhere neither of them had intended. this was the second time she was privy to watching paigeâs collapse, her practiced posture faltering, caught unaware by a genuine question posed by someone who plainly intended to wait for a genuine answer as its match.
âum.â
azzi let her gather her thoughts, scratching out another misspelling with a firm drag of her wrist. paige watched the red scar on the page like it might reveal something about herself in this moment.
âmy grandfather took me to see one,â she said finally, and it came out a little cracked, her voice lowering as she went on, unable to fully stop it. âa circus. before it all.â
azzi knew paigeâs family was of importance, though dean baltazaar had remained tight-lipped about the exact level of it. but she knew no one of consequence with the surname blessing. a searchâdone once, guiltily, late at nightâhad turned up nothing but a rather unremarkable piano teacher.
âi don't really remember it. i remember the tent smelled like popcorn and hay, and i remember not being scared during the trapeze part, when every other kid around me was crying. i liked watching people be that good at something dangerous and make it look like nothing.â a pause, her eyes gone somewhere distant and half-lit, chasing the memory. âthere was a woman, a wire-walker, who didn't smile once. everyone else up there smiled the whole time, big and practiced, teeth out for the cheap seats, and she just refused. she was so focused on not falling, as if she were the only real thing in the entire tent and everyone else was decoration around her. i think she was hellbent on not breaking her neck.â her mouth twitched, shy of a laugh, no true humor in it. âi liked being dangerous, too, as a little girl. now, too, i guess.â
paige shrugged, already shuttering closed, reaching instinctively for a bit of armor. "i don't know. it's not that deep."
âit's exactly that deep," azzi said, a callback to their lecture interaction, hushed but purposeful, and didn't push further, because she'd already learned this much of the code: that paige gave things up like small animals slinking out of hiding, coaxed forward only if you refrained from reaching for them the second they appeared.
âwe'll redo the essay. together,â azzi offered. "over the next few weeks."
paige was surprised by that; azzi could tell, though azzi had always been rather more than what people suspected of her at first glance.
âwhich is to say, you'll redo it, and i'll refuse to stop letting you redo it," she clarified dryly, âand you'll hate me for pushing you so hard, and you'll learn eventually that i can never let a good thing go once i've seen it properly. you're deeply attuned to this work, paige. you have the mind for it. i won't let you pigeonhole yourself into failure as some act of resistance. there are other ways to stand your ground that don't cost you an a.â
paige said nothing in return, briefly stupefied, and azzi motioned for her to gather her things.
she wasn't in any particular hurry to leave. she had been logging azzi for four weeks now without meaning to, or without admitting that the meaning had ever been separate from the doing. she could have reproduced her from memory if asked, habits included.
azziâs coffee had gone cold an hour ago at her own elbow, and azzi hadn't noticed, hadn't so much as glanced at it, entirely unbothered by the small deaths of ordinary things around her. paige collected these qualities like stones from a beachânot out of longing, necessarily, nothing so soft as longingâbut out of a colder, more helpless compulsion to simply have, to hold some proof afterward that she had been paying the closest attention in the room.
it was on her way out that she saw it: azziâs purse, paloma philana in wine, tipped where it sat against the desk leg, its contents spilled in a small accident onto the floor: a gas receipt, a set of keys, a slim gold tube of lipstick uncapped and rolling, and beside it a lip liner, the good kind, tip worn soft at the corners, aching for a sharpener.
paige crouched and gathered both.
âyou dropped this,â she said, holding out the liner alone, face perfectly arranged, and set it on the desk. the lipstick she kept closed inside her fist, metal growing warm from her own palm the longer she stood there.
azzi took the offered pencil, smiling wide with gratitude. paige stepped away, stopping on her way to the door, gaze swimming up the wall to behind azziâs head, where a lempicka hung. an original, so well kept that most students assumed it a reproduction; a woman rendered in hard, confident planes of color, chin lifted, entirely unbothered by being looked at.
paige studied it a moment longer, then let her gaze fall back down to azzi, whose face was bent away from her toward the essays.
âyou know, you look just like her,â she said into the quiet, not quite looking at azzi as she said it, already half out the door, tossing it back like it cost her nothing at all.
in her periphery, she could see when azzi offered a crooked smile, glancing back at the painting. ânever heard that one before.â
paige turned around at that, hand still on the handle.
âyou do. it's the mouth. just a little too full.â
that evening, alone in her brother's bathroom with the tap running and suzy scratching faintly at the door, paige rolled up the lipstick and drew it to herself; tracing a careful line across her cupidâs bow in the mirror's unkind reflection. she watched herself become, for just a second, someone else.
she cleaned up the excess with a manicured nail, carving out pigment until her mouth was perfectly outlined.
it wasn't her color.
part ii. â± john simmons, 'hermia and lysanderâ, c. 1870.Â
the first of what would be many walks occurred on a tuesday in late november.
in orlaith, november was a verb. something the year did unto itself, the way a hand closed. winter had begun its long weeping, benighting the early afternoons until they dissolved into a sea of black with stars driven into its face like nails, eventually obscured by the great grey swallow of storm clouds. the threat of snow imminent, the speckle of it fragmented.
on this first occurrence, paige walked into the office without knocking. sheâd taken up the habit of never knocking, not once, not even in the earliest weeks of their tutoring sessions, the essay long completed. this was not rudenessâeros didnât knock either; sappho told us he came like a thief, came like an animal shaking a treeâit was simply that some people experienced every boundary as mere suggestion and paige was one of them, hair grasped back low into a loose bun at the nape of her neck, a few pieces already come loose; the fraying of a traditional system.
she said, by way of greeting,
âletâs go on a walk.â
this was not a request. ask amy fuller what the difference was between a request and a verdict. she would tell you: tone. though her daughter had cleaved to her fatherâs side amid divorce, when you peered into the glass from its side, she was her mother all the same.
azzi redirected her gaze from the rather passive-aggressive email sheâd been copied into this morningâsomething to do with the lack of adequate parking space near the humanities buildingâto the hard line of paigeâs jaw, one dark brow arriving well ahead of the rest of her expression.
âgood afternoon to you too, paige.â
âgood afternoon,â paige mocked, already reaching for her coat off the back of the chair, as though the matter had been settled before the proposal had finished, settled somewhere upstream of this room. âgod, azzi. just say hello.â
âprofessor fudd,â azzi corrected, her lips flattening with irritation. somebody had to hold the line. âi have office hours. another forty minutes of them, to be exact.â
âno oneâs coming,â paige returned, not unkindly, simply as fact. âit's tuesday. your tuesday people are the two idiots who dropped last week and the boy who emails you constantly instead of coming in, because he's frightened of you. you told me that yourself.â
azzi opened her mouth to object to the sheer range of presumption: the walk-in unannounced, the diagnosing of her own schedule back to her, the casual theft of an hour she had yet to freely offer. and she did not, in fact, tell paige that herself.
she found, with a rather reclusive irritation, that she had no actual objection ready, only the abstract sense that she ought to have one. paige had a way of doing this to her - arriving at a request already so certain of its reasonableness that arguing against it felt less like the defense of a boundary than being difficult for its own sake.
this is what people meant when they said disarmed. it was not that the weapon had been taken, but that you found your hand already empty when you went to check, and couldnât remember when it had gone.
paige was, azzi noted, dressed for the walk already. overdressed for a quad-crossing, if she were honest, bundled instead for dense weather. a heavy wool overcoat, cut for a man twice her width and worn close to her silhouette. it had clearly been tailored for her instead of the body it had most immediately been designed for.
sleeves pushed to the forearm, the reveal of her veins, blue lace snake under an ivory swathe of skin; underneath it a plain white undershirt, one you could find folded in a father's dresser drawer. dark trousers, crease down the center, sharp enough to speak to having been pressed that very morning. combat boots, unlaced at the top, somehow erring from appearing sloppy, as though her constant disregard for her appearance was often considered from several angles before being permitted out the door.
for a moment, paige was turned from her and azzi could see the ripple of muscle along the bend of her back. the movement made her stomach stutter, the flex of such obvious youth deterring her from protest.
caspar david friedrich, wanderer above the sea of fog, german, c. 1818.
she assigned the painting in a flash of thought:Â the back turned, the vastness, the fact that you never did see the manâs face, only his posture, held - the view at his command, under his possession only by virtue of standing in front of it.
azzi had noticed all of this weeks ago. she had told herself, weeks ago, to stop. limited success. she caught on to it all, every symptom of paigeâs existence.
the way paige dressed was nearly exclusively from a wardrobe that belonged, by every rule azzi had ever been taught, to the opposing sex: sharp-shouldered coats, ties worn loose and unknotted around an open collar, trousers cut for a body with none of paigeâs actual softness. no room for the give of her hips or the gentle expansion of her thighs. on anyone else they would have been borrowed, simply a girl in her brother's costume, a joke about gender, over by morning. yet somehow the woman made all of it look more like a semblance of correction, adjusting for error; as if the clothes had simply been cut for the wrong person all along and paige was only now setting the record straight.
âyou can't keep doing this,â azzi told her, without much conviction. she was already closing the laptop.
âdoing what, exactly?â
âassuming the importance of my time, taking it upon yourself to designate what i'm doing with my afternoon, using me as a way to avoid your other term work.â
paige turned to face her, considered this with the mildest shadow of a smile; humoring a rule she had no intention of ever actually following.
âyou could say no.â
âi am saying no.â
âyou're putting your coat on while you say it.â
azzi glanced down at herself. half into the coat already. evidence, if anyone needed it, that the mouth and the hands did not always work for the same government.
she told herself, buttoning it, that this was supervision; a professor keeping half an eye on a student prone to disappearing off campus without telling anyone. duty of care, dressed as an afternoon off. she was aware, as she constructed the reasoning, how little weight the joists could hold, how little she could actually bear.
âbesides,â paige added, stepping in close. almost lazily, she reached out to fix the scarf at azzi's throat. âi like most of my other term work. weâre reading a short story in professor birdâs class, a joy williams. quite good, surprisingly.â
this close, azzi could smell her: the heady rush of peony, lily-of-the-valley, a bit of greenâstephanotis?âa thread of black tea, apple gone warm under water steeped with spices.
âyou smell lovely,â spilled outward before azzi could stop it, her fingers curling at her sides as if to claw them back.
too late for that kind of prayer.
âyeah?â paige answered, eyes alive with a sudden light, delighted, halfway to the joke. âitâs called âhad me at hello.ââ
at that, azzi did laugh.
the grounds were halfway to hibernation, bare maples gone black-limbed against a sky drained to the color of skimmed milk, the lake road empty enough that their footsteps were the only solid sound for the first fifteen minutes. snow had not yet arrived, but was clearly rehearsing for it in the close cold.
paige walked with her hands in her coat pockets and, as always, in no particular hurry, matched her pace to azziâs without seeming to think about it. azzi wondered what it was like to languish in that luxury, to know that you were always afforded time.
halfway down the road, she producedâfrom seemingly nowhere; perhaps some inner pocket, some infinitesimal, unbroachable logic of paigeâs own devisingâa slim gold case. she held it out, the object rolling sluggishly about her palm. it was beautiful, a thick beginning, tapered in toward the middle, then flaring out again, a deep engraving of roses embellishing its top, the name of the shade lurking shyly at the bottom in looping, black script.
âhere.â
azzi took it on reflex before sheâd even registered what it was. a lipstick. new, sealed, a shade lighter and colder than the one she actually wore, a pink that bordered on red, vermilion at the tip but a lush rose closer to the bottom. a shade that she had been brought to tears over, having thought she lost it, having scoured the large shops and the boutiques only to come up empty-handed.
âiâveâi don't needâit wouldnât beââ
âi know what it wouldnât be. i know all of that, but thank you for telling me.â paige was already looking elsewhere at the lake, at nothing, the offering made and immediately treated as though it required no further discussion. azzi suddenly felt chastened. âit's not really about you needing it. it's just yours now.â
azzi turned the case over once in her gloved hand and decided not to inquire further. she put it in her coat pocket instead, where it sat the rest of the walk; a small, unaccountable weight.
âdo you know who i am?â paige asked it lightly, conversationally, a question that could have been nothing at all. the wind-up to a wisecrack, an opening for flatteryâexcept that the steel underneath it wasnât lightweight at all.
she was waiting closely, very still, to see what azzi had to say, would inevitably say.
azzi considered it, genuinely, turning the actual available facts over: the name on the roster, the surname higher staff had kept mum about, the utter absence of anything when sheâd searched it in a weaker moment.
âyouâre a blessing,â she offered.
something crossed paigeâs face then: brief, unreadable, gone before azzi could properly catch it. a door opening a crack onto a room she didnât yet know existed, and closing again just as fast.
âyes,â paige said.
it wasn't quite a lie. it also wasn't, azzi would understand much later, anything close to the truth.
âthe tuesday boy,â azzi said, a little further on, apropos of nothing, mostly to fill the quiet. âthe one who emails instead of coming in. how do you know that he's scared of me? i didnât tell you that.â
âyes, you didnât,â paige agreed, smiling crookedly, unashamed at her deception. âhe told me.â
âyou two talk?â
âweâveâŠtalked. only once,â paige said it without a hint of emotion, decidedly closing the subject rather than continuing it, and something in the way she said it made azzi acquiesce, wisely or not.
she did not ask what, exactly, had been discussed in that one conversation, or why a boy whoâd emailed apologetically on multiple occasions in october had simply stopped emailing at all by the middle of november.
azzi filed her unease about it away with everything else about paige she'd decided, for now, not to hold to the light.
it was on the walk back, cutting behind the chapel where the path narrowed, and the last of the other students crossing campus were well out of sight, that paige stopped her with two fingers hooked lightly into the collar of azziâs coat.
azzi went still. it wasn't quite a touch, barely that, two fingers and the fabric between them. and yet, she felt it the way you'd feel a hand actually laid flat against the skin, every place paige wasn't touching suddenly as loud as the place she was. paige tugged the collar closed properly, adjusting it the way you'd fix something on a child, and stepped back before azzi could decide how to respond to any of it.
âget a better coat,â she instructed. âyou're always cold.â
and then she was walking again, already three steps ahead, as if she hadn't just put her hands on a woman ten years her senior in broad daylight and left azzi standing there, mouth ajar, body still swaying into the phantom motion, heart as quick as a hare underneath her scarf.
the following tuesday, there was a butter-yellow garment bag hanging on the top-most hinge of her office door when she arrived.
there was no note and the absence of a return address; the bag otherwise plain except for the calligraphy logo of one of the most expensive department stores in the state. inside, folded and arranged with care: a floor-length espresso colored coat, wool heavy enough to promise certain warmth against the worst vermont winter. below the lapel, where the buttons should have sat on the left, a soft dark lining of vintage mink, worn just enough at the edges to prove it had a history that predated paige by decades. there was a detachable belt lazing about both sides, clearly intended to be the method of closure.
azzi stood in front of the open bag for a long time before she finally touched it. she thought, distantly, of asking someone what a coat like this cost. she knew the number would be torturous. she thought, more clearly, that she did not actually want to know the answer, because the knowledge of it would make it impossible to keep it as she pretended it was: a small thing, a studentâs odd, oversized gesture of thanks.
she thought of the lipstick still sitting, unused, in the pocket of her old coat, a better place than the mess of her handbag. she would return it to paige, insistent that she could not take this.
yes, she would.
for a moment, her curiosity won out over propriety, and she slipped the coat on, found it fit her perfectly. her hand slid into the pocket at the right side, the cut talentfully hidden, its seam only noticeable by touch, and felt her finger cut across the top of a square of cardstock. she pulled it free, flipping it over to find words written in a familiar hand.
if i didnât, you wouldnât.
that was all.
azzi didnât need any more to know it was her.
âwas niki crazy about you?â
ingemar let his eyes flutter open from where they had slid closed, and side-eyed his sister. often, he and suzy made the same expression. the thought made paige nearly burst, and she lifted a hand, pretending to wipe her mouth free of dinner as she worked to hold her laugh.
âgod, you just say anything, donât you? nothing held back,â mar drawled, accepting the hovering cup of rosehip tea, the accompanying saucer crafted of fine china just like the mug sat atop it. he reached out a hand to nikiâs retreating arm, squeezing gently in a silent deliverance of gratitude. âi donât know, to answer your question. my niki was a vault when we met, as was i.â
âwhy do you talk like youâre in a fucking movie?â paige groused, and niki smiled, pleased at her annoyance.
âi was,â came the quiet admission, forcing both their necks to crane beyond them, locating niki where he leaned against the kitchen doorway. âexceptionally so, i think. nearly transferred the case when i realized.â
mar had been his client, paige recalled now. oh, the danger, the complexity. but their family never wanted anything they didnât have to work for.
âhow sweet,â paige said drily. mar hit her. âbut i meant moreâi donât know. did you ever feel like this tide, this sense of going insane, the slow drag of it. aâa madness.â
âwow, that literature class is truly getting through to you. glad to see the youth impacted by the works of today.â
now paige hit him. niki let out a laugh as mar pretended to be wounded, then disappeared back into the kitchen, the tap running as he returned to washing. it was only when heâd been at the washing for a dish or two that mar turned to his sister, gaze frigid as he hunkered down.
âyes,â he murmured, voice low. âi felt like that. it was like being a car run down, then someone came and fixed it, and i was revving and revving. do youâdo you remember that horse you tried to claim as yours when dad paid for your equestrian lessons? how it bucked and threw you, kicked you in the chest with its hindleg, and dad thought you were one short a screw because you kept trying to get back on?â
paige remembered.
she had been eleven, perhaps twelve, a collection of knees and elbows, forever growing faster than her limbs knew what to do with themselves, bones unconvinced of their certainty. every saturday morning, her father delivered her to the stables before sunrise, the paddocks still argent with frost, each fence paling beneath a skin of mist. the horses steamed gently in the cold, their breath rising from dark nostrils, the ensuing smoke like shrine offerings.
even now she could summon the smell before anything else: the dampest hay, saddle soap, sweet feed dissolving into mud, the mineral tang of rusted iron and animal heat. it had lived somewhere deep inside her ever since.
they had assigned her a gelding named samson, chestnut and broad through the shoulders, with a white blaze that wandered crookedly between his eyes as though someone had painted it, brush quavering with an unsteady hand.
he isn't yours, her instructor corrected whenever paige called him mine. my horse. she never abided, pushed on anyway.
everyone else left when lessons finished, but she lingered. paige learned where the muscles beneath his neck softened underneath her fingers, discovered he preferred to be scratched beneath the jaw instead of along his poll, tucked sugar cubes into the pocket of her riding coat until they dissolved into sticky crystals against the lining.
she polished tack she hadn't dirtied, brushed him until copper hairs floated through the stable, set on fire in the afternoon light. sometimes she simply stood in his stall while he ignored her entirely, convinced proximity itself would fix their divide.
surely affection accumulated. surely devotion gained weight. surely living things eventually leaned toward the hand that returned often enough.
samson disagreed.
it happened in less than a second. one moment she was seated deep in the saddle, smug with the certainty that today would bear fruit, and the next her world had turned over. a violent arch of muscle; the impossible suspension before gravity yoked her to the earthâs face. a sudden swell of clear sky, then the mineral kiss of dirt.
the crack of her helmet against the packed earth rang loudly enough that the entire arena seemed to tremble in its aftermath. she didnât cry; she refused to. she remembered lying there more irritated than anything else, blinking profusely up through the latticework of the roof while adults descended around her in a swarm of polished boots and worried mouths. someone held her shoulders down as another asked whether she knew her own name.
but all paige could see was samson.
heâd trotted several yards away before stopping, calm already. heâd only needed to get rid of her. his ears flicked lazily toward a pigeon perched on the fence, and paige watched as a groom caught his reins with embarrassing ease. he did not appear guilty in the slightest nor triumphant. he looked exactly as he had been, before she'd ever loved him.
the kick had come later.
against every instruction, paige had risen, marched back across the arena, cheeks muddy, lip split, ribs aching with her every breath. her father was shouting now, one hand around the instructor's arm while the other reached uselessly for her. she ducked beneath it.
she remembered the warmth radiating from samsonâs flank before she remembered the pain. another flash of that chestnut hide, another explosive coil of cultivated muscle. then the hind hoof met her square beneath the ribs with enough force to empty her lungs all at once.
there was no immediate pain, but an absence. air ripped from her body so visciously, so completely, that she became convinced, for one immaculate second, that she had died.
they carried her out.
she was back the following saturday. and the saturday after.
her instructor stopped trying to reason with her after a month of her tenacity. her father suggested another horse, but she refused. samson never did grow kinder; never once softened because she had remained. he never acknowledged the private mythology she had built around the two of them.
what unsettled her now, years later, was not that he had thrown her. it was that she had never once considered loving him any less. the possibility had not ceased to exist. she had only wondered what she ought to change about herself to make him finally permit it.
âit was like that, but endless.â
paige blinked, brought out of her head, eyes still focused intently on the view outside the window.
blue lace agate, mar thought fondly.
âbut it ended, didnât it?â she asked, and she sounded younger than she really was. âyouâre with niki now. he let you on.â
mar laughed, chucking her chin before tossing off the blanket as he stood.
âoh, ĆŒabka. i was the horse.â
the slide changed, and azziâs voice changed with it, somehow denser with love as opposed to the stark professionalism she afforded all other paintings on the syllabus.
john william waterhouse's lamia and the soldier swallowed the screen whole. the room had dimmed, and somewhere above them the projector exhaled into life with a mechanical click of its throat, pale december morning come knocking only to withdraw by various degrees behind lowered blinds. in the darkness, everyone was illuminated by that strange blue-white glow unique to the screen and hospitals, a light that diminished faces while making the dustâs waltz past appear almost celestial. particles drifted lazily through the beam between projector and canvas, rising and falling without urgency, visible only because something brighter insisted upon passing through them.
azzi stepped into that light without seeming to notice. she had exchanged the severe black dresses sheâd favored at the start of term for softer fabrics as winter continued to hold over.
today she wore ivory silk, matte where it lay still and suddenly luminous whenever she moved beneath the projector's light. the neckline skimmed the collarbones without ornament, save for a small embroidered moon resting over one shoulder and a pompeian-blue dragon at the hip, gold thread catching now and then like a fish turning beneath water. the hem refused symmetry, dipping lower behind her until it trailed half a thought after every step, as though the dress possessed a slower understanding of departure than the woman inside it. her shoe of choice was a modest, beige kitten heel with a bow shrugging sadly over the straps, top pieces striking meekly against the flooring as she walked.
paige wondered whether the choice had been a deliberate call to the watercolor workings of the piece under discussion. it was impossible not to, standing beneath waterhouse's lamia dressed almost as though azzi had wandered quietly from the paintingâs edge. the coincidence irritated paige. she disliked not knowing when something meant something.
there existed no wasted movements within azzi. everything she did possessed the economy of long practice. she uncapped the marker with one hand, rested the cap precisely on the lectern. her lithe, brown fingers folded around her clicker as though they had always belonged there, and paige thought about what it would be like to have those fingers around her arm.
âwaterhouse, 1905. lamia and the soldier.â
paige looked dutifully to the painting, then back. then, irritated with herself, returned to the painting.
she sat where she always sat, dead-center, spine straight from four months of dr. taurasiâs voice living permanently at the base of her skull, and did not take a single note.
on the screen: a woman kneeling at a soldier's feet in a wood gone dim and close around them, a hand on his knee, her face turned up toward his in an expression that could either be seen as adoration or the breath held before a bite. often, it felt the same. at her hip, faint, half-shed, the last iridescent scales of a serpent's skin not entirely gone, not entirely human. sheâd been caught in the single worst moment of any transformation, the moment where you could still see both things you used to be and were trying, so hard, to cease being.
âthe myth predates the painting by roughly two thousand years," azzi continued, pacing the small stage the lectern gave her, hands loose, unconscious, shaping the air as she spoke as if to sculpt the point directly into their young, impressionable minds. âlamia was a woman first. a queen, in some tellings. loved by zeus, cursed by hera for it, and the curse took her children. every one of them, one after another, until grief itself turned her, transfigured her into something else. a serpent from the waist down. a devourer of other people's children, in the crueler versions. but keatsâ version, which waterhouse is painting here, gives her one mercy: the chance to become a woman again, just briefly, to love a man who has no idea what she actually is.â
someone near the back asked whether the soldier ever found out. they were at the point of rapture now, fully entrenched in the atmosphere of learning under professor fudd, wholly devoted to her for the remainder of time under her tutelage.
paige watched azziâs mouth rise in a half crescent, joyous at the question being self-professed rather than forcefully excavated.
âhe does, yes,â azzi answered. âthat is one facet of its tragedy. the moment he sees her, transparently, glimpsing what she really is beneath the disguise love let her wearâshe can't survive it. she doesn't turn into a monster in front of him. she simply vanishes. the myth seems to suggest those aren't different endings.â
the words arrived, meaning did not. paige did not write any of this down, though she knew she should have. this was bound to be on the midterm. she understood every individual component of the sentence, watched each settle neatly into place beside the last like brick inlaid to a wall, yet together they refused to become anything more. they remained only brick.
her attention slipped. nothing so obvious; a shoulder easing quietly from its socket, a tiny displacement that nevertheless rendered the whole limb unusable. her gaze found azziâs face again with the unconscious inevitability of a compass returning north.
her bracelet had come undone, 18-karat gold if paige had to guess, mother-of-pearl, intricate charms in the shape of clubs interspersed along its thin chain. the clasp had fallen half open, a lobster closure. it had loosened enough to allow the bracelet to fall lower each time she lifted her arm toward the screen, revealing the narrow inside of her wrist before falling obediently back into place.
again.
again.
silly thing to notice. sillier still to notice it repeatedly. paige dragged herself back to the slide.
ââŠvictorian audiences preferred monsters they could desire,â azzi said. âdesire became significantly easier to regulate if it first announced itself as something dangerous.â
paige sat very still at that, and thought, with a clarity that frightened her slightly even as it arrived: i understand it. i don't know how to have you.
the desire was not specifically the issue. paige knew how to want things. wanting had never once been the difficult part of her life. she had wanted with ferver, from the horse then onward; wanted her motherâs undivided attention on the few occasions a year she was permitted it, wanted her father back, wanted her mother to lose her cool in front of the cameras so the world could see her as she was instead of always, always finding the angle that made her look like the most reasonable in the room.
desire was easy. it asked nothing of you except the capacity to keep going after being refused. having was the part paige had never been taught.
she watched azzziâs hands flutter with her enthusiasm, thought about the coat that had sat in her own closet before hanging now in azziâs; worn, kept, the note read and understood exactly as intended. in her chest there wasnât triumph at all, though it should have been. it felt closer to what had stained her when sheâd stood dutifully at the edge of that stall, age eleven, sugar melting sticky in her pocket, certain that enough proximity would eventually be mistaken for enough love.
pens scratched all around her, and paige blinked, glancing down at her ipad, so starkly different from the performative moleskins bulging at the seams in various totes and shoulder bags. where there should have been a page on keats and waterhouse, there were observations so minute they bordered on absurdity.
no ring.
ambidextrous.
laughs first through her nose, then out.
thirty-two, a birthday in november, already passed.
struggles in tall heels.
paige stared at them, heat climbing the back of her neck like ivy of flame.
what was this?
it was not simply attraction. paige knew attraction. attraction had always revealed itself plainly enough, certifying its hold before she'd had time to invent another explanation.
women had beautiful mouths, strong shoulders, clever hands. women had god between their legs, their thighs the stairway to heaven. women had bodies soft as clam meat, pleasure sticky and sluiced all over themselves, their post-coital blush so arresting that many a brand had made cosmetics with its name.
paige had survived twenty-two years perfectly capable of desiring someone without whatever this was. this wasâŠ
paige didn't know what you were supposed to do once someone let you close. she only knew, with total confidence, several increasingly elaborate ways to get there.
what happened after the arrival, she thought, watching azziâs mouth continue to imbue knowledge into the recycled classroom air, is where i've never once had a plan.
professor fudd was still speaking, and paige had absolutely no idea what she'd been saying for the last several minutes. she listened now, or tried to. a slight roughness entered azziâs voice after sustained speaking. she pressed her tongue briefly against the inside of her cheek whenever searching for a more precise adjective. her eyebrows drew together when a student answered not incorrectly, but when she believed she'd explained something badly herself.
none of these things belonged to paige. none of them had anything to do with waterhouse.
lamia had been given a body to be loved honestly, and the honesty was exactly what had killed it. paige turned that over, disturbed, aware of some private echo in it she didn't yet want to name.
(two-phone shoebox at the back of her closet, an ill-fitting surname she was allowing azzi to believe, b to k, k to b.)
there existed a region of herself she had never previously encountered. and she had intended to leave it unexplored by all, including possibly azzi; a country that had apparently been there all along. what would it be to get close enough to see all of it at once and decide, the way the soldier eventually had to decide, if you were loving something that wasn't fully real?
paige thought, i would rather vanish than be looked at like that.
she thought, a half-second later, with the same unstartled stagnancy sheâd brought to every stubborn decision of her whole stubborn life: and i would still get back on that horse tomorrow. i would still get back on every single day there was a horse to get on.
mar was the horse, paige was the rider.
azziâs gaze swept across the room, checking inventory, cataloguing the glazed inattention that meant sheâd lost them. and it caught, for one unremarkable second, on paige, who was not glazed at all, who was watching her with an attention so total it should have registered as alarming and instead registered, in the microscopic millisecond before azziâs gaze moved past, as something closer to being seen back.
neither of them said anything about it.
there was, that day, nothing yet to say.
on what mustâve been their fifth walk, azzi wore the coat.
she had told herself she would return itâhad rehearsed, on three separate mornings, the sentence sheâd use to hand it back, something dry and final about propriety and appropriate gifts between a professor and a student. instead, she found herself buttoning it every tuesday without much aplom, the mink at the collar gone soft and familiar against her jaw, warm in a way that made the returning of it feel, each week, a little more like amputation.
azzi found the realization faintly horrifying. she buttoned it again the day after.
they walked the lake road. the trees had surrendered almost everything by now. bare branches webbed against a white sky, reflected in the water below with enough fidelity that the lake seemed to possess its own winter, another season turned upside down beneath the first. their footsteps disappeared into damp gravel almost as soon as they were made.
their strolls had become one of those habits one stopped noticing until they tried to remember when it had accrued. when tutoring ceased, paige had blustered about having a few questions after class. azzi had seen right through, given that paige now had one of the strongest averages of her pupils.
then, the loss of excuse, a push for walks to the gate. then, somehow, the lake road; a promenade about the corner, paige coldly furious if azzi was occupied by a student who, for once, properly needed her. they did nothing but converse, each time laying down another imperceptible layer until whatever slept beneath bore no resemblance to when it had first settled.
paige fell into step beside her the way she always did now, matching pace, hands in her pockets, hair pulled loose at the back of her neck in that half-finished bun that always looked one strand away from falling but somehow never did. halfway down, without warning, she reached over and tucked a strand of azziâs hair back from where the wind had pulled it loose across her cheek.
it wasn't a large gesture. it shouldn't have registered as anything at all, the small correction a friend might make to another without either party remarking on it, except that paigeâs hand didn't withdraw the way a friend's hand would have. her fingers trailed, slow, thoughtful, from azziâs temple down along the clean angle of her jaw until they came to rest, with a startling, sudden firmness, over her lipsticked mouth.
azzi went stockstill. every instinct she had arrived simultaneously, contradicting the other to the last. she found herself absurdly aware of the smallest details: every inch of cold gathering inside her gloves, the weight of her coat across over her shoulders, the steady pull of gravity through her heels into the frozen path beneath them. her breathing was suddenly louder than the water beside the road, quickened by the warmth of another person's hand against her face; a touch she had gone long without.
azzi had spent years teaching herself that the body was merely another instrument of thought, something to be directed with enough discipline. now it felt unexpectedly autonomous. she needed to break this, needed to leave this here.
there was no step back.
âtell me what to do with this,â paige said, low, and there was something desperate in her voice azzi hadn't heard from her before. she was devoid of the classroom bravado, and her easy teasing regularly deployed on these walks, a note rawer underneath both of those, stripped strangely bare of performance.
âthat's the whole point of you,â paige continued, urgent, her gaze never wavering. âyou're supposed to know what to do with things i don't.â
there were momentsâand they came less frequently now than they once hadâwhen paige appeared every one of her twenty-two years, sharp certainty concealing youth rather than replacing it. then there were moments like this, when she seemed impossible to age at all, as though intellect and longing had conspired to produce someone who had skipped several mandatory stages of becoming.
azzi didn't understand, not really, not in a countenance she could have explained if asked. but she understood enough to know the question wasn't really about anything either of them could speak to, so exposed to the public in the middle of this road. she reached up and closed her hand around paigeâs wrist, meaning to pull it away, meaning to end this the way a reasonable, careful person would end it.
paigeâs pulse beat there, so damnably young, so thrilled to be alive. and paige held on.
it was a rather nonviolent moment, which was somehow the worst part. she held fast with total refusal, and it made azziâs hand feel suddenly very small around her wrist, an insistence that had nothing to prove and everything to keep.
then, just as abruptly as paige had taken it, she let go.
the world rushed back in. azzi stood there for a moment with her own pulse loud in her ears, ghost-print of paigeâs fingers still warm against her mouth, and reached, without thinking, for something guileless to say, something capable of restoring proportion to the afternoon, something that would put them both back on solid ground. what came out instead was nothing at all.
it was paige who broke the silence. brave, reckless, paige; always striding through. her gaze drifted downward. she noticed, with a small private flicker of something azzi was unable to decipher, the faint stain at the corner of azziâs own thumb, a trace of red gone slightly dark, smear left over from the raspberries sheâd eaten too quickly at lunch and hadnât properly disposed of.
azzi looked at it too, as though seeing her own hand for the first time.
paige took her hand before azzi could think to pull it back a second time, lifted it, and for one impossible second azzi believed she meant only to point it out. but then, without any of the hesitation that should have accompanied an act like this, paige brought azziâs thumb into her mouth, behind her lips; a vanishing act.
warmth, barely more than that. the rasp of a tongue against skin so brief it might have been imagined had it not been for the astonishing precision with which paige watched her while doing it, pale irises fixed not on azziâs hand but on her face, as though the gesture itself mattered less than whatever crossed her expression in response. she licked every remnant of red left behind, her eyes lowering half-shut, savoring the taste, only leaving azziâs gaze to take in the part of her lips while she did it.
paige let azziâs thumb free, then said against her knuckle, âyou must knowââ
an abrupt halt. then she was gone.
turned already four steps down the road, nearly running, putting distance between herself and what it was she'd just done before she could be made to account for it, shoulders set with almost exaggerated composure, as though she had entrusted the aftermath entirely to azzi.
you're supposed to know what to do with things i don't.
azzi stood on the empty lake road for a long time after, her thumb still faintly damp in the cold air, dazed into paralysis. she watched across the water as a bird lifted from the reeds. there was a line running under everything nowâunder the coat, under the lipstick, under every stroll that had started as an innocentâand she had no idea. sheâd had no idea. this wasâit had all beenâ
standing there in the cold with paigeâs mouth still imprinted somewhere just beneath her skin, she searched backwards through memory, scavenging to find how long this had actually been running, or how far back it went.
how she had managed not to notice until this exact moment, when it had finally surfaced directly beneath her own hand?
paige dreamed of her, woke in the deep neck of night; iris blue room, the fantasy of the two of them entangled, azziâs thigh on her thigh, her stomach slick with sweat as it expanded, begging breach.
she wanted to tell someone what she had done, but it was only getting worse now.
it was only getting worse.
azzi called caroline that night, still in her coat, sitting on the edge of her bed like a guest in her own life.
âso,â caroline said, once azzi had gotten most of it out (not all of it; she withheld the thumb; she couldnât yet make herself speak about it), âlet me see if i have this right. a twenty-two-year-old undergraduate bought you a coat that costs more than your car, wrote you a note that sounds vaguely like a threat, and today cupped your fucking chin in broad daylightââ
âit wasnât broad daylight. it gets dark early now,â azzi corrected.
caroline barreled on, âand you're calling me to ask whether this is concerning."
âi'm calling you,â azzi said, âto ask what i do about it.â
âyou stop it. that's what you do about it. hello?â carolineâs voice had hardened, taking on the role of someone who loved you enough to be unkind on your behalf. âmy god, azzi. i love you. you know that. i love you with everything in me. i have loved you since we were twenty-three and you cried over a grade you got in our mutual class you didn't even need. but you have been letting this girl get away with things you would end a friendship over if i tried them. you let her walk all over you, deciding what you do and when you do it. youâve kept the coat, az. you didn't send it back like you wanted to; you've been wearing it every single dayââ
âit's warm,â azzi said weakly. âi have low iron.â
âso, take a pill, azzi. this is nothing but a leash with better tailoring.â
azzi said nothing.
âi'm not trying to be cruel,â caroline said, tender now, hearing the silence for what it was. âi just think you've been calling this mentoring for months, and i don't think it's been that for a while. and i think some part of you has known that and kept doing it anyway because it feels like being wanted, actually wanted, in a way that doesn't usually happen to women our age from most people, let alone someone that⊠intense. but intensity is not always the safest, and this is dangerous. you know that. tell yourself that. you love your job, youâve been enduring, and this couldââ
âi know,â azzi interrupted, her voice even.
âdo you?â
azzi looked down at her hands, still faintly absurdly aware of where her thumb had been.
âi'm going to stop it,â she said, and meant it, in that moment.
she meant it. she did.
she meant it for four days, gave it a good go.
she stopped answering when paige knockedâno, she reminded herself, paige never knocked. she locked her door, stayed seated when the handle turned, said i'm not able to meet today through the wood like a coward, which was, she supposed, exactly what she'd become.
she rescheduled their tuesday walk twice, citing grading, citing a headache, citing anything that wasnât the truth: which was that she no longer trusted her own hands around this girl and had decided the only responsible thing left to do was to stop giving them the opportunity.
paige did not email. paige did not try the handle again.
paige, as far as azzi could tell, went quietly, furiously silent, which frightened her considerably more than any of the usual noise wouldâve.
it was close to eight on the fourth night when paige found her.
azzi was still in the office, papers she didn't need to be grading for another two weeks spread across the desk, an excuse to be anywhere but home, when the door opened without a knockâof course, without a knockâand paige stood in the frame in her coat, cheeks wind-scraped red, breathing like she'd run the last of it. she mustâve seen the lamplight in the hall.
âwhat, do you fucking live here?â
azzi didn't answer; couldn't, immediately. she found her throat had closed around every sentence sheâd conjured for exactly this eventuality, all of them useless now, dry paper in her mouth. she looked up at paige and felt her eyes go wide and stinging, black holes the two of them, mouth trembling around nothing, four days of silence chipping at her.
paigeâs face changed note the instant she saw it. the anger went out of her all at once, and she crossed the room and dropped, actually dropped, knees to the floor beside azziâs chair, and took azziâs hands in both of hers like a bird small and injured she'd found by the road.
âplease.â her voice had lost every trace of the fury it had walked in with. âdid i hurt you? tell me. tell me about it, tell me anything, please, i can'tââ she stopped, began again, negotiating. âi've spent four days trying to figure out what i did, and i keep landing on all of it, and none of it, and i need you to just tell me. please.â
azzi looked down at her, and saw the wound in her; unguarded want of her face turned up in the jonquil light, and saw, a feeling older and sadder than it was supposed to beâthe look of a girl who had spent her entire life under the logic that being loved and being managed were the same event, and anyone who mattered enough to matter would eventually decide to leave or to lie. the only defense you were handed against either was to make yourself impossible to walk away from before anyone got the chance.
azzi didn't know yet where exactly that had come from, but she could see the shape of the injury even without its history; a scar that had cost even if paige hadnât told her the story of the knife. azzi saw the wound in her, and she leaned forward, an inch, maybe less, and put her finger in it.
paige understood instantly.
a low moan left her, a sound sleeping between relief and pain, and then her mouth was on azziâs, careful at first and then not careful at all, one hand coming up to cradle the back of azziâs neck like sheâd been predicting this for months and was in disbelief of the vision come true; terrified at the risk of getting it wrong.
azzi kissed her back, following her lips when paige pulled back to groan, âfuck, yes".
paige kissed her again, hand on the back of her neck, free hand now softly against her throat, guiding her to the side, slipping her tongue into her mouth until azzi was dizzy. azziâs hips jerked in place, and paige put a hand to them, thumbing at the bone, silently instructing her to slow, to wait.
it didn't last long.
azzi pulled back first this time, breath unsteady, and rested her forehead against paigeâs, temples touching, close enough that neither of them could fully see the other's face anymore - only feel the warmth of it.
âyou will,â azzi answered, quiet, almost wondering, breath ragged. âyou will hurt me.â
part iii. â± frederic leighton, âthe painterâs honeymoonâ, c. 1864.
sometimes paige had a bad feeling inside her, like biting into your cheek. and then again, on purpose, to see if it still would hurt the time after.
she knew it was an innate part of her, could hear it like a snakeâs moan, and it crawled over her tonight in the midst of her first bath in three years, water gone lukewarm around her, badly-dyed wheat of her hair turned something closer to strawberry jam where the bleach had fought the old color and lost. a bucket was overturned at the tub's edge from where she'd tipped it, rinsing herself too quickly, too roughly, skin raw and red. punishment chosen whenever the bad feeling came.
paige didn't get up to fix it.
she liked looking at the mess a little.
she sat with her knees drawn up, chin resting on them, and let herself go back, the way the bath always seemed to invite her to go back, water being the one place her body had never quite had to follow the rules. she lay back fully after a moment, flaxen hair like sea moss against her spine, pale neck glinting as she rolled it to the side; bare sign of submission.
outside the bathroom, mar and nikiâs date night playlist was droning on and on. a heavily reverbed voice of the forties crooned to her, nearly cajoling her into allowing entrance to the wave of sleep sheâd felt lapping at her chest since lunch. she brought a hand up to her collarbones, pushing down, the bones so prominent it felt as thoughâwith a little more applied pressureâshe couldâve fissured the skin. dug her fingers in, and pulled it out; white necklace.
once paige had had a best friend she liked so much that it made her mean, her mouth chalky with the rage. the rage was exceptional when the girl rolled her skirt up at the waist the way the rest of the others did, showing off for boys who didn't deserve the effort. she was supposed to be better than that, different than the rest.
so, paige would yank it back down by the hem, a hard yank, sending the girl reeling. she'd pull it down, and the girlâd pull it back, a game of tug-o-war: up, down, up, down, smack! paige would be struck away, her friend finally having shoved her off, furious. then, it would be rolled up again. and so it went.
and every time, paige would just stand there, strangely satisfied, as though she'd won something even though she'd clearly lost. she didn't understand it then, what it meant to want a girl so badly you wanted to snuff her right out. she'd thought it was just the wanting-to-win kind of feeling, the kind you got over a board game or a race down the hall, some speckless, uncomplicated hunger for a thing to go her way.
she was thirteen. she didnât have the vocabulary yet for the specific, awful tenderness of wanting anotherâs attention so completely that the wanting curdled at its furthest edge. curdled into something that looked, if you squinted, a lot like wanting to hurt them a little. not kill them, of course, justâŠdent them, leave a thumbprintâcriminal traceâin a hiding place that only theyâd notice later.
in the shower, maybe, throat choked in horror as they wondered. paige, in on the secret.
she knew the words now. she just knew better than to say them out loud, in the open, even if she was the only animal in the field. despite what her mother thought, paige did have a base level of self-preservation, and she knew speaking it aloud would make it sound worse than it was, and theyâd send her somewhere.
she happened to think it really wasnât all that bad, actually. it was just attention. everybody wanted attention. she just wanted it a bit more than other people, and with a little more follow-through.
and now that her mouth had covered azziâs, now that her hand had felt azziâs stomach jump like a rabbit startled awake, some old ache of hers finally getting out from wherever she kept it locked, âm-wordâ rising up-up-upâand paige hadn't wanted to hurt her, not really. that part's important; she'd tell you if you asked, though you'd be forgiven for not entirely believing her. no, paige didnât want to quell her at all.
that was never it, had never once been it.
she had just wanted to bring azzi to her knees. just wanted to show her the effort sheâd made, had wanted her to see the work. nobody had handed paige a shovel for any of this. sheâd dug the whole thing herself, on her hands and knees, and she wanted azzi to see the hole before she fell into it face-first, wanted her to know exactly whose hands had made it.
you didn't get to keep something by wanting it once, hard. you kept it by coming back and back and back until the desire had worn a groove into the bone that only you, as the socket, would fit. nobody elseâs hands would ever quite fit it again.
the vision had been strong since early september, but azzi just hadnât seen it. paige liked that part best, if she was honest. the blind spot, the places where azzi couldnât see it, dim-sighted and scrabbling. because thatâs where paige fit.
paige like a revelator. paige with her mouth on the thin, breakable skin of azziâs inner thigh, tactile learner, feeling her way through. paige, unbearable; paige with her mouth at the back of azziâs neck, soft and unprotected, keeping it safe under the delve of her teeth, scruffing her.
her grandfather trapped a fox once, out past the tree line at the main estate, and it had screamed. and that screamâhigh and human, more furious than hurt, outrage borne of the misguided belief that it couldnât have ever been caught. paige thought about that sound sometimes, at inconvenient moments, and wondered, with the same colorless curiosity she brought to most of her worst thoughts, whether azzi would sound anything like it. if azzi would sound anything like that when she was cumming, hips held down by the staying power of paigeâs hand, bunny-eye-pink squeeze.
someday, sheâd find out, once paige finally got her cornered all the way though.
paige didn't chase the thought any further than that. and it wasnât because it scared her, but more because she liked having somewhere left to go. most things lost the magic when overly interrogated.
the water had gone properly cold now. she stayed soaked in it anyway, same thing: knees drawn up, chin resting on them, watching the strands of her hair, strawberry-blonde, fan out around her like something spilled; sat with the bad feeling.
sat with the bad feeling and letting it keep her company, the way she always had, the way she suspected she always would.
she thought that wanting someone this much was supposed to frighten her. she thought, thenâwithout much alarmâthat if this was supposed to be the part where she felt the terror and guilt, nobody had alerted her body yet. it was strange that it mostly just felt like coming home to a house sheâd built herself, brick by brick, with her own two hands.
and nobody, not one single person in her whole lifeâif they even knew of itâhad ever once thought to take the keys away from her.
she supposed they knew better. she figured that was probably part of the problem, and that problem was really part of a set. but once, before all those rocks came tumbling down on him, her father had told her: when you really love someone, when you feel that click? thatâs them loving you back. and when they love you back, nothing else tends to really matter.
and, so, maybe she did have a problem, a set or two, but birthright, really. she figured sheâd deal with it some other day.
there was a click of the grammophone out in the hall - niki had a real one, how droll - and a fresh choir of voices bloomed, wedging underneath the door, their warble rattling at the window panes. paige closed her eyes, one hand coming up to her left to grip the tubâs slick rim.
and when they love you back, nothing else tends to really matter.
everything else was just window dressing.
she lazed down straight to the bottom, the soap and cold swallowing her with an eager mouth.
sheâd never been any good at floating. her mother had long been terrorized by the fear that sheâd drown.
( when they reach the point at which paige can reveal the feeling, can peel back her heart to the dark root underneath, sleeping, silver like a wolfâs eye in the night, paige says: âi donât know why iâm like this.â
they watch her mother win another primary, television screen emanating a lunar glow. azzi thinks very hard, i think i know why.
but azzi tells her, âi donât worry about it, honey. i have little interest in making you better.â
âhâ for honey. âbâ for baby. âbâ for bueckers, blessing. âbâ for best.
paige sinks into the couch, fingers like claws, thinks real hard: can i please keep it? can we stay like this forever?
looks at azzi, thinks: please, stay with me forever. )
they did not speak of the kiss for a week, both of them paralyzed by it, which was, azzi would think later, a reliefâto know that this meant as much to you as it did to the other.
her life felt instantly changed, and she wished she could discuss this with someone, but caroline would kill her and her mother would need to be told outside a hospital, and the kiss with paige had already rearranged the furniture of her life. she could only begin her walk around the new shape of the room. it was paige who finally said it plainly, cornering azzi after class on the monday of the second week, her voice sharpened into a blade of bluntness - reserved for whatever actually mattered to her; everything else in her life apparently negotiable except this.
âwe can't keep meeting in your office.â
âi'm aware,â azzi said, and hated how much relief moved through her at being told the obvious rather than having to say it herself.
âsomeone's going to notice. someone probably already has.â paige said it without drama, a simple accounting of risk, and azzi understood, not for the first time, that whatever else paige wasâreckless, strange, entirely too fluent in getting what she wantedâshe was not stupid about the mechanics of being watched. (sheâd spent her whole life being watched. she knew exactly how it worked, better than azzi ever would.) âyou have office hours in a public corridor. i walk in whenever i want. that was fine when it wasâbefore. it isn't fine now.â
azzi didn't ask what the âbeforeâ was covering.
âwhat do you suggest, then, paige? youâve gotten us into this.â
paige rolled her eyes. âyou kissed back.â
azzi huffed, and paige smiled, the sides of her eyes crinkling.
âmy apartment is my brother's. there's no version of that where i explain you away.â
paige said this simply, already moving past it, already three steps ahead the way she always was.
âyours is just, well, yours. no deanâs aide checking a guest book, no downstairs neighbor who reports back to a committee whoâd care enough to fire you. if weâre going to keepâif youâd like to continueââ a small pause, the only hesitation she allowed herself in the entire conversation. azzi met her gaze from underneath her lashes, nodding with a small smileâ âwhatever we're doingâit has to happen somewhere no one's looking for it.â
it was, azzi reflected, a logical argument and surprisingly thorough in its consideration. and, it was also, unmistakably, the most honest thing paige had said to her yet: not i want to see you, not i can't stop thinking about you, nothing so soft as either of those. only the practical fact of being two people who could not be seen together needing somewhere they would not be seen.
azzi told herself, walking home that evening with her pulse foxtroting in her throat, that agreeing to this was simple prudence. she told herself a great many things that week that would not survive a close examination.
the first time paige came to the apartment, she did not stay long, and behaved for once, as the girl she was.
she came across as having wandered in by accident, rather than by her own design. azzi let her in through the small, crimson door, the paint chipped under the thick body of the deadbolt. it was small, and azzi didnât know if paige had expected that, if she knew what pennies the university paid.
she gazed upon her, perched on the battered end of her coral pink chaise sectionalâfacebook marketplace, god bless youâteal dressing gown pooled around her thighs. she watched as paige studied the bookshelves with her hands clasped behind her back like a visitor at a museum forbidden from touching the exhibits. when paige asked about the two framed photographs on the mantelâazziâs brothers forced together by her motherâs glare with the backdrop of their grandparentsâ farm behind them, another of an aunt long deadâazzi found herself surprised by the interest, suddenly called back to a childhood summer she barely remembered.
paige left before nine, kissing azzi once at the door on the very end of her nose, careful and brief though no less affectionate, and said not a word about coming back. but then she was back the following tuesday, sweeping azzi out by the arm into the blistering cold, citing a walk for her âold age,â which made azzi push her half-heartedly near traffic before dragging her desperately back.
and she came the one after that.
the one after that one too.
and then it was no longer a question of tuesdays at all. paige was simply there, the way she had always been there at office hours, except now there was no pretense of tutoring left to disguise it, no essay excuse. nothing between them but the plain fact of wanting to be in the same room.
slowly paige began to populate. she brought a book she was reading for another class and left it on azziâs coffee table, did not take it home again. iâll be back for it soon. keep it for me, love? sheâd hummed over the phone. azzi felt her body relax into her mattress.
next, paige left a coat on the hook by the door, a second coat beside azziâs, forest green wool with a plaid drenched inside, as though she had privately decided the apartment required its own small wardrobe now, separate from the rest of her life. azzi catalogued these accumulations the way sheâd note the tide coming in, not any single wave, but by way of the fact that the water had, at some point sheâd failed to mark, reached much further up the shore than it used to.
paige never asked permission for any of it, and azzi never quite got around to minding.
by the time the first hard blizzard came, sealing the lake road under a skin of ice neither of them walked on any longer, paige had a drawer. azzi could not have said, if asked, on what day exactly that had happened, only that one evening sheâd gone looking for a spare charger and found, instead, a single drawer in her own dresser that had become entirely and unmistakably paigeâs.
a wooden hollow suddenly flooded with the make of her: black silk boyshorts trailing the sides, two replacement heads for her electric toothbrush, sleeping tees a size too large and faded like the dead.
a new thing, learned: paige smoked. azzi hated it.
she hated it with the thwarted vehemence of someone who had once, before her university days, spent an entire year lecturing high schoolers about the body as a temple. all that good it had done her. she found herself watching paige stand on her studio balcony, a juliet with enough room for two, long frame shivering in the cold, cable-knit sweater shrugged off the shoulder as she drew smoke into her lungs with obvious pleasure.
âyou're going to ruin your health. this will kill you,â azzi berated her, the first week, standing in the living room with her arms crossed like that alone might constitute an argument.
âmy health is fine.â
âyes, now. you're only twenty-two.â
âi'm aware of my own age, thank you.â paige didn't turn around. the smoke went up in a thin grey ribbon, dissolving into the streetlights' shallow reach before it ever really cleared the railing. âyou don't have to watch, if itâs torturing you or whatever.â
âi live here.â a beat, the admission catching slightly even now, weeks in, still strange in her own mouth. âyou're on my balcony.â
âthen come stand on it with me instead of scolding me from the door like my mother,â paige said it lightly, but something under it wasn't light at all, some old scar azzi had learned by now not to press directly. âshe used to do the smoking-and-scolding thing. different substance, same energy. all annoying.â
azzi was hurt by that, she recognized later, her face shifting as she turned away and receded into her bedroom, path lit by two floriform tiffany lamps, the tops iridescent green and structured into tulip blooms around the bulb. paige had not come to find her, though azzi had awoken the next morning to a bouquet of blue: delphiniums, tweedia, lisianthus and ranunculus in rows of white, silver dollar eucalyptus and a peek of white rose. beside it lay a note in uneven scrawl: iâm sorry. call me; the day is yours. iâll take you anywhere youâd like to go.
azzi had called, and upon pickup immediately said, âgod, itâs like you think weâre in a film.â
âyou like it,â paige countered with a low drawl. âyou like that i dote on you. donât worry, mommy, i like it too.â
azzi had gone bright pink and silent, and the phone clicked off.
it became, over the following weeks, one of their several small rituals: paige on the balcony rail, hip against the cold iron, a blanket settled over her shoulders courtesy of azziâs consideration. azzi in the doorway or, more often now, beside paige, not smoking herself, but present and close, watching the cherry burn down in the dark while paige exhaled up and away from her out of some instinctive, unrequested courtesy.
azzi, of course, never stopped hating it. she only, slowly, stopped fighting it, sometimes leaning into the blow of the smoke to feel the warmth as the snow spun in its silent spiral.
the ashtray appeared on a thursday.
paige noticed it before azzi ever addressed it, noticed it the way she took notice of everything about azzi, the same old compulsion simply relocated from an office to a home. it sat on the little table beside the balcony chair that paige either sat in or slid to the side so that she could curl in azziâs lap, nicotine dragging through her blood as azzi hummed an aimless melody. it was gold and sleek, cast in the shape of a shell, its ridges catching the moonlight in a wide spread.
âwhat's this?â
âan ashtray,â azzi said, from just inside, arms crossed in rote, though her posture had lost much of its old severity. âyou've been using a coffee mug, paige. it's disgusting.â
paige turned it over once in her hand before setting it back exactly where it had been. âyou bought me an ashtray.â
âiâwell, yes. i thoughtâwell. i bought a shell-shaped receptacle for a habit i still think is going to kill you,â azzi blustered, âbecause the coffee mug was worse, and because i would rather you do the thing i hate somewhat properly.â
it wasn't a declaration, or azzi clearly hadn't intended it as one. had said it, if anything, in the same dry, faintly martyred register she used for most things concerning paigeâs more self-destructive habits. but paige stood there with her cigarette burning down forgotten between her fingers and felt something in her chest give out, ribs traveling back like a bramble forest with its spell broken. heart suddenly unguarded, red and wet.
because azzi hated it. she had said so, repeatedly, at length, with real concern. but she had gone and bought paige something beautiful to do it in anyway; had decided, somewhere in the midst of her own disapproval, that if she couldn't stop paige from doing the thing that frightened her, she would at least make sure the doing of it was tended to - made lovely, made safe in every way that was actually within her power.
paige said nothing more. she only reached out, once azzi had stepped back into the studio, and tapped her ash carefully into the shell for the first time. she found that she wanted, more than she'd wanted almost anything, to never once let this object break.
and maybe it was the ashtray that had done it, the sudden adjustment to a habit paige had simply no intention of giving up. whatever it was sent paige waking early one morning, pacing anxiously in the kitchen as she made coffee barefoot, casting fleeting glances to azziâs pea-green coffee pot as it labored under her instruction.
she hadn't slept. sheâd lain there instead, long after azziâs breathing had gone slow and even beside her, watching the snow-light move across the ceiling and rehearsing the explanation she kept discarding for sounding too practiced, much too close to a line a communications team would have fed her. sheâd almost said it there, in the dark, mouth an inch from azziâs shoulder, but she hadn't. paige wasn't sure yet if that had been cowardice or mercy.
so she was still awake when the grey started coming up outside, and still awake when azzi stirred and found the coffee already goingâpaige barefoot and pale in the kitchen light with an expression azzi clearly didnât recognize on her; something rawer and much younger looking out from underneath her skin instead. the tile under paigeâs feet was like a glacial kiss, but she endured.
azzi made her coffee like this, barefoot, and she always took it black. she thought it was sweet, the way azzi always wanted to be so grounded. paige required milk, needed a little bit of tenderizing.
âhey, honey.â
paige closed her eyes, let the endearment spill down her back, stomach going sticky with delight. azzi paused at the sight, a hand coming to rest on the doorway of the kitchen. she came in closer, running a hand down paigeâs hip. stabilizing her, paige realized. she hadnât even realized sheâd been swaying.
âyou're up early,â azzi continued, cautious.
âmmm, couldnât sleep.â
azzi came flush against her without needing to be formally asked, the way they always went to one another now, and took paigeâs hands before the blonde had even finished deciding whether she wanted them taken. folded them up in her own, warm from the mug sheâd only just abandoned. she waited, practiced across an entire semester at coaxing this girl out of hiding one small admission at a time.
ânightmare?â
paige shook her head, flexing her feet against the tile. sheâd woken up once or twice in a flame of terror, skin beaded with sweat, her body shivering with the aftershock of a dreamworld sheâd only just escaped. when azzi had asked upon the fourth time, paige had rolled onto her side, blue eyes dull disks of white in the evening light, and saidâso matter-of-factly: my father was a geologist. he died.
azziâs face had crumpled, dark eyes welling with tears. sheâd reached out, and paige had followed the motion, slightly unnerved by the discovery of her cheeks being wet.
how?
paige had turned her head deep into the pillow, leaving only a slight crack so that her lips could move comfortably, answer slipping easily from rose pink: avalanche.
âyou said once that you don't know who i am,â paige said, now, voice hoarse. ânot really.â
âi remember.â that warm hand running all over her back. âand i donât know, honey. i havenât looked anymore into it.â
"i think that's on purpose. i think i've made sure of it.â her hands tightened in azziâs, involuntarily. âi keep thinking about that painting. the one with the snake woman and the soldierââ
âlamia.â azzi provided, and paige smiled faintly at the interruption.
âyeah. you know how the second he actually sees her, she canât survive being looked at anymore?â paige swallowed as azzi nodded slowly. âi've been so afraid of that happening to me that i never let you look properly at all. and i don'tâi don't want to do that to us. i don't want to be a person you loved by accident, because you never had all the facts. i donâtâweâre about to be in the thick of it, and iâm so afraid that iâmââ
azziâs thumb moved once, slow, over the back of paigeâs hand. she didn't say anything. instead she slowly leaned in, never stopping until their foreheads pressed, clasping paigeâs hand in one while the other moved to her neck.
âpaige, honey. itâs alright. you donât have to tell me anything you donât want to.â
âi want to,â paige murmured, leaning in to drop a kiss on azziâs cheekbone. âi want you.â
deep breath.
âi used my brother-in-law-to-beâs last name when enrolling,â she sighed. âit's not a lie, not really. itâs justâŠnot the whole truth either. i am a blessing. iâm also a bueckers. i kept my fatherâs name; i wanted to. but iâm alsoâ" she forced herself to say it plainly, no flourish. âi'm a fuller, too. my mother is a fuller. one of the famous ones.â
it took azzi a second. paige watched her sort through it, watched the pieces arrive one at a time and then, immediately assemble themselves into something enormous. there was only one largely famous fuller family at the forefront of american society.
âwait.â azziâs voice had tumbled somewhere low, had gone very quiet. âpaige? are you telling meâdo you mean as inâthe president. the woman currently in the white house.â
âyes.â
âthe woman trying to stay in the white house.â
âyes.â
âyouâre telling me that the president of the united states of america is your mother.â
âyes.â
neither of them moved. outside, the snow kept falling, indifferent, the same grey morning it had been ten minutes ago before any of this had been said aloud, and paige realized she was still waitingâbracedâfor azziâs fingers to loosen around her own.
they didn't. in fact, they tightened so severely that paige thought her circulation was at risk of being permanently cut off.
âi think iâm going to faint.â
âwhat?!â
azzi promptly collapsed, bringing paige down with her. the combined drop of their weight was so deafening against the floor that it sent her neighbor claudia running up from the level below.
Hi everyone! Honestly, I didnât think I would finish this story, but I was so positively overwhelmed by the love you showed for part one that I knew I had to write this. I hope Pt. 2 lives up to your expectations!
(P.S. This chapter is much better paced than the first one since I am finally done writing exams and no longer in a time crunch! I might even go back and edit part 1 soon!)
ââââââââ
Azzi raised her hands and pushed Paige, shoving her just a little bit harder than she actually needed to, desperately trying to hide the sudden trembling in her fingers. Paige was too close. Azzi felt like she was drowning in her; her scent, her voice, her proximity. And getting to the living room far from Paige seemed like a good way to try to float again. So Azzi started stepping away. But maybe Azzi wasnât as desperate to be saved as she thought, because Paige easily grabbed her wrist, and Azzi let herself be pulled back into deeper waters.
âThey're for you, Az,â Paige murmured. She spoke in that rare, quiet tone she only used when she stripped away all her usual dramatics and loud exclamations. It was just soft, raw, and completely pure.
Azzi felt her breath stop. She wasnât just too close to Paige anymore; together, they were hovering right on the edge of a truth that had remained unspoken for the past few months. There was something going on between them, something more than just acquaintanceship, rehabilitation work, or friendship. Azzi liked being around Paige more than any of those labels should grant. Every Tuesday she fixed her clothes and touched up her makeup before she would head down to the clinic floor at 6.00. She stopped packing her healthy meal prep lunches so that sheâd have an excuse to go out for lunch, and if she ended up eating with a certain blonde it was just purely coincidence.Â
But, Azzi also knew two other very important things. The first being that everyone liked being around Paige. Everyone, whether theyâd admit it or not, wanted Paigeâs attention. Everyone wanted to bathe in her sunlight. Even Caroline, who constantly complained about the crumbs Paige left on the physio beds, could never manage a convincing scowl when Paige smiled at her. So, Azzi had rationalized that what she was feeling was just the inevitable, unavoidable effect of the classic Paige charm. This theory was certainly supported by the second thing Azzi knew: all of her past relationships were with men, and so Azzi Fudd is definitely not a lesbian.
"Caroline told me about UConn," Paige whispered, a fresh tear slipping down her cheek. "Iâm so damn proud of you. I literally cried while she was telling me."
Azzi stared at her for a fraction of a second. Paige is crying, Paige Bueckers who Azzi has only seen cry once in the entirety of the past nine months is crying, is crying for Azzi.Â
âAhâ Azzi thinks, a sudden realization hitting her, âmaybe Paige is drowning too.â
Her need for distance completely dissipates, replaced by the need to be as close as possible, to grab Paige's body and consequently give her something she can float with. She throws her arms around Paigeâs neck, pulling her in so tightly she hinders her own breathing.
"Loser," she whispered into Paigeâs ear, her voice thick with emotion. "Can't believe you cried" and she really can't believe that she cried or that sheâs crying again.Â
When did this happen? When did they get close enough, when did they start caring so much? Was it in the 5 minutes they got during each of the appointments? Or was it in their shared lunches? Or maybe their more recent texting? Or maybe it was four years ago, when she met a beautiful stranger who spilled ketchup on her favourite jacket in a trashy bar.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
âPaige, open the door!â
The sudden, aggressive pounding on the front door shattered the silence. They broke apart instantly, blinking against the sudden rush of cool air between them.
Azzi wiped her face quickly, her heart hammering against her ribs as she looked toward the entryway. âWere you expecting someone?â Azzi asked.
ââââââââ
Paige wasnât expecting Azzi to show up at the middle of the night (though sheâs definitely not complaining that she did), and she sure as hell was not expecting Zoe to be standing outside of her door black out drunk. Or High. Well whatever sent her to the stars, she was definitely there. She looked like she could barely stand straight. For the first time since knowing her, Paige actually thought Zoe looked like she genuinely needed one of her stupid wellness retreats.
âZoe,â Paige said, her voice dropping into a tense, but baffled tone. âWhat are you doing here?â
âPaige I need helpâ said Zoe while stumbling across the threshold, she bypassed Paige and face planted directly onto the living room couch.Â
Paige closed the front door slowly. âWhat is my life right now?â
âZoe whatâs going on? What happened? Why are you so drunk⊠or high?
âMy life is overâŠIâve been spiritually, mentally, and physically assassinatedâ Zoe wailed, rolling over to stare at the ceiling with wide and glassy eyes. âMy dad found out about my offshore accounts in the Cayman Islands. I was moving funds from the company to finance this crystal-infused matcha start upâŠand apparently, itâs illegalâ
Paige blinked, her jaw dropping. âIllegal? LikeâŠa tax loopholeâ
âIllegal like money laundering, Paige!" Zoe gasped, sitting up dramatically. âMy dad didn't want to send me to jail, but he fired me. He took away my black card, froze my checking accounts, and I can't even open my penthouse doors. My code doesnât work anymore. I just spent my last dollars on cheap tequila.â
Azzi slowly walked out of the kitchen, her arms crossed, staring at her former business partner in absolute disbelief. âWait. You got caught money laundering?â
Zoeâs head snapped toward the kitchen, finally noticing her. âAzzi! Thank god you're here.â Instead of being shocked to see her ex-partner at her ex-girlfriend's apartment at 11:00 PM, Zoe just pointed a desperate finger at her. âCan you help me? Do I⊠do I have any more equity left in Revite? Anything at all?â
âThe equity you sold three months ago?â Azzi deadpanned. âNo, Zo. You sold it all. You signed the paperwork.â
Zoe let out a tragic, breathless sigh, slapping her hands against her forehead. âOh my gosh, this is a nightmare.â Her face suddenly turned a slight shade of green, and she gripped her stomach. âI need to go to the bathroom and puke for a second.â
She scrambled off the couch, running a hand over her face as she stumbled blindly toward the hallway bathroom, slamming the door behind her. A second later, the distinct sound of retching echoed down the hall.
Azzi stood frozen in the center of the living room. Slowly, her head turned toward Paige.
Paige was already staring back at her, her blue eyes wide, her hands hovering awkwardly at her sides. The heavy, romantic tension that had been suffocating the kitchen just five minutes ago was completely vaporized, replaced by sheer absurdity.
Azzi let out a breath, her voice a flat, stunned whisper. âI worked with a money launderer.â
Paigeâs shoulders began to shake as a breathless laugh bubbled up her throat. âI dated a money launderer.â
They stared at each other for one more silent second before both of them completely lost it. Paige clamped a hand over her mouth to muffle her wheezing laughs, bending over at the waist, while Azzi covered her face, her shoulders shaking with silent, hysterical laughter.
âShe laundered money for matcha,â Paige hissed through her fingers, her eyes watering all over again.Â
âCrystal-infused matcha!â Azzi whispered back fiercely.
Azzi left shortly after. The apartment had felt entirely too crowded, and she felt like she needed to give Paige and Zoe some space.
By the time she unlocked the door to her own place, the adrenaline had faded. She pulled out her phone, staring at the screen for a long moment before finally sending a text.
Azzi: yyou survive the criminal?
The reply came almost instantly.
Paige: barely. she threw up agaan :(
Paige: sheâs stayin in the guest room. says shes gonna be here for like a muonth until she can sell her stock in some other randim company and get her footing back.
Azzi stared at the bubbles as they popped up and vanished.
Paige: az? you still awake?
Azzi didn't reply. She tossed her phone onto the nightstand, sliding into bed and staring up at the dark ceiling. The silence of her room felt deafening compared to the chaos that was Paige's apartment.
She lay there, the wheels in her mind turning relentlessly, tracking backward through the years.
It was easy to laugh at Zoe now, to joke about the crystal-infused matcha and the Cayman Islands, but as Azzi stared into the dark, a wave of reality hit her. Zoe wasn't a bad person. In fact, when Azzi was at her absolute lowest, right after her second injury at UConn, Zoe had been the only one who looked at her and saw potential. Every investor in New York had slammed the door in Azzi's face when she tried to pitch Revite. They saw a twenty-something girl with a ruined knee and a pipe dream.
But Zoe had listened. Zoe had been genuinely interested, and Zoe had signed the check that breathed life into Azzi's dream.
I owe her everything, Azzi realized, the thought sinking like a stone in her stomach. Revite wouldn't exist without Zoe. And now, Zoe was in a genuinely hard position, stripped of her family's wealth, her job, and her home.
Azzi rolled onto her side, swallowing hard. It didn't matter if Paige and Zoe were completely over. It didn't matter if they weren't in love anymore, or if Paige had been looking at Azzi with an intensity that made her knees weak. Zoe was her friend, her co-founder, the person who saved her career. Stepping into Paige's space, letting herself feel whatever was blooming between themâŠit just wasn't right.Â
And besides, she was lying to herself if she thought she even fit Paige's type.
The last person Paige Bueckers had chosen to date was Zoe Fernandez. Azzi brought up a mental image of them together, and the contrast was staggering. Zoe was high-fashion, high-maintenance, and apparently, a white-collar criminal. Compared to all that, Azzi was, well, boring. She was absolutely, nothing like Zoe.
Azzi still didn't entirely understand how Paige and Zoe had come to be together in the first place, but the fact remained: Zoe was the standard. There was no way Paige could ever look at Azzi the way she had looked at a girl like Zoe.
Azzi closed her eyes, letting out a long, shaky breath into the quiet room. The text thread on her phone stayed dark. Azzi needed ease, questioning her sexuality, questiong her feelings for Paige, and questioning the complication of Zoe; was nowhere near easy. So she pushed her phone further from her and pulled up her blanket.
It was better this way. Whatever unsaid truth had been hovering between her and Paige in that kitchen, it had to stay unsaid. There could never really be anything between them.
ââââââââ
âIâm telling you, Iâve officially lost my goddamn mind,â Paige groaned, dropping her head into her hands.
She was sitting on the bench at the edge of the practice court, her tennis racket abandoned beside her. Across from her stood Nika, her performance coach and long-time friend. After nine grueling months of physical rehab, Paige was finally back on the court training with Nika again.
Nika crossed her arms and looked down at Paige with a mix of irritation and amusement, truly a rare combo only Nika could manage. âYouâve also lost all fucking your talent apparently, you haven't been able to hit baseline all morning, whats going on?â
âItâs Azzi,â Paige confessed, her voice muffled by her palms. She finally looked up, her blue eyes wide and frantic. âI think I scared her off, Nika. Sheâs being so dry. Itâs been five days. Five days of one-word texts. I feel literally schizo.â
Nika raised an eyebrow. âAzzi? Rich, hot, muscle mommy, beautiful physio angel sent from the heavens, CEO, Azzi?â
âYes! And she probably thinks Iâm an actual psychopath now,â Paige cried, gesturing wildly. âShe was in my apartment when Zoe showed up.â
Nika blinked. âSo? Didnât she work with Zoe, she already knows her.â
âThatâs the problem! Azzi had to be around Zoe because they were business partners, but I actually chose to date her. Azzi must think my taste in women is a literal biohazard.â
Nika let out a soft snort, twisting her racket on the court floor. âTo be fair, P⊠Zoe was a lot. Even before her whole white-collar crime era. What were you thinking?â
âI donât even know,â Paige muttered, slumping back against the bench. She stared blankly at her sneakers, trying to rationalize a relationship that now felt like a completely different lifetime. âAt the time, it just made sense. Zoe was pretty. Zoe was rich, so she had her own things going on and she didn't suffocate me by obsessing over my career or treating me like a celebrity.â
âAnd she didnât want to be public either,â Paige continued, her voice dropping into a quieter, defensive tone. âCause she was convinced she was 99% straight and didnât want the media thinking she was lesbian. Some of the media is still somehow entirely convinced that Iâm basically straight too because Zoe wanted everything completely locked down. We always just did our own thing. We barely saw each other because of my travel schedule and her weird ass life. Half the time, it didnât even really feel like we were together anyway. It was just easy when we were in the same city; we got to fuck without having to worry about NDAs and that was it.â
Nika nodded slowly, listening intently. She had been there for the entirety of the Zoe timeline, watching from the sidelines, the relationship was just so outlandish she hadnât really developed an opinion on it, and like Paige just sort of acted like it didnât exist.
âI donât know what to tell you dudeâŠyou need to find a way to talk to Azzi and remind her you arenât crazy if she isnât tryna make conversation on textâ
âSo you want me to corner herâ
âBasically yeah, show up somewhere she canât dodge youâ
ââââââââ
Azzi stared at her laptop screen. For the last five days, her entire existence had boiled down to a single, brutal exercise in self-restraint: limiting her responses to Paige.
Every time her phone buzzed, a stupid, involuntary spark would catch in her chest. Sheâd look down, see a text from Paige about some absolute nonsense or memes. Sheâd count to ten, and then press down on the delete key for an embarrassing amount of time to erase the long reply she already wrote, and type a single, dry sentence instead.
Keep the boundary. Sheâs your ex-client. Sheâs Zoeâs ex. She doesnât like you. You are probably not lesbian.
"Az, please save me," Caroline groaned, leaning dramatically against the doorframe of Azziâs office. She was holding a stack of files in her hands, looking thoroughly miserable. "I have a date this Friday with this guy, right? But I haven't been on a date for so long dude, and I donât want dinner to be awkward. So do you wanna go on a double date to make it less painful for your best friend, whom I know you love and care for, and often say you would do anything for"
Azzi blinked, a sudden, desperate thought flashed through her mind. Maybe if she went on a date, she wouldn't have to go through the daily humiliation ritual of overthinking about Paige.
"I'll go," Azzi said grittingly.
Caroline froze, she stepped forward closer to Azzi like it was her vision deceiving her rather than her hearing, her eyebrows practically shooting into her hairline. "Wait. What?"
"I'll go with you," Azzi repeated, more sure now, leaning back in her chair and crossing her arms, trying to sound completely nonchalant. "Itâs probably good for me to go out and about sometimes. But donât get too excited, this will probably be the last time."
"Don't get too excited about what?"
Azziâs heart dropped to where her ass met her desk chair.
Paige was standing right behind Caroline in the doorway, holding a tray of two iced coffees. She looked bright and beautiful.
ââââââââ
Azzi Fudd is so gay. She is so incredibly gay, specifically she is so deeply, and embarrassingly gay for Paige Bueckers.
It had been nine whole months of this torturous, slow-burn nonsense, and they still werenât together. Ever since Paigeâs rehab program technically ended last week, Azzi had been moping around the upper office all day. She didn't come down to the clinic floor anymore, she didn't help out with stretching, and worst of all, she had stopped bringing the daily iced coffees.
Caroline had watched enough "your daily $7 coffee could pay for your car down payment" financial freedom videos on TikTok to realize she had to take immediate action. She needed her daily caffeine fix subsidized by Azzi Fudd; who was her best friend, yes, but also her boss, and significantly wealthier than her.
So, Caroline had sought out the most annoying, finance-bro type guy she could find on Hinge, knowing he would certainly have an equally annoying best friend. Boom. One dinner with them, and Azzi would remember she actually completely hates men, causing her finally run into Paigeâs arms.
It was a great plan, but it was going even better than expected. First of all, Caroline didnât even have to beg Azzi much to agree to the setup. Actually, she hadnât had to beg at all.Â
And now, the universe had delivered a perfect bonus: Paige was standing right here, holding coffee, looking like a deer that didnât know it was about to be run over. Carolineâs inner demon, who definitely watched too many Spanish soap dramas, rejoiced. It was time to rub Azziâs upcoming date all over Paigeâs face, and speed up her confession.
Caroline turned around, flashing Paige a massive, innocent smile. âOh, nothing! Just that Azziâs letting me set her up on a blind double date with a guy this Friday!â She looked back and forth between them. âI think itâs a great idea, right? Unless... anybody has any particular reason why Azzi shouldnât go?â
Paigeâs jaw tightened for a fraction of a second. She looked at Azzi, her blue eyes flashing with a mix of hurt, panic, and sheer disbelief. But instead of cracking, Paigeâs defense kicked right back in. She slapped a smirk onto her face, though it didn't quite reach her eyes.
âAzzi should definitely go,â Paige said, her voice dripping with artificial amusement as she walked past Caroline and placed the iced coffees onto Azziâs desk. âI mean, honestly? I think it would be hard for her ass to score a date on her own anyway.â
ââââââââ
âNika, I need you to kill Caroline!â Paige yelled into the phone, the moment she burst through the doors of the clinic.
âIâm a performance coach, Paige, not a hitman. But honestly I could totally see that as like a true crime episode you know, like a tennis racket serial killer, but anyways what the fuck did Caroline do to you?â
âShe ruined my life!â Paige groaned, dropping into her car seat and dropping her forehead to her steering wheel. âI went into the clinic. I had coffee. I was literally two seconds away from asking Azzi to grab lunch with me, and Caroline drops a fucking bomb. She set Azzi up for a double date.â
âOkay? And what did you do?â
âI panicked, Nika!â Paige cried, throwing her hands in the air. âCaroline looked right at me and asked if anyone had a reason why Azzi shouldnât go out with some random guy. And instead of saying something normal, my stupid mouth opened and I told them Azzi should definitely go because it would be hard for her to score a date on her own.â
Nika let out a sharp crack of laughter, shaking her head. âOh, youâre an idiot. I told you to go there to make her think you weren't a weirdo, not make her think youâre a douchebag.â
âItâs not funny!â Paige muttered, her chest heaving as the adrenaline faded into raw, heavy frustration. âI was hurt. I donât want to see anyone but Azzi, and sheâs just out here volunteering to go out with men? Iâm so confused. I was so confident she liked me even if she was a little weirded out recently. She was definitely looking at me in a typa way in my kitchen? She was holding me to, like the full on lesbian U-Haul hug. I know she feels it too. So why the hell is she fucking around and playing games with me?â
Nika let out a slow breath. âMaybe sheâs straight, Paige, you never know.â
âNo,â Paige said instantly, her tone deadpan, dropping any trace of her usual dramatics. âShe definitely isn't straight. There is zero percent chance she is straight.â
Nika raised an eyebrow, that Paige could somehow sense through the phone. âWell, does she know that?â
ââââââââ
Azzi was going to kill herself. Actually, no, she was going to kill Bradley, and then she was going to kill herself. Not in a romantic, star-crossed, Romeo-and-Juliet kind of way. More like a âyou are actually the worst person on the planet and I am doing the global population a massive favor by removing you from itâ kind of way.
They were forty-five minutes into dinner at a ridiculously loud, overpriced restaurant that Azzi could be enjoying if Bradley had not stopped talking about his macro-nutrients once.
âSee, the thing about raw egg whites in the morning,â Bradley said, leaning across the table, âis the bio-availability. If youâre not tracking your metabolic rate before your fasted cardio, Az, youâre basically wasting your time in the gym.â
âFascinating,â Azzi deadpanned, staring at her untasted salmon like she hoped it would magically come back to life and flop on her plate to provide her with some sort of entertainment.
Across the table, Caroline was not doing any better with Bradleyâs friend, Chad. Chad was currently showing Caroline a video of his personal record deadlift on his phone, making loud grunting noises right there at the restaurant table for no reason. Carolineâs face had completely lost all its usual mischief, she looked, exhausted, and deeply, deeply regretful.
Azzi kicked Caroline hard under the table. Caroline gasped, her eyes snapping up.
âBathroom,â Azzi mouthed, her eyes shooting daggers. âNow.â
âHey, weâre just gonna go to the bathroom for a sec,â Caroline said smoothly, practically scrambling out of the booth.
The second the heavy wooden door of the bathroom clicked shut behind them, Azzi turned around, crossing her arms. âCaroline these arenât just finance bros, theyâre finance bodybuilding bros, this is a whole nother level of douchebagness, what the hell were you thinking?"
Caroline collapsed against the marble sink, burying her face in her hands. âIâm sorry! Iâm so sorry! I swear his Hinge profile said he worked in capital ventures! I didn't know they were also competitive bodybuilders, Azzi, I swear to god!â
âThe man asked the waiter if the kitchen could weigh his broccoli,â Azzi hissed.
âLetâs just go back out there, pretend I got a fake text from my landlord about a pipe bursting or something, and dip. Deal?â
Azzi let out a long, defeated sigh, rubbing her forehead. âFine. Letâs go.â
They walked back out into the dimly lit, chaotic restaurant corridor. Azzi was so busy mentally rehearsing the excuse they came up with in the bathroom that she didn't notice the freshly mopped tile right near the kitchen doors. There was no yellow caution sign.
Her foot hit the slick sheen of water that probably had some remnants of soap left which made it extremely slippery.
Snap.
A sudden, agonizing burst of white-hot pain shot straight up her left leg. Azziâs eyes widened, a sharp gasp catching in her throat as her balance completely vanished. She barely caught the edge of a nearby service station with her hand before she landed completely on the ground, her right ankle rolling completely inward.
âOh, nice,â Caroline whispered, immediately leaning down and grabbing Azziâs arm. She was smiling, keeping her voice low for the passing waiters. âCommit to the bit, I love it. Tell them you think you broke it so we can leave right now.â
Azzi was hyperventilating, the color completely draining from her face as she clutched the edge of the station tighter. A cold sweat broke out across her forehead. âCaroline,â she choked out, her voice raw and strained. âIâm not acting. I really canât walk. I can't move it.â
Carolineâs smile dropped instantly. Her eyes darted to Azziâs foot, which was already beginning to visibly swell against her flats. âOh shit. Oh, shit. Okay. Okay, don't move.â
After settling her on a nearby chair, Caroline scrambled back to the dining room, and came back with the most logical, but equally disgusting solution. Bradley and Chad loomed over Azzi, both looking like handsome squidward in a tight polo shirt.
âWe got a downed athlete!â Bradley announced loudly, causing three tables of diners to turn around. He looked down at Azzi with intense, professional seriousness. âWe need to transport her to a vehicle immediately. Chad, remember we have to preserve our posture.â
âRight,â Chad grunted, stepping into position. âCanât strain the erector spinae. Friday is lower-body hypertrophy day.â
Before Azzi could even open her mouth to protest, the two bodybuilders hoisted her up between them. Because they were terrified of compromising their lifting form or throwing out their lower backs (which was impossible since they were built like Dwayne the Rock Johnson), they refused to just carry her like normal human beings. Instead, they lifted her completely flat like a starfish over their heads, holding Azzi like the finale lift from Dirty Dancing.
Azzi was suspended six feet in the air, floating above the restaurant, staring helplessly at the ceiling tiles while Bradley and Chad power-walked her past the bar.
âKeep your core tight, Az!â Bradley yelled up at her. âDonât let your pelvis tilt!â
From five feet behind them, a distinct CLICK-FLASH went off.
Azzi snapped her head around, horrified. Caroline was walking backwards toward the exit, her phone held high, a look of guilt mixed with comedic disbelief on her face as she captured the entire moment on camera.
âCaroline, I will fire you!â Azzi screamed from the ceiling. âI swear to god, delete that right now!â
âItâs for the clinical file!â Caroline yelled back, wiping a tear of laughter from her eye. âIt's medical documentation!â
When they finally got back to Azziâs apartment, Azzi was lying flat on her living room couch, biting down on a throw pillow to keep from crying.
Carolineâs playful demeanor was entirely gone. She was in full Lead Physical Therapist mode, her hands gentle but incredibly precise as she carefully handled Azziâs foot.
âWell?â Azzi wheezed, pulling the pillow away from her face. âGive it to me straight, doc.â
Caroline let out a long, sympathetic breath, sitting back on her heels. âItâs bad, Az. You have a Grade 3 ankle sprain.â
ââââââââ
It was now the next day. Azzi was trapped on her bed, staring blindly at the wall, desperately needing the glasses she had left on her desk at the office. The contacts she wore to her date last night were her last.
She absolutely refused to call Caroline. Caroline started looking so guilty last night after she fully processed what happened to Azzi, and it was suffocating; she had spent hours pacing around the living room, aggressively fluffing Azziâs pillows and apologizing. Plus, Azzi literally could not look at her face without vividly visualizing Bradley, Chad, and the Dirty Dancing lift. The trauma was too fresh.
And it wasnât like she needed an excuse to call Paige, but Paige really was the only other person besides Caroline who had the security code for her personal office.
Azzi opened FaceTime. The phone buzzed once before Paigeâs face filled the screen.Â
âHey,â Azzi muttered.
Paige squinted at the screen. âYou look rough.â She didnât say it in a mean way, just honestly, just noticing.
âYou look ugly,â Azzi said meanly, her defenses immediately flaring up.
Click.
Paige hung up.
Azzi let out an irritated breath, rolling her eyes as she immediately hit the FaceTime button again. Paige answered on the third ring, her expression completely blank now.
âI need you to do something for me,â Azzi said, getting straight to the point.
Paige leaned back against her chair's headrest, feigning deep thought. âHmm⊠let me think about it⊠yeah, no.â
âWhy are you being mean?â
âIâm not being mean.â
âYes, you are,â Azzi insisted, frowning.
âBecauseâŠâ Paige started, stopping herself before the words could completely leave her mouth. She couldn't exactly admit out loud that she was still feeling sour and wallowing in self-pity over the whole blind date situation. She cleared her throat, shifting her gaze away from the camera. âWhatever. What do you need me to do?â
âI left my glasses at the office. Can you pick them up for me and drop them off at my house?â
Without a word, Azzi flipped her camera and slowly tilted her phone camera downward, panning past her sweatpants to reveal her right leg that was purple and swollen around her ankle.
âBecause of this.â
Paigeâs entire demeanor shifted in a millisecond. She leaned so close to her camera Azzi saw her forehead in high definition. âWhat the fuck did you do to your leg?â
âGrade 3 ankle sprain, and back up from the camera pleaseâ Azzi said, reversing the camera back to her face. âCan you get my glasses or not?â
âYeah. Iâll grab them.â
Exactly twenty minutes later, Azzi was sitting on her couch when a loud, thud-thud-bang started, it sounded like it was coming from downstairs directly below her, near her living room wall. Right where the window was.
Azzi stared at her bedroom door in disbelief. No. Paige wouldnât.
Thud.
Yes, Paige definitely would.
Azzi picked up her phone. The moment Paige picked up her call, Azzi started. âSo, I heard someone aggressively banging at my window. That isnât you, right? I should probably be calling the police, right?â
âWhat the fuck, donât call the police!â Paigeâs voice came through the speaker, sounding completely out of breath. âOf course itâs me. Iâm trying to get in!â
âWhy didnât you just call me to ask where the spare key was?â Azzi asked, rubbing her temples.
âBro, are you a fucking grandma? Why would you have a spare key outside your house?â Paige yelled over the wind.
âBecause I donât want dumbasses climbing through my window! Get down before you get hurt. I didnât fix your leg for nine months just for you to get injured doing idiotic shit.â
âFine! Where's the key?â
Azzi bit the inside of her cheek, a highly specific, evil thought forming in her brain. âItâs underneath the second big stone from the porch. Wait⊠actually, maybe the fifth one. But it could also be the seventh. Actually, maybe eleven or thirteen, too.â
âWow. Thanks for such a specific answer,â Paige muttered sarcastically.
Azzi hung up the phone with a satisfied click, leaning back into her pillows.
Outside, Paige let out a heavy sigh, looking down at the landscaped path of large stones lining Azziâs front walkway. She dropped and squatted down, looking at the rocks.
Paige decided to trust her gut. She skipped the second stone entirely and went straight for the fifth one, tipping the heavy rock over. Nothing but dirt. She frowned, moving back to the second. Empty. She crawled on her knees to the seventh, then the eleventh, aggressively lifting them up, her fingers getting completely coated in dark, damp soil.
She was currently digging around the base of the thirteenth stone, a streak of dirt wiped across the front of her pristine white t-shirt, when a voice broke the quiet afternoon air.
âHey, Paige.â
Paige snapped her head around, still on all fours. Standing on the sidewalk was Miranda, Azziâs next-door neighbor. And right beside Miranda was Cookie; the extremely small, chihuahua that Azzi frequently dog-sits. Cookie immediately let out a high-pitched, annoying bark. Paige hated Cookie because the dog was single-handedly responsible for at least four canceled hangouts over the past year, and even when she would convince Azzi that she would just come over and help her dogsit, Cookie was always fighting Paige for Azziâs attention. Honestly, she didnât even know how the dog managed to compete (and often win against her), chihuahuas were objectively ugly, and the spawn of the devil.
Paige gritted out a smile. âHey, Miranda!â
Miranda blinked, looking at Paigeâs mud-stained hands and knees. âWhatcha doing there?â
âI was⊠checking the structural integrity of the soil for the stones,â Paige lied smoothly, slapping her hand against the dirt. âYeah. Thereâs a lot of⊠integrity here.â
âOhh.â
âYeah,â Paige sighed, standing up and wiping her hands on her pants. âUm, actually, Azzi is in a pickle. Sheâs stuck inside with a really bad ankle sprain, and Iâm trying to get in, but I couldnât find the spare key.â
âOhhh, the spare key!â Miranda smiled warmly, clapping her hands together. âI actually picked it up a while ago to put her delivery inside when she went to Connecticut. I totally forgot to give it back! Here, let me just grab it from my kitchen.â
Paige froze.
What was the chance Azzi Fudd knew exactly where that key was and had done this entirely on purpose.
Miranda hurried back a minute later, dropping the silver key into Paigeâs palm. âI hope Azziâs okay!â
âYeah⊠she will be,â Paige muttered, her voice dripping with incoming vengeance, before she remembered something, âHey, Miranda?â
âHmm?â
âYou donât happen to remember⊠which stone the key was under before you took it? Just so I know where to put it back when I'm done.â
Miranda tapped her chin. âAhh, it was the fifth one.â
She had been right. Her gut had been completely right. Paige knew Azzi.
âPerfect. Thanks, Miranda,â Paige smiled tightly, turning toward the front door.
Azzi was lying on her bed, her injured leg propped up on a pillow. The second Paige walked into her line of sight, Azziâs eyes darted straight to the massive, dark soil stain spreading across the front of Paigeâs white shirt. Azziâs lips twitched violently, her cheeks flaring as she fought back a massive, victorious smile.
âThe key wasnât under the stones,â Paige said, her voice dangerously calm as she stopped at the edge of the bed. âBut I ran into Miranda. She said she had the key.â
Azziâs fake-innocent eyes widened. âOhhh, right. I completely forgot she took it.â
âYeah, rightâŠâ Paige deadpanned, tossing the glasses case directly onto Azziâs stomach. âYouâre such a bitch.â
âHey! Iâm injured,â Azzi protested, snatching the glasses and placing them securely on her nose. She looked up at Paige through the lenses, her dark eyes gleaming. âYou have to be courteous to the patient.â
âWhere was the courtesy when I was injured?â Paige countered, crossing her arms.
âWell, youâre the one who calls me a princess,â Azzi smirked, leaning back into her pillows with absolute satisfaction. âSo I deserve special treatment.â
âWhatever, bro,â Paige muttered, slumping down into the armchair across from the bed, she didnât want soil to get on Azziâs sheets. âHow did the princess even break her backâŠor, I guess, her ankleâŠthen?â
Azziâs smirk instantly vanished. Her face went entirely blank. Slowly, she turned her head away from Paige, burying her mouth and nose directly into the plush fabric of her throw pillow, letting out a muffled, incoherent grumble.
âWhat?â Paige asked, leaning forward, her blue eyes narrowing. âI couldnât hear you while you were eating the pillow.â
Azzi pulled her face out of the pillow just enough to look at her, her voice flat and stubborn. âI said, Iâm not telling you.â
âOhh, okay then,â Paige said, getting up from the chair, taking two short strides and snatching the glasses off of Azziâs face. âYou donât get your glasses.â
âWhat?â Azziâs head snapped up.
âWhat, what?â Paige mocked.
âBro, just give them to me.â
âOkay, just tell me how you got hurt.â
Azzi glared at her through her now blurry vision. âWhy do you care?â
âI ended my photo shoot early to pick up your damn glasses,â Paige pointed a dirt-stained finger at her, âthe least you can do is tell me how the fuck you fucked up your leg.â
Azzi let out a long, defeated groan, burying her face in the pillow one last time before rolling over to face the room. âIt was on the stupid double date.â
Paigeâs chest tightened, a sour, bitter taste flooding her mouth. The double date. She immediately pictured some ultra-pretentious, candlelight dinner at a place that required a suit jacket. She imagined Azzi wearing heels since thatâs the reason she probably fell. Paige hated this random dude even more now. In fact, she immediately started plotting petty revenge. Maybe sheâd pull the classic unlimited pizza ordering prank on his apartment. But then again free pizza isnât really a punishment. âWhat if I order fifty pizzas to his house, and instead of getting mad, he donates them all to a homeless shelter? Then Azziâll think heâs like the male version of Mother Teresa, and theyâll get married and make heterosexual, non-IVF babies, and Iâll jump off a cliff.â
Paige forcefully shook the thoughts out of her head, keeping her face blank as she waited for Azzi to continue.
âThe two guys Caroline set us up with, Bradley and Chad, they were so annoying,â Azzi said, her voice dripping with exhaustion. âCaroline and I went to the bathroom, and we were talking about how to get out of the mess. When I got out, I slipped and twisted it. Caroline thought the fall was part of my grand plan to get away from them, but then she realized I actually fell.â Azziâs lips twitched, a look of pure, lingering trauma crossing her face. âAnd then⊠Bradley and Chad picked me up by my legs and shoulders and literally hauled me over their heads to carry me to the car, cause they didnât want to hurt their erector spinae.â
Azzi reached for her phone, tapping the screen a few times before turning it toward Paige. âCaroline took a picture.â
Paige stared at the screen. There was Azzi, looking completely miserable, floating six feet in the air, held up by two men who looked like actual brick walls.
The silence lasted for exactly one second before Paige completely lost it. She fell back into the armchair, howling with laughter, her feet kicking out as she clutched her stomach. âOh my god! No way! No fucking way, Az!â
âIt wasn't funny!â Azzi yelled, though her own cheeks were flushing red. âI was a human barbell, Paige⊠and stop rubbing dirt all over my chair!â
After a solid two minutes of breathless wheezing, Paige finally wiped a tear from her eye and calmed down. She looked at Azzi, her expression softening as her stomach rumbled, reminding her of the time.
âDid you eat?â Paige asked.
âNo, not yet.â
âWhy not?â
âBecause I canât put weight on it for the next week,â Azzi muttered, gesturing to the ice pack. âSo I canât cook right now. And I canât exactly carry delivery up and down the stairs on my own.â
Paige frowned. âSo were you just planning on starving today?â
âNo, Carolâs gonna come in like two hours after she finishes work and sheâll bring me food.â
Paige wanted to say, âyou shouldâve called me, Iâd bring you food on time for as long as youâd need me to.â
âItâs already two oâclock,â Paige said, standing up and grabbing her car keys out of her pocket. âIâll go grab food. What do you want?â
Azzi blinked, and then blinked again, and then âhmmmmâdâ for at least five minutes, but Paige knew better than to interrupt her; Azzi was the most indecisive person she knew. Finally, âHmmm. Maybe that Thai place on Kenmare?â
âKk. You want the fried rice, right?â
âYeah, the green curry one.â
Paige made a face like she smelled rotten eggs, while heading toward the door. âOf course youâd order the greenest option.â
âWait before you go, grab some clothes from my closet and change, youâre so dirtyâÂ
Thirty minutes later, the front door clicked open again. Paige marched back into the house wearing Azziâs white shirt and grey sweatpants, the spicy aroma of Thai food trailing behind her. She walked into the bedroom, setting the takeout containers on the nightstand.
But as Paige started opening the lids, she noticed Azzi had a strange, conflicted look of hesitation on her face.
âWhat?â Paige asked, pausing. âWhat is it? Are you not craving this anymore? Because I can go get something else, itâs just going to take more time. So can you please try to have a few bites of this so you aren't starving by the time I come back?â
âNo, no, itâs not that,â Azzi said softly, looking around the bedroom. âItâs just⊠Iâve been in bed all day. It would be nice to sit on the couch, or literally anywhere else. And I guess I also donât want to risk dropping food all over my bedsheets.â
âYeah, shit, sorryâŠâ Paige blinked, rubbing the back of her neck. âI totally forgot about that. For sure, letâs eat on the couch.â
âOkay,â Azzi said, shifting her weight. âCan you pass me my crutches?â
Paige let out a soft snort and puffed out her chest, stepping up to the side of the bed. âBro, you don't need crutches when you have me.â
Before Azzi could protest, Paige crouched down on the floor right next to the mattress, turning her back to Azzi and tapping her own shoulders. âOk, hop on.â
Azzi stared at the broad expanse of Paigeâs shoulders, her heart doing a sudden, dangerous patter against her ribs. âPaige, you canât carry me. Iâm heavier than you.â
âBruh, donât worry, Iâm fine,â Paige laughed, shaking her head. âPlus, Iâve been bulking and Iâve gained like twenty pounds, so thatâs like⊠at least fifteen pounds of pure muscle. Come on, get on.â
Paige was an idiot. But Azzi still hesitated for a fraction of a second. The smell of the food was amazing, her ankle throbbed, and Paige was right there, solid and steady. Slowly, Azzi shifted forward, wrapping her arms around Paigeâs neck and crawling onto her back.
Paige gripped the back of Azziâs thighs, locking her in place, and stood up with a grunt.
âYou good?â Paige asked softly, her head tilted slightly back toward Azzi.
Azzi buried her face slightly into the crook of Paigeâs neck. âHmmm,â Azzi murmured, tightening her grip just a little bit more.
Holy shit, Paige was holding Azzi.
This was probably the closest they had ever been. Azzi was radiating heat where her chest pressed firmly against Paigeâs back, and she felt even warmer where Paige gripped the backs of her thighs. Being this close, Azzi's signature coconut-vanilla scent washed over Paige. It was the exact same fragrance Paige caught hints of whenever they walked close together, the same perfume she had asked to take home from her photoshoot last month and may or may not have been spraying on her own pillow every night before going to sleep.
A sudden thought hit Paige: if she could sleep next to the real Azzi, she would never need to spray her pillow again. She could have the real thing right beside her, the authentic warmth that her pillowcase could never replicate, because the perfume was only perfect when it was on Azzi's skin.
Paige mentally shook herself. She needed to lock in. She absolutely could not drop her right now, especially if she ever wanted the opportunity to carry her like this again.
Paige rose up, and in that instant, Azzi remembered something she often forgot: Paige was a professional athlete. Paige was six-foot-one of lean muscle. Paige was strong. Really strong.
Azzi felt Paigeâs back muscles contract beneath her chest, heard the low, quiet grunt that came from deep within Paigeâs torso, and felt the sudden, firm pressure of Paige's fingers gripping her thighs. Azzi felt butterflies, but this time she let the feeling happen. She was already tired and exhausted with her injury, and being against Paige like this was the comfort she had unknowingly been looking for since she fell. So no, she didn't tighten her stomach like she normally did when she felt like this around Paige, hoping to stop the movement of whatever was fluttering inside of her. Instead, she found herself wishing her staircase had an infinite number of steps, just so she could stay close to Paige like this a little longer.
So much for trying to get rid of her feelings.
When they reached the end of the staircase, Azzi noticed a suitcase by the front door.
âWhatâs that?â Azzi asked, nodding her head toward the entryway.
âItâs a surprise for later,â Paige murmured, carefully pivoting toward the living room. âFirst, letâs get you comfy on the couch and fed.â
True to her word, Paige set her down with surprising gentleness and laid out the food. But when Paige proudly pulled a container of plain chicken tenders out of the takeout bag, Azzi just stared at them, baffled. Paige was such a kid. She watched everything on her iPad, drank hot chocolate instead of coffee, and somehow managed to order chicken tenders from literally any restaurant she visited, regardless of the cuisine.
Azzi decided to intervene. She scooped up a massive portion of her own food. âPaige, if you donât try new things, you wonât know if you like them. Come on, take a bite.â
âBruh, I donât want any of that green stuff,â Paige complained, turning her nose up.
âPaige!â Azzi glared at her with full authority.
âIâm sorry I didnât know you were my Mom.â
âFine. If you want to act like a kid, youâre going to get treated like a kid,â Azzi deadpanned. She gathered a generous amount of rice onto her spoon and leveled it at Paigeâs face. âHere comes the choo-choo train, bitch.â
Before Paige could duck, Azzi clamped her left hand firmly around Paigeâs jaw and shoved the spoon straight into her mouth.
Paigeâs eyes widened in sheer shock. She sputtered, fighting back a cough as she aggressively forced herself to swallow the bite. But surprise, surprise, it didnât taste bad at all. In fact, it was pretty good.
âYou mean the choke-choke train!â Paige gasped, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, her blue eyes watering. âWhat the fuck, Azzi?â
âIt was good, wasnât it?â
âIt was okay, I guess,â Paige muttered. She chewed thoughtfully for a second before her face suddenly lit up, her eyes snapping back to Azzi. âWait, Azzi! I just realized something!â
âWhat?â
âItâs called a âchoo-choo trainâ because they want the person to chew-chew!â Paige pointed excitedly at her own mouth, making exaggerated, chomping motions. âGet it? Chew-chew?!â
Azzi blinked, âOh, shit. I actually never thought of that.â
âI know.â Paige instantly puffing out her chest, using a ridiculously posh, sophisticated British accent. âYou must admit, I am quite the intellectual.â
Azzi couldn't help the laugh that bubbled up. Deciding to humor her, she cleared her throat and tried to reply with her absolute best, equally terrible British impression. âYou truly are a scholar, Ms. Madison Bueckers. And with that massive intellect of yours, would you please offer me the reason as to why there is a suitcase currently residing at my front entrance?â
âAhh, a fascinating query!â Paige countered smoothly, gesturing with her chicken tender. âYou see, while I was out procuring our edibles âour nibbles, if you willââ Azzi snorted loudly into her rice âI realized just how entirely helpless you are. Quite comparable to a sad, shivering little dog on the street, really. And that thought ruffled my feathers entirely the wrong way. How could I leave a lady in such distress? Thus, I halted my journey, sped back to my own estate, and hastily packed my belongings. All so that I might temporarily lodge with you at your home.â
Azzi completely dropped the accent, her jaw hitting the floor. âWHAT?â
Paigeâs theatrical posture melted instantly. She dropped her gaze to her lap, her normal voice returning as she nervously rubbed the back of her neck. âIâm gonna move in for the week. You know... so I can help you. Look after you.â
Azzi stared at her, her face blanking into a deadpan expression. âLook after me? Paige, I wouldnât even trust you to take care of a plant.â
âBro, what? I helped you look after Mirandaâs dog like ten billion times. And Iâm literally the only reason Cookie is still breathing after you tried to straight-up murder her!â Paige sneered.
Azzi opened her mouth to argue, but stopped herself because, unfortunately, it was completely true. Paige was good with Cookie, and she was also entirely responsible for saving Azzi from a lawsuit. A few weeks ago, Azzi had been eating a double-chocolate muffin, and Cookie had been staring up at her with such longing, pathetic puppy eyes that Azzi had actually broken off a piece to give to her, completely forgetting that dogs couldnât eat chocolate. Paige had literally swatted it out of her hand mid-air before it could hit the floor.
For however childish Paige could be, she was also incredibly dependable. She was responsible.
Azzi watched her as she attacked another chicken tender, and a quiet wave of appreciation hit her. Paige had shown up to her grueling rehab appointments every single day with a massive smile on her face, entirely intent on keeping everyone elseâs spirits up. Azzi knew the sheer volume of pressure Paige was under. She knew how ruthlessly the media prodded into her personal life, and she knew exactly how devastating it was to suffer a career-threatening injury right at your absolute peak.
But Paige always smiled.
Sometimes, Azzi wondered if little Paige had smiled like that, too, back when the basketball was taken from her hands and replaced with a tennis racket. Or, more accurately, when little Paige had voluntarily dropped the basketball and picked up the racket, because even as a kid, she already understood what she had to do. Not just for herself, but because of what she owed her family.
It was in quiet moments like these that Azzi was sharply reminded that Paige was older than her. That one singular year between them suddenly felt like a decade. Sometimes, Paige just seemed so entirely solid. So strong, so steady, so dependable.
Azzi looked at her and felt a sudden, distinct pang of regret that Paige had ended up in an individual sport. It was a genuine shame she had never gotten to play basketball, or any team sport, really. Because Paige would have made the absolute best captain. She would have been the best teammate, the exact kind of player every single person would want in their corner when the game was on the line. Azzi wanted her in her corner. She wanted Paige here, living with her. But then she remembered.
âIsnât Zoe living with you right now?â Azzi asked, her voice dropping as she looked up at Paige. âYou canât just leave your own apartment and move in here.â
âBro, I donât even talk to Zoe,â Paige countered instantly, waving a hand dismissively. âI donât even see her most days. She just stays locked in the guest room, and all I hear is her aggressively yelling on the phone about auctioning off her vintage Chanel bags. Honestly, this is probably good for me, too. I was starting to feel suffocated in my own place.â
Azzi searched Paigeâs face, looking for any sign of hesitation, but found none. She let out a long, slow sigh, the last of her defenses officially crumbling.
âOk, fine. We can be roommates, I guess,â Azzi grumbled, though she couldn't completely stop the tiny bit of relief from seeping into her tone. She pointed a finger at Paige. âBut you have to stop bringing up Miranda's dog. You literally promised you wouldn't.â As she spoke, Azzi instinctively glanced around her own living room, shifting her eyes toward the corners of the ceiling as if hidden cameras were recording them, waiting for a reality TV crew to pop out from behind the curtains and incriminate her for the muffin incident.
Seven days later
Living with Paige for the past seven days in one word has been easy.
Paige was a surprisingly good cook. Azzi couldn't help but think back to their first morning together when Paige had asked her how she liked her eggs. Now, eggs were a deeply sacred subject to Azzi; her daily morning omelette was easily one of the things she looked forward to the most, but she had long since accepted that absolutely nobody could replicate the exact, hyper-specific way she liked it.
So, her expectations had been low on that first day when she sat on the kitchen counter, and carefully talked Paige through the steps.
But on the second morning, Azzi woke up to the savory, buttery aroma of vegetables. She called out for Paige, who jogged upstairs and carefully carried her down to the kitchen. When Azzi took her first bite of the omelette, she froze. It was good. Like, really good. There was a perfect ratio of vegetables, everything was diced to the exact right size, and not a single edge of the egg was overcooked.
When a baffled Azzi asked her how she made it so perfectly, Paige had just rubbed the back of her neck, sheepishly admitting it was actually her third attempt of the morning, and that she had forcefully choked down the first two burnt trials so they wouldn't go to waste.
It was the same for the rest of the week. Paige consistently woke Azzi up with breakfast. Then, the second she came home from her grueling tennis practices with Nika, she immediately whipped up a lunch for Azzi that managed to be both healthy and taste even better than what Azzi usually made for herself. Caroline always brought over dinner for the both of them because she still felt guilty about the injury. Azzi found herself missing Paigeâs flavours whenever she ate dinner. Paige cleaned up every single dish without being asked, while Azzi, her assistant, sat next to her on the counter to dry the dishes with a towel and stack them beside her so Paige could put everything away.Â
Most importantly, Azzi found that she could be entirely, brutally honest with Paige whenever she needed help moving around. Experiencing a disabling injury usually made Azzi feel incredibly anxious, but with Paige, it never felt like being trapped in the window seat of an airplane, where you'd rather suffer in silence and dehydrate yourself just to avoid bothering the strangers sitting next to you to get to the bathroom. Azzi never felt like an inconvenience. Because Paige, in all her steady, attentive care, never made her feel like one.Â
They were equals. Regardless of the fact that, at the moment, one of them needed significantly more help than the other, throughout the entire time they had known each other, it always felt like they stood on completely even ground.
Azzi had recently started to notice how naturally this balance appeared in their everyday lives. Every afternoon, when Paige would finally stumble back into the apartment after a grueling training session, Azzi would be waiting right there on the couch for her. The second Paige was out of the shower, Azzi would pat the cushion in front of her so as to signal Paige to sit down so Azzi could massage her. So what if her ankle was completely messed up? Her arms and hands still worked perfectly, and nobody on the planet knew the specific mechanics of Paigeâs body, or her lingering injuries, better than Azzi.
They were equals at night, too. After dinner, they would settle onto the couch together. Paige would be locked into a show or a basketball game on her iPad or the TV, while Azzi sat beside her, lost in a book. Without a single word ever being exchanged between them, the volume of the screen always seemed to exist at a magical, perfect equilibrium: just loud enough for Paige to enjoy, but quiet enough to respect Azziâs reading.
They were equals in their care, and their love for each other. Azzi knew now with absolute certainty that this feeling was completely un-platonic for her, but she still couldnât fully decipher Paige. The mere thought that Paige might turn around and do all of this, the burnt omelets, the carrying, the endless, gentle attentiveness, for any regular schmegular Joe or Nancy made Azzi want to physically vomit.
But Azzi wasn't the only one spiraling. Earlier that afternoon at the indoor courts, Nika had watched Paige stretch out a tight shoulder and offered to help.
âIf you want, I can massage your shoulder,â Nika had said.
âNah, itâs fine,â Paige had replied instantly, not even thinking. âIf it really hurts, Azziâll just massage it later.â
Nika had just rolled her eyes, letting out a loud snort. âBro, you are so whipped. But fine, I wonât keep your gay ass away from your wife. Itâs your last day with her, after all.â
âBro, why are you saying it like one of us is going to die?â Paige had snapped back defensively.
But inside, Paige did feel like she was going to die. The seven days were officially over. What if Azzi expected her to just pack her suitcase, load up her car, and quietly go back to her own apartment?
Later that evening, the reality of the timeline finally crashed into the living room. Azzi was sitting behind Paige on the couch, her thumbs digging firm, precise circles into Paige's shoulder blades.
âCarol came by to check on me while you were at practice,â Azzi mentioned casually, her fingers working through a knot.
Underneath her, Paigeâs entire back locked up, her muscles tightening up and undoing all of Azziâs hard work. âOh, yeah? Whatâd she say?â
âShe said Iâm good to start putting full weight on it now.â
Paige could have played it safe. She could have said, 'Oh, okay, I guess I'll head home tomorrow then.' But Paige wasn't about to let Azzi go. She didnât want to live away from her, and frankly, she didn't think Azzi wanted to live away from her either.
She was helplessly, entirely in love with Azzi Fudd. And she wasn't blind, she had seen the way Azzi looked at her while they were brushing their teeth together in the bathroom last night. She had felt the heavy, breathless silence in the room as Azziâs eyes slowly traced the lines of her body, lingering on the veins in her forearms, moving up to her collarbone, and dropping to her abs since Paige was just wearing a sports bra. Azzi wanted her. Paige knew it. So, fuck it.
Paige relaxed her shoulders under Azziâs hands, and in a casual, but sure voice said, âGood. Then you can finally start helping me with washing the dishes instead of freeloading off me, and taking advantage of the fact that Iâm in love with you.â
Azziâs thumbs froze mid-press on Paigeâs shoulder blades.
For a second, the living room went entirely still. Azziâs brain scrambled to process what Paige had just said, her fingers curling slightly into the fabric of Paige's shirt. Helping with the dishes. Not 'glad you're healed, I'll go pack my shit.' Not 'let me know if you need anything else before I head out.'
Paige wasn't leaving.
A sudden, overwhelming rush of relief flooded Azziâs chest, so intense it almost made her dizzy. And then Azzi processed the rest of her words: Paige loved Azzi.Â
Paige loved Azzi.Â
Well of course Paige loved Azzi.Â
But Paige was in love with Azzi.
Paige loves Azzi, and Azzi finally knows exactly how.
She gave a hard, intentional shove directly into the knot on Paige's left shoulder, eliciting a sharp gasp from the blonde in front of her.
âFreeloading?â Azzi echoed, her voice dropping into a flat but watery scoff. âExcuse me? I am a renowned medical entrepreneur providing you with elite, luxury-tier physical therapy on a daily basis, Madison. Do you have any idea what my hourly rate is?â
She shifted her weight on the couch, leaning forward so her breath brushed right past Paigeâs ear.
âIf weâre tallying up the invoice for the last four days, you actually owe me about four thousand dollars. So, if anything, you're the one freeloading off of me and taking advantage of how in love with you I am by using my couch as a physio bed.â She slapped Paigeâs shoulder lightly. âBut fine. If you want your princess to break her back doing chores, I guess I can wash the dishes. But I am absolutely not touching the pans you burn your test-omelettes in.â
Paige slowly turned around on the cushion, her eyes wide, glassy, and fixed entirely on Azzi's face.
âYou love me,â Paige said, her voice cracking slightly as a few tears threatened to spill over her lower lashes. âNot just like me. Youâre in love with me.â
Azzi looked at her, the playful armor completely dissolving as she felt her own chest swell. She let out a soft, breathless laugh.
âWhat did you expect?â Azzi whispered, reaching out to wipe a stray tear from Paige's cheek. âYou made it so easy to (fall in love).â
ââââââââ
Paige and Azzi fell a lot. Paige had fallen right on her face, incredibly embarrassingly, the very first day she met Azzi. Paige had fallen again when her knee blew out. And Azzi had fallen on a terrible double date, all because she was desperately trying to get over Paige.
But this time, they fell together. And this time, falling felt a whole lot more like flying.
wnba! paige bueckers x model! azzi fudd â 4.6k wc
Paige Bueckers is the franchise star player of the Dallas Wings. Sheâs known to be this generational talent both in basketball and in⊠women, apparently. Azzi Fudd, one of the most known names in the model industry. doesnât care about basketball nor this âPaige Bueckersâ that her best friend has been fawning over. So, when her best friend got her courtside season tickets to the game, sheâs forced to attend. From the moment she locks eyes with the star player, she knew Paige was nothing but trouble.
Girl code exists for a reason. Azzi knows better than to cross that line. Well, the only problem is⊠she wants to. and Paige seems more than willing to break them with her.
dedicated to my dear anon who came up with this highly requested prompt awhile ago.
obviously feel free to tell me what you guys think đ âŒïž
dallas college park center was deafening. excitement buzzed through the arena, the energy crackling in the air as the crowd erupted into thunderous cheers every time a wings player scored. azzi could feel the vibrations beneath her boots, the atmosphere unlike anything sheâd ever experienced.
it couldnât have been more different from the world azzi is used to. her workplace was subdued, almost sacred, where the loudest sound was the rhythmic click of heels against the runway, the background music and the soft instructions murmured from behind the camera.
the contrast was almost jarring, yet somehow fascinating. in a way, she understood the thrill.
fashion wasnât always quiet either, backstage was a different story entirely. a beautiful kind of chaos where stylists rushed between racks, makeup artists made last second touch-ups, hairdressers fixed every strand that dared fall out of place, and someone was always counting down the seconds until the next look.
sheâs learned how to slip in and out of outfits in record time while voices overlapped around her, calling her name, adjusting a sleeve, straightening a collar, reminding her where to stand next. it wasnât all that different from what she was witnessing now. different worlds and uniforms, but the same adrenaline pulsing beneath it all.
how did azzi end up here? she doesnât really knowâŠ
yesterday, she was catching up with julia and somehow now, sheâs sitting court-side at a dallas wings game against the atlanta dream.
she doesnât even like basketball. well, doesnât like is a strong word. she more so⊠doesnât understand it. if she doesnât understand it, how can she possibly enjoy it, right?
angel is on the atlanta dream though, which is exciting to see. azzi and her met two years ago, during a shoot for skims. she was surprised to find out that modeling wasnât angelâs main job, considering how talented she is at it. since then, they became close friends and meet up once every couple of months.
angel snagged the ball after it bounced off the rim. a rebound, azzi thought. at least she was pretty sure thatâs what it was called. years of overhearing her basketball-crazy parents yelling at the tv had to count for something.
azzi clapped, earning a few side glances from the wings fan besides her. one of them including her best friend, julia.
âdid you forget weâre here to support the wings azzi?â
azzi shrugged unfazed, âi donât know any of em, we do know angel though, so you should clap for her too jules.â she called out, they should show their friend some support.
julia gaped as she stared at her best friend. âaz, thatâs not how it works. we live in dallas, we should support our home team.â
azzi raised an eyebrow, âsays you. arenât you just here for paige beukersâ
âitâs bueckers azzi, b-u-e-c-k-e-r-s. how many times do i have to repeat this for you to get it right? julia cuts off, spelling the star player name one by one.
azzi rolled her eyes, âyea her, anyways. you werenât even into sports a week ago, let alone basketball. so you have no right to question who i support.â she sassily replied.
julia thinned her lips into a straight line, not even questioning the younger anymore, she had grown used to it. âbut isnât paige so hot? i mean, look at her az. thatâs my future wife right there.â she continued, bringing her hand up in the air towards the blonde player with the number 5 attached on the back.
azzi simply stared at julia blankly. this is the third time her lesbian best friend has had a crush on someone this year, and itâs all thanks to her obsession with watching thirst trap edits. tho, azzi would say this one was the worst so far.
âi canât believe you bought court-side tickets after seeing her on your, for you page.â
julia waved her hand dismissively. âwe have too much money to spend anyway, might as well.â azzi let out a quiet laugh, shaking her head at the ridiculous logic of her redheaded best friend.
âoh! azzi, look! weâre on the jumbotron.â julia exclaimed excitedly.
azzi lifted her head towards the massive screen hanging above the arena. sure enough, there they were, front and center. azzi fudd & julia ricardo, with supermodel displayed beneath their names. the crowd erupted into cheers the moment they recognized the pair. after all, they were the most famous supermodel duo in dallas.
julia threw both hands into the air, waving so enthusiastically as if the jumbotron wasnât already impossible to miss. azzi, on the other hand, only let out a soft chuckle before flashing the camera a small, dimpled smile accompanied by a subtle wave.
with the game paused for a timeout, most of the players instinctively looked up at the jumbotron, puzzled by the crowdâs sudden burst of cheers.
azzi noticed several of the players looking pleasantly surprised at the sight of them on the jumbotron. smiles spread across their faces almost instantly, with a few even nudging their teammates to look. angel, in particular, beamed the moment she spotted them.
but that wasnât the main thing she noticed. azzi couldnât shake the feeling of a certain blondeâs gaze crawling beneath her skin. while the other players quickly looked away, she didnât. she kept staring at them⊠particularly at her.
across the court, bueckers sat on the dallas bench, chest rising and falling with heavy breaths as the coach drew up the next play. a bottle of gatorade rested in her hand, taking the occasional sip, yet her eyes never once left azzi.
their view were directly across from one another.
azzi had never been one to lose a staring contest. if anything, she welcomed the challenge. so instead of looking away, she held the blondeâs gaze without hesitation, one brow slowly arching as if to silently ask, what?
seconds stretched between them. the noise of the arena faded into the background as neither of them blinked first.
then, just as the referee signaled for play to resume, the blonde let out, on what it looks like the faintest chuckle. a smug grin tugged at the corner of her lips before she pushed herself off the bench and jogged back onto the court, leaving azzi watching after her with a confusion she couldnât quite explain.
okay, sheâs hella weird. azzi internally thought. they didnât even know each other.
âomg, az! did you see that?â julia squealed suddenly, shoving azziâs shoulder with a grin so wide it looked like her cheeks might split. âpaige was a thousand percent checking me out! did you see the way she kept staring? she was basically eye-fucking me with her eyes!â
the brunette chuckled awkwardly, âyeah⊠i saw that.â she couldnât bring herself to burst her best friendâs bubble, especially when she wasnât even sure what had just happened herself.
âugh, thank god i did my hair today. i knew it would pay off! sheâs totally into me.â julia declared, dramatically brushing her thick, fiery red hair over one shoulder with an impossibly smug smile.
azzi rolled her eyes once again, unable to hide her amused smile at juliaâs unwavering confidence.
to be fair, her best friend is gorgeous.
she couldnât exactly blame julia for assuming the blonde had been staring. the last two gay women julia had developed a crush on had ended up in her bed, so her confidence wasnât exactly unfounded. maybe this blonde would be next.
and maybe⊠julia was right.
maybe azzi had simply mistaken the direction of the stare. they had been sitting shoulder to shoulder, after all.
âyeah, your hair looks great, jules. as always.â azzi said with a soft laugh, indulging her best friendâs ego. julia grinned triumphantly before leaning her head against azziâs shoulder. âthanks babe, you also look absolutely stunning.â
sheâd admit it, she did look good as well. but she was starting to regret wearing the leather mini skirt. it wasnât exactly the most comfortable thing to sit in, especially with courtside seats in the very front row.
the game carried on, just as intense as it had been all night. neither team was willing to give an inch, and before anyone knew it, regulation had come and gone.
overtime. the arena buzzed with anticipation as every possession suddenly felt like it could decide the game.
then, in the blink of an eye, number 10 from the wings lost her handle. the ball slipped from her fingertips and skidded across the hardwood, bouncing dangerously toward the sidelineâright where azzi and julia were seated.
before either of them even had the chance to flinch, a blonde blur darted into view.
bueckers lunged without hesitation, stretching every inch of her frame to snatch the loose ball inches before it sailed out of bounds or into the hands of an atlanta player. one fluid motion later, she had already shoveled it back to a teammate before crashing into the courtside barricade.
without thinking, azzi instinctively reached out a hand to help. she was the closest to the blonde, after all.
bueckers looked momentarily dazed from the collision, blinking a couple of times before her eyes found azziâs. after a brief beat, she slipped her hand into azziâs and let the brunette steady her back onto her feet.
âyou okay, princess?â
the words were barely above a murmur, low enough that azzi almost convinced herself sheâd imagined them.
princess?
her brows furrowed, who the hell did this woman think she was? calling her princess.
âi think you should be asking yourself that.â azzi replied, raising one of her eyebrows in amusement.
the blondeâs grin widened ever so slightly, as if sheâd gotten exactly the reaction she was hoping for, paige winked playfully before jogging back into the game.
âdamn,â julia sulked dramatically. âi shouldâve taken your seat earlier.â she slumped back in her chair with an exaggerated sigh after instinctively shrieking to the other side when the collision happened. âi couldâve touched her strong veiny hands.â
azzi shot julia a look, equal parts entertained and incredulous. âokay⊠now youâre just making it weird jules.â
julia continued to pout beside her while azzi found herself glancing down at her own hand, she couldnât help but to agree.
paige bueckers did have nice hands. strong, warm, and surprisingly gentle.
okay, stop. youâre the one being weird now. azzi shook her head, forcing the train of thought out of her mind.
once the final buzzer sounded, signaling the end of the game, angel made her way over to them. âhey, ladiesss.â she greeted with a grin. âdidnât know you were coming to the game, you shouldâve give me a heads up fudd!â
azzi wasted no time wrapping the girl in a hug. âhey, angel. i didnât even know i was coming until 9 p.m. last night, so⊠i couldnât exactly text you a heads-up.â she replied with a sheepish laugh, sending julia a knowing glance.
julia rolled her eyes dramatically. âfine⊠it was my spontaneous idea, az. blame me.â she said, raising her hands in mock surrender.
she stepped forward to give angel a quick hug, which the taller woman returned with an easy smile. while julia and angel werenât nearly as close as azzi and angel were, theyâd crossed paths on enough projects over the years to know each other well enough for the greeting to feel effortless.
âgreat game by the way, you killed it.â azzi added.
âit wouldâve been if paige hadnât come in clutch,â angel replied with mock annoyance. âsheâs so damn irritating when she does that, which is all the time.â
the mention of one particular player immediately caught juliaâs attention.
âyou know her?â
azzi and angel turned to look at her at the exact same time. even azzi, who barely knew the first thing about basketball, knew the answer to that.
her best friend squeezed her eyes shut for a second, realizing sheâd just asked a pretty stupid question. which, to be fair, she had.
âi meanâŠâ she quickly corrected herself. âare you two close?â
angel blinked, a little caught off guard by the question. âum⊠i mean, yeah. weâre good friends.â
âoh, cool.â julia replied a little too quickly, unable to hide the spark of interest in her voice. angelâs gaze flickered to azzi, silently asking, whatâs going on?
azzi only smiled and gave an innocent little shrug, choosing not to expose her best friendâs very obvious crush. judging by the amused look beginning to form on angelâs face, though, she had a feeling her teammate was already connecting the dots.
ââŠalright, iâve gotta head to media now, but iâll catch up with you guys later.â angel gestured toward the tunnel before flashing azzi a grin. âand i love the skirt, az. you have to tell me where you got it.â
âiâll text you.â azzi laughed.
with one last nod, angel slowly backed away, turning only when she was a few steps out before jogging towards the media room.
âwell, great job hiding your interest jules, not noticeable at all.â azzi teased, shooting her a cheeky look. julia groaned, âi panicked, okay?â
âsure. can we get some food now, though? iâm starving.â azzi said, rubbing her stomach.
ânot yet, az.â julia shook her head. âiâve gotta get paigeâs attention first. i have to at least talk to her!â
azzi let out an exaggerated sigh. âjulesâŠâ
âwhat do you think the point of me wearing this green snakeskin dress was?â julia gestured to herself. âi didnât suffer through all this just to not talk to her.â
she gave herself an unnecessary twirl, as if azzi hadnât already seen the outfit a dozen times, before dramatically pointing towards the blonde, who was currently in the middle of a postgame interview at center court.
azzi let out a long, resigned sigh. âfine⊠go talk to her, iâll wait.â she gave a small nod toward the player, silently urging julia to get on with it already. the sooner she went, the sooner they could finally get something to eat.
âare you crazy? i canât just walk up to her!â julia exclaimed, earning a confused frown from azzi.
âwhy not?â
âbecause!â julia threw her hands up, âsheâs gonna think iâm desperate.â
azzi stared at her best friend, thoroughly unimpressed. âsheâs not gonna think youâre desperate, jules. just go introduce yourself.â she crossed her arms, waiting.
julia began tapping her heels against the floor, clearly thinking something over. suddenly, her face lit up.
âi have an idea!â she beamed. âhow about you introduce me to her?â azziâs brows immediately knitted together. âi donât even know her.â
âwellâŠâ julia said carefully, a hopeful smile creeping onto her face. âyou will once you talk to her.â
azzi let out a disbelieving laugh, âi am not walking up to her just to tell her youâre interested, jules.â
juliaâs face instantly fell into an exaggerated pout,âwhat? why not?â she whined. âpleasee, help me out, az. youâre way better at this.â
âno, jules.â
âhelp your best friend out, please?â
azzi sighed, she couldnât believe she was actually doing this. all she could think about was the perfect roast dinner after this. the sooner this was over, the sooner sheâd finally get to eat.
âfine.â she muttered more to herself, âletâs just get this over with, but dinnerâs on you.â
âdeal!â julia practically bounced with excitement. âthank you, az! youâre the best. now go!â before azzi could even reconsider, julia began shooing her away with both hands.
azzi shot her a silent glare before turning and making her way through the crowd on the court.
i canât believe iâm actually doing this. she thought. weaving past players, staff, and media crews.
the star player appeared to be wrapping up her postgame interview, reaching up to unclip the microphone from the collar of her jersey.
just as she handed the mic back to a crew member, she noticed someone making their way towards her.
paigeâs gaze lifted, settling on the striking curly brunette walking directly in her direction. instinctively, she straightened a little, her curiosity piqued as she watched azzi close the distance.
azzi came to an abrupt stop right in front of her, meeting the blondeâs gaze without a hint of hesitation.
âhi.â
the blonde raised an eyebrow, the corner of her mouth curling into an amused smile as her gaze drifted over azzi, lingering for a brief moment on her bellybutton piercing before returning to meet her eyes.
âhey, princess.â
azzi held out a hand. âthe nameâs azzi, not princess. so you can stop calling me that, thanks.â paigeâs grin only widened as she reached out to shake it. there it was againâthat firm yet surprisingly gentle grip.
âyou do realize,â paige said, her smile turning almost smug. âyouâre the one who walked up to me, right?â
âdonât flatter yourself, bueckers. iâm not here to chat with you.â the younger woman shot back without missing a beat.
âoh?â paige tilted her head, clearly entertained. âand what reason would that be then, princess?â
okay, now she was definitely doing it on purpose.
azzi parted her lips, fully prepared to come up with a comeback that would wipe that smug grin off the blondeâs face. but before she could, a tiny tug on the hem of paigeâs basketball shorts made both women glance down.
a little girl, no older than six, stood there in an oversized bueckers jersey, looking up with wide eyes.
paigeâs grin immediately softened, âhey, buddy.â she crouched slightly to the girlâs height. âyou want an autograph?â
the little girl vigorously shook her head. before paige could even process what was happening, the child darted right past her. straight to azzi.
tiny arms wrapped around azziâs leg in an enthusiastic hug, azzi blinked in surprise before her expression melted into something impossibly gentle.
âhi there.â she greeted softly.
âprincess!â the little girl beamed.
a pair of horrified parents came rushing over seconds later, âoh my gosh, weâre so sorry!â the mother apologized between embarrassed laughs. âshe just⊠took off.â
the father rubbed the back of his neck apologetically.âsheâs such a huge fan of the peopleâs princess,â he explained. âwe really canât believe she just ran onto the court.â azziâs brows lifted ever so slightly.
âwould it be alright if she took a picture with you, azzi?â
a warm smile spread across azziâs face. âof course,â she answered. âiâd love to.â
she glanced sideways at paige just in time to catch the blonde staring at her with an expression that hovered somewhere between disbelief and amusement.
azzi couldnât resist. she flashed paige the tiniest, most satisfied smirk before turning her attention back to the little girl.
âcome here.â
she effortlessly picked the child up onto her hip, earning an excited squeal. the parents hurriedly unlocked a phone before the mother hesitated.
âactuallyâŠâ she said sheepishly, looking toward paige. âwould you mind joining too? weâre big fans of yours as well.â
paige laughed under her breath, âguess i can do that.â she stepped beside azzi, close enough that their shoulders nearly brushed.
the little girl, now perched comfortably in azziâs arms, wrapped one arm around her neck while grinning at the camera. without really thinking about it, paige rested a light hand against the small of azziâs back to steady her.
azzi felt it immediately. she turned her head just enough to meet paigeâs eyes for a split second, the blondeâs grin was downright insufferable.
âready?â the father called.
âone, two, three!â
the flash went off. it had to be one of the most awkwardly random photos either of them had ever taken and yet, somehow, neither of them moved away right after. the parents thanked them profusely, apologizing one last time before hurrying off with their daughter.
the moment they were out of earshot, paige turned back to azzi, a smug grin already creeping onto her face.
âsoâŠâ she dragged out. âyou really do get called a princess.â
azzi rolled her eyes so hard it was almost impressive.âyouâre awfully cocky for someone who only scored fourteen points today.â
the effect was immediate because paige looked personally offended. âexcuse you?â she pressed a hand to her chest. âten of those fourteen were clutch points, mind you. and i had a double-double.â
azzi frowned, shifting her weight onto one leg as she crossed her arms.
ââŠwhatâs a double-double?â
paige let out the most dramatic gasp imaginable.âokay bro, you officially donât get to comment on my game if you donât even know what a double-double is, princess.â
âi told you to stop calling me that, bueckers.â
âright. my mistake, princess.â
âstop.â
âmy apologies⊠princess.â paige drawled, placing deliberate emphasis on the nickname.
azzi pinched the bridge of her nose, âyouâre unbelievably annoying.â
âand yet,â paige said with a grin that bordered on insufferable, âyouâre the one who walked up to me.â she signed both hands towards azzi then back to herself.
âagainst my will.â
âstill counts.â
âit absolutely does not.â
âpretty sure it does.â
azzi shot her a deadpan look. âyouâre making this conversation significantly longer than it needs to be.â
âyou havenât even told me why you came over.â
âŠright.
julia.
azzi closed her eyes for a brief second. sheâd gotten so distracted arguing with this irritating human being that sheâd completely forgotten why she was there in the first place.
she drew in a quiet breath, ready to explain. only for a member of the dallas wings media staff to appear beside them.
âperfect, you two already know each other!â she said with a relieved smile. âwe were actually wondering if youâd be willing to take a quick photo together with jess, and your co-partner, julia ricardo, if thatâs alright with you, ms. fudd? itâs for the wings social media.â
azzi blinked, ââŠyeah, thatâs fine.â
âawesome. thank you!â the staff member motioned for them to follow.
azzi shot paige a brief look before turning around and leading the way back towards julia. the second the redhead realized who was walking beside her, her posture noticeably shifted. her body language screaming act normal.
paige offered an easy smile, extending her hand first, ânice to meet you, iâm paige.â
julia stared for half a second before remembering how to function. âh-hi.â she quickly tucked a strand of red hair behind her ear before accepting the handshake. âjulia.â
âyeah,â paige replied with a teasing grin. âi know.â she punctuated it with a quick wink.
azzi looked between the two of them before slowly rolling her eyes.
unbelievable.
before julia could recover from whatever just happened, another woman approached them with an easy smile.
âhey, iâm jess.â
she introduced herself to both azzi and julia, exchanging quick greetings before the staff member clapped their hands together. âalright, letâs line up!â
azzi and julia naturally stood beside one another in the middle. before anyone else could move, paige casually stepped up beside azzi. at the exact same time, she motioned for jess to stand on juliaâs other side. jess caught on immediately, taking her place next to the visibly flustered julia.
the photographer adjusted the camera, âeveryone ready?â without warning, paige rested a hand lightly against azziâs bare waist.
azzi went completely still.
paige felt it instantly, a satisfied smile tugged at her lips. she leaned in just enough for only azzi to hear.
âsmile for the camera, princess.â
azzi shot her a sideways glare. then, almost effortlessly, she shifted her attention to the camera. her signature smile appeared as though itâd been switched on. warm dimples on full display.
âperfect!â the photographer called. âone more.â
click.
âgot it. thank you, everyone!â
almost immediately, another member of the media team waved paige over. âpaige! weâre waiting for you.â
âcomin!â
paige let her hand slip from azziâs waist before taking a step back. as she passed, she dipped her head ever so slightly toward azzi.
âcatch you later, princess.â she murmured.
before azzi could think of a reply, paige was already walking away.
âbye, paige!â julia called after her.
paige glanced over her shoulder, offering nothing more than a polite wave and an easy smile.
âthanks for coming out and supporting us,â she said. âreally appreciate it.â then she disappeared into the crowd alongside jess, leaving julia standing there in complete awe.
ââŠshe winked at me.â
azzi sighed, âshe winks at everyone, jules.â
âdonât ruin this for me az.â
âi think i just found the love of my life.â julia continued dreamily, still staring after the blondeâs back.
azzi blinked, what on earth just happened?
in the span of ten minutes, sheâd somehow been forced to play cupid, she was called princess for an unreasonable amount of times, and had a professional basketball player shamelessly get under her skin for her own entertainment.
all she knew was this : paige bueckers was without question. the most unbelievable, infuriating, and utterly irritating person she had ever met.
and if her best friend really planned on falling for that.
well, good luck to her.
as for azzi?
every alarm bell in her head was screaming the exact same thing. stay as far away from the wings star player as humanly possible.
âcan we get food now?â she asked, already turning towards the exit.
julia practically skipped after her, âyeah, yeah⊠but first, can we talk about the fact that paige winked at me?â
