my name is lyric, (that i use online) i use she/they, and i’m a 20-year-old east african american writer + chaos generator.
this intro is late because i got distracted being a lesbian writing wnba fanfic/s. anyway—hii!
i’m a june gemini, a lesbian, and i will always write from the pov of a black woman.
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this is mostly an wnba / wbb / ncaa writing blog, with imagines, fanfics, series, and whatever else my brain throws at me at 3am.
sometimes it’s fluff, sometimes it’s angst, sometimes it’s unhinged. balance <3
i’m currently in college, working on my associate’s in liberal arts, then moving into my bachelor’s in education. (so i lied it’s in sports management)
when i’m not writing, i’m listening to lana del rey, mitski, kehlani, kwn, the weeknd, beyoncé, ariana, billie, frank ocean, pinkpanthress, zara larsson, megan thee stallion, mj, young miko, Isaiah falls and whoever else feeds my delusions.
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hey so i have an announcement so please read before you jump me and scream in agony
after i finish the rest of my requests both in my inbox, messages and etc on all my accounts, i will be taking a break until my schedule relaxes but as of right now unfortunately my schedule is all over the place with things such as; my pb5 wattpad story, my job, school starting back up in august, family/personal reason, travel and etc you know the vibes but i will be here within my dms so feel free to reach out for anything but if any requests come in my inbox and dms just know you will be either blocked or i will delete that reply/dm completely and again i will try to be more active on dms moving forward but we shall see, and i have 11ish and hopefully my schedule will be less busy and i will have time to write for you guys (p.s you guys can jump me after this or cancel me on twitter as well)
Kah x rookie reader who never gets playing time so she spends all her time on the bench bothering Kah or being her personal cheerleader.
the view from the end of the bench
pairing: phoenix mercury!kahleah!vet!dating x phoenix mercury!reader!rookie!dating
wc: 4.1k
summary: you didn’t come to the league to warm a bench but somewhere between garbage-time towel duty and being kahleah copper’s personal hype woman, you found the one thing worth staying quiet about.
you didn't get drafted to sit nobody tells you that's what the first year actually is, though not really they show you the highlight reel of rookies balling out in their debut season, the ones who start day one, the ones the league builds a whole marketing package around before they've played a single real minute.
nobody shows you the other version, the one where you dress for every game and play in maybe six of them, garbage time only, the score already decided, the crowd already filing toward the exits so you sit.
you sit and you learn the bench the way some people learn a new city every crack in the vinyl, every squeak the seat makes when you shift your weight, the exact angle you have to twist your neck to see the shot clock without craning like you're desperate, you are desperate you just don't let it show.
what you don't expect is that the bench has a whole ecosystem and it’s own weather patterns and kahleah copper is, without question, the sun it orbits around.
she's ten yearsinto this league, calm in the way only people who've already survived several careers' worth of chaos can be calm she doesn't yell at refs and doesn't need to, her voice does something else, lower, more surgical, and somehow that's scarier. she talks trash so quietly the person she's talking to has to lean in to hear it, and by the time they've processed the insult she's already back on defense.
you first really talk to her in week two you're sitting next to her because the assignment is alphabetical and dade comes right before your last name and some scheduling intern decided that mattered.
she's got a towel around her neck, sweat still drying at her hairline even though she hasn't checked in yet tonight, and she looks over at you mid-timeout like she's clocking something. "you're new," she says not a question.
"first year," you say.
"i know. i drafted you in my head before the actual draft happened." she says it so flat you can't tell if it's a joke. "you play like you're trying not to get hurt."
it stings because it's true you don't say anything. "that's fine for now," she says, like she's letting you off some hook you didn't know existed. "just don't stay that way."
and that's it that's the whole interaction but something about it lodges in your chest and doesn't leave.
by week six you've become something like her shadow on the bench well not intentionally or, not entirely intentionally it's just that she's the loudest quiet person you've ever met, the one who narrates the game under her breath in a way that's somehow both scathing and generous, and you find yourself leaning toward her every single time down the court like her commentary is the only broadcast worth tuning into.
"watch the switch," she mutters, eyes tracking the defense. "they're gonna—" and then the switch happens exactly the way she called it, and you actually gasp a little, and she glances sideways at you with something that might be the beginning of a smile if she lets herself finish it.
"how do you know that's gonna happen?"
"i've been doing this since before you had a driver's license."
"i have a license."
"barely." she says it deadpan, eyes back on the court, and you laugh loud enough that the coach glances down the bench at you both.
you start doing things without deciding to do them you learn how she takes her water ice, always, never room temp, she'll make a face like you personally wronged her if the ice has melted.
you learn she picks at the athletic tape around her fingers when she's nervous about a call going against the team, this tiny tell that nobody else seems to have clocked.
you learn the exact three seconds before a timeout ends when she needs someone to hand her the clipboard even though she's not the one drawing plays, just so she has something to hold.
you become, without a job title, her personal hype woman the first one on your feet when she hits a three from the wing, the loudest voice yelling her name back at the ref when a foul call is clearly, obviously, embarrassingly wrong you learn the specific decibel and cadence that gets a smirk out of her versus the kind that gets an eye-roll, and you calibrate.
"you're gonna lose your voice before the all-star break," she tells you one night, toweling off after a win, forty of her twenty-two points feeling personally narrated by you from the bench.
"worth it." she looks at you a beat too long. "yeah," she says, quiet. "i guess it is."
here's the part you don't say out loud to anyone, not even the rookie group chat where everybody complains about minutes and fit and whether the coaching staff even remembers their names you don't actually mind the bench as much anymore.
you mind not playing that part's real, that part keeps you up some nights running through footwork drills in your head like maybe if you get better at imaginary basketball the real coach will notice but the bench itself the seat next to kahleah, the low murmur of her running commentary, the particular kind of intimacy that exists between two people who see everything and are asked to do nothing about it that part you've started to look forward to.
you tell yourself it's mentorship she's a vet, you're a rookie, this is just what the league is supposed to look like someone further along handing knowledge back down the line.
that's the story you tell yourself in the shower after games, running the night back, replaying the way she laughed at something you said, low and short, like she wasn't expecting to.
it stops being just mentorship somewhere around the road trip in january as you're three cities deep, the kind of stretch where everyone's a little sleep-deprived and a little unhinged, when kahleah knocks on your hotel room door at eleven pm with two bags of vending machine chips and a face like she's already regretting the choice to be here.
"couldn't sleep," she says, like that explains anything.
"and you thought, rookie's door, that's the solution?"
"you're always awake. i've seen the light under your door on every road trip since october."
you don't ask how she knows that, because you already know the answer would embarrass you both that she's been paying the same kind of quiet attention to you that you've been paying to her, cataloguing details she has no professional reason to catalogue.
she comes in and sits cross-legged on the end of your bed like this is a completely normal thing veteran all-stars do with rookies who've played eleven total minutes all season.
you split the chips you talk about nothing, her dogs, your little sisters, the terrible hotel art bolted to the wall until somewhere around one am the nothing becomes something.
"can i ask you something," she says, picking at the tape still on her fingers even off the court, "and you don't have to answer."
"okay."
"does it bother you? the not playing."
you could lie you almost do, out of habit, out of the instinct every rookie has to project that everything is fine, that you're a great teammate, that you don't lie awake running your own imaginary box score but something about her face open in a way it never is on the bench, un-surgical makes you tell the truth.
"every day," you say. "i think about it constantly. i think coach forgets i'm even on the roster sometimes."
"he doesn't forget you."
"feels like it." kahleah is quiet for a second. "you know why i sit next to you every game."
it's not a question, but you answer like it is. "alphabetical order."
"that's not why anymore." she says it like it costs her something, this admission, like she's spent weeks deciding whether to say it and finally just ran out of restraint. "i request it. i told the equipment staff to keep the seating the same after the first road trip." your heart does something complicated and fast. "why?"
"because you make the bench feel like somewhere i want to be," she says, "and i have never once felt that way about a bench in ten yearsof sitting on one."
you don't know what to say to that you don't say anything you just sit there in the too-quiet hotel room with a half-empty bag of chips between you, and something shifts, something that's been shifting slowly for months finally settles into place with an almost audible click.
she leaves before it goes anywhere stands up too fast, says something about needing sleep before shootaround, and the door closes behind her before you can figure out if you wanted her to stay.
you lie awake a long time after that as nothing happens for two weeks or nothing happens, in the sense that's easy to name.
everything else keeps happening, quietly, underneath the surface of every practice and shootaround and postgame media scrum she starts sitting closer you start noticing the exact temperature of the air between your shoulder and hers on the bench, the six inches that used to feel neutral and now feel like the most charged six inches in the arena.
you don't play in either of those two weeks eleven minutes, garbage time only, becomes fourteen minutes, still garbage time, and it should feel like progress but it doesn't, not really, not when the only thing that consistently changes for the better is a friendship you can't quite call a friendship anymore.
"you're spiraling," kahleah tells you, mid-third-quarter, watching you watch the scoreboard. "i can see you doing math in your head. stop."
"i'm not doing math."
"you're calculating minutes-per-game and it's making your face do a thing."
"what thing."
"the thing you do when you're deciding whether you're allowed to be sad about something."
you look at her, startled that she's caught something you didn't think anyone had noticed, something you'd barely admitted to yourself. "i'm allowed to be sad about it."
"i know. i'm just saying you look like you're asking permission first." her voice softens on the last part, and her hand quick, almost accidental brushes against your knee under the towel draped across both your laps. "you don't need it from me or anybody."
it's such a small touch it should not detonate the way it does in your chest.
the actual first kiss happens somewhere it has no business happening; the equipment room, twenty minutes after a home win, everyone else already filing toward the bus, you sent back to grab a forgotten phone charger and kahleah apparently sent back for reasons she never quite explains.
"you were incredible tonight," you say, because she was thirty-one points, a defensive stretch in the fourth that basically ended the other team's hope of a comeback and you'd screamed yourself hoarse from the bench the entire second half.
"i heard you," she says. "the whole arena heard you."
"i wasn't that loud."
"you were the loudest person in the building and you didn't even play." she says it without malice, without the sting it would carry from anyone else, like it's just a fact she finds unbearably endearing rather than something to feel sorry for you about. "i don't know how you do that. cheer that hard for something you're not even part of."
"i'm part of it," you say, quieter than you mean to. "i'm just part of it from the bench."
she looks at you for a long moment in the fluorescent light of the equipment room, surrounded by ball racks and folded jerseys and the particular quiet of an arena after the crowd's gone home, and something in her face breaks open.
"you're not just part of it," she says. "you're the reason i look forward to the bench at all." and then she kisses you.
it's not soft, not exactly there's ten yearsof restraint behind it, ten yearsof not letting herself want things she wasn't supposed to want, and it comes out a little rough at first before it gentles, before her hand comes up to the side of your face like she's trying to make sure you're actually real.
you kiss her back like you've been waiting for this since week two, since the first "you're new," since every single night she let you narrate the game back to her in your head and never once told you to be quiet.
when you pull back you're both breathing a little unsteady. "okay," she says, and laughs, short and startled, like she surprised herself. "that's not… i didn't plan that."
"i did," you admit. "for weeks." she laughs again, softer. "yeah. me too."
you keep it a secret because you have to, and also because some part of you likes having something in this league that's entirely yours, that no reporter or coach or teammate gets to weigh in on.
the league's small word travels fast, faster than the games themselves sometimes, and you've both seen what happens to relationships that go public before either party is ready the speculation, the way people start reading every screen assist and every bench interaction as evidence, the exhausting performance of denying something true.
so it stays quiet, it stays in hotel rooms on road trips, kahleah’s apartment on off days, texts that say nothing incriminating to anyone who doesn't know to look for it. you good? after a bad shooting night. proud of you after fourteen minutes of hustle stats nobody else will ever notice small things, huge things, actually, dressed up as small.
being her secret girlfriend does not, it turns out, get you more playing time if anything you're more careful on the court now, more conscious of every possible read anyone could make of the way you two exist in the same space, which means you cheer for her a little less visibly during games even as you feel infinitely more, alone in your own head, every single time she does something extraordinary.
"you got quiet," she says one night, three games into the secret, both of you back at her place, her fingers tracing idle patterns against your shoulder while you lie tangled together on her couch, some show neither of you is watching playing low in the background.
"i'm working on being subtle."
"don't." she says it fast, almost sharp. "i liked it. the loud you. don't perform smaller for me."
"i'm not trying to make it obvious that we're—"
"i know. i get it but you being your normal unhinged bench self isn't gonna out us. people already think you're just a really enthusiastic rookie. let them keep thinking that."
so you go back to being loud loud in the specific, particular way that's always been yours — the way that made her notice you in the first place, months before either of you called it anything.
your minutes creep up slowly through february. eighteen minutes here, twenty-two there, a start in a blowout that doesn't matter for the standings but matters enormously to you, the first time you've heard your own name in the starting lineup announcement all season.
kahleah is not on the bench for that game, not really she's standing at the scorer's table, screaming your name back at you the exact way you've screamed hers for months, the loudest person in the building for once not being you.
after, in the tunnel, she doesn't kiss you can't, not here, not with cameras and reporters and the particular danger of the hallway between locker rooms but she grabs your hand for exactly two seconds, quick, hidden by the equipment bag over her shoulder, and says, low. "told you. i knew you weren't gonna stay that way."
"stay what way?"
"playing like you're trying not to get hurt."
you think back to week two, the very first thing she ever said to you, and something in your chest goes soft and warm and a little disbelieving that you're here, now, hand in hers for two stolen seconds in a tunnel, having become exactly the player and exactly the person she saw in you before you saw it yourself.
the jealousy beat, when it comes, is small and stupid and entirely your fault there's a new assistant coach, young, charming in the specific way that makes veteran players relax around him faster than they should, and he starts sitting near the end of the bench during timeouts, talking strategy with kahleah in a low voice that you have absolutely no reason to be bothered by and are, deeply, unreasonably bothered by anyway.
"you're being weird," kahleah says, catching you staring at the back of the assistant coach's head during a free throw. "i'm not being weird."
"you've got your jealous face on."
"i don't have a jealous face."
"you do. it's very similar to your normal face except your eyebrows do this thing." she demonstrates, badly, and it's so unflattering and so accurate that you can't help but laugh even mid-sulk.
"he's just talking to you about defensive rotations."
"i know."
"i know you know. i'm aware that i know that you know. i just don't love it."
she softens, glancing quickly to make sure nobody's watching before she nudges your knee with hers under the towel. "you're the only one i go home to. defensive rotations don't get invited over."
"that's a low bar."
"i'm setting the bar exactly where it needs to be for you to relax," she says, and you do, mostly, though you keep half an eye on the assistant coach for the rest of the game anyway, and kahleah, insufferably, notices and finds it funny for the rest of the week.
things come to a head not in a bad way, in the specific tender way that secret relationships eventually demand during the all-star break kahleah makes the team, her fourth selection, and you're not playing enough to be anywhere near consideration, and the distance between those two facts sits uncomfortably close to the surface for the first time in months. "you should come," she says, packing for the trip, "watch from the stands. i want you there."
"everyone will see me there."
"i've thought about that. i want you there anyway." you stop folding the shirt in your hands. "kah."
"i'm serious. i'm tired of doing the math on who's watching us. i want to look up during the game and see you in the crowd and not have to pretend i don't know exactly where you're sitting."
"that's basically coming out."
"i know." she says it steady, like she's already made peace with it somewhere private you weren't there for. "i've been ten years in this league not really letting myself have anything that wasn't just basketball. and then you showed up, sitting on a bench you hated, cheering louder for a team that barely played you than most starters cheer for themselves, and i don't want to keep being careful about that. i'm tired of being careful about you."
you don't say anything for a second, throat tight in a way you didn't expect. "okay," you say finally. "i'll come."
"yeah?"
"yeah. i'm done performing smaller too."
the all-star game itself is almost incidental to what happens after kahleah plays well of course she does, she always plays well, ten years of doing this and she still finds a way to make it look like she's just getting started and you watch from a seat that isn't hidden, isn't disguised, isn't explained away as some rookie fan trip.
people notice as a few photos circulate before the final buzzer even sounds, the internet doing its particular fast-and-loose math, and by the time you're both back at the hotel that night your phones are lighting up with speculation neither of you has to confirm or deny out loud to each other.
"regret it?" kahleah asks, dropping her bag by the door, still in her jersey, still catching her breath from the postgame interviews. "no," you say, and you mean it. "do you?"
"never," she says, crossing the room to you. "i've spent ten yearsbeing the most careful person in every room i'm in. you make me want to be careless. good careless. the kind where you actually get what you want instead of just managing the risk of wanting it."
she kisses you then, slow, none of the rushed adrenaline of the equipment room months ago, just the settled certainty of two people who've already decided this is worth whatever comes next.
it's slower this time, unhurried in a way the equipment room never let you be her hands sliding up under the hem of your shirt like she's asking permission and you answer by pulling her closer, the two of you stumbling back toward the bed between kisses, laughing once when you nearly trip over her discarded sneakers.
she pulls back just enough to look at you, something soft and a little disbelieving in her expression, like she still can't quite believe you're real, that you chose to sit next to her on a bench full of nobodies and somehow became the person she wants most in the world.
"you sure," she murmurs against your jaw, "about all of this. the photos. the questions tomorrow."
"i've never been surer of anything in my life," you tell her, and mean it more than you've meant almost anything, and she makes a small sound against your skin like relief given a body.
what happens next is slow and unhurried and entirely without the fear that's shadowed every other stolen moment you've had no equipment room clock ticking down to the team bus, no hotel wall separating you from teammates who might overhear, just the two of you finally, fully choosing each other out loud.
her hands are steady even when her breathing isn't, and you learn her this way too the same careful attention she's always paid you, returned in full, in the dark, in no rush at all after, tangled together with the city lights coming in through a gap in the curtains, she traces slow circles against your shoulder blade and you feel, for the first time all season, entirely unafraid of what comes next.
"so," you say eventually, voice half-muffled against her collarbone, "we're doing this. for real. out loud."
"we're doing this," she confirms. "and for the record — you're still the loudest person in every building we're ever in. i wouldn't change that."
"even when i'm not playing?"
"especially then," she says. "that's when i need you the most."
the season doesn't end with you starting every game or making some magical leap to stardom, because that's not actually how it works, not in one year, not for anybody but it ends with more minutes than it started with, with a coach who's started trusting you in stretches that matter, with a bench seat that still technically exists but that you occupy less and less as the year goes on.
and it ends with kahleah, ten years deep in a league that's taught her to be careful about everything, standing in a tunnel after the final game of the season with your hand in hers in front of god and cameras and everybody, not hiding a single thing.
"you know," she says, as you walk out together, "you were the best bench player i've ever seen."
"is that a compliment or an insult."
"biggest compliment i've got," she says. "you made the worst seat in the building feel like somewhere worth being. that's not nothing. that's actually everything."
you think about week two; you play like you're trying not to get hurt and about every minute since, every quiet cheer and every stolen kiss and every night you thought you were the only one paying attention, when really she'd been watching you just as closely the whole time.
"i love you," you say, easy now, no longer something that has to be careful or quiet or hidden in a hotel room at midnight. "i love you too," she says. "even when you were riding pine and yelling louder than the whole crowd combined."
"especially then."
"especially then," she agrees, and squeezes your hand, out loud, in front of everybody, exactly like she said she wanted to be.
anon asked: KK is live at the Bar after the national championship win. And Y/n being drunk and singing in the microphone to Azzi While Azzi is talking with her parents
summary: the night uconn wins the natty, kk goes live from the bar, and you're three drinks deep and feeling invincible decides the best use of a karaoke mic is serenading her girlfriend from across the room as azzi is trying to have a moment with her parents it does not go well it goes perfectly.
the banner is still rolled up in the equipment room because nobody thought to bring it, but everyone in the bar knows anyway you can feel it in the way coach keeps getting pulled into hugs by strangers, in the way the bartender comped the first round without anyone asking, in the way your whole body still feels like it's vibrating at some frequency only people who just won a national championship can hear.
you've been champion for exactly six hours and forty minutes, and you have never in your life felt this good. "drink," sarah says, pressing a glass into your hand before you've even sat down. "you've had, what, one?"
"one and a half," you say. "i'm pacing myself."
"pacing yourself. girl. we won the whole thing." she clinks her glass against yours hard enough that some of it sloshes over your knuckles. "there is no pacing tonight. there is only vibes."
you laugh, because she's right, because it's impossible not to be swept into it — the noise, the string lights strung crooked across the back patio where the team has basically annexed half the bar, somebody's aux cord plugged into a portable speaker that's fighting a losing battle against the bar's actual sound system. kk has her phone up already, walking backward through the crowd, narrating everything like she's espn.
"we are LIVE," she's saying, sweeping the camera across the table where half the team is squeezed onto benches meant for six, "from an undisclosed location which is definitely NOT a bar because we are all responsible adults hi mom if you're watching, i'm drinking water and we are national champions."
a chorus of screaming answers her you're pretty sure your own voice is in there somewhere, hoarse already from screaming in the tunnel two hours ago you find azzi across the patio, deep in conversation with two people who are unmistakably your parents your mom's hands are doing the thing where they flutter near her face like she might cry, your dad has his arm slung heavy and proud over azzi's shoulders, and azzi is laughing at something, cheeks pink from the heat of the patio lights or the champagne or just from being twenty-two years old and a national champion with your whole family here to see it.
you watch her for a second longer than you mean to as it happens more often than you'd like to admit this thing where you just look at her, like you're trying to memorize the exact shape of a moment before it's over.
you've been doing it since her freshman year, since you were the sophomore who was absolutely not supposed to notice the new kid the way you noticed her, and two years later you still haven't kicked the habit. "you're doing the face," paige says, dropping into the seat next to you.
"what face."
"the 'i am so in love it's actually kind of embarrassing' face. you do it a lot."
"i do not have a face."
"you have several faces and that's one of them." paige takes a long sip of her drink, watching azzi over the rim of the glass. "she looks happy."
"she is happy." you feel it too, sitting warm somewhere under your ribs. "we did the thing. we actually did the thing."
"we did the thing," paige agrees, and clinks her glass against yours, softer than sarah did. "drink up. this is not a night for pacing." you should have known that between sarah and paige telling you the exact same thing within five minutes of each other, your night was already decided for you.
by the time the dj if you can call the guy with the aux cord and a laptop propped on a barstool a dj announces karaoke is open, you are somewhere past tipsy and cruising steadily toward a version of yourself that has never once in the history of your relationship made good decisions.
you know this about yourself azzi knows this about you it is, in fact, kind of a running joke between you two, the way three drinks turns you from a normal, functional adult into someone who thinks every single thought deserves to be said out loud, preferably loudly, preferably with musical accompaniment.
"y/n." sarah's hand lands on your shoulder like she's just had the best idea of her life. "y/n. look at the sign-up sheet."
"what sign-up sheet."
"for karaoke there's a mic there's a list." she's already dragging you toward the little corner where the dj's setup is, where a laminated sheet of paper sits with three names on it, all crossed out already, presumably sung and forgotten. "you have to."
"i don't have to do anything, sarah, i am a grown woman—"
"you are a grown woman who won a national championship six hours ago and who is objectively, scientifically, the most in love with her girlfriend out of anyone at this entire bar, and i refuse to let this moment pass without you serenading her."
you should say no you know you should say no some very small, very quiet part of your brain the part that is rapidly losing the argument to the part of your brain currently marinating in vodka soda is waving a tiny flag that says this is a bad idea, azzi is talking to your parents, do not do this.
"give me the pen," you say instead, sarah cheers like you've just hit a game-winning shot.
here is the thing about being drunk and in love and freshly crowned a national champion: it makes you brave in exactly the wrong ways, it doesn't make you brave enough to, say, finally text your landlord about the leaky faucet, or brave enough to eat the mystery leftovers in the team fridge.
no it makes you brave enough to grab a karaoke mic in front of forty of your closest friends and family and attempt, with zero musical talent whatsoever, to serenade your girlfriend from across a crowded bar patio while she is mid-conversation with your actual parents.
"okay, okay, we've got—" the dj squints at the sign-up sheet — "y/n? come on up."
the cheer that goes up from your table is deeply, deeply unhelpful, you catch paige's face as you stand she's already got her phone out, filming, grinning like this is the best thing that's happened to her all year, better than the championship itself, possibly you take the mic.
it's slightly sticky in a way you choose not to think about too hard the dj pulls up a song you don't even know what you requested, you just said "something romantic" and gestured vaguely, and apparently that translated into the opening piano chords of a song you vaguely recognize as extremely, embarrassingly earnest.
"this," you announce into the mic, and your voice booms out over the patio speaker system, silencing at least three separate conversations, "this is for my girlfriend." across the patio, you watch azzi's head snap up.
"oh no," she says you can't hear it, but you can read it perfectly on her lips, the way her whole face does this specific thing where her eyebrows shoot up and her mouth drops open in something between horror and delight.
your mom turns to look too, then your dad, then half the patio, because apparently everyone wants to see what happens when you get a microphone and three drinks in her. "oh yes," you say, right into the mic, and the music kicks in, and you begin to sing.
you are not a good singer this has never once been in question you sing in the shower and in the car and occasionally at karaoke nights that azzi drags you to specifically because she finds your terrible singing endearing in a way that should probably concern a licensed therapist, but here you are anyway, off-key and off-beat and utterly, gloriously committed, pointing directly at azzi across the patio as you butcher the first verse of a song that is, admittedly, kind of a lot for a bar full of people who just watched you win a national championship six hours ago.
"is this— is this happening right now," you hear azzi say to your parents, and you can see her trying to maintain some semblance of composure, one hand pressed to her mouth.
your mom is delighted that your mom is already filming on her phone, laughing so hard she has to lean on your dad for support as your dad just looks amused and slightly bewildered, the universal expression of a father watching his daughter trying to serenade her girlfriend in public.
"baby," you say into the mic, breaking character entirely, "my mom loves this, look at her, she's filming—"
"sing the song!" sarah yells from the table, and half the patio takes up the chant. "sing the song! sing the song!"
so you sing the song dear god help you, you sing the entire song, all the way through, occasionally forgetting the words and just humming loudly into the mic instead, at one point getting so into the chorus that you drop into a full knee slide across the patio floor that ends with you nearly taking out a table of very confused strangers who did not sign up to be part of this.
kk, predictably, has turned her live feed directly onto you. "you guys," she's narrating, practically wheezing with laughter, "you guys, this is not a bit, she's actually doing this, oh my god, her parents are RIGHT THERE—"
azzi has both hands over her face now her shoulders are shaking but you genuinely cannot tell if she's laughing or dying, possibly both, possibly they are the same thing at this specific moment in her life.
"i can't believe this is my life," she says, loud enough that you catch it even over the music, muffled through her hands. "you picked her," your mom says, delighted, still filming. "this was a choice you made."
"i did not know she would do this—"
"baby," you interrupt again, mic crackling, "i love you, that's the whole point of the song, did you catch that part—"
"i caught it the first time you said it, four minutes ago, before you started doing a whole verse about it—"
"there's a bridge coming up, it's really good, i've been practicing—"
"you have NOT been practicing, you did not know you were doing this until nine minutes ago—"
"details," you say, and launch into the bridge, which you absolutely butcher, hitting a note so far off that the dj visibly winces and someone at a neighboring table starts laughing so hard they have to put their drink down.
the bridge, it turns out, is your undoing not because of the singing though the singing is objectively terrible but because somewhere in the middle of your very dramatic, very off-key rendition, you decide the moment calls for choreography.
you do not have choreography prepared you have, at this point in the evening, approximately zero motor coordination and roughly three drinks' worth of confidence, which is a combination that has never once produced a good outcome in the recorded history of your relationship.
what you attempt is a spin a romantic, mic-still-in-hand spin, the kind you've seen in movies, the kind that's supposed to look effortless and instead results in you catching your foot on a patio chair leg and stumbling directly into the table paige is sitting at, nearly sending her drink flying.
"whoa—" paige catches you by the arm, laughing so hard she can barely get the word out. "okay, beyoncé, maybe sit down for the rest of this."
"i'm fine," you announce into the mic, which everyone can hear, including azzi, who has now abandoned any pretense of composure and is doubled over laughing into your dad's shoulder.
"she's not fine," azzi calls out, loud enough to carry. "somebody take the mic away from her, please, i'm begging—"
"no!" the whole table shouts back in unison, so unified it's almost alarming, and you realize with a rush of drunken affection that your entire team has apparently decided this is the single greatest form of entertainment available to them tonight, better than the trophy, better than the confetti still probably tangled in everyone's hair from earlier.
you finish the song you finish it badly, missing the last note by what feels like an entire octave, but you finish it, throwing your free arm out at the end like you've just delivered the performance of a lifetime, and the patio erupts half of it genuine applause, the other half just people laughing too hard to do anything else.
you hand the mic back to the dj with as much dignity as you can muster, which is not very much, and make your way somewhat unsteadily across the patio toward azzi, who is wiping actual tears of laughter from under her eyes. "that," she says, when you're close enough, "was the worst thing that has ever happened to me."
"you loved it."
"i did not—"
"say you loved it."
"i am currently deciding whether to break up with you in front of your own parents," azzi says, but she's smiling too wide for it to land as a threat, and when you loop your arms around her neck she doesn't pull away, just lets you lean your full weight into her, still slightly unsteady on your feet.
"hi," you say, close to her face, softer now that you're not shouting into a microphone. "we won the national championship."
"we did." something in her expression shifts, softens even further, the laughter still there but something warmer underneath it now. "you're very drunk."
"i'm very in love," you correct. "the drunk part is incidental."
"mm. incidental." her hands find your waist, steady you. "you almost took out an entire table of strangers."
"i have excellent balance."
"you have the balance of a newborn deer." but she's laughing again, quiet this time, just for you, and over her shoulder you can see your mom still watching with an expression that is somehow both delighted and deeply fond, the specific look of a mother who has apparently decided azzi's a keeper despite or maybe because of tonight's performance.
"i'm so sorry," azzi says, once you've disentangled yourself enough for her to actually address your parents like a semi-functional adult, "for the interruption and also for whatever that was."
"don't apologize for the singing," your mom says immediately, still smiling. "that was the best thing i've seen all year, and i watched my daughter win a national championship earlier today."
"mom—"
"i'm serious! i have it on video, i'm sending it to your aunties tonight—"
"please don't—"
"they're going to love it. your aunt rosa is going to watch this fifty times." your mom pats azzi's arm, warm and easy, like this is not the first time she's had to reassure her about something one of you has done. "you're good for her. you know that, right?" azzi feels her face go warm, and it's not from the alcohol this time. "i try to be."
"you don't have to try very hard," your dad says, gruff but kind, clapping a hand on azzi's shoulder that nearly buckles her knees, though that might just be the champagne. "we've watched you two since — what, sophomore year? freshman year?"
"my freshman year," azzi says. "y/n's sophomore year. so this year, senior year for her, junior year for me."
"right. two years." he shakes his head, looking between the two of you with something that looks almost misty. "feels like yesterday you were calling us, all nervous, asking if it was weird that you liked one of the younger girls on the team."
"dad." your voice pitches up an octave, mortified. "we do not need to revisit that phone call—"
"i'm just saying! you were so nervous about it. kept asking if it would be weird, being teammates and everything." he grins at you, unbothered by your protests. "i told you, if it's real, it doesn't matter how it starts. just matters that you take care of each other."
"we do," azzi says, and means it more than the champagne can take credit for. "take care of each other, i mean."
"i can see that." your mom's eyes are a little glassy now, whether from champagne or emotion or both. "two years. national championship. and she still comes and finds you across a crowded bar, drunk off her mind, to sing you a love song."
"an objectively terrible love song," azzi mutters, but her hand has found yours, fingers lacing through, and she doesn't let go.
"the terrible ones are the ones that count," your dad says, wise in the specific way that dads at family gatherings tend to be. "anybody can sing a song well. takes real love to sing it that badly and still mean every word."
azzi decides, somewhere in the champagne-soaked haze of her own brain, that this is the nicest thing anyone has ever said about your singing voice, and possibly about your entire relationship, and she has to blink hard against the sudden, embarrassing prickle of tears in her eyes.
"oh, don't you start too," you say, noticing immediately, voice going soft. "you're the one being serenaded, you don't get to cry about it now."
"i'm not crying. it's the champagne. my eyes are just—"
"sure."
"they're allergic to champagne, it's a whole thing—"
"come here," you say, laughing, and pull her into your side properly, arm wrapped around her shoulders, and she lets herself sink into it, into the warmth of you, into the noise of the patio and the low murmur of your parents' conversation resuming around you, into the fact that six hours ago she was a national champion and right now she is just a girl, happy and a little overwhelmed, tucked against the person she's loved since she was eighteen and you were twenty and neither of you had any idea what you were doing.
kk finds you both twenty minutes later, still practically glued at the hip, your dad now deep in conversation with coach about next season's recruiting class, your mom off refilling drinks with some of the other parents.
"okay, so," kk says, holding her phone up again, live feed still very much active, "we have officially ended the karaoke portion of tonight's programming, following an incident—"
"there was no incident," you say.
"there was absolutely an incident, you nearly took out an entire table of strangers doing a spin move that i am fairly certain you invented on the spot—"
"it was choreographed."
"it was not choreographed, i watched you decide to do it in real time, your face did a whole thing—"
"kk." azzi's voice, fond and exasperated in equal measure. "please stop narrating our relationship to the internet."
"the internet deserves to know true love when it sees it," kk says solemnly, before breaking into a grin. "also several thousand people are currently watching this live show and they all want to know if you're going to sing an encore."
"absolutely not," azzi says, at the same time you say, "i could be talked into it."
"see, this is the dynamic," kk tells the camera. "this is the whole dynamic right here. one of them wants to set the world on fire and the other one is just trying to survive it."
"that's — actually pretty accurate," azzi admits, laughing despite herself, and you feel it more than see it, the way her whole body shakes slightly against yours with the laugh.
"for the people watching," kk continues, camera panning briefly to catch both your faces, "how long have you two been together? asking for research purposes."
"since azzi's freshman year," you say. "which was my sophomore year."
"so — what, one year? two?"
"two," azzi says. "we started talking at the end of my freshman year, made it official that summer."
"two years," kk repeats, sounding almost reverent, before immediately undercutting it with, "and in two years, the height of romance she has managed to achieve is a drunk karaoke performance that nearly ended in a broken table."
"i resent that characterization."
"i don't," azzi says, grinning. "it's extremely accurate."
"you're supposed to defend me."
"i defend you in ways that matter. i am simply not going to lie about the table incident." she presses a kiss to your temple, quick and easy, the kind of casual affection two years of practice buys you, the kind that still, somehow, after all this time, makes your stomach do something embarrassing and warm. "for the record, though. it was the best terrible song i've ever heard."
"see," you say to kk's camera, triumphant. "she loved it."
"i did not say loved—"
"you just said best."
"best terrible, there's a qualifier in there—"
"kk, tell the people. tell them she loved it." kk turns the camera to herself, deadpan. "she loved it. everyone go to bed. show's over. goodnight."
later very much later, after kk's finally ended the live stream, after most of the team has trickled toward whatever comes next in the night (someone mentions a second bar, someone else mentions definitely not doing that and going straight to bed, the two camps splitting roughly along the lines of who has an early flight tomorrow and who doesn't) you find yourself tucked into a booth in the quieter corner of the bar with azzi, her jacket draped over your shoulders because the patio's gotten cold and you, predictably, didn't bring one.
"your parents like me, huh," azzi says, mostly to fill the comfortable quiet, still riding the last gentle wave of the champagne.
"my parents adore you. my mom's probably already saved that video to, like, four different cloud services." you trace idle patterns against the back of her hand where it rests on the table. "you didn't have to sit there and take it, you know."
"take what?"
"the whole — production. the singing. the spin. almost destroying a table of strangers who were just trying to enjoy their tuesday."
"it's a saturday."
"you know what i mean." she's smiling, but there's something quieter underneath it now, the kind of softness that only comes out this late at night, this many hours removed from the noise of the crowd. "you didn't have to make a scene to tell me you loved me. i already knew."
"i know you knew." you turn your hand over, lace your fingers properly through hers. "i wanted everyone else to know too. wanted your parents to see it — well. my parents. wanted the whole bar to see it. we just won a national championship, az. felt like the kind of night where everybody should know exactly how in love i am with you."
something crosses her face — you've seen it before, a handful of times over two years, the specific expression she gets when she's feeling something too big to easily put into words. "you're going to make me cry in a bar."
"you cried at the parade route this afternoon over a kid's homemade sign, i think you can survive this too."
"that sign said 'azzi fudd is my favorite person,' it was very moving—"
"it's still moving, apparently, given the tears currently forming."
"shut up." but she's laughing, wiping quickly at the corner of her eye, and you feel something settle in your chest, warm and certain, the specific feeling of being exactly where you're supposed to be. "i can't believe this is the year we're in. national championship. your senior night, senior season, all of it and you're getting drafted in what — a week and a half?"
the mention of it sends a small jolt through you, cutting cleanly through the champagne haze it's been sitting there all season, quiet but present, the knowledge that your time as teammates is closing in on an ending even as tonight marks its most triumphant chapter. "yeah. a week and a half."
"and then it's just me here. one more year — my senior year without you on the bench."
"you'll survive."
"i know i'll survive. doesn't mean i want to." her thumb runs slow circles against your knuckles. "it's going to be so weird. watching from here instead of playing next to you."
"you'll be playing next to sarah instead."
"not the same."
"no," you agree quietly. "not the same." there's a beat where neither of you says anything, just sits with the shape of the thing neither of you have fully figured out how to talk about yet the fact that this year, this exact configuration of teammates and roommates and the two of you sneaking around campus like it's still some kind of secret even though literally everyone has known for years, is ending.
next year you'll be somewhere else entirely, a rookie in a league that doesn't care that you're in love, adjusting to a life that doesn't have azzi three doors down in the dorm or across the practice court every single day. "we'll figure it out," azzi says finally, like she's reading your mind, which two years in, she basically can. "we always figure it out."
"we do."
"and it's one year. then i'm out too, and wherever i land, we'll be in the same league at least. same time zone situations to negotiate, probably. long flights instead of long hallways." she smiles, small and certain. "it's not forever, it's just an adjustment."
"an adjustment," you repeat, testing the word, letting it settle somewhere less panicked than it had a moment ago. "i can do an adjustment."
"you can absolutely do an adjustment. you survived two years of will-they-won't-they before we even got together, you can survive a rookie season with a long-distance girlfriend."
"there was no will-they-won't-they, i liked you from day one—"
"you did not say a single word to me for the first two months of my freshman year, i thought you hated me—"
"i was being professional, you were eighteen, it would have been weird—"
"it's fine, we've had this conversation, i've forgiven you for the two months of silent treatment—"
"it wasn't silent treatment, it was restraint—"
"whatever helps you sleep at night." she's grinning now, teasing, the heavy moment from a second ago folded gently back into the easy rhythm you've built over years of exactly this kind of conversation serious for a beat, then light again, the two of you always finding your way back to laughter no matter where the conversation takes you.
"for what it's worth," you say, "i'd do the whole thing again. all of it. the two months of restraint, the two years, tonight's incident with the table—"
"there was no table incident, we've established that the table remained fully intact—"
"—the eventual rookie season adjustment period. all of it. i'd pick you every single time." azzi goes quiet for a moment, looking at you with an expression that's gone soft in a way that has nothing to do with champagne or exhaustion or the late hour. "even the singing?"
"especially the singing."
"you have the worst voice i've ever heard in my entire life."
"and yet."
"and yet," she agrees, and leans in to kiss you slow, easy, tasting faintly of champagne and something sweeter underneath, the kind of kiss that doesn't need an audience or a microphone or a spin move to mean everything it means.
when she pulls back, her forehead stays resting against yours, and for a second the noise of the bar fades to something distant and unimportant. "national champions."
"national champions," you echo. "and still going strong."
"still going strong," she says, smiling against your mouth, and outside the booth window the city is loud with celebration, championship banners already being printed somewhere, headlines being written, but right here, in this quiet corner, none of that matters half as much as this her hand in yours, two years deep and still counting, the whole rest of the night and the season after it and whatever comes after that stretching out ahead of you both, uncertain in all the ordinary ways but certain, always, in the ways that count.
okay.. y’all can jump me but would you follow if i made a crackship account with ppl like:
Rae and VB
Kate and Madison Bailey
Aniya and Melanie from love island
Paige and Jen from love island
kate martin and aniya from love island
azzi and kate
nika and georgia
nika and kate
juju and jazzy
lauren and gabriela
pairing: dallas wings!reader!secret relationship!vet x dallas wings!azzi!secret relationship!rookie
wc: 3.3k
request: y/n
anon asked: Y/n and Azzi. Dallas up 20 in the second half vs the Fever. And Y/n is defending Caitlin and Y/n gets the steal but it’s a foul call on Y/n because “Caitlin Flopped” and Y/n runs to the coach and challenges it. And Y/n is on the Bench sitting next to Azzi and Maddy while Y/n is pretending to Flop. After the challenge was successful. Y/n subs back in with Sims, Alanna, Awak, Alysha. Meanwhile Y/n is getting a little chippy With Caitlin. Then Y/n decides to hit a three in front of Caitlin (you can add the foul if you want) and the Fever Bench and Coach wanting a Technical foul on us for putting our foot out. Then Y/n sits next to Azzi on the Bench while they are talking about something. (You can fix some things if you like)
summary: “she flopped,” you said, to no one, to everyone, to the air. “she flopped!” — up twenty against the fever, you gets the steal, gets the foul call anyway, and refuses to accept it quietly. a chippy fourth quarter, a foot on the line, and a very soft ending on a dark plane home.
gainbridge fieldhouse was loud in the way only a sold-out building losing badly can be which is to say, it was loud with people trying to convince themselves the game wasn't already over indiana had actually jumped out front in the first quarter, 29–25, caitlin clark scoring in bursts, the crowd riding every one of them.
but dallas had answered with a second quarter that erased it completely thirty-six points to seventeen, a fifteen-point swing in twelve minutes, and by halftime it was 61–46 wings now, midway through the third, the lead had stretched past twenty, twenty with plenty of clock left to protect it, which in the wnba was less a lead than a small fortune waiting to be spent poorly.
you knew that better than anyone you'd been on the wrong end of a twenty-point collapse exactly once in your career and had sworn, out loud, in the locker room, that it would never happen to your team again so even up twenty, you were playing like it was tied.
"you good?" maddy asked, bumping your shoulder as you walked back onto the court after the second-quarter carryover energy still humming through the building. "you've got your murder face on."
"i don't have a murder face."
"you have several murder faces. this is murder face number two. the one where you're not actually mad yet but you're saving it up."
"i'm not saving anything up."
"sure," maddy said, in the exact tone of someone who did not believe you at all, and jogged off toward the block.
you found your mark caitlin was already there, rolling her shoulders, doing the thing she did where she looked almost bored right before she wasn't down twenty after that brutal second quarter, and she still had that look like the deficit was a formality, a technicality the scoreboard hadn't caught up on yet.
it used to get under your skin now it mostly made you want to smile, because you knew exactly how to make that look disappear, and you were going to enjoy doing it. "twenty," you said, conversationally, like you were commenting on the weather. "that's a lot of points to give back after a fourteen-point first quarter."
"game's got a lot of minutes left," caitlin said, not looking at you, eyes already tracking the inbound. "sure does."
the ball came in and caitlin caught it at the logo, and you were already moving your feet, already sliding into the space she wanted before she wanted it, because this was the part of the game you loved most, not the scoring, the reading knowing where a player was going before her own feet did.
caitlin crossed left and you were already there as she tried to spin out of it, protecting the ball high, and for half a second it drifted a few inches too far from her body, and your hand was already moving.
clean strip ball in your palm, already turning up-court and the whistle went off so fast it was almost funny you stopped dead, ball still in your hand, and looked at the official like you'd personally been betrayed. "that's not a foul."
the referee was already forming the shape with her arms reach-in, block, something and pointing down the floor at caitlin, who was sitting up from the floor with the particular slowness of someone very aware of the cameras. "she flopped," you said, to no one, to everyone, to the air. "she flopped."
caitlin, from the ground, had the audacity to look wounded.
"she flopped!" you said again, louder this time, hands up, already turning to find your bench, already knowing exactly what you were going to do about it, because there was a challenge sitting in your coach's back pocket that hadn't been used all game and this — this — was exactly what it was for.
you didn't even wait for the official to finish explaining the call you were already jogging to the sideline, pointing at your own eyes and then at the replay monitor in the universal signal of watch it back, i'm right, i'm always right about this.
"coach." you skidded up to the bench, breathing hard, more from adrenaline than from the run. "coach, that's not a foul, she flopped, i got all ball —"
"i saw it," your coach said, already halfway through making the t with her hands to signal the review. "go sit down."
"i'm serious, watch the —"
"i said i saw it. sit."
you sat on the bench, when you were up twenty and mid-review, was a strange little pocket of the game everyone still dialed in, but with the specific looseness that came from knowing the outcome was probably fine no matter what happened in the next ninety seconds.
azzi was sitting exactly where azzi always sat, second seat from the end, towel around her neck even though she'd been in the game ten minutes ago and wasn't sweating anymore she didn't look over when you dropped down next to her.
she never did, not right away it was a habit you'd built carefully, deliberately, over the better part of a year, the art of not looking at each other too fast in public. "you okay?" azzi asked instead, eyes on the monitor across the arena where the review was playing.
"i'm furious," you said. "i'm the most furious i have ever been in my entire life."
"you look extremely furious," maddy said from your other side, not even trying to hide that she was fighting a smile. "devastated, really. i'm worried about you."
"she flopped."
"we know," azzi said. "you've said it four times."
"i'm going to say it a fifth time because it's true. she flopped. i got a clean strip, both hands on the ball, no contact, and she went down like i'd shot her out of a cannon."
"so dramatic," maddy agreed.
"so dramatic," you said, and then because the review was still going, because there were maybe forty more seconds of dead time to fill, because azzi's shoulder was warm against yours and it was the kind of small, secret comfort that made everything feel a little more bearable you decided to demonstrate.
you leaned back against the padded seat, flung one arm dramatically across your own forehead, and let out a long, wounded groan. "oh," you said, in your best impression of aggrieved indignation, "oh, she touched me, oh, the humanity —"
maddy nearly fell off the bench laughing, azzi's hand came up to cover her mouth, shoulders already shaking, trying and failing to keep a straight face in front of the assistant coaches three feet away.
"stop," azzi said, muffled behind her hand, "stop, you're going to get fined, they're going to see this on the broadcast —"
"let them see it," you said, still sprawled, still clutching your own imaginary wound. "let the world know the truth. i am a victim. i have been assaulted by a crossover."
"you're insane," maddy wheezed.
"i am correct," you said, sitting back up, "which is a separate but related fact," and right on cue, right on the exact perfect comedic beat, the arena pa crackled to life; "after further review, the call on the floor has been overturned. steal, dallas."
you stood up so fast you nearly clipped azzi in the chin with your elbow. "told you," you said, to the bench, to the officials, to caitlin clark specifically, wherever she was standing. "told you."
azzi looked up at you, still laughing, eyes doing the thing they did sometimes where they went soft in a way that had nothing to do with basketball at all, and said, quiet enough that only you could hear it under the crowd noise; "you're such a menace."
"your menace, though."
"unfortunately," azzi said, and there it was — the smallest smile, the private one, the one that only came out when she thought no one else was paying attention. it lasted about a second and a half before she wiped it clean and went back to being a professional athlete on a bench in front of nineteen thousand people.
the horn sounded as you knew it was time for a substitution. "sims, alanna, awak, alysha, y/n," the coach called out, already waving you toward the scorer's table.
you grabbed your mouthguard off the bench, tapped azzi's knee once quick, casual, deniable, the exact kind of touch that meant nothing to anyone watching and everything to the two of you and jogged back onto the floor feeling like you could run through a wall.
the next four minutes were, by any honest account, a little unhinged as it wasn't dirty, nobody threw a punch, nobody got ejected, nothing made the sportscenter for the wrong reasons but it was chippy in the specific way that only happened between two competitors who respected each other exactly as much as they wanted to beat each other into the ground, and you had decided, somewhere between the overturned call and the inbound pass, that you were going to make caitlin clark's life miserable for the rest of the quarter.
you picked her up full court not because the game demanded it up twenty, nobody demands that but because you could, and because every time caitlin had to work an extra ten feet to get the ball, her voice climbed half a decibel calling for the screen, and you found that endlessly satisfying.
"you're gonna get tired doing that," caitlin said, the third time down, shaking you off a wing screen with visible effort. "i've got a lot of energy today," you said. "must be the adrenaline. from getting assaulted."
"oh my god."
"i'm still recovering."
"you're the least injured person i've ever met in my life."
"tell that to the flagrant foul review."
"it got overturned."
"exactly my point."
caitlin, despite herself, laughed one short exhale through her nose, the kind of laugh that escaped before she could stop it, and you counted that as a win too, separate from the scoreboard.
but the real moment the one that ended up cut into every highlight package by that night, the one that would be all over basketball twitter within the hour came with about six minutes left in the third.
dallas ran a ball screen, you popped off it instead of rolling, and your defender, not caitlin, one of the fever bigs, slow to recover was a half-step late closing out you caught it above the break, squared up, and there was caitlin, sprinting over from the weak side, hand up, doing everything right, doing everything a great competitor is supposed to do with a game that had long since slipped away.
it didn't matter what as you had all day you let it fly with caitlin's hand still a half-second from contesting it, and it was in before her feet even finished planting.
nothing but net and you who would later claim, unconvincingly, that this next part was not premeditated took one full step forward, toward caitlin, close enough that your faces were maybe eighteen inches apart, and just looked at her.
no words as didn't need any just held the eye contact for one long beat, chin up, the exact expression of someone who had been waiting all game to make this specific point, and then very deliberately slid your back foot out along the floor, planting it just past the three-point line you'd shot from, like you were drawing a line in the sand.
this is my line now.
the fever bench lost their entire minds not the crowd, the crowd was mostly just groaning, resigned, twenty-plus down with six minutes left in the third but the bench, all the way down at the far end, came completely unglued, half of them on their feet, someone yelling something at the nearest official about the foot, about disrespect, about a technical, arms out, the whole production.
even stephaine white had come three steps off the sideline, palms up, mouthing something that was very clearly are you serious right now at the nearest referee caitlin, for her part, didn't say anything at all.
she just shook her head once, small, almost impressed, and jogged back down the floor like it hadn't happened though the small twitch at the corner of her mouth said otherwise.
the refs conferred for a second no technical came chippy, sure, disrespectful, maybe, in the way competition is always a little disrespectful when it's honest but no rule against putting your foot somewhere on your own basketball court after your own basketball shot, no matter how loudly the opposing bench wanted one invented on the spot.
you jogged back on defense with your arms spread slightly, palms up, the universal gesture of what did i even do, and from the dallas bench you could hear maddy absolutely losing it, and underneath that quieter, but unmistakable, because you had spent a year learning the specific sound of it azzi laughing too, the real laugh, the one with no filter on it at all.
dallas won, 95–80 the fourth quarter was mostly bench minutes and clock management, both teams playing out the string with the specific low-stakes looseness of a game that had been decided since that fifteen-point second-quarter swing.
you finished with sixteen points, five assists, and the stat you were proudest of, and would be bringing up unprompted for the next several days three steals, only one of which had briefly and incorrectly been ruled a foul.
the handshake line was normal cordial, even caitlin bumped your fist and said, "good game, seriously," with the specific sincerity of someone who meant it despite the chaos of the last two hours, and you said, "you too, flopper," and caitlin laughed for real that time, shook her head, and moved on down the line.
the locker room after a blowout win had a specific texture to it, loud in bursts, quiet in between, everyone half-dressed and moving at their own pace, music from someone's speaker competing with the sound of the ice machine.
you sat at your stall longer than you needed to, peeling tape off your ankles slowly, half-watching the room, waiting azzi found you the way she always did not directly, not obviously, a slow drift across the room that looked like nothing in particular until she was suddenly sitting on the bench two stalls down, close enough to talk without either of you having to raise your voice, far enough that it read as nothing to anyone glancing over.
"that foot thing," azzi said, not looking at you, working at her own shoelaces. "you're going to be all over twitter tonight."
"good. let them see it."
"you're impossible."
"you said that already today. earlier. on the bench."
"because it's still true," azzi said. "it doesn't stop being true just because you already heard it once."
you smiled down at your ankle tape, not looking up either, because that was the game you played talking sideways, never quite facing each other, the whole conversation conducted at an angle so that from three feet away it looked like two teammates chatting about nothing. "you laughed, though," you said. "on the bench. when i did the flop thing."
"i laugh at a lot of things. doesn't mean anything."
"you laughed hard."
"i have a normal, healthy sense of humor."
"you nearly choked on your own spit."
"that's an exaggeration and you know it."
"it's really not."
azzi finally looked up, and there it was again that soft thing in her eyes that she kept so carefully rationed out in public, doled out in small, careful increments so that nobody watching could ever quite prove what it meant. "you did good today," she said, quieter now, the joking edge dropping out of her voice entirely. "for real. not just the chaos. the defense on her all game that was good work."
"thanks," you said, and meant it, feeling something in your chest go warm and a little stupid, the way it always did when azzi said something like that in the specific tone she used only for you, never for anyone else. "you're still ridiculous, though."
"i contain multitudes."
"you contain one multitude," azzi said, standing up, grabbing her bag, "and it's ridiculous. c'mon. bus leaves in twenty."
the team charter back to dallas was red-eye, dim cabin lights, most of the roster asleep or half-asleep within the first hour, headphones in, hoodies up you had the window seat you always claimed, and for the first forty minutes of the flight, the seat next to you stayed conspicuously, deliberately empty because that was also part of the game, the careful choreography of not sitting together the second the doors closed, giving it a beat, giving anyone still half-awake something else to look at first.
it was paige who broke first, wandering back from the front of the plane with a blanket around her shoulders like a cape. "i'm exhausted," she announced to no one, dropping into the empty seat beside you without asking. "that flop bit lived in my head rent-free for four quarters. i almost lost it after the anthem thinking about it."
"as you should have," you said. "it was very good content."
"it was oscar-worthy. you should retire from basketball and go into theater."
"i'm keeping both careers open."
"smart," paige said, already yawning, blanket slipping half off one shoulder. "anyway. g'night. don't let azzi steal my seat, i earned it through suffering."
"no promises," you said, and paige laughed, patted your arm, and wandered off toward her own row, blanket dragging behind her like a very tired superhero.
the seat stayed empty for another ten minutes then, quietly, without any announcement at all, azzi slid into it, tucking her legs up, resting her head against your shoulder like it was the most natural thing in the world which, by now, it basically was.
"cabin lights are off," azzi said, by way of explanation, voice already going soft and low with tiredness. "nobody's paying attention."
"i wasn't going to ask."
"you were going to ask eventually you always ask eventually."
"that's true," you admitted, and let your arm come up slowly, carefully, to rest along the back of the seat, not quite around azzi's shoulders, but close, the deniable kind of close you'd perfected over months of hotel hallways and team buses and exactly this dim cabins, sleeping teammates, the particular safety of thirty thousand feet. "you were really funny today," azzi murmured, eyes already closing. "the flop thing. on the bench."
you looked down at her the soft, unguarded line of her face in sleep or near-sleep, the way her hand had found its way to rest, loose and easy, against your knee, the win and the flop and the foot on the line and the whole ridiculous, glorious day sitting warm in your chest and thought, not for the first time, that this part, the part nobody saw, the part that happened in the dark on the way home, was maybe the best part of all of it.
"hey," you said, quiet, just for azzi.
"mm."
"good game today."
"you already said that in the locker room."
"i'm saying it again doesn't stop being true just because you already heard it once."
azzi's eyes opened just enough to shoot you a look half exasperated, half something much softer before falling shut again, a small, private smile settling over her face as the plane hummed on through the dark, carrying you both home.
anon asked: Hello, I have a request if you don’t mind. sonia citron x reader. Where reader is a soccer player, Sonia and her teammates go support reader at a National team friendly. The first time or something along those lines , they got to experience it all together. During the game they noticed reader is getting fouled, refs not making calls. Sonia now realizes what reader goes through, when reader gets a late tackle. She has to be stretched off the pitch. The teams medics get Sonia down to the room with her. Sonia sees the condition of reader, and gets emotional. Basically a heart to heart
summary: she came to watch her play for the first time but by the end of the night, she wasn't sitting in the stands anymore.
sonia had never been to a national team friendly before she'd watched clips grainy broadcast footage, fan-uploaded highlights with shaky camera work, the kind of thing you send her at 1am captioned this is what i do when you're not looking but she'd never sat in a stadium and felt the specific electricity of a crowd that came to watch a country play, not a club.
she didn't know the anthem would make her throat tight she didn't know she'd recognize your walk from the tunnel before she recognized your face her teammates came too a loud, overdressed, borderline unhinged group of women in your jersey number, sitting four rows back from the touchline because that was as close as the tickets got.
someone had made a sign someone else had vetoed the sign for being, quote, "deeply embarrassing," and brought it anyway. "there she is," paige said, elbowing sonia the second you jogged out for warmups. "look at her. she doesn't even know we're here yet."
sonia did look like she always looked like it was a problem she'd made peace with a long time ago the way her attention found you in a crowd of twenty-two identically dressed athletes without trying, like her eyes had been trained on you specifically and nothing else registered until you did.
you found her a minute later mid-stretch, scanning the stands out of habit more than expectation, and then your whole face changed when you spotted the group of them, sonia, in the middle, waving both arms over her head like an idiot, paige already filming.
you didn't wave back, you weren't allowed to, not really, not with the cameras panning the crowd and your coach ten feet away but you smiled down at your cleats in a way sonia had learned to read as i see you, i see you, i see you.
the first half was fine more than fine you were good, sonia thought, watching you cut through midfield like the grass owed you something, and it did something strange and warm in her chest to see you in that specific white kit, the crest instead of a club badge, ninety minutes of representing something bigger than either of you fully understood.
she noticed the fouls before anyone else in her section did not because she was paying closer attention because she'd learned your body the way you learn a language every angle of it, every tell.
so when a defender came in late on your ankle in the eighteenth minute and the ref waved play on, sonia felt it before she processed it, a flinch in her own chest at the sight of your leg buckling and then straightening like you'd told it to. "that was a foul," she said, to no one, already half out of her seat.
"ref's not calling much today," someone next to her said, unbothered, the way people are unbothered when it isn't happening to someone they love.
it happened twice more before halftime, a shoulder that clipped you a beat too late, a boot that came down on the back of your calf as you played the ball away, your face tightening for exactly one second before you reset your stance and kept running like nothing had touched you.
sonia's stomach turned each time not because it was violent it wasn't, not by the letter of the rules, nothing that would make a highlight reel of dirty tackles but because she was watching, really watching, for the first time, and she understood with a kind of sick clarity that this was routine.
this was tuesday this was every single game you played, and she had never once seen it because she had never once sat far enough back to see the whole picture instead of just you scoring, you smiling, you doing a small private celebration toward the tunnel where she used to stand.
she'd always known you played a physical position she hadn't understood what physical meant until she watched it happen in real time and nobody blew a whistle. "is it always like this?" she asked paige, who'd played more soccer growing up than any of them.
paige’s face was already tight. "for wingers who beat their defender clean, yeah. it's — they can't catch her, so they just start fouling her instead. refs let a lot go in early games like this."
sonia didn't say anything else; she just watched the clock, and watched you, and felt something building in her chest that she didn't have a word for yet the tackle that ended it came in the sixty-third minute.
sonia would replay it later much later, at 3am, unable to sleep and she'd never be able to decide if it was worse in real time or in memory but in real time it happened too fast to process you receiving the ball on the wing, a defender arriving a full half-second after you'd already played it away, her studs catching your planted leg instead of the ball entirely.
the sound reached the stands before the understanding did a crunch, distant but audible even from four rows back, followed immediately by your scream short, cut off, more shock than anything, and then silence, because you didn't scream again.
you just went down and stayed down, both hands wrapped around your own shin, and the whole stadium made the specific collective noise crowds make when something has gone visibly, unmistakably wrong sonia was on her feet without deciding to stand. "sonia—" paige had a hand on her arm.
"that's — " sonia's voice didn't work right she watched the medical staff sprint onto the pitch, watched your teammates crowding around you with their hands pressed to their mouths, watched a stretcher get wheeled out while you lay there not moving your leg, your face turned toward the sky, and sonia understood in one sick drop of her stomach that this was the moment.
this was the one that had been building all game, every uncalled foul stacking on top of the last one until a defender who couldn't catch you decided to stop you a different way, she didn't remember deciding to go down to the tunnel.
she remembered kiki grabbing her hand, remembered flashing some kind of pass at security that shouldn't have worked but did because the woman at the gate recognized sonia's face from somewhere and didn't ask questions, remembered a uswnt staff member someone she vaguely recognized as your team's doctor meeting her at the mouth of the tunnel with an expression sonia would carry with her for a long time.
"you're sonia," the woman said not a question. "is she — can i—"
"she's asking for you." the doctor's face didn't give sonia anything to hold onto, no reassurance, no she'll be fine. just. "come on."
the medical room was too bright and too quiet, the kind of quiet that exists specifically in rooms where people are trying not to make things worse by making noise. you were on the table with your leg elevated and immobilized, an ice pack strapped over your shin, your face pale in a way sonia had never seen on you before not tired-pale, not sick-pale, but pale the way people get when their body is working very hard to manage pain and has no attention left over for anything else.
"hi," you said, when you saw her your voice came out smaller than sonia had ever heard it sonia's whole chest cracked open. "hey — hey, i'm here."
she crossed the room in three steps and took your hand, careful not to jostle anything, and up close it was worse the way you were breathing, shallow and controlled, the sheen of sweat at your hairline, the small tremor running through you that you were clearly trying to hide. "i'm right here baby."
"they think it's — " you stopped, swallowed. "they won't know for sure till the scan could be the fibula. could be worse."
"don't." sonia's voice cracked in a way she hadn't planned. "don't tell me the worse part right now." you managed something close to a laugh, thin and pained. "sorry."
"no — no, i'm sorry, i just—" sonia pressed her forehead gently to the back of your hand, needing a second, needing to not look at your face for a moment because looking at it was unbearable. "i watched the whole game. i watched every single foul they didn't call. i didn't understand. i've been watching you play for two years and i never — i never understood what this actually costs you."
"soni." your free hand found her hair, weak but deliberate, the way you always touched her when she was the one falling apart instead of you. "it's just soccer."
"it's not just soccer, it's your body baby, it's — " she stopped herself, breathed, tried again quieter. "i sat there and watched you get hit four times before anyone called anything, and i thought, this is normal for her. this happens every game. and i never once asked you about it because you never made it sound like this."
"because it's not usually like this," you said. "i promise. this is — this is a bad one. this isn't every week."
"but the four fouls before it were." it wasn't a question sonia had watched them with her own eyes you didn't answer, which was its own answer.
sonia pressed her lips together, blinking hard, and when she looked up her eyes were wet in a way she wasn't bothering to hide anymore. "i'm so sorry. i'm sorry i never asked. i'm sorry i just watched the good parts on clips and never thought about what happens the rest of the ninety minutes."
"hey." your thumb moved against her hand, small and steady despite everything. "don't do that. you don't need to apologize for not knowing something i never told you."
"i should've asked."
"and if you had, i would've said i'm fine, because i always say i'm fine, because that's the job." your voice wavered on the last word, the first real crack you'd let show since she walked in. "i didn't want you worrying every time i stepped on a pitch. i didn't want this — " a small, tired gesture at the room, the ice, the two of you. "i didn't want you to have to see this part."
"i want to see this part," sonia said immediately, fiercely, surprising herself with how sure it came out. "i want to see all of it. i don't want the highlight reel version of your life, i want — i want to know when you're getting hurt and nobody's calling it. i want to be someone you tell things to, not someone you protect from the truth."
your eyes were shining now too, the pain and the emotion tangled up together in a way that made it hard to tell which was pulling the tears loose. "soni—"
"i mean it." she brought your hand up and kissed your knuckles, gentle, like you were something that could break further if she wasn't careful which, right now, you were. "whatever the scan says. however long this takes. i'm not watching from four rows back anymore. i want to know."
a nurse appeared in the doorway to say the scan room was ready, and sonia felt your hand tighten around hers, real fear flickering across your face for the first time since she'd walked in not fear of the pain, she realized, but fear of what the machine might tell you both.
"will you come?" you asked quiet young-sounding, in a way the national team crest on your discarded jersey didn't match at all.
"i'm not going anywhere," sonia said, and meant it the way she'd never quite meant anything before not as a nice thing to say in a hospital room, but as a fact about the rest of her life. "not tonight. not after tonight, either."
you nodded, and let them wheel you toward the door, and sonia walked beside the stretcher with your hand still locked in hers, thinking about every uncalled foul she'd watched from too far away for too long, and promising herself she'd never watch from that far away again.
you woke up at 3am the way people wake up in hospitals suddenly, disoriented, chasing a feeling more than a thought.
"hey. hey, i'm here." sonia's voice came immediately, low and rough with sleep, her hand already finding yours before you'd even fully surfaced; she'd meant it about the chair she'd actually slept in it, neck bent at an angle that was going to cost her tomorrow, and she didn't care. "what time is it," you mumbled.
"early. go back to sleep."
"can't." you shifted, wincing at the brace, and sonia was up and adjusting your pillow before you finished the sentence. "keep thinking about the surgery."
"tell me."
"it's stupid."
"it's not stupid if it's keeping you up." sonia settled back down, still holding your hand, patient in the particular way she'd apparently decided to be patient about everything now.
"i keep picturing being asleep for it," you admitted, quiet in the dark. "like — i won't know what's happening to my own leg. i'll just wake up and it'll already be different."
sonia was quiet for a second, turning that over. "i didn't think about it like that. that's not stupid at all."
"everyone keeps telling me it's routine."
"it's routine for them. it's not routine for you. those are different things." she brought your hand up, pressed a kiss to your knuckles. "you're allowed to be scared of a routine thing."
you exhaled, something in your shoulders loosening slightly. "okay. yeah. okay."
"you don't have to have it figured out by morning."
"i know." a pause. "stay like this?"
"i'm not moving." you drifted off again somewhere in the next twenty minutes, your grip on her hand slack but unbroken, and sonia stayed exactly where she was, wide awake, watching the slow gray light start to come up outside the window.
morning arrived with a nurse, a breakfast tray you weren't allowed to touch since you were nil by mouth for the surgery, and, twenty minutes later, an extremely loud group of women crowding the doorway with a bouquet so large it barely fit through it.
"we brought flowers," paige announced, "and also snacks for sonia, because someone had to think of her clearly, since she looks like she slept in a chair."
"i did sleep in a chair."
"we know. it shows." kiki dropped into the other visitor's seat, already reaching for your uninjured hand. "how are you feeling?"
"nil by mouth and extremely sick of this room," you said, and it came out with enough of your usual dry humor that the whole group visibly relaxed. "that's the spirit," someone said from the doorway.
"don't encourage her sarcasm, it's how she copes," sonia said, but she was smiling now, the first real smile since yesterday, and you caught her eye over the chaos of teammates rearranging flowers and stealing the extra breakfast off your tray.
"you didn't have to stay," you said to her quietly, under the noise. "i wanted to."
"i know. i'm still saying it." you squeezed her hand. "thank you."
the room stayed loud and warm for another twenty minutes, someone telling an aggressively unnecessary story about a locker room prank, someone else needing to be shushed for volume until a nurse leaned in to say it was almost time, that they'd need to clear the room soon to prep you.
the noise dropped out fast after that. "okay," kiki said, standing, squeezing your foot gently through the blanket since your hand was occupied. "we'll be right outside. the whole time."
"the whole time," paige echoed, and there was something steadying about the certainty of it, the way none of them made it sound like a question.
they filed out one by one, each with a hand on your shoulder or a quick kiss to your forehead, until it was just sonia again, sitting where she'd been sitting all night. "you can go wait with them," you said. "you don't have to be the last one."
"i know." she didn't move.
a surgical nurse came in a few minutes later to start prepping the IV and go over the last details, and sonia stood, finally, but only to move closer, pressing her forehead to yours, careful of the wires and monitors, the two of you breathing the same air for a second before anything else happened. "i'm scared," you admitted again, smaller this time, the joking gone out of your voice completely.
"i know." sonia's hand found your cheek. "you're allowed to be. i'll be right there when you wake up. first thing you see."
"promise?"
"i already told you. i'm not going anywhere." she kissed your forehead, slow and certain. "not this time, not any time after this. i've got you."
the nurse said it was time, and they started wheeling the bed toward the door, and sonia walked beside it exactly like she had the night before hand in yours until the very last second the doorway would allow, saying i'll be here, i'll be right here until the door swung shut between you, and she was left standing in the hallway with your teammates, all of them quiet now, all of them waiting for the same thing.
the first thing you were aware of was a hand around yours not gripping, not urgent just present, thumb moving slowly back and forth against your knuckles in a rhythm that felt like it had been going on for a while, like it was going to keep going whether or not you woke up to notice it.
the second thing was the fog thick, cottony, pulling at the edges of everything, your own thoughts arriving a half-second slower than they should have. "hey," a voice said, close, careful. "hey, there you are."
you tried to place it before you could place anything else sonia as sonia's voice, sonia's hand, sonia's face slowly resolving above you as your eyes adjusted to a light that felt too bright and too soft at the same time. "you're okay," she said, before you could ask. "surgery's done. it went well. you're okay."
"you're here," you said, and it came out slurred, thick with anesthesia, but sonia's whole face changed at it anyway — like those were the only two words she'd been waiting to hear you say.
"i told you i would be." she brushed your hair back from your forehead, gentle, careful of the IV line taped to the back of your hand. "first thing you'd see. i meant it."
you blinked slowly, trying to gather your thoughts into something coherent, your leg a distant heavy weight at the end of the bed that didn't fully register as pain yet, just as different, wrapped and elevated and no longer entirely yours.
"how long," you managed.
"surgery took about two hours. you've been in recovery for a bit since. your surgeon said it went about as well as it could've — the ligament repair looked clean, and they didn't find anything worse than what the scan already showed."
"that's good," you said, and meant it, even through the fog, even though good felt like a strange word to attach to any of this.
"that's very good," sonia agreed. "everyone's still out in the hallway. kiki's been pacing so hard i think she wore a groove in the floor but i told them i'd come get them once you were properly awake i wanted a minute first. is that okay?"
"yeah." your hand tightened weakly around hers. "stay a minute."
"i'm not planning on doing anything else."you drifted for a while after that, not quite asleep, not quite present, the anesthesia pulling you in and out in slow waves every time you surfaced, sonia was still there sometimes on her phone quietly, sometimes just watching you, but always with her hand exactly where you'd last felt it.
"can i tell you something," you said, at some point, your voice a little clearer than before.
"always."
"i was so scared yesterday. watching the whole thing happen. the game, the fouls, all of it and then this." you gestured weakly at the room, the brace, the machines. "and the only part that didn't scare me was you being there. i don't know how you did that. made the scariest day of my season feel like something i could actually get through."
sonia's eyes went a little glassy at that, and she pressed her lips to the back of your hand, holding them there a beat longer than necessary. "you did the getting through. i just didn't want you doing it alone."
"you didn't have to come to the friendly at all," you said. "you could've just watched clips. stayed safe on the outside of it."
"i don't want the outside of it," sonia said, echoing herself from the day before, steady and certain even through your medicated haze. "i told you that already. i meant every part of it. the good days and this one."
you managed something like a smile, small and tired but real. "even the boring recovery weeks? the cranky ones?"
"especially those." sonia smiled back, soft. "i'll be there for the physio appointments you complain about the whole car ride to. i'll be there when you're not allowed to run yet and you're driving everyone insane about it. i already told you — the whole thing, not just the highlight reel."
"i love you," you said, muzzy and unguarded in a way the anesthesia made easier, but no less true for it.
"i love you too," sonia said immediately, no hesitation at all, like she'd simply been waiting for the right quiet moment to say it back. "so much. go back to sleep if you need to. i've got you. i'm not going anywhere, not the hallway, not the recovery, not any of it."
you let your eyes fall shut again, her hand still wrapped around yours, the fog pulling you gently back under and the last thing you were aware of, before sleep took you fully, was the soft, steady press of her thumb against your knuckles, patient as a promise, exactly where it had been the whole time.
okay.. y’all can jump me but would you follow if i made a crackship account with ppl like:
Rae and VB
Kate and Madison Bailey
Aniya and Melanie from love island
Paige and Jen from love island
kate martin and aniya from love island
azzi and kate
nika and georgia
nika and kate
juju and jazzy
lauren and gabriela
pairing: minnesota lynx!phee!dating!engaged!injuryed x minnesota lynx!reader!dating!engaged!step-momma
wc: 2.3k
request: y/n
anon asked: Y/n is playing in the WNBA Finals while Napheesa is out because of her injury And Mila are watching Y/n play. until Y/n runs to the locker room because her nose was bleeding and Mila is looking back while the camera’s are recording her for only a second then back at Napheesa who’s talking with the headset. Then Y/n comes back with a New Jersey. Then Y/n blocks Sophie’s shot while Sophie is complaining it should be a foul. While Cheryl asks Y/n if she’s okay. And Y/n nods While Sophie is wanting a challenge. After the Dub Y/n and the rest of the team and the coaches go out for dinner. And Mila is Sitting on Y/n’s lap while eating her food and asking if she’s okay. and Naphessa is smiling. ( IDK IF THIS SHOULD BE LAUREN OR PHEE OR BOTH IDK)
summary: she wasn't supposed to be there tonight, and neither was the ring but some things don't wait for you to be ready for them.
🏷️:
napheesa isn't supposed to be on the bench tonight she's supposed to be at home with her knee elevated, texting you play-by-play commentary like she doesn't already have league pass open on her laptop instead she's courtside in a blazer she definitely stole from someone's closet, headset curled around one ear, mila tucked into the seat beside her with a foam finger bigger than her whole arm.
you don't see either of them until the third quarter, when you catch an elbow you didn't call for and your nose goes hot and wet all at once the ref blows the whistle you're already moving toward the tunnel before the athletic trainer reaches you, head tipped back, one hand cupped under your chin like that's ever stopped a nosebleed in the history of nosebleeds.
in the two seconds before you disappear down the hallway, you catch mila's face on the jumbotron small and worried, craning to see past the row in front of her and then, right after, the broadcast cuts to napheesa.
headset pressed to her ear already talking to someone already working the sideline like she's still in uniform you come back with a fresh jersey and cotton stuffed up one nostril, which is not the swagger you'd choose given the option.
the shot clock is still your as sophie cummingham comes off a screen thinking she's got a clean look, and you rise with her get all ball, nothing but net netting and forearm and she hits the floor already yelling about the foul that wasn't the whistle stays in the ref's pocket.
"that's a foul," sophie says, to no one, to everyone, to the ceiling.
holly rowe leans in courtside with her mic already up. "you good?" she asks you, nodding at your face you nod back once. don't waste your breath.
cummingham is still barking for a challenge as you jog back on defense, and you can hear, faintly, over the crowd noise, that somewhere in the stands a small voice is asking if your nose stopped bleeding, and somewhere beside that small voice, napheesa is laughing into her headset instead of answering the question she's supposed to be covering.
the locker room empties out slow after the win, showers, ice baths, somebody's speaker playing something you don't recognize but everyone else is singing along to by the time you make it to the restaurant the team picked, half the table's already eating, and napheesa has saved you the seat next to her like she always does, except tonight there's a three year-old already sitting in it.
in your lap, specifically, the second you sit down. no negotiation. "you're squishing the fries," you tell mila, who is not listening, who is stealing one directly off your plate.
"are you okay," she asks around the fry, twisting to actually look at your face this time not the jumbotron version, not the eight-seconds-later broadcast cut. the real one. "i'm okay."
"your nose was bleeding a lot."
"i know. it stopped."
she nods, satisfied, and goes back to your fries like the verdict's been reached and the case is closed napheesa watches the whole exchange over the rim of her glass, not even pretending not to smile, and when you catch her eye she just shrugs, unbothered, like she didn't spend the entire third quarter half-doing her job because she couldn't stop looking for you in that tunnel.
"you good?" she asks anyway same words sophie’s voice in your head keeps replaying, same words dana asked on air, except napheesa’s version comes low enough it's just for you, hand landing warm on your knee under the table.
"i'm good," you say, and mean it nose fine, block clean, ring finger itching for a ring you don't have yet, kid in your lap who already calls you by a nickname the team hasn't cleared for public use.
napheesa’s smile doesn't move. "good," she says, and steals a fry too.
dinner winds down the way team dinners always do someone starts a tab argument nobody wins, the rookies get loud about a play that's already been replayed six times on three different phones, and mila falls asleep sideways against your arm somewhere between her second dessert and her third retelling of the block to anyone who'll listen.
"she thinks you did that on purpose," napheesa says, low, watching her kid's mouth fall open mid-sentence. "for her."
"i did do it for her."
"you didn't even see her in the crowd until after."
"doesn't matter." you shift mila's weight so her head isn't at the angle that'll have her complaining about her neck tomorrow. "still counts."
napheesa doesn't argue that she just watches you do it, the small, unthinking adjustment, the way you check mila's still breathing easily before you go back to your food and there's something in her face that isn't about the game at all anymore.
you carry mila out to the car when the check finally comes, her cleats-shaped rain boots dangling off one hand of yours, her whole weight gone soft and unresisting the way kids get when they're truly out.
napheesa buckles her into the booster seat with the practiced quiet of someone who's done it a thousand times without waking her once, and then she doesn't get in the front seat right away.
she just stands there in the parking lot a second, keys in hand, looking at you over the roof of the car. "what," you say.
"nothing." she's smiling that same smile from the restaurant, the one that hasn't fully left since the fourth quarter. "you had a good game."
"you had a good broadcast. real professional. laughing on headset during live tv."
"they cut my mic before that part."
"i could still see you."
"you were bleeding out of your face at the time, i don't think you could see much of anything."
"i could see you," you say again, quieter, and that's the part that actually lands her smile flickering into something less performed, something she doesn't hand out on camera or on the bench or to anyone who isn't you.
the apartment's dark when you get in, mila is carried up half-asleep and deposited straight into bed still in her jersey, because nobody's winning
that battle tonight and napheesa knows better than to try you hear her in there for a minute, voice pitched down to nothing, the particular hum she does when she's tucking mila in not quite a song, not quite words, just a sound that means you're safe, go back to sleep.
by the time she comes out you've already got the ice pack from the freezer pressed to the bridge of your nose, sitting on the counter like you always do when you're too wired from a game to actually sit on furniture like a person.
"let me see." napheesa tips your chin with two fingers, the same gesture from courtside except slower now, no audience, no game clock. "not broken."
"i told you it wasn't broken."
"you tell me a lot of things that turn out to be broken."
"name one time."
"your ankle. two years ago. you called it 'a little stiff.'"
"it was a little stiff."
"it was fractured in two places." she takes the ice pack from you and holds it herself, closer than you were holding it, cold knuckles brushing your jaw. "you're a bad historian of your own injuries."
"good thing i've got you narrating for me now."
"mm." she doesn't answer that directly but instead; "mila asked me tonight if you were gonna be at her thing on saturday. the school thing. i told her obviously."
"obviously."
"she also asked if you were gonna live with us or just sort of — be around. her words."
you go still under the ice pack. "what'd you tell her?"
"i told her i was working on it." napheesa’s voice stays even, but her eyes don't, not quite there's something underneath it, something she's been circling all night, all game, maybe longer than that. "figured i should ask you first. before i go making promises to a three-year-old on your behalf."
"phee."
"i'm not doing the whole thing right now," she says, before you can finish whatever you were about to say. "you've got cotton in your nose and i've got a kid who fought sleep like it personally wronged her. this isn't the moment. i just — wanted you to know it's coming. the ring. the whole conversation. it's coming."
you set the ice pack down take her free hand instead, cold from holding it, and don't let go. "good," you say. "i'm not going anywhere."
"i know." she leans her forehead against yours, careful of your nose, careful in the way she's careful about everything that matters to her. "that's why i figured i'd tell you now instead of later."
saturday's thing turns out to be a prekindergarten-grade art show, forty tiny easels crammed into a gym that smells like floor wax and construction paper, and mila's painting something involving a lot of orange and a shape that might be a basketball hoop or might be a very ambitious sun gets its own easel by the door like she's the headliner.
"it's clearly a hoop," you tell her, crouching down to her eye level.
"it's the sun," mila says, deeply unimpressed with your art criticism. "the hoop's the other one."
you look there is, in fact, another painting three easels down, considerably less orange, considerably more hoop-shaped. you'd gotten it backwards. "my mistake," you say, and she pats your arm like you're a project she's patient with.
napheesa watches this whole exchange from a few feet back, arms crossed, that same smile from the restaurant parking lot still living somewhere on her face like it's taken up permanent residence there.
she's got her knee brace on under her jeans still not cleared, still under strict instructions to sit more than she stands but she's on her feet anyway, because mila asked her to be, and there's no version of napheesa that says no to that.
after the art show empties out, after mila's been fed and bathed and finally, finally goes down without three separate rounds of negotiating, naphessa finds you on the balcony.
it's just past dark, the kind of warm that still smells like summer, and you've got a mug of something you're not really drinking, just holding. "hey," she says. "hey yourself."
she doesn't sit down next to you right away, she just stands there a second, the way she did in the parking lot after the finals, like she's working up to something she already decided on a while ago. "i told you it was coming," she says.
"you did."
"i wasn't gonna do it somewhere with cameras. figured you've had enough of those pointed at your face this week." she pulls something out of her back pocket small, unshowy, no fanfare, exactly the way you'd have picked if anyone had asked you what you wanted, except nobody asked, because she already knew.
"and i wasn't gonna do it in front of mila either. figured this part's just for us. she can find out in the morning like everybody else."
"phee—"
"i've had this since before the finals," she says, quieter now, all the performance gone out of her voice, none of the courtside ease, just her. "been carrying it around in my bag through every single game. through you catching an elbow and bleeding all over your jersey and me sitting there useless with a headset on unable to do a single thing about it except talk to a camera crew like that mattered more than you did."
"it's your job—"
"i know. i'm just telling you what it felt like." she opens the box. it's simple, the way she is when the cameras aren't rolling — no crowd, no whistle, no shot clock, just her hand a little unsteady around something she's clearly practiced saying and still can't quite get out smooth.
"i've been picking you first for longer than i've been coaching from a headset. figured it's time i made it official. you, me, mila — the whole thing. no more 'be around.' i want you all the way in." you set the mug down before you can spill it.
"yes," you say, before she's even technically asked the question, because you've known the answer since the parking lot, since the ice pack, since the first time mila called you by the nickname the team never cleared for public use and phee just let it happen instead of correcting her.
napheesa laughs real, surprised, like she'd braced for a longer pause than she got and slides the ring on before you can finish saying it a second time. "you didn't even let me finish the question."
"didn't need to hear the rest of it."
"i had a whole thing planned."
"tell me the whole thing tomorrow. right now i just want to sit here." you pull her down next to you, careful of the knee brace, careful in all the ways she's careful with you. "champagne's for the ring ceremony. we already had ours."
"different ring."
"same year." you hold your hand up, catching what little balcony light there is. "i'm allowed to celebrate two things at once." she doesn't argue that she just laces her fingers through yours, ring catching against ring, and doesn't let go for the rest of the night.
Why do all the WNBA authors barely write for the older women like get it I love Paige and Caitlin too but like I want to see more of Theresa Plaisance, Sydney Colson, and Diana Taurasi!!
pairing: uconn!dallas wings!paige!exs!lovers x uconn!dallas wings!reader!exs!lovers
wc: 3.8k
request: y/n
anon asked: I was thinking for the first one that Y/n was crashing out because the referees called her for an offensive foul but she’s the one who got screened
summary: the whistle blows and you're already gone and the only person who can pull you back is the one person you're not supposed to still know that well.
the whistle cuts through the arena before you've even landed an offensive foul on your number you whip around so fast your ponytail catches you in the face, and you're already talking before you've decided to—she screened me, are you kidding me, she was standing right there—and the ref doesn't even look at you, just points down the court like your entire body of evidence is beneath a response.
indiana's bench is already up, clapping, someone yelling something you can't hear over the blood in your ears your own bench is quiet in the specific way it goes quiet when they think you might actually get tossed you don't remember deciding to walk toward the ref.
you just know you're moving, and coach fernandez is already off the bench, and there's a hand closing around your bicep from behind, not rough, not grabbing, just there, solid, familiar in a way your body recognizes half a second before your brain does. "hey." paige's voice, low, pitched just for you. "hey — look at me, not him."
you don't want to look at her looking at her has never once made anything easier. "that was a clean screen, paige, she was standing —"
"i know." she's already walking you backward, toward the bench, her hand sliding down to your wrist like she's done it a thousand times, because she has. "i know it was a bad call. you're not wrong. but you're about to be out if you don't sit down in the next ten seconds, so sit down."
the way she says it is not soft, not coddling, just certain is the only reason you let her steer you onto the bench instead of the girl who fouled you somewhere in the part of your brain that isn't currently on fire, you register that everyone is watching this.
watching her handle you like it's nothing like it's normal like she isn't the one person on this team who used to know exactly what your hands were doing under a blanket at two in the morning in a dorm room three states from here. "breathe," she says, crouching in front of you so her back is to the court, blocking you from the cameras panning the bench. "in for four."
"i don't need —"
"in for four." her eyes don't move off yours. "you're not doing the ref any favors by getting a tech. you're doing it for you."
you breathe it's humiliating how easily your body still listens to her it wasn't supposed to be like this none of it was storrs, sophomore year, a supply closet that smelled like dry-erase markers, her hand fisted in the front of your jersey like she couldn't decide whether to shove you away or pull you closer.
it had gone on for two years like that quiet, contained, folded into the corners of a life that had no room in it for anything that might get out.
people will make it about the team, she'd said, the night she ended it, the two of you sitting in her car in a parking lot because it was the only place that felt private enough. they'll say we're playing favorites with each other. they'll say it's why i get more touches. i can't have that follow me into the league.
you remember not crying you remember being proud of that, in the sick way you're proud of things that cost you something you remember saying okay like it was a normal word and not the worst one you'd ever had to use.
you didn't know then that you'd both end up drafted to the same team you don't know, even now, whether that was luck or something crueler. "you good?" her voice again, present tense, snapping you back into the arena, the scoreboard, the fourth quarter about to start without you in it.
"i'm good."
"you're not, but you will be in about ninety seconds, so." she stands, offers you a hand up like it's nothing, like her palm against yours isn't a small, private earthquake every single time. "coach wants you back in with four on the clock. can you give her four clean minutes?"
"yeah."
"say it like you believe it."
you almost laugh it startles you that she can still do that, pull something unclenched out of you in the middle of the worst quarter of your season. "yeah, paige. four clean minutes."
"good." she squeezes your hand once, quick, before she lets go quick enough that no one watching would call it anything quick enough that only you would know it happened at all. "go be a problem for indiana instead of the refs."
you give her four clean minutes you give her a game-tying three with forty seconds left, actually, and when you look to the bench on the way back down the court she's already looking at you, not celebrating, just watching, the way she used to watch you across a dorm room like she was memorizing something she knew she wasn't allowed to keep.
dallas wins by six in the tunnel after, your teammates peel off toward the locker room in loud, happy clumps, and you hang back to retie a shoe that doesn't need retying, and paige hangs back too, because some habits don't unlearn themselves just because you told each other they had to.
"you good?" she asks again, quieter this time, no bench, no cameras, no team five feet away pretending not to listen. "i don't know how you do that." you're not looking at her. you're looking at your shoe. "talk me down like it's nothing. like you're not —"
"like i'm not what."
like you're not the reason i needed talking down from in the first place tonight, you don't say. like some part of me was crashing out about a foul call and a bigger part of me was crashing out about four years ago and you can't tell the difference from the outside, but i can't stop knowing it.
"nothing," you say instead. "forget it." she's quiet for a second too long. "i don't forget it," she says finally, and it's not clear if she means the game, or the question, or something further back than either of those. "i just got good at not saying so."
you don't have an answer for that you're not sure there is one that doesn't reopen something you both agreed, once, in a parked car, to keep closed.
"good game, paige," you say, because it's easier than the truth, and you leave her standing in the tunnel light with her hands in her pockets and an expression you used to be the only person allowed to read.
she doesn't stop you, you don't know, walking away, if that's relief or the thing that's going to keep you up tonight maybe it's both it usually is with her.
it's eleven seconds of footage and it's everywhere by the time you wake up you, on the bench, reese crouched in front of you blocking the cameras her hand on your wrist the way you're looking at her not at the ref, not at the court, just at her, like she's the only stable thing in a building full of noise.
someone's slowed it down and put a sad piano song under it and the caption says the way she talks her down every single time 🥹and it has four hundred thousand notes by the time your coffee's cold.
you don't watch it paige texts you a screenshot at 8am with no caption at all, which somehow says more than words would have the reporter asks about it before shootaround, phone already out, already recording.
"there's a clip going around from last night — you and paige bueckers on the bench. people are calling it one of the best teammate moments of the season. can you talk about that chemistry?"
chemistry like it's a stat like it's something that started this year.
"paige is good at keeping people even-keeled," you say, and it's true, and it costs you nothing to say, and it still feels like handing someone a photograph with half of it torn off. "she's been doing that for me since college, honestly. she just — knows how to get through to me."
you didn't mean to say since college it slips out easily, unremarkable, the kind of true thing that's dangerous specifically because it sounds so ordinary the reporter doesn't clock it why would she you and paige went to the same school; it's public record, it's nothing, it's two lines in both your wikipedia pages. only you know what's folded up inside those four words.
zaza finds you at your locker after, arms crossed, the specific look on her face that means she was your teammate in college too and she remembers more than she's ever said out loud. "since college, huh."
"we were teammates. it's not a secret."
"i didn't say it was a secret." zaza's voice stays light, easy, but her eyes don't. "i said since college, huh — because i was there, and i remember exactly how much keeping you even-keeled reese used to do for you at two a.m. in dorms she wasn't assigned to."
your stomach drops the way it does every time someone gets close to the thing without saying the thing. "zaza —"
"i'm not saying anything." she holds her hands up. "i'm just saying that clip is doing four hundred thousand notes of a story you two clearly haven't finished telling yourselves, let alone anyone else."
she leaves before you can answer, which is its own kind of mercy, because you don't have one as paige finds you in the hallway outside the locker room, hood up, eyes tired in the specific way that means she's seen the clip more than once. "you told a reporter since college."
"i didn't think —"
"i know you didn't think. that's not what i'm —" she stops, drags a hand down her face. "it's fine. it's true. it's not even the part that matters."
"then what's the part that matters?" she looks at you for a long moment, long enough that you feel it in your chest, that old specific ache of being looked at by someone who used to be allowed to look at you for as long as she wanted.
"the part that matters," she says finally, "is that four hundred thousand people watched eleven seconds of us and called it the best thing they saw all night, and neither of us can say why it looked like that. and i don't think either of us has figured out yet whether that's a coincidence or not."
you don't have an answer you're not sure there is one that doesn't require opening a door you both spent four years agreeing to keep shut. "i have to get to shootaround," you say, which isn't an answer either, just an exit.
"yeah." she steps back, lets you have it. "me too." neither of you moves for a second longer than the exchange requires then you both do, in opposite directions, and the clip keeps climbing notes behind you, telling a story neither of you has agreed to finish.
you beat the toronto tempo two nights later a real win, a statement win, the kind that snaps a three-game skid against them and has the whole locker room loud in a way that has nothing to do with clips or reporters and someone's parents have rented out the top floor of a bar downtown, and by eleven o'clock zaza is doing a truly unhinged rendition of a song from a movie no one under thirty has seen, and paige is sitting next to you on a bar stool with two drinks in her and her shoulder warm against yours. "can i tell you something," she says, the words a little soft at the edges.
"you can always tell me something."
"i think about the closet a lot." she says it into her glass, not looking at you. "the one at storrs. i know that's insane. i know it's been years. i just — i think about it a lot." your heart does something complicated and fast. "paige —"
"i think i made the wrong call," she says, still not looking at you, "back then. i think i picked something that felt safe and it wasn't even — it wasn't even that safe, it just felt like something i could control, and i traded you for it, and i've been regretting it for so long i stopped calling it regret and just started calling it normal."
you should say something you don't, for a second too long, and she seems to hear the silence for what it almost is, because she laughs, short and a little broken. "you don't have to say anything back. i'm just drunk enough to finally say it out loud." and that drunk enough is the exact thing that lets you off the hook, and you take it, because it's easier than the alternative.
"you're drunk," you say, gently, like you're handing her an excuse she can use tomorrow. "we don't have to talk about this right now."
something in her face closes, just slightly, just enough that you notice. "yeah," she says. "you're right. i'm drunk." she doesn't bring it up again that night you tell yourself that's a mercy you don't sleep much either way.
she finds you two days later, at your locker after practice, everyone else already gone, and she's not drunk this time, and her voice doesn't have soft edges anymore it's steady; it's the voice she uses on the bench when she needs you to actually hear her. "i need to say something and i need you to let me finish before you tell me i'm just something."
your stomach flips. "paige —"
"let me finish." she takes a breath. "i said something at the bar the other night and you let me off the hook for it, and i let you, because it was easier that night. but i wasn't drunk enough to make it up. i was drunk enough to finally say it. those aren't the same thing."
you don't move. "i picked my image over you," she says, "when we were twenty, and i've spent every year since then telling myself it was the smart choice, the responsible one, and maybe it was, for my career, i don't know. but it wasn't smart for me. and it's been four years of watching you across locker rooms and benches and tunnels, knowing exactly how you take your coffee and which shoulder you sleep on and what your face does right before you cry, and telling myself none of that means anything anymore because i'm the one who ended it."
"paige —"
"i'm not done." her voice shakes, just barely, just enough that you know it's costing her something to keep going. "i'm not asking you to forgive four years in one conversation. i'm not even asking you to want this back. i just needed you to know it wasn't the alcohol talking at the bar. the alcohol just made me brave enough to say out loud what's been true the entire time. i love you. i don't think i ever stopped. i just got very good at pretending i had."
the locker room is quiet enough that you can hear the hum of the vending machine down the hall. you can hear your own heartbeat, honestly, loud and stupid and four years overdue. "you can't just —" your voice cracks and you hate that it does. "you can't say that like it undoes what it cost me. you left me in a parking lot, res. you made a decision about both of us and only told me after it was already made."
"i know." she doesn't flinch from it. "i'm not asking you to pretend that didn't happen. i'm asking you to know that i've spent four years wishing i'd chosen differently, and i finally have enough nerve to say so, sober, in a locker room, with nothing to blame it on."
you look at her really look, the way you haven't let yourself in years, not the bench-crouch, careful, professional look, but the full weight of it and something in your chest that's been clenched since a car in a parking lot four years ago loosens, just slightly, just enough to feel dangerous. "i'm not saying yes to anything tonight," you say, finally, quietly.
"i'm not asking you to."
"but i'm not saying no, either." you exhale, and it shakes on the way out. "ask me again. properly. when it's not eleven at night and neither of us has just showered off a practice." something in her face breaks open, relief and disbelief tangled together. "yeah?"
"yeah, paige." you almost laugh, and it almost turns into something else. "ask me again."
"okay." she nods, like she's filing it away somewhere she won't lose it this time. "okay. i will." and then, like she can't quite help herself, like four years of holding back finally runs out of road she closes the distance and kisses you. soft, careful, asking permission even as she does it, one hand coming up to rest against your jaw like she's afraid you'll disappear if she doesn't.
you let her for a second, just one, you let yourself have this before you pull back. "that wasn't asking properly," you murmur, breathless, forehead still close to hers. "no." her thumb brushes your cheek, reluctant to let go. "that one was just for me. the real ask is still coming."
"good." you exhale, and it shakes on the way out, but it isn't just nerves this time. "make it count."
"i will." she presses one more kiss to your temple, brief, promise-shaped, before she finally steps back — and for the first time in four years, the space between you doesn't feel like distance it feels like something you're finally, both of you, walking toward.
she asks properly three days later not at a bar, not in a locker room with the vending machine humming down the hall she asks at your apartment, showered and sober and visibly more nervous than you've ever seen her on a court, holding a bag of takeout from the place you used to order from in storrs like she remembered on purpose.
"i said i'd ask you properly," she says, standing in your doorway, "so. can i come in, and can i ask you properly, and can you please not make this harder than it already is for me, because i've rehearsed this in my car for twenty minutes."
you step back and let her in. "you rehearsed it?"
"extensively." she sets the bag down on your counter like it's fragile. "okay. here it is." she takes a breath, and for a second she looks exactly like she did in a parking lot four years ago except this time she's not the one leaving. "i don't want to hide this anymore. any of it. not because i'm not scared of what people will say, because i am, i think i'll always be a little bit scared of that. but i'd rather be scared and honest than safe and lying to both of us again. i want to date you. actually date you. tell people, if you want to. not tell people, if you don't. i just don't want it to be a secret anymore just because that's easier for me." your chest does something complicated and warm. "that's a good ask."
"i practiced it twenty times."
"i believe you." you cross the space between you, slow, deliberate, the way she was with you in the tunnel that first night. "yes, res. i'll date you. properly. loudly, if you want. quietly, if that's what you need. i just want it to be real, however we do it."
relief breaks over her face like something physical, and this time when she kisses you there's no hesitation in it, no asking permission first just four years of waiting finally allowed to land somewhere. "for the record," she murmurs against your mouth, "i would've said all that even without the rehearsed speech."
"i know." you're smiling too hard to hide it. "but i'm glad you rehearsed it anyway."
"twenty times," she says again, like she can't quite believe she's here, saying it, meaning it, with nothing left to blame it on. "i wanted to get it right."
"you did." you pull her back in before she can say anything else. "you got it right."
the takeout goes cold on the counter for a while neither of you mind later, sitting cross-legged on your couch with cartons balanced between you, she tells you the rest of it the parts she didn't have room for in the doorway.
how she almost said something after your first game together this season, and lost her nerve how zaza cornered her in the weight room two days ago and said, flatly, if you don't tell her, i will, and i'll embarrass you both doing it — which paige swears is the real reason she finally worked up the courage.
"i owe zaza," you say.
"zaza's insufferable and i owe her everything." as paige steals a piece of your food without asking, the way she used to. "she's going to be unbearable about this, you know. she's going to act like she orchestrated the whole thing."
"she kind of did."
"don't tell her that." you laugh, and it feels easy in a way it hasn't in years not careful, not folded into a locker room or a parked car, just yours, out loud, in your own apartment with no one to hide it from. "so what happens now," you ask, "with the team. the reporters. all of it."
"whatever we want to happen." paige shrugs, but her eyes stay steady on you. "we don't owe anyone an announcement. we also don't owe anyone a secret. if someone asks, i'm not going to lie about it anymore. i'm just done doing that part."
"okay." you set your carton down, lean into her shoulder, feel her arm come around you like it's always belonged there. "no more secrets, then."
"no more secrets." she presses a kiss into your hair. "just us. finally just—us."
outside, dallas is still buzzing about the win over toronto, and somewhere a clip of the two of you is probably still circulating, still collecting captions from strangers who don't know the half of it.
but in here, on this couch, with cold takeout and four years of unfinished sentences finally put down, none of that matters you got here that's the only part that counts now.
pairing: kate!exs!strangers!hookup x veronica!exs!strangers x madison!strangers!hookup
wc: 3.3k
request: y/n
anon asked: VB breaks up with Kate when she moves to LA and Kate is heartbroken. A few months later, Kate is still down so Cam and Rae decide to cheer Kate up and take her to a bar and they find Madison Bailey at the bar. They all hang out for the rest of the night and Kate gets a little tipsy and gets liquid courage and asks Madison to dance with her. They end up kissing and spend the night together. Then take it from here
summary: she didn't ask for any of it not the trade, not the ending, not the stranger at the bar who looked at her like she was worth staying for but some things you don't have to ask for.some things just find you when you're finally ready to be found.
the trade comes through on a tuesday by thursday i'm standing in an empty apartment in el segundo with three boxes and a mattress on the floor, and by the following week, veronica’s gone not gone-gone just gone from this, from us, in the quiet, deliberate way she does everything.
it isn't dramatic that's the worst part she doesn't scream or cry or throw anything she just sits across from me at a table in a restaurant that's too nice for the conversation we're about to have, and she says the city's different now, the timing's different now, she doesn't think either of us were built for long distance, not really, not with everything else going on.
i want to remind her that six months ago she said the opposite that she said she'd do anything to keep this i don't say it i just nod, and pay for a dinner i don't finish, and go home to boxes i haven't unpacked yet that was four months ago.
i tell people i'm fine. i tell my new teammates i'm fine i tell cam and rae the two who've adopted me fastest, who drag me out for team dinners and make sure i'm not eating cereal for dinner alone in that apartment that i'm fine.
i am not fine i am, by rae's precise clinical assessment, "surviving on vibes and spite," which is generous so tonight, they don't ask. "we're going out," cam says, already holding my jacket out like she anticipated the protest. "not a discussion."
"i have a lift at eight tomorrow—"
"you have a lift at eight tomorrow regardless of what you do tonight, so you might as well enjoy the in-between," rae says, unbothered, already scrolling for a bar i go mostly because arguing with the two of them together has never once worked in my favor.
the bar they pick is dim in the right way — low gold light, the kind of hum that makes conversation easy without shouting i get two drinks in before i actually loosen, shoulders coming down from somewhere near my ears, laughing at something rae says about a rookie mixing up two coaches' names in shootaround that's when cam elbows me subtle as a truck.
"okay don't be weird about it," she says, "but table by the window."
i look i shouldn't have looked, because now i can't stop she's stunning in that inevitable, slightly unfair way dark hair loose around her shoulders, a black slip dress, the kind of face i've definitely seen before, on a poster, a screen, somewhere, i can't place it and i don't try very hard because she catches me looking and doesn't glance away first.
"i think that's the actress from that show," rae mutters. "the one everyone was talking about last year."
"the action one?"
"the action one."
i don't say anything i take a drink instead she comes over about twenty minutes later — actually walks over, drink in hand, easy smile already in place like she does this often, like strangers are just friends she hasn't been properly introduced to yet. "i'm told you're the reason golden state's offense looked confused all season," she says, sliding into the empty seat at our table without waiting for permission.
"i'm told you're the reason half of my group chat lost their minds last spring," i say back, and something about the surprise on her face like she didn't expect me to have an answer makes cam laugh into her glass. "madison," she says.
i tell her my name she says it back once, testing it, like she's deciding whether she likes the shape of it in her mouth i don't know how the night goes the way it goes after that, only that it does she stays.
cam and rae fold her into the conversation easily, and she folds into it like she was always meant to be there, laughing at rae's stories, asking sharp, curious questions about the trade, about the city, about me specifically in ways that feel less like small talk and more like she's paying attention.
i have another drink and another by the time the bar starts to empty out, cam and rae have migrated to the other end of the table, deep in their own conversation, leaving me and madison in the kind of proximity that feels accidental and isn't.
"dance with me," i say it comes out before i can stop it, loosened by whatever's in my glass, by four months of feeling invisible in my own life she raises an eyebrow. "there's no music."
"there's music." there is, technically, a faint from the speaker near the bar it's enough that she stands anyway and takes my hand like she's been waiting for me to ask.
there's nothing choreographed about it, just her hand at my waist, mine loose around her neck, swaying more than dancing, her laugh low against my ear when i nearly trip over my own feet. "you're not usually like this," she says, not a question but an observation. "like what?"
"forward."
"liquid courage," i admit, and she laughs again, closer this time, and i feel it more than hear it. "i don't mind it," she says.
i kiss her first i'll think about that later that i'm the one who closes the distance, hand sliding to the back of her neck, her breath catching soft against my mouth before she kisses me back like she's been waiting all night for me to be brave enough when i pull back, she's watching me with something unreadable. "my place," she says. "if you want."
i should think about veronica i should think about the fact that i'm still not fully unpacked, that my heart's been sitting in a box somewhere in el segundo for four months but standing here, with madison’s hand still warm at my waist and her eyes steady on mine, i don't think about any of it. "yeah," i say. "i want."
her place is close, a high floor, floor-to-ceiling windows, the city glittering low and endless beneath us i barely register any of it, though, because the second the door shuts behind us, she's got a hand fisted gently in the front of my shirt, pulling me back to her. "tell me if you want to stop," she says, low, serious under the teasing. "any point."
"i won't."
"tell me anyway." i nod, and that's enough for her she kisses me again, slower this time, deliberate, walking me backward until my shoulders hit the wall beside her hallway, her hands framing my jaw like she's trying to memorize the shape of my face.
what happens after that stays between the two of us and the city lights bleeding gold through her window unhurried, quiet, the kind of night that asks nothing of either of us except to be present in it after, i lie tangled in sheets that smell like her perfume, her fingers tracing idle patterns against my spine.
"so," she says, eventually, voice rough and amused. "was that just the liquid courage talking?"
i think about it — actually think about it, veronica's face fading further from my mind with every second i spend here, in this bed, with someone who somehow doesn't feel like a stranger anymore. "ask me again in the morning," i say. "when i'm sober."
she huffs a laugh against my shoulder. "i intend to."
i wake up before she does as the light in her bedroom is different in the morning softer, less gold and more grey-blue, filtering in through the blinds she never fully closed. for a second i forget where i am, then i feel the unfamiliar weight of an arm slung loose over my waist and it all comes back at once, quick and warm and a little disorienting.
madison's still asleep, hair a mess against the pillow, face soft in a way it wasn't at the bar none of the easy performance from last night, just someone sleeping as i lie there for a while, not moving, doing the math on how i feel.
i wait for the guilt the reflexive kind, the kind that's been showing up uninvited for four months every time i so much as looked at someone new it doesn't come but what comes instead is quieter something closer to relief, though i'm not ready to call it that yet.
she stirs eventually, blinking slow, and catches me already watching her. "that's a lot of thinking for this early," she says, voice rough with sleep. "i think loudly."
"noted." she pushes up onto an elbow, hair falling across her face. "so. it's morning."
"it's morning."
"i believe i was promised an answer."
i almost laugh. "you don't waste time."
"i've found that's usually the better policy." but there's no edge in it just her watching me, patient, giving me room to actually answer instead of deflect so i try.
"it wasn't just the liquid courage," i say slowly, working it out loud as i go. "i mean — it helped. i wouldn't have had the nerve otherwise. but the wanting to dance with you, the wanting to kiss you — that part was mine, sober or not." something in her expression eases, like she'd actually been bracing for a different answer.
"good," she says. "because i'd hate to be a symptom."
"you're not a symptom."
"what am i, then?" i don't have a clean answer for that one yet, and she doesn't push for one that's the thing i notice most about her, still she asks the real questions without demanding you have the whole truth ready on command.
"i don't know yet," i say honestly. "i just moved here. i got out of something four months ago that i'm still figuring out how to talk about. i don't want to make you a rebound just because the timing lines up."
madison considers that, tracing an idle line along the sheet between us. "for what it's worth, i wasn't looking for anything last night either. i just liked you. still do, actually, in the daylight, which is usually where these things fall apart."
"so what does that make this?"
"undecided," she says, and smiles like the word doesn't scare her at all. "i'm fine with undecided. are you?"
i think about veronica about the version of me that would've needed an answer immediately, needed the label locked down before she could relax into anything but four months of unpacking boxes slowly has taught me something, apparently, about not rushing the parts that don't need rushing. "yeah," i say. "i think i am."
cam texts me twice before i'm even out of madison’s building, the second one just three question marks. rae's is more direct: you didn't come home. spill or i'm assuming the worst/best case scenario.
i don't answer right away either i stand outside on the sidewalk instead, sun is already too bright for how little sleep i got, and let myself just feel the morning for a second before i have to explain it to anyone as my phone buzzes again, not cam not rae.
madison: for the record, i'd like there to be a next time. no liquid courage required.
i look up at her building once before i start walking, something loosening in my chest that's been tight since a tuesday four months ago.
me: i'd like that too.
it isn't healed it isn't fixed, veronica's absence is still going to sit in that apartment in el segundo for a while yet, in boxes i still haven't opened, in the parts of me still learning how to be somewhere new without someone who used to make it feel like home but for the first time in four months, walking down a sidewalk in a city i didn't choose, i don't feel like i'm just surviving it.
i feel like maybe i'm starting to actually live in it.
three weeks after the morning i walked out of madison's apartment feeling lighter than i had in months, cam corners me at practice with the specific look she gets when she's decided something without consulting me first. "so are you dating the actress or not," she says. "because rae and i have a bet going and i need to win it."
"there's no bet."
"there is absolutely a bet."
i don't answer, mostly because i don't have a clean one, maadison and i have seen each other four times since that night dinner twice, a walk along the strand that turned into two hours of just talking, and once she came to watch me practice and sat in the stands with a coffee like it was nothing, like it wasn't the most normal thing in the world for someone to just show up and want to see my life up close.
we haven't called it anything we also haven't needed to there's something almost restful about not rushing toward a label, after a relationship that ended so quietly i still don't fully understand how it slipped through my hands but tonight she's asked me to come over, said she wants to talk, and something about the phrasing has been sitting in my stomach all day like a stone.
her apartment smells like something she's actually cooked, which surprises me i didn't peg her as a cook; she's barefoot in the kitchen when i get there, hair pulled back, looking more like the version of her from that first morning than the one from the bar. "you cooked," i say, still in the doorway.
"i attempted," she says. "don't get your hopes up." it's good, actually simple, a little overdone in places, but good in the way things are good when someone's tried we eat at her counter, talking easy about nothing important, and it isn't until the plates are cleared that she goes quiet in a way i've learned to recognize as her gathering herself.
"i want to ask you something," she says. "and i want you to actually think about it instead of giving me the polite answer."
"okay."
"what are we doing, kate?" there it is the question i've been half-expecting and half-avoiding since the morning after.
"i don't know," i say, honest the way she's always been honest with me. "i like you. i like this — whatever this is. i just don't want to say the word before i mean it fully, and i'm scared i'm still catching up on meaning things fully after everything with veronica."
madison doesn't flinch at the name, hasn't ever, not once in three weeks. "i'm not asking you to be over her. i'm asking if you want to actually try this. those aren't the same question."
"i know."
"so which one are you avoiding?" i sit with that longer than i mean to she waits, patient the way she always is, not filling the silence just to ease her own discomfort. "i want to try," i say finally.
"i'm just bad at trusting that wanting something is enough reason to go after it. last time i wanted something enough to move my whole life for it, and it wasn't enough to keep her."
"i'm not her," madison says, quiet but certain. "and you're not asking me to move anywhere. i'm just asking you to have dinner with me on purpose sometimes, instead of by accident after a bar or a lucky text." put like that, it doesn't sound so impossible. "okay," i say.
"okay?"
"yeah. okay. let's try this. on purpose." the smile she gives me then is different from the one at the bar less easy performance, more like something she actually means.
veronica calls two days later i almost don't pick up four months of silence, and then her name lighting up my screen like nothing happened, like the last conversation we had wasn't over a dinner neither of us finished i answer anyway some part of me still needs to know what she'd even say. "hi," she says, and her voice sounds smaller than i remember it. "i wasn't sure you'd pick up."
"i wasn't sure either." a pause i can hear her breathing, the particular quiet she gets when she's choosing her words with more care than usual.
"i've been thinking about that dinner a lot," she says. "the one where i ended things. i think i said it wrong. i think i made it sound like it was about timing when really i think i just got scared. you were building something new and i didn't know how to be someone who just — came along for it, instead of building my own thing at the same time."
it's the most she's said about any of it since it happened. veronica burton, careful with everything, finally not being careful. "i wish you'd said that then," i tell her, and i mean it, though there's less anger in it than i expected there to be.
"i know. i'm sorry. i'm not calling to ask for anything, i promise — i just needed you to know it wasn't about you not being enough. it was about me not knowing how to be brave in a new city. you were braver than me."
i think about myself four months ago, standing in an empty apartment with three boxes and a mattress on the floor, certain she wasn't being brave at all, just abandoned. "i wasn't brave," i say. "i just didn't have a choice. the trade wasn't optional."
"maybe. but you didn't fall apart. i would have."
we talk a little longer — nothing that undoes the four months, nothing that reopens what's already closed, just two people finally saying the true version of things instead of the careful one. by the end of it, something in my chest that's been clenched since that tuesday finally, quietly, lets go.
"i hope la's good to you," she says, before we hang up.
"i think it's starting to be."
i tell madison about the call the next time i see her, mostly because it feels dishonest not to. "how do you feel about it?" she asks, no jealousy in it, just genuine curiosity.
"lighter," i say, surprised to find it's true. "like i can stop carrying the version of the story where it was my fault."
"good," she says. "you deserve to put that down." we're on her balcony, the city doing its low gold thing beneath us, and she reaches over to lace her fingers through mine without making it a bigger moment than it needs to be.
"for what it's worth," she says, "i'm glad you didn't fall apart either. i don't think i would've gotten a version of you brave enough to ask me to dance."
"that was mostly tequila."
"sure. but you're the one who kissed me first. i remember that part very clearly, tequila or not." i laugh, and it's easy, unguarded, nothing like the practiced laugh i gave strangers for four months while insisting i was fine. "on purpose, then," i say, echoing her from two nights ago.
"on purpose," she agrees, and kisses me like she means exactly that the trade brought me somewhere i didn't choose. veronica's absence taught me how to sit quietly as i didn't know what to do with but this — madison's hand in mine on a balcony neither of us are in a rush to leave this i'm choosing fully, slowly, on purpose for the first time since a tuesday four months ago, that feels like more than enough.
pairing: los angeles sparks!kate!friends x golden state valkyries!veronica!friends!yearning
wc: 6.1k
request: y/n
anon asked: Kate has gotten closer to Madison Bailey since she moved to LA. Kate decided to invite Madison to a game and the only time that was available was the sparks vs valks game. Madison sits courtside and cheers Kate, Cam, and Rae on because she’s the closest to them. Madison decides to wear Kate’s jersey. During a timeout the Jumbotron shows Madison Bailey and everyone starts screaming, Veronica looks up and is shocked.. After the game Veronica looks for Kate because they’re in a weird position of really liking each other but no one would ask the other out, but she finds Kate and Madison talking and hugging and wearing Kate’s jersey. Veronica is confused and upset and walks away wondering why is Madison wearing Kate’s jersey. (Take it from here)
summary: sometimes all it takes is one borrowed jersey, one unanswered text, and one moment seen from the wrong angle for everything to begin changing before either of them realizes it.
"i'm not jealous," she tells herself, which is funny because she's never had to lie to herself before the thought appears sometime between the end of practice and the drive back to the hotel, settling into the quiet of the valkyries' team bus with an insistence she can't explain.
veronica stares out the window as los angeles slips by in streaks of late-afternoon sunlight, palm trees casting long shadows across streets that never really seem to slow down traffic crawls beside them, people spill out of cafés with iced coffees in hand, and somewhere on a nearby sidewalk a group of kids is tossing a basketball between them, laughing every time it bounces a little too far she isn't sure why that thought chose today of all days.
jealous of what?
the answer never comes because there isn't one, there can't be one kate has friends she's always had friends, teammates who gravitate toward her without trying, people who somehow end up telling her their entire life story after one conversation, strangers who stop being strangers five minutes after meeting her.
she's warm in a way that can't really be taught. thoughtful without making a show of it, the kind of person who remembers the little things like your favorite coffee order, the name of your childhood dog, the song you mentioned listening to once three months ago.
veronica has never minded that if anything, it's one of the first things she noticed about kate one of the first things she,as she cuts the thought off before it can finish her phone buzzes against her thigh, pulling her back to the present.
kate :): game day.
veronica smiles before she even opens the message.
veronica: i figured.
the entire sparks account has reminded me at least twelve times already.
three little dots appear almost immediately.
kate :): only twelve? i expected more.
veronica shakes her head, laughing quietly to herself.
veronica: give them another hour.
kate :): fair.
there's a pause before another message appears.
kate :): good luck tonight.
veronica looks at it for a second longer than she probably should, good luck, simple normal, the kind of thing teammates who'd become friends sent each other before playing on opposite sides still she likes that kate always remembers.
veronica: you too. don't make me guard you all night.
kate :): no promises.
a blue heart appears a second later.
veronica's thumb hovers over the screen and she tells herself the smile on her face has absolutely nothing to do with one tiny blue heart outside, the bus turns into the arena entrance the rest of the team is already gathering their backpacks when the doors hiss open. "let's go," one of the assistants calls.
veronica slips her phone into her pocket and follows everyone inside game mode; that's what she tells herself to focus on basketball; everything else can wait the arena is already alive.
music pulses through the corridors, echoing off concrete walls before spilling onto the hardwood where arena staff hurry through final preparations photographers crouch along the baseline testing camera angles while television crews adjust lighting above the scorer's table.
every few seconds another cart rolls across the floor carrying basketballs, towels, or equipment, the organized chaos somehow comforting in its familiarity there's something about game days that never changes.
it doesn't matter what city she's in, the smell of the hardwood, the sound of sneakers squeaking before the seats are even full, the distant voice of the public address announcer running through one last microphone check.
it always feels like home across the court, the sparks begin filtering out of their tunnel cam brink is the first one she notices, somehow already talking with enough enthusiasm that one of the assistant coaches is pinching the bridge of his nose.
rae burrell follows behind her carrying two water bottles then kate she has her backpack slung over one shoulder, earbuds hanging loosely around her neck, completely unaware that rae is already shaking her head.
rae tosses something toward her kate catches it looks down groans veronica can't hear the conversation from this far away, but she doesn't have to cam doubles over laughing.
rae folds her arms triumphantly kate rubs the back of her neck with that same sheepish smile she always gets whenever she's been caught forgetting something veronica smiles to herself some things never change. "what's funny?" one of her teammates falls into step beside her veronica shakes her head. "nothing."
"looked like something."
"just..." her eyes drift back across the floor. "kate forgot something again." her teammate follows her gaze before laughing. "somehow i'm not surprised."
"me neither." across the court, kate finally pulls on what was apparently her forgotten warmup shirt before jogging onto the floor with a basketball tucked beneath one arm.
left corner right corner free throw elbow three veronica knows the routine almost as well as kate does she's seen it enough over the years kate always starts the same way always it makes her smile. "earth to veronica." she blinks. "huh?"
"coach is talking."
"right." she tears her attention away from the opposite end of the floor just in time to hear the last few instructions before warmups officially begin.
focus communicates rebound simple enough the next twenty minutes pass in a comfortable rhythm stretching shooting passing running through the same drills every team in the league seems to know by heart.
every now and then, usually between repetitions, veronica catches herself glancing across the floor sometimes kate is laughing because cam said something ridiculous sometimes she's talking with rae once, she catches kate standing near the scorer's table looking down at her phone.
whatever she reads makes her smile not a polite smile, not one she'd give a reporter or a fan a real one soft around the edges, the kind that reaches her eyes before disappearing just as quickly cam notices immediately even from this distance, veronica can see her nudging kate's shoulder.
kate rolls her eyes cam says something else rae joins them all three laugh veronica finds herself smiling too they're impossible a few minutes later, the arena doors officially open fans begin pouring inside, filling the lower bowl with jerseys, signs, and excited conversations that slowly build into one steady roar.
children rush toward the tunnel hoping for autographs someone calls cam's name, someone else shouts for rae then another voice cuts through the noise. "kate!"
kate looks up instinctively, smiling as she signs a basketball before handing it back then, almost without thinking she looks toward the courtside seats not just a glance she actually looks like she's searching for someone.
veronica notices because she isn't looking anywhere else she watches kate scan the first few rows once twice then smile, small immediate like she'd just found exactly who she was looking for without meaning to, veronica follows her line of sight.
at first, all she sees is people settling into their seats then someone stands sunglasses pushed onto the top of her head an oversized purple-and-gold sparks jersey hanging comfortably over black jeans.
she waves both hands dramatically the second she spots kate, kate laughs actually laughs then lifts a hand in return veronica squints slightly the woman looks familiar, really familiar she knows she's seen her somewhere before she just can't place where.
before she has time to think about it any longer, the officials whistle both teams back toward their benches, warmups are almost over, tipoff is only minutes away and whatever thought had started forming quietly in the back of veronica's mind is forced to wait.
for now.
the whistle cut through the arena, sharp enough to quiet everything else for a fraction of a second then the ball went up, tipoff always felt strangely peaceful to veronica; everything leading up to it was loud.
the music and the introductions, the lights sweeping across the crowd, the announcer somehow finding another level of enthusiasm every time he said a player's name. but the second the referee tossed the ball into the air, all of it disappeared.
there was only basketball the first possession moved quickly the sparks pushed the pace exactly the way veronica expected them to cam was already talking before she'd even crossed half court, kate pointing toward a cutter while rae sprinted into the corner, all three of them moving with the kind of chemistry that only came from spending every day together.
veronica smiled despite herself, she knew that they looked good together, unfortunately the first quarter settled into a rhythm almost immediately as both teams traded baskets, every possession answered by another on the other end.
sneakers squeaked against the hardwood, coaches shouted adjustments from the sidelines, and the crowd reacted to every defensive stop like it was the final play of the game kate always played with more energy than people expected she never looked rushed and never looked flustered.
she simply kept moving, cutting communicating, making the extra pass celebrating everyone else's success as loudly as her own veronica had always admired that she still did the first time kate checked back into the game after a substitution, the crowd welcomed her with another wave of applause.
before the official even handed her the ballkate glanced toward courtside just for a second, it happened so quickly that most people probably would've missed it veronica didn't she watched kate's eyes settle somewhere behind the scorer's table before the ball was inbounded again.
the moment passed, play continued but still she found herself looking in the same direction the woman was still there still wearing the oversized sparks jersey still smiling every time kate touched the ball.
she clapped after a clean defensive stop, stood up after one of cam's blocks, and cheered just as loudly for rae's corner three as she did for one of kate's assists.
it wasn't performative if anything, it looked genuine like she'd forgotten cameras even existed late in the quarter, kate stole a pass near half court the arena erupted before she'd even crossed the three-point line.
she drove finished through contact and the whistle blew. "and one!" cam reached her first, throwing an arm around kate's shoulders while rae slapped the back of her head with a grin kate laughed, pointing immediately toward the free-throw line. "i know, i know."
"don't miss," cam warned. "helpful."
"i'm trying." the crowd hadn't even settled back into their seats when someone from the front row shouted, "let's go, kate!"
it wasn't unusual for players to hear their names all the time in this voice, though kate looked over instinctively madison was already standing both hands cupped around her mouth. "you got this!"
kate couldn't help smiling she shook her head once before bouncing the ball against the hardwood cam noticed immediately. "focus."
"i am focused."
"you smiled."
"can i not smile?"
"not at free throws." kate rolled her eyes. "you're unbelievable." she took one breath and released the shot, swish as cam nodded approvingly. "acceptable."
kate laughed all the way back down the court veronica watched the entire exchange from the opposite end it wasn't strange, not really friends came to games, friends cheered still she found herself looking back toward courtside more often than she'd expected.
the woman looked familiar really familiar she knew that face she just couldn't remember where from the first quarter ended with the sparks holding a narrow lead players headed toward their benches while arena staff rushed onto the floor to wipe away sweat and reset equipment before the second quarter cam immediately stole kate's towel. "give it back."
"make me."
"cam."
"yes?"
"that's disgusting."
cam laughed.
"you're dramatic."
"it's literally my towel."
"ours now." rae reached over without even looking and pulled it out of cam's hands before tossing it back toward kate. "children."
"thank you," kate said. "don't thank me."
"why?"
"because i'm tired of listening to you two." kate laughed, throwing the towel over her shoulders out of the corner of her eye, she glanced toward courtside again.
madison caught her looking and she pointed both thumbs up enthusiastically kate laughed then mimed drinking water madison looked down at the unopened bottle beside her chair before immediately picking it up and she exaggerated an enormous sip.
kate shook her head dramatically and madison grinned always. "who are you looking at?" cam asked kate didn't bother pretending. "Madison." cam followed her gaze. "still wearing your jersey."
"yes."
"interesting."
"what's interesting?"
"nothing." kate narrowed her eyes. "cam." cam smiled innocently. "i said nothing." on the opposite bench, veronica watched the interaction without meaning to she couldn't hear them she could only see kate smiling again then looking away then smiling to herself.
something about it felt different, maybe even comfort easy like this wasn't the first game that woman had come to like she belonged here the thought lingered longer than veronica wanted it to she shook it away as coach called everyone back together.
focus on basketball first, everything else later the second quarter began just as quickly as the first the pace never slowed every timeout felt shorter than the last the arena grew louder with every sparks run, only for valkyries fans scattered throughout the crowd to answer with cheers of their own whenever veronica's team responded.
through it all, the woman in kate's jersey never seemed to stop cheering for kate for cam for rae every time one of them made a play, she was on her feet before half the arena it made veronica smile despite herself whoever she was she clearly loved basketball.
she just wished she could remember why she looked so familiar the answer arrived halfway through the second quarter or rather the jumbotron found it first.
the timeout horn echoed through the arena, giving everyone thirty seconds to breathe before the game picked up again.
players drifted toward their benches, assistant coaches unfolded whiteboards camera operators scattered across the floor, already searching the crowd for reactions while the entertainment crew hurried through another routine.
veronica reached for the towel draped over the back of her chair, pressing it briefly against her forehead as coach talked through the next defensive adjustment she nodded automatically hedge the screen.
recover, communication as she'd heard it all before around her, the arena settled into that familiar timeout rhythm music pulsed through the speakers, kids waved at themselves on the big screen, and every few seconds another section erupted when the camera landed on someone willing to dance.
veronica barely looked up until the noise changed. it wasn't gradual; it exploded the kind of scream that only happened when someone unexpectedly appeared on the jumbotron, coach paused for half a second even though a few players looked over their shoulders.
veronica followed their gaze, the massive screen hanging above center court filled with a familiar face madison bailey for a heartbeat, she simply stared then it clicked that's where she'd seen her before.
interviews, movies, photos that somehow always found their way across social media the crowd grew even louder as madison laughed in surprise, looking from the screen back toward the camera before covering her face for a second.
someone behind her was already pointing toward the jersey madison noticed a second later she looked down, laughed then pinched the front of the oversized sparks jersey between her fingers and held it up toward the camera with an exaggerated grin the arena absolutely lost it.
"oh my god." one of veronica's teammates laughed from the bench. "is that madison bailey?"
"i think it is."
"is she wearing—"
"that's kate's jersey."
veronica looked again and really looked at the stitching, the number the name stretched across the back whenever madison turned slightly in her seat.
it wasn't just a sparks jersey it was kate's before she could stop herself, veronica's eyes moved toward the opposite bench kate had already seen the screen the second their eyes landed on each other, cam doubled over laughing she smacked kate's shoulder hard enough that kate stumbled sideways. "stop."
"i'm not doing anything."
"you're literally hitting me."
"because this is hilarious." rae wasn't helping; she had one hand over her mouth, trying—and failing—not to laugh as kate tugged the bottom of her warmup shirt over part of her face, shaking her head as if hiding would somehow make the cameras move on faster.
it didn't if anything, the director lingered another few seconds madison waved awkwardly then pointed toward the floor straight at kate the camera immediately cut to her the crowd roared again kate groaned cam looked like she might actually fall off the bench laughing.
"this is your fault," kate muttered. "my fault?" cam asked between laughs. "you manifested this."
"i absolutely did." rae finally managed to speak. "i've never seen you this embarrassed." kate rubbed both hands over her face. "can everyone relax?" cam leaned closer. "no."
"cam."
"absolutely not." kate looked toward courtside again despite herself madison shrugged innocently, pressing one hand dramatically against her chest like she couldn't possibly understand what all the fuss was about as kate pointed a finger at her.
you're unbelievable.
madison just smiled wider, veronica watched the silent exchange from across the floor it lasted barely three seconds, no words, just expressions, small gestures the kind people only understood after spending enough time around each other something about that realization settled heavily in her chest.
it wasn't the jersey, not really friends borrowed clothes all the time friends supported each other friends came to games.
so why did it feel different? the whistle signaled the end of the timeout players stood the moment dissolved as quickly as it had appeared basketball demanded everyone's attention again.
still the image stayed with veronica madison laughing beneath thousands of eyes kate trying unsuccessfully to hide her smile.
cam teasing her without mercy rae watching the whole thing unfold like she'd expected it all along the game resumed, but veronica found herself noticing little things she hadn't before.
every time kate checked out of the game, she glanced toward the front row not for long just enough every time she made a good play, madison was already clapping before anyone around her.
when cam blocked a shot into the third row, madison stood so quickly her drink nearly tipped over when rae hit another three, she celebrated just as loudly she wasn't only cheering for kate she was cheering for all of them for the sparks like she'd been doing it forever.
veronica tried to ignore the thought she really did instead, she focused on the game on the defensive assignments on communicating through switches on making the next pass but every so often, despite herself, her eyes drifted toward the same courtside seat and every single time kate's did too.
the final minutes of the fourth quarter arrived before either team really had time to catch their breath the sparks held a narrow lead and every possession suddenly mattered twice as much as the crowd rose to its feet coach called one final play.
veronica wiped her hands against her shorts, forcing every wandering thought back into the smallest corner of her mind, basketball first everything else later she had no idea that, by the end of the night, basketball would be the easiest part to understand.
the final two minutes felt longer than the entire game every possession carried weight now. every whistle drew a different reaction from the crowd the arena had long since become a wall of noise, purple and gold towels spinning through the lower bowl while the public address announcer somehow found enough energy to shout over thousands of people doing the exact same thing.
the sparks clung to a four-point lead and the valkyries refused to let it become comfortable veronica had stopped noticing everything except the next play, the next screen, the next pass, the next defensive rotation for a little while, basketball was enough.
kate caught the ball on the wing with less than a minute left, immediately drawing a defender before kicking it out to rae in the corner the shot left her hands the buzzer on the shot clock ticked lower.
swish.
the arena erupted rae turned before the ball had even finished falling through the net, pointing toward kate with both hands. "beautiful!" kate laughed as cam wrapped an arm around both of them while they jogged back on defense. "don't celebrate yet," kate called.
"i'm celebrating a little."
"cam."
"a medium amount." the valkyries answered with a basket of their own then another stop then another timeout everyone looked exhausted everyone except the fans they somehow found another level.
veronica rested her hands on her hips while coach drew up one final play, nodding along even though her attention drifted for the briefest moment toward the opposite bench.
kate was really listening, head lowered slightly, eyes fixed on the whiteboard while the assistant coach talked through every option.
there it was again that focus that quiet steadiness it was one of the first things veronica had admired about her no matter how loud everything around her became, kate never seemed to panic.
she just played, the whistle sounded again, one last possession, one last defensive stand the final buzzer echoed through the arena before anyone had time to think much beyond it.
the sparks won the building exploded kate closed her eyes for a second, exhaling before cam crashed into her side. "we survived."
"barely." rae laughed, pulling both of them into a quick hug before everyone separated again. "good game."
"you too."
the celebration was never very long, not against friends players met at half court almost immediately, the familiar line forming as jerseys of different colors mixed together.
veronica fell into step with the rest of her teammates, exchanging quick hugs and handshakes as she moved down the line then she reached kate for a second, the noise around them seemed quieter kate smiled first. "hey."
"hey."
"good game."
"you too." their hands met in a quick handshake that turned naturally into a brief hug, the kind athletes shared after playing each other, nothing unusual, nothing anyone else would've noticed. "you almost stole that from us," kate said veronica smiled. "almost doesn't count."
kate laughed. "fair." there was another beat, small and comfortable like maybe one of them was about to say something else instead, someone behind veronica gently nudged the line forward she stepped back. "see you."
"yeah." kate smiled again. "see you." and just like that, it was overplayers disappeared in different directions almost immediately afterward the valkyries headed toward their locker room for postgame media and the sparks gathered near the opposite tunnel.
the organized chaos returned camera crews, microphones, equipment managers, security everyone seemed to need someone at exactly the same time veronica answered questions she barely remembered hearing talked about defensive adjustments.
complimented the sparks mentioned the atmosphere inside the arena smiled for the cameras the entire time, another thought sat quietly at the back of her mind.
ask her.
it had been sitting there for weeks, months, maybe every time they'd texted after games, every time they'd met for coffee in the offseason, every time she'd caught herself wondering whether kate lingered after conversations for the same reason she did.
she was tired of wondering, it was only dinner, one question, one answer. whatever happened after that she'd deal with it by the time media obligations finally ended, the hallways beneath the arena had begun to quiet.
staff wheeled equipment carts toward storage rooms the distant sound of showers and laughter drifted from behind closed locker room doors security guards chatted near the tunnel entrances veronica tucked her phone into her pocket and started walking.
she already knew where kate usually came out after home games she'd waited there before not often just enough to know with every step, she rehearsed the sentence again.
do you want to get dinner sometime?
too formal.
want to grab dinner?
too casual.
are you free this week?
too vague.
she laughed quietly to herself she'd spent entire games making split-second decisions against professional athletes this, this somehow felt harder as she rounded the final corner toward the tunnel then stopped.
kate was already there still in her practice shirt now, hair damp from a quick shower, duffel bag resting against one leg she was laughing, not the polite laugh she'd given reporters a real one madison stood in front of her, still wearing kate's jersey.
up close, it was unmistakable the sleeves hung slightly past her shoulders the fabric was creased from sitting through four quarters the stitched numbers caught the overhead lights every time she moved. "you survived," madison teased. "barely."
"you missed a free throw." kate groaned dramatically. "you remembered."
"of course i remembered."
"traitor."
"supportive."
"those aren't the same thing."
"they are if i'm saying them." kate laughed again, shaking her head. "you're impossible."
"and yet..." madison spread her arms slightly. "you still invited me."
"questioning that decision."
"rude."
"honest."
they smiled at each other comfortably, easy like they'd had this conversation a hundred times before veronica stayed exactly where she was far enough away that they couldn't hear her close enough to hear every word she should leave instead she stayed.
for a moment, neither of them said anything they didn't seem to need to the kind of silence between them wasn't awkward or uncertain; it was familiar. comfortable enough that neither felt the need to fill every second with conversation madison rocked back lightly on her heels before looking down at the jersey again, smoothing a wrinkle near the hem with the palm of her hand. "i think i stretched it."
kate looked down too. "you definitely didn't."
"how do you know?"
"because it's about three sizes too big for you." madison gasped dramatically. "wow."
"what?"
"body shaming me after i came all this way to support you." kate laughed so hard she had to look away for a second. "that's not what i said."
"it's exactly what you said."
"it literally isn't."
"agree to disagree." kate shook her head, still smiling. "you're ridiculous."
"and?"
"and i don't know why i expected anything different."
"because you're optimistic."
"that's one word for it."
"i prefer hopeful." another laugh escaped kate before she rubbed the back of her neck. "did you have fun?" madison's expression softened immediately. "yeah." there wasn't even a second of hesitation. "a lot."
she glanced back toward the now nearly empty arena. "i've watched games on tv forever." she smiled to herself. "it's completely different being here."
"better?"
"way." she looked back at kate. "everyone around me was explaining little things i never would've noticed."
"like what?"
"one guy spent almost five minutes explaining illegal screens." kate groaned. "i'm so sorry."
"another woman told me she comes to every home game." madison smiled. "she knew everyone's stats."
"that sounds about right."
"and this little girl..." her smile somehow grew even softer. "...she couldn't have been older than seven." kate listened quietly. "she kept telling her dad she wanted to play basketball because of you." kate blinked. "...me?" madison nodded. "she had your jersey too."
for the first time all night, kate didn't have an immediate response; she looked down at the floor instead and a small smile appeared despite herself. "that's..."
"pretty cool."
"yeah."
"i thought so too." they stood there another second before madison nudged her gently with one shoulder. "you've got people looking up to you, martin." kate smiled without looking up. "don't make it weird."
"too late." they both laughed again as veronica watched every second, she couldn't explain why nothing about the conversation seemed unusual, nothing looked romantic, if anything it looked easy.
that's what bothered her; it reminded her of the way kate laughed over coffee the way she'd text random pictures of dogs she saw on walks the way conversations somehow stretched an extra thirty minutes because neither of them wanted to be the first to leave.
except someone else was standing in that space now someone else seemed to know the same version of kate she hated that thought almost as soon as it appeared because it wasn't fair.
kate was allowed to have close friends of course she was so why did it suddenly feel like she'd missed something important?
madison glanced down at the front of the jersey once more before pinching the fabric between two fingers. "seriously" she looked back up. "are you sure i can keep this?" kate frowned. "why wouldn't you?"
"because it's yours."
"i gave it to you."
"people say things." kate laughed. "madison."
"what?"
"i meant it."
"even after i embarrassed you in front of twenty thousand people?"
"especially after that." madison grinned. "good." she looked back down at the jersey. "because i was planning on stealing it anyway."
"i figured." without thinking, kate reached forward and the collar had folded slightly beneath madison's hair sometime during the game she straightened it carefully, smoothing the fabric back into place with an absentminded movement that lasted barely two seconds.
there wasn't anything deliberate about it she didn't even seem to realize she'd done it madison certainly didn't she kept talking as though nothing had happened. "next time i'll wear your shooting shirt." kate snorted. "absolutely not."
"coward."
"boundaries."
"boring." they were still laughing when kate opened her arms. "come here." madison stepped forward immediately and the hug was quick and warm, the kind shared by people who'd slowly become part of each other's everyday lives without either of them noticing exactly when it happened. "thanks for coming," kate said quietly. "thanks for inviting me."
"same time next game?"
"obviously." they pulled apart madison smiled. "now go before your coaches think i kidnapped you." kate laughed. "probably a good idea." a few feet away, hidden by the corner of the hallway, veronica finally remembered why she'd come.
dinner.
the word echoed uselessly in her mind now she looked at kate then at the jersey then back at the easy smile still lingering on kate's face she'd spent the entire game telling herself there was probably a perfectly reasonable explanation.
friends borrowed jerseys, friends hugged friends laughed like that friends looked at each other the way they just had...right?
the question lingered longer than it should have, veronica took one slow step backward then another the sound of her shoes against the concrete disappeared beneath the distant noise of arena staff finishing cleanup.
she turned before either of them could look up before kate could notice she'd been there before she'd have to ask a question she suddenly wasn't sure she wanted answered behind her, kate watched madison disappear toward the parking garage entrance before slinging her duffel bag over one shoulder.
she started to turn toward the tunnel when something caught the corner of her eye, someone walking away in a familiar build familiar posture. "...wasn't that..." she frowned. "what?" madison asked kate looked down the hallway again as it was already empty. "...nothing."
she wasn't completely sure but for just a second she could've sworn she'd seen veronica.
the hallway stayed quiet long after veronica disappeared around the corner kate looked after the empty space for another second before shaking her head. "you okay?" madison's voice pulled her back kate blinked. "yeah."
"you sure?" she nodded once. "i just thought i saw someone." madison glanced down the hallway. "anyone i know?"
"maybe."
"that's mysterious." kate laughed softly. "i don't mean to be."
"who'd you think it was?" there was another pause. "veronica." madison looked back toward her. "the valkyries guard?"
"yeah."
"weren't you just talking to her after the game?"
"for like thirty seconds."
"maybe she forgot something."
"maybe." kate looked toward the hallway one last time before letting it go. "probably just my imagination." madison bumped her shoulder lightly. "come on."
"yeah." they walked toward the arena exit together, still talking about the game.
about cam somehow stealing another towel about rae's fourth-quarter three about the little girl madison had met in the stands by the time they reached the parking garage, the conversation had drifted somewhere completely different.
the moment in the hallway was already gone for kate, anyway veronica sat in her car for nearly ten minutes before starting the engine the arena lights reflected faintly across the windshield while fans slowly filtered through the parking lot, still talking excitedly about the game.
she rested both hands against the steering wheel, dinner she laughed once quietly almost at herself she'd spent an entire week deciding she was finally going to ask all it had taken was one jersey to convince herself not to.
it felt ridiculous she knew it did kate had never promised her anything they weren't dating they weren't even whatever this was. there had never been a conversation, never a confession, never a moment where either of them admitted that staying after practice just to keep talking probably meant something or that texting each other good luck before every game had quietly become a habit.
or that neither of them ever seemed to be in a hurry to say goodbye none of that meant kate couldn't have someone else none of that meant the woman in the jersey wasn't simply important veronica looked down at her phone there weren't any new messages.
she set it face down in the cup holder and pulled out of the parking garage. los angeles was still awake, traffic crawled beneath glowing streetlights, restaurants buzzed with people finishing late dinners, music drifted through open windows at red lights.
the city kept moving she wished her thoughts would do the same by the time she reached the hotel, her social media had already begun filling with highlights from the game cam's block rae's three kate's steal.
she scrolled past them automatically then stopped madison had posted the first photo showing her sitting courtside before tipoff, smiling directly at the camera the second was cam pretending to photobomb from the baseline.
the third was kate head thrown back laughing so hard she'd closed her eyes the jersey was visible in every picture as the caption was simple.
first sparks game. think i might be good luck. 💜
veronica stared at it the likes climbed higher every time she refreshed comments poured in underneath people talking about the game about madison about the jersey her thumb hovered over the heart she pressed it unpressed it pressed it again.
closed the app opened it anyway another comment had appeared which was kate.
undefeated when you're here.
less than a minute later madison replied.
guess i'll have to keep coming.
cam liked it rae liked it half the sparks seemed to like it veronica locked her phone then unlocked it again she hated how much space this was taking up in her head because nothing had happened.
nothing.
friends went to games, friends borrowed jerseys, hugged friends and commented on each other's posts she repeated the thought enough times that it almost started sounding convincing.
almost.
her phone buzzed and she looked down immediately.
kate :)
hey.
think i saw you after the game.
did i miss you?
veronica stared at the screen the words blurred for a second before settling again she read them once then again.
did i miss you?
such an innocent question kate probably had no idea what she'd walked into, no idea what veronica had seen, no idea that she'd been standing only a few feet away before quietly turning around and another bubble appeared then disappeared.
kate had started typing and stopped, started again, stopped again, finally nothing veronica's fingers hovered over the keyboard.
yeah. i had to leave.
too short.
i saw you talking.
absolutely not.
i didn't want to interrupt.
that somehow felt even worse she locked her phone instead set it on the bedside table and rolled onto her back, staring up at the unfamiliar hotel ceiling.
outside, los angeles continued humming beneath the night sky inside, one borrowed jersey had somehow changed the shape of everything and neither of them knew it yet.
