Pairing: Paige Bueckers X Azzi Fudd
"What are you doin' here?"
Her voice breaks the stillness like a stone cracking the surface of still water, small splash, deep ripple.
Lands in my chest like it was aimed there.
Because I know that voice.
That voice that used to drag across my skin in hotel rooms and whisper filthy promises between my thighs. That voice that sang off-key into my hair when we showered together.
That voice that said "I love you" without flinching. That voice that yelled my name like a prayer and moaned it like a sin. That voice that made vows in the dark and sealed them into my flesh with her tongue.
My throat closes. My lashes flutter like my body's trying to blink away the moment. Hide me from it.
But my soul has never been subtle. And it's a masochist for her.
Slow and prolonged. Like peeling gauze off a wound that's still wet and pink and healing all wrong.
One hand still wrapped around the back door's knob. Like she's still deciding if she wants to come inside.
One boot covered foot on the porch, one just barely planted onto the hardwood floor of the kitchen.
Her hair's shorter now. Way shorter.
Not like the lazy ponytail she used to wear to practice. The one I used to tug loose when we were alone. Not the soft waves I used to thread my fingers through in hotel beds when we were supposed to be asleep before games.
No, this is something else entirely. Completely masculine. Cropped close at the sides, swept back in a way that looks half accidental, half defiant. Like she woke up one morning and needed to shed everything soft. Like how she always wanted her hair but was always afraid the media and brands wouldn't like it.
It fits her, though. Too well.
Even with the mess of it, some strands sticking out in little reckless flicks, a few still damp at the ends like she'd rinsed off in a hurry, it suits the new geography of her.
But it's her body that stops me cold.
Her shoulders have widened, broad and blunt, bearing the weight of labor she has never lifted before, the weight of a life that does not include the structure of a team or the rhythm of a season or the certainty of a role that has been written for her by hands other than her own.
Her arms are carved from something harder than gym-toned muscle, harder than mirror-built precision, harder than the careful sculpting of a body designed for performance and display. These muscles belong to someone who has been hauling, digging, lifting things that fight back, that resist, that require the whole of her strength.
Sun-dark skin stretches over lean lines and hardened sinew. There's a golden cast across her forearms, neck, collarbone. The kind of tan you can only get from weeks spent outside, not for vacation, but for labor.
And still, somehow under all that change...
The same Paige I watched score forty at Spokane. The same Paige who whispered "I love you" into my collarbone after the game in the locker room, like she owed me the forty piece.
But her face. God, her face.
It's thinner now. Not sculpted, not cut. Just... reduced. Like something's been slowly eaten away. The cheeks that once rose like soft hills when she smiled have flattened, leaving behind hollows that catch shadows wrong.
There's purple under her eyes. Her lips are dry. Chapped at the corner. Bitten everywhere. Like they haven't been kissed and loved in ages. Her jaw is locked tight, the muscle jumping beneath the skin like it has not unclenched in months, like it has been holding something back for so long that the holding has become its permanent shape.
And yet her eyes are still that same impossible blue. Light, almost colorless at the edges. Like cracked ice under sunlight. And they're staring at me like I've just ripped open her ribs and climbed in.
And God. She looks like Texas got to her. Like solitude got to her. Like time got to her and squeezed her into someone older, quieter, bigger, and even more beautiful than before. She is both everything I imagined she would become in my darkest moments and something I never would have dared to dream in my brightest, both the wound and the instrument of its infliction.
A gasp rips through the silence.
I don't know which one of us it came from.
Her name is a storm in my chest.
Her name is a bruise on my heart that never faded.
The bane of my existence.
The woman whose ring I was supposed to wear.
Now she's half-shadow, half-sunlight. Standing on the edge of the doorway like a decision still being made.
And I'm standing in her home, in the cathedral of her absence, staring at the living, breathing ghost I flew across the country for.
Suddenly, I don't know if I want to run, or fall to my knees.
I don't know if I want to slap her, or sob into her chest.
I don't know if I want to scream or whisper I never stopped.
"The door..." My voice catches on the gravel that has accumulated in my throat, the residue of two years of unsaid things. "It wasn't locked."
That's all I say. It comes out like an apology, though I never meant it to.
She still doesn't answer. Doesn't even blink.
Instead, she steps fully into the house with that lazy, lethal gait I remember, boots echoing off the wooden floor. She clears the high platform in one long, heavy stride.
Her skin glistens. Not the sheen of a spritzed model or a gym selfie or cool sweat from air conditioned courts. No. This is real sweat. Stinging from hours spent in direct heat. That lives in pores and drips from temples and disappears down the deep collarbone groove carved into the base of her throat.
She's in a threadbare white wife-beater, clinging transparent where it's soaked. A black sports bra peeks through underneath. Black Nike sweats slung low, drawstrings undone. A hand towel rests limp over one shoulder, damp and clinging like a tired flag.
She closes the door behind her. A creaky swing of the knobs echoing and then it shuts close.
She doesn't speak. Doesn't scan. Just looks. Eyes locked to mine like she's trying to read a fine-print contract on the whites of my eyes.
I feel it in the bend of my legs first. My knees don't shake outright, but there's a heavy weight strapped to the back of them. Like the bones are warning me: Don't stand too long.
But I stay. Plant my feet like roots. Even as everything else tilts.
"You..." she starts, voice frayed at the edges. Then her lips clamp shut like the words stab her from the inside.
Her eyes drop first. Then her whole head turns away like it hurts to be looked at, or worse, like it hurts to look at me. She breathes out hard, jaw tightening. The veins in her neck pulse. Her Adam's apple bobs, barely there, but there all the same. A feature she'd once blushed about when I pressed kisses to it and told her she was handsome.
I watch all of it—her—unravel infront of me like a nesting doll. Layer after layer revealing a slightly different version of her.
She snatches the towel from her shoulder and runs it across her face in a sharp, sweeping motion. Almost punishing.
"You shouldn't be here," she utters. Voice raw, like it clawed its way out her throat. Eyes snapping to mine.
It's the first real thing she's given me.
Something deep and dark and ugly that claws up my ribs and scratches behind my teeth. Rage that she still thinks she gets to be the wounded one.
I scoff. Sharp and mean. Loud and unabashed. "Oh, don't worry," I spit. "I'm not here to be your clingy ex, Bueckers."
Her chin rattles her mouth falling open like she's gonna defend herself. Explain. But she closes it. Like the damage is too severe to be fixed by words.
I take a step forward towards the kitchen. And she steels almost as if she's bracing for a hit.
Everything in me feels raised. Bristled. Electric.
We're not even talking yet and already, we're bleeding.
"Then why are you here?" She questions, readjusting, leaning against the kitchen counter for support.
I swallow hard. The silence. The weight of her. The burn behind my ribs.
Then I speak. Low and steady. "Why haven't you retired yet?"
Something shifts. Her whole frame pulls tight like wire. The look she shoots me could gut fish. "That ain't none of your business."
My mouth twists. "Oh trust me, I don't give a fuck."
Brazen and shameless. But somehow, it hurts less than the truth. "I'm here 'because GSV's looking for a point guard."
She doesn't even blink. "No." Flat. Final. Like a gavel cracking bone.
"No." She doesn't flinch. "I'm done with basketball."
The lie's too clumsy to land clean. It hits the floor like a glass that didn't quite break—just cracked all through.
I let out a laugh, dry and rusted. Step forward until I'm leaned over the edge of the island, close enough to smell the salt of her sweat and the metal of her nerves. "Don't bullshit me. You drive four hours downtown to train three days a week." I tilt my head, voice barbed. "That doesn't sound like 'done' to me. You've never been done."
"I said no." Each syllable chipped like concrete under a chisel. But her voice cracks at the seams. There's no version of Paige Bueckers without basketball. That's a fact coded in her DNA. "You needa leave."
"I'm not going anywhere until you listen."
She groans—worn, exasperated. Rubs her temple with the heel of her palm. "Didn't you say you wasn't tryna be no clingy ex?"
"You can bait me all you want, but I need a chip. And you're the only fucking ticket I've got."
She straightens. Shoots daggers. "If you really believe that, you're more delusional than I thought."
I snap. "No. You're just a coward who ran."
Her face changes like I struck a fault line. "Get the fuck out."
"Not until you stop being an idiot and hear me out."
"Azzi. Go!" Her voice hits like a fist. Palms slam the counter—thud sharp enough to echo. Her eyes are bright. Wet. Shiny with unshed grief.
I stare at her. My chest clenches tight.
"You can keep running," I say, low, hoarse, dragging it from somewhere deep. "But we both know there's no you without this game. You can't escape the inevitable."
Then I turn. Before I say something I won't come back from.
I'm standing in front of my car. Again. Same car, different silence.
But this time I'm not staring at a lakeside shrine dressed as a dream. The motel looks like something straight out of a Puppet Combo game.
I'm staring at the fluorescent flicker of a motel sign that looks like it gave up the will to live before I was even born.
One of the bulbs is dying, twitching like a mosquito stuck between two fingers. I can hear the crackle of its struggle.
It mirrors the static inside my skull.
I lean against the driver-side door, sweat cold now that it's no longer chasing adrenaline. The sun has ducked behind the hills and all the warmth of that soft Texas afternoon has drained away, replaced by a nighttime chill that seeps into the bones—quiet and mean.
My hands are still shaking. From Paige.
From the way her voice turned razor-edged when she told me to leave. From how her eyes glistened like glass and I knew—that she still gave a damn even if every word out her mouth tried to say otherwise. From how her chest rose and fell like the fight was still happening inside her.
Two years and she still looks like the only person I ever loved. Two years and I still want to crawl into her arms and scream into her chest and tell her she ruined me. That we let it rot between us. That none of it should've ended.
But none of that left my mouth.
Instead I threw words like knives and she caught every one with her bare hands.
I press the heels of my palms against my eyes until I see sparks. I wanna scream. I want to punch the car hood. I want to break something the way I broke when she walked away without a single goodbye.
Instead, I just... stand here. Still.
The parking lot is almost empty. One pickup truck with an American flag bumper sticker. A dusty black SUV with one tire missing its hubcap. And me.
I glance up at the "Sunrise Haven Inn" sign, ironic name for a place that looks like it hasn't seen a sunrise in decades.
It smells like rust and regret out here.
I don't even know why I picked this place. Maybe because it was the closest. Maybe because I couldn't drive another second without bursting into tears.
Maybe because I needed to be somewhere that reminded me how far I've fallen since the last time she held me.
The glass door whines on its hinges as I push it open. A bell chimes overhead, tinny and lifeless, like it's given up trying to be cheerful.
The front office is bathed in yellow lamplight and the stench of pine-scented disinfectant. There's a single desk. A dusty ficus in the corner. A cracked vending machine humming like it might burst into flames if you breathe too hard near it.
Behind the desk, a man rises. Slowly. Like he wasn't expecting anyone past midnight, especially not someone who looks like me.
His eyes crawl up me like oil.
From my clean white Air Forces, still spotless despite the Texas dirt to my fitted cream-colored Nike Tech fleece. Then my face. And I see it right there, in the twitch of his mouth. Confusion. Intrigue. A sick little flicker of interest.
Because people who stay here look like their lives have been dragged down a gravel road. Hollow eyes and visible bruises. People who come here are running from something.
He doesn't know I am too.
Just that I've got enough money to run looking polished.
"I need a room," I say, voice flat.
He straightens a little more, leans his elbows on the desk like it's casual. Like it's friendly.
Long enough for his slimy grin to falter.
He clears his throat and grabs a yellow notepad, pretends to skim through names. "Uh, we got a single queen left. Room 12. Corner unit." He fumbles for the key. One of those old-school ones, big plastic tag, scratched up numbers.
I nod once. "That'll do."
"You passing through or—" His words trip over themselves, and then he catches them. Tries again. "You just look like someone who's... used to nicer places."
I give him a long, slow once-over. From his crusted cuticles to the ring of sweat around his collar. And then I smile. The one that doesn't reach my eyes.
"I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be."
He chuckles like he doesn't believe me. That makes two of us.
He hesitates just a little too long handing over the key. Letting his fingers brush mine. Big mistake.
I snatch the tag from his hand like it owes me money.
His mouth opens again, probably for another half-assed flirt but I tilt my head, slow and deliberate.
I'm not the kind of woman that's easy to come by in countryside Texas. 5'10", 170 pounds, and have the kind of biceps that turn men quiet.
"You got something to say?" I ask, voice like concrete.
I turn, letting the door shut hard behind me. The bell shrieks again. The sound rattles.
I step back into the dark, keys cold and clunky in my hand.
Motel lights buzz overhead, cutting the night into sickly yellow slashes. Crickets chirp out of sync. The breeze has picked up now—cool, like it's whispering warnings through the trees.
Room 12 is on the end. I walk past chipped paint, rusty light fixtures, cigarette butts crushed into the concrete. I don't mind it.
The world looks more honest in places like this. I reach my door, stick the key in.
The door groans shut behind me like it's trying to warn me off.
I twist the lock. Deadbolt. Chain. All of it. Then lean against the door, exhaling slow. My duffel slides off my shoulder and hits the floor with a dull thud in the paper-thin room.
The air smells like off-brand lemon cleaner and something older underneath, like mildew that's given up hiding. The kind of place where the corners never get vacuumed. Where the bedsheets are stiff with starch, not care.
I drop straight onto the mattress, limbs splaying wide like I've been shot. The springs groan beneath me. The ceiling's cracked in a lazy line right above my head. I follow it with my eyes like a map, wondering what part of me cracked today too.
I groan, dragging my phone from the pocket of my hoodie. It keeps vibrating in my palm like it's got something urgent to say.
From "The Huzzkies 🐾 (Without Paige)" chat.
Jana. KK. Kaitlyn. Caroline.
I let it buzz one more time before swiping answer.
Four faces fill the screen in a disjointed grid. Bad lighting, messy rooms, an odd tangle of time zones and off-season chaos.
KK's face fills the top left, bonnet on, brows arched, already skeptical. She squints, then goes straight for the jugular."How'd it go?"
I narrow my eyes at her. "I'm guessing Kaitlyn couldn't keep her mouth shut?"
"In my defense," Kaitlyn cuts in, arms crossed, looking like she's already rehearsed this argument, "I never thought it was actually gonna happen. I mean, come on, Azzi, it's ridiculous."
"Oh, so we're doing this now," I mutter, tossing my arm over my eyes.
"I mean..." Caroline says, always the gentle one, "We were all kind of thinking you were bluffing when Kait told us."
"It was abysmal," I groan into the crook of my arm, voice muffled by cheap motel linen. "I stormed out. Whole thing was a disaster."
Then Jana leans forward. "But... how is she?"
Jana left everything for her future. Crossed an ocean with nothing but a duffel and a dream, and Paige had practically adopted her day one. I lost the love of my life and Jana lost her sister.
I push the sleeve from my face. Look straight into the camera."She looks much stronger now. Bigger." Let the words settle like dust. "But she's empty, Jana and Paige was never empty."
KK lets out an exhale. "Jesus Christ, she that bad?"
"Mhm. She didn't even properly talk to me. Like... if she said one normal thing to me she'd—I don't know? Go weak or something."
"So, are you coming back?" Kaitlyn questions.
"No." My voice doesn't waver.
"No?" Caroline echoes, blinking.
"Yeah. No." I shrug, not an inch of me budging. "I'm not giving up. I'm not letting her do this to herself for any longer."
"And what if, in the process, you end up ruining yourself, Az?" Kaitlyn fires back, quick as a whip.
"Kait," Jana breathes, wincing.
"Chilllll," KK drawls at the same time, dragging the word out with a heavy frown.
"Kaitlyn, you didn't see her today." I bend forward. "She—her face. She looked miserable. Jesus, she brought me back every time I caved in on myself. I owe it to her to do the same."
"But you did. Two years ago. You begged and you stayed, Azzi. You already did your part." Caroline shakes her head, voice swollen with insistence.
"Now I'm doing my part for the team, Carol. I lead GSV and we need her."
There's a pause, then Jana speaks. Tone so meek and lifeless it barely makes it through the speaker. "Do you think there's still hope? To get P back?"
I sigh, rubbing the bridge of my nose. "Jana, sweetheart... I wouldn't lie to you. I don't know. But if there's even a trinket of hope... I'm gonna cling to it."
Caroline leans forward, worried etched into every line of her usually calm face. "Be careful, Az. Please. Don't let her break you again—"
"That's not going to happen." I cut in. Voice too tight.
"Keep tellin' yourself that," KK mutters.
"Kamorea!" Jana hisses, shooting her a look.
I rub my forehead. Let the silence pool around us. My eyes drift to the corner of the room, peeling paint, a tiny roach frozen on the windowsill like it's listening too.
"I just need her to remember who the fuck she is," I say finally. "Then I can leave."
Not the morning sun but the noon sun. When the heat is always the worst.
The gravel crunches under my Air Forces as I step out of the car for the second time in two days. The sun hangs merciless above me, high noon, nowhere to hide and my pink tank top clings to my ribs like it's trying to become a second skin.
My braids itch with heat, sweat collecting between them and at the nape of my neck. The motel shower didn't help. That stiff mattress definitely didn't. My back feels like it's aged ten years overnight.
To approach this the right way. To not let her bait me into my emotions and get what she wants. I'm not playing soft, I'm gonna strike where it hurt and dodge when she fires back.
Which is really fucking hard to do when the Texas sun is beaming down onto you like a target.
I walk through her frontyard again. Eyes briefly flicking over the lake that glistens. It would be so nice to go for a dip in it. I skip of the porch step and reach her door.
But I don't knock like I did yesterday.
This time, I knock with purpose. Three crisp raps. No hesitation. I square my shoulders like I'm back in a press room, post-game, post-loss, post-hell.
I knock again, harder this time. The sun blares off the porch roof, making everything around me hum with brightness. My temples throb with the weight of heat and humiliation.
There's the slightest sound of shuffling behind the door. A creak of the wood. But still no answer.
I knock again. "Bueckers, open the door!"
I stare up, regaining my breath. Wiping at the sweat at the back of neck. Something moves behind me. Feet against grass.
I spin around fast, shoulders tense, ready for anything and find... an old lady.
Late sixties, maybe early seventies, though her posture says otherwise. She stands tall, chin lifted like she owns the very ground we're on. Her skin's the kind of red that says she's never once believed in the concept of sunscreen, and her hair's twisted up in a loose gray knot that bounces slightly as she walks. There's a glint of steel in her step.
In her arms? A bulky-ass stereo. Dusty. Heavy-looking. A dinosaur in the shape of plastic and tangled wires.
She halts at the steps, eyes dragging from my shoes upward, clocking the crisp white Air Forces, my blue jean shorts, the designer sweatshirt tied around my waist, pink tank top.
"Well I'll be damned," she says, in a strong Texan drawl, voice dry as desert oak. "What are you doin' here sweet pea? Here to see Paige?"
"I am," I say, standing up a little straighter. Flashing a smile that makes my dimples pop. "But... she's not really opening the door."
She smacks her lips. Loud. "How rude of her to keep a beauty like you waiting." She gives me a once over.
My eyes flick wide. Okay.
Without a word of warning, she begins climbing the steps.
"Wait—" I start, but she cuts me off with a raise of her perfectly arched brow.
Once she's at the top, she shifts the stereo to one hip and bangs on the door. No knocking. No politeness. Full palm, three times. Each slap echoing like a warning bell.
"It's Martina! You better open this damn door right now." she calls out.
There's a pause. Then a muffled thud. Shuffling.
The door creaks open. A single cautious crack. Then wider. Paige appears.
Tank top clinging to her ribs. Her short blond hair's pulled back lazily, strands escaping and curling into a sun-kissed mess. Despite the heat, she's in black sweatpants. Her face is unreadable.
"Well, don't just stand there gawping," Martina says, nudging past Paige with the stereo. "Let me in so I can drop this off. Thing's been skipping my Marvin Gaye all week."
My feet linger like anchors on the porch. There's a nail poking up from the wood. It presses into the sole of my shoe, like it's trying to keep hooked there.
Martina turns halfway down the hallway, clutching that boxy stereo to her chest like it's a newborn. She looks over her shoulder with a knowing smirk. "Come on, now."
Her voice is warm honey but it drips with command.
"Uh—yeah." My voice catches on the dryness of my throat. I shift forward, hand brushing the doorframe, but...
Rooted. Unmoving. A full six feet of obstruction crowding the doorway leaving me no space to move inside.
The gap between her shoulders is deliberate. Too narrow to slip through without contact. She glares at me like she doesn't believe I have the guts to do it.
I galre back into eyes that same surreal shade of glacial blue. Pupils blown like mine. Jaw tight like she's chewing on words she won't let escape.
Fine. I can be an ever bigger bitch.
I step into her space, sudden and unflinching, and let our bare shoulders connect. Slide. Collide. Skin on skin. My bicep brushes the curve of hers, slick with heat.
Shouldn't have done that.
Shouldn't have given myself the hit.
Because nobody talks about how an addict's first taste after years of withdrawal doesn't feel euphoric, it feels terrifying. Like drowning in a pool you thought was shallow. Like remembering what it's like to breathe right before you stop.
Every nerve in my arm flares. Every inch of me screams don't react, but it's too late. My heart's already jackhammering.
We were together for thirteen years. Touched a million times. Kissed more than we breathed. Fucked so many times, we'd mapped out every crevice of each other's body.
Every touch felt like the first.
And this? This shoulder-brush after two years of absence? It's a fucking thunderclap.
Not just her skin...her strength.
She's gotten stronger. Not the kind of sculpted lean she had when we were both pushing triple-doubles and chasing rings. This is different. This is forced strength. Strength gained to try and replace something irreplaceable. Her arm feels like stone wrapped in sun-warmed silk.
It's like she's trying to make up in muscle for what she's lost in peace of mind.
Inside, Martina's already set the stereo down on the kitchen island and is inspecting a tangle of wires.
"You got the aux to work last week," she says, not looking up. "Then it started playing nothin' but static again. Think it's the cord?"
"I'll check it," Paige mutters behind me, voice rough like she hasn't spoken to anyone all morning.
Her slippers clunk softly across the floor as she walks in behind me. I feel her presence stretch across the room.
Paige grabs the stereo and starts fiddling with the cables. Her fingers move with muscle memory. Her face is blank. Too blank.
Martina hums like she's scoring the tension with a melody only she can hear. "Well, get to it then." Her hand flutters toward Paige with a flick of her wrist, then shifts smoothly toward me. "And come sit, sweetheart. Don't leave me alone with the emotionally constipated."
She pats the bench beside her with a ringed finger, the sound light but expectant.
A breath slips through my nose, half restraint, half surrender. I fold down beside her, spine stiff as rebar. She beams, the corners of her eyes wrinkling like well-loved parchment. I give her the closest thing I have to a smile.
Then my gaze snags on Paige. She hasn't even glanced up.
She's hunched over the stereo like it's a patient on her operating table, back bowed, arms braced. The deep U-cut of her wife beater carves a path down to the twin ridges of her spine, muscles twitching beneath tan skin.
Every shift of her shoulder is a landmine in my chest.
I swallow hard. It doesn't help.
Martina lets out a noise, somewhere between a hum and a scoff, like she's watching a bad soap opera and trying not to root for either lead.
"Well?" she prompts, fingers looping under her chin, nails lacquered red like polished garnets. "Won't you introduce us, Paige?"
Paige lifts her head, slow, reluctant, like it weighs more than it should. Her eyes flick from Martina to me, back again, caught in the crossfire. She's waiting, for me to jump in, maybe, to save her from having to acknowledge me.
But that's not how we ever worked.
I lean back slightly, tilt my head, and pin her with a look that says: Go ahead. Lie. I dare you.
Her jaw shifts, a twitch at the hinge, like she's clenching down on a curse. Her lashes flick lower. She draws a breath like it's trying to claw its way out of her.
"This is Martina. My neighbor," she mutters, eyes fixed somewhere in the middle distance. Her voice is flat. "And this is..." she stumbles. Just a half-second pause. But it slices me clean. "...Azzi. My... friend."
The word hits like acid to the teeth.
I smile. If I laugh, I'll cry. And if I cry, I'll bash the fucking stereo into her head.
I've tasted the most intimate parts of her. I've kissed the sweat off her temple in locker room showers, with my hand on her mouth to keep her quiet. I've gotten high off the very essence of her pleasure. I've mapped my entire goddamn future onto the lines of her palms. I used to own every fragment of her existence.
Martina barks a laugh so bright and blasphemous it startles even Paige. "Lord above. I've seen less tension between germans and jews. That what y'all young-ins call friendship these days?"
She turns to me like we've known each other for years. "Darlin', is this normal? Am I outta touch or is this just normal nowdays?"
I smile for real this time. Tight, but real. "Oh, not out of touch at all. You're spot on. We're awkward 'friends.' That's what I'm here to fix."
Martina leans forward like she's catching the scent of gossip. Paige, still standing, hands buried in the stereo's wires, freezes like someone pulled the plug on her nervous system.
And I don't break eye contact.
Especially not with Paige.
Because if we're gonna play pretend, we're gonna play it my way.
Martina huffs. "Well, I see chivalry is dead," she mutters, pushing up from the bench and gliding toward the kitchen like she owned the house before Paige ever did.
The fridge door hisses open, casting a pale glow across the soft beige cabinetry. She peers inside, squinting. Her voice lifts with delight. "Coconut water. You drink coconut water, honey?"
My breath catches before I can trap it. My spine goes stiff.
Paige's hands still in the mess of tangled wires and circuit boards. Her head turns slightly over her shoulder, just enough to clock Martina bent over, arm deep in the fridge door.
She doesn't say anything.
I remember how she used to call it "tree pee." How she'd wrinkle her nose dramatically every time I opened a can, fake gag, then kiss me with the taste still on my tongue. She didn't love coconut water, but she loved that I tasted like it.
Every game night, she'd always show up with a chilled can, no matter how much she hated the stuff. She'd always have a cold can of it for me.
I swallow down the knot in my throat. "I'll take it, thank you," I manage, voice thinner than I'd like. Martina hands it to me with a wriggle of her eyebrows.
Paige's head snaps back to the stereo. Her face so taut I can see the twitch in her temple. Her fingers resume fiddling, a little too fast. Like distraction could save her from herself.
Martina eases down beside me on the bench again. "You know," she begins, sipping from her glass, "Paige is the only one around here who'll fix my stereo without complainin'. Or trying to charge me an arm and a tit."
I snort softly. "She's always been good at taking care of the people she loves."
The silence that follows feels too loud, like we've stepped into a different climate. Paige doesn't look up. But I see the way her shoulders go rigid, her neck flushed darker than before.
Martina, either doesn't notice or ignores on purpose, just hums. "Mm. She doesn't talk much about anyone though." She glances at Paige, over the rim of her glass. "You got such a beautiful girl all worried bout' you and here I thought you had nobody behind you."
Paige looks up. "I never said I didn't, Martina. You needa give your thoughts a rest."
Martina scoffs, rolling her eyes. "And you needa learn how to treat a lady."
Paige simply shakes her head in response. "Stereo's singin' again." She pushes the stereo towards Martina.
"Aren't you just a delight." Martina beams.
Paige huffs, "still think I can't treat a lady?"
"You know I was referring to this beautiful lady." Her thumb points to me. She hops off the bench with grace and grabs the stereo. Paige stays silent, face swollen with a sheepish look. "Alright well, I'll get out of your hair now." Martina said.
"It was really nice meeting you Martina." She heads to the door and I rise instinctively. "I'll walk you."
"Such a doll," Martina says, eyes gleaming as she loops her arm through mine. "You sure Paige didn't dream you up?"
I chuckle in response. "You know what? I'll have to double check."
When Martina leaves, she takes all the softness with her.
And the hush that follows? Thick and unmoving. A silence that settles into the corners of the room like smoke.
I exhale slow, roll my shoulders back, stretch the tension out of my spine. Pull my tank top down where it's ridden up. I purse my lips tight, set my jaw even tighter.
I didn't come here to feel. I came for GSV.
The house is still. Dim, but golden. Summer light drips in through the gauzy curtains, catching the dust midair like floating fireflies.
When I round the corner back into the living room, I see Paige sitting on the couch like she's trying not to take up space but still does anyway. Legs wide. Elbows braced on knees. Fingers knotted, knuckles white. Her head is bowed, like she's praying to God for an escape.
I circle the coffee table and sink onto the couch opposite her, slow and deliberate. The leather groans beneath my weight, the only sound in the room besides the faint warble of cicadas outside.
She doesn't acknowledge me. Not really. But her fists twitch. I lean back, one leg crossing over the other. Cool, calm, collected.
"At some point, you'll have to acknowledge me," I say.
Just the shift of her breath.
A long, slow drag up her throat.
The subtle bob of her Adam's apple.
Then finally...her eyes slide up. "You're not gonna get what you want."
"I don't want anything," I lie. "GSV wants you." Her head shakes, but I keep going. "Because despite all the self-deprecating bullshit you've built up in your head—" I tilt my head, watching her reaction, "reality still stands. You're the best point guard in the league."
She doesn't answer. Just turns her gaze toward the sliding glass door, where the sun hits the lake. The water glitters. It would be peaceful, if she weren't such a storm.
"If I wanted to come back," she mutters, "I would've done so a long time ago."
"You would've," I agree, leaning in, voice sharpened like a blade, "if someone was pushing you."
Her head snaps back toward me.
"How many times did I almost quit? When I tore my ACL? Twice. And who pulled me out of that shit?" I jab a finger in the air between us. "You did. You forced me out of whatever grave I tried to dig myself into. Every. Single. Time. I'm only here because you were there to push me."
"That was different." Her voice is louder now. Her glare, deadly.
"Don't." My nostrils flare. "Don't give me that excuse. Own your mistakes. You were never the one to make excuses."
She shoots upright. Palms slapping against her knees. "Yeah, well," she grits through her teeth, "I made my choice two years ago. I'm not doing this again—"
The coffee table blurs in my periphery as I storm across the space and cut her off. I'm in front of her before she can back away, boxing her in with just my presence.
She stumbles slightly, off balance from the sheer velocity of me. My breath floods between us, robust and unyielding.
"A seven-day hardship contract," I bite out.
Her brow creases. "What?"
"GSV will sign you on for a week. One week. That's it. Play seven days. Hell, play seven minutes if you want. And if after that you still want to disappear, I'll shut up. I'll walk away. But you owe me that much."
"You owe me a title," I say, quieter now. "You owe yourself that. I deserve to have my name up there in the rafters, and you do to." I inch closer. She remain rooted. Shell shocked. "I will not let you be a 'what could've been' story Bueckers... because I owe you too."
Her chest rises. Drops. Her lips part like she's going to say something that will ruin me.
A few beats pass. Each one measured by the faint tick...tick...tick of the wall clock Paige hung up. Now it's the only thing marking time between us.
After a long, swollen pause, her eyes shift. Just slightly. No longer hardened steel and bottomless. There's a flicker now. Not surrender. Not even close. But something. A glint of uncertainty shining through the cracks in her fortress.
I see the trinket of hope all of us had been praying for.
"Azzi..." My name leaves her lips like a protest. Soft, strained, breaking apart mid-air. Her voice trembles indignantly. Like she hate me for making her think about a possibility she hadn't allowed herself to think about.
My hand twitches. Rises instinctively toward her bicep like muscle memory. Like touch might tether her here.
But halfway up, I stop myself.
I swallow. Clear my throat.
"Just..." I say, voice low, rough around the edges. "Think about it. Clearly. Okay?"
My gaze won't leave hers. Not until I've said what I came to say.
"I need your answer by the end of the week."
She blinks. Shakes her head slowly, composure peeling back in quiet layers. A hand drags down her face, calloused palm over hollow cheek, her mouth muttering curses under her breath.
She looks like a woman losing control of a dam she spent two years building brick by brick.
I take a step back. The space between us opens. Feels like a wound.
"I'll leave you alone now," I murmur, my voice gentler than I expected. I turn. Walk out without waiting for her to stop me and of course, she doesn't.
That tiny fracture in the armor. The first tremble in her voice. The hesitation in her stare instead of apathy. The hope building under her skin.
Now I just have to play it smart, dig in the right spot and break her wide open.
