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“Alright, you ready then?” Paige asks, the bedframe creaking beneath her as she rises from the edge of the mattress, smoothing the black fabric of her jacket pockets down as she does so from where they’ve bunched up. There’s a soft tone to her voice, despite making sure she picks up the volume — so it carries well through the apartment’s thick walls. The laces on her white trainers are freshly tied, and she can still feel the burn of the way they sat tight against her skin fresh on her fingers.
It's a travel day for the Wings. They’ve got an away game, versus the Sky, and so they’re going from Dallas all the way up to Chicago. Paige is about to leave her apartment.
This time is a little different to most away games, though; more reminiscent of her days at Uconn, because she won’t be alone. Azzi is coming with her.
It makes her quite happy, to say the least. To have her girlfriend by her side on the way to a game once more is a special feeling that makes her heart swell with it, despite Azzi coming only to spectate and not to play like she would have when they were at Uconn together.
Maybe next year.
“Almost,” comes the call in return to her question, emitting from the ensuite of the master bedroom. Paige follows the sound of Azzi’s voice like a bee would to pollen — attracted to the sweetness of it in such a way she can’t quite resist, swiftness obvious in her steps.
Eventually, she reaches the edge of the doorway, and when she does she stops there. Rests her hip and shoulder against the sleek, dark frame of mahogany. Just watches quietly as her girlfriend finishes up with what must be the finishing touches of her light makeup — the last coat of her voluminous mascara. There’s a subtle look of quiet concentration upon her face, something you wouldn’t see unless you were paying attention, and it brings a lopsided smile to Paige’s own.
She waits for a while, just until Azzi caps the wand back into the tube of mascara and screws it all the way in before she says anything — doesn’t want to disturb her peace, risk startling her in any way and mess up her handiwork.
“D’you need me for anything, princess?” Paige murmurs reverently, finally taking a step or two further past the door frame. Her shoes squeak slightly as they touch down against the grey, tiled floor. There’s a slight chill to the air in the bathroom, and she’s glad to be wearing a jacket.
Azzi sets the bottle down on top of the marble countertop gently, before looking around to face the blonde with a remarkably dazzling smile. Paige is no writer — heck, she can’t even spell mischievous properly and adds a ‘G’ on to the end of orangutan — but she thinks she could wax countless lines of poetry about the beautiful girl she’s so lucky to be in the presence of right now, that she gets to call hers.
Nobody could ever compare.
“Not unless you wanna get down and tie my shoes for me, so probably not.” Azzi says, dipping her hands under the running water of the tap before quickly turning it off and drying her hands delicately on the towel next to the sink. It’s the offseason for college, and so she has allowed herself short gel nails for her upcoming events. Realistically, the gel polish won’t come off easily, but Paige knows she’s just being cautious.
She scoffs. “Don’t test me.”
Once more, Azzi shoots that smile full of glimmering white teeth in Paige’s direction. She pads over, socks making no noise against the cold floor in comparison to the Blonde’s own feet. Her lips connect with the other girls in a quick peck, before she goes to walk past and continue out into the bedroom. Her elbow meets Paige’s ribcage with a quick jab which makes her wince slightly. “Ow, what the heck?” She complains lightly, but it’s all in good jest as she turns around and makes her way out of the room herself in pursuit of her girlfriend.
In the corner of the oversized walk-in wardrobe, there’s a circular, cream-coloured ottoman. Azzi sits perched on top of it, pulling her own white shoes out from the bottom shelf beside her. Slips them on and does them up, careful to make the bunny ears on the laces the exact same sizes.
Whilst she’s doing this, Paige tries to make herself what she likes to think of as pretty useful. Slips the carry-on bag Azzi uses on over her shoulder, hoisting her own one up with the same arm to rest in her right hand. She uses her remaining hand, the left one, to wheel her suitcase over towards the front door, where Azzi’s own is already waiting having been packed a while earlier than Paige’s luggage.
She’s about to go and fill her drink bottle (Wings branded, of course) up from the fridge when Azzi’s voice comes yet again. “Wait,” she’s saying, and already Paige is placing her bottle back in the bag at her feet and whirling her head around to listen. She’ll fill it up at the airport.
“C’mere,” Azzi continues, and like a dog to a bone the blonde is walking back over and into the closet.
“Yeah, Az?” she questions, darting her tongue out slowly to lick at her dry lips. She needs some aquaphor, she thinks absentmindedly as her gaze continues to stay focused on her girl. She wants to burn the image of her into her retinas so she can look at her forever.
“Come take a photo with me?” Azzi says, and there’s a pleading lilt to her tone although she doesn’t really need it. Paige already does whatever she wants, whenever she asks. Sometimes, she doesn’t even need to ask, and the blonde prides herself upon this fact.
Sure enough, she shuffles over. “’Course, baby. Anything for you.”
As soon as she finds herself situated close enough to the shorter girl, she throws an arm over her shoulders easily. It rests there, her hand playing with the bold, blue fabric of Azzi’s hoodie gently. It’s part of a matching set, just like Paige’s outfit.
Azzi takes the opportunity to guide Paige even closer, sliding her own arm around the blonde’s waist. The action pulls her in snugly, before moving in reverse and then coming to a halt on the small of her back. Paige shivers slightly as she feels Azzi’s thumb begin to rub up and down slowly, softly.
Not wasting any time, Azzi pulls her phone out of her pocket. Raises it, and snaps a couple of pictures. After the first click of a button, Paige leans in until her head is resting ever so slightly against Azzi’s own. The pressure, barely there, accompanied by the gentle feel of their hair colliding does wonders to ground her mind.
Next, she presses a long kiss to the other girl’s cheek; it more than does its job, satisfyingly drawing another giggle and smile from Azzi, which in turn lights up Paige’s own expression in an adoring grin.
She knows that her expression will be ever so full of love in all of these photos. Although they haven’t even hard launched yet, she can’t even find it within herself to care if the one with the kiss was to get shared — especially not when Azzi is turning, abandoning her phone into her pocket and pressing even more into the side of Paige’s long figure. Heart swelling once more, she returns the embrace. Wraps her other arm around the other girl, brings her fully into a tight hug.
After a second, there’s a content sigh from where Azzi’s head has landed on Paige’s shoulder, and she can feel the hot air coming from the puffs of breath where Azzi’s mouth is aimed towards her neck. “I love you,” comes the slightly muffled statement, and the expression on Paige’s face must grow impossibly wider with happiness. In an attempt to contain her bursting emotions, she leans down ever so slightly and presses a long kiss to Azzi’s hair.
“I love you too, baby.”
Unfortunately, there’s then a chime from Azzi’s pocket. She groans, pulling herself back from where she was locked in the embrace to check what it is. Then, she lifts her head. “Our uber is here, P. Let’s go.”
—
When they get downstairs, the uber is waiting for them as they step out of the sliding door and out into the Dallas heat. It’s warm, but the nice breeze is combating it well enough that they can keep their jackets and hoodies on. Paige, exuding chivalry and oozing confidence, plops both hers and Azzi’s suitcases into the boot of the car before opening the door for her.
On the way there, they end up occupying the middle and right seats, unable to give each other personal space even for the short ride to the airport when they crave closeness so intimately.
Also because their carry-on bags take up the whole of the left side of the car. They’d forgotten to really communicate about where to put them, and when nobody was bothered to get back out and put them in the boot with the suitcase or willing to sit apart from the other, they simply shrugged, smiled at each other, and gave up.
Discreetly, Paige begins to rub her hand up and down Azzi’s thigh beside her. Trails her thumb a little higher every now and then, just to remind her she’s still there.
After a while, she gets bored of staring straight ahead at the centre console and out of the windscreen at the highway bearing down in front of them. Goes to open Instagram on her phone instead.
Of course, when she does, Azzi’s new story is of course right at the front of her home page. She wouldn’t really expect anything else — thinks she’s probably never not viewed one of her girlfriends stories since following her all those years ago, having been smitten from the start. When clicking on the ringed profile picture, tinged with the signature pink and orange, she’s not surprised to see one of their photos from earlier. The ones they took right before leaving Paige’s apartment building.
It’s one of the tamer ones they had taken, no kiss being gifted to the view of the general public just yet. It’d only been posted mere minutes ago, too.
In it, Paige is leaning in against Azzi, with her hand wrapped around her shoulders and nails trailing up her hoodie, just above her chest. They are both giving a soft smile towards the camera lens, which is adorned by a hot pink phone case.
It’s not the one Azzi had had on for one of their previous soft launches — the one that proudly said Paige Bueckers’ Girlfriend on it in a bold font. It’s still pretty though, and so Paige doesn’t mind too much. There are, after all, other ways to let the world know who Azzi Fudd has wrapped around her little finger.
Dragging her eyes away from that part of the image, Paige notices she’s tagged, with the text hovering over her body. Azzi has put a heart next to her name, and it makes her feel oh so giddy inside. She feels like a teenager all over again, butterflies doing loops in her stomach as she feels ready to giggle and kick her feet back and forth whilst twirling strands of her hair between her fingers.
Azzi has also tagged the creator of the matching set adorning her own body. Above the two of them, the last remaining section of text reads Travel dayyy, accompanied with a plane emoji.
Paige smiles widely down at her screen. Presses the button to repost it to her own story. For a second, she has to ponder what she plans on writing back. Looks up briefly for inspiration from her surroundings. Considering the unassuming form of Azzi to the right of her. She’s busy doomscrolling on her own phone, biting down gently on her bottom lip and worrying it as she does so.
Then, Paige has a bit of a brainwave. In a moment of what she likes to think of as genius (although it’s really just cheek), she refers to the media refusing to acknowledge their relationship in her caption — Love when a former teammate joins me! 🥰
She hits post after that, smirking down at her screen and resisting the urge to let out a witch-like cackle.
In her peripheral vision, it’s not hard for her to notice immediately when Azzi turns, angling her whole body to face towards her. She lifts her own head defiantly in response, and already Azzi is making a face at her, deadpan expression taking over her features instantly.
“Paige.” she says, when the blonde doesn’t say anything — just keeps grinning at her, teeth on display.
Paige just lets out a giggle. “What is it, baby?” she says, feigning innocence.
Azzi, in response, just rolls her eyes and looks to her right, back out of the window. There’s a telltale smile small upon her lips though, which Paige knows she’s trying to fight back. “No, tell me! What did I do, huh?” she says, sliding her hand a little further up Azzi’s thigh faux soothingly.
Azzi’s smile only grows wider with Paige’s whining, her teasing. “You know what you did, don’t even try!”
Good naturedly, the blonde turns back to her own device. She’s trying her best not to laugh, to regain some of her dignity in this uber. She knows she must look absolutely, ridiculously in love.
—
A little while later, they’re at the airport. They’ve just boarded their flight to Chicago. Paige and Azzi are curled close together again, seated together once more and unwilling to part for any reason. As per usual, Paige is in the window seat whilst Azzi occupies the aisle. It’s the way they have always done it.
All around them, the entire section of the plane they are in is full of Dallas Wings gear with various team members and players occupying the seats as they wait for takeoff.
Neither of the two is paying much attention to the flight attendant demonstrating the safety components up front — they’ve seen it all a million times, travelling across the country ever regularly. Instead, they snuggle deeper into their seats as the engines whirl outside of the giant metal body distantly, gently lulling them into a sense of quiet tiredness.
Azzi is trailing her nails up and down Paige’s arm gently, scratching comfortingly in all the right places on demand after her jacket sleeve was pulled up carefully.
“D’you want your kindle yet?” Paige asks, ever anticipating Azzi’s needs and wants even as the engines build up into a crescendo signaling it’s just about time to begin taxiing. She knows Azzi loves to read on flights when she doesn’t have homework to do — it calms her mind for the journey ahead through the sky.
Sure enough, the younger girl nods. Paige piles their shared fluffy blanket up a little, just enough so that she can reach down with her free arm to the footspace and unzip Azzi’s carry on. She pulls out the small device after rustling around in the bag’s pocket, careful not to disturb the large water bottle sitting upright in the same compartment. Zips it up immediately after, before handing the tiny black rectangle over to her girlfriend. Azzi smiles gratefully, pressing a faint kiss to Paige’s cheek before halting her movements and rolling Paige’s sleeve back down.
Immediately, Paige misses the contact on her skin, but doesn’t say anything — shoves the bag back under the seat in front of them before they get told off as the plane begins to speed down the runway, always with the goal of pleasing Azzi in mind. After a couple more seconds, the familiar feeling of G-force overtakes them briefly as they lift off into the air, before the aircraft settles down at a stable altitude.
Azzi yawns, in the middle of turning on her kindle as she presses the button on the side of it. “I feel like the luckiest girl in the world,” she says, before lowering her voice to a whisper and looking around vaguely to make sure that no one else is close enough to hear the words she says next.
“Wanna eat you out later, ‘kay? You do so much for me.”
The faint words make Paige giddy, but she recovers quickly enough in time to send a response, cocky as always. “Don’t threaten me with a good time, ma,” she grins, snuggling down underneath their blanket a little deeper than before. Her hand lands across the seats and on top of Azzi’s thigh, sliding gently into a steady rhythm as she begins to rub up and down gently. “Might have to return the favour afterwards.”
Azzi just smirks, opening where she left off in her latest E-book.
“Maybe.”