Pacify Her | Paige Bueckers

four | body heat

Azzi stared across the cafeteria as Paige interacted with a woman that fit the description that she gave of Ava the other day. Paige was laughing and had nudged the girl in the arm as she cheekily smiled. Azzi aggressively bit into her cold cut combo six-inch from subway as she watched.

KK's eyes followed Azzi's gaze, trying to understand what's going on. "Girl boo!" she said upon realization, "is that miss Ava girl?" Azzi slowly nodded, showing some uncertainty.

"Gotta be," she answered, looking away. "Fits the description and I've never seen her before. Paige did mention that this girl kind of came out of nowhere."

"I mean," KK was unsure of what to say, "you're the main girl, at least." The whole school knew about Paige and Azzi, due to the leaked video. But the women's basketball team had mixed feelings, mostly because they understood that mixing romance with work could be a recipe for disaster.

KK personally had first hand knowledge of what could happen when you hook up and fall in love with your close, long term friend. In many situations it works, but the odds here were simply lower than hell. Nonetheless, to maintain the peace, nobody shared their thoughts with either Azzi or Paige. The team expressed support over the leaked video and moved on. As long as Azzi and Paige's intertwining doesn't affect UConn's success, then I guess there was nothing to complain about.

"I don't care," Azzi subtly rolled her eyes as she shrugged. As she did that, Paige approached.

"Y'all wanna hit the library?" Bueckers asked, wide eyed. "I got a test later today that I completely forgot about. I need to power read through some shit."

"In the arms of an Angel," KK began to sing before she was interrupted by Paige. "I don't have time for this shit KK," she insisted with a laugh, "come on."

"You guys can go," Azzi waved Paige and KK. She picked up her sandwich, "still not done."

KK was suspicious, but Paige was oblivious. "Aight," Paige nodded, "be cool. Ima see you later."

Azzi stared at Ava, who stood at the ketchup dispenser. Now that her teammates were gone, Azzi could confront Ava if she wanted to. But, what would she even say? How would that look? The star player threatening a random woman based on speculated information? And how would Paige react if that got out? Paige doesn't owe Azzi loyalty.

In fact, Azzi came up with another approach. She was going to kill Ava with kindness. Maybe in doing so, Ava may grow a soft spot for Azzi's regard and back off Paige. Azzi assumed that Ava being here, and her being so into Paige clearly, meant that she most likely knew about the leaks.

"Hi," Azzi breathed out. Whatever happened in between her thoughts and her walking up to Ava was blurry. Azzi was very reserved normally and would never imagine herself doing this, but strong feelings invoke courage—I guess. Ava slowly turned around, going bug-eyed the second she noticed who it was.

"Oh-oh-oh" she stuttered, "oh my gosh, Azzi?!" Azzi immediately felt bad for even having reservations about this young lady. Clearly, Ava had some level of admiration for her, too. Maybe, Ava truly was not as much a threat as Azzi thought she was. Maybe, only Paige and her flirt-isizing of things was the issue.

Speaking of Paige, she and KK were not at the library. They had just gotten chick-fil-a and were now sitting in Paige's car. But Paige knew that Azzi wasn't big on the library and most likely wouldn't tag along. Not that Paige didn't want to be around Azzi, but she had some pretty big news that was better off being withheld from Azzi.

"What?!" KK's voice made the car shake. Paige had just told her that she and Ava would be hooking up tonight. "You just met the dang girl!" Paige looked downward at her lap as she laughed. KK continued, "how did this even happen?! How'd you know she likes girls? Who proposed the idea?"