Pacify Her | Paige Bueckers

twenty | surprise

As great as Paige was a ball player, and a team leader, and hell—I guess a girlfriend—she was also a friend. She'd noticed KK staring at her lock-screen, an image of she and Ava, a lot more than usual. KK seemed enthused to be in the final four, of course, but she also seemed to be missing home. While Paige couldn't bring all of Connecticut to KK, she could bring a special someone. Players, especially bigger ones, were allowed to make requests like these. She ran it by Geno and then NCAA officials. Once she'd gotten the okay, she called up Ava.

"Don't tell KK," she requested of Ava, "it's gonna be a surprise. Send me the list of plane ticket prices for tomorrow." Ava, who had actually never been on a plane, did as was asked. When she was younger, she always hoped that she could have a cute first ride, like how Vanessa Bryant had. Vanessa was scared of flights but flew on a plane for the first time to attend Kobe's high school jersey retirement with him. Ava considered asking her father to come, but, where would he stay? And how would he react when he actually saw Ava and KK embrace one another? Ava knew that her dad had some reservations about their bond, despite his best attempts to mask his feelings.

A private plane was ordered for Ava, who boarded the around 6 a.m. the next day. The huskies would be playing the University of North Carolina later in the day, about twelve hours after the booking of Ava's flight. That meant that essentially, KK and Ava would really only have about five hours together, if you subtract the nearly two hour flight. By 1 p.m., the girls would eat lunch and start prepping for the game with stretches and having their feet taped up.

"I'm so glad you could make it short notice," Paige greeted Ava with a side hug. Paige truly had a good spirit, still maintaining a sense of likeness for Ava, even after all she had done. But as Paige got to know Ava more, she saw a very multi-dimensional human that was potentially sheltered to certain dynamics beforehand. Paige also understood that Ava was battling her own demons—something that often makes people insufferable toward the world.

But then again, Ava wasn't some super bad person, anyway. Yeah she locked Azzi in an elevator and then started a rumor about her, but both were driven by hurt to a degree. Paige understood that from the moment those incidents happened, though that (understandably) didn't make them any better. But Paige herself had liked the war waged by Ava; she saw it as a fight over her (which it essentially was). And if it weren't for KK suddenly popping up in Ava's life, who knows if Paige would have folded again. She's much less disciplined than Azzi is.

"Thank you for inviting me," Ava warmly smiled. Her life has felt different since her coming out, believe it or not. Everything was all sunshine and rainbows in her world now. If she had lived nearby one, Ava would be dancing through a meadow of tall grass with a sundress on, right about now.

"KK is in the lobby, right?" Paige asked Ice over the phone. Ice looked to her left, where Azzi created an argument for her and KK to go back and forth on for some time as a distraction.

"She is," Ice confirmed.

"And y'all made sure to leave her door unlocked, right?" Paige further asked, as she began walking toward the elevators. Ava had only brought a small suitcase of stuff. Paige turned around toward Ava and motioned a "come on" signal with her hand.

"Qadence should be in her room," Ice insisted. "If not, I have the key in my phone case... you know how careless KK is." Ava smiled as she heard that line.

"Well the doors open," Paige confided to Ice as she held her phone between her shoulder and ear. "But nobody is in here and the lights are off. Qadence probably went back to bed, it's pretty early still. But anyway, tell KK to come up to her room now."

"How ima do that?" Ice retorted, almost instantly as Ava slid her suitcase under KK's bed, to keep KK from seeing it.

"Ask her to get something," Paige began, "I don't know. Or you and Azzi can both collectively say you're coming back to the rooms."