THE NEXT MORNING, Kai could not move. An arm was in front of her, a leg was over her body, and something was on her feet. She forces herself up to see the girls passed out in her room. "Who wants to get breakfast?" Kai asks loudly waking some of them up.

Kai climbs over to get to the floor and into the bathroom. Kai gets ready, doing light makeup and doing an updo with her hair. She walks out of the bathroom to see all of the girls awake now and just on their phones, even though their phones were almost dead.

"What room is Paige in?" Kai questions and KK gives her the room number. "I'll see you guys at breakfast in thirty minutes." She tells them and leaves her hotel room heading to Paige's room. Kai takes a deep breath, standing in front of the door. She waits a second before knocking.

Paige opens the door, in her signature sports bra and some basketball shorts. "Hi." Kai says with a small wave, not knowing what to do. Paige sighs and lets the girl in.

"So, what makes you think I'm dating Kate Martin all of a sudden?" Kai ponders and Paige scratches the back of her neck, "she's in your comments a lot."

Kai raises an eyebrow at Paige. "You're in my comments a lot. Does that mean me and you are dating?" Kai retorts. Paige has to bite her tongue from saying 'yes' to the question. "She just called me pretty and wanted to talk." Kai explains as if that makes it any better for Paige.

Kai looks at Paige, who walks around her to grab a sweatshirt. "Breakfast?" Kai nods and they go down to the lobby for breakfast together. Paige walks fast making Kai practically jog to keep up.

Kai stops making Paige stop too, looking back at the girl. Kai smirks and runs up on Paige and jumps up on her back. "Onward my noble stead!" Kai says pointing forward, acting like a medieval knight on his horse. Paige laughs loudly before taking off running.

Paige comes to a stop when they reach the elevator. Kai goes to jump down from her back but Paige keeps her arms around Kai's legs, keeping her in place. Kai wiggles her feet in an attempt to get Paige to loosen her grip but she doesn't break her hold.

Kai gives up trying to get down as Paige steps into the elevator and presses the lobby button, "are you gonna let me down?" Kai asks. Paige shakes her head just as the elevator dings and opens up to the lobby. Paige enters the area where all the other girls are as they are just getting breakfast and waking up.

"Y'all made up?" Aubrey asks with a laugh, Paige laughs as well before letting Kai down. Kai takes a seat next to Ice. "Slade, what do you want to eat?" Paige asks. Kai looks up at the blonde in admiration.

"You don't need to get me my food, I'm not hungover today." Kai explains, going to get up and grab her own food. Paige tsks and makes her sit back down, "I don't care, now tell me what you want or I'm just bringing you a singular pancake." The blonde says. Kai blinks, looking at the girl through her eyelashes. "Just some sausage and orange juice, please." Kai says sweetly giving Paige a smile.

Paige nods and goes to grab them breakfast. The other girls watch as Paige assembles a single plate for both of them. "She's so whipped." KK whispers to no one in particular. Paige returns with two forks and a thing of juice for Kai. She takes the other seat next to the girl, as Ice was on the other side. "Thank you, P."

Paige smiles at the little nickname, if it is even is considered a nickname. KK makes a tiktok asking all the girls what they got for breakfast. It gets to Paige, when Kai goes to tell KK what she got-- Paige did for her. Kai playfully rolls her eyes, "okay mom, wanna pick out my outfit too?" She teases and Paige looks at her.

"Can I actually pick your outfit again?" Paige begs, clasping her hands together in a begging motion. Kai being her, she says yes. Paige smiles and the girls finish eating their breakfast before getting ready ready to go out and do some shopping.

Paige goes to ham on Kai's suitcase. Trying her best to work with what the girl brought along. Paige groans acting like this is the most difficult task she's ever faced. "Okay, I'm picking my outfit out now. I am picking at your outfit this time." Kai declares and picks up the clothes that were now scattered around her hotel room. Paige rolls her eyes and lays down on the bed while Kai gets changed.

After Kai changed, they head to Paige's room. Kai does the same thing to Paige's suitcase as she did to hers. Kai picks out a top and pants before throwing them at the blonde. Paige catches them making an oomph sound.

Paige pretends that the throw of the clothes hurt her but in reality it didn't. Paige gets dressed and then they head down to the lobby to meet up with the team. "Alright, we can't be out later than 10 PM. Coaches orders." Kai says with her hands up so they don't shoot the messenger.

They all head out to the bus and take off to the nearest mall. They all jam out to songs, making the time go faster.

KAISLADE POSTED

⇾

liked by paigebueckers, nika.muhl, therealashlynn12, and 17,829 others.

swipe to see paige moving while i was taking her picture 🙈

tagged: paigebueckers

azzi35: my twin
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nika.muhl: the fit ate 😍
↳ kaislade: i was inspired by you or wtv 🙄

paigebueckers: wow you just had to put that photo in
↳ kaislade: it adds to my post so yes i did

kamoreaarnold: paige never be standing still
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-

The girls arrive to the mall, immediately getting stopped by some fans who wanted to take pictures with Paige. Kai happily takes the photos for the fans, loving how Paige is getting recognition. Kai gives the phone back to the fans before they ask to take a picture with Kai too, shocking her.

Kai agrees to the photos and Paige now has the phone and is taking the pictures of Kai and the fan. Kai makes quick conversation with the fan before they walk off and do some shopping, leaving the fan with a big smile on her face.

"Hey, let's go into that store!" Kai says while pointing at the Coach Outlet. Some of the girls follow her, the others opting for a different store. The girls follow Kai around like children, feeling out of place in the designer store.

Kai fits right in, looking at the bags, perfume, clothing, and some shoes. "Oh my god." Kai says when a bag catches her eye. It was a purse that looked like a camera, it was perfect. She definitely needed to get it. She gets an associate and they go and fetch one for her.

Kai pays for the bag, it being on the cheaper side since it was at an outlet. The girls head out, Kai being the only one who bought something at this store.

The girls decided they wanted to go to the Nike store and Kai decided to go as well. "You should probably get some more sweatpants." Kai teases to Paige, Paige smirks and nods taking her advice. 

Kai watches as Paige goes over to the sweatpants with Nika. Kai goes and browses the store, not necessarily looking for anything to buy. The players spend a long time in the store, way longer than Kai spent in Coach. All of the girls, albeit Kai, bought something from Nike.

Guess Factory is where they end up going next. Kai sees a sweatshirt that she absolutely needs, "look at how cute this sweatshirt is." Kai says showing it to Paige. Paige agrees and decides she needs one too.

Kai gets it in the signature pink while Paige gets it in the white. Paige, Kai, Ice, and KK end up at the food court, hungry after all the shopping.

Kai gets a thing of pretzels from Auntie Annie's, she shares most of them with Ice. Paige and KK stealing an occasional bite even though they got something from Cinnabon.

PAIGEBUECKERS POSTED

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fit?

tagged: kaislade

kaislade: best fit you've ever had on
↳ paigebueckers: okay liar

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aaliyahedwards_24: yes p boogers
↳ kaislade: BOOGERS???

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-

It was finally game day. Kai wakes up, alone for once. And gets ready, leaving her hair down this time and doing some more heavy and noticeable makeup. It was already 10:32 AM. Kai grabs her phone and keys and camera bags as they needed to be down at the lobby by 11:30 AM. The whole team was already down in their Husky gear, with their basketball bags.

"Sup." Kai says grabbing an apple and taking a bite of it. All of the girls were having a biggish breakfast to fuel themselves for the game. They load the bus and are off to the gym to get some practice in, stretching, and all that jazz.

Kai sits next to Caroline, not knowing her as well as the others. "Hey," Kai says starting conversation and it took a bit for Caroline to open up but they got to know each other a bit more.

The bus comes to the gym and they all get off and go into the visitors locker room. The girls set their stuff down and strip to their warmup gear and head out to the gym.

Kai stays back and gets her cameras ready as usual. Kai heads out to the gym, the girls shooting and stretching. Kai sees Paige stretching more than others, she assumes this is from her ACL tear.

The girls notice Kai and how she was filming with her stability attachment, they do little dances and fun things in front of the camera while warming up. It was thirty or so minutes before the game started.

Kai switches her cameras to take pictures instead of film, when the announcer came on and started to introduce both starting line ups. Kai takes pictures of the UConn team, as they went through the roster.

The first half, UConn was winning but it was barely. The girls were stressing coming back from halftime. Kai starts taking pictures again when they start the third quarter, it was going well— sort of.

It was the start of the fourth quarter and UConn was down. Kai groans watching her players bust their asses on the court. She looks at her gallery and has over 3,000 photos. Plenty of photos for this game. She pulls out her phone to see a message from Kate Martin.

katemartin
i see you on the sidelines taking pictures
im watching the game lol

kaislade
oh yeah?
how's my hair look lol

All while this was happening, Paige was looking at the girl. Kai was smiling at her phone— not paying attention to the blonde. Paige was distracted for the rest of the quarter.

She knew she couldn't blame this loss on herself or Kai. But she's the one that got jealous in the middle of a game over a girl that isn't even hers.

-

The ride back to the hotel was silent. And solemn, the team didn't think they would have their first loss this early in the season after such a good opening game. It was tense in the bus. You could cut the tension with a dull razor blade.

When the bus came to the hotel, Paige was the first to get off. She didn't anything to anyone since the game. Kai would go and ask her what's wrong but she knew the answer— half the answer at least.

Kai loaded all her stuff back into her suitcase as they would be leaving tomorrow morning, the girls definitely going to have extra hard practices because of the game.

Ice was in Paige's room, finally getting around to telling her about what happened the day they left. "You pulled back your covers and you were half naked, Kai started blushing like crazy. She likes you." Ice explains. Paige shakes her head with a scoff.

"Nah. She's talking to Kate Martin. Apparently I'm not the blonde she likes." Paige retorts. Ice rolls her eyes at her pettiness and jealousy.

"Did she tell you that?" Ice asks and Paige doesn't give an answer, Ice nods her head. "If she told you she wasn't with Kate, why don't you believe her?" Paige shrugs her shoulders.

"She's so pretty bro, like why would she like me?" Paige questions as she tries to take her hair out but was too frustrated to do it. Ice helps her but it wasn't as good as when Kai did it. Especially since she didn't give Paige a little head massage after.

"Go to her room, talk to her. It will be fine." Ice tells the blonde, she nods and heads down to Kai's hotel room. Paige knocks and Kai opens the door with a smile, her hair wet from just taking a shower.

Kai was dressed in silk shorts and a UConn sweatshirt. "Hey, come in." Kai says and Paige walks in.

"So, uhm. What's up with you and Kate?" Paige asks not looking at the brunette. Kai smiles, "nothing, we just started talking— I like a different blonde anyways."

Paige gives a slight smile before Kai's phone rings by the bed. Paige goes to grab it. On the screen was Kate Martin calling her. Paige scoffs and shows Kai the phone. "Yeah, nothing." She says and throws the phone on the bed and storms out of the room.

"Paige!"

-

oops?