Paige handed Emily her soda and the nachos that she had picked up for the two of them, scooting past her to take a seat on the bleachers. As she sat down, she noticed a woman in the bleachers on the opposite side of the auditorium looking at her. The woman smiled shyly and gave Paige a shy wave. Paige raised her soda cup in the girl's direction, smiling affably.

"Where do I know that girl from?" she asked Emily, subtly nodding her head in the woman's direction.

Emily glanced over to see whom Paige was referring to. The woman was looking between the two of them, as if trying to figure out whether or not they were together. Emily rolled her eyes and made a show of taking Paige's hand, placing both of their hands in Paige's lap. Paige let go of Emily's hand, putting her arm around Emily's shoulder and pulling her closer, with the nachos between them. She paused to give her a kiss before setting Emily's head on her shoulder.

The woman on the other side scowled, shook her head, and turned her attention back to the game.

"Oh – never mind," Paige said, oblivious. "I guess she had us confused with someone else."

Emily lifted her head from Paige's shoulder and rolled her eyes. "Okay, Paige, you don't have to be so… naïve." Emily was thinking "clueless," but "naïve" sounded nicer.

Paige chuckled, her mouth open wide. "What?"

"Look, I know you come from Tiny Town, Pennsylvania, where everybody knows your name and everybody smiles and waves and asks how you're doing when you run into each other at the general store…"

"Okay, first of all, it's not 'Tiny Town,'" Paige said, matching the sarcasm in her voice with the sarcasm Emily had used. "It's Littleburg." Emily scoffed, and Paige continued, "and, as I've told you many times, it's named after the town's founder, Stafford Little, not because it's a little town."

"Yeah. And how big is it?"

"And second of all," Paige said, talking over Emily's retort, "It's kind of nice to be friendly with people! It helps develop a sense of community. We could use a little of that in Philadelphia! I mean, come on! 'The City of Brotherly Love,' right?"

"Well, Paige, when someone gives you that kind of look, it's not brotherly love she's after," Emily pointed out, adding, under her breath, "More like sisterly love."

It took Paige a moment to process what Emily was talking about. When it hit her, she nudged Emily with her shoulder. "You're crazy!"

In some ways, it sucked to have such a beautiful girlfriend. Emily got accustomed to The Look, when she and Paige were walking together. Girls - and guys - would smile at Paige, then look over at Emily, then back to Paige, as if trying to process whether or not the two of them were together. And Emily got used to making not-so-subtle moves - usually taking Paige's hand; sometimes something bolder. Paige, meanwhile, seemed totally oblivious to what was going on. She always smiled, happy that Emily was being affectionate, and returned the show of affection.

It was annoying.

As Emily sat on her bed, facing Hanna, she realized how lucky she was to have her for a roommate. Sure, Hanna drove her crazy sometimes, but Hanna was also the one who was there to talk her down when she was going crazy on her own. Or when Paige was driving her crazy.

"Okay, Hanna. Say you were dating this gorgeous girl, and women are always flirting with her…"

"Wait, so, am I a girl or a guy?"

Emily shook her head, raising her hands in disbelief. "You're a girl… you're me."

Hanna shrugged her shoulders, as if she had no possible way of knowing that.

"So, girls are always flirting with her…"

"So, the girl is Paige?"

Emily grunted, closing her eyes and pinching the bridge of her nose. "Yes, of course, the girl is Paige!"

"So, we're talking about you and Paige?" Emily took a deep breath, trying to calm herself down, and nodded slowly. "Oh, so, what's the problem? You know Paige is as loyal as a Labrador. You know she'd never cheat on you!"

"I know, but…"

"But nothing," Hanna insisted. "Remember? The mango yogurt?"

Paige always ate a tub of Greek yogurt, always peach, for breakfast. It was like a ritual, or even a religious duty with her. Always one tub. Always Greek yogurt. Always peach.

One Saturday, when the four of them – Paige, Emily, Hanna, and Pru – were getting breakfast at a coffee shop, Paige selected her usual peach yogurt and an energy drink from the refrigerated case, and, Emily, seeing mango yogurt next to the peach in the same case, decided to give that a try. It was really good, as she told Paige, offering her a taste.

Paige's eyes closed and she moaned, closing her eyes as she savored it. "Wow," she said. "That's really creamy and good!"

Emily smiled to herself, happy that she'd found something that Paige liked. "So, I guess you have a couple of options for breakfast, now," she remarked cheerfully.

Paige chuckled nervously and dipped her head, giving herself another spoonful of her peach yogurt.

"Remember the whole crisis of identity that Paige had after that?" Hanna prodded.

"Okay, I know she'd never cheat on me," Emily conceded. "But what if I'm like peach yogurt to her? She knows there's something better out there, and she's only sticking with me out of her sense of loyalty."

"Emily…"

"What?" Emily lowered her head, looking at the nails on her left hand. That's the moral of the peach yogurt story!"

"Okay, first of all, you're not peach yogurt! If anything, you're the mango yogurt in that story." Emily twitched her lips and hunched her shoulders. She certainly didn't feel like the mango yogurt, when all the other exotic flavors of yogurt were constantly throwing themselves at her girlfriend. "And, second, she wouldn't just stick with you out of loyalty. She dumped Shana, right?"

"Shana dumped her!"

"Shana dumped her?" Emily nodded sadly. "Well, what the hell was Shana's problem? Seriously? Shana dumped her?"

"Shana dumped her," Emily said in a sad monotone, not really feeling up to rehashing the whole Shana situation, "because she knew that she never had Paige's heart."

"Aha!" Hanna yelled, almost leaping off of the bed. She startled Emily so much that Emily almost fell off the bed herself. "That's it, Em! Do you have Paige's heart?"

"Yes," Emily admitted weakly.

"Yeah, you do!" Hanna affirmed. "And does she give a shit about those other girls?"

"That's the point, Hanna! She doesn't even know that they're flirting with her, so she doesn't shut them down!"

"Aw, Em!" Hanna wrapped Emily in her arms and hugged her. "Don't you see? You've got your girl so hung up on you that she doesn't even notice anybody else!"

"Yeah," Emily said dismissively. "That's what's going on." Emily wasn't ready to admit it, but she hoped that what Hanna said was true.

"Now we've just got to teach her how to shut down those other chicks!"

Emily took a quick look over at Paige, in the passenger seat, and turned her attention back to the road. "Nervous?"

Paige shook her head. "Not really."

It wasn't Paige's first time in Rosewood. She had met and gotten along with Emily's mother. But this was different than that Thanksgiving weekend, when Paige only really saw Pam and Hanna. This time, they were going to be in Rosewood for the first week of summer vacation, and they would certainly run into a few of Emily's old friends.

Paige tried to joke about it. "So, is it just going to be a non-stop parade of all your ex-girlfriends this week?"

Emily shot her a glare and went back to driving. "Really, Paige? That's what you think of me?"

Paige rubbed Emily's forearm. Emily moved her arm out from under Paige's hand, putting her hand on the steering wheel.

"I didn't mean it like that, Em. I just know that… you dated a lot of girls back in high school."

Emily ran her hand through her hair, trying not to let the situation devolve into a full-blown fight. "It wasn't a lot of girls, Paige," she said, her voice louder than she intended, and obviously annoyed.

"I'm sorry, Em," Paige said in a soft voice. "It's just… kind of intimidating. I mean, sometimes, I wonder why someone like you would even date someone like me. And the thought of seeing the girls you used to date, I…" Paige sighed, letting the thought drop.

Emily took a calming breath. She remembered her conversation with Hanna, and how insecure it made her feel to see other girls flirting with Paige. She turned towards Paige, nodding her head. "Okay. I get that. But it wasn't a lot of girls. I had one serious relationship in high school…"

"Maya?"

Emily nodded. "And, after that it was… I don't know. I didn't really know how to be alone, I guess, so I just found girls to make me feel… not alone."

"Like Ashley?" Paige asked tentatively.

Emily scoffed. "Ashley was a long-term relationship by comparison with the girls in high school." Emily shook her head as she thought it over. "If my life were a TV show, all those other girls were like one or two episodes max, you know what I mean? Like, if the writers were really lazy and said, 'Oh, we haven't put Emily together with anyone for a while – how about we throw the new barista at her, or the head of the LGBTQ club from another school, or some cringe-worthy older female coworker - or some supposedly mysterious blonde chick with a troubled past, whom she just feels like punching in the face by the end…" Emily winced a little at that last recollection. It left Paige confused.

"I find it hard to believe you'd feel like punching anyone, Em."

"Trust me," Emily huffed out, shaking her hand. "If you'd known her, you'd believe it." Paige put her hand on Emily's thigh, and Emily covered it with her hand. "Trust me, Paige, if you meet anyone from my past, she was either a mistake, a bad decision, or a regret."

Paige switched the position of their hands, putting hers on top of Emily's and giving it a gentle squeeze. "I'm sorry you went through all that."

Emily shrugged. "It was who I was back then. I had a lot of growing up to do, and I did it. If anything, it just makes me appreciate what I've got with you."

Paige leaned over to give Emily a kiss on the cheek. Emily smiled and tried to turn her attention back to driving. There was something on her mind, but she wasn't sure how to bring it up, without making it appear that she was trying to minimize or deflect Paige's insecurity by bringing up her own. She ran her fingers through her hair and sighed, without really realizing that she had done so. Paige couldn't help picking up on the sigh, though. "Are you okay?"

Emily smiled weakly. "I'm... not really sure how to tell you this," she said. Paige angled her body towards Emily and smiled expectantly, thinking that it was going to be one of those embarrassing stories that Emily didn't like to admit. When Emily patted her comfortingly on the thigh, though, Paige realized that it was something more serious.

"I... um... I had a talk with Hanna last week." Emily glanced over at Paige. Paige bit her lip. "About us."

"Okay." There was a hint of dread in Paige's voice. Fear made her forget that she was driving to Rosewood to spend time with Emily's family and friends. She worried that Emily had finally come to her senses about her, the way that she had come to her senses about all of those other girls.

"Paige." Emily was trying to be gentle. "Do you know how it feels when people flirt with your girlfriend right in front of you?"

"People are flirting with you?" Paige sat up quickly, concerned that she wasn't protecting Emily from unwanted advances, the way that a girlfriend should.

"Ugh... God, Paige. You. They're flirting with you."

"I'm sorry?" Paige recalled a couple of times when Emily pointed out the fact that people had been flirting with her.

"It's not your fault. And I'm not upset with you. I know that you don't encourage it. But I can't help but feel, you know? Why would you settle for me when there are all these other women out there?"

"Emily, I would never..."

"I know you wouldn't," Emily asserted. "I know you're loyal. But I don't want you to stick with me just because you're loyal."

"Emily..."

Part of Emily knew that she was being irrational, but, whatever it was, she needed reassurance that what Paige felt for her was still real; that the desire was still there; that she wasn't just sticking with Emily because it was easier than letting go.

"Emily, pull over." Paige pointed to the shoulder on the side of the road.

"I'm fine, Paige," Emily protested, though the quiver in her voice showed that she wasn't. "I can drive."

"Please?"

Emily pulled over to the side and put the car in park, dropping her forehead into the palms of her hand. Paige undid their seat belts and pulled Emily close. "Come here," she said, pressing her cheek against Emily's head. "I love you, Emily, okay? I want to be with you - only you. I want to build us our lives together." Paige kissed Emily's hair. "You believe me, don't you?"

Emily separated herself from Paige so that she could look her in the eye as she nodded her reply. "And you believe me?"

"Of course I do."

"Okay," Emily said softly, a smile finally creeping across her lips.

"Do you want me to drive for a bit?"

Emily shook her head. "We're not far from a rest area. Why don't we take a lunch break?"

"Okay," Emily said, smiling at Paige, "I probably shouldn't tell you this but…" She looked over to gauge Paige's reaction. Paige had the look of someone who was waiting for the doctor to give her the results of a biopsy. She wasn't sure how many more revelations she could take.

Emily stroked her cheek to assure her that it wasn't bad news. She didn't want Paige to be in the bad kind of suspense. Things were still a bit strained after their conversation in the car, and she wanted to reassure Paige of her feelings, the way that Paige had reassured her. But it was going to be hard for her to tell Paige, because it was the embarrassing kind of news.

"Okay. Here goes," she continued. "Last summer? When I had sworn off relationships? So, my Mom came out as Team Paige."

"Team Paige?"

"Oh yeah. I mean, she was, like, hardcore Team Paige," Emily said with a laugh and another check of Paige's facial expression. Paige was wearing a nervous smile. "She… was definitely making a strong push for Paily. I even told her about all the times that I tried to get your attention and you shot me down, to try to get her to stop dreaming about you."

"I didn't shoot you down," Paige said sadly, dipping her head.

"I know," Emily said softly, reaching for Paige's hand. "My point is… you know how moms know things? Like, they have perspective, when you're all blinded by emotion?"

Paige shrugged her shoulders. "I never really had that kind of relationship with my Mom," she admitted. Emily shot her a sympathetic pout, but Paige assured her that it was okay. "Go on," she urged.

"Well, I mean, my Mom saw all those girls I used to date, and she knew that there was nothing to them. But, like, without even meeting you… I don't know. She could just tell that there was something different about what I felt for you. Even back when we weren't together."

"Aw…" Emily had given Paige a huge advantage, and Paige playfully seized on it. She got up from her seat and walked around to Emily's side of the table to give her an exaggerated hug. "You love me, Emily Fields!"

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever, McCullers!"

A/N - Sorry; I had to rush this one out and didn't have time to proof it as thoroughly as I'd like. Thanks for understanding... :)