(Leah Williamson and Jordan Noobs)
The room was dimly lit, the soft glow of a streetlamp casting faint patterns across the ceiling. Leah Williamson lay there, staring up, her mind tangled in the events of the last few hours. The warmth of Jordan Nobbs' body was still beside her, their legs tangled beneath the sheets, but the distance between them felt insurmountable.
Jordan shifted, propping herself up on one elbow. Leah could feel her gaze, but she couldn't bring herself to meet it. Instead, she focused on the rhythm of her own breath, steady yet fragile.
"Leah," Jordan's voice was barely above a whisper, but it carried the weight of uncertainty. "What happens now?"
Leah inhaled sharply, bracing herself. "I don't know."
It was the truth, but it wasn't enough. Not after everything that had happened between them.
The night had unraveled in ways neither of them had expected. A stolen moment turned into something undeniable. The barriers they'd so carefully constructed—the ones that kept them from admitting the truth—had crumbled in the space between shared glances and unspoken words.
Leah could still feel the trace of Jordan's fingertips on her skin, the way her lips had lingered, hesitant but full of something deeper than either of them had acknowledged before. But now, as the morning loomed, reality settled between them like a weight neither of them could lift.
Leah turned her head slightly, catching Jordan's expression in the dim light. It was unreadable, but her eyes—those striking blue-green eyes—held something raw.
"We should talk about this," Jordan murmured, but Leah knew that talking wouldn't change anything. It wouldn't make things simple again. It wouldn't erase the fact that this—whatever this was—had been simmering between them for years.
They'd danced around it for so long. Pretending, avoiding, convincing themselves that they were nothing more than best friends, teammates, sisters-in-arms. But there had been moments—so many moments—where the truth had threatened to surface. The way Jordan would linger when they hugged after a match. The way Leah's heart would race whenever their hands brushed. The way silence filled the space between them when they were alone, loaded with everything they were too afraid to say.
And last December—Jordan resting against her, Leah's heartbeat pounding so loudly she was sure Jordan could hear it. She had wanted to stay in that moment forever, but she'd been too afraid to move, too afraid to acknowledge what it meant.
Now, there was no denying it.
Leah sat up, wrapping the sheet around her. "Do you regret it?" she asked, not sure if she was prepared for the answer.
Jordan sighed, running a hand through her hair. "No. But that doesn't mean it isn't complicated."
Complicated. That was an understatement.
Leah clenched her jaw. "So, what? We pretend it didn't happen? We go back to being just—"
"Friends?" Jordan cut in, her voice thick with something Leah couldn't place. "I don't think we ever were just friends, Leah."
The words hung between them. Leah wanted to believe them. She wanted to hold onto Jordan, to keep her close, to rewrite the rules of whatever this was. But Jordan was already pulling away, the same way she always did when things got too real.
Leah could feel it—the shift, the silent retreat. Jordan was good at that. She had always been the one to laugh things off, to push past emotions like they didn't matter. But they did. They had to.
Jordan swung her legs over the side of the bed, reaching for her clothes. Leah felt panic rise in her chest, but she forced herself to stay still.
"Is this what you want?" Leah asked, her voice barely steady.
Jordan hesitated for a fraction of a second, and that was enough.
"I don't know how to do this, Leah," Jordan admitted, her back still turned. "I don't know how to be with you without risking everything."
Leah swallowed hard. "Then maybe we figure it out together."
Jordan finally turned around, and in her eyes, Leah saw every moment they had ever shared—the laughter, the fights, the years of unspoken words, and the love that had always been there, even if neither of them had been brave enough to name it.
And for the first time, Leah wondered if maybe, just maybe, they didn't have to go back to being just friends.
