Emily sighs exasperatedly over her cup of coffee, hurt brown eyes looking over the top of the cup at her friend, "Hannah, do you honestly believe Paige is seeing someone else?"

"Well, no, I – I don't know. I know the way she looks at you, I wouldn't have thought she could even recognise another girl, never mind want to do anything about it. But..." Hanna hesitates, knowing the next point could possibly hurt her, "Em, she looked really happy."

Emily, quickly looks away. Something about that point sticks in her throat a little, but she's not about to discuss that here and now. She swallows down a sip of coffee.

"So?"

"So – what?"

Emily laughs and shakes her head. "For God's sake, what is it with you guys and Paige? First she's A, then we're getting married—"

"No, all I said was you look like a wedding cake from outer space" Hannah mumbles.

"Now she's all over some new girl who works in the costume shop." Emily was starting to get frustrated. "Look, Han, you think she's unfaithful? You talk to her. I trust her."

Emily puts down her empty coffee cup and slings her bag over her shoulder. "Just, get something sorted in your head, Han, 'cause I don't want any awkwardness between you." She glances at Hanna's face, tone softening a little "I get it, I get that you're concerned for me. I get that you want me to be happy. But honestly? Paige makes me happy. Really happy." As Emily turns to walk away, she thinks of something and smirks, "Hey, listen, maybe we should both worry?"

"What? Why?"

"Well, Paige and Caleb have been spending an awful lot of time together. Secret phone calls, secret meetings.'

"Em, please, have you seen us?" She indicates herself and Emily, "plus, plus, Paige is gay as the day – and don't you dare say anything about Caleb's hair" she shouts as she sees the glint in Emily's eye. As Emily walks off, Hannah hurriedly grabs her things and runs after her. "Hey, Em, maybe I could get Caleb to find out?"

"Hannah, drop it" Emily's tone leaves little doubt that Hannah needs to drop this conversation now.

"No, all I mean, well aren't you a little curious as to how Paige knows her?"

"Hannah!"

Emily drops her heavy school bag on the floor of Paige's bedroom as Paige turns from her desk, puts down her pen and smiles.

"Hey."

"Hey, um… you ok?" Paige gets up from her chair and slowly walks over to Emily. She presses her hands onto the front of Emily's plaid shirt, lightly holding the lapel of her collar and pulls her towards her, kissing her gently. Emily puts her arms round Paige's waist, hands pausing as her thumb finds a point where her top has risen slightly and she has access to warm skin, just above Paige's hip-bone. Paige jumps at the touch of her cold hand, breath lightly hitches in her throat at the touch of Emily's hand and she smiles into the kiss a little more and presses a little harder. Eventually Paige breaks the kiss and rests her forehead on Emily's.

"Hi, how are you?" Emily whispers as she breathes out. She's got used to feeling so safe in Paige's arms that she's now angry that at the back of her mind, the question that Hannah made her ask has been placed there. That now, yes, she does kind of want to know how Paige knows this new girl. Does want to know just how friendly Hannah saw them being, just how 'happy' Paige looked. And much as she trusts Paige, the damn question is there now and she doesn't know how to bring it up. So, she disentangles herself from Paige and moves over to her desk, pretending to look at her work.

"Government and Politics essay. How's it going?"

Paige looks at her curiously and dips her head, smirking slightly. Caleb called her a while back and she kind of wondered how Emily would be when she turned up. Now she knows, for all her defence of Paige, (which Caleb made sure that Paige knew) there's something not right in her interactions - a slight distance.

"Seriously, Em, you came round to ask about G & P and how my homework's going?"

"We are supposed to be studying."

"Yeah, and we know how that usually goes" Paige smiles at her and tilts her head to try and catch Emily's eyes which are all over everywhere in the room apart from on her. She moves closer to Emily again, catches the hand which is resting on top of Paige's books. "C'mon. Caleb called. What do you wanna ask me?"

Emily sighs, bites her top lip, eyes everywhere but Paige, ashamed that she even has to say anything and still angry with Hannah, for seeing, for sharing, for getting Caleb involved.

"Look, Paige, I didn't ask Hannah to say anything to Caleb."

"No, he said that – "

"I told her to drop it, Paige"

"I know, he –"

"I wish she hadn't said anything."

"Sure, but –"

"I'm so angry with her right now, I could –"

"Emily, shut up!" Paige interrupts with a squeeze of her hand and a smile. "God, and you say Spencer gets locked onto things." She shakes her head and tries to catch Emily's eyes, frowning slightly, "Why won't you look at me?"

Emily shuts her eyes, shakes her head, breathes out a frustrated sigh. She lets go of Paige's hand and heads over to the window,

"Because I'm annoyed, with Hannah, but mostly at myself."

Paige sucks back the words she was about to speak. "Wh- Why?"

"Because I told Hannah I trust you. And I do trust you. And if you have other friends and know other people, that's fine. That should be fine. But this little voice has been going round and round in my head and it's driving me insane."

"What's the voice say, Em?"

"I don't know," Emily shrugs, "Just 'ask her, ask her, who is she? Why is she with someone else? Aren't I enough? Why would she want to see someone else? What if she is having an affair? What if she's bored of me?'"

"Woah, woah. Emily?" Paige is by Emily's side again, fingers in Emily's belt loops, smiling at her. She puts the fingers of her left hand to her brow to clear her mind and give herself a moment to speak. "Can we just have a conversation about this without going into melt-down? C'mon, sit down here." She pulls Emily to the bed and settles her down, taking one of Emily's hands into both her own, playing lightly with her fingers. Paige takes a breath. "Okay, her name is Shana" she begins.

"Oh my God" Emily pulls her hand away and stands up, not quite knowing where in the room to put herself.

"No, no, Em. It's not like that. Well… it was like that" Paige sees Emily's face darken, "But not now…shit, shit I'm messing this up." Paige stammers, standing up and shoving her hands into her pockets. She takes a deep breath and something in her gives and she finds herself chuckling. Emily slowly turns and stares at her like she can't quite believe what is going on.

"What the hell?"

"No, Em, come on, you know I – I – how I feel about you." She grabs Emily's hands again, takes a deep breath, begins again. "In the summer - you were away – I'd been 'friend-zoned'", Emily sighs at that and goes to say something, Paige quickly carries on, "She moved here at the beginning of the summer. She works in that creepy costume shop. I used to bump into her when I was running or on my way to the coffee shop. A couple of times we'd be there at the same time and we'd pass the time of day, or whatever." Paige shrugs, "Anyway, turns out…" Paige doesn't quite know where to go from here, but she feels Emily stiffen in front of her and ploughs on, "So, we, um, well we, hooked up a couple of times." Paige can feel herself blushing.

"Hooked up? How many times are we talking, Paige? And, just for the record, what are we talking? What does 'hooking up' actually mean?" Emily's surprised this has thrown her so much, surprised she's so upset. Some of the 'hooking up' her and Paige have been getting up to has become pretty intimate, and she finds that she hates the thought of anyone else's hands or worse, lips, on Paige.

"Um, well, I don't know, I guess we were together about three weeks or so?" Paige is torn between acute embarrassment, concern at how Emily is reacting and, in all honesty a little smugness at how Emily is reacting. "A-and, then, you came back from Haiti, and – you – came – to – visit – me" she hesitates whilst speaking the last few words, "And – so – I – ended it with Shana." Paige shrugged again.

Emily glances at Paige quickly. Realises that she could so easily have messed up a good thing for Paige in her own turmoil on a kiss she doesn't even remember. And another part of her heart goes out to Paige as she realises why Paige can't say how she feels about Emily, because Paige still thinks that there's a mis-step in where they are now. But Emily's spent since her lunch-time conversation with Hannah, wandering around Rosewood, thinking about how she's feeling, about how Paige makes her feel. About how losing Paige would make her feel. And she knows there isn't any disparity in how they feel about one another now. Knows where they are. Softens in her stance as she wants to make Paige aware, and doesn't want Paige to have to not say the thing she keeps sucking down anymore.

Emily moves towards Paige, who's been standing the last few seconds biting on the side of her thumb, watching Emily intently. Emily smiles and Paige lets go a long breath. Emily wraps her arms around Paige's neck pulls her close for a hug and kisses her lightly below her ear. She moves her lips closer to Paige's ear.

"Paige?" Paige shivers at the breath on her neck, at Emily's voice "I'm sorry. I guess I'm just jealous." She smiles at the slight scoffing noise Paige makes and pulls back slightly to look at her, moves her hands to rest on Paige's forearms, delighting in how strong, yet how soft they feel.

"Yeah, jealous? of me? C'mon Emily."

"Did you like her?"

Paige can't quite look at Emily now, she blushes, "Yeah, she's not you though" emboldened by saying the last few words Paige holds Emily's gaze "I – I"

"Love you."

"What?"

"I love you." Paige ducks her head, inwardly curses,

"Yeah, I know." Emily laughs,

"No, Paige, I'm not saying it for you. Look at me. I'm saying it to you. I love you."

"What? Like, really?"

"Sometimes you really can be a dumb jock, like, you know?" Emily laughs again, looks in amazement at Paige's amazed face. Pulls her closer, "I. Love. You" each word punctuated with a kiss, means it more each time.

Paige slides her arms round Emily's neck, kisses her deeply, sighs into Emily's throat, kissing lightly at the dip she finds there. Pulls back again.

"I never thought – " she cuts herself off, smiling.

"What?"

"I don't know, I never thought you'd –" she stops again.

"Say it first? Paige, please. Trust me. I know it's taken us so long to get here, but I think it's made us stronger," she shrugs. "Sometimes things work out, even when we're not looking."

Paige laces the fingers of one hand with Emily's. With the other she lightly catches the front of Emily's shirt, pulling her gently towards her. The kiss becomes more passionate as Emily slips her right hand under Paige's top, the left still entwined with Paige's.

"Paige?"

"Mmm?" she sighs into the kiss.

"In the context of Shana, what exactly does hooking up mean?"