Chapter Two: iThink They Did It!

Julianne was a go-getter. Gibby liked that. He also liked the way her sheets smelled, her dorm roommate for agreeing to see a movie tonight, her lips, her hands pushing his from her knees up her skirt. Gibby knew what was coming straight at him like a freight train, and he wasn't nervous, no more than the good kind of nervous, anyway. He knew what to do.

Thank God for Carly Shay.

"Wait, wait, wait" Julianne breathed when she was stretched out on the bed beside him and things were starting to get really, really fun. Gibby pulled his lips away from her skin to meet her eye. "How many girls have you been with?" she asked.

He frowned and she hurried to explain that she just needed to know. He got it, he just didn't know how to answer. What had happened with Carly on the night of graduation had been strictly an arrangement, wasn't supposed to count.

But Julianne was looking at him with deep chocolate eyes pleading for truth and he couldn't lie. Ah, go on, let it count even if it wasn't supposed to. No need to give names, so no big deal.

"Just one," he admitted. "Once."

Her eyebrows went high, her wonderful lips parted. "Just once?"

He nodded. Suddenly she was kissing him harder than she ever had, and reaching for things, and then nothing mattered anymore.

That night, Julianne told her roommate that The Gibster had been practically a virgin. When asked what that meant, she shrugged and said that he'd admitted to doing it only once before. That roommate happened to mention it to a friend the next morning in the commons.

That friend choked on her swallow of corndog and grabbed Julianne's roommate hard by the arm to keep her from going to the salad bar. Her blue eyes were wide, her mouth smiling, waiting for the joke, "What do you mean, he'd done it once before?"

The girl shrugged, "I dunno, just something Julie said."

Sam instantly sought out Julie and got it first-hand from her with more detail. Then she went straight to Gibby. She found him emerging from his dorm room, yawning and just awake though it was noon.

"What the hell?" she demanded.

"What?" he asked.

"Donna said that Julie said that you said that you'd been with only one girl before Julie!"

Gibby blushed furiously and started walking hard. "I was lying."

"You don't lie to girls."

"Maybe I do, what do you know about it?"

"Dude," Sam fell into step with her old friend. "Are we friends, or what?"

"Yeah,"

"Then what's the big deal? Why didn't you tell me?"

"Tell you what?"

"I don't know—that you weren't sleeping with all those girls in high school?"

"Sam, no guy runs around announcing it to the world that he isn't getting any."

"But you could have been, Gib!" Sam cried. "We all thought you were!"

"Well, I wasn't, so that was your mistake."

"You were getting some at least once, though." Sam laughed.

Gibby said nothing, jogged down the stairs to the elevator at the bottom in an attempt to lose her, but Sam stayed stuck to his side, blue eyes sparkling. "Well?"

"Well, what?" Gibby asked as he stepped into the elevator. He sighed wearily when the doors stayed opened long enough for Sam to slip in with him.

"Who was it?"

"None'ya, Puckett."

"Oh, come on!" Sam laughed, "Why won't you tell me?" she gasped, laughed, "Oh my god, it wasn't a guy was it?"

"No!"

"Hey, nothing wrong with it if it was."

"I know that—but it wasn't!"

"Hmmm, it makes sense if it was." Sam laughed throatily as the elevator doors slid opened. "Ha! It was Freddie wasn't it? The Alana thing was a cover—I KNEW IT!"

"Freddie is straight and you know that better than anyone."

Sam completely ignored that and tugged on her bottom lip in dramatic contemplation. "Could it have been a teacher, and that's why you aren't allowed to talk about it? She was married or something—Mrs. Markley!"

"I wish," Gibby said, him and the rest of Ridgeway High boys. And some girls.
"Dude, seriously, who was she?"

"Why do you care?" Gibby demanded with enough force to cause Sam's delighted smile to dissolve. She looked away, shrugged.

"I dunno. It's just weird." She kicked at nothing on the ground. "All this time I thought you were going from girl to girl and it was just one girl, one time. She must have been special, or whatever." Sam rolled her eyes just using the words. She shrugged and didn't meet his eye as she said, "I guess I'm curious why you didn't tell your friends about her."

Gibby sighed. He was in deep chiz. Sam laughed, dropping the serious mood. She pushed his shoulder. "C'mon, dude. I told you about Brad."

"You told Freddie about Brad, and I happened to be in ear shot." Gibby corrected.

Sam's face hardened and she scoffed, "That was because I'm part of a stupid pact I made with him and Carly about telling each other stuff!" Gibby knew that. It was precisely the reason he couldn't tell Sam a name right now. Carly hadn't told Sam and Freddie about it, had ignored the pact. Because it didn't count.

Sam continued, "I could have waited for when you weren't there, but I didn't mind you being there, because you were a friend!"

Dammit.

"So come on. I'm way too curious about it now. I won't drop it."

Gibby pushed on his eyes. It was going to hurt Sam's feelings if he didn't tell. It was going to cause too much drama if he did. He thought about lying, picking a random girl and saying it was her… but Gibby never liked to lie. It'd come back and bite him in the ass if he did. He just knew it.

There was only one way to keep the peace.

He met Sam's eye and said as resolutely as he could. "I promised I wouldn't say, Sam. I don't break promises. Sorry."

Then he turned and headed for his physics lecture.

…

When Sam entered their shared dorm room cursing and grumbling under her breath, Carly instantly wondered what Freddie had done this time. But Sam kicked off her shoes, one going under her bed the other up onto the dresser, grabbed a peppy cola from the mini fridge and flopped into her bed. "I hate guys who keep promises."

Carly snorted, "What?"

"Gibby," Sam said darkly. "Dude's got a secret and WON'T DIVULGE!"

Carly laughed. "Duh, that's the definition of a secret."

Sam sat up, "You know he was never sleeping with all those bimbos in high school?"

Carly faked surprise extremely well, if she did say so herself. "Really?"

"Yeah!" Sam twisted the top off the glass bottle with her bare hand and took a deep swig. "Apparently, he told Julie right before they did the nasty that he'd been with a girl only once before her—but he won't say who it was!"

All the breath whooshed out of Carly, and she remembered pounding music and Gibby-kisses. But maybe that was counting some other girl. No, he was counting some other girl. Because she didn't count.

"Just one?" she asked before she could stop herself and she must have used all of her acting Mojo up on that first one because that wasn't at all the right tone. It wasn't flabbergasted. It was too… eager for conformation, too worried about what might be confirmed.

Sam's second deep swing was cut in half and her eyebrows went low. The bottle left her lips with a wet smack and she frowned. "Waddup, Carls?"

"Nothing," she quipped, returning to her required reading. Then, thinking fast, added. "It's just shocking. I thought Gibby was a player."

"Apparently it's this big act. Dude's some kind of closet romantic who, like, takes it seriously and keeps promises and all of that lame stuff." Sam rolled her eyes.

"Well, good for him." Carly said, breathing easier. He keeps promises. Gibby was so sweet. Carly's palms were sweating as they always did when the conversation topics went too close to her Breech of Pact. No. It wasn't a breech. Because it didn't count, it was just to get it over with.

"Carly?" Sam had been talking and Carly hadn't heard a word.

"Sorry—what?"

"Okay, something's going on."

"Not at all!" Carly screeched, actually holding up her book to shield her face, "I have no idea who she was!"

There was a sickening pause in the dorm room, in which Carly realized that Sam had moved on to another topic. Then Sam's fingers curled around the edge of the book and lowered it.

Chiz.

Chiz.

Chiz.

"Carls, what the fat-cake?"

Carly snapped the book closed, scrambled off her bed and headed for the door. "I promised I wouldn't say anything!" she shrilled and the door slammed behind her as she went out.

…

Sam found Freddie studying in the library. She slammed her hands down on either side of his book. He jumped so hard his chair nearly toppled. Ear phones fell out of his ears. "Sam!" he cried.

Her face was hard, her eyes burning with rage. "We have asses to kick, Fredly."

"What?" he asked, too distracted by the sudden storm of her anger to even take the opportunity to look down her shirt as she leaned to hold her weight on the table.

"They've been lying to us!" Sam cried. Others in the library spoke up then, grumbling about being quiet, taking it outside, or going to hell. Midterms, stressing for some.

Freddie left his books on the table and went with her outside the library entrance. "What's going on?" he asked. Her nostrils flared as she breathed. He gulped. This was serious.

First, she started talking about Gibby, surprised him with news that he'd only been with two girls before, but didn't surprise him when she got to the part where he wouldn't reveal the girl's name. Private business, Sam, god.

Then she started talking about Carly, how she'd started being weird after hearing about Gibby. Freddie really didn't get it. Carly was kind of weird anytime sex was brought up. Period. But, then, Sam started talking about Mason, Carly's boyfriend freshman year who turned out to be her first.

"I asked him and he said she was totally cool when he stuck it in."

"Sam!" Freddie hissed, not appreciating the mental images. She grabbed his arms. "Don't you see?"

"No!" He cried.

Sam gave him a withering look. "Name three things Carly isn't good at handling."

Confused and just ready to get back to studying for his anatomy midterms, Freddie decided the best thing would be to humor her. "I don't know. Uh, grades lower than an A. Tight spaces. Pain-"

"Bingo!"

There was a beat, then it landed. "Oh!"

Sam nodded. Freddie nodded, too. A moment passed and then he asked, "Okay, wait, what's that tell us?"

Sam groaned, slapped him. "Carly and Gibby did it!"

Freddie gasped.

"And the little skunk bag didn't tell us!" Sam continued in a dangerously dark tone.

"Sam, Carly's not a skunk bag, she's our best friend!"

"Who forced us to swear to tell her everything and then she doesn't tell us when she buttered Gibby? WHO DOES SHE THINK SHE IS?"

It hurt Freddie to think Carly would do that, but it evidently didn't hurt him as much as it did Sam. She was pacing, fists clenched and shaking, eyes wild, swears pouring out of her lips. "I can't believe her!"

Freddie caught her shoulders, "We haven't actually gotten their story on this. Maybe it's a misunderstanding."

"I doubt it."

"Please," Freddie said and his sincerity surprised some of the anger right out of Sam's features. His grip on her shoulders lessened and he continued, "Please don't start hating her. If you lose her for a friend, I don't know what will happen to you because without her, you're not going to stick around so that I can keep an eye on you."

She knocked his hands away. "Don't worry about me. Mama takes care of herself. And I don't want your eye on me, Fredbag."

"Well I'm going to worry and I'm going to watch, because it's what friends do when they care." He honestly meant it as a just friend, not at all as some kind of sappy romantic love speech, though it landed on Sam more like the second one. Which just pissed her off.

"Whatever," she growled, "Are you going to confront her with me or do you not care she betrayed your trust?"

Freddie sighed, "We'll talk to her tonight."

…

Gibby found Carly pacing outside his dorm room. He was happy to see her until he got close enough to hear that she was swearing under her breath in a constant stream.

"Carly, what's wrong?" He asked. She whirled, many necklaces jangling, soft dark hair swishing in front of her face. Beautiful. As always.

"Gibby!" she cried.

"Carly!" he cried back.

"Sam might be on to us!"

"About what?" he asked and his eyes told her he knew very well what but that he was doing that thing she taught him to do, where even they pretended like nothing had happened in that stranger's room.

She sighed, gratefully, felt a twinge of guilt. "She wouldn't be suspecting if I hadn't said—well, it doesn't matter what I said. I gave away that I know who your first was. That's why I'm here. We need to formulate a cover story, a girl, a name I can give. Because Sam's going to try to get it out of me and I'll fold like I always do."

Gibby chuckled, shrugged heavy shoulders, "What's wrong with telling her the truth? We're all friends."

"You know what's wrong!" Carly cried, whimpered, falling against his door and pushing her hands through her hair. "I betrayed the pact—I didn't tell them when it happened!"

Gibby nodded. "Yeah, I know."

Carly sprang back onto her feet, gripping his arms. "So let's make up a cover story!"

"A lie on top of a lie."

"Wrapped in a lie," Carly added with an eyebrow quirked and shiny lips smirking.

Gibby sighed. "I don't know."

"Please! Sam takes pacts very seriously—and she doesn't trust easily. This is going to hurt her bad if she finds out!"

"She'll get over it, because you'll still love her and she'll still love you."

Carly groaned. "If only it could be that simple!"

Gibby took her shoulders. "Carls, seriously. We're better than to get tangled up in lies."

"But—"

"Right now, she's curious about me. She has no idea it has anything to do with you. She thinks you just know a name. She might not even ask you. Maybe she'll drop it, get bored, move on to other things."

Carly crossed her fingers and prayed really hard it'd be so.

"If she doesn't," Gibby continued, "Then you should tell the truth."

"But—"

"That you are sworn to secrecy and are too good a person to break that confidence." He winked. Carly sighed. It was a simple plan, and it could work, if she could manage to hold to the honor code of secret keeping long enough for Sam to accept she'd never know.

But shouldn't she know?

…

Waiting in the quiet of Sam and Carly's dorm room with Sam, Freddie felt sick. The fight to come was not going to be pretty. He had already forgiven Carly for breaking the pact. He'd never liked it anyway. Sam, though, he knew how hurt she was, and that she wouldn't forgive easily.

He hated when they fought, being in that weird limbo between them.

He sat on Sam's bed, his elbows on his knees. Sam sat on Carly's, shoes on the comforter, arms wrapped around knees drawn to her chest. She was staring at the door.

"Just try to remember that she's Carly," Freddie said. "She was always weird about sex. Maybe she was too embarrassed to say anything and then it was too late."

"She wasn't too embarrassed to talk about sex with Mason." Sam said thickly.

"Well, that's Mason with the killer abs." Freddie said, drawing a jump out of the corner of her mouth, which she immediately tamed. "But if your theory is right, then we're talking about sex with Gibby." He laughed, "It had to be weird."

Sam said nothing. Tamed no smiles.

He sighed into the heavy silence, leaned back. Flat on his back on Sam's bed, he noticed a poster she'd put on the ceiling, a perfectly cooked ham. Of course.

The door opened. Freddie sat up. Sam didn't move. Carly yelped upon finding them there.

"You broke. The pact." Sam said so calmly that Freddie could do nothing but sit in silence with his mouth open as his eyes darted between them.

"I'm sorry." Carly said. She, too, was calm though her knuckles were white gripping the doorknob and she didn't seem to be breathing.

"You slept with Gibby." Sam said.

"Gary Wolf's house, graduation party."

"Geezus!" Sam suddenly cried.

Carly rushed forward, hands shaking as she cried, "It was nothing—just this thing, an agreement. You know like when you and Freddie kissed the first time!"

"I can't believe you didn't tell us!" Sam cried.

"I know. I'm sorry." Carly said and her voice was shrill and thin. She launched into explanations about how she was not good with pain and knew she would be a spaz about it and how she'd been feeling like she'd be stuck being a virgin forever and how Gibby had offered to help and how she took him up on it just to get it over with, and how she turned out to be a complete spaz JUST LIKE SHE KNEW SHE WOULD and then how they'd both agreed that it wouldn't count and if it didn't count how could she tell people about it? And she was sorry she was so sorry could they please forgive her?

"You guys never have to tell me a single thing ever again!" she hiccupped. Her dark eyes were filled with water.

"Don't worry," Sam spat, "We won't."

"I'll still tell you some stuff, Carls—and you, too, Sam." Freddie said, "Because we're all still friends."

Sam harrumphed. Carly's lip quivered. "Sam?" she asked.

Sam wouldn't look at her. Carly moved over to the bed and sat on the edge of it. "I'm sorry, Sam. I should have told you."

"Yeah. You should have. But you didn't."

Carly pushed hair behind her ear, "It's all my fault—I made you guys make the pact with me and I could tell you didn't want to. But I wanted to know everything so that I could make sure nothing too serious ever happened. I was just scared that you'd, I don't know, pair up and leave me alone." She laughed wetly. "But that happened anyway!" she cried, and Freddie smiled with her as she said, "Thank god for failed geometry tests."

That had been what broke Sam and Freddie up when they'd dated briefly all those years ago.

"We wouldn't have left you, Carls." Freddie said, "Even if we had stayed together. You're our best friend—right Sam?"

Carly sobbed and Sam's stony expression was gone, but she still wouldn't meet anyone's eye.

"It was a stupid pact," Carly sniffed, dashing away tears. "But you guys kept to it awesomely, and I couldn't. I'm sorry."

"The pact is behind us, now." Freddie said dark eyes locked on Sam. "It was a stupid kid thing and now it's over."

"It wasn't a stupid kid thing." Sam snapped.

"Yeah it was," Freddie snapped back. "People aren't supposed to tell their friends every little thing. Some things are better left in private and anyway, that sort of closeness is for…" he shrugged, "special relationships."

"The three of us is a special relationship." Sam grumbled. Freddie's jaw dropped and Carly gulped audibly as all eyes went to Sam. She wouldn't look at them for a minute, but then she did, meeting Freddie's eye first before quickly looking to Carly.

"Being friends with you guys has been the best thing ever for me. The rest of my life sucks, but you guys make it okay."

"Sam!" Carly threw her arms around her best friend. "I'm so sorry!"

Freddie stood and threw his arms around both of them, crying in Spanish, "I love you guys!"

…

Carly saw a glimpse of Julianne under the covers when Gibby answered the door. She raised an eyebrow and smirked at him as he stepped out into the hall.

"Didn't mean to interrupt."

He waved a hand, "We're just watching Webflix."

"Uh huh." She said. He blushed, then cleared his throat. "So, what's up?"

Carly drew in a deep breath. "I told Sam and Freddie everything."

His eyebrows shot up and he took a step back, looked around. "Really?"

"Yup."

"And I'm still alive?"

Carly laughed. "We talked it about it, then hugged it out."

"She forgave you that easily?" His shock was to be expected. Carly and Freddie were feeling it to. Carly crossed her arms, rocked onto the sides of her feet. "Yep. I think midterms are too stressing for her to hold grudges right now."

"So do you believe love exists now?"

The sudden question startled Carly into taking a step back. She asked in a puff that was supposed to be a laugh, "What?"

He shrugged, "Just wondering what else that I thought would never happen is happening these days."

Carly shrugged, looked at the floor as she said as causally as she could, "Well, things are still up in the air about that."

"Oh,"

She laughed, changing the subject back to way she came. "Anyway, now that everyone knows—because Sam is going to tell everyone—what happened between us counts now. That means no more pretending that it never happened."

He bobbed his head, his easy smile reaching his eyes. "Yeah."

"Okay." A moment passed and Carly drew in a deep breath, then wagged her eyebrows, "Well, I'll let you get back to Julie."

He laughed, "Later, Carly."

"Later," she chortled and then he was back in his room.

The message board on the door said Gibbeh with Spanish exclamation points. Carly didn't realize she was staring at it or that she was thinking of wide shoulders and the less spazy-portion of that night spent in a room with music shaking the walls, but Gibby-love shaking the bed frame. She was pulled out of it when Freddie's approaching form drew her attention.

She gave him a smile, turned to leave, heard Freddie exclaim in Spanish behind her. That was him seeing the message board. He groaned and slid down the wall to sit in the floor. Evidently, he wasn't allowed in the room when Gibbeh was in Spanish.

Carly laughed and turned to invite him to eat with her and Sam while in the room, Gibby couldn't kill a smile. Part of it had to do with what Julianne was doing, but he'd come into the room already wearing this expression. Because it counted now.

He liked that.