Chapter 4: iSeek Advice

Freddie wondered if Sam was as acutely aware that they were alone in his apartment again as he was. He tried to keep his eyes from darting over to the couch as much as they wanted to as he recalled what had happened there. He didn't want her to think he expected anything…

He realized that for all the communicating they'd done on her stoop, he still wasn't sure if she wanted more of him. She'd agreed it meant a lot to her, but of course it did, it was her first time… She'd let him put his arm around her, but maybe it was just as a friend-who-she-shared-something-with thing, like that kiss on the balcony all those years ago had been…

Baby steps, he thought. Just stay her friend until the rest is figured out. So he kept the conversation to topics they talked about all the time: school rumors, music, upcoming things on iCarly, and to his relief, Sam seemed content to follow his lead. They soon fell into an argument about weather or not lasagna would be better if it was made with ham instead of beef.

She won. Not through skills of debate, but by stabbing him with her fork. She'd turned it, stabbed him with the blunt grip instead of the prongs. At first, he'd thought she'd done it to be nice, but then she kept eating and he realized she just hadn't wanted to get his blood all over her fork.

He finished his lasagna first and when she scooped the last of her second helping into her mouth, he took her plate to the sink to rinse it. She hopped up and parked it on the counter beside the sink.

"I think you should ask your mom about your dad again," she said. He was thrown by the sudden subject change, as well as her opinion.

"Why?" he asked.

She shrugged. "You're seventeen. She can't protect you forever."

Freddie sighed, "Try telling her that."

"I will if you want me to," she said and when he looked up at her, she held up her hands, "No hitting—unless she asks for it."

Freddie smirked. "Thanks, but this is something between her and me."

Sam sighed, "Whatever."

He chuckled, "Thanks for offering, though. It's sweet of you."

He put the plug in the sink and turned the tap on full blast. Might as well do the dishes now. He reached across her to grab the soap. She caught his hand in both of hers. He looked up at her, for a moment not catching on, but a second later, he realized she was trying something. He stood perfectly still, in case she decided she didn't like it—whatever it was.

Her hands warmed his as she caressed it. It was like she hadn't ever seen a hand before, the way she was studying it. He realized how dainty hers looked in comparison and felt manly. She ran her fingers over his knuckles, long nails trailing softly, sending shivers through him. She turned his hand over to look at his palm. "Not a lot of people say I'm sweet," she admitted softly.

"You usually aren't," he replied.

She lifted her gaze to meet his, smirked, "You bring out the worst in me, I guess."

He laughed. She was still holding his hand. He closed his fingers on hers. It struck Freddie that they'd never held hands before. They'd kissed. They'd slept together, but they'd never just held hands. Sam certainly was doing a fine job at scrambling the way he always thought things would be. He laughed at the thought.

"What?" she asked.

He shrugged, shook his head with a lopsided smile. "Nothing."

She narrowed her eyes like she didn't know if she should believe him. In the second that Freddie was certain she would hit him, her eyes popped wide and she squealed, danced along the counter and hopped off.

Freddie had forgotten the tap, and the sink had overflowed onto the counter and soaked her bottom. He slapped the water off, pulled the plug, apologizing. But she was laughing. She waved a hand, "Don't worry about it, nub."

Emboldened by her laughter, he found himself replying, "Well, I guess I've done stupider things on a date."

He could tell she was surprised to hear this was a date—he was almost as surprised himself. He braced for insult and injury as she stepped closer. But she just stepped closer.

Okay, just go with it.

As he had before, he stood perfectly still. He felt a little like some guy on the nature channel, standing super still as the dangerous but timid wild animal inched closer. She put a hand to his cheek, slid her fingers into the hair at the back of his neck, and pulled his face close to hers. For a moment, they stood in the middle of his kitchen with just mingled breath between them. This close and she couldn't make up her mind. Maybe she was just trying to kill him.

Then she was kissing him.

It tasted like lasagna this time, and her hair was just as soft as before. He liked how his fingers glided through it as he pushed it from her face, combed it behind her ear. He liked how her jaw fit between his hands, her ears sliding in between his fingers. He liked that she held him by the front of his shirt, so that he couldn't pull away even if he wanted to.

Though a part of him fought it every inch of the way, Freddie was determined to remain in control this time. He didn't want to sleep with her every time she kissed him when they were alone. He had a horrifying feeling of certainty that if he did, and she later realized she didn't want to be that girl, she would blame it all on him and kill him.

Baby steps. Kisses were fine for now. Safe.

The kissing went on for a while, and it was, to use the true meaning of the word, awesome. Last night, after the pants had gone, there hadn't been a lot of deep kisses—he'd been preoccupied focusing on other things. He really liked it when her hands slid around to his back, then down to his lower back and then even further to his bottom.

Suddenly, Sam broke away and laced her fingers with his, and they were walking to his room. Through the living room, Freddie was at war with himself to stop. At his bedroom door, though, he decided being murdered by Sam for sleeping with her when she asked, well, there were worst ways to die young.

He was committed to doing it, but, seriously, was he incapable of not being a nub about it? They were on his bed. She was shirtless. He was shirtless. Jeans were gone, and he was just about to start kissing her again when he suddenly pulled back. "Wait,"

"What now?"

"I need to know why."

She laughed. He was aware of how girly it was, but if he didn't get answers, he would only torture himself about it later. He waited for one. She laughed with a shrug, "Why what?"

"Why now?" he asked and was sorry to hear that it was a whine. "Why all of a sudden do you want to sleep with me?"

She averted her gaze, smiled as she said, "I wouldn't call it all of a sudden."

He gulped. That was awesome. She went to kiss him once more and he let her, but then broke away again. "Wait—sorry—But why now, then? What changed?"

She laughed, rolled her eyes. "It's the equals thing, alright?"

He frowned and she continued, "You said you always thought we were equals and you were obviously upset when you thought we weren't."

"That's it?" he asked. "That's the only reason why you're doing this?"

"Well, you're one of my best friends, and I can trust you and—well, you're really cute." To his utter surprise, she gushed that last bit. She gushed it. Like a girly-girl.

How awesome could one night get?

"I am?" he asked, so surprised his voice cracked. Nubbing it up again.

"Yeah," she pushed him down onto his pillows with enough force to knock the breath out of him, and kissed him. "You're also a really good kisser."

He'd always imagined girls saying it, started to think it would never happen. He wondered what else he could get her to do that he'd always imagined.

So enough talking.

…

He wasn't a virgin anymore. For the first time he was really starting to get it, finally. Two times too late but still. He had started to think he would never believe it, but he was believing it now. Maybe it was because this time he had been confident about what to do, maybe because this time the angles and motions hadn't felt awkward, maybe because this time lasted longer and was filled with deeper kisses.

But mostly maybe because they were both pretending like she wasn't crying.

She totally was. Sam was crying. She was smiling, giggling, and crying, and it was all for him. Holy chiz. She was so beautiful like this, with her guard down, really down, like, all the way, and her cheeks were all red, and her eyes sparkling, and she looked shy—embarrassed. For as long as he lived Freddie never thought he would embarrass Sam Puckett. Probably because he'd never thought he'd rock her world horizontally, which he totally just did, another reason why this time was different from the last.

There was a divide between them on the mattress, which was weird considering how close they'd just been; as close as it got, really. Like, really.

Holy chiz.

He laughed, buried his face in his pillow, and then lifted it to peek at her. She was smiling with her tongue between her teeth. His eyes met her blue where tears were still brimming. She reached out and gave him a shove, hid her face.

Freddie was realizing that he was seeing an extra special side of Sam, the secret side of the coin. Tough Sam was a friend that he liked despite the pain she inflicted on him, funny and tomboy and confident. This Other Sam was—she was new and beautiful and he thought… he thought he might…

Could he be in love?

Freddie heard a lot about it in songs and movies, but he found it hard to take advice from entertainment industries, who very well could only be churning out lies for the sake of a profit. So he wasn't exactly sure what it was he was feeling…

He couldn't ask his mom—yeah right. The next closest thing to a parent he had was Carly's brother. He didn't feel like thinking about Carly's brother, though, not with a naked and secret Sam sharing his Galazy Wars sheets with him.

Freddie convinced her to stay with him, to sleep next to him, even though his mom would be home in the early hours and would check in on him, would expect him to get up and get dressed for church. Since neither of them felt like dealing with the fight that it'd be if Marissa found a girl in her son's bed, they set their cell phones to wake them early enough that Sam could slip out and head home.

He liked that he had someone to talk to even after the lights went out. He liked her head on his arm, and the way she didn't whisper just because the lights were out but that she did whisper when she said certain things, like thanks for letting her stay because she didn't want to deal with her mom right now, or that she couldn't believe she was having this much fun with a nub…

Frankly, he couldn't believe it, either.

…

Freddie woke to find that he'd slept through the alarms and that Sam had left without waking him. The sounds of his mother making breakfast were what woke him. He sat up, trying not to feel as cheap as waking up to find Sam gone without a trace was making him feel. He had just found his phone and a text message waiting there when his mom stuck her head in his open door.

"Oh, good your up," she said, "Get ready for church," and then she was gone. He unlocked the message from Sam. It was a picture that she'd taken of him with her phone. He winced. It was unattractive. He was sound asleep, his face mashed uncomfortably looking in the mattress, his mouth open, nose wrinkled as if in a snort. You were too cute to wake up. Some how, even in texts, she managed to have biting sarcasm. See you later. xxx

He stared at the three X's and couldn't get them out of his head as he showered and dressed in a nice shirt and his church pants. Texting kisses didn't seem like Sam, but he recalled how beautiful she'd been, all breathless and flushed beside him. That hadn't seemed like Sam, either. But it was.

Suddenly, Freddie felt all the same things he had the night before and he thought maybe he could ask the pastor what love was, but then upon seeing him, decided against it. He and the guy weren't close, had never actually spoken one-on-one before, and so he'd probably be saddled with some generic quote from the bible as an answer.

Not for the first time, Freddie wished with all his heart—even shot a few prayers about it Upstairs—that he could find and get to know his father. He wanted someone he could go to when he had questions. Everything recently happening between him and Sam had left him with lots of them. Feeling hopeless, because prayer and stuff had never really come easily to him, he told himself that he'd probably figure it all out on his own, given time, and then tried to have some patience.

He went over to the Shay apartment after getting out of his church clothes.

Sam was there, looking for all the world like the same old lazy bully she'd always been. She gave him a smile when she saw him, blue eyes lighting up, but the moment others were looking, she started ignoring him. He wouldn't let himself be hurt by that, reminded himself that she was still figuring things out. Not unlike himself, who wondered if the others would notice if he got Spencer to step away in private with him so they could talk…

Spencer was cleaning up a mess he'd made trying to make an automatic soda can opener. Gibby was on the couch beside Sam, eating popcorn and Carly was making more. It wasn't long before Freddie heard that a disk of Cult Busters had been spinning in the Shay's dvd-player constantly since the day before. Though it was crude and intense, something about it appealed to Carly enough that she'd forgone her usual innocence-preservation-techniques of avoiding such graphic things and was obsessed.

Spencer had no qualms with uncensored stuff, so long as there wasn't spurting blood. He'd known about the show since it first started, didn't watch it because it was stupid, but learning that the dude was Sam's dad, he'd agreed to give it another chance. After a few episodes, he stopped flinching when the blood spurted and joined Gibby in the refrain of "It's so awesome he's your dad, Sam!"

It put a twist inside Freddie every time someone said that. He didn't know if he liked dads being an open topic of discussion in this group all of the sudden, or how one entire episode was ignored thanks to a debate over which was cooler: free-thinkers, colonels, or truck-drivers. Gibby's dad drove an eighteen-wheeler, how was that cooler than driving a submarine? Not as cool as saving people from brainwashing power-freaks; but way cooler than a question mark. It made Freddie feel like he didn't belong.

Carly had been sensitive to that in the beginning, had kept her mouth shut when the others revered the cool father of their friend, but then Freddie mastered the act of pretending like it didn't bother him, and she joined the others in "He is so cool!" Except she didn't say it when Melancholy kicked butt. She tended to say it more when he quoted poetry, or went on emotional spills, or was filmed at his best angle, displaying strong shoulders and a chiseled profile. Weirdly, even then both Gibby and Spencer still concurred.

The poetry was new on Freddie, since they'd been watching without him. They explained that Melancholy started after the second season. Some of it was classic stuff that had different meanings when read in this context, and some of it was written by those he'd saved. They all said things about love—broken love, lost love, the power of love to heal. It was all very pretty but what did it mean? What was love?

With Spencer's excitement over his new soda-can-opener design rubbing off on Gibby, Freddie left with Carly and Sam to go to B.F. Wang's for lunch. Walking with his two friends-that-were-girls-one-of-which-he'd-seen-naked Freddie kept quiet and listened to their jokes. Carly surprised him with a few well-phrased suggestive remarks regarding Sam's new relationship with Freddie.

Sam hit him after every one of them until Freddie literally had to tell Carly to stop talking about it. When he did, it impressed Sam or something, because she smiled at him. A real smile, nothing sarcastic, nothing loathing, something a lot like she'd looked in his room the other night. Freddie realized he didn't have time to figure things out on his own.

He had to ask someone about love, before he said it without thinking or something. He didn't want to tell Sam he loved her and then realize one day that it wasn't love, just crazy hormones or something. That was just another sure-fire way to get himself killed. Even if he got answers and confirmed this wasn't love, he was pretty sure he would say it anyway. He brought the worst out in Sam and she brought the nub out in him. But he'd still like to know.

So he decided that the next time he got his male-role-model alone, he'd ask. Luckily, he didn't have to wait too long. After B.F. Wang's, Sam and Carly were off shopping (Freddie hoped they were at Build-A-Bra. Sam's underwear was fine, but he wouldn't mind seeing her in something that didn't have frayed lace or rips or barbeque sauce stains) and he went back to Bushwell Plaza.

Gibby had left for his weekend job and Spencer had abandoned the soda opener after it caught fire and was now sculpting in the living room. The TV was playing what looked like the latest episode of Cult Busters. Melancholy wasn't on-screen so Freddie couldn't determine exactly how many episodes Spencer had watched while they were out, but it looked like a new season.

"Spence?"

"Hey Fred-o, where's Carls?"

He shrugged, "shopping," That was enough of an answer for the artist.

"Can I ask ya somethin'?"

"Yeah sure," Spencer said.

"How do you know when you're in love?"

Spencer froze, turned slowly from a crate of broken cell phones. His eyes were wide. "Um, why do you ask me?"

Freddie shrugged, "I don't have a dad to ask. How do you know if you really love a girl or if—I don't know, you're not just really infatuated?"

Spencer had his lips rolled between his teeth. He sank down on his coffee table. "Okay," he said slowly. He looked around to make sure they were alone in the apartment then turned wide brown eyes on him and said, "What I'm going to say to you, you cannot repeat to Carly."

"Okay," Freddie said with a shrug.

"All the ladies I've been with?" Spencer said, and Freddie nodded, remembering all the girls Spencer ever brought over for dinner. "I wasn't 'in love' with any of them," he did quote marks in the air with in love.

Freddie frowned, echoed, "Not with any of them."

"Nope," the artist said, with a shrug. "I've known almost my whole life that love as the world is obsessed with, doesn't exist. Just have fun, live life, and do what feels right."

"Wait," Freddie said, "You're saying you don't believe in love?"

"The only love that's forever is love for yourself and your family,"

"That's kind of depressing,"

Spencer shrugged, "So are broken vows, sloppy divorces and kids left to look after each other."

"We're not talking about marriage," Freddie said, "We're talking about love."

Spencer shrugged, returned to his sculpture, "I told you, I've never been in love."

"Because you don't believe in it."

Spencer drew a deep breath, dropped a hand on his shoulder, "Yup. So I guess you've come to a pretty bad place for advice."

…

Freddie sought out Gibby later that day. He proclaimed himself to be a master of love, after all. Gibby was working at the movie theater, in the projection room. Freddie slipped Wendy at the concession stand five bucks and she let him go up the Employees Only stairs. The projection room was filled with the flickering lights of a police chase on the silver screen below.

"Hey, Gib," Freddie said.

"Yeah?" Gibby sat in a plastic chair tilted back, balancing on the back two legs. He was reading a paperback book that had a shirtless man on the front holding a naked woman in a way that hid all the good stuff. It was a girlie book, but Gibby claimed they were vastly informative.

Freddie kind of thought he just liked to be swept up in the tale of a tortured foreign guy teaching a small town girl how to believe that she was worth being loved or whatever those books were about. Freddie had stumbled on his mother's collection and read the back of one. It was precisely because his mom had them that he never could bring himself to read them.

Gibby folded a page in half long-ways, shut his book, tossed it into a corner, hitched up his pants, and then began preparing the next reel. Freddie closed the door behind him and leaned on it.

"Ever been in love?"

"Sure, at least once a week," the bigger young man winked.

"How do you know?"

"Know what?"

"That you're in love?"

Gibby frowned, chewed on his bottom lip for a moment, then said, "When she's all I can think about when I first wake up and when I go to sleep and all the time in between."

Freddie thought about that and decided it didn't work. Not for love; he thought about Selma Hayek about that much and he couldn't be in love with her.

He arrived home from his talk with Gibby to find his mother all aflutter around the apartment. She was scrubbing everything, and for one horrifying moment he thought it was because she'd somehow found out about what he and Sam had done in his room while she was at that Aggressive Parenting Conference. He feared it would make her want to give him a chemical bath and he hated those; they made his skin all tender and red.

"Mom, what's up?" she whirled, screeched, "FREDDIE!" and grabbed him. Suddenly, she was hauling him down the hallway. She pushed him in his room, shut the door. He heard the dead bolt lock and then the beeping as she set her 45 digit code into the security system.

She was locking him in his room. Seriously? Freddie demanded to know what was going on, but his mother only insisted that she was his mother, and she knew what was best.

"Is this about Sam?" he asked. She did not answer that question. He kicked the door and barked, "Crazy!" Then sighed heavily and resolved to find something in here to do—because he was probably here for a while. He flopped down onto his bed—the bed—and started thinking about Sam. He texted her. She texted back. He blushed.

Out in the hall, with the security system on, Marissa had turned to go when her son had asked, "Is this about Sam?" That'd made her stop. Sam. She knew he was kissing her and getting all kinds of germs from her, but why would she lock him up for that? Then there was a thud as he kicked the door and she heard his angry growl of "Crazy,"

That hurt. Marissa knew her son thought of her like that—she knew how she came off to the world—but would he call her crazy if he knew the truth?

dun dun DUN!