AN: Welcome to another Monday! How I have not messed up or switched update days is still a mystery to me honestly aha. But hey, here we are. Have a wonderful week, guys, and enjoy this update! x

Chapter Six

It had been two weeks since the kiss. Carly hadn't been told but she could only assume something had happened that night, especially when she came back at nine am and caught Sam sneaking across the hallway to the Shays' apartment from the Bensons'. She had sworn Carly to secrecy, claiming they'd only spent the night together in a platonic way, but she refused to let anything slip about the kiss.

Last time Carly was told, she had completely overreacted that her two best friends had kissed. And even when the two had gone out, they felt like the entire time Carly had been against them, especially after she'd worked with Mrs B and Gibby to break the two up. So, they came to the same conclusion: Carly couldn't be told about the kiss. She would try to force something again, insisting that just because they kissed once, they were going to get married. Then the chances of them successfully dating again with everyone else's opinions as a third-party member in the relationship was very slim.

"Hey, Carly," Sam greeted, approaching the two in the hallway. "Alright, nub."

Freddie smiled at her. "Hello."

"Hey, we were just talking about a new segment for iCarly," Carly told her. "Idiot farm girl crossover with Moonlight Twi-Blood. And we need another Baby Spencer – the fans have been requesting it."

"I was actually thinking of some Messing with Lewbert this week," Sam nodded. "I guess we could have time for all three if we cut the facecare part. Somehow, I doubt the fans will want to see you plastering yourself in wrinkle cream. Leave the comedy to us, kid." Sam nudged her shoulder with a grin in a "I'm only kidding" way. Carly rolled her eyes in response and smiled along, telling Freddie to text Gibby as they'd need him for a new segment on Friday and for rehearsal that evening.

"You guys do know that I'm going to Yakima this weekend, right? Meaning we have to do the show a half an hour earlier, so Spencer and I can be on the road by eight. There's supposed to be another storm coming in from Florida," Carly said, to which the others agreed. Then Freddie had to excuse himself, crossing the hallway to the main doors and greeting a girl with a one-armed hug.

Sam and Carly watched him, eyes wide. Sam scoffed. "Nub has already moved on."

Carly sighed, closing her locker. "Sam, I'm sure she's just a friend." She handed Sam a brown lunch bag. "Spencer packed you tuna."

"Eww, nasty," Sam frowned, instantly handing the bag back and taking Carly's. She checked it. "Wow, Shay, cheese and tomato? You disappoint me."

"I'm going vegetarian," Carly huffed.

"Oh, yeah? And how long is that going to last this time? What was it, six weeks last year? All because that German exchange boy didn't eat meat."

"Oh, shush." The two focused their attention back on Freddie and mysterious girl. She was pretty, Sam noted. Gorgeous, even. Brunette. Brown eyes. "How do you think they met?" Carly asked suddenly.

Sam looked at her, trying to hide the jealousy boiling in her veins. "I thought you said they were probably just friends, huh?" Freddie had promised her that he wouldn't move on – so, she wasn't sure what the strange emotion that was possessing her was. Could've been sadness and betrayal for him lying, could've been jealousy like what she felt with Annabelle, or could've been something else – definitely something she hadn't experienced before. And before she could help it, before she could realise what she was doing, and way before Carly could stop her, she was approaching the two.

"Listen here, Benson," she started. "We said—"

"Sam—" Carly sighed.

"Sam, you have the wrong—"

"—we said we'd try again, right, and here you are with a new girl yet ag—"

"She's my cousin."

Sam blinked, as she felt the stupidity kick in. God, they looked so alike – and she was here, getting jealous. Think, Puckett, think, she scolded, rolling her eyes at herself. "Shit, I'm sorry," she said. "I just, I just assumed—"

Freddie cut her off. "Simone, it's right up these stairs and the second right. I'll catch up." The girl just nodded and left the three alone without another word, offering Sam a kind smile. Cousins, meaning this chick could be stir crazy like Freddie's mother.

"Try again?" Carly blurted. "My God, what did I miss? Were my friends flirting it up and didn't tell me? What am I, just a brick wall? I bet you've even made out without telling me." They didn't reply. "Oh my god! You have!"

Sam tried to reason with her, "It was just a kiss."

"Yes, one single kiss," Freddie agreed quickly. "And we didn't know what it meant, so we didn't want to tell you. Please don't be mad at us. We just wanted time to think it over."

"How long ago, huh?" Carly insisted. "For your own sakes, it better not have been longer than a week." Silence, again. "Guys! I can't believe you didn't tell me."

"Listen, Carly, like Freddork said, we didn't know what to do about it. It just happened. Have we got to give you the minutes of our conversations from now on?" Sam scoffed. However, she knew that she'd probably feel the same as Carly – in fact, she had felt the same as Carly multiple times when Carly and Freddie briefly dated. They'd do things without her, and she was sure they'd kept quite a few things they'd done together from her. It didn't bother her as much, though, because back then, she didn't have feelings for Freddie. Not that she thought Carly liked Freddie again. She could just relate to how she felt on a high level, so calmly and softly, she told her, "Carly, look, we don't want to rush anything again."

"Melanie and I know how you feel about each other," Carly told them. Of course, this was news to Freddie, but Sam had already been prewarned. "And I'm not mad that you kissed. Just mad that you didn't tell me. And what's this about you trying again? I thought you said the kiss didn't mean anything."

"We never said that," Freddie reminded her, running a hand through his hair. "We just said we weren't sure what to do next."

"Well, clearly you do now if you're thinking of trying again!"

"And so what?" Sam said. "So what if we try again? Isn't that what you want? You and Mel were the two who got us alone in the first place."

"Wait, it was that night, was it? And you kissed in my bed and didn't tell me?"

"…we didn't say it was in your bed."

"Well, was it?"

"…yes."

Freddie interrupted the two in fear that it was going to get heated again and they'd end up on a window washer's platform fourteen floors up. "Okay, okay, whether we kissed or not, Sam and I are considering trying again, but we don't want to rush it like last time. We're sorry, really sorry, we didn't tell you, okay?"

"Really sorry," Sam repeated, realising that Freddie was trying to keep the peace.

"When we get back to the Bushwell, you guys are sitting on the steps, and you can think about what you did."

And so, knowing the disappointed face Carly would make, they did.

Well, Sam more did it for the vegetable spaghetti bolognaise she could smell in the kitchen.

"Hands off! It's for my date," Carly said to her, slapping her hand away.

"How come you guys keep all the good food for dates?" Sam frowned.

"Because if you want your own good food, Freddie can take you on a date."

"We're not dating, Carls, chill," Sam shrugged, managing to steal a vegan meatball or two. Carly practically chased her out the kitchen, along with Freddie who was innocently getting a glass of water, knowing that if his mother was to catch him, he'd have a special vacuum down his throat again to suck out the "chemicals put in water these days."

"Okay, out, out," Carly fussed, chasing them towards the door. She even opened it for them. "As much as I love you guys, out, out. My date's getting here any minute."

"It's not that dude you had a date with when you got your toe stuck in the faucet, is it?" Sam asked before the door was slammed in her face.

"No, he dumped me after said faucet date, hmph!"

Freddie leaned up against his own apartment door. His mom was home, so he couldn't possibly think of inviting her over. The other cousins were staying next weekend, so his mom was on full-frantic cleaning mode. She hardly took breaks to eat her mini tofu bites. "So…I guess it's just you and me."

"Nope, just you," Sam said. "I'm going to see if Mel wants to go to the mall or something."

"I'll go with you!"

She frowned and wanted to laugh. She vividly remembered that after he'd been fired, and she had walked out after him, she'd found him in the food court with some very delicious looking churros, which she couldn't remember eating but was sure she did, and he swore she'd cursed the mall for him and that he'd never set foot in it again. That was months ago, and she was sure he must've passed through there at least a dozen times on his way to the library or went there for dates with Annabelle. "What happened to that no longer being your turf?"

"Well, uh, I mean, we can go there together, right?"

"It's almost five pm," she told him, while checking the time on her phone. "Places are shutting soon, so…"

"We could go to a restaurant or something."

Now, she wasn't sure if that was just her, but Sam was guaranteed that that sounded like a date. Maybe it was her mind trying to convince her that it was something he didn't intend it to be, or that was his subtle way of asking her out.

"I don't exactly think my backpack and my shirt with holes in is quite restaurant standard," Sam said, laughing.

Freddie agreed with her and suggested that maybe they should just meet there, but Sam whined at how far Pini's was from her house. So, Freddie said he'd pick her up at seven. "And hey, Sam?" She turned around. "You know that purple dress you have…you look really good in it."

She grinned. "Isn't that too date-like?"

"Well…do you want this to be a date?"

"Do you?"

He almost stumbled on his words, surprised that he was having this conversation with her. Of course, they'd agreed to try again or that they at least liked each other, but he still felt jitters and butterflies at the idea of going on a date with her. Maybe this was all he needed to finally work out what he was feeling and what to do about it. Maybe they just had to be given the opportunity to fall for each other again. "Y-Yes, I kinda do."

"Then, yes, Benson, you nerdy nervous wreck, this is a date." She took him aback, leaning up to kiss his check. "Seven. Mama doesn't like to be kept waiting." With that, she turned on her heel, well, worn out sneakers and left, practically skipping towards the elevator. She waited till the doors had closed and she'd pressed the button for her to have a mini celebratory dance in the elevator – she had herself a date with Freddie Benson.

God, she felt like such a dork being excited about that.