AN: Although it is technically Tuesday, happy update day! Have an amazing week, yall, and I hope you enjoy this chapter! (How are we already at chapter nine?)

Chapter Nine

"Buenos dias, mi novia," Freddie greeted with a huge smirk as Sam woke up in his embrace. "Me encanta tu chaqueta."

Sam groaned, voice harsh from sleep and disuse. She clutched her head from the light of the opened window. "English please, nub. Also, I'm surprised you're allowed to sleep with your window open. Isn't mommy scared you'll be kidnapped or a tic will fly in and eat you up."

"I'm my own man now," Freddie huffed.

"Barely," she teased.

"Also, I said, good morning, my girlfriend. I love your jacket – can't remember the word for hoodie."

"You're a child, truly," Sam told him, rolling over so she was facing away from him. "Also, novio, I'm not your girlfriend yet."

"Hang on, how do you—"

The door burst open, interrupting Freddie from finishing, revealing the small girl they'd almost lost the night before. Lily stood, grinning, and Sam let out a quiet groan as she buried her head back in a pillow. "Auntie Marissa says breakfast is ready!" Then she left, leaving the door open.

Freddie placed a hand on Sam's waist under the blanket before forcing himself up out of bed. "I'm going to brush my teeth."

"No," Sam said, almost in a whine. "Come back to sleep; it was nice." He swore he saw her pouting before she hid her face again beneath her tangled blonde locks. When he came back, he crossed the room to close the door, crawled back into the sheets next to her and blew the hair out of her eyes. Her eyes slowly fluttered open, looking back at him. Blue mixed with brown. "Can we just stay here all day?"

"No, Sam, come on. We have to get up soon. I don't want to just waste the day."

So, she huffed and finally got up, shoving back the covers in the process. Freddie rolled over so he was laying on his back, watching as she retrieved her jeans from the day before from the bathroom. "Also, for your information, Benson, I got an A in Spanish last semester," she called from the bathroom. She was just out of sight from the door and the mirror adjacent to said door. "Just was tired to try and translate a European language this early in the morning."

He glanced at the alarm clock on the right-hand side of the bed. "It's eight thirty."

"Yes, early." She peeked her head out from the bathroom, as she was now tugging her boots on. She flicked the light on. "You're not getting your chaqueta back."

"Fair enough," Freddie chuckled, sheltering his eyes from the sharp light with a hand above his eyes. "Your jacket is in the drawer by the way with my shirts. My mom found it from when you stayed here, and she washed it for you."

"Ah, damn, I bet she screamed the place down."

"I wouldn't know to be honest with you. It was just hanging to dry when I got back. She was eerily calm about the whole thing – still expecting her to blow up at me and take back her decision for me to have more freedom."

"Freedom? You? Has your mom had a personality transplant?"

"Clearly," Freddie agreed, watching a few things from his drawers being discarded on the floor. "If you're looking for your hairbrush, look in the bottom drawer. I think there's still some of your stuff in there, couldn't bring myself to clean it out." As she riffled through the drawer, she found multiple hair ties, a couple of t-shirts, a packet of fat cakes, her laptop charger that she thought she'd left at Carly's, her old geometry book, and finally under a copy of the Girly Cow magazine, her hairbrush. "Here, I think I still know how to do it." He held his hand out for the brush from his seat at the end of the bed. She remembered when he'd brushed her hair for her once last year and his precious grin – he was so proud of himself for being able to navigate a hairbrush. Almost as proud as when—

She shook her head and the thought away, handing him the brush. He moved back, separating his legs out so she could sit between them. "Be careful around the knots. You're still new at this, so brush from the bottom and—"

"Sam, I know what I'm doing," he said, putting the brush in her hair. He began to pull it through the strands. "I do have younger cousins and my mom."

"Your mom makes you brush her hair?"

"I used to watch her when I was a kid apparently."

"I used to watch my mom do a lot of things, but I never learnt from them."

"My mom used to take me on educational field trips on weekends."

"My mom used to take me shoplifting."

"My mom took me to the museum every Saturday for seven years."

Sam scoffed. "No wonder you're a nerd."

Once she was satisfied with his work, she said a short goodbye to Freddie and his family and left the apartment. Though, she lingered in the hallway between the two apartments for longer than she wished to admit. It wouldn't hurt to say a quick good morning to Carly before leaving for her house, hoping to get there before noon so she'd know that her mom was definitely home and that Melanie would be at her summer job at the mall. Before she could make her mind up, though, she heard some yelling coming from the apartment. She pushed the door open.

"What light through yonder window breaks?" Spencer recited, holding a large lamp.

Carly stood with her hands on her hips, face stern. "Spencer, throwing a lamp through a window does not count as art."

"It can count as whatever I want it to count as."

"No, it counts as one hundred dollars of damage – we've gone through this before. And after the hundreds of dollars on blenders a couple of weeks ago, dad is already mad at us for overspending."

"You just don't understand my artistic brain!"

Sam laughed from her spot in the doorway, mainly at herself for thinking the yelling was about something important. "Hey."

"Oh, hello, Carly's friend who doesn't actually live here," Spencer greeted. Sam bowed mockingly, taking a step forward. "What is it today? All my food or all my Wi-Fi?"

"Probably the food. Freddie's aunt invited me to stay for breakfast, but it smelt too healthy for me," Sam explained, already heading for the fridge. At the mention of Freddie, Carly turned on her heel to look at her friend. In her opinion, the two had been getting rather close, she'd noticed, closer than friends should be. First, it was saving Sam's life, then it was the kissing, and now the suspicious sleepovers and invitations to family reunions.

"Freddie, hm? I missed something there, didn't I?" Carly asked. She watched Sam chopping the large ham in the fridge up into smaller pieces. "I got a call last night to help you look for a kid and now, you're having these secret meetings without me."

"It's not like that, Carls. I just crashed there last night."

"Sam, you can't hear yourself apparently. It sounds to anyone else but you that you're both in denial about dating. You're going through all the motions of dating without the actual dating part – I bet he's even called you his girlfriend, hasn't he?"

Sam didn't reply.

"Point proven."

"Look," Sam sighed. "If you feel jealous, just say."

"Jealous? Me? Of your relationship with Freddie? No," Carly insisted strongly.

Spencer quietly cut in, not that he was listened to. He pointed to his bedroom. "I'm just, uh, going to go and leave you to your girl fight…" Eyeing the knife in Sam's hand, he added quickly, "Please do not use weapons. I don't wish to be scrubbing blood off the carpet."

"Then what's wrong? Why are you being like this?"

"Because you both like each other, Sam! It's so obvious. Have you seen the way you look at each other? I mean, clearly you can't, but you look at each other like you've made the sun shine. You smile uncontrollably, your cheeks go all red, and he always smiles at you, too. It's so cute. Odd, but cute. You're good together, Sam, odd, but good. I think to me, this whole situation is odd. Odder than it was the first time round because of everything that's happened."

"I'd be rich if I had a million bucks for the number of times you just said "odd.""

Carly rolled her eyes. "My point is, if you like someone, go for it. You don't know what's going to happen if you don't try, right? For all you know, this time next week, you could be dating and doing all that cute coupley stuff on that couch again." Sam scoffed. "Sam, I can't tell you what to do and if you don't want me to tell him, then I—"

"He knows," Sam shrugged.

"Wh—What!" Carly spluttered in utter shock. She knew the two had kissed but didn't know the two had actually discussed their feelings for each other – because if they did, then that meant Freddie knew she liked him. If he knew, why weren't they together? They both so clearly wanted it. "Then why aren't you together? I'm so confused. I need a wet paper towel." She was already making her way to the sink, shoving her friend gently out the way so she could run the faucet and reach for a paper towel.

"You know they don't solve all the world's problems, right?"

"Well, they solve mine," Carly huffed. "With you two as my best friends, I need these few seconds of relief." When the wet towel kissed her head, she let out a sigh and leaned her head back. "So, please put the knife down and explain to me calmly why you aren't together."

Sam did as told – not because she was told to but because she wanted to – and stepped back from the counter, her lower back leaning against the pillar. "It crashed and burnt last time. Don't you remember the crying, screaming and you spending all your money on those trashy teenage magazines, which by the way did not help or relate to my situation?"

"Ah, yes, because most good girls fall for bad boys – not the gender roles reversed."

"Gender roles are dumb."

Carly agreed with her with a nod of her head. "Well, yes, but you didn't crash and burn. You dated for a month! That's impressive, okay? Even for me, that's impressive."

"Did I tell you the reason we broke up?" Sam made her way to the fridge and grabbed one of Spencer's root beers that he said he was "saving for a rainy day." Carly frowned, took the paper towel off and looked at her friend, her eyes practically boring into her soul. Sam had to take another step back, before deciding to vacate the kitchen and sit down on the couch. She patted the space next to her. "You're going to want to sit down after hearing this."

Cautiously, Carly took a seat, feeling herself sink into the couch. "You're kinda scaring me…it didn't end, like, really badly, right? Nothing serious happened, right?" she panicked. "God, if you've been downplaying the severity of this the whole time – you know you can tell me anything, right—"

"Carly, calm down. It was mutual. We told you that anyway."

She let out a sigh of relief. "Oh, thank god. Then what's so bad I have to sit—wait, did you guys have—"

"Carly, shush. Let me talk, kid." Carly nodded her head, mimicking herself zipping her lips shut and throwing away the key. Sam chuckled and sat back, taking a quick sip of her drink. "You went downstairs to get us cookies, right? Then when you didn't return after a bit, we went to the top of the stairs and overheard you speaking to Spencer and his girlfriend at the time – Jenny? Jenna? Jamie? I don't know. Something like that. Creepy chick who sent you to bed."

"Jenna," Carly corrected.

"Right, yes, that weird chick. I swear she taught me history once. Anyway, so, we were standing at the top of the stairs and you were telling them that they were forcing this and they agreed that it felt weird and unnatural and then—"

"No, please don't finish that," Carly sighed, head in her hands. She looked up. "Oh, God, Sam, I'm so sorry. You know I wasn't talking about you guys, right? You were so perfect together and—"

"No, we really weren't. We couldn't do anything together without arguing. I even blew up his model trains, Carls." Sam allowed herself to laugh at this. It had been a year, so she finally felt that she could forgive herself. When the two broke up, a few days later, her mom came into some money at the bingo and paid her to drive around her and some lawyer dude she had been lusting for, claiming Sam had too much free time for her own good. She had spent many three ams for weeks searching online, and with the money, she purchased two new trains and left them in a neatly wrapped box outside the Bensons' apartment one evening, after hearing from Carly that Mrs B had forced Freddie to go to church with her. He never brought up the trains to the girls, probably thinking that they wouldn't have cared anyway, but Sam just hoped that he had gotten them safely without his mom chipping the paintwork or bleaching them first.

"And he forgave you for that."

"He kept the cap and whistle by the way," Sam grinned. "He hides them in his wardrobe."

"What about the, uh, protective cup?"

Sam's grin turned into a grimace, her lips tugging inwards. "Eww, yes, let's not discuss that." Carly decided that maybe that was for the best, so she nodded, and the two girls quickly got back on topic. "It just, it didn't feel right. Him and I, though, we've just gone through so much now. He saved my life for ham's sake." From her wanting to be with him to her now agreeing that it was better to wait, the development was evident, and Carly, as much as she wanted to beg her best friends to date because she thought their relationship was "cute but odd," she knew that it was their decision.

So, she stepped back from the situation.

"I was the reason you broke up, wasn't I?"

"No, Carly. You just pointed out what we were both thinking. We agreed in the elevator that it wasn't working and that we felt it was forced. Him and I have always been at each other's throats and maybe that it is how it's always supposed to be. I don't want to hurt him again."

"And I understand," Carly said. "I won't interfere anymore and I'll tell Melanie to stop, too."

"Wait, what do you mean stop? What have you guys done?"

"Nothing!" Carly said quickly, jumping from the couch. "Anyway, that ham is going to eat itself if you don't get over there and eat it instead." Sam rolled her eyes but at the reminder of the ham, she ran over there and was already devouring the ham in delight with a few loud moans, making Carly laugh.