Carly and Harper had promptly made up an excuse to leave Skybucks and let Freddie talk with Izzy in private. They grabbed their coffees and each shot him a pitying glance before making their way to Spencer's apartment and jumping into their work in the studio.
At least Harper had, Carly was staring at her laptop and pretending to work while her right leg jiggled anxiously under the desk.
"Would you stop that," Harper said, glaring at her friend from behind her sewing machine. "I can't concentrate on my work over the sound of your chair squeaking with every single move your leg makes."
"Sorry," Carly replied, looking up from the screen she had been blankly staring at. "Can't focus, I'm a bit distracted."
Harper's face softened as she stared at her friend, waiting to see if she was going to say anything else.
Carly turned back to her computer and started typing, the keyboard clicking loudly as she jabbed at the keys. After a minute or two of typing she stopped suddenly and sighed.
"I need to know what they're talking about!"
"Carly, we'll both know the moment he gets back."
"I just can't help but worry, what if she's fine with everything? I just need them too…" Carly stopped herself as realised what she was saying. Wishing Freddie's new relationship, one he was so far very happy with, would end wasn't a very 'best friend' thing to do.
Harper had caught onto her statement too and was watching Carly closely.
"You just have to support him," Harper said. "No matter what is going on, you stand by him and support him like you always have. It's not like you have dibs on him or anything."
Carly closed her laptop, resting her arms gently over it as she reached for the ring she wore daily around her neck.
"No, I don't. We've had years of opportunity to become something other than friends but we never did because we've never spoken about all of that properly," Carly said. "I've spent all this time thinking that nothing ever happened between us because surely it would have happened years ago. But really it's because I haven't been honest with myself. Well it's time I was honest with Freddie!"
Harper was watching her closely, watching the ring she was playing with around her neck. "You're still wearing the ring?" She asked.
Carly noticed the slight look of pity on Harper's face and quickly tucked the necklace back under the neckline of her sweater.
"Oh girl, I knew you loved him but you've got it bad."
"Why did it take me so long to admit it?" Carly asked.
Harper shrugged and returned to her sewing.
After a moment of silence Carly spoke again. "I have to tell him."
Harper raised an eyebrow at her, sending a silent warning.
"Only if they break up, I'll tell him if they break up." Carly clarified.
Within five minutes Freddie had returned, joining both of them in the iCarly studio. A grin plastered to his face.
"She was a bit confused but I explained everything and we're good!" He announced. He was too caught up in his own excitement that he missed the glances Harper and Carly sent to each other.
Spencer's newest obsession, that was surely to be short lived, was board games. Which was how Carly found herself stuck sitting at his dinner table that afternoon with her friends playing a game which required her to build railway lines across a map of North America. She wasn't entirely sure what she was doing, board games weren't really her thing and she had barely paid attention as Spencer had explained the rules.
It didn't matter anyway, Harper was as competitive as usual, trying her hardest to beat Spencer, and Freddie, ever the logical one, was just really good at the game. She had no chance of winning even if she wanted to.
So she sat at the table, slowly collecting little cards of different coloured trains which she was meant to use to build a rail line from either Kansas City to Houston or Chicago to Atlanta. They were both only worth 5 points according to the cards in front of her and she didn't see why she couldn't choose her own routes and work towards something worth more points rather than following what the cards told her to do.
After extending his own route from Toronto to Chicago, Freddie excused himself from the table and pulled his phone from his pocket, walking across the room as he spoke into it.
Carly watched him, distracted and forgetting about the game, until Harper jabbed her in the ribs.
"Ow!" She hissed.
"Your turn," Harper said, pointing towards the board.
Although she had combinations of cards which allowed her to place rail lines on the board, Carly was disinterested in the game and drew two random cards from the downturned pile quickly and finished her turn.
Harper was quick to take her turn after Carly, she clearly had a plan in her head that she was following.
"Hey, Izzy's just finished up at work, is it alright with you if she drops by?" Freddie asked Spencer as he walked back over to the table and grabbed his keys from where he had left them at his seat.
"Totally fine," Spencer said, not looking up from the board as he considered his next move.
"Great, I'll be right back," Freddie said, heading towards the elevator.
"If you make us wait too long I'm taking your turn for you," Spencer called back before turning back to the board which he continued to stare at.
After a few more minutes of Spencer staring at the board, and Harper yelling at him to hurry up, Freddie and Izzy arrived right as Spencer was finally finishing his turn.
"Uh, hi guys," Izzy said, waving at the group as she followed Freddie towards the table.
Spencer and Harper both greeted her enthusiastically, but Carly only nodded her head towards the woman before turning back to the game and focusing harder on it than she had all afternoon.
Freddie moved a chair so she could join him and quickly made his turn before turning to Izzy. "You can take over my game, I'll teach you how to play."
Carly rolled her eyes as she drew another two cards, adding to her ever growing pile.
As Harper and Spencer took their turns Freddie whispered the rules to Izzy. Carly listened in out of habit, always aware of what Freddie was doing and saying.
"So I'm working on this route," Freddie told Izzy quietly as he pointed at the card in his hand "Seattle to New York, it's worth 20 points."
Carly watched as Izzy quickly responded and played three red cards, extending Freddie's track from Chicago to Duluth.
Carly perked up, suddenly realising that her approach of collecting cards rather than playing had left her with 4 black cards in her hand, perfect for blocking one of the routes out of Duluth. She also had a number of oranges and had a good chance at beating Izzy to building along one of the other tracks out of Duluth. Carly hesitated for a moment, considering her options but quickly made her play, claiming the easiest route before Izzy could use it to travel towards Seattle.
She smirked to herself as she noticed Freddie groan, she had definitely stuffed up their next move.
Another round passed and Carly collected an orange and a wild card, allowing her to complete a set of six orange cards which she would be able to use on her next round. She waited as Harper and Spencer bickered for a moment - Harper had managed to take one of the tracks Spencer had been planning to use - and watched as Izzy reached forward to draw cards, still unable to extend her track.
Happily, Carly leaned forward and made her next move, playing the orange cards and blocking Izzy in again.
Harper looked at Carly with narrowed eyes, clearly suspicious of her actions.
As the game progressed Carly continued to watch the cards Izzy was collecting, the directions she was heading, and made moves to counter her.
"There's no way you needed that track," Freddie accused as Carly made another play.
Carly shrugged, "I'm being strategic, attacking my competitors, you're too smart to beat so I have to block you instead."
Freddie continued to watch Carly as she played, growing more and more wary of her actions. He couldn't help but shake the feeling that she was purposefully working against Izzy in the game.
Once the game was finished and their destination cards were turned over, revealing that Carly hadn't finished any of her given tasks, Spencer burst into laughter.
"I didn't think you had it in you kid, playing to sabotage others! I'm proud."
Carly grinned, "I had crappy cards, it made it more fun."
"But you lost," Freddie pointed out.
"I was always going to lose," she said. "Izzy had the advantage of your help, I had to do something about it."
"I don't think your wife likes me very much," Izzy quipped, trying to make a light joke out of the situation.
Freddie watched, noticing that everyone laughed in response, everyone except Carly.
Carly had been trying to avoid being around Izzy, she knew that her own disappointment and jealousy was causing her to treat the woman unfairly. But by the end of the next week she couldn't get out of being the one to head over to Skybucks and collect a tray of take-away coffees without raising suspicion.
Of course when she made her way to the counter to place their orders the very woman she was trying to avoid was waiting, ready to serve her.
"Hey Carly, what can I get for you?"
"Uh, hi," Carly responded, struggling not to let her annoyance seep into her voice. "Just the usual."
"No worries! Hey, it was fun to hang out with you all the other day, I hope you didn't mind."
Carly shrugged, "yeah, it's fine."
"You're quite the competitor," Izzy said, trying to extend the conversation. "I'll have to keep my eye out for you if we go head to head in another game."
Carly shrugged again, "probably won't be another game, Spencer's found a new hobby."
"Oh, ok. Well, see ya 'round!"
"See ya."
Carly found the point furthest away from Izzy to stand while she waited for the order. She knew she had been indifferent and possibly even a little bit mean towards her but she couldn't help it. She was overcome with her own feelings and struggling to navigate the new situation she found herself in.
After collecting the tray of coffees she looked towards Izzy and gave a friendly wave, hoping it somehow made up for her lack of civility during their conversation.
When Carly arrived back to the iCarly studio, drinks in hand, she was almost toppled over by Freddie. He launched at her, grabbing her arm and pulling her towards Harper.
"Harper has some news," he said, still dragging her across the room as her skin reacted and burned at his very touch.
"I do," she announced. "Roxy finally answered one of my calls!"
Harper stood proudly before continuing on with her story.
"So I had to convince this girl who works at a travel agency. I won't go into how I convinced her, but let's just say I left her incredibly satisfied." She fluttered her eyelashes. "Anyway, I convinced her to call Roxy, tell her she'd won some competition for a free trip to France and that she needed to answer some questions and then BAM I jumped on the phone and cornered her."
"Couldn't you have just borrowed literally anyone's phone if she was screening your number?" Freddie asked, amused by the apparent need to approach a simple problem so theatrically.
"Where's the fun in that?" Harper asked. "Anyway I spoke with her. She wanted to make some easy money, wrote the tweets to create interest and then sold the videos once she got a decent offer. I threatened her with a legal case and she offered to pay you guys all the money she made if you don't go after her."
"I really can't be bothered dealing with any more lawyers anytime soon," Carly said, glancing over to Freddie.
He nodded. "I hadn't even planned to follow up on how the photos got out, I'm happy to make a deal."
"Great," Harper said, clapping her hands.
A/N: Hey! Holidays are officially over and I'm back into the swing of regular life. While I wasn't posting I sat down and finally planned the rest of this story out - This fic will have 10 chapters.
The board game they play with Spencer is Ticket To Ride
I wanted to make a quick comment about the snapchat thing cos it'll be boring to do in story. Essentially what happened to Harper was when you go to click the little arrow to send a message after selecting the names of people you are sending the message to (in Harper's case Carly and Freddie) you can accidentally click the name of the person who sits under the send arrow (in this case Roxy) and if you quickly assume the message just didn't send instead of taking the time to read the selected names again you can easily send the message to any old random on your list. Which of course then puts them on the most recent list and if the next time you send a message you just click that option instead of reading it… well, you have Harper's situation. There's no real way to know that's what you've done until you actually notice it happening so Harper doesn't realise. I may be speaking from experience here - yes I'm one of those people that still use snapchat.