Another real-time chapter. Sam had just asked her mother about Freddie's and Melanie's daughter.
Chapter 24
"The kid? You mean Alex? She's a little angel. Like Melanie used to be. Kind of high strung by times like her daddy but I suppose that comes from living with him and Marissa." Pam said.
"Could you, maybe, I don't know . . . do you have pictures of her?"
Pam smirked at the question but kept it to herself. "You want to see a picture of her?"
"Well, yeah. If it's not too much trouble. Could you just text me. It's no big deal really if you can't."
"I'll see what I can do kid. Look, I'm running late. I've really got to get going. They got a new bingo caller and he is hot. Sure he's ancient but he drives a fancy car and dresses good so I guess he's got some money. Talk about silver fox. And hey, I've got a stash of those little blue pills for, you know, if he has problems with that part."
Sam simply shivered to herself.
The next day Sam received a picture of her niece from her mother. Unfortunately, she wasn't alone. In the picture, she was sitting on Freddie's lap, obviously in Pam Pucket's living room. She sighed, why did the one guy on the face of the Earth that she could ever see a future with have to be a lying skunk bag?
A few weeks later, Carly had finally found a job and was busy trying to acclimate to life in Seattle. She had been hanging out with Freddie and Spencer, babysitting Alex once in a while and had even shared a few less than hostile words with Marissa Benson. The older woman was not overly friendly with Carly but she saw her as a friend of not only her son but a somewhat positive female influence in her granddaughter's life, much more so than her deserting mother.
The one room in his apartment that Spencer did not remodel was Carly's bedroom and she continually looked around at the room which was perfect for her at sixteen and wondered why just ten short years later she felt it was so immature. Well, except for the gigantic video screen dressing mirror which Freddie had upgraded for Spencer not long before Carly moved home.
The brunette's phone clicked and she sat down in front of her make up table to video chat with her BFF.
"Yo, yo, Carls. Whattup girl?" Sam shouted as soon as she saw her friend's face on her laptop screen. Sam was sitting at her dining table, eating of course.
"Not much, other than I got a job." She cheered with excitement. "The first law firm I applied to. They saw there's even room for promotion once I actually pass the bar exam.
"Awesome!" Sam replied and took a sip of a neon colored drink.
"It's awfully quiet at your place. No kids to keep today?"
"Nah. Finally got a day to myself. Trina went some place with this dude she met at the grocery store so mama's just chillin' with a six pack of Blue Dog and a bucket of ice cream."
"Take it easy on that Blue Dog. I've heard about that chiz. I actually thought they banned that stuff." Carly snickered. "So what's the deal with you and Trina? I mean, Cat I can kind of understand, Jade yeah totally you guys are like twin sisters with different mothers. But Trina must have really changed because I remember her from the time we went to that party in L.A. and I just can't picture you not killing her. Even I thought she was irritating."
"Eh, I guess I've mellowed and she's not that bad. For the flake she is, she's actually kind of good with kids so she does most of the work. And it's not like I have much choice. Everybody else is gone."
"I know Cat left for her stage career but everyone else left, too? I'm guessing that's how you got teamed up with a girl like Trina?"
"When I moved back, I was staying with Jade and Cat and Tori. Then Cat left for New York and Trina moved in for whatever reason. I guess her and Tori's parents kicked her out or some chiz. Next thing you know Jade and Tori decided they were a couple and going off to see the world together. I wouldn't have guessed either of those chicks for the type, because Tori was always more boy crazy than you, but whatever. So by process of elimination, Trina's my room mate." She said with a dry tone and a shrug.
"You don't sound too happy about it."
"Eh, it's OK. Like I said, she's good with the kids we keep. And if I didn't have her helping pay the rent I'd be living in a cardboard box behind the Taco Hut. She's can't cook to save her life, though."
"I'll bet you wish you had some of Freddie's cooking once in a while. You know, you could always . . . "
"Carly, please stop." Sam sighed. "I know you'd like me to move back but you need to accept that I just can't, alright?"
"Aw, Sam. I get that it would be hard at first. It would get better. Can't you just think about it? For me?"
"No, girl. Sorry, not happening. Just, no." Sam looked down at her keyboard sadly. "I miss you too, Cupcake but what would I do for a living? I really don't want to end up back at Chili My Bowl or some fast food joint working my butt off just to pay rent. I like what I do here and I make good money."
"Well couldn't you baby sit in Seattle as well as L.A.? I mean, people have kids here too you know. I kept your niece a couple of times. Good babysitters are hard to find from what I understand."
"Uh-huh." Sam replied. "And where would I stay? I'm sure not living with my mom. Last time I was in Seattle I was renting your old room from Spencer. Unless you got a bigger bed wouldn't it be awfully crowded."
"Wait. Hear me out. I've been thinking about looking for a place of my own now that I have a job. If you were here we could get a place together. You could keep kids or I could help you find a job someplace that didn't involve the words 'do you want to mega-size your value meal today?'. It'd be perfect."
"Carly. Will you drop it, please? I know you're trying here and I also know you're pretty tight with Frednuts. I don't want to be back in Seattle and having to see him hanging out with you."
"Oh for chiz sake. For the five hundredth time, there's nothing between me and Freddie." Carly snapped.
"Maybe not. But if you're friends with him and I'm living with you, by default I would have to be around him. It would be just like middle school all over again. Only this time, he'd be more than just an annoying nub who lives across the hall from you. He's my ex that I'd rather never speak to again."
"Sa-am!" Carly scolded. "Isn't there any way that you two will ever be able to stand to be around each other? How about some kind of counseling?"
"Why would I do counseling with him? It was bad enough with my mom, talking about feelings and chiz. I think my feelings are pretty clear on Fredspank. He's a jerk who lied to me, took advantage of me and broke my heart. There's nothing to work out. Or talk about."
"But Sam . . . "
"Goodbye, Carly." With that Sam promptly ended the chat session with Carly. She'd call her back and beg forgiveness for hanging up on her later. Right now she needed to stop this conversation before she said anything else that she'd regret. And she was afraid if it went much further there were other emotions she would not be able to keep in check.
The following weekend everything had smoothed over between the two friends. Sam had texted to apologize to Carly for her abrupt hang up and Carly apologized for pushing the idea of Sam moving back to Seattle. All was going well for the blonde in L.A., her clients for the day had picked up their kids and she was staring at the TV, a bucket of ribs in her lap. Her room mate returned from her date quite a bit later than she was expected.
Trina dropped down beside her. "Hey, Sam. Thanks again for taking care of those three kids on your own this evening. I really needed that date and it was the best ever. In fact, whew! I am worn out."
"Oh God. I do NOT need to hear about all the gory details of your date. Please." Sam sneered.
"Ew, Sam. No. I wasn't going to tell you about how great the sex was. But Jonathan did ask me to move in with him."
"Jesus, woman. What did you do to him or should I say, for him? That was only your what, third, fourth date?"
"Fifth. Oh Sam, he's perfect and I never had such great . . . "
"Nah! Not listening to this part." Sam covered her ears. "I swear you are worse than Cat ever was. Every time her and Robbie went out, for two days all I heard was the minute details about what they did. Everything they did."
"I was going to say such great lasagna." Trina shook her head with a smirk. "Perv."
"Well, he is a chef. I would hope he could make decent food." Sam replied. "How about you have him make dinner for mama some time so I can give his skills a proper critique. I haven't had a decent home cooked meal since Cat left."
Trina just looked at her funny.
"So what are you gonna do? About the moving in with him part?"
"I don't know. I want to, but what about this place? About you?"
Sam just shrugged. What the heck would she do? There was no way she could afford the rent on the apartment by herself. Even if she got a job to supplement the babysitting income, she would never be able to afford it. She sighed and Trina knew that this was not something that Sam wanted to think about anytime soon.
Within a week or so, Trina and Sam realized that it was indeed time for them to part ways. The rent was paid until the end of the month and it would take Sam that long to find some place else to live. She searched ads online and asked around but it was soon clear that not having a room mate to share expenses with would eat up her savings in short order.
With no other prospects, Sam conceded to herself that her only viable options were to quickly find herself a sugar daddy like Trina did or to move back to Seattle and take Carly up on her offer of them sharing an apartment. She missed Carly like crazy and would be more excited about that prospect if it weren't for one factor.
One thing she decided, that she would not admit to Carly that she was desperate and that she had little choice in the matter. If she were to keep her true reason under wraps, it would be far easier to control her old friend's actions with regards to one Mr. Benson. She decided to check in with Carly and make sure that the offer still stood.
"Hey Carls." Sam greeted when Carly answered her video chat request. As always, Carly was hanging out in her room.
"Hey you." Carly tried to be chipper but she could tell from Sam's tone that she wasn't her old self. "I wanted to say sorry again for the other week."
"Don't sweat it, Cupcake." Sam replied, sitting with her laptop open and the camera pointed at herself. "You know, I am known to overreact and you weren't doing anything wrong. I'm sorry I lost my cool with you. No one deserves to have their friend act like that. But you've known I'm a bitch for years, so it's your fault too. For not expecting it."
"So what's going on?" Carly asked, happy that Sam seemed to be more than willing to move on.
"Eh, nothing much. Went grocery shopping because we were out of bacon, Trina had another date with what's his face, I'm just glad they have their alone time at his place. I decided to come to see you. Oh, and I bought some wax for my bike online a while ago. It's supposed to be here by Friday." Sam replied with no emotion.
"She's getting serious about this dude, huh?" Carly asked. "Wait, what else, I think I missed something."
"The wax. Yeah, it's this great new stuff. It's supposed to last for, like, two years or something. I can't wait to try it."
"No! I don't care about stupid wax. The part about you coming to see me."
"I guess I should have given that top billing, huh?" Sam smirked. "Yeah, you know, I got to thinking and it's silly of me to avoid a whole city where my best friend lives just because my loser, douche bag of an ex-boyfriend lives there."
"OMG! Are you serious? You're really coming home? You're messing with me, aren't you?"
"Nope! True chiz." Sam cracked. "Serious as a heart attack. I've had some time to think about it and I'm willing to give it a try on a couple of conditions."
The blonde went on to spell out how she wanted a promise that Carly would not attempt to get Sam to talk about their issues and be friends with Freddie again. I was agreed that there were to be no lame excuses to get them in the same room and the dark haired girl would limit her mentioning the young man no more than three times a day or even talking to him on the phone in her presence.
Carly, of course, agreed to all Sam's terms even though she had no intention of not breaking the rules as she saw fit. The girls hung up with plans for Sam to arrive back in Seattle and stay with the Shay's in the old studio until they could find an apartment together. The perky brunette's first move was to run downstairs to announce to her brother that Sam would be arriving.
"Spencer! Spencer, Spencer, Spencer!" She shouted as she practically flew down the steps. "Sam's coming! Spencer!"
As soon as she rounded the corner by the private elevator, she spotted Freddie sitting at the counter talking to Spencer while the artist prepared food on the kitchen island. A flush ran over her, she was planning to tell him privately, and prepare him for his ex-girlfriend's arrival and to try to keep them out of each other's space somehow, even if only temporarily.
"Oh, uh, hey Freddie." Carly croaked quietly. "I didn't know you came in. I thought you'd be working. Where's Alex?"
"Mom took her for fro-yo." He responded. "I needed a break, I've been staring at that screen for hours trying to fix a problem with code someone else messed up. I just wanted to hang out with Spencer for a bit and check out his latest project."
The young man made no mention of what she yelled from the stair landing and Spencer picked up on the awkward vibe the two were putting off.
"So, Sam's coming for a visit, huh?" The older man asked, sensing the awkwardness.
