- "The Talk" -
Sam had just finished taking a shower and had come into the hallway. Freddie was sitting on the couch, doing work on his laptop.
"No mom, I didn't," Freddie says with a sigh.
Sam can hear Mrs. Benson perfectly fine because Freddie had his phone on speaker so that he could work, thinking that he was alone. Sam stood quietly and listened.
"Don't forget to give yourself a tick bath, since you refused to bring my spray with you. And make sure you wear your anti-bacterial underpants and that you wash between your toes. Oh! And you almost forgot your cloud-block but don't worry! I put it in your bag for you along with some sprays I got from and ointments for any possible rashes you may get from the disgusting Los Angeles air."
"Okay, mom" Freddie replies, sounding bored. He clearly was hardly listening to her. Sam couldn't stand to listen to her much longer either so she made her way over to the couch and as Freddie turned around to see her and opened his mouth to greet her, Mrs. Benson spoke again.
"And make sure you don't eat any pasta unless it's gluten-free, you know it-"
Freddie, knowing what she was about to say fumbles for his phone to turn it off of speaker but doesn't manage to do it in time.
"-makes you constipated" Marissa finishes as Freddie aggressively taps the button to take his phone off of speaker. He quickly tells her goodbye and hangs up.
Sam is sitting beside him now on the couch and laughs lightly at this. Freddie glances at her shyly and tries to laugh it off too.
"So, should I make you something else for lunch next time?" Sam asks as she nods towards Freddie's mostly eaten bowl of pasta sitting on the coffee table.
"No, my digestive system is just fine," Freddie assures her, "and the pasta was pretty good, thanks."
"No problem, its nothing compared to Pini's pasta though. Man, I miss that place. Have you been recently?"
Freddie smiles at her as Sam licks her lips at the thought of Pini's lasagna, "Aw no, actually the last time I went was with you."
"Right, when Carly started yelling at us and flinging parmesan cheese across the table with her spoon like a catapult of flavourful deliciousness," Sam says as she nods at the memory of her best friend creating a scene during her and Freddie's date.
"Yea, we were pretty annoying to be around at the time though."
"I know, I don't even know how she put up with us for as long as she did," Sam says lightheartedly. Sam props her feet on the coffee table and crosses her arms over her chest.
"To be honest, I started all of those fights with you out of habit." Freddie chooses his words carefully as he gazes down at the ground with his arms crossed, "Fighting over pointless things was kind of how we became friends in the first place. And I had actually enjoyed the fights as friends they were way more fun to me than they were hurtful. But y'enno, once we started dating it made it kind of confusing how to talk and stuff."
"I totally agree with you on that."
"I feel like all the 'problems' we had with our relationship weren't problems that we wouldn't have easily figured out after some more time," Freddie speaks softly.
"I know… I guess that was the part that scared me away, we were figuring out our relationship and it was working and I knew it would be so much harder to break-up if I had just given it some more time and we had started clicking better as boyfriend and girlfriend."
"Right." Freddie agrees as he thinks back to their conversation in the hospital where Sam had admitted that she had only broken up with Freddie to protect her friendships and Freddie had told her that he had never wanted to break-up with her at all. "So…. With all that being said. I owe you something, Sam."
"Owe me what?" She asks.
Freddie leans in to kiss her. Freddie moves slowly enough that Sam would have had a perfectly reasonable amount of time to dodge it if she hadn't spent a full couple of seconds blanked out because she was frozen in shock, she ended up bolting off of the couch in the last second in order to avoid him.
Freddie stares at her in surprise and they both wear awkward and uncomfortable expressions.
"Uh... Sorry" They both mumble in embarrassment at the same time, looking away from one another.
Sam slowly sits back down on the couch, hoping that if she sits, they can move on, acting like nothing happened. But Freddie had other intentions.
"Look, Sam, I'm really sorry that me trying to kiss you has been making you feel weird and stuff but I thought we were on the same page so I don't really understand what I'm missing here. Do you have a boyfriend or something?"
"Of course not! Who do I even interact with that's my own age and male around here?"
Freddie just shrugs, wondering how he was supposed to know the answer to that.
"I'm sorry, we are on the same page but your missing something really obvious. The fact that I live here and you live on the opposite end of the country."
Freddie blushes a little and Sam catches it but is confused about what Freddie was finding embarrassing in that. "I uh… kind of applied to some universities in Los Angeles and was sort of considering accepting one of the offers if things between us were going well and everything."
When Freddie said it, Sam felt her heart do some weird fluttery thing as if it was going to grow wings and flap its way right out of her ribcage. She briefly thought about what a good video that would make for her collection of disgusting videos.
Sam sighs, "But I can't just let you move here where you know no one, just so that you can be with me. I mean it's not fair to you, especially considering we both grew up in Seattle, I mean if one of us is gonna move, it would make more sense for it to be me."
Freddie shrugs and looks at her, "Okay, do you want to move back?"
"No!" Sam snaps.
Freddie smirks and rolls his eyes at her, "So you don't want me to move and you don't want to move either? But you want to be with me. What do you want me to do invent a teleportation pad?! We'll be like 90 by the time I figure that out!"
Sam groans and stands up, starting to pace around the room, "See! This is why I can't kiss you!"
"Well, I just think it might make more sense if we… y'enno, used the time that I have here to explore our relationship and then we can decide who may want to move where."
Sam stops pacing, "Or we end up just getting more attached to each other and still can't agree on who should move so we have to break up again." She counters.
Freddie sighs, "Yea that's possible too but I mean you and I wouldn't have even been together at all if you hadn't taken the risk of kissing me in the courtyard at school. Love involves taking risks. And I told you, I'm willing to take the risk this time."
"Well, I'm not gonna let you! You deserve better than that." Sam insists.
"Better than what? UCLA is a great university and I'd be in a relationship with my best friend and someone I love. What's bad about that?" Freddie demands.
"What if things don't work out?! Then you're stuck in L.A. when you could have just stayed in Seattle where you probably wanted to be."
Freddie couldn't really argue with her on that one. She had a good point. Moving so far away was a big commitment to their relationship. Especially considering they hadn't been around each other at all for six months.
Freddie could easily tell that Sam was starting to get very stressed out and upset at the discussion of this topic and he had to admit that he was also feeling frustrated and stressed about it, although he hoped to have been doing a better job hiding it than Sam was.
"Okay look, I won't kiss you its fine. Lets just not talk about this anymore right now." Freddie makes his tone soothing.
Sam tries to make her voice sound tough and dismissive but Freddie knows she's upset underneath it, "Cool, fine with me."
Sam sits back down beside Freddie on the couch and he starts to flip through the channels on the tv to find something that they both enjoyed watching.
Sam hesitates but after a few minutes, she places her head on Freddie's shoulder and takes in his warm and fresh scent.
Freddie smiles to himself and wraps his arm around her waist to which she scooted in closer towards him to cuddle up beside him.
"Wait-" Sam says.
"Hmm?" Freddie asks, already feeling much more relaxed having her next to him like this.
"Didn't you have to apply for universities like two months ago?" Sam asks.
"Yeah" Freddie answers casually, unsure where she was going with her question.
"So…. Why did you apply to universities in L.A. two months ago?" Sam figured she already knew the answer, but she wanted to point it out to Freddie anyways.
"Uh….. Well… they have great…. Lights at UCLA I hear… and… I heard their cafeteria has good lemon squares…" Freddie stammers anxiously.
"So you picked your universities based on lighting and lemon square quality?" Sam retorts with a knowing smirk.
"Yup! You know me! Gotta' have the perfect lighting and good lemon squares…"
"You must hate Starbucks then."