Wolf

"When was the last time you cleaned out your room?" Freddie asked Sam as he tripped over a baseball bat that was in the middle of her floor.

"Um, when me and Melanie shared a room," Sam said. "And I didn't clean it, she did."

"Is there even a floor under all of this?" Freddie frowned, looking at the piles among piles of clothes, shoes, papers and assorted snacks that littered the floor.

"Stop with the sarcasm, Benson," she snapped. "That new rug my mom got from her boyfriend's store is going to be here in less than an hour so we have to have enough space to lay it out by then."

"That's going to be impossible," Freddie mumbled. "Tell me again why I'm helping you with this?"

"Because I'm not making out with you until it's done."

"Oh, yeah."

"I'll go find some boxes from the attic," Sam said. "Just start…somewhere."

Freddie sighed as he looked around the room. He imagined his mother would have a heart attack if she knew he was in such an area. He spotted a pile of books by Sam's closet and figured he would start there. Most of the books in the pile were textbooks that looked as though they had never been opened. There were a few notebooks scattered among there as well, all blank, of course, and then there were some novels. He recognized a copy of The Penny Catcher, the book that he had bet her she couldn't read all the way through, the fifth volume of Harry Potter, and her favorite book, Boogie Bear III: the Return of Boogie Bear. Unlike the textbooks, these books actually looked worn, as though they had been read a lot over the years. After he neatly stacked these books, Freddie spotted another notebook. This one wasn't a lined one for taking notes in, though. It was a sketchpad. Freddie opened it up, curious. He knew Sam was a good artist, but he was still surprised at just how amazing these drawings were. There was one of a monkey eating a banana, another one of some pigs, and then another one of a plate of ribs. Chuckling, he flipped the page and saw a drawing of a boy getting chased by what looked like a very hungry wolf. He was just about to flip the page when he noticed that the boy in the picture looked very familiar…and then it hit him: it was him!

"Hey!" Freddie said aloud.

"What?" Sam said, walking back into the room with a bunch of boxes.

"Sam, why'd you draw this?" Freddie asked, showing her the picture.

"I was bored," she shrugged.

"So you daydream about me getting eaten by a wolf?"

"Not eaten, just chased," Sam explained.

"Oh, well, that's better!" Freddie said sarcastically. "Sam, we're dating. You're not supposed to draw elaborate pictures of your boyfriend getting chased by carnivores!"

"Why not? It's pretty funny," Sam said.

"Because, it's like-" Freddie started, but then he stopped.

"Like what?" Sam asked.

"It's nothing," Freddie said. "Come on; let's start cleaning."

"No, not until you tell me what you were going to say," Sam said firmly.

"Fine," Freddie sighed. "It's like-it's like you don't like me."

Sam blinked. "Really? That's what you think?"

"It's stupid," Freddie said. "Can we just forget about it?"

Sam didn't say anything. She took the book from Freddie's hand and flipped through a few more pages.

"Sam, what are you-"

Sam stopped flipping through the pages and handed the book back to Freddie without a word.

Freddie looked down at the picture on this page. It was another picture of him, but in this one, the drawing of Freddie was holding hands with a blonde figure, which could only be Sam. There were a bunch of hearts doodled in the corners of the pages and in a messy scribble that he could barely make out he read Sam + Freddie.

"Wow," he said softly.

"I drew the one with the wolf because I was in detention," Sam explained. "And I didn't want those kids that look over my shoulder all the time to see me drawing something soft and girly like that."

"Oh," Freddie said dumbly.

"And you're not allowed to tell anyone about this picture either," Sam said, taking back the book from Freddie.

"I won't," he promised.

"You know I don't not like you, right?" Sam said, looking up at him.

"Yeah," Freddie nodded, smiling. "I know."