Astronomy
"I wonder who thought of the S'more," Gibby said thoughtfully, sticking a large marshmallow on a stick and placing it into the roaring fire him, Carly, Spencer, Sam and Freddie were sitting around. "I mean, who just thought 'Hey, let me stick this marshmallow between two graham crackers and add some chocolate'?"
"I dunno, but they're a genius," Sam said as she took a bite out of her fifth s'more, wiping her chocolate covered finger's on her boyfriend's jeans. Freddie hardly seemed to notice, though, for he was staring up at the sky.
"Maybe that means I can think of the next great camping snack too!" Gibby said excitedly. "How do you guys feel about J'mores?"
"What are J'mores?" Carly frowned.
"They sound French," Spencer commented.
"It's Jell-O and chocolate and graham crackers!" Gibby said. "Sounds good, right?"
"Um…maybe you should go back to the drawing board," Carly chuckled as she leaned back in her chair. "You know, this is nice. The five of us taking the weekend to go on a relaxing camping trip together."
"Yeah," Spencer said, grabbing the binoculars around his neck and peering through them. "Especially since it's prime beavcoon season!"
"Hey," Sam said, shaking Freddie's shoulder. "What are you staring up at?"
"I told you," Freddie said. "Tonight's supposed to be that big meteor shower!"
The other four groaned.
"What?" Freddie frowned.
"You've been talking about this lame meteor shower for weeks," Sam said, rolling her eyes. "It's not that big of a deal. It's just a bunch of rocks falling from the sky."
"It's one of the rarest meteor showers in the world!" Freddie pointed out.
"So that means you can probably catch the highlights of it online," Carly replied.
"But we're here out in the woods on a camping trip!" Freddie exclaimed. "Why wouldn't we want to watch it live?"
"Because it's at three in the morning!" Gibby scoffed. "You know if I don't get my eight hours I get those puffy bags under my eyes, and I didn't bring my special moisturizer so there's no way I can mess with my sleep cycle."
"Besides, we're gonna be all worn out from our beavcoon hunt!" Spencer said excitedly.
"Spence, we've already done this, there's no beavcoons," Carly said, rolling her eyes.
"Is too!"
"I can't believe you guys don't want to see one of the greatest phenomenons in the whole field of astronomy," Freddie said.
"Baby, to you it may be one of the greatest phenomenons, but to us, it's just you geeking out as usual," Sam told him.
"Look, maybe if it was at a normal hour we'd be more willing to see it," Carly said gently. "But three in the morning is kind of in the middle of the night. And we'd have to hike for two miles just to get to the spot to see it."
"You woke up at three last month for that huge sale at Glitter Gloss!" Freddie snapped.
"Yes, and I got some cute new jeans out of that," Carly said. "If shoes are gonna fall from the sky, I'll wake up for that no problem."
"Well I'm going to watch the meteor shower," Freddie said firmly. "Even if I have to myself."
…..
Sam lay in her small bed in the RV the group had taken into the woods with them. She knew it must be very late, but she still couldn't fall asleep.
Suddenly she heard something shift from the back of the RV and she saw a figure walking past her in the dark.
I guess the nub was serious about watching that meteor shower by herself, Sam thought, looking at her phone to see that it was supposed to start in forty-five minutes. Well I hope the nub has fun freezing his butt off out there.
She rolled over onto her side, trying to fall back asleep. But it was no use.
He really has been looking forward to seeing this meteor shower for weeks, Sam thought. And he does always do stuff he doesn't want to do for me…and he's not exactly an outdoorsy guy…he would never survive a two mile hike on his own. If he wound up getting lost or hurt, I'd never hear the end of it from his mom.
And so with that, Sam sat up and quickly shoved her shoes on and grabbed her jacket.
"Freddie!" Sam hissed, spotting her boyfriend's retreating figure.
Freddie spun around. "Sam? Did I wake you?"
"Nah," Sam said as she caught up with him. "I couldn't sleep."
"Wait…" Freddie said slowly. "Does this mean…are you going to watch the meteor shower with me?"
"Well if I don't, you'll just wind up getting lost or running back to the RV because you spotted a spider or something," Sam said. "You just better hope this meteor shower lives up to your hype."
"It will, don't worry!" Freddie said as he took her hand. "Especially when we watch it from the spot I found. It has the perfect view."
The couple walked along the path through the woods for nearly twenty minutes before they reached a clearing.
"I'm really glad you came with me, Sam," Freddie said as he laid out a blanket on the ground.
Sam smiled, giving him a quick kiss. "I guess there are worst things a boyfriend can do than guilt his girlfriend into watching a rare meteor shower."
"It should be really impressive," Freddie said, wrapping his arms around her as she leaned against him. "You know…I actually didn't really want the others to come. I sort of wanted this to be something just the two of us did."
"I guess it is kind of nice being out here without Gibby rambling on about who knows what or Spencer trying to spot a beavcoon," Sam agreed. "So how much longer until this thing starts?"
"Should be about ten more minutes," Freddie said. "You know…if you like this, we could always go stargazing some other time or something. I have a pretty great view from my fire escape back home."
"So now you're stuck on stars and chiz?" Sam chuckled.
"I've always liked stars," Freddie said. "I've just never had someone I felt close enough to share that with. I think they're really romantic. In fact, I-I've sort of saw myself, you know, when I fell in love with a girl, proposing to her under the stars."
Sam smiled. "That sounds nice." She leaned further into Freddie's embrace. She really was glad she decided to come out with Freddie tonight. As much as she loved her tough-girl persona, she liked being able to have someone like him to be able to put her walls down with. It was one of the many reasons she loved him.
"You know," Freddie said softly, lacing his fingers with hers. "I-I know we're both only seventeen and all, but when I think about things like that…like who I'm going to marry and who I want to have a family with and who I want to grow old with…I always think of you."
Sam felt her heart skip as she looked up into his dark eyes. "You really want to marry me?"
"I do," Freddie said earnestly. "One day. I know we're nowhere near ready now. But when the time comes…after college and we really start our lives…there's no one else who I could even imagine me marrying."
Sam blinked, feeling the tears in her eyes. "I want to marry you too," Sam whispered, squeezing his hand. "One day."
Freddie leaned down and kissed her passionately, Sam reciprocating at once.
The two stayed together for several minutes until they finally pulled apart when they heard an alarm going off on Freddie's phone.
"Oh, this is it!" Freddie said, pointing to the night sky. "It should be starting any second!"
Sure enough, a few short seconds later the sky was full of beautiful silver streaks flying through the air.
"Wow," Sam breathed, mesmerized by the scene.
The two watched the shower in silence until a few moments later when it stopped.
"They're never very long," Freddie told her.
Sam put her hand in his. "It was amazing."
