Medal
"Okay, this is gonna be the best spring break ever!" Carly said as her, Sam, and Freddie stepped into the lobby of the luxurious Vegas hotel they would be staying at for the next week. "I can't believe we're doing it; I can't believe we're actually in Vegas!"
"I know, I haven't been here since I was a kid," Sam said, looking around. "My mom took her here when I was six."
"I thought kids weren't allowed in casinos," Freddie frowned.
"Right, like she listens to rules," Sam scoffed.
"I'm just so excited we're finally taking our big, spring break trip like we've always planned," Carly said. "How lucky were we that Washington State and MIT finally had breaks that overlapped with each other? Now we can spend the week together relaxing and distressing from school."
"Good, Mama needs a break," Sam said. "All my professors went crazy this semester and just kept loading on the work."
"Same," Freddie nodded. "I don't think I've slept more than three hours a night since January."
"I'm gonna go check-in," Carly told the two. "Be right back."
As she ran off, Freddie reached over and put his arms around his girlfriend, pulling her into a tight embrace. "I'm glad we're finally gonna have some time to spend together this week too. I know we've been doing this distance thing for three years now, but it really didn't get any easier, did it?"
"Nope, still miss your nubby butt like crazy," Sam grinned, leaning up to kiss him. "But we're in Vegas, baby! We can spend the whole week just drinking and playing the slots and making-out in hot tubs. Plus I looked at our hotel room online. They have a king-sized bed…So if you can get over your fear of hotel beds you and I can really have some fun the second Carly comes back with our key."
"I'll get over that fear real fast if it means you and I get to go up and-"
"Okay guys, don't hate me," Carly said, joining the couple again.
"What happened?" Sam asked.
"There must've been some mix up when I made the reservations for this place last month," Carly sighed. "Instead of giving us one big room with two adjoining suites in it, they gave us one studio suite."
"Wait…so the three of us have to share one room with one bed?" Sam frowned. "With no walls or anything?"
"Er…yes," Carly nodded.
Freddie couldn't help but let out a groan.
"But I already talked to the woman at the desk and she's going to send up a cot," Carly said quickly. "I'll take that and the two of you can have the bed. And since I know you two wanted to go up and have some alone time, I'm willing to chill out down by the pool for the next hour and let you guys go up and have the room."
"Carly, it's okay," Freddie sighed. "It was an honest mistake. You don't have to-"
"Yes she does!" Sam hissed, swatting her boyfriend's shoulder.
"Sam, we can't kick our best friend out of the room," Freddie said. "Just because we-"
"I went to Schneider's Secret right before we came on this trip," Sam said, crossing her arms. "And I bought some new stuff that I may be wearing right now. Are you seriously gonna wanna pass up on that?"
"Er…" Freddie said weakly.
"Because once this trip is done and we go back to school, it will be another two months before we see each other," Sam reminded him. "Another long two months…"
"Alright Carly, have fun by the pool," Freddie said quickly, grabbing Sam's hand. "See you in an hour!"
….
"We should go out and try and see a show or something tonight," Carly said as her, Sam, and Freddie sat up in their hotel room a few days into their stay as they got ready for the day.
"Oh, my mom said there's a really good show with an Elvis impersonator in it at the hotel a few blocks over," Sam said. "We could go see that."
"I'm in, it sounds like it would be fun," Carly said. "Freddie? You up for some fake Elvis?"
"Eh, I might hang back and get some work done," Freddie said, looking up from his laptop. "But you girls go have fun."
"What? Baby, you have to come!" Sam said. "You haven't done anything fun since we got here!"
"Sure I have," Freddie said. "I went down to the casino last night."
"For like, twenty minutes," Carly pointed out.
"Well I didn't want to risk losing all my money!" Freddie defended. "I used the fifteen dollars I allowed myself for gambling, lost it all in that game of blackjack, and then bowed out gracefully."
"Pfft, that's the most boring thing I've ever heard," Sam scoffed. "Who 'bows out gracefully' in Vegas?"
"Um, people who don't want to leave broke," Freddie said. "Besides, I really do need to do."
"It's Spring Break!" Sam exclaimed. "The whole point of this Spring Break trip is for all of us to forget about school for a little bit and just have a good time."
"Yeah…turns out I can't actually do that," Freddie sighed. "Even though it's Spring Break I still have a ton of work to do for my classes. I have a paper to write, a whole string of coding to work on, an exam to prep for-"
"You have slots to play, shows to see, and a girlfriend to make-out with!" Sam snapped.
"I've made-out with you," Freddie said. "And we've done more than make-out too, remember."
"Yeah, once, three days ago when we first got here," Sam said, rolling her eyes.
"Well it's not my fault Carly only got us one room," Freddie mumbled.
"I said I was sorry about that!" Carly said. "But come on, just because you don't have your own room with Sam doesn't mean you can't still have fun on this trip! You need to take a break from studying or you're gonna go crazy. Don't you want to have a good time?"
"I am having a good time," Freddie said, not looking up from his computer. "I had that really good waffle this morning down at the buffet."
Sam and Carly exchanged glances.
"Alright, I'll handle this, Carls," Sam sighed.
"Good, I'm gonna go down to the hot tubs," Carly said, grabbing her purse. "Good luck."
Once Carly left the room, Sam turned to her boyfriend. "I can't believe you're here, in Vegas, and you're refusing to have fun."
"I told you, I am having-"
"No, you're not!" Sam snapped. "All you've done since we got here three days ago is do dumb homework!"
"That's not true," Freddie said. "Remember when we first got here and you and I kicked Carly out of the room to-"
"Wow, twenty minutes of sex, you're really living it up here," Sam said, rolling her eyes.
"It was not twenty minutes!" Freddie defended.
"Twenty's being kind," Sam smirked. She sat down on the bed next to Freddie and pulled his laptop off of his lap.
"Hey!" Freddie objected.
"Baby, come on, you were so excited to come on this trip," Sam said. "When we were talking about it over the phone you kept saying how excited you were to take a break from all the stress you've been dealing with up at MIT. But now you're just making yourself stressed here too!"
"Look, Sam, I-I just have to do this work," Freddie said. "I don't want to get behind."
"You're telling me a few days off during spring break will put you so far behind?" Sam frowned.
"Well…it might!"
"So then play catch-up on the plane back to school or something!" Sam said. "But come on, if you just stay up here and do work our whole trip, you're going to look back and really regret it. You're in Vegas! With your super hot girlfriend, I might add. This is every guy's dream!"
Freddie sighed. "You're really going to force me to have fun whether I want to or not, aren't you?"
"Duh," Sam nodded. "So you might as well go along with it. Now think; what's something super crazy, super fun, that you've always wanted to do."
"Um, well I've always wanted to-"
"-And you better not say anything about downloading the new Beta version of World of Warlords!" Sam said quickly, causing Freddie's mouth to shut.
"We can do literally anything you want," Sam said. "We can go snowboarding in that indoor Winter Wonderland place across the street, we can try those six-thousand calorie milkshakes, we can go indoor sky diving…this place has it all!"
"Well…" Freddie said. "I-I have always wanted to play Craps."
"The dice game?" Sam frowned.
"Yeah, I read a theory about how knowing the basic laws of probability can really improve your chances of winning big in that game," Freddie said. "It might be cool to test it out."
"Well at least that's down in the casino," Sam said, shaking her head. "Fine, let's go play Craps."
"But I told you, I'm already at my allotted gambling budget," Freddie said.
"Oh for crying out-I'll pay for you!" Sam exclaimed, jumping up and grabbing her boyfriend's hand. "Let's just go!"
….
"Huh…either I'm really bad at the math related to probability, or I just have really bad luck," Freddie said to himself an hour later as he stood at the craps table. "Probably the latter…"
"Hey, how'd you do?" Sam asked, coming over to her boyfriend with two drinks in her hand. She handed him one glass.
"Not too good, I lost almost all the money you gave me," Freddie said, taking a sip of the beverage, which he almost spit out. "What is this?"
"Dunno, but the bartender said it's the strongest drink at this place," Sam shrugged, sipping her own drink. "It has like, nine different types of alcohol in it."
"I asked you to get me an iced tea!" Freddie said.
"Yeah…that wasn't happening," Sam said. "You need to loosen up. Come on, play another round of Craps. You still have a few chips left."
"I'll just lose again," Freddie said, taking another sip of his drink and almost gagging.
"So? Just have fun trying," Sam said. "That's what we came here to do, remember?"
"Fine," Freddie said, placing his last few chips onto the green felt table. "Since it is your money I'm playing with."
"So how's this game work anyway?" Sam asked.
"You basically just bet on the outcome of the dice roll," Freddie said.
"Oh…how hard can that be?" Sam frowned.
"You'd be surprised," Freddie chuckled as the boxman threw the dice onto the table. "I mean there's a lot of factors that determine who wins. There's the sum of the two dices, the numbers on each individual dice, where the dice land on the game table, where-"
"Congratulations, buddy!" the boxman said, interrupting Freddie.
"Huh, what?" Freddie said. "What happened?"
"You won!" the boxman said.
"Whoa! Congratulations, Fredbutt!" Sam cheered, throwing her arms around Freddie. "You hear that? You won!"
"Wow, didn't see that coming," Freddie grinned. "But hey, that's awesome! I probably didn't win too much, though, but it's still cool that I-oh my God!"
The boxman pushed a huge stack of coins over to Freddie.
"That's what he won?" Sam gasped. "This must be like, two thousand bucks!"
"Four thousand," the boxman said. "The odds were really stacked against you, so you got a nice payday."
"Four-Four thousand-holy chiz!" Freddie said, his eyes wide. "I'm rich! I just won four thousand bucks!"
"See? Now aren't you glad you came down to have some fun?" Sam grinned, leaning up and kissing him. "You're a thousand-aire now! Well, we are. You're splitting that money with me, Fredwad. And you know what? We're not gonna save it or invest it or do any boring chiz with it. We're inVegas, and we're gonna use those winnings to have a good time, you got it?"
"You know baby, you're absolutely right," Freddie said, picking up his drink and gulping the contents down, nearly losing his balance as he finished. "We're gonna have fun! I spend nearly all my time worrying about school; I deserve this break!"
"That's the spirit!" Sam said approvingly, downing the contents of her beverage as well. "Whoa…that stuff is strong."
"Well bring us two more glasses of it," Freddie told her. "Two glasses each!"
"Wow, you really do wanna have fun, don't you?" Sam smirked. "Alright, well…hopefully this doesn't turn out horribly and bite us both in the butt."
….
"Ugh…" Sam moaned early the next morning as she slowly sat up, feeling as though an anvil was dropped on her head. She looked around and realized that she was back in the hotel room, though she had no recollection of how she had gotten there. She was wearing the same clothes she had been the day before and her mouth tasted strongly of alcohol. She looked over and saw Freddie beginning to stir next to her, looking just as terrible as she felt.
"Well good morning you two!" Carly said brightly, stepping over to the bed. "Or should I say good afternoon, since it's three o'clock right now."
"Three?" Freddie frowned, wincing slightly as he sat up.
"I feel like an elephant sat on my face," Sam mumbled. "Am I hung-over?"
"Well, considering you both drank more alcohol than you would find in a frat house last night, that would make sense," Carly smirked.
"We drank that much?" Freddie said. "God, I don't even remember that…"
"You don't remember anything?" Carly said. "Nothing?"
"Not really," Sam said. "I-I think I remember Freddie winning a bunch of money at that dice game thing…"
"Oh yeah, I got four thousand bucks," Freddie nodded. "Hey, please tell me I cashed out my chips and didn't just leave them all sitting at the table down in the casino."
"Oh you cashed them out," Carly said. "But you have about twelve bucks left of that."
"What?" Freddie exclaimed, causing both him and Sam to wince. "Sorry…but that can't be right. There's no way I spent all of my money in one night."
"Well Drunk Freddie is apparently much less stingy than normal Freddie," Carly chuckled. "Here, all your bills were sent up to the room this morning. Let's see…you spent three hundred bucks in the casino gift shop on a giant stuffed tiger...another four hundred on lobsters and steaks at the restaurant downstairs…your bar total came out to twelve hundred dollars! Whoa!"
"We drank twelve hundred dollars worth of alcohol?" Sam moaned, clutching her stomach. "How the heck are we not dead?"
"I feel dead," Freddie mumbled. "But…hold on, that only adds up to nineteen hundred bucks. Where did the other twenty-one hundred go?"
"Let's see…oh! You spent that twenty-one hundred at Vinny's Vegas Tattoo Parlor."
"What?" Freddie cried, jumping to his feet and stumbling into the dresser. "Tattoo parlor?"
"What did you get in a tattoo parlor?" Sam asked, somehow managing to grin even though she felt awful. "Oh my God, did you get a tattoo? Your mom is gonna freak!"
"I-No! No I couldn't have, this has to be some mistake!" Freddie said, frantically looking all over his body. "Okay, I don't think I see any-"
But Sam had stepped over and pushed up Freddie's sleeve, revealing a tattoo about the size of his fist right on his shoulder.
"Oh no!" Freddie moaned, his eyes widening in fear. "I-I got a tattoo! My mom is going to murder me!"
"Well…it-it's not bad," Carly said, trying to hold back a laugh. "It could've been worse. But, um, is that a tattoo of a ham?"
"Oh man, this is too great," Sam gasped, wiping a tear from her eye. "You have a tattoo of a ham! Just when I thought I couldn't love you more!"
"Hey, what's that little line of writing under the ham?" Carly asked.
"Huh? What writing?" Freddie frowned, looking closer at his arm. "Oh, it says…'For the Love of My Life, Sam Puckett'."
"You dedicated your tattoo to me!" Sam grinned. "Aw, baby!"
"That's actually pretty sweet," Carly said. "Of course now your mom will double murder you…"
"I can't believe this one tattoo cost over two grand though," Freddie frowned. "Isn't that kind of pricy? Even for Vegas?"
"Hang on, according to this receipt, you got two tattoos," Carly said.
"Oh come on!" Freddie cried. "Two tattoos? Why don't I save my mom the trouble and just send her my ashes in the mail?"
"Where is your other tattoo?" Carly asked. "Is it on your other arm?"
"No," Freddie replied, rolling up his other sleeve. "It's not on my legs or back either…"
"Is Carly gonna have to leave the room while we keep searching for it?" Sam smirked. "Man, I swear, if you got a tattoo on your butt and I wasn't sober enough to get it on video, I'll never forgive myself."
"Wait a minute…this receipt also says that second tattoo was on a second person…" Carly frowned.
"Second person?" Freddie repeated as Sam's grin instantly faltered.
"Sam, um, you-you might want to check yourself too," Carly said.
"I-No, I didn't get a tattoo last night," Sam said, quickly rolling up her own sleeves. Her arms were bare. "See! It was probably just a typo on the receipt. Now come on, Fredwad, let's find this second tattoo on you so I can-"
Freddie cut her off by quickly pushing up the hem of her shirt slightly to reveal a tattoo, the same size as Freddie's on her left hip.
"What the-No!" Sam exclaimed as Freddie began to laugh loudly. "I got a tattoo too?"
"Wow…this is definitely gonna make this trip memorable," Carly said.
"I-I can't believe I went to Vegas and got a drunk tattoo," Sam moaned, covering her face with her hands. "I've become my mom!"
"What's your tattoo?" Carly asked. "It looks like…it's a laptop!"
"Great! And it's a lame tattoo too!" Sam groaned. "I couldn't have even gotten something cool? Like a skull or zombie?"
"Hey, your tattoo has something written under it too," Freddie said. "Let's see, it says…'For the love of my life, Freddie Benson'. Aw! Baby, you got a tattoo dedicated to me too!"
"Wow, drunk Sam and Freddie are pretty cute," Carly chuckled. "You guys have couple tattoos now! That's really something. I mean those are permanent."
"Wonder why they don't hurt," Sam frowned. "When my mom gets a new tattoo, she usually has to ice it for a few days."
"My guess is, once all that alcohol leaves your system, you'll feel it real bad," Carly said. "Well…I'm assuming you two want to get back to sleep to try and get rid of those hangovers. I'm gonna go talk to this cute guy I met down at the casino this morning while I was waiting for you two to wake up. I had two cups of coffee sent up for you and there's aspirin by the sink."
"Thank," the couple mumbled as Carly turned and headed out of the room. Once she left, Sam turned to Freddie.
"Okay, baby, I-I'm so sorry."
"Sorry?" Freddie repeated.
"I-I just wanted you to loosen up and have some fun," Sam said. "I didn't mean for you to get super drunk and blow all the money you won and get a tattoo."
"Sam, I-"
"Honestly, I-I'll tell your mom the tattoo was all my fault," Sam said. "She already hates me so it won't make a difference. And-And I'll scale back down to getting those tiny medium smoothies this summer so you can maybe start to make up for all that money you lost and I-"
"Sam, you don't need to apologize," Freddie smiled. "Even though I can't remember last night, I know it was the most fun I've had in a long time. I did need to loosen up; school has really been getting to me lately, especially with graduation getting closer and closer. So thank you, Sam. Thank you for making me get out of this hotel room to actually do something memorable. Or, well, sort of memorable. Like I said, I can't actually remember everything that happened, but, well, you know what I mean."
"But…that tattoo…your mom-"
"My mom will just have to realize that after twenty-one years, she doesn't get to control me," Freddie said. "It's time I finally put my foot down on that."
"Dude…"
"Okay, I'm probably always going to wear long sleeves around her from now on," Freddie said lamely. "But you know, it could've been worse. I could've gotten a really stupid tattoo, but I got one that represents the person I love, so the way I see it, things turned out pretty nicely."
Sam rolled her eyes. "Yeah, well, I guess a laptop tattoo is slightly less nerdy if it's representing you. Still, a tattoo isn't exactly the souvenir I was planning on getting here."
"Me neither," Freddie said. "But…hey, now we'll always have a cool story to tell about the time we went to Vegas. Telling people I went here, won four thousand bucks, but then lost it all in a night of drunken shenanigans with my girlfriend and wound up with a tattoo that I don't remember getting does sound slightly better than just saying I stayed in the room and did homework."
"No chiz," Sam smirked. She leaned up and kissed Freddie. "Hey…we have the room to ourselves now. I mean if Carly's down there talking to a cute guy it could be hours before she comes back up. You thinking what I'm thinking?"
"We close these blinds, crawl back into bed, and sleep until our heads don't feel like they're gonna explode?" Freddie asked.
"It's like you read my mind," Sam nodded.
