"I love this place," Carly said, gazing starry-eyed through the door Freddie now held open for her.

She loved this place because she was here with Freddie. Carly normally only ate spaghetti that was encased in a taco shell.

I had to admit, so far this "date" wasn't so bad. Notice the quotation marks. Blind dates do not count. This Brad guy wasn't half bad, though. He was probably only a quarter bad, and that quarter just came from being a geek. He bought me food, so I was in no position to be complaining.

"Four, please," Freddie said to the waitress, who let us to a table with a booth. Very cozy, I thought snidely. I wondered if Freddie had called ahead to make sure we got a booth with extra snuggling room.

After we ordered, Carly started the ball rolling. "So has anybody seen the new Galaxy Wars movie? Besides Freddie, I mean. I thought it was pretty good, but nowhere near as amazing as the last one. The special effects were..." Oh. My. God. Carly was sitting there chattering about Galaxy Wars and techno-geek stuff like there was no tomorrow. Honestly, if she kept it up, I was fairly sure there might not BE a tomorrow. Not for her, anyway.

I stood up and coughed. "Excuse me. I'm going to the bathroom."

Everybody knows that girls go to the bathroom in groups, so when I shot Carly a this way? NOW? look, neither of the guys were at all suspicious.

I yanked Carly into the bathroom. I wasn't sure if I had to pee or hurl, but watching her suck up to Freddie was doing something REALLY weird to my body.

"Everything okay?" Carly asked innocently.

"Of course everything is okay," I replied smoothly.

"You're acting kinda weord," she said, walking over to the mirror and inspecting her mascara. "What do you think of Brad?"

"Eh, just as nubby as Fredward. But listen... I think maybe you're trying too hard."

Carly dropped her lip gloss. "You think? Shoot. I thought the Galaxy Wars stuff might be a little over the top."

"It was okay, but... No guy wants to date himself. Just be you. And let THEM do the tech geek chiz."

Carly hugged me. "You're the BEST, Sam!" She zipped out of the bathroom and back to our table, leaving me in the bathroom, the walls still echoing with her enthusiasm.

I was not the best. In fact, that was a pretty chizzy thing for me to do.

Friends do not give friends bad relationship advice... On PURPOSE.

Why had I done that? i had no idea. Everybody knew that Freddie slid to the floor when a tech-girl walked by. If CARLY was a tech-girl, he's be a goner. Her Galaxy War babble was far from over the top. Freddie had practically been drooling on his clip-on tie.

I was obviously just hungry. There was a plate of pasta-shaped wonderfulness calling my name, and I was sure that after a good meal, I'd be back to my normal self.

Carly shut her door, then watched through the peephole until after Freddie had returned to his apartment. Then she let out a shrill scream.

"That was the best date EVER!"

"Wow," I said. "Even sniffing fruit salad was better than THAT date."

"Did you know he was holding my hand in the car?"

"Of course he was holdng your hand in the car," I said, flopping onto the sofa and turning on the TV. "It's what all goofy teenagers do."

Carly went to the fridge and got out a couple cans of soda. "Peppy Cola?"

"Are we going to be talking about Freddie until three in the morning?"

One look at her face gave me the answer. "Give it here."

Knock-knock. Knock-knock.

I dragged myself to a sitting position. Where was... Oh yeah. Carly's. It stood to reason, where else was I ever? But that didn't explain the knocking on the door at 6:00 in the morning!

I walked over and opened it. Freddie. With flowers. And a muffin. I shut the door.

Knock-knock.

I threw a pillow at Carly's sleeping form. "Carls. Your nubby boyfriend is here."

"Mmmf."

I went and opened the door again. "Smart girl. She'd much rather sleep than look at your face this early in the morning."

Freddie raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure?"

Quite sure. But he pushed past me into the apartment and knelt by the couch. "Baby? I'm here to walk to school with you. Look, I brought you that muffin I know you like." He waved it under her nose. Her eyelashes fluttered open.

"Morning, Sleeping Beauty."

"WELL," I said loudly. "I'm gonna go shower. Don't make any mini-Freddi's while I'm gone."

"Sam!" Carly said, aghast.

"Well, don't!"

A shower. A shower was what I needed. Then everything would be fine again.