hello readers! once again, thank you SO MUCH for your support. it means a lot to me. special thanks to lovelyMESS, sockstar, and StylishCandy for giving me such lovely reviews. you all have my deepest thanks. :)

and now, on to chapter six! we're more than halfway done!

Tongue-tied

He's trying his hardest to listen to the words she's saying, but the curve of her mouth is highly distracting (and oddly inspiring), and when she looks to him for a reply, the answer is trapped somewhere between his lungs and his lips, leaving him more breathless than he'd care to admit.

Goodbye

She had a small apartment, a boring-but-steady job, and a bland little four-door sedan. She made a point of being independent, of not needing to haunt the loft as she used to as a girl. The only time he really saw her was when she'd join them on the trip to the airport when Carly and Freddie would head back to college. But it was there, saying farewell to them at the luggage counter, that she'd lean into his tall frame and curl her fingers around his belt loops, letting him know that she really could use somebody else to rely on.

Missing

He wants to sculpt her again, but he's unsure. The nervousness has less to do with what he might accidentally leave out of her sculpture, and more to do with what he might include.

Odds and Ends

Despite the loft being covered in a multitude of assorted knickknacks, the top of Spencer's dresser has always been relatively clear, save for a few photographs. But now, instead of only a few pictures, there are a few scattered pieces of jewelry, a bottle of perfume (she says she likes it because it smells like frosting) and a pocket sized paintball blow tube dotted with navy-colored paint.

Perfection

She moves in for a few weeks when she learns her apartment building is being renovated. Spencer tells her it's fine ("No problem-o, Sam") if she stays in the loft for the duration, but secretly he worries that it'll be uncomfortable for them both. They've always had Carly as a buffer and he wonders if it'll be weird to see Sam in her pajamas, eating his cereal when his younger sister is not upstairs. But it feels right (pretty damn perfect), although the realization is shattered when he remembers that it's not permanent (and she's never been the permanent type).

Odd Socks

Carly's always known a slew of strange facts about Sam; how she likes the color brown because it's the color of gravy, that she always wears two different colored socks, and that she had to repeat the third grade. But Spencer takes great pride in the things he knows that Carly doesn't; that Sam has a small constellation of freckles at the base of her hip, that she's deathly afraid of ending up like her mother, and that she always (always) knew that she'd end up with him.

Born

Sam had never wanted kids. She didn't have the most idyllic childhood, and was certainly lacking in maternal figures—how could she be a mother when she hardly had one herself? Spencer never pressured her—Sam was not one to be forced into anything, but then Freddie and Carly showed up with their strangely perfect little bundle of life that looked like the ideal combination of the both of them, and Sam had never wanted anything more in her life.

Subtle

Sam has never been a low-key kind of person, and she'd be the first to admit that she has always had abrasive tendencies. But she's serious about this (about him) so she's trying her hand at subtlety. Yet time goes on and nothing happens—either she's doing something wrong or Spencer is just really that unaware—but if something doesn't happen soon, she might just have to push subtlety aside and do things the Seattle way.

Belong

It doesn't matter that she gets him in ways that no one else does. It doesn't matter that the sound of her laughter makes him feel like he's finally (finally) doing something right. It doesn't matter that she's the only person he can see himself belonging to… and it doesn't matter because she's in love with the boy across the hall.

Listen

She's so sick of that sappy romantic crap about girls 'falling asleep to the soft lull of their loved one's heartbeat', because she's tried it before and heartbeats are boring. Instead, she sprawls across his mattress and listens to him talk about art and law school and Socko's crazy relatives, and it's his passionate whispers of these things that lull her, heartbeat be damned.

leave me a review (please?) and let me know what you think! chapter seven is almost done, so expect another update soon!

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