"Well, don't be. Just love Gibby, love him and never let him go."

--Sam Puckett

i'M Sick of No Progress

"Freddie?"

"Yeah?"

"You remember that big favor you promised?"

"Yeah."

"Well I want it now," Sam said as she adjusted her party hat, "Shoot me. Now. Please."

A toddler ran by our table, screaming something about bunnies at the top of whatever it was he had transplanted where vocal cords went on normal human beings. This might have been a noteworthy event, ordinarily at least out of the ordinary—if it hadn't been going on for the past half hour.

"What's that dear?" my mom asked Sam as she leaned in close to hear over the noise. Not only was there an unemployed (and rightfully so) chorus of small children in the Chuckie Cheese's theater area, but there was the show itself going on up front with all the franchise mascot characters dancing to the franchise theme song.

"You're not having fun?" I yelled back at Sam when my mom had went back to listening to the music. My mom periodically would see something and write it down in the notebook she was keeping of all the things she'd cite and threaten the establishment with once she got within arm's reach of a writing utensil at home. It really was something of a small miracle that they hadn't banned us yet.

Sam gave me the flattest glare in history. "Why is it I suspect you never brought Amelia here?"

I didn't hear her the first time and she had to repeat herself. I was having generally too much fun with this whole setup to be looking at her or taking her entirely seriously. "Because I love her!" I shouted back.

When I looked back I found her staring at me. With a stare I couldn't read.

I couldn't hear it, but I saw her let out a sigh and take another bite of her pizza as she pushed the party hat my mom had given her onto the table. After a few more seconds she glanced back up and found that I was still watching her.

I didn't like the way she had looked at that, but there was no way I was going to tell her now that "love" might've been at least a modest exaggeration. But then again, who knows?

The song ended and the decibels receded.

"Isn't this fun!" my mom shouted over the ringing in my ears, generally at Sam. I couldn't completely help my flash of annoyance at how unnecessary shouting of any sort was after all that.

"Tons of fun," Sam managed.

"What are you going to do now?" mom asked, still shouting a little.

The kid screaming about bunnies did his lap again.

I gave Sam a meaningful look. "I think we're going to go play some games now—"

"Oh, all right," my mom said as she straightened her stuff like she was going to stand up too, "That sounds like fun, let's play some games."

"Oh, no, no," I said quickly, and made what I hoped were subliminal sitting motions with my hands, "Not those kind of games."

"Yeah," Sam quickly chimed in as she stood up with me, "And plus ... we kinda want to play ... alone ..." She frowned.

"Oh, okay," my mom said in an exaggerated voice as she nodded conspiratorially at me.

I'm not sure what my face looked like at that. Hopefully not as annoyed as I felt.

"We want to play alone?" I asked Sam as soon as we had turned the corner into the arcade games and all the sounds that went along with them.

"No, I want to throw up," she answered, "Where's the bathrooms?"

"You're the one who said it," I pointed out as a flock of screaming girls pushed between us. Reaching one of the basketball hoop stalls, I gestured at it. "Want to go for a round? I bet I can beat you."

"No," she growled impatiently, "I'm serious, I need to pee. Where are the bathrooms?"

"Oh," I said. Embarrassed didn't even begin to cover it. "This way."

As I led her in that direction, I heard her mutter under her breath that it figured that I would know where they were.

That comment didn't really begin to bother me until about half a minute later when I realized that a couple of the moms standing outside the little girls room were sending me suspicious looks.

I decided that Sam could find me again on her own, so I left that somewhat awkward location and wandered through the game section. Though that wasn't to say that my visits here with my mom were ever exactly un-awkward. Especially since the majority of the patrons here averaged about half my height.

Somewhere between the arcade games and the tornado machine my mind went completely adrift, and I wondered how I had ever wound up in this situation. And exactly what situation that was formed a very distracting question. But it was there. I just had to stop avoiding it, skipping over it, distorting it ...

Okay, self-huddle Freddie. Self-huddle.

Honesty. It was time for honesty.

There was a discernible chance that Sam liked me.

I found myself smiling hard. When I should be frowning. A lot. Because no matter how much and for whatever crazy reason I liked that idea (even if it did happen to turn out to be completely wrong), no matter how much and how stupidly happy it made me, I was still kinda dating Amelia. And obviously for good reason—reasons, but ...

Not to mention that it would be a terrible thing if it was true.

But I just couldn't stop thinking of the way she'd acted when we'd been sick together, or even the way she had acted towards me throughout our entire friendship, in her own way. And then that she had kissed me, not two weeks ago. Her. Sam Puckett. On the mouth. Of her own inclination. Me. Freddie—

Okay, I guess I'm still not completely over that yet.

They came again. The nagging doubts, the ones that reminded me how easy it would be to be wrong. Maybe it had just been a friendly kiss, the only way she could really show just how grateful she had been ... maybe ...

I was really getting tired of this see-sawing. I had to know. For sure. This was my chance, and I had to—was going to find out before the week was up. How exactly, I had no idea, but I was going to.

I found myself playing at one of the game stalls where you rolled the ball up the ramp to the different holes marked with various points. I don't know what it's called exactly, but it was the staple game of this place. To me anyway.

Did I mention that my thoughts were all over the place? But in a drifty, non-committal sort of way.

Drifty enough that I had no idea how much time passed before I felt a nudge at my shoulder. I didn't bother glancing over at her, but did find that it was suddenly exceptionally hard to roll the ball as well as before.

"You're terrible," Sam said quietly as she watched.

I glanced over at her but didn't say anything. I only smiled a little and held out the ball to her.

She looked as though she was going to refuse, but then she looked at me, picked it up, and went on to totally decimate my score. At least the one she'd seen me get.

But I wasn't watching that.

She was here. With me. For me.

Friends? Maybe. Hopefully—because this would be an exceptionally bad situation to be in if she did like me. But how could she? She was Sam, I was Freddie. She lived to mock. Mock me.

But she mocked me. Differently. Or was it—

I mentally groaned, but didn't stop watching. Because it wasn't enough, it never was. I had seen her everyday for a considerable chunk of my life for the past however many years, but this incessant insistence that I look at her was getting worse, and it was getting harder to keep it satisfied.

It was that infuriating magnetism again. Of the whole wanting to touch her. Anywhere. Like it was with Amelia, only numerous times worse. No doubt because it was wrong, practically forbidden. Her cheeks, hands, mouth, lips ...

No, it was impossible. She couldn't like me. It would only expound on how wrong things were if she did, how this stuff running through my head was just so ... not right.

But isn't that why I did this? Am doing this? At least partly?

Honest, Freddie. Be honest.

It was. I wanted my mom to like Amelia so much it made my head hurt, but there were also all these nagging little thoughts, fantasies. Involving Sam. Of me doing things that I would never be able to, and not just because they were wrong.

She's my friend, she's my friend, and this will pass. It has to.

She knew I was watching her, and occasionally the way her eyes moved betrayed that. But she saved the demanding expression until after she'd finished.

Instead of addressing that demanding expression, I quickly looked away from her for the first time in at least two solid minutes, at all the kids running around and the lights and noises.

"You know ... this place is like a kiddie version of Vegas," I commented. "I wonder how much of my allowance I've sank in here." I looked back at her. "You?"

She tried to keep her impatient look intact. "We never came here."

I nodded softly, realizing that had been a stupid thing to ask.

"So what's the plan, Freddie?" she asked, with a little insistence.

"Don't you have one?" I asked it in a way that let me look at her in the way I wanted to. Softly. Seriously.

"Not funny. You think I would like being dragged here for no reason?"

I smiled a little bit at how much I wanted to call her out on that.

"I have ideas ..." I conceded, giving a wave of my hand as I leaned back against the game stall, "Nothing great though."

"Freddie, I'm serious," she said angrily. "You think I'm here to play your dorky childhood games just for kicks?"

Sam stopped suddenly as we both caught sight of the little girl who was staring up at us with a lollipop in one hand. When we noticed her, she was on the verge, but it only took a second more before she broke into massive tears and ran away crying.

"Look what you did," I said as I watched her, and I was fairly serious.

"What? I didn't do anything," Sam said defensively, "How was I supposed to know that—"

"Her mom will probably call security," I murmured, this time saying it mostly just to antagonize her.

"Yeah, like this place has security," she answered, sounding angry.

"Actually, it does," I said quietly as I peered over the crowds of waist high heads just to make sure that no one was coming this way.

"That's it!" Sam half shouted, "I've had it with this whole thing—and it's not even six-thirty yet!"

"So you're quitting?" I demanded.

"I'm not quitting," she shot back, "Because there's nothing to quit! You don't even have a plan!"
"The plan," I exaggerated my enunciation, "Is for you to act like a crazy 'girlfriend.' I don't have a script, I thought you would just improvise—"

"Oh, that's the whole deal, isn't it, Benson?" she said angrily. "You just keep assuming that I'm just so perfect as the horrible girlfriend. That I—I can just think of something and ruin the whole date just like that."

"What if I do?" I shot back, starting to get angry myself. Why couldn't anything ever just be easy with her?

"You know what?" she asked as she pushed the ball back into my chest. "Fine. I'll just be the horrible girlfriend, just for you so you and Amelia can live happily ever after."

"Thank you!" I exaggerated a bit as I threw my hand out. "I thought that was the whole plan."

"Fine," she bit out.

"Fine."

Then she was stepping past me. I had half a mind to ask her what she was doing, but I decided it would be better just to let her work.

"Hey, kid," Sam said shortly as she stopped in front of a chubby looking nine year old, "I need that balloon. Hand it over."

The kid, despite what common sense might dictate to someone possessing it, didn't look very intimidated as he took a bite of the melty chocolate bar he had in one hand. "No way, get your own."

"Listen," Sam said as she adopted a more subtle tone, "I heard that girls don't like guys who walk around with baby blue balloons and ..." she wrinkled her nose a bit in disgust, "Microwaved chocolate all over them."

"Yeah?" the boy scoffed. "And I heard that girls smell funny, like you do."

"That's it!" Sam shouted as she grabbed him by the collar and shook. "Give me the balloon!"

"No!" the boy shouted back as he clung to his balloon and chocolate bar in a way that might have been comical in any other situation. Like say ... a situation where children weren't suddenly crying all around us and there weren't abruptly parents in the vicinity with expressions. Very particular expressions.

"Sam ..." I grabbed at her shoulder and tried smiling at all the abruptly interested adults, "Calm down."

Sam adopted a likewise guilty smile as she became aware of the situation. "I'm calm, I'm calm," she said as she laughed a little. "Nothing going on her, just ... my little brother and me having a nice conversation—"

"I'm not—" the boy began to protest, but Sam shoved a hand over his mouth as the attention mostly dispersed.

"Shh!" she whispered at him once things had adequately settled down. "Now listen! We can make this so that it's profitable for both of us."

The boy quieted and allowed Sam to take her hand off of his mouth, but she looked at it in disgust and violently wiped it off on the front of his shirt.

"Hey!" the boy shouted as he pulled back. "I'll give it to you, but it'll cost you."

"What? How much?" Sam sighed as she reached into her pocket. "Fifty cents? How about an even buck?"

The boy scoffed at her again. "No way. One hundred tickets."

Sam rolled her eyes. "How about three bucks? Huh? Three bucks?"

"I said a hundred tickets," the boy said, like Sam was stupid.

"Listen, pork chop," Sam began shortly, "I'll give you five dollars for it. Five dollars for a balloon. As in real money, the green stuff that you can buy real stuff with."

"Are you stupid?" the boy asked loudly. "A hundred tickets or no balloon."

"That's it!" Sam shouted, but this time I was ready for her and grabbed at her shoulders before she could attack him again.

"Sam!" I tried in a reasoning tone. "We can just get the tickets."

"Fine!" Sam threw my hands off. "Don't move, we'll be right back."

"Just hurry up!" the boy called after us as we walked away.

"Freddie, just make sure I don't actually kill one of these kids," Sam muttered as we stalked towards the ticket changer machine.

I laughed a little. "I thought that you-trying-to-strangle-him was going to end up being your plan."

"Nah," she said dismissively as she put her five dollars into the ticket machine, "I would've if your mom had been around. Just know Benson, I'm spending five whole—What the jank?" she shouted.

"What?" I asked her as she stared down in shock at the tickets that had come out. "Did you really think you could buy a hundred tickets for five bucks?"

"This is only twenty!" she exclaimed as she counted them. "That little punk wants twenty-five dollars worth of tickets?" She looked back towards where he was waiting with another furious expression of hers, and I made sure to quickly put a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

"What's the big deal anyway?" I asked. "They don't sell balloons here, but why can't it be something else?"

"Because I'm going to get that balloon from that little marshmallow if it's the last thing I do," Sam said as she shot another glowering look at him. But then her eyes were searching around the game area.

"Why don't we just ask my mom for some money?" I asked her as I checked my wallet, "I've got twelve bucks, so we would only need—"

"Nah, I've got this," Sam said in a distracted voice, "What can we do with twenty tickets to get a hundred?"

"Uh, the tornado machine?" I said.

"Oh, one of those, I remember those." Sam dragged me over where the tornado machine was. "Great, the jackpot is one-fifty, more than enough. Maybe we can get you a nerd stick with the left overs."

"You mean a glow stick?" I asked her dubiously as she stepped up to one of the slots and carefully watched the light that was running around in a circuit.

"Whatever," she murmured. "I use to be good at these."

"I don't know," I muttered, "These things are about as fair as crane machines."

"Don't doubt my—" Sam frowned. "Light stopping skills."

We were quiet for a long moment.

"I appreciate this," I blurted, surprising myself. She looked up at me with a slightly surprised expression as well, and I couldn't contain just how ... that rare sort of expression from her made me—

"I really do," I said instead.

She nodded as she resolutely turned back to the machine and put in a few tickets. We both leaned in close as Sam let the lights by once, then twice, and then she tensed as she leaned forward and pressed the button and—

The game gave a wonk as the light stopped and flashed just one bulb outside of the little gate she was trying corral it in.

"Jank!" she shouted. She jerked her head up at the two little girls giggling at her from the opposite side of the machine. "All right, it's okay, just a couple more tickets and ..."

"Ham!" Sam yelled as she pounded on the plastic cover. "That is such a—"

"Sam," I intoned and nudged her as I eyed the attention we were drawing from the adults again.

"I got this, I got this!" she muttered as she put in another set of tickets. And another set, and another, and—

--

"And I just can't believe that they'd toss out loyal customers just like that—"

My mom was about five minutes into what I was forecasting to be at least a fifteen minute diatribe on the nerve of the establishment banning us.

This easily had to be the most awkward ride home from Chuckie Cheese's I'd ever experienced. Now I knew this had been in the works for years, literally, but even I hadn't expected—

"And there was absolutely no need for them to have security escort us out—" my mother was continuing.

Sam coughed a little into her hand.

"I told you they had security," I muttered at her.

"I thought you were kidding," Sam whispered back angrily.

"And I'm so sorry, Samantha," mom said as she looked back in the rear view mirror, "That your first time had to end like ... that ..." she paused, probably remembering that it had been Sam's fault, since she was kinda the one who had flipped out on the machine.

"Ah, don't worry about it," Sam said casually, and I could tell that she had slipped into the 'imperfect' girlfriend routine, "It was a lame place anyway."

My mom's mouth gaped a bit, before she nodded a little, probably more to herself than Sam as she looked back at the road.

Sam gave me a slightly downed look at that, but then shrugged her shoulders a bit. This was the whole point to the plan, after all. Sam couldn't start feeling too bad about cremating my mother's opinion of her now.

Then she was looking at me with her eyes, moving them around up front and then ... elsewhere, trying to tell me something.

I shrugged to show I wasn't getting her while checking to make sure my mom was still not looking.

Sam began making more exaggerated motions with her face in an annoyed way, as if she assumed that everyone should be perfectly able to understand her version of face speech.

I made an equally annoyed face back at her.

But then my mom was talking again about how this was a devastating event, even despite after suffering Sam's branding of the establishment with the L word. I guess I was a little sorry too. I mean, a lifetime ban does seem a tad bit ... permanent.

My mom also continued glancing back at us, so the face speech had to stop. We folded our hands in our laps and looked back at her, holding what were supposed to be expressions of rapt attention.

Sam began nudging me.

I nudged her back in an annoyed fashion. Then she did it again, only this time I could tell there was a complicated pattern to it. Like Sam thought I could comprehend nudge speech any more than I could face speech. She could be communicating the Declaration of Independence to me for all I could tell.

It began to get more heated, not to mention difficult as my mom almost caught us a couple times.

Sam's intentions were evidently to communicate whatever aspect of the plan she wanted me to do. My intentions, badly enough, were to touch her.

Honestly, it didn't start out like that. Honestly. But geez, this is the girl that, terrible as it is to admit, I'm at least marginally (and in the most minute amount that marginally can stand for) attracted to. Sitting right next to me, touching me way too much. And as admittedly fun—and a lot of other things, as this was, there was no way I could let my mom see us doing this.

Oh yeah, and there's no way we should be doing this in the first place.

Guilt hit, and I nudged Sam with a note of finality and sent a warning look at her. She looked exceptionally frustrated, but the nudging ceased.

Sam paused for a moment and then cleared her throat. "It would've been nice if you could've at least stood up for me."

My mom looked back at her in surprise, which was the rough equivalent of what I was doing.

Sam gave me a bland expression, but raised her eyebrows almost imperceptibly.

"Oh, uh, I—" stuttered, "Didn't really want to ... get in that security guy's way ... he was kinda big ..."

"Yeah, well you could've at least tried," Sam pretended to look angry as she looked out the window, "My ex, Bubbie, would've at least tried to ..." She trailed off into a thoughtful pause. "Actually ... that may be why they put him away."

Genius. Pure genius.

"Put him away where?" my mom asked in a watery sounding voice.

"The pen," Sam answered.

"The what?" my mom asked again.

"The jug?" Sam tried. "The digger? Crowbar hotel? Con college? Cooler?" Sam was starting to get exasperated at my mom's increasingly confused look, "The joint!"

"Oh ..." my mom sort of gasped, "You mean prison?"

"Yes!" Sam answered in a way I could tell wasn't entirely faked.

Pause.

"That's really interesting," I said in a way that sounded like I might be commenting on the merits of her rock collection, "But wait ..." I paused dramatically. "Wouldn't he go to juvenile hall?"

"Nah," Sam said casually, a small smile quirking at the side of her mouth at me for that, just for me, "They don't send forty-year olds to juvie." She let out a hammy sigh. "Yup, they've got him in for two nickels. But he promised he'd come back for me once he got out ... After he makes some across the border stops ..."

"Oh?" I asked again, same voice. It was getting harder to maintain an expression that was at least somewhat serious. "Is he going to Canada?"

"Nah, Mexico," Sam said as she picked at her fingers. Then she looked at me and slugged me hard enough that I didn't have to fake pain. "But that's why I asked you out, Benson. You've got class. That place was lame, but any dude who spends that kind of money on a chick like me is all right."

My mom's watery smile looked like it was on the verge of melting. "You asked him?"

"Sure," Sam continued, "I knew that he would make a great date when he loaned me ten bucks the other—Wait! Stop the car!"

"What? Why? Why?" My mom looked fairly terrified.

"Just drop me off here," Sam said as she unbuckled her seatbelt, "I'd have you bring me up to my place, but uncle Jim is back with us, and he ... doesn't trust strangers. Bye Benson, just pick a better place next time, 'kay?" She climbed out onto the corner, but then turned back for a moment. "Oh ... and it would probably be a good thing if you didn't let any ... law enforcement officials know about uncle Jim. Anyway, text ya later!"

And then she was gone, with only a brief flash of distinctly unsatisfied eyes for me.

We both kind of stared for a long minute, watching her go, with the door open and the car idling.

It was something of a daze in which I scrambled between the seats up into the passenger side. My mom didn't even berate me for that.

But I didn't look at her either, because I was too busy watching Sam reaching the far corner of the block. She was walking kind of slowly.

"Isn't she great?" I breathed. Then frowned. I felt compelled to add the fake sigh because ...the sentence before hadn't felt fake.

I looked over at mom, and she tried to smile. Really, really tried.

"Yes, dear," she managed weakly. "She uh, seemed a lot ... different tonight."

"Oh," I waved that off as if it was nothing, "She's always like this ... only tonight I think she was actually better. Yeah, lots better, because I think she was trying to impress you."

"Oh?" my mom managed.

I twittered my fingers in my lap as we started off again. My mom was resolutely staring ahead of us with a confused expression. I was tempted to sigh again.

"So ..." I started, but found myself lacking in conversation starters. Or end points, really.

My mom was resolutely looking down at the speedometer now.

"Too bad that Amelia's going to be gone for a whole week, huh?" I tried. And it wasn't a totally blatant topic with aims of manipulation, because I really was missing her. It just had been incredibly easy to misplace that with all this Sam excitement.

"Yes," my mom answered carefully, "You never did say exactly what happened ... it seemed rather sudden ..."

"Yeah," I said as I rubbed at a spot on my khakis, "I ... don't really want to talk about it yet. But it is kind of ... too bad, isn't it?"

"Oh, yes," my mom answered quickly, "She really is a nice girl, Freddie. I don't think she's exactly the one for you, but I'd hate to see anything happen to the poor little thing."

I felt my hands involuntarily wring themselves. Poor little thing.

"It didn't upset her terribly, did it?" my mom asked.

"Oh, a little," I answered in a noncommittal tone, not even wanting to think about how Amelia would actually react if that did ever happen. But ... that brought up the disturbing notion that I was somehow and irrevocably locked into Amelia until ... death or something. Or something equally disturbing like that.

Focus Freddie, focus. Stick to the plan.

"But you haven't ..." I hesitated, "Changed your mind about her, even a little? I mean, it probably doesn't matter now, but hasn't anything ..."

My mom was giving me a not-exactly-understanding look.

"Like anything recent," I pressed on, "Even changed ... a little?"

"I don't think so," my mom didn't sound too sure, "I'm not sure exactly what you mean, Freddie."

"Nothing," I muttered, "Never mind."

She gave me another look, but this time it was more ... pained. Like she was afraid that she was missing out on something important I was trying to tell her. And she was. It was just that ... she didn't have to get so worried about it.

"I'm sorry about this afternoon," I murmured as I toyed at my khakis again, which had constituted a small portion of today's spat over the wardrobe I would be carrying for this date. Or at least it would've been a wardrobe if I had bended in to even a fraction of all the crazy things she'd been pressing me for. But ... I guess it didn't really matter now. Or maybe it hadn't even mattered then.

"This afternoon?" my mom said casually, like she was able to pretend that she didn't even know what I was talking about, or that it hadn't really mattered to her.

I nodded a little.

"Oh, don't worry about it, sweetie."

It was an awkward and relatively silent ride back home, but ... it could've been worse.