Chapter 2
Fuzzy Pens and Chocolate Pudding

"Hey, Carly… uh, do you have a pen I could borrow?"

Carly's head shot up from the paper she'd been looking down at to find Jake standing in front of her, smiling his charming smile, a pleading look on his face. Her eyes widened.

"Um… yeah, yeah, hold on," Carly quickly answered, reaching down to her bag and digging around. The only pen she could find was a purple one with a pink fuzzy thing on top. She held it out to him awkwardly, getting an odd but amused look from him.

"Hm, well, I guess that's better than nothing," he chuckled, taking the pen from her, their fingers brushing as he did so.

She smiled, laughing a little. "Sorry, it's… all I have. I guess I have a thing for… girly pens."

He nodded. "It's fine. Thanks."

She watched as he went back to his seat, catching herself staring at his butt more than anything. When he looked back at her, her eyes shot up to his in surprise and she gave him another awkward smile.

All through the rest of the math class, Carly couldn't concentrate on hardly anything. She found herself glancing back at Jake a million times over instead of listening to the teacher lecture on radical numbers and square roots.

When the class was finally over, she gathered her things and left the room, starting down the hall to look for Sam, but was soon stopped by a strong hand grabbing her arm. She turned around to find Jake, his backpack on his back, and the fuzzy pen in his hand. He smiled and held it out to her.

"Hey, thanks for letting me borrow this," he said, holding it out for her to take.

She shrugged, finding herself tripping over her words. "Uh, no problem, no problem. Y-you keep it. I don't, ya know, really need it. And then you can be prepared next time, ya know."

Jake shook his head, chuckling. "Nah, it's okay. You go ahead and have it back. I don't think it'd be really fitting for me to have anyway."

Carly blushed and quickly took the pen from him. "You're right. Well, uh… I guess I'll see you later."

She started to turn to leave, but Jake stopped her. "Actually, um… didja hear about Rona's party tonight? It's supposed to be pretty off the hook…"

Carly nodded, her face flushing at the mention of the party she'd been specifically not invited to. "Yeah, I heard about it. Sounds pretty cool."

"So, are you going?"

"Um, I-I dunno, really… I mean, I've got so much other stuff planned. I mean, if I have the time, I can try, but there's just… so much…"

Jake furrowed his brow, eying Carly skeptically. "Like what?"

Carly shrugged, trying to control the redness of her face. She wasn't sure what to do now… make up stories about her "great" weekends with Sam and Freddie? Tell him the truth? Or be so vague there was no possible way he could interpret it correctly? She was risking making herself look like a total idiot right now.

A few memories of weekends past ran through her head: downing shots of scotch with her best friend and her neighbor… hanging out in the empty third floor room of her apartment… having pillow fights while watching Girly Cow reruns, while at the same time being drunk… making Sam help her practice with her Spanish flash cards at 2 in the morning on a Saturday night because she was "tired of her C in Spanish class…"

Yeah, her weekends were far from exciting.

"Oh, you know… Cuh-ray-zay stuff," she managed to get out, adding a nervous laugh at the end, absolutely unsure of anything else to say.

Jake watched her for a moment, still looking skeptic, but quickly shrugged it off. "Oh, well, alright. Well, uh, if you ever wanna do anything crazy… I'd be up for it. Ya know, my weekends aren't too full. I have lacrosse practice, a game or two every weekend, but other than that… just going to parties and the Groovy Smoothie… by myself."

Carly nodded, smiling, not really picking up on the hints Jake was discreetly dropping. She wanted to get out of this conversation as soon as possible. "Oh, okay. Well, I-I'd better get going. I don't wanna be late or anything."

"Um, o-okay… Do you wanna do something sometime? Like, go to the Groovy Smoothie or something? On me," he quickly offered, eyes widened and expectant.

Carly's brown eyes widened. She wasn't sure what to say – of course she wanted to go out with him! So why not say yes? She really should… but she felt so incredibly awkward. What if he meant as a group thing? "Just you and me, or… like… as friends?"

Jake's face fell a little, but he quickly responded with, "Whatever you want. We can, uh, make it a friends thing if you want."

Great, Carly thought. Fucked that up!

She shrugged. "Um, okay. Well, just call me or something, or text me, and we can do something."

Jake smiled. "Alright, awesome. I'll talk to you later then."

Carly nodded and waved goodbye to the blond boy before rushing off to her next class.

As soon as she made it to her Home Ec classroom, she found Sam at one of the fridges in the far corner, eating some leftover pudding from another student's project.

"Hey!"

Sam jumped, hiding the bowl behind her back instinctively and turning to see Carly. Relief flooded her face and she brought the bowl back in front of her, glancing across the room to see Mr. Buttburn, the Home Ec teacher, busy helping a student.

"What up?" she greeted Carly back, evidence of her rule-breaking left on the corners of her mouth.

"I think Jake just asked me out."

The spoonful of pudding Sam had just directed into her mouth fell off her tongue and back out into the bowl in shock. "What?"

Carly nodded fervently. "Yeah. I think I fucked it all up, though, 'cause I didn't know what he meant and I said, 'oh, as a friends thing?' and he said, 'oh, well if you wanna make it a friends thing,' and by then, it was too late to go back and tell him I'm an idiot who doesn't understand English, so I just said, 'oh okay, totally cool,' and I think he thinks I'm a complete retard."

Sam smirked and chuckled, turning around and shoving the bowl of pudding back into the fridge before shutting the door and wiping her mouth off with the back of her hand. "Nice. Maybe he'll stop liking you now."

"Whaddyou mean, stop liking me? I don't think he ever did like me."

Sam rolled her eyes and sighed. "Seriously? Are you that blind, Carls? The boy's nutty over you. Every time you walk into a room, his eyes light up, and he keeps flirting with you and stuff. He just asked you out and you're still in denial – how does that even work?"

Carly narrowed her eyes, confused. "How do you see all this stuff with guys that I don't? Am I really that dumb when it comes to the opposite sex?"

Sam shrugged. "Obviously."

Just as the brunette was about to retort with something, Gibby approached the girls. "Hey, guys. Carly, you ready to make our dessert today?"

Sam's face lit up. "Hey, Gibby, I brought you some pudding today."

Gibby smiled eagerly. "Really? What for?"

The blonde nodded and turned around, retrieving the bowl of pudding from the fridge once more. "Oh, I just know how much you love chocolate pudding, and there's no way I can eat it, so here ya go."

Gibby took the bowl and looked down at it, beaming. "Wow, thanks, Sam!"

He turned and walked away to his and Carly's station, getting a spoon and starting in on the pudding while the girls watched. As soon as he took the first bite, Sam burst out laughing. The younger boy, however, was oblivious, and continued eating. Carly shook her head at Sam, disgusted.

"And you wonder why you can't make any other friends."

to be continued…

A/N: I'm not totally sure how soon the next update will be up. I'm working on it currently, of course, and this story is a lot easier to write than my others. But school ends in about a week and I have to give my laptop back (which has ALL my stories on it), but I'm getting my hard drive put on my old laptop, so I can still keep everything. But just saying, I'm not completely sure when I'll be up and running for more fic writing again. Hope you enjoyed this chapter. Please let me know what you think of the story so far! Next chapter is where Freddie comes in!