Disclaimer: the lovable iCarlies belong to someone else

iLike That

People actually ran away from her. She slipped cash into a lunch lady's hand every day and got a pile of bacon regardless if it was on the menu or not. She held the championship in arm wrestling over the whole basketball team. She hardly ever had her homework. She openly insulted cops, teachers, and parents. She liked things her way. Her way was winning. She never apologized to anyone but Carly and Freddie and only then in confidence.

She was hilarious. She was loyal. She won beauty pageants, legitimate beauty pageants and not by force or threat, either, but by sheer talent and, yeah, beauty.

She was Sam like that.

She said she hated him at least once a day, belittled him whenever possible. She spread rumors, cracked humiliating—if not inappropriate—jokes about him in front of people. She went out of her way to spite his mother. She framed him for various kinds of rule breaking. She slapped him when he annoyed her. She stole things from him frequently.

She kissed him square on the mouth. Twice. Maybe three times, but definitely twice.

She was Sam like that.

The last time she kissed him, he wasn't ready for it. He lost his breath with her lips over his and her fingers in his hair. Her mouth tasted like flavored water: berries of some kind.

Maybe they were dating after that. Maybe they weren't. No one ever said. No one ever asked, except Carly.

"BLEH!" she cried, eyes wide and an octave too high. That was Carly-Freaking-Out-Language for "Explain yourselves!"

Sam shrugged, blushed. Freddie, still trying to narrow the field of berries down to the particular one on his tongue, rubbed the cowlick in the back of his hair, one side of his mouth going up. Sam gripped her water bottle tightly in both hands. She rocked back on her heels with her lips pressed together, met Freddie's eye, jumped her eyebrows, and then she slipped away.

Carly remained, arms crossed, waiting.

He did a lot of shrugging his shoulders, rubbing his hair, shaking his head, and shifting his weight. In the end, he didn't say anything, either, but Carly smiled and nodded.

Sam's teasing didn't stop. It didn't get worse, either. It did change, though.

It got… cuter?

That couldn't be the word for it, but it was. He saw now after every insult, joke at his expense, or physical wallop, she smiled. Not a big smile, not even something most people would call a smile, but something was going on with her mouth, something he liked.

Just like the berries, he couldn't place it. He couldn't place their relationship status, either. She didn't go around kissing other boys, and he certainly didn't kiss anyone else. So Maybe was all he could ever figure out.

Sometimes, he wondered if Sam made sure he failed at these things, though how she was supposed to be responsible for keeping the exact berry flavor a mystery he couldn't exactly say. He just couldn't put it past her to be behind his confusion in the matter. He could never put anything past her.

She was Sam like that.

Back stage at a pageant sure to be her third consecutive win, she grabbed his chin and laid one on him right in front of Carly. Then she gave his face a smack, hugged Carly, and went out to stand with the other girls for judging.

Carly crossed her arms and smiled up at him. He tried to ignore her, play it cool, but he ended up just staring at the wall, one side of his mouth up as he shook his head.

Sam won and hugged Carly, but didn't even touch him.

Alone with her under the awning outside her apartment building during a storm, (Sam's mom had a rubber band on the doorknob of their apartment and he'd agreed to hang out with her until Sam could go in) she tripped him so that he tumbled forward into a deluge of water from the side of the awning. Cold, wet, and a little pissed off, he'd tried to get her back, only to end up on his bottom on the wet pavement.

Thunder crashed. A car went by at a speed that sent water careening over the mailboxes. Some guy exited the building, whistling. He stopped when he saw a teenaged boy beaten down at the feet of a girl. He gave Freddie a pitying smile and disappeared into the rain.

Sam helped him up with her mouth doing that thing—God, that thing! What was that? He grabbed her chin so that she couldn't turn away but the moment he touched her, the mysterious expression was replaced with her lips going into a perfect "o" shape.

He kissed her. She kissed back, which was lovely and delicious; she tasted like bacon.

She broke the kiss to sink her teeth back into a bacon sandwich.

She was Sam like that.

The janitor stuck his head out to inform her that the rubber band was gone. Speaking passed the enormous bite of food in her mouth she said, "Later, Fredwad."

Water dripped from his hair into his eyes. He wiped it away, looked up, and she was gone. Through the glass doors of the building, he could see the janitor salsa dancing as he waxed the floors. No sign of Sam.

How in the world did she move that fast?

Smiling, shaking his head, he hailed a cab.

Hiding just to the left of the front doors of her building, Sam was blushing too ferociously to breathe properly. She had temporarily forgotten about finishing her sandwich and was instead wondering how he could still taste like toothpaste this late in the day. He must actually brush after every meal. The nub.

"He kissed me," she said on the phone later that night in a rush that came out far too breathy for her liking. Carly asked for details, which Sam found herself down-playing severely.

He was nice. He played by the rules. He did his homework. He was already looking at colleges. He went out of his way to make his psycho mom happy. He thought lame things were cool and dumb things were funny. He screamed like a girl. His hair and clothes were always clean.

He was a nub like that.

He had biceps. He had dark eyes not afraid to look serious in a non-threatening way. He was always there. He was funny. He had money. He spoke Spanish. He knew all about her mom and stuck around anyway. He had a chance with Carly and gave it away. He kissed her in a thunderstorm with both his arms around her.

He was a nub like that.

At Gibby's seventeenth birthday party, while Carly played co-hostess, Sam found Freddie at the edge of the backyard, looking out over the abandoned lot next door. The bass of the music pulsed through the fading light of day.

He took the wahoo she offered and they sat in the grass, distance enough between them to sit their cans down without threat of spilling. He rubbed his cowlick and asked, "Am I your boyfriend?"

Sam drank deeply from her can and was thankful for the fading light to hide her blush.

Holy crab.

Her silence made him tense and he actually moved an inch or so away,

"Don't break my arm for asking—I just—"

"Why would I break your arm?"

"I don't know… for not being sure if we're… you know… together?" It was a question, and his voice wavered like it was going to crack with puberty years passed. "Because we are together," he added in answer to himself, quite strongly. Then he added, unsure again, "I mean—aren't we?"

She drank deeply again. He was being awkward. He was a nub like that. As she pretended drinking was more important than the things he was saying, he closed the space between them, wrapped an arm around her, tentatively. She relaxed into it and felt him breathe again. A moment later, his fingertips lingered on her face and he was kissing her.

"You're a good kisser, Puckett," he whispered. The breath of his words washed over Sam's lips. His thumb traced across her cheek. She couldn't see him for the darkness—they were away from the Tiki torches of the party—but she could feel him. And she could smell him. He was wearing men's body spray of some kind.

He was a nub like that.

"Yeah?" she asked.

It was the most unsure she'd ever let him hear her voice. For a moment—what with the darkness, Gibby's This is Special Don't Drive Wahoo, and the girlish flattery in her voice—she felt like she might be some other girl beside him. She was already planning on what to do to him if he mentioned it, but he didn't.

In the middle of the kitchen, some idiot was insisting he could drive after having just one. Gibby was wrestling him to the ground. Half the basketball team swooped in to help. Carly was refilling a chip bowl as the crowd which had gathered to see the fight dispersed.

"Hey, look," Gibby said as he peeled away his sweaty shirt. He tossed a head in the direction of the back yard. Carly looked, saw clearly the backs of Sam and Freddie huddled next to each other, his arm around her.

Carly put her hands over her heart, pulled a sappy look of happiness just like the one when she and Gibby had gone to look at baby ducks at the pet store. Gibby was beaming. He shoved a whole nacho chip into his mouth.

"Cool," he said.

"Isn't that sweet?" She sighed. "They're so in love."

Brad had arrived in time to hear Carly's exclamation. "Who's in love?" He asked and turned to see where she was looking. He frowned. "They don't act like it," he said.

Gibby shrugged. "They're them like that."