It's always so damn hot, so much still, stale air and very little comfort in moving. He makes it a point to not get up every five minutes to wet a washcloth in order to put it on his face to cool himself because the end result is that he winds up getting even more hot every time, and sleep keeps going farther off.
But he had chosen this heat, knew what he was getting into when he accepted her invite to stay a few weeks in her home away from home, just off the campus of Texas A&M University of San Antonio. Carly had questioned why she wasn't coming up to Seattle for summer break, but she replied that she was taking summer classes in order to get her degree sooner, and besides, she liked her place and wanted for her friends to come down to see it.
It was a nice place, Freddie had to admit. Sixth floor, three bedrooms, plenty of space for three girls to spread out. Where Freddie dormed, in the John Hancock Student Village of Boston University, the rooms were cramped, and the walls were so thin that Freddie could swear that, if pushed, the wall would bounce back.
At least there, during the summer months, it was cool.
(But, here, it is so damned hot.)
::: ::: ::: :::
Sam has a nose ring.
Freddie noticed it as he climbed out of his 2006 Ford SUV (graduation present given to him by his mother and aunt, the former who cried hysterically when he took it for its first drive) and Sam pulled back from Carly to hug him as well. It's a little silver sliver in her left nostril, barely noticeable if not for the glint of the sunlight, and Freddie had hesitated before wrapping his arms around her.
(Freddie's mother's voice had ringed through his head for a split second, how body piercing is atrocious, a sin, and how the scar never fades.)
Sam also smiles brighter, speaks in complete sentences, and wears less layers, but she's still as rowdy as ever.
(Freddie is thankful that living with her twin sister hasn't completely changed her.)
::: ::: ::: :::
Sam sets him up in one of the rooms, that of which belongs to a housemate who had gone back home to Geneva in Switzerland for the summer, and Carly doesn't even have to think about where she's sleeping before she climbs in Sam's bed.
(Freddie had smiled at that, leaning on the doorjamb and watching as Carly curled into Sam, and Sam had partly opened her eyes and beckoned Freddie over. They had fallen asleep together, that first afternoon, and had not woken until Melanie came in from her evening class and jumped across their bodies.)
Later that night, they set up a webcam and aired a special, nonspecial, webisode of iCarly, and laughed into the camera until Melanie decided that Sam was procrastinating too much. She handed Sam her textbook, put glasses on her, tied her hair back, and told Freddie and Carly, in no short of a stern voice, that they must allow her to concentrate.
(Freddie settled down to read a book, denying the fact that he concentrated on Sam concentrating on her work, and smiled at the occasional yelps emitting from Mel's bedroom, where Carly was putting makeup on her.)
::: ::: ::: :::
They almost make it until the weekend when Sam puts Freddie in a chokehold. Between her legs.
Freddie doesn't know how he made it between her legs, or rather, how her legs managed to get around his neck, but he is struggling on the floor, controller and game long forgotten, as he forgets how to breathe.
(His mind is full to the brim with nothing but images of her, ranging from sweet to downright frightening, and he can just barely pay attention to the fact that Carly and Melanie just came in the apartment and is now staring at the display.)
"Say uncle!"
Freddie doesn't, for good reason. She bends his fingers back and he yelps.
"Say uncle!"
Unfortunately, Freddie does end up having to say uncle, and then soaking his fingers under running cold water as Carly makes a weak attempt to berate Sam. Her punishment lasts for all of two seconds before Carly is scrambling to show Sam what she bought at that Chinese novelty store in the San Antonio Shopping Center.
(Freddie gets it; he wouldn't be able to punish Sam, either.)
::: ::: ::: :::
Sam has icecream dripping down her wrist from the sloppy cone she made before leaving the apartment (something about how she can't go to a party without reaching a buzz first; Freddie thinks thats a thinly veiled allusion to alcohol, but he decides not to call her on it), and it is dark where they're walking, so Freddie doesn't notice that she has the sticky substance on her skin until he grabs her wrist to keep her from pummeling a guy who whistled at Carly.
Carly giggles as Freddie makes a show of gagging, rubbing his hand across Sam's tank (and if his fingers skim across the rise where her breasts lay, well), but Sam doesn't let him get away with it. She slams her cone onto his cheek, and Freddie lets out a rather embarrassing, unmanly scream, and he's thankful that not much people take strolls along the boardwalk at one in the morning as a full on assault begins, the icecream getting in Sam's hair, under Freddie's tee, smeared across Carly's face and arms.
The three of them take a dip in the freezing ocean (and Freddie allows his hand to linger on the small of Sam's back as he and Carly wrestle her under the water), then they're walking back to the apartment just as the sky is turning a lighter blue.
::: ::: ::: :::
Carly and Freddie are watching a Bond marathon on mute the afternoon Sam comes back from her classes with a boy in tow.
Christopher helps her with her criminology assignments, she says. He's excelling in his academics, she says. He can make a mean plate of beef brisket, he proves. Christopher does nothing wrong, doesn't even look at Sam a certain way, and even admits that he's on and off with his girlfriend of three years, but still, Freddie doesn't like the guy.
(Maybe it's the way that Sam looks at the guy, the way she smirks at Freddie when he's caught staring, and not at all the way that she whispers at Carly to give Chris her number.)
Freddie goes to take a shower after a while, and stays in until the water runs cold and Carly knocks at the door to use the toilet. Before his hair finishes drying completely, Sam is on his back, teasing him about still being in love with Carly after. All. These. Years.
Freddie wants to fight against what she's saying, tell her it's untrue and maybe what it was that got him hot under the skin, but from where Sam's leaning against the counter as Freddie washes the dishes, he can see down her shirt, see where creamy skin meets the red fabric of her bra, and he figures that fighting with her would be pointless and a waste of breath.
(And he stared at her lips as she rambled on and on about how deluding himself into thinking he's still in love with a girl that never wanted him that way might leave psycological brain damage, if he isn't damaged as of yet, and his eyes trail repeatedly to that opening in her shirt, and maybe he's caught each time, but he doesn't know.)
::: ::: ::: :::
It's always freakishly hot at night, and Freddie is rendered incoherent from the amount of lust that courses through his veins as he grinds against her. He finds that he likes to tease, likes to strip the both of them down to their underwear and move against her until she begs, until her fingers leave the back of his neck to trail scratches down his back and arch sweat-slick skin against his.
(And Freddie can't believe it, and he has to pull back to watch her stretched out on his bed, lip bitten between teeth to keep herself quiet, and he feels like he's on the edge between too much and not enough that makes his skin tingle where she's touching him, but moreso he feels the pull of her legs around his waist, tugging him back down on top of her.)
He pulls his briefs down and pushes her panties to the side and doesn't do much past teasing her lips with his tongue (teasing her lips with his cock), and he is slightly astonished at the ease of which Sam flips them over and straddles his hips. He pulls her bra off and runs his hands down her flat stomach, fingers stopping to dip inside of her. She pushes against his fingers briefly before removing his hand and guiding him into her.
She's tight, tight, tight, and it's hot and she's dripping down his groin, and he thrusts up into her and his breath gets caught in the back of his throat as he tries to remain quiet. She slips in some dirty talk, which is not particularly shocking to Freddie, and sucks on his neck in a way that leaves him completely defenseless. She moves against him the way that she wants to, moaning and whimpering, and Freddie thinks he's squeezing her hips hard enough to leave a bruise.
(His mind is reeling as his hand runs down her sweaty back, and he bites her lips too hard at a certain twist of her hips, and there is a mantra that keeps repeating. Sam, Sam, Sam. He can't tell if he's saying it aloud or not, but he thinks that he wouldn't be embarassed if he were screaming it at that point because she's so fucking good.)
It ends almost as quick as it began, with her sneaking in his room with a glass of water and him kissing her and them starting this, and she smashes her lips on his as her body quakes, and Freddie pulls out before squirting on her thighs.
Her nose ring glints in the dim moonlight as she gathers herself up some time later, but Freddie doesn't let her leave his room without kissing her once again.
::: ::: ::: :::
Chris feeds Carly some cheesy line about having to come see her during the next break, but Carly falls for it, giggling as he helps load her stuff into Freddie's van. Freddie is (once again) staring intently at Sam as she shimmies on the roof of his car, yelling out, "Random dancing!" and Freddie glances to the side to see Melanie looking suspiciously at him.
After a beat, she smiles and touches his nose, cooing, "You're so cute!" and Freddie rolls his eyes and pulls her into a hug before they both wrangle Sam down from his car. She falls into his arms in a way that her legs end up wound around his waist, and she grins before grinding on him.
"You're gonna be bringing your ass up to Seattle for the next break?" he asks, briefly squeezing said derierre, and the laugh that bursts out of Sam's chest is so loud, crystal and joyful that Freddie can't help but join.
It's not long before Carly and Freddie are on the road, rambling about how fun it was and the memories that are sure to be long memories, and when the conversation lulls, Freddie glances at her.
Carly is staring at him with a puzzled look in her eyes, and she tucks her hair behind her ear before she asks, "What do you think about Sam?"
"I think," Freddie laughs. "I think that the ring's gonna leave a scar."