Lois watched the cab pull away and then stood, frozen on the sidewalk, fingers pressed to her lips. That kiss. Wow.
It was easily, and without a doubt, the best kiss of her life. The only other kiss that rivaled it was the last time he had kissed her, ruse or no ruse. That kiss had melted her, left her a puddle in his arms.
But this kiss. This kiss was fireworks; the grand finale of a romantic movie with the swelling crescendo of the orchestra behind them. It was moonlight and roses and happily ever after.
And it was only the beginning.
She smiled a goofy, ridiculous smile and laughed to herself. She couldn’t believe that had really just happened. This whole week had been a whirlwind: love letters with poems, a surprise visit without warning, and then that kiss. Oh, that kiss.
She shook herself a little, aware that she was laughing like a fool on the sidewalk, and started walking back to the Daily Planet. She took her time, trying to give herself a chance to recover before she had to walk back into the newsroom and face the curious stares of her coworkers.
She didn’t even care what they thought. Let them speculate. But she needed to focus and get her emotions under control if she was going to make it through the rest of the day without making a fool of herself.
When she exited the elevators and began making her way down the ramp, she could feel every eye in the room on her. She studiously avoided them and went straight to her desk, pulling up her article and reading it from the beginning, making edits as she went.
She was halfway through when Cat appeared from wherever she had been prowling and slid into her seat, eyes on Lois. “You were holding out on me.”
Lois raised an eyebrow, but kept editing. “How do you figure?”
“A high school football coach from Kansas?”
Lois stopped typing and looked up, instantly defensive. “He IS a high school football coach from Kansas. And there’s nothing wrong with that.”
“He’s drop dead gorgeous. And apparently the best writer some editor friend of Perry’s has ever met.”
“Professor,” Lois corrected.
Cat looked at her confused.
“Carlson is a journalism professor at Midwest not an editor. He was Clark’s professor in college.”
“He has a degree in journalism?”
“He’s the advisor for the school newspaper. I told you that’s how I met him. At the high school journalism conference. His paper won a Pacemaker.”
Cat sat back and narrowed her eyes, watching Lois suspiciously.
“You didn’t tell me he was captain-of-the-football-team, take-me-under-the-bleachers-and-have-your-way-with-me hot,” Cat said, fanning herself.
Lois felt her cheeks flame. “Would you have believed me if I did?” she asked.
Cat eyed her for a minute. “Probably not,” she said finally. “Your taste is…questionable.”
“Is it?” Lois said with a self-satisfied smirk, turning her attention back to her screen.
“It’s possible,” Cat said grudgingly, “that your taste in men may be better than your taste in clothing.”
Lois didn’t bother trying to stifle the smile that spread across her face as she continued editing her story.
*****
The hands on her living room clock crept around the face so slowly, Lois was tempted to check for the third time and see if it was working. She glanced at the phone on the end table, willing it to ring, even though she knew it was too soon.
It had been five hours since he had left her, grinning and blushing, on the sidewalk outside the ice cream parlor. She had suffered through another two hours at work, trying to focus on her edits while her coworkers whispered and looked at her with undisguised curiosity.
Jimmy had grilled her almost immediately after her return to the office, tag teaming an interrogation with Cat about when Clark had been in the office previously, how Perry seemed to know him so well, and what Perry had meant about Clark going undercover and getting them out of a jam.
Lois had answered the easy questions matter of factly: he had come for a weekend on his way to Borneo, and she had introduced him to Perry when they stopped by the office. The rest she ignored, giving them an impish shrug, and secretly delighting in their begging for more details.
After work, she had stopped at the grocery store and ran a few errands, trying to kill time while he was in the air. She knew he had a three hour flight home, plus the hour drive from Wichita, and all the extra time involved in flights: waiting to board, claiming his bags, walking to his car, and so on. By her calculations, he wouldn’t be home until around eleven pm.
She arrived home around eight, and found both a postcard and a letter waiting in her mailbox. That had given her an emotional boost, and she had spent the next hour swooning around her house putting away her meager groceries and heating up a microwave dinner that grew cold as she sat at the table reading and rereading her letter.
He was in Indonesia now, the letter said, meeting up with yet another old friend. He had arrived just in time to catch the tail end of the month-long Jakarta Fair, and his letter was full of descriptions of the event. The postcard featured a photo of the fair, with vendors and food stalls and amusement rides.
After reheating and finishing her dinner and half-heartedly cleaning her kitchen, she had tried watching a movie, but her mind was unable to focus, and she had lost track of the plot and given up halfway through.
She had picked up her latest book instead, but couldn’t seem to retain anything. And now, after reading the same page three times, she decided to abandon it in favor of a glass of wine and a bubble bath.
The wine and bath had their intended relaxing effect, and she let her mind drift leisurely as she allowed their warmth to spread through her. It didn’t take long for her thoughts to drift back to him, and she found herself replaying that kiss over and over.
A small voice intruded on her pleasant daydreams, reminding her of the distance between them; the chasm between their lives. But she shoved it away, not willing to think of that right now. Later, she would worry about how they could possibly make this work. Later, she would allow herself to be consumed by the fear that he would break her heart. But tonight…tonight was only for happy thoughts. For reveling in her feelings for him and the knowledge that he felt the same.
Her bathwater grew tepid, and she pulled the plug and stepped out onto the soft mat, reaching for her towel. The luxuriously thick cotton was soft against her skin as she dried herself and then wrapped the towel around her body and released her hair from the clip that held it atop her head and out of the bath water.
She walked to her dresser and slid on a pair of panties, then pulled open her pajama drawer and reached automatically for the worn cotton t-shirts and pants she usually favored. But something stopped her tonight, and she hesitated, then reached for the other side of the drawer, where silk and satin pooled in a slippery pile. Her hand closed around a slate blue gown, simple but elegant.
She untucked her towel and let it fall to the floor, sliding the gown over her head. It was held up with the tiniest of straps, skimming over her curves and falling to the knee. She bent and picked up the towel, returning it to the bathroom, the soft satin of her gown brushing against her skin as she walked, making her feel lovely and pampered.
While in the bathroom, she decided to go ahead with her nightly routine, and she brushed her teeth and massaged moisturizer into her face. She reached for the lotion, rubbing it gently into her arms and then propping her legs one at a time on the rim of the bathtub and massaging it into them. She inhaled sharply at the unbidden thought of Clark massaging her with lotion, his hands gliding up and down her legs. Somehow she knew he would know how to apply just the right amount of pressure, just as he had known how to work his way gently but insistently into her life.
She finished and wandered back to the bedroom, climbing in bed and casting a longing look at the phone before reaching for the book on her nightstand.
It was after eleven now, but barely. Six hours. He should be home. Unless her calculations were off. Or his flight was delayed. Or…
A tiny kernel of fear twisted in her stomach. He would call tonight, she reassured herself, trying to ignore it. He would not have come to her work and swept her into that hug, and stroked her palm the way he had while they ate ice cream, and then kissed her like she was something to be cherished, if he didn’t want to talk to her. He would call tonight. And if he didn’t, he would have a good reason.
Count on it, he had said. And she could. Count on him.
Her eyes went to the phone again, her heart aching in her chest. Please, she thought, let her be able to count on him.
She returned her eyes, if not her attention, to her book and attempted to read the page for the fourth time.
She was halfway through the first paragraph when the phone rang. She dropped her book, startled, and laughed with joy.
“Hello?” she said tentatively.
‘Hi,” he said, his voice soft and warm. “I’m sorry it’s so late.”
“It’s fine,” she said quickly. “I was just….”
Waiting for you to call, she finished silently. She hesitated, not willing to say out loud that to him.
“What did you do tonight?” he asked, letting her off the hook.
“Oh, you know…. I had dinner, took a bath, now I’m laying in bed reading a book.”
He was quiet for a moment, and then she heard him clear his throat.
“That sounds nice,” he said, slightly breathless. He was picturing her, in the bath and the bed, she realized, the breathlessness in his voice sending a shiver up her spine.
“I suppose,” she said impulsively, emboldened by his reaction. “Mostly I was just waiting for you.”
He exhaled noisily, then whispered her name with such undisguised longing that she couldn’t stop her answering whimper.
“I’ve thought of nothing else since I left you today,” he said softly. “I’ve been counting the minutes until I could call and hear your voice again.”
“I’m so glad you came,” she said. “I was so surprised to see you. I couldn’t even move for a minute. I couldn’t believe you were really there.”
He laughed, the mood lightening just the slightest bit.
“I was so nervous,” he confessed. “I had no idea how you’d react. I wasn’t sure if the letters were too much; if I was being presumptive by showing up uninvited. I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable. I didn’t even know if you would be there – you could have been out working on a story.”
“Your letters weren’t too much,” she said. “They were perfect. They were…. I’m so glad you wrote them. So glad you came.”
They were silent for a moment, not awkward or embarrassed, just sitting with their feelings, each of them adjusting to this subtle shift in their relationship.
“This will spoil your last letter,” he said finally. “But yesterday I went diving, and you won’t believe what I found.”
“Tell me,” she said, immediately curious.
“In the Southern Sea, there’s a golden-lidded oyster that’s incredibly rare. They produce gold pearls, and the darker the shell, the deeper the gold of the pearl. They live all around the Southern Sea, but the really golden ones are farther north, up by the Philippines. Their rarity and the fact that it takes them four years to make a pearl makes them incredibly valuable, so there are golden oyster farms in the region. But I’ve always wanted to find one in the wild. When I lived in Borneo, I used to dive all the time, but I never found one, not even a light one with just a tinge of gold.”
“But yesterday….” she said, smiling.
“But yesterday I found one. And not one with the tinge of gold. It was solid gold. It was so dark, it looked fake. It looked like someone took a regular oyster and spray painted it gold. It was absolutely stunning. I wish you could have been there. I wish you had seen it.”
His enthusiasm was contagious. “That sounds beautiful. You must have been so excited.”
“I was thrilled,” he said. “It was definitely one of the highlights of the trip.”
“I got another letter today,” she said. “The Jakarta fair.”
He chuckled. “That was fun. It’s such a madhouse. I think the original purpose of the fair was to celebrate the city’s birthday through commerce. So there are lots of handmade and locally-made items for sale. That sort of thing. But over the years, it’s just morphed into this wild, month-long festival with every kind of vendor and entertainment act you can imagine. We saw everything from fire eaters and snake charmers to jazz bands and modern dance troupes.”
“That sounds really fun,” she said.
“It is. I love the excitement of the crowds. The energy. There are rides too. Not big roller coasters like at a theme park, but bigger rides than the kind you see at little traveling street fairs. Lots of twisting and spinning rides. And the high swings that spin around so you can see the whole festival beneath you. It made me think of our conversation above the city.”
She smiled, remembering that night, and then his letter about his memories of that night.
“I love those swings,” she said.
“Do you?”
“They were always my favorite when we went to amusement parks when I was a kid.”
“Really? I figured you for more of a roller coaster girl. You seem like a daredevil.”
“Oh, I was,” she said with a laugh. “I love roller coasters. I always have. But the swings were my favorite. They make me feel like I’m flying. I’ve always wanted to fly.”
He was quiet for a moment, and when he spoke again, his voice was soft and contemplative. “Have you? Always wanted to fly?”
“Always. Did you ever play that game as a kid – which superpower would you rather have? Flying or Invisibility? I always picked flying.”
“You didn’t want to be invisible so you could spy on people?” he teased.
She laughed softly. “No. I mean, let’s be real, if someone offered me that power, I’d take it. But if I had to choose? Always flying. I used to dream about flying when I was a kid. I haven’t had that dream in years, but… Yeah, flying.”
He was quiet for a minute, so she pressed on. “What about you?” she asked. “Flying or invisibility?”
“Flying,” he said immediately, his voice low and sure.
“No doubt there?” she teased.
“None,” he said. He paused, and she could sense that he had more to say, so she waited patiently, giving him the space to find the words. “There’s such freedom in flight. Being able to go anywhere, see anything. And there’s something special about seeing the earth from above. The beauty of it, laid out before you. Nothing compares to it….I imagine.”
She hummed her agreement, and closed her eyes, imagining the sensation of flying. “I never thought about flying with someone,” she said quietly. “I've always imagined it as a solo activity. But it would be amazing to fly with someone, wouldn’t it?”
“Lois, I-” he said, his voice rushing out of him, almost pained, and then stopping abruptly. She opened her eyes and sat up straighter.
“Clark?” she asked, concerned about him.
“It’s nothing,” he said, his voice calm and controlled again, the anguish replaced with a gentle longing. “You’re right. It would be amazing. I…I would love that.”
She closed her eyes again, letting his voice wash over her.
“It was nice to meet Jimmy and Cat finally,” he said. “Cat is…a lot. I see what you mean now.”
She laughed. “I told you so. She’s…something.”
“Is she always like that? Is she for real, or is that just an act?”
Lois hesitated. That was something she had pondered many times. “She is always like that. At least, that’s the only way I’ve ever seen her. But I’m not sure if she’s for real or if it’s just an act. I think it’s a little of both. I think she is…uninhibited and self-assured and…adventurous. But I wonder how much of that started as an act.”
She paused, considering her own career path, and the lonely way she had navigated it with all her rules.
“Journalism is such a boys club,” she went on after a moment. “It’s hard to find your way as a woman, especially when you’re first starting out. I made it by being hard and sharp and demanding respect, shredding anyone who commented on my appearance or joked about me using my feminine wiles to get ahead. Cat is successful in her own way. I give her a hard time about the types of stories she writes, but she’s good at what she does. And her path to success was the opposite of mine – she embraced her sexuality, flirted with every man in the office, and invited comments about her appearance and sexual prowess. I wonder sometimes if Cat and I are two sides of one coin. I wonder if she put on her armor the same way I did…she just chose a different armor.”
When she finally stopped talking, Clark was quiet, and Lois wondered if he had been disconnected or fallen asleep.
“Clark?”
“Sorry,” he said immediately. “I was just…. You are incredible.”
She blushed, caught off guard by his compliment. “I don’t…”
“I’m not sure what I expected you to say when I asked you that question…but not that.”
“People think I hate Cat. Because we spar in the office and make fun of each other. And there was a time when I genuinely didn’t like her. I didn’t respect her, and I thought women like her made things harder for women like me. Made it harder for us to be taken seriously. But I’ve realized a lot over the past couple of years about how she presents herself. She’s smart. A lot smarter than people give her credit for. And I think she crafted her image intentionally. She’s too savvy for it to be an accident.”
“That makes sense,” Clark said thoughtfully. “I’m sure most people lower their defenses around her. They don’t expect her to be a threat.”
“Exactly. I hardly ever tell her anything, but she always knows things about me. She just figures it out. She’s always watching, always listening. She doesn’t miss anything.”
“That’s fascinating,” Clark said. “Truly. It sounds like she’s a lot deeper than most people give her credit for.”
“I think she cares about a lot more than she lets on too,” Lois said. She paused and laughed.
“What?” he asked.
“She was worried about me when you were gone. She thought you were trying to ditch me…letting me down easy.”
“What?” Clark said, and Lois laughed at the incredulity in his voice. “She said that?”
“Not in quite so many words, but yeah. She asked if I was really sure you were out of the country. She said it teasingly, but I think she was checking on me. She was pretty thrilled – in her own way – when I brought in your first postcard.”
“That’s…I’m really not sure what to say about that,” he said.
“I know,” Lois said with a laugh. “I told you. She’s a lot.”
They were quiet for a minute, and Lois smiled at the comfortable pause in the conversation. Usually, unless she was interviewing someone, she hated the awkward pauses and conversation transitions. She was never sure what to say next or how to change topics without making things uncomfortable. Somehow she never felt that way with Clark.
“I bet it’s nice to be home,” she said. “After a month away. Are you going to spend the weekend settling in?”
“It is nice,” he said. “I love traveling, but it’s always good to come home. I don’t have any real plans this weekend, but I'll go to dinner with my parents on Sunday. And tomorrow I have to go to Pete and Lana’s at some point and do something with the kids. Sophie left me three messages on my answering machine while I was gone.”
“That’s adorable,” Lois said, her heart fluttering in the strange way it did anytime he mentioned his godchildren. “I’m sure she missed you.”
“Well, one whole message was just tattling on Caleb for a litany of crimes and asking if she could move in with me because no one in her family loves her and she only loves me. And the next was her telling me never mind, she decided to stay because her mom rented The Lion King for family movie night, so….”
Lois laughed. “Ahh, young love…so fickle.”
“Indeed,” he said with a laugh. “But she left another message yesterday asking when I’d be home and begging me to come visit as soon as I got back. So I really need to do that. Otherwise I’ll just unpack and make sure I’ve got everything ready for practice on Monday.”
“Are you excited about the first practice?”
He paused, and she smiled, waiting for his answer.
“Yeah,” he admitted. “It will be good to get back out there. I’m looking forward to it.
“What’s your practice schedule like for the next few weeks? Before school starts.”
“Just eight to noon this week. Then two-a-days until school starts. Eight to noon and four to eight. Once school starts, practice every day after school until seven.”
“That’s a lot,” she said, a sudden yawn overtaking her.
Clark chuckled softly. “It’s late. I know you’re tired. You should go to bed.”
She hesitated, her heart squeezing sadly at the thought of hanging up. She knew he had to be tired too. A full day of travel, and who knew when was the last time he slept and what time zone his body was still in. But she just wasn’t ready to let him go yet.
“I know,” he said softly. “Me too.” She closed her eyes and smiled at his ability to hear the things she left unsaid. The yearning silence stretched between them.
“Can I call you tomorrow?” he asked, his voice low and husky, sending a tingle of desire through her whole body
“Please,” she said softly. Then she laughed softly. “You can call me anytime, you know. You don’t have to ask. I always want you to call.”
“I wish I could kiss you goodnight,” he said suddenly, and she inhaled sharply, his words stealing her breath as her mind filled immediately with remembered sensations of his lips on hers, his hands on her skin.
“I know,” she said, when she could breathe again. “Me too.”
“Get some rest,” he said. “I’ll call you tomorrow. In the evening?”
“Sure,” she said.
“Okay. Good night, Lois.”
“Good night, Clark,” she whispered, her heart aching when she heard the click of the line being disconnected.
She hung up the phone, clicked off the bedside lamp, and slid down in her bed until she was laying with her head on her pillow. Then she closed her eyes and replayed their conversation in her mind, letting his sweet, soft voice lull her to sleep.
