The late November morning air was crisp, but the sky was sunny and last week’s snow had melted, making the world look warmer than it was. Clark buttoned his coat and watched as Lois bundled up in a hat, scarf and gloves. Once she was ready, he opened the front door for her and waited as she walked through before walking through himself and locking the door behind them.
He held his hand to the small of her back as they descended the front porch stairs. At the bottom, he dropped his hand, and she turned immediately and wrapped her hand around his arm, smiling up at him. His heart fluttered, still overwhelmed by his good luck.
They strolled down the three blocks to the town square, chatting about the weather and other inconsequential things, and Clark was acutely aware of how much he loved this – the normalcy of spending time with her, doing everyday things.
When they turned the corner on Main Street, they nearly collided with a group of students, including a couple of his players, who were all thrilled to see him and wanted to shake his hand and rehash the game. He indulged them for a minute, then told them he would see them at school the next day and ushered Lois into Maisie’s before she could get cold.
As soon as they were through the door, he heard the whispers, and then, much to his chagrin, there was a smattering of applause that spread through the room. He raised his hands in protest and the clapping subsided, replaced by some good-natured chuckling.
He heard Lois giggle, and turned to see her beaming up at him in the way that always made his heart soar. “All hail the conquering hero,” she teased quietly.
He rolled his eyes and grinned through the embarrassment as he led her to an empty booth, stopping along the way to greet a few people and shake a few hands. She shrugged out of her coat and slid into the seat across from him, reaching immediately for his hand, and he tangled his fingers in hers.
Maisie made her way over to them, menus in hand. “Well, well, well. Nice of you to finally stop by. The whole town’s been in here looking to congratulate you,” she teased.
“Sorry,” he said. “We’ve been a little…busy.”
Lois choked back a giggle, and he felt his face burn. He suddenly felt like a teenager, busted kissing his first girlfriend under the porch light.
Maisie raised an eyebrow, looking far too delighted for his liking, and handed them each a menu. “It’s good to see you again, Lois,” she added. “I heard your appearance at the game came as a surprise to everyone.”
Clark laughed. “I’m surprised you didn’t know before I did. You losing your touch?”
She swatted him playfully with her notepad.
“I still can’t believe I pulled it off,” Lois admitted. “I was sure word would get out. I talked to Lana every day last week, and reminded her not to say anything every time. I think she was ready to swear a blood oath to get me to knock it off.”
Clark shook his head and chuckled, imagining those conversations. It still seemed unreal to him that Lois had not only gone to the trouble of making her attendance a surprise, but had spent weeks coordinating and chatting with his mother and Lana.
When they had first started dating, he had dreamed of exactly this: the three most important women in his life building their own relationships – friendships that may have been sparked by him but weren’t reliant on him. He had been so worried, after his panicky meltdown the night before Lois’ kidnapping, that he might have derailed that relationship between Lois and his mother. The family dinners they had shared over the last couple weeks had done much to assuage that fear, but he had never suspected that they were secretly communicating and spending time together.
Yesterday, Lois had told him a little about the conversations she’d had with his mother, both on the ride from the airport and about the significance of the jersey. His heart had swelled at the image of his mother offering Lois that jersey, acknowledging the importance of their relationship and the depth of his feelings for her.
Lois had told him also that she had told his mother about her usual lack of plans for Thanksgiving and alluded to her tumultuous relationship with her family, and how much she had appreciated his mother’s gentle acceptance. He had been so grateful in that moment, so utterly happy to see her beginning to open up to his mother.
Maisie left them to peruse the menu, and he smiled fondly at Lois as she studied hers with the kind of focus usually reserved for binding legal contracts. “Do you see anything that looks good?”
She looked up and grinned. “Everything. I’m starving. I think I burned ten thousand calories yesterday.”
He laughed and turned his attention back to the menu before he could start blushing again. “Sorry,” he teased. “I didn’t mean to wear you out.”
He saw her jaw drop, and watched that competitive glint form in her eyes. “I know you aren’t insinuating that I can’t keep up,” she whispered, lifting a playful eyebrow at him.
“I’m just saying…you seemed awfully tired this morning, and now you’re starving….”
She nodded, grinning wickedly. “Challenge accepted,” she said, and he felt his body twitch with excitement at that promise.
“Food,” he said tightly, tapping the menu. “Focus.”
She smirked and went back to reading the menu.
Soon, their orders had arrived, and Lois dove into her chicken salad while Clark tried to get in bites of his steak sandwich in between visits from well wishers and curious townsfolk who wanted to know when the post-season schedule would be announced.
After a half hour, Lois was picking at the last of her salad and Clark was close to giving up on eating altogether, when he heard the door chime yet again, and looked up to see Travis Culpepper walk in with his family. The boy’s face lit up when he spotted them, and Clark nodded a greeting. He watched as Travis spoke excitedly to his parents, and then headed his way with them in tow.
Clark stood and extended his hand to Travis’ father. They shook and exchanged greetings, and then Clark turned and gestured to Lois, introducing her to Travis’ parents and younger sister, before sitting back down.
“It’s so nice to meet you,” Mrs. Culpepper gushed. “We’ve heard so much about you.”
Travis shot her a death glare, and Clark tried to stifle a laugh.
“Thank you,” Lois said warmly. “You must be so proud. That was an incredible game Friday, Travis. And Clark tells me your series on college prep inequalities is what the Tiger Times is submitting to the Pacemaker committee this year.”
Travis nodded proudly, and Clark shot Lois a smile. It meant so much to him when she encouraged his students.
“I read the whole series,” Lois went on, reaching out and snagging a fry from his plate and dragging it through his ketchup. “It was really compelling. It was definitely the right choice for the submission.”
Travis looked flustered by her praise, but his parents beamed.
“Maybe you’ll get another Pacemaker and State Championship in the same year,” Mr. Culpepper said eagerly. “That should make you a shoo-in to all those colleges you applied to.”
“Dad,” Travis said awkwardly, and Clark felt a twinge of pity for him as he remembered how awkward it was to stand by as your parents bragged.
“My cousin played with you back when you won State,” Travis’ dad said, turning his attention to Clark.
“Brian,” Clark said, nodding. “I could never have made those throws without his blocking. Is he coming home for Thanksgiving? Do you know?”
Mr. Culpepper nodded. “I think he’s coming in Tuesday or Wednesday.”
“Good,” Clark said. “Maybe we’ll see him Wednesday night at Whistler’s. A bunch of the old gang will be there. If not, tell him I said hello.”
“We’ll do that,” he said, waving his family in the direction of a booth Maisie had just finished wiping down. “We should let you finish eating. Congratulations again.”
Clark thanked him and they all exchanged goodbyes, and Travis’ family made their way to their booth.
“He seems like such a good kid,” Lois said, snagging another fry from his plate and dipping it in the ketchup before popping it in her mouth. He laughed, and she looked at him skeptically. “What? Is he not? He seems so sweet.”
“Oh, no. He absolutely is. He’s a great kid. I wasn’t laughing at that. I was laughing at you stealing my fries. Didn’t I tell you that you should order fries? You insisted you’d be fine with a salad, and yet…”
She laughed, busted. “I didn’t want a whole order of fries. I just…wanted a few of your fries. You don’t mind, do you?”
He reached out and stroked his thumb across the back of her hand. “Lois, you can have all my fries. Forever.”
“Twenty years from now, you’re going to be griping about how I always steal your fries, and I’m going to remind you of this promise,” she said with a laugh, and his heart clenched in his chest, imagining twenty years with her.
He tried to respond, tried to make a joke about fries and old promises and the distant future, but he couldn’t make the words come out. He watched her as she watched him, and saw when she realized he was at a loss for words and why. Her eyes softened and she smiled at him and flipped her hand over, twining her fingers with his.
“Can I get you anything else?” Maisie asked, appearing suddenly at their booth.
“No,” Clark managed to croak out. “No thanks. We’re good. Just the check when you get a second.”
“I know you don’t think I’m going to let you pay for this meal,” Maisie said, eyes twinkling. “And speaking of things I’m not going to let you pay for, have you seen The Post?”
Clark shook his head, realizing that, since he and Lois had spent all of Saturday in bed, he’d missed picking up this week’s edition of the Smallville Post yesterday. Maisie took a few steps over the register and grabbed a copy of the paper from the rack where she kept it in stock along with daily copies of the Wichita Eagle and some local free circulars.
She laid the paper on the table in front of him and he smiled immediately at the giant headline, “Three in a Row!” Under a huge photo of the team embracing in the endzone, a smaller subhead clarified, “Smallville Tigers defeat Springfield Wildcats three years in a row for the first time since 1954”.
He skimmed the beginning of the article automatically, and felt Lois reach over and squeeze his arm, then heard her thank Maisie.
He lifted his head immediately and nodded toward the paper. “Thanks, Maisie. This is great.”
“You’re very welcome. Now, win us a State Championship, and I’ll give you free pie for life.” She winked and headed back behind the counter to grab a pitcher of iced tea.
“You ready?” he asked Lois, pulling out his wallet and leaving a generous tip.
She nodded and they exited the diner, and walked back to his house hand in hand. He popped his head in the door just long enough to toss the copy of The Smallville Post on an end table, and then they climbed into his truck to do the shopping.
Smallville had only one grocery store, Thompson Brothers, locally-owned and operated by the eponymous Thompson Brothers and their children and now grandchildren. Three of the Thompson grandchildren were among his current students, and the company could always be counted on to purchase the top tier sponsorship for extracurricular fundraisers. Their logo graced every bulletin, program, newspaper, yearbook, and field at Smallville High.
Clark parked and walked around the truck, opening Lois’ door for her and helping her out. She wrapped her hand around his arm, and he smiled, happy she was as eager to touch him as he was for her touch.
Inside the sliding glass doors, Clark grabbed a cart and began to push it toward the produce section.
“This…is what we call…a grocery store,” he said, mock-serious. “It’s where you purchase ingredients that can be made into food. It’s sort of like a restaurant, but you have to assemble the food yourself, later, at home.”
Lois smacked him on the arm, but couldn’t contain the laughter. “I do go to the grocery store, you know. If I didn’t…I wouldn’t have anything to leave rotting in my refrigerator.”
“I don’t know, you seem perfectly capable of leaving takeout leftovers to rot.”
Lois laughed again, and they stopped beside a display of fruit, where Clark began loading red and green apples into bags, filling them to the top before tying them off.
“Uh…” she said, watching with obvious confusion as he set the full bags in the cart and began filling a third. “Is there something you want to tell me? Do you have some sort of apple addiction?”
“No,” he said with a laugh. “We’re assigned sweet potato casserole and apple pie for dinner Thursday. I thought I’d go ahead and get the ingredients while we’re here so we don’t have to do it later in the week.”
“You’re making apple pie?” she said, suddenly interested.
“No, we are making apple pies, four of them. It’ll be fun,” he said, pushing the cart down the aisle and continuing to add various fruits and vegetables in more reasonable quantities to the cart.
She looked at him skeptically. “You really need to get out more if that is your definition of fun.”
“Oh, hush. You’ll see.”
“If we’re going to stay home, I can think of some more fun things we could be doing rather than baking pies,” Lois said, raising her eyebrows suggestively and biting her lip.
Clark felt his pulse skyrocket and cursed his body for reacting so immediately to her. “Sure,” he said casually. “And when we show up empty-handed on Thursday…you can explain to my family why we didn’t have time to bake.”
Lois laughed, her cheeks pinking, and she reached for him, wrapping her hand back around his arm as he finished up in the produce section.
“Is there anything in particular you want?” he asked as they headed for the first aisle. “For meals for the next couple days or snacks or whatever?”
Lois shook her head. “No, whatever you – Oh! I promised Sophie and Caleb nachos and French toast for the sleepover. So we need stuff for that.”
Clark stopped abruptly, turning to face her. She looked startled and a little confused.
“That’s okay, right? They said-”
“It’s fine,” he said immediately. “It’s…more than fine. When did you-? I totally forgot they were supposed to sleepover Tuesday. I wasn’t thinking about that at all. You don’t mind? I could reschedule.”
She was already shaking her head. His mind was reeling. Not only was she on board with the sleepover, apparently she had talked to the kids and planned dinner and breakfast with them.
“No, no,” she said. “You don’t have to reschedule. They’re really looking forward to it. I told Sophie she could pick the movie. She was agitated because I told Caleb he could help make the French toast. Something about him making a big mess last time.”
Clark laughed, remembering the eggs all over the ceiling. His heart was tight in his chest, picturing Lois talking to Sophie and Caleb about last month’s sleepover and planning this one. He knew she didn’t have much experience with kids – she had confessed early on that she had tried babysitting exactly once as a teenager and immediately decided there were better ways to make money. He knew, even if she might not admit it, having a sleepover with two young kids she barely knew could not possibly be high on her list of vacation priorities. But here she was, insisting. And not just insisting, but seeming pretty happy about it.
“What?” she said. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I love you,” he said immediately.
She smiled up at him sweetly. “And I love you. I know how important they are to you, Clark. So…they’re important to me, too. I want to spend time with them. Get to know them.”
He nodded, not trusting his voice at the moment. He wanted to kiss her so badly.
She laughed softly, clearly reading that desire on his face. She squeezed his arm and tilted her head toward the next aisle. “So? Nachos? French toast? What do we need?”
He took a deep breath, and turned down the aisle, assessing the rows of canned goods. “We’ll need to swing back through the produce section. We need tomatoes, avocado, and onion.”
“I can go get those,” she said. He looked at her skeptically, and she made a noise of outrage. “I am perfectly capable of picking out produce. How many of each?”
He gave her a few instructions and started grabbing cans from the shelves while she backtracked to the produce section. He paused for a minute, just processing this latest development, allowing himself to imagine Lois helping the kids make nachos, cuddling with them on the couch for movie night. It still didn't seem possible that this was real, that he could be this lucky.
Some furtive whispering from down the aisle caught his attention, and he saw a woman with a little boy about Sophie’s age talking quietly and looking in his direction. He shot them a smile, and pushed his cart halfway down the aisle, stopping to retrieve a few cans of black beans for the nachos.
“Are you really Coach Kent?” the little boy asked, clearly awed, just as Lois returned from the produce section. She grinned at him as she set the produce in the cart, and he rested his hand on her back.
He nodded, smiling at the little boy.
“My dad says you’re the best damn coach our team has ever had,” the little boy said, shocking everyone, including his horrified mother. “He says we’re going to kick ass at State.”
Lois turned around, burying her head in his chest, her shoulders shaking and hand covering her mouth in a futile attempt to hold back her laughter, as the boy’s mother stammered and stuttered. “Logan! What? When did-?” she said, before obviously resigning herself to the embarrassment and shrugging apologetically.
Clark just laughed. “You tell your father I said thank you,” he told the little boy. “And tell him I’ll do my best at State.”
“Oh my god,” he heard the boy’s mother mutter miserably under her breath. “I can’t believe this is happening.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Clark said, still laughing. “That might be the best compliment I’ve gotten all weekend.”
“Thank you,” the woman said, obviously still mortified. “And…congratulations. Good luck at State. We’re all rooting for you.”
“Thank you,” Clark said, and Lois finally lifted her head, her laughter under control.
The woman hustled her still gawking progeny out of the aisle, and Lois burst out laughing again. “You ready to kick ass at State?” she teased.
“I will…do my best,” he said, laughing. “Clearly I have a reputation to uphold.”
They went back to shopping, stopping occasionally to talk to an acquaintance or fan, though none of them were nearly as amusing as Logan and his horrified mother.
By the time they made it to the far end of the store, the cart was full of all the necessary ingredients for their Thanksgiving contributions, sleepover food, plus some options for meals for the rest of the week.
“One last stop,” he said. “The frozen food aisle.”
“Oh, I’m a pro at this aisle,” Lois said. “This is where all my meals come from.”
Clark shook his head. “We’re not getting any meals. Just ice cream. We can make sundaes with the kids.”
Lois laughed. “It’s no wonder they like sleepovers so much. Does Lana know you feed them a steady diet of junk food?”
“Lana does not care what I feed them so long as she gets a night off. At least Caleb finally sleeps through the night. For a while there, she was so desperate for sleep, I thought she was going to offer me joint custody,” he said as they rounded the corner and started toward the ice cream section.
Lois looked thoughtful for a minute and then chuckled. “She mentioned his lack of sleep repeatedly at the conference,” she said. “I forgot about that. She told me the main reason she volunteered to help chaperone was so she could get a good night’s sleep.”
“She wasn’t kidding,” Clark said. “Luckily he’s become a pretty decent sleeper. I usually have to lay with him for a little while to get him to settle and fall asleep, but once he’s out, he’s out.”
Lois was suspiciously quiet, and Clark turned to look at her as he stopped the cart in front of the ice cream. She was gazing at him with that look that always made him ache for her.
“You lay with him until he falls asleep?” she said softly. He shrugged, surprised by the tenderness in her voice. “My god, you’re so sweet.”
He raised his hand and stroked her cheek with the back of his fingers. “Let’s finish up and get out of here,” he said softly, suddenly desperate to be alone with her.
She nodded, and dragged her gaze from his. He saw a grin spread across her face, and followed her gaze over his shoulder to where Logan was peeking his head around the corner of the aisle, watching them.
“Hey, buddy,” he said, and Logan’s smile lit up his face. The little boy skipped over to him, and Clark crouched down to talk to him.
“Hi!” Logan said enthusiastically as his mother came around the corner, obviously in search of him, and spotted them together. She cringed and started to call her son, but out of the corner of his eye, Clark saw Lois hold up a hand and mouth, “It’s okay.”
“Do you play football?” Clark asked, nodding to his navy and orange Smallville Tigers t-shirt with the parks and rec logo.
The little boy nodded eagerly.
“He’s worn that shirt nonstop since Friday,” his mother said softly. “I had to wrestle it off him last night to wash it while he slept.”
Clark smiled. “What position do you play?”
“Center,” he said. “But I want to be quarterback. Like you.”
Clark nodded seriously. “It’s hard work. Are you willing to practice?”
He nodded, his little face dead serious.
“Then you can do it. The most important thing is to try hard, practice, and listen to your coaches. I can make you a better player. But I can’t make you a better listener. You understand?”
He nodded again, wide eyed and earnest.
Clark stood up and smiled at the boy. “You keep practicing,” he said. “And you’ll be ready to try out for the high school team when it’s time.”
The boy grinned, then turned and hurried back to his mother.
“Thank you,” she said to him, before turning back to her son. “Come on. Let’s go. Say goodbye.”
“Bye, Coach!” he said, bouncing excitedly. Then he turned his attention to Lois. “Bye, Mrs. Coach!”
His mother laughed, and tugged him away, back around the corner to the aisle where she had been shopping before he slipped away.
Clark turned slowly to Lois with “Mrs. Coach” still echoing in his ear.
“I’ve been called a lot of things in my life, but that’s a new one,” she said with a grin.
He smiled at her. “There’s a first time for everything, I guess. Maybe he knows something we don’t.”
“Oh?” she asked, eyes twinkling. “You planning to make an honest woman of me?”
His heart clenched, his mind a sudden kaleidoscope of visions of her: in a white dress looking up at him in that adoring way he could never get enough of; on a white sandy beach with a book in her hand; hanging ornaments on a Christmas tree in their first home; holding his hand at little league games and piano recitals.
His vision cleared, and he saw her as she was, rosy cheeked in the grocery store, waiting for him to parry her barb, and he couldn’t bring himself to deny it. “Lois, I’d get down on one knee here and now if I didn’t think it would send you running for the hills,” he said, trying to infuse a lightness into his tone, despite the absolute truth of the statement.
He saw her eyes flicker with something, surprise maybe, and then fill with joy as a wide smile spread across her face. “I’m not running, farm boy,” she said, the lightness of her tone matching his. “But I’m going to have to tell that story a million times, so I think you can do better than the frozen food aisle.”
He laughed, overwhelmed by his love for her, and her confirmation that she was dreaming of the same future. He reached out and cupped her cheek, smiling happily.
“Count on it.”
*****
It was still dark when the alarm sounded. Lois groaned without opening her eyes and rolled to her side, turning her back literally and metaphorically to the unwelcome intrusion on her sleep. The beeping silenced, and she sighed with relief, nestling deeper into her pillow. The warm, heavy weight of a hand appeared at her waist, then slid forward to rest on her stomach. Her mouth spread into a grin, but she remained silent and still. A soft kiss landed on her bare shoulder.
“I know you’re awake,” he whispered, amusement in his voice. “I can hear your heartbeat.”
“No cheating,” she grumbled, eliciting his laughter.
He kissed her shoulder again, and she couldn’t stifle the happy sigh.
“I’m going to miss you today,” he said softly.
“Let’s quit our jobs and stay in bed forever,” she said, snuggling closer to him and tilting her neck in invitation.
“How do you propose we support ourselves?” He moved his kisses to her neck, and she hummed happily.
“We should start playing the lottery.”
He chuckled, his breath warm against her damp skin. “I already won the jackpot. There’s no way I can get that lucky twice.”
She rolled her eyes at his cheesiness, but that didn’t stop the smile from spreading across her face or the little giggle from slipping out.
He kissed her shoulder one more time and then shifted away. “I have to get ready for work. Go back to sleep.”
“How are we going to make it through the day?” she asked, only half kidding. Her body was already aching for him, begging her to drag him back to bed.
He hummed a sound of painful agreement and trailed a hand over her shoulder and down her arm. “I don’t know.” He was quiet for a minute, then sighed. “What time is my mom picking you up? I’ll set the alarm for you.”
When Martha had called last night, Clark had been in the shower, and Lois had hesitated to answer his phone until he called out from the bathroom for her to get it. To her surprise, the call hadn’t been for him at all. It had been his mother calling to invite her to spend the day at the farm while Clark was at work. She was thrilled at the invitation, and even more so at Clark’s obvious delight when she filled him in.
“Not until ten,” she answered softly, her eyes fluttering shut, as she soaked in the feel of his hand on her shoulder, the smell of him all around her. Distantly, she felt him rise from the bed and heard him walk to the bathroom. Then she drifted pleasantly back to sleep.
When she awoke next time, morning sun was spilling across the bed. A quick glance at the clock assured her that she hadn’t slept through the alarm, and she stretched leisurely and decided to start the day with coffee before getting ready for her visit to the farm. She flipped off the alarm, and slipped out from under the covers, flinching at the cold. Clark’s gray button down shirt, which he had worn the day before, lay on the floor beside her foot, where she had dropped it last night, and she smiled as she slid her arms into the soft flannel.
She padded downstairs, her thoughts drifting back to the night before – his hands on her skin, her name in his mouth – and sighed happily. The whole weekend had been like a dream, and she was so thankful they still had a whole week before they would have to return to the real world.
She stopped abruptly as she entered the kitchen, her dreamy smile growing until it spread ear to ear. On the counter, beside the coffee pot, a dozen red roses waited for her. She laughed at their unexpected appearance, at the magic he never stopped making for her.
Instead of a small florist’s card, a white envelope lay beside the vase, blank except for her name in his familiar handwriting.
She reached for it automatically, extracting the simple linen card with his initials stamped in the corner. At the top, a snippet of poetry caught her eye, and then she felt her breath catch as she read on.
When the Best is gone — I know that other things are not of consequence — The Heart wants what it wants — or else it does not care.
— Emily Dickinson
Lois,
From the moment we met, my heart has wanted you. No matter the distance, no matter the miles between us or the time we spend apart, it always, always wants.
These past few days with you have been the most amazing of my life. Every time I see you, I think that my heart can’t possibly want you any more than it does, that I can’t possibly love you any more than I do. And then I look in your eyes, and I see your smile, and it does, and I do.
The heart wants what it wants. And my heart wants you.
It beats for you, it sings for you, it flies for you, it yearns for you. Always.
I love you, Lois. Being with you like this has set my wanting heart free. I want to shout it from the rooftops, tell it to the world, do barrel rolls in the sky. But mostly I want to say it to you, over and over, my heart to your heart.
I love you, I love you, I love you.
And my heart will never stop wanting yours.
Yours, always,
Clark
Lois lay the card back down on the counter, her hand fluttering to her chest, pressing against her racing heart. His love took her breath away; left her dizzy with joy. He had already given her more love, more happiness than she had known was possible. Because of him, her heart – once so skeptical and wary – had learned to trust and hope.
She was overwhelmed by the love she felt for him; by the dreams she had for their future. He was her best friend, and falling in love with him had been so easy. She couldn’t imagine now why she had fought it for so long. He had such gentle grace, such quiet strength, and such incredible kindness. She had never known anyone with such a selfless and pure heart.
Love had crept softly into her heart, until she could no longer imagine a future without him. And knowing that he felt the same way about her – knowing that he wanted that same future – felt like more than just a gift, more than luck or fate or destiny.
It felt like magic.
