Thanks to Carol for lots and lots of help with this chapter!
From Chapter 5
“Are you looking forward to the party?” I asked her as we walked.
She shrugged. “I'm not sure frat parties are really my thing,” she said. “But Steve really wanted to go and then Lois and Alicia were really into it…”
I smiled. “I know what you mean. It doesn't sound like my idea of a good time either,” I told her.
She smiled at me as we reached the frat house. The party was audible from a block away, even without super hearing, and as we got closer, we could see that the house was packed with people.
“Yeah, this looks like fun,” Maddie said to me quietly, the sarcasm in her voice clear.
I laughed. “Well, if it's really bad, I promise to walk you home early,” I told her before we got close enough to the party that it became difficult to talk.
She smiled at me in thanks and we pushed our way in.
Chapter 6
We were only inside for about ten minutes before we managed to all split up, and it was only five minutes after that that I spotted Steve across the room making out with a girl I didn't recognize.
I'm not really sure how I lost Maddie as she had been right in front of me when we got there, but in this mass of bodies, it was hard to stick close to anyone. I wondered if we should be keeping a better eye on the girls, but then realized that we weren't their dates. Just to make myself feel better, I listened for each of their heartbeats. With the exception of Star, I'd known them all long enough to pick their heartbeats out from a crowd.
I heard Alicia's right away – hers was the fastest of the three and it sounded even faster now. I used my vision gizmo to find her and see why, but she was dancing, or gyrating really, with some guy on a makeshift dance floor and seemed okay. I heard Maddie's not long after that, and while she seemed cornered by a different guy, her heart rate sounded normal, so I assumed she, too, was okay.
I had a harder time picking out Lois' heartbeat which was a little weird as I had always heard it loud and clear before now – sometimes even when I wasn't trying. I was standing on the staircase still trying to pick it out when someone bumped into me from behind. “Oops,” she said with a giggle, and with my special hearing turned on, she sounded exceptionally loud in my ear.
I turned to face her and saw Star, already looking a bit tipsy, but pretty much in control.
“Sorry,” she said. “That guy was in a bit of a rush.” She pointed past me and when I turned back around, I saw someone pushing other people out of his way.
“Are you okay?” I asked her.
“Yeah, I'm fine. Think I'm going to head home, though. It's too loud in here,” she said.
“Do you know where Lois is?” I asked her.
She smiled at me without saying anything for a second before responding, “She likes you, too.”
“What?” I asked, confused.
“Lois. I mean, not that she knows it yet, but she's attracted to you.”
I think I almost choked on my tongue. “Sorry,” I said. “I think we must be thinking of different Loises. I meant your roommate.”
Star laughed, “Yeah. She's a funny one, isn't she? Seems so hard and coarse. But she likes you. Good to hear it's reciprocated.”
I fought the grimace from appearing on my face. “Sorry, but I'm not interested in Lois. And I don't think she's interested in me. I just wanted to make sure she was okay.”
Star smiled at me knowingly, so I told her, “It wasn't just Lois. I wanted to check on Alicia and Maddie, too. But I was able to find both of them.”
Star continued to nod her head as if I wasn't fooling her. “Right. Well, whatever. At least she's just as clueless as you are. I think she's outside.” She pushed past me to move outside, but turned around a few steps later. “I'll see you around, Clark.”
I nodded, not sure what to say, and she laughed. “And I mean a lot of you.”
“What?” I asked again.
“I have this vision. Lois told you I'm psychic, right?”
I nodded my head, not wanting to let on that I wasn't a big believer in psychics.
“I'm sure you think it's all hogwash or whatever, but I'm right more than I am wrong,” she told me.
“Like with Lois getting on the paper?” I asked her, not able to keep the slight challenge out of my voice.
Star shrugged. “Admittedly, I'm not that good. I told her that might not be this year. But I know she'll make it on. She was the one who thought that meant she'd be the first freshman to ever be accepted.”
I nodded. I had to admit that did make sense. Not that it meant much about Star. If she had read Lois' article, she probably could have guessed that Lois would make it on the paper at some point. “So?” I asked her when I realized she wasn't going to continue.
“I have this image. Maybe it's also not this year, maybe Lois and I will continue to room together. But at some point, I'm going to walk in on you barely dressed with my roommate,” she said with a smile.
I could feel myself flush from the neck up, but tried to keep my voice calm. “Sorry to disappoint you, Star, but that seems pretty unlikely to me.”
She laughed again. “Okay,” she said, before she turned away.
I shook my head. Not only was the idea of me being undressed near Lois ridiculous, the truth was that I tried to keep pretty tight bounds on where I went physically with anyone. As my parents had reminded me, more than once, I knew very little about myself. I didn't want to take the chance of hurting someone. So the chances that Star would find me in a compromising situation with anyone was unlikely. With Lois, though, the chances were about as close to nil as you could get.
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Once I started looking outside, it didn't take me long to find Lois. She was chatting with a girl from our math class and seemed to be perfectly fine. Feeling like I had done my duty and made sure all the girls were okay, I made my way back inside to look for a beer. I still felt the presence of those boys from earlier in my head, and while I knew it wouldn't really help, I was willing to try anything to move back to just being Clark Kent, college kid, and not have to worry about things like that.
“No, thanks,” I heard Maddie's voice in my ear. When I turned around, she wasn't there. That was weird. “I said, "No, thanks!'” She repeated herself more forcefully and I looked around for the source of her voice. She was standing not more than fifteen feet from me, although in this crowd it was surprising I could hear her from there without my hearing thing "turned on'. The guy she had been talking to earlier had a hand on her shoulder. In addition to the tone to her voice, her body language was now off and tuning in to her heartbeat, I could hear that it had sped up. As opposed to when I had first spotted her there a few minutes ago, she didn't look comfortable anymore.
I walked over to her and the guy she was with. “Hi,” I said as I approached. “I didn't realize I had lost you until I turned around and you weren't there.”
“Oh, there you are,” she said with a strange look in her eyes. “Matt, this is the guy I was telling you about. My boyfriend, Clark.”
I tried to keep my face placid as she said this, trying not to seem surprised, as the guy was watching me closely. I could see him trying to size me up and quite frankly, he was probably thinking that he could take me easily. He couldn't, of course, but I had no desire for him to know that. I could seem stronger than I looked within reason, but I really didn't want the first person outside of Mom and Dad to find out I was "special' to be an overly affectionate frat guy.
“Hi,” I said to him instead, pretending I was a somewhat stupid boyfriend who hadn't noticed that this guy still had a hand on his girlfriend's shoulder.
“Hi,” he said, still watching me intently, a steely look in his eye.
“I'm sorry, sweetie,” I said to Maddie. “I looked, but I couldn't find the brand of beer you wanted.”
“It's all right,” she said to me with a look of appreciation.
“I thought you were making him up,” the frat guy finally spoke up. “Trying to play hard to get.”
“Sorry,” Maddie said with a smile and I could hear her heart rate start to slow down as he moved his hand off her shoulder.
“Later,” he said to us as he turned to find new prey, I guess.
“Thanks!” Maddie said. “I'm so sorry about that, Clark. I just… I had told him I had a boyfriend earlier and I knew he didn't believe me, and then when you showed up, it just seemed…”
“It's okay,” I cut her off. “I understand. Are you okay?”
She nodded. “Yeah. I don't know. Maybe I've seen too many after school specials about girls being date raped at frat parties or something. But when he started to get pushy, I panicked.”
“I'm glad you did,” I said. “I probably wouldn't have heard you over all this noise if you hadn't raised your voice.”
She gave me a shallow smile. “I think I need to get out of here,” she said. “Is that offer to take me home still open? I mean, I'd understand if you want to stay, but…”
“I'm ready to leave, too,” I told her. I wasn't sure I'd be able to relax now. I'd feel this need to make sure Alicia and Lois were okay all night. In reality, I was fully aware that they were grown-ups, and I didn't feel guilty about leaving at all, but I knew if I stayed, I'd be thinking about them all night.
“Are you sure?” she asked.
I nodded. “Come on,” I said, reaching for her hand. “Let's get out of here.”
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The walk back to Maddie's dorm was quiet. We talked a little about our math class – Maddie, Lois, and I were in the same one. Like myself, and Lois, I was guessing, it wasn't Maddie's favorite class.
“I'm just not a math person,” she said to me as we reached her dorm.
“I don't think any of us are,” I said with a smile.
“I know,” Maddie sighed. “But that guy… what's his name? Brad or whatever?”
“The one who asks all the weird physics questions?” I asked.
“Yeah, him. He so gets it. But then I guess he must be into physics and math or something to ask those questions. Math isn't so easy when you're into art history,” she said with a smile.
“Or journalism,” I told her. “I would love to skip it, but we need one semester of math to graduate, so…”
“Exactly,” Maddie said. “I guess I just need to focus on the fact that this is the last math class I'll ever have to take.”
“That is nice,” I said, not having made that connection myself.
“Do you want to keep talking?” Maddie asked, pointing to a bench outside the dorm. “Or do you need to get back?”
“Let's keep talking,” I said, realizing that while I'd spent a fair amount of time with Maddie since I got here, this was the first real conversation I had had with her alone. It wasn't half bad. Actually, it was much better than not half bad. There was something about her that made me feel at ease.
Talking to Maddie was like the antithesis of talking with Lois. Or maybe arguing with Lois would be better worded. It was comfortable and amicable. She reminded me of Rachel a bit, although I thought she might be prettier than Rachel. Not that I'd ever tell Rachel that.
We sat next to each other on the bench. “So,” I started as we turned to face each other. “Is Metropolis very different than San Diego?”
Maddie laughed. “Yeah. I mean, not to make San Diego seem small, but it's more suburban. You can probably walk around the outside of the downtown area in about a half hour to an hour. Nothing like here. Although,” she blushed slightly, “I haven't really been out to explore Metropolis that much. I guess it's silly to come here for school and then feel intimidated, but I know this isn't the best area of town and…”
“I went outside the gates for the first time this afternoon,” I admitted.
“What'dcha think?” she asked. “I thought it was less scary than I thought it would be.”
“Me too,” I said. “It just seemed… busy, I guess. But not unsafe.”
“But I've been too nervous to go outside the block or so outside of campus,” she said. “Maybe we should have Lois and Josh take us on a tour or something.”
I grimaced. “I'm not sure I want to admit to Lois that I haven't already explored Metropolis.”
Maddie laughed. “Yeah, she's a bit… energetic in her enthusiasm for all things Metropolis and Daily Planet, isn't she?” I nodded, and she added, “Although she seems less obnoxious city-girlish than Alicia.”
“You don't like Alicia?” I asked, surprised. I thought it was just me.
“She's okay,” Maddie said, “but she can be a bit harsh, can't she? I mean, Lois can be, too, but she seems a little more tolerant or something. Oh,” she suddenly turned a bright crimson, “you won't tell them that I said that, will you?”
“No,” I laughed, making the childish sign of a cross on my chest, “Cross my heart and hope to die. It's between us, I promise.”
“So, what about your roommate?” she asked me.
“Steve?” I clarified as if there was another roommate she might have meant. “I don't know. Sometimes he seems like the biggest jerk, but other times he seems like maybe he's really nice on the inside or something.”
“You're one of those people, aren't you?” Maddie asked with a smile.
“What people?” I asked her.
“The ones who always see the best in people,” she smiled at me.
I shrugged. “I don't know. I think people are generally good.” I suddenly realized what I sounded like. “So, do I sound more like a hippie or a naïve farm boy?”
Maddie laughed. “You sound… like Clark, I guess. That's what I expected of you.”
“It's awful and naïve, though, isn't it?”
“No,” Maddie said, putting her hand on my arm. “It's sweet. Really.”
I gave a small laugh. “So, in San Diego it's not the kiss of death for a guy to be sweet? Or you just don't care?”
“What?” Maddie asked, confused.
“It's just in Smallville…” I trailed off as I realized what I was about to say. Was I hitting on Maddie? Of course not. But she did look awfully cute sitting there. Maybe I was. And maybe that wasn't such a bad thing? “In Smallville,” I started again, deciding not to care, “sweet guys are the ones who have lots of friends who are girls, but no one wants to date.”
Maddie's eyes widened slightly at this, but then she replied quietly. “That may be the case in San Diego, too. I don't know. But I like sweet guys. Generally, I like them a lot.”
“And specifically?” I asked, surprised at my own boldness. What was I doing? Did I really even want to do this?
To be fair, I wasn't sure I knew. I just knew that I was enjoying talking to Maddie more than nearly anyone once else I had had a conversation of this length with since I got here. And with the stupid stand-off with those boys earlier, I was eager for something positive to happen today.
That was probably a bad reason for hitting on someone I was friends with and wasn't sure I was even attracted to, but I didn't care. Besides, I was no longer so sure that I wasn't attracted to her. She was pretty and smart. Maybe she was less bubbly and in-your-face beautiful than Lana, but that wasn't a bad thing, was it?
“Specifically?” Maddie asked, bringing me out of my internal dialogue. “I… um…” She blushed, dropping her head slightly.
To go with the theme of the conversation which seemed to be act/speak first-think later, I leaned forward and captured her lips with my own. Those boys completely left my head as I realized that Maddie was responding, and I moved closer to wrap my arms around her.
I had no idea what I was doing, and yet, it felt like the best decision I had made since I had gotten to Metropolis.
