Just A Little Note TOC Part 2MondayLois stood by the coffee machine refilling her coffee mug. Clark had been staring at her all morning. Was he embarrassed about his confession on the phone last night? To make him feel better, she had pretended the conversation hadn’t taken place. She wondered if he had gotten up the courage to ask the woman out that he had mentioned. She sighed. She still wasn’t allowing herself to hope it was her.
As she poured some sugar into her coffee mug, Clark joined her. Her heart began to race. This was it.
“Lois, I… wanted to ask you something...” her partner started to say.
“I’m not going to like it, am I?” she said, teasing him. Knowing exactly what it was that he wanted to ask her.
“What makes you say that?”
“You’ve got that tone in your voice, you know that people get when they’re uncomfortable.” She stirred her coffee and gazed at Clark with pressed lips. “Like when they want to borrow your car, or money, or clothes…”
“You’ve got me, Lois,” Clark murmured, lowering his voice. “I’ve come for that black chiffon number we discussed last night.”
Lois grinned naughtily, setting her hand on his chest. “I actually had been tempted to wear it today. If you asked to borrow it, it would have left me with…”
Clark swallowed. “Nothing.”
She pointed her stir stick at him. “Precisely.”
“Lois, what I want to say is…” He followed her down the steps towards her desk.
“I know what you want, Clark,” Lois said, continuing to tease him.
“You do?” Clark actually had the gall to look flummoxed. Poor man.
“I know you much better than you think,” she replied. She paused a moment to let that sink in and then asked, “How much to do you need?”
“What?” he asked incredulously. “I don’t want money.”
He was such an easy mark. Did he really not think she had figured it out? “Clark, you don’t have to be embarrassed. That’s what friends are for. Just tell me…”
“Lois, I want to go out with you!” He had spoken so loudly, the bullpen had gone quiet.
“What?” Lois was stunned. He had done it. He had actually asked her out. Finally! Her dreams had been answered. She had never thought they would get to this moment. “You’re asking me out?”
“Yes, you know… like on a date,” Clark clarified. He actually seemed mystified that all his hints the previous night had fallen on deaf ears.
This current conversation definitely wasn’t being held with deaf ears. The whole bullpen was listening. She saw some money pass from desk to desk over in the sports department.
Thanks guys for betting against me again.“A date? You mean a real date? Like where I take out my best perfume, the one I bought after seeing
Love Affair, the good one not the remake, and put a dab behind my knee, even though I have no idea why?”
“Yeah… I guess that’s what I’m saying,” Clark replied, a smile brushing his lips. He was thinking about that dab of perfume behind her knee. And him thinking about it made her wonder exactly what he thought about it.
Lois bit her bottom lip as she thought. “I wonder if I still have that sample of
Revenge at home,” she murmured, soft enough just for him to hear, as she took hold of his tie. “I never did get to finish that dance of the seven veils.” She pulled him towards her and then let go of his tie. She remembered seeing Cat use this move on him and wondered it would work better for her.
“Lo-is!” Clark actually had the audacity to blush. A-ha! It did work.
“Clark!” She smiled with a wink. “Did you really think I didn’t know what you were going to ask me?” Lois sat down and he joined her, sitting on the corner of her desk. Her tie pulling trick seemed to break the ice of the bullpen’s curiosity and people started going about their business again.
“Well…”
“It’s not every day that I tell a man that I love him,” Lois whispered, gazing up at Clark. “While jumping off a cliff.”
Clark blanched. “Excuse me?”
“Oh? That wasn’t you. My bad.” Damn. It had been worth a shot. Oh, God! Then that means she just told Clark she really loved him.
“You told Superman that you loved him?” Oh, dear, Clark was starting to look worried again.
“No,” Lois corrected, setting her hand on his leg to calm him down. “I told Superman that I loved you.” She sighed. “I thought I was telling you, hoped really, but I guess I was wrong about that.” She casually shrugged her shoulders, hoping he wouldn’t discern how nervous she actually felt.
Clark set his hand on hers. “Are you saying that you would only love me if I’m you-know-who?”
Lois stared into his eyes and smiled. Knowing he was nervous too, calmed her. “No. I’m saying that I love Clark Kent. You. This ordinary man under this ordinary suit with one wild tie. You being Superman might have made our lives more exciting. And would have explained your frequent disappearing acts. And how you survived being shot by Dillinger.” She shrugged, this time with a wink. “But then I’d have to explain to Jimmy what Superman really
is doing at my apartment at 3 a.m. in the morning. And I’d rather not have
that conversation.”
Clark swallowed, uncomfortably. “Lois…”
“Yes, Clark?” She replied, innocently, savoring having his hand holding onto hers.
“Can we start with that initial date first? And work our way up to 3 a.m.?” Clark asked with care.
Oh, gosh, had she really implied
that to Clark? She smiled demurely, feeling a slight flush rise to her cheeks as she opened to mouth to respond. At that moment Jimmy came up to her desk and interrupted.
“Lois, the reason I called you when I was looking for Superman the other night…” The young photographer paused and looked at Clark and then at Lois. Then he looked at Lois’s hand on Clark’s leg and Clark’s hand on Lois’s hand on Clark’s leg. Then he returned his gaze to Clark’s face, where it was obvious that Clark was waiting anxiously for Jimmy to finish his sentence. Jimmy took a step back and then another. “I don’t know, Lois. Maybe I thought you were letting him crash on your sofa again, like last weekend, ‘cause you are just friends. That’s it. That’s all. Just friends. You know, I think I hear my phone ringing. Got to go.”
“Lois, you’re going to have to say ‘yes’ now,” Clark informed her after Jimmy had left. “It’s already around the newsroom.”
“Clark, are you saying that if it’s water cooler gossip then it must be true?” she asked him incredulously. “We work at the
Daily Planet, not the
National Inquisitor. We deal in facts. And the fact of the matter is… I’ve already accused you of being Superman and hiding it from me. And I confessed that I love you. What’s a little date after all that?”
“Heaven.”
“Nah. There has to be someplace better than that,” she teased, standing up. She leaned close to his ear. “Maybe that someplace better is where we’ll go when we finally have that first kiss.”
Clark swallowed, standing up as well. “Lois, I hate to disappoint you, but we’ve already had our first kiss. And our second… and our third.”
Lois laughed. “Well, here’s to lucky number four.”
Clark looked at her expectantly. Did he want a kiss? No, evidently, he wanted a clear answer to his question.
She smiled, leaning forward to set a soft unexpected kiss on his lips. “Yes, Clark. I will date you.”
His face lit up as if doused in sunshine. Lois had never seen him happier. She liked knowing she had made him feel that way.
Then that look disappeared as a new one appeared. He stopped focusing on her and seemed almost to be listening to something. Yeah, right, Buster. You’re not Superman.
Clark looked at her apologetically. “Lois, I’ve got to…” He paused.
“Zip home and pick me up some of that Cheese of the Month you’ve been bragging about?” she suggested. Two could play this game. If he was going to throw out some dodgy excuse, the least she could do was make it a better one.
He froze for a moment and then grinned in elation. “You read my mind,” he said, jogging out of the room, loosening his tie.
“Take your time,” she called after him. “I’ll leave you a note if I head out anywhere.”
***
Several hours later, lunch was fast approaching and Clark had yet to return. Lois still felt like celebrating. She was in love with a wonderful man, who might – or might not – be Superman. And, strangely enough, it was all due to Jimmy Olsen’s drunken exploits and the note Superman had left for him. Lois walked up to the young researcher’s desk and started swaying back and forth, almost in a jubilant little girl fashion.
Jimmy glanced up at her. Then that glance turned into a full blown stare. “Lois, are you feeling okay?”
She smiled and Jimmy swallowed. Oh, dear, had her lighthearted smile been interpreted as an evil ‘you’re dead meat, Jimmy’ smile? “I’m heading to lunch at the café across the street and wondered if you wanted to come. My treat.”
Jimmy’s jaw dropped. “Lois?”
Perry had overheard this tidbit, stopped and stared at her as well. “Lois?”
“What?” she snapped, brushing aside her joie de vivre and pressing her lips together. “A girl has got to eat.”
“Sure,” replied Jimmy hesitantly, glancing up at their boss.
“I’ll come too,” said Perry. This surprised Lois. The Chief never went out to lunch.
“Oh, come on, guys. I’m not acting that strange. I just felt like sitting in the sunshine and having some lunch,” she harrumphed, marching back to her desk.
Men!“She’s floating,” Perry murmured to Jimmy. “Lois doesn’t float.”
“CK finally asked her out,” Jimmy mumbled back.
"Ah. I thought it might be that. Took him long enough,” Perry replied. “That man must be blind as a bat not knowing Lois is half in love with him.”
Lois rolled her eyes as she jotted a note to Clark. Was there anything in her life that the Chief didn’t know about? She dropped the note on her partner’s desk and grabbed her briefcase. “You boys ready?”
“Boys?” Perry inquired.
“When you gossip like little girls, you get to be called boys,” Lois replied, knocking her chair back under her desk with a bump of her hip. Perry chuckled while Jimmy just looked ashamed.
“Where’s Kent?” Perry asked as they rode down in the elevator.
“Story,” she replied vaguely. “He’ll meet us at the café.”
They were just being seated when Clark joined them. “…Um, guys…” He glanced around and lowered his voice, “Why don’t we eat at that place down the block?”
“Kent, we’re already here,” replied Perry tersely.
“Man, I haven’t eaten here since the
Planet…” Jimmy said and then let his words fade.
They all looked up at the globe circling across the street and smiled.
“It’s still a beautiful sight.” Their boss sighed.
“It sure is,” agreed Lois as her eyes came down and met Clark’s. He had sat down in the chair next to hers.
“I still think that the restaurant down the street…”
Lois raised an eyebrow at her partner. What was up with him?
Jimmy opened his menu. “Do you think they’ll let me add a fried egg to my ham and cheese?”
A shadow darkened their table as their cute, blonde, bouncy waitress approached. Clark actually cringed. Had
he dated this woman? The server took one look at them and her eyes turned black and fierce. “Hi, my name is Candy,” she growled with a sneer. “And there is no way in hell I’m going to be your server today.”
Oh!
Jimmy blanched a moment before Candy dumped her entire pitcher of ice water on top of his head and marched off.
“What the…?” stammered the Chief. Obviously it was only Lois’s life that Perry knew every detail of.
“Candy! Wait!” Jimmy gasped, jumping to his feet and running after her.
Lois scooted her chair closer to Clark’s. “How did you know this Candy was Jimmy’s Candy?”
Clark smiled at her sheepishly.
Lois pressed her lips together. “As a matter of fact, Clark. How did you know Jimmy’s drunken intended was named Candy at all? I don’t remember mentioning her name when I told you the story.”
Her partner’s smile became even more sheepish. She hadn’t thought that that was possible. He swallowed as she waited for an answer. Finally, Clark confessed, “Jimmy called me first the other night. I’m the one who told him to call you to see if you could contact Superman. I thought it might delay him long enough for me to catch a cab and get over to him and stop him from running off to marry Candy.”
Lois glared at Clark before pulling her briefcase into her lap, flipping it open and pulling out Jimmy’s ‘Superman’ note – still in its baggy – and flinging it in her partner’s face. “So, you wrote this? Not Superman?”
There was Clark’s sheepish smile again.
She scooted her chair closer to him as she faced him to yell, “I spent all day Saturday tracking down a handwriting sample from Superman to compare that to and it
was written by you the entire time!”
Clark moved his chair closer to hers as well. “If you hadn’t run off on your fool’s errand leaving me high-and-dry at the office, I would have been able to correct you on your asinine assumption earlier.”
“Asinine?” Lois snapped. “Well, if you had just signed your note to Jimmy I never would have spent all day thinking it was written by Superman.”
“Well, if you weren’t so obsessed with Superman you would have recognized my handwriting,” Clark retorted.
"And if you had signed that note I never would have agreed to go out on a date with you,” she said glaring at him.
Clark pointed at her. “A-ha! So, you admit it. You only agreed to go out with me because you thought I was Superman.”
Lois snorted and turned her back on him, crossing her arms. Clark mimicked her only with a scoff instead of a snort.
Perry whistled and formed a T with his hands. “Time-out, you two. As of this moment I’m installing a no-dating policy at the
Daily Planet.”
She turned to her boss and placed her hands on the table. “
NO!”
At the same time Clark pleaded, “
Chief!”
With skepticism Perry looked between the two of them. “No?”
Lois gazed at Clark and he glanced over at her and they both smiled. She dropped her hand off the table and Clark took hold of it with a squeeze.
The Chief two-finger pointed at Clark and then at Lois and then back again. “This. This thing between you isn’t going to become a problem at work?”
“It won’t,” Clark promised, running his thumb over the back of her hand.
“Lois?” Perry asked.
She shrugged. “Clark and I always act like this. Dating or not.”
Their boss looked to the sky and muttered, “Great shades of Elvis!”
Clark smiled at her, squeezing her hand again.
Lois flipped open her menu and glanced at her partner out of the corner of her eye. “So, Smallville, where’s my cheese?”
*** The End *** Epilogue Comments
