“Honey, it’s past one. Are you coming to bed?” Clark had rolled over to find his wife absent from her side of the bed, the sheets untouched, and her robe missing from the back of the door. A quick listen had pinpointed her location as downstairs sitting at the desk.
“Oh, hey,” she turned around and acknowledged him quietly when the stairs creaked under his weight. “Did I wake you? I thought I was being quiet.”
He shook his head and continued his descent. “No, you didn’t wake me. I was just wondering when you were going to join me? I thought you finished your story already.”
“I have.” She turned back around to face the screen. “I was just catching up on Facebook. We’ve been so busy that I haven’t been on all week. Your mom was wondering when she would get to see more pictures of the kids.”
He stopped and stood behind her, slightly massaging her shoulders as he glanced at the screen. “And that couldn’t wait until tomorrow? We have the day off.”
“That’s not really what’s was keeping me.” She clicked on the dual silhouette icon at the top of the page, opening up a short dropdown list. “I got a friend request. Well, two actually. How is it that I get two in one week both from people I haven’t talked to in almost 20 years?”
Clark shrugged to answer her rhetorical question. “Who friended you?”
“Molly and Linda,” she spat out the second name.
Clark raised an eyebrow at the familiar names from long ago and examined the profile pictures next to their names. “Molly Flynn and Linda King.”
“Yeah.”
“Wow! It has been awhile. Are you going to accept?”
“Don’t know. I’m not sure I want to. I mean Molly maybe. It’s not like I we left things in a bad place. We just never did reconnect after her boyfriend tried to kill me multiple times. She moved to Berkeley, California to get in touch with more people who shared her view and that was it. From her profile, it seems like she’s still there and doing well. She’s married and has a teenage daughter, Harmony.”
“And Linda?”
“I can’t believe she has the audacity to still want to be my friend after everything she did.”
Clark paused when he felt her tense at the mention of their turbulent past. He knew full well that all these years had not been enough time for Lois to get over what all had gone on between them. The movie had certainly made matters worse. He thought it was best to keep quiet and let her vent all the reasons that had been keeping her at her computer instead of in bed with him.
“We both agreed her movie was awful. Just look at who played you, Jeff Goldblum as Superman? Some Earth girls must be easy for her to get a guy like him for her little film,” she snorted at her clever remark referencing another film in which Goldblum had also played an alien in blue.
Clark frowned at Lois’s accusation toward Linda. “Lois, I doubt she had that much pull in the casting.”
“Well, maybe you’re right. Remember the Antonio Banderas knockoff who played you? With how she was drooling over you, she probably would have picked someone better. I know you have brown eyes, dark hair, and a good tan, but in no way does my farm boy from Kansas have a Latino accent. That was just too much.”
Clark smiled and shook his head in agreement when he recalled the overdone lunch scene that had ended in the elevator with the cable being cut. In reality, that lunch was only platonic gathering of rival reporters but somehow they had twisted it into a romantic date, complete with clinking glasses, arm entwined wine sipping, and a mariachi band. “I’ll give you that. He was bad. All my lines just made him even worse. I remember just wishing they would hurry up and cut the elevator cable.”
“But still not as bad as Linda’s portrayal of me. I’m not now nor have I ever been blonde in any way. She played my character like a moony-eyed, obsessive, high school cheerleader.”
Clark was getting tired. He knew where her thought process was going since they had hashed out their opinions of the movie nearly two decades ago. He didn’t want to get back into it with her, nor bring up how she behaved towards his alter ego at first.
“Lois, it’s late and you’ve already probably run through everything Linda has ever done to you. If you don’t want to friend her, then don’t accept it. Or if that makes you feel guilty doing that, then do accept and mark her only as an acquaintance so it seems as if you want to be friends. Or…” He bent down in kissed her neck, adding extra encouragement. “Wait and decide tomorrow and come to bed now.”
“Umm…” She leaned her neck to the left to give him easier access. “I’m not all that tired though.”
“Humm…I know. So come to bed,” Clark mumbled against her skin. They both knew what it was going to take to get Lois’s hot-tempered mind to calm down.
“Okay.”
He moved back to give her room to push the chair back and stand. As she rose, she clicked accept on Molly.
“What about Linda?” he asked curiously.
Lois closed the laptop. “She can wait till later.” She took hold of his hand and led him towards the stairs.
At the first step, Clark jerked her to a stop and spun her around to face him. Possessively putting his hands on her waist and pulling her close to whisper in her left ear, “I think you should show me how easy Earth girls really are when it comes to the guy who plays Superman.”
Lois pulled back. “And why would I do that?” she teased.
“Maybe you can convince me that I was wrong and that Linda did have pull with the casting director.”
“Anything to prove I’m right and you’re wrong.” She started up the stairs. Clark took a second to spin into his blue suit, and then zipped on past her back in to bed.
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