Wednesday October 29, 2008
Lois pulled a clean towel from the drawer and started to dry the pots and pans sitting in the rack beside the sink. She heard Clark’s quick steps on the stairs, and smiled as he walked through the downstairs and into the kitchen to join her.
“Out like a light. I am the undefeated champion of bedtime,” he crowed, sliding his arms around her waist and kissing her neck.
“I feel like we’re really both winners here,” she countered, placing the pot and towel on the counter and twisting in his grasp until she faced him. She slid her arms around his neck and gave him a quick kiss.
“I suppose I’ll share my victory with you,” Clark conceded with a smile, before dipping his head to steal a longer kiss. “I have an idea of how we can celebrate.”
Lois laughed, stroking the hair at the nape of his neck and basking in his love. “Trust me when I say I’m tempted, but I absolutely have to work tonight. The election is a week away and I’m not remotely prepared. I’m supposed to spend all day with Devonte tomorrow, and I need to go over this new data and prep some questions.”
“I actually have a huge stack of papers to grade in my car. I guess we’ve been a little distracted,” he said with a playful grimace.
“Go get your papers and we can work together?”
“Your wish is my command.”
Lois rolled her eyes and gave him a gentle shove. Clark turned on his heel, whistling as he strode to the front door and disappeared into the driveway to collect his briefcase. She finished drying and putting away the dishes quickly, then retrieved a stack of papers, a few folders, and her laptop from her office and brought them to the living room.
She was just arranging her things on the coffee table when Clark arrived with his own stack of folders.
“I’m just going to run upstairs and change,” she said as he started arranging his things at the other end of the couch.
Upstairs, she changed into leggings and a t-shirt, then added warm socks and a sweatshirt to combat the fall chill.
When she returned to the living room, she saw that Clark had turned on the gas fireplace and topped off their wine glasses from dinner.
“This is awfully cozy,” she said, perching on his lap and dipping her head to kiss his neck.
“This does not look like working,” he teased, laying one hand on her knee and sliding it slowly up her thigh, before scooping her up and depositing her gently on the couch beside him.
She pouted playfully, and he held up one finger. “Work first. Then play. I don’t want you mad at me tomorrow when you show up to your interview underprepared.”
She flashed him a smile and then reached for her top folder. He snaked one arm around her shoulders as she leaned back against him. She slid her gaze to the side, watching as he opened a file of student assignments and began to read the top article, making notes as he went.
“Is this okay?” she asked, snuggling in and opening her folder.
“Perfect.” He squeezed her arm gently and dropped a kiss on the top of her head before turning his attention back to his grading. Lois closed her eyes and took a couple breaths to slow her galloping heart and then began to dig in.
Within minutes her attention was firmly on the papers in front of her. List after list of polling places were cross referenced with opening and closing dates, number of registered voters they served, addresses and distance from nearby locations, and more.
It was clear there was a pattern of under-serving minority and poor communities with locations in those neighborhoods closing at nearly the same rate locations were being opened in suburban neighborhoods. A shift in population could account for some of it, except that the more she dug into population records, the less they seemed to support a shift from inner city neighborhoods to suburbs. In fact the rate of population growth in both areas seemed to be holding pretty steady.
After an hour or so, the numbers were swimming on the page and she needed a break. She stretched and stood, leaving her work in piles and walked to the kitchen.
“Clark? You want some tea?” She called, placing the kettle on the stove.
“Sure,” he said softly from behind her, causing her to jump. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
He rested his hands on her waist, and she tilted her head to the side in silent invitation. He pressed a long series of slow gentle kisses along her neck and shoulder and she sighed contentedly, relaxing into his embrace.
The kettle whistled and she made the tea, while Clark leaned against the counter watching her. She handed him a steaming mug, and they made their way back to the couch.
“You have a minute for a quick break? There’s something I want to show you,” Clark said as she settled into the corner of the couch cross legged and set her mug of tea on the end table to cool.
“Sure,” she agreed.
He flipped through a stack of graded papers and pulled one from the middle, extending it to her. She raised an eyebrow as she reached for it.
“Just read it. Tell me what you think.”
Lois began skeptically, unsure why she would be interested in something written by one of his students. The article caught her attention quickly though as it alleged unsafe hiring practices by the University. It clearly and succinctly outlined the author’s claim that multiple employees in the student dining hall had violent criminal histories with their supporting arrest and sentencing information all laid out in detail.
Lois sat up straighter and read with more interest. The University advertised a strict screening process for all campus employees as part of their pledge to prioritize student safety. But dining hall employees were outsourced by the University and were technically employed by a separate food service company. A company that failed to screen its employees at all, apparently. And the University had failed to disclose this information to students, putting them at risk.
“This is really good,” she said, looking up at Clark, who was watching in anticipation.
She finished the rest of the article quickly, noting the excellent writing as well as the obviously compelling research. She sat it down and looked back up at Clark.
“She went undercover as a dining hall employee,” he told her. “Apparently one of her roommates went on a date with an employee, who mentioned some of the guys he worked with were super creepy, and at least one of them had done time in jail. So she got a job in the dining hall and worked undercover for a month, digging up dirt on various employees and then cross checking for criminal charges.”
“Wow,” Lois said, obviously impressed. “Well, she definitely earned the A. She’s one of your senior seminar students? Is she looking for an internship?”
Clark smirked, and flipped the folder over so she could see the label.
“101? She’s a freshman?” Lois asked, genuinely shocked.
Clark nodded. “A first semester freshman.”
“Okay, now I’m really impressed.”
“Yeah, she’s clearly the standout student in my class. I was thinking about offering to mentor her, but then I thought…what she really needs is a fierce, determined, brilliant woman to mentor her. Someone who has risen to the top of her field and could give her insight not just on writing and investigating, but also on navigating the boys club of journalism.” He looked at her expectantly and scooted closer with a winning smile.
Lois laughed but shook her head. “I’m swamped at work and behind on my book, not to mention…busy at home,” she said. Her eyes trailed suggestively from his rolled up shirt sleeves to his loosened tie. She reached out and grabbed the tie, tugging him closer for a kiss.
“If you’re trying to distract me, it’s not going to work,” he teased, as they separated. “Also, I happen to know she’s a Lois Lane superfan.”
“Oh really? And how do you know that?”
“Because the first assignment I give my 101 students is always an essay on why they want to study journalism and what kind of reporting they want to do. She wrote me a ten-page manifesto on your career. Ten pages in which, I would like to point out, my own contributions were little more than a footnote. It was quite humbling really,” he told her, eyes twinkling.
She laughed. “Fine. Give her my email address.”
He beamed at her, and her breath caught in her throat. She tugged on his tie again, lifting her face to his, and he didn’t hesitate. Her hands slid around his neck, urging him on as his lips caressed hers.
Suddenly he stiffened and pulled back muttering, “Not now.”
She smiled and rolled her eyes. Then she relaxed her grip on him, stroking his cheek as she let him go. “Go ahead. But hurry back. I’m not done with you.”
“I love you,” he said, his voice gravely with emotion. Then he kissed her once more briefly and stood.
“I love you too,” she said, nodding toward the stairs. “Go.”
She heard him jog upstairs and then heard the opening and closing of the balcony door followed by the soft sonic boom that meant he was in a hurry.
Without Clark to distract her, she flew through the rest of the research, making two full pages of notes to follow up on and an additional page of questions to ask Devonte tomorrow. With that finished, she decided to work on her book for a while. The next two chapters were heavily outlined already with copious notes and lists of details to be included. Within minutes her fingers were flying over the keys, weaving the details into a narrative.
She barely noticed when the balcony door opened and closed and then Clark jogged downstairs and joined her in the living room. She tilted her cheek to him in invitation and he kissed her sweetly before sitting back in his spot on the couch.
“Everything okay out there?” she asked without looking up from her screen, fingers still moving.
“Mmmhmm. The bank alarm that drew me out was a false alarm, but I managed to do some good while I was out. Nothing noteworthy.”
She nodded, still typing. After a moment, she realized he was watching her and hadn’t begun to resume his own work. “What?” she asked. “Why are you looking at me?”
“I always forget how beautiful you are when you’re in the zone,” he said softly. “No matter how many times I see it, you always take my breath away.’
She paused and looked up to meet his gaze. “Don’t fall for me, Farmboy,” she teased.
“Too late,” he whispered.
She smiled despite herself and crooked a finger at him, beckoning. He grinned and leaned forward for a kiss.
When they separated, he gave her a wink and reached out to gather his stacks of homework to grade. She smiled and looked back to her screen, then resumed her typing.
She flew through the end of the first chapter and had just started on the second when she hit a wall. Nothing was coming out right, and she was spending more time erasing than writing. Clark was long finished with his grading and had turned on the television to watch LNN, the volume low enough that she couldn’t hear it.
She shut the lid of her laptop and stretched. “Done. My brain can’t focus anymore.”
He turned and smiled at her. “It looked like a productive night though?”
“Very.”
“Good. You should get to bed, and I should go.”
“Go?” she asked, brow furrowing in confusion, brain not fully back in the present after being lost in writing for so long.
“Home,” he replied with a chuckle. “It’s almost midnight, Lois. If I stay any later, you are going to be cursing me when your alarm goes off.”
Lois’ heart dropped into her stomach. Suddenly everything was clear and the fog of her writing was fully lifted. She knew exactly where she was, and how they had gotten here.
“Oh my god,” she whispered softly, tears pooling in her eyes. “I forgot.”
“Forgot what?” Clark asked, obviously concerned. “What’s wrong?”
“I just… For a minute I forgot you had another home. I just thought… Oh god. This should be our life right now. This should be every night.”
The confusion melted from his face and he moved quickly to kneel in front of her.
“Hey. It’s okay. I know. I know.”
She folded herself into his arms, trembling and crying softly. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I did this to us. I broke us.”
“No,” he said firmly, pulling her back until she looked at him. He waited until he seemed sure that she was listening and then continued. “You did not break us. The world broke us. Life broke us. This is not your fault. I do not blame you, and I won’t let you blame yourself.”
She shook her head, curling her arms around her knees and breathing hard and fast. “Not then. But later. She’s right. She was absolutely right.”
“Later when? Who was right? What are you talking about, Lois?”
“Dr. Booker. The sunk cost. She said I was scared to try again, not because I was afraid we would fail, but because I was afraid we would succeed. Because that would mean admitting I was wrong about needing a divorce to begin with. And I’m scared she’s right.
“When I told you I wanted a divorce, I really believed it was the only way. I still think it might have been the only way. We were hurting each other, and I was scared we were going to hurt the kids. I had to make it stop. It was a wake up call.
“But then we did the work. We spent a whole year in therapy together. We tried so hard. You did everything I asked of you and more. And then I went through with it anyway. I should have changed my mind then. I should have listened to you. If I could go back... I should have trusted us to keep working and keep growing together. I should have stayed to fix our family.
“I said I couldn’t do it because I didn’t trust that we could really fix things, and I thought that it would just prolong the inevitable and everyone would hurt more, especially the kids. I think I really believed it then. It broke my heart to sign those papers, but I really believed it was the right thing to do.
“But then later, as time went on, and we were both still in so much pain, I had to know I was wrong. We were so good together, I had to know we could make it work if we tried. I could have ended it at any time. I could have gone to you and told you I was wrong, and I wanted to try again. But I didn’t.
“I told myself it was because I was being strong and doing the right, hard thing. But maybe it really was because admitting that meant admitting I never should have signed those papers. And the longer it went on, the more it was my fault. The longer we were apart for no real reason, the more damage I’d have to admit to causing. And I couldn’t bear to think about that. About putting us through all that for no reason. About all those wasted months and years. I had invested in this belief that the divorce was necessary, and I couldn’t cut my losses. Oh my god. What did I do?”
When she couldn’t say anymore, she rested her head on her knees and sobbed. Clark had listened in silence, kneeling in front of her, hands on her thighs. He sat for another minute, just letting her cry, and then scooped her into his arms and turned to sit on the couch, holding her. She melted into him, head on his chest, weeping.
“I love you so much,” he whispered finally, stroking her back. “It’s not your fault. Did you hear -- really hear -- what Dr. Booker said about sunk cost fallacies? It’s not a belief system. It’s not a conscious decision we make. It’s a logical fallacy. It’s a trick our brain plays on us. This isn’t about being stubborn. We want to believe that we’ve made the right decision, so we keep investing in that decision waiting for the payoff. You weren’t trying to hurt us. You were trying to protect us. All of us. Maybe you weren't ready to see that the investment was never going to pay off before now. But now that you see, look at what you are doing. Look how hard you’re working, how vulnerable you’re being. I’m so proud of you.”
“How?” she choked out. “How can you say that? How do you not hate me?”
“I could never hate you,” he whispered, kissing the top of her head. “I love you so much.”
“I don’t know how to do this. It hurts so much,” she whispered.
Her mind reeled with all the times she could have admitted how wrong she’d been. Even if she hadn’t been ready to admit it initially, the last two years had been filled with opportunities. So many wasted chances to break down and confess how much she missed him, how much she wanted to fix their marriage. So many times she pushed him away. So much wasted time. So many nights sitting alone and lonely when she could have had this.
When the storm passed, and she lay still in his arms, he finally spoke again. “We can’t get those years back. And we can’t know what might have happened if we could go back and do things differently. Maybe we weren’t ready then. Maybe it had to be now. Maybe we needed to travel the path we did back to friendship and then more.”
“Do you really think so?” she asked, raising her head.
He cupped her cheek and took a ragged breath. “I don’t know, Lois. I don’t know anything. Except that I love you, and I’m so happy to have you back. I don’t want to waste our happiness trying to figure out who’s to blame or feeling guilty about the past. I don’t want to waste anymore time. I just want to love you and be happy.”
“I don’t know what we do next. I don’t want to go slow. I don’t want to waste anymore time.”
He smiled, his thumb stroking her cheek gently. “I don’t want to go slow either. But the next couple of weeks are going to be really crazy. Halloween. Election Day. My mom is going to be in town. We’re supposed to sit down and talk to Mattie about...you know. Maybe we don’t need to know exactly what to do next here. Maybe we can just see what happens and figure out the next step when we get there. Maybe we just need to take a minute and be in love.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down for a kiss, surrendering, letting his love push away the guilt and sorrow for the time they lost. Gradually the intensity of their kisses slowed, and she sighed as he pulled his lips from hers and rested his forehead against hers.
“Don’t leave me,” she whispered. “Please.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” he promised. “I love you.”
“Tonight, I mean,” she pleaded softly. “Please stay. Just hold me. I can’t bear for you to leave. I need you.”
He nodded, swallowing noisily. “Okay.” He stood, tugging her up off the couch and threading his fingers through hers, giving her hand a gentle squeeze. “Come on. Let’s go to bed.”
She nodded and he let go of her hand, striding over to the fireplace to extinguish the flames and gathering their empty wine glasses and mugs and carrying them into the kitchen. She gathered up her laptop and files, taking them to her office and packing the things she needed for the next day in her bag.
When she came back out, he had an arm full of folders and his keys in his hand. Her stomach lurched, sure he had changed his mind about staying. He looked up and obviously clocked her fear.
“Hey,” he said, reaching for her and shaking his head. “I’m not leaving. I’m just going to drive my truck home in case the kids wake up early. Then I’ll fly back. I’ll be back in five minutes, I promise. It’ll just be easier not to worry about the truck in the morning.”
She nodded, grateful he was thinking rationally since she obviously wasn’t. “That’s smart. Thank you.”
He kissed her gently. “I’ll be right back,” he said, and then he slipped out the door and down the driveway.
She locked the door, turned out the lights and went upstairs. In the bathroom, she washed her tear-streaked face and brushed her teeth, then traded her clothes for a tank top and sleep shorts.
When she came out of the bathroom, her face lit up. He was sitting on the bed wearing soft cotton shorts and a sleeveless t shirt. His glasses were off, sitting on the nightstand where they’d rested every night when this was his room too.
“I told you I’d be right back,” he said with a smile. He pulled back the covers and patted her side of the bed. “Come here.”
She turned off the overhead light, letting her eyes adjust to the moonlight filtering through the windows, and then walked quickly to her side of the bed, sliding under the covers and into his arms. Her head rested on his chest, feeling the steady rise and fall of his breathing. His arms curled around her, dragging her closer so her body pressed along the length of his. She crooked one leg over his, tangling their limbs together, and slid one hand up his stomach, coming to rest on his chest. Her fingertips stroked his chest gently, and her body shuddered as she took a shaky breath and then exhaled, relaxing into him completely.
He stroked her hair, sifting his fingers through the silky layers. She closed her eyes, and tried to fall asleep but her body tingled everywhere it touched his, and the way he was playing with her hair was not having its intended relaxing effect. She lifted her head to look at him and found him looking at her with a fire she wasn’t expecting.
“Clark?” she whispered, and then his mouth was on hers. Her hand tangled in his hair and he flipped her onto her back, hand starting at her waist and blazing a trail up until it cupped her cheek and held her in place, deepening the kiss. Her leg wrapped around his thigh, pulling him tight to her.
Her body strained toward him, desperate to be closer to him. She would have climbed inside him if it were possible. His hand slid down her side and stopped at her thigh, tugging her against him. She whimpered, tightening her leg around his.
Their mouths clasped frantically, and she dropped her head to the side, gasping for air and offering her neck. He seized the invitation, trailing hot kisses from her ear to the crook of her neck and then down her shoulder. He hooked a finger in the loose strap of her tank top, pulling it over her shoulder and kissing his way along the neckline, over the swell of her breast. He trailed the finger down the neckline, and she arched toward him, gasping his name. Desperate for his touch. Desperate for this to be real.
He pulled back, sliding his hands up under her shirt and tugging it up. She raised her arms to help him, and smiled as he threw the shirt across the room. She tugged at his shirt, and he gave it the same treatment. Immediately his mouth was back on her skin, his hand sliding up her bare thigh, under the hem of her shorts. Her hands roamed frantically, trying to map and memorize every inch of his shoulders, back, arms, before coming to rest on either side of his face, tugging gently.
Somewhere deep in her subconscious a concern rose in her.
“Wait, wait,” she whispered, pulling his face back to look him in the eye. He stopped moving immediately, waiting for her. “You said...you said we weren’t ready. You said you wanted to take this slow. That you didn’t want to make love until you were ready.”
He kissed her fiercely, and then pulled back to look her in the eye. “Do you love me?”
“God yes,” she whispered. “More than anything.”
“And you’re going to keep loving me?’
“Forever.”
“And you aren’t going to run away from me?”
“Never.”
“That’s all I ever wanted. The rest is just details.”
And then his mouth was on her neck, his hands roaming her body, and her heart felt like it would explode from the pleasure.
“I love you,” she whispered with each of his kisses. “I love you, love you, love you.”
***
She woke the next morning wrapped in his arms, bare legs tangled together. She listened to the steady beating of his heart beneath her ear and sighed contentedly.
“Hi,” he whispered, lifting a hand to stroke her hair, pulling it back from her face and tucking it behind her ear.
“Hi,” she whispered, warmth filling her.
“JP is awake. He’s not out of bed yet, but I hear him stirring. I’m going to have to leave soon.”
She whimpered, and he chuckled softly. “I know. I don’t want to go either. But I also don’t want to explain this to our five year old,” he said.
“Can you stay until he gets out of bed? Can you listen for him?”
“Of course.” He stroked her back and nuzzled his cheek against the top of her head. “I love you so much.”
“I love you, too.”
Last edited by AnnieM; 11/19/21 12:36 PM.
