SPOILERS: "Hug"
XII.
Chloe's house was just a short drive away, but she had remained tight- lipped the entire trip as an exercise in self-restraint. It was either that, or sob on Whitney's shoulder—the last thing either of them needed, to be damn sure.
She couldn't think of anything to say to him that didn't sound incredibly adolescent, or shockingly invasive, or both. Still, with every mute second that passed, the ball of anxiety in the pit of her stomach grew more and more leaden.
Finally, she half-whispered, "Are you OK?"
"I'm fine," Whitney answered curtly.
"Are you sure?"
"I'm *fine*," he repeated, more forceful this time. Then he softened and added, "I'll be fine. Thanks."
"I'm sorry," she offered lamely, and he clicked his tongue in reprehension.
"What the hell for?"
"Back at the house—"
"Not your fault. Anyway, I don't want to talk about it," he snapped.
Taken aback, she nodded after a moment. He pulled into her street, but came to a halt at the foot. Whitney's nostrils flared furiously as he blurted out, "I would like to know what the hell he's got that I don't, though."
His voice contained such scorn and judgment that she hadn't realized he actually expected an answer until he turned to face her, virtually barking, "Huh? Can you tell me that? What's Kent got that I don't? Because no matter what I do, I can't win, and for *once*, I'd like to know why."
"Uh… I'm guessing that's not a rhetorical question?" she asked, her voice tentative.
"No!"
She swallowed nervously, and thought for a moment. "Well, he's—" Her brow furrowed in thought. She began again. "See, you're—" And she stared off into space intently for a few seconds before turning to study him, her fingers tapping softly on the truck's arm rest.
He bore the scrutiny with tense anticipation.
"You know what, Fordman," she mused. "I don't know. I guess… the only thing I can think of is that he doesn't have your temper."
"That's it?" he cried, his voice rising to near humorous pitch. "I get more pissed off than he does? The guy's practically not human! If he were any more laid back, he'd be furniture."
She shrugged and did a quick internal check. Urge to burst forth with sobs gone. Good. Good.
"I guess he's good looking, if you like that semi-dorky type," Whitney added sullenly. He caught her pointed stare and quickly added, "No offense."
Chloe rolled her eyes. "While I won't deny that Clark is definitely very easy on the eyes, that can't be it. I mean, it's not like you're totally Quasi Modo, anyway."
"I'm not who?"
"Oh, for Pete's sake!" She gave him a leveling look. "I just mean that all the girls at school practically faint whenever you walk by. You're practically the fifth member of N'Sync as far as they're all concerned. Don't even pretend like you don't know." With that, Chloe felt the blush spreading in her cheeks. Had she just told Whitney Fordman she thought he was cute? She could not believe her own audacity.
Whitney seemed considerably appeased by her answer, though. She sighed. "Clark's just a really, really nice guy."
"Yeah. Clark is so goddamn nice he makes me want to dry heave."
Chloe couldn't help herself; she gave a short, hollow laugh at that. At the sound of her laughter, she noted that Whitney seemed to relax just a notch as well. At least he didn't look like he was going to cry anymore either, which was decidedly a good thing, to say the least. Chloe felt sure that, had she been forced to deal with a weepy, sniveling Whitney Fordman this dreadfully overlong evening, the last remaining shreds of her sanity would have happily bid her farewell.
He let out a sullen breath and said, much softer, "Clark's such a nice guy that he's with somebody else's girlfriend as we speak."
Chloe winced. "Good point."
For the moment, Whitney seemed content to breathe steadily and in the process wind down, still gripping the steering wheel and lost in thought. She looked out the window into the quiet neighborhood, and without thinking, she swallowed thickly and joked, "I guess he's a memorable kisser, too."
Whitney gawked at her incredulously with a peculiarly pained expression. "You? You've kissed Kent? When was that?"
Was that the faintest note of jealousy she detected in his voice? Chloe rapidly blinked in succession, determined to dismiss the ridiculous notion from her head. "I… uhh… well, this one time…"
"I can *not* believe it. When were you planning on telling me that?"
She paused uncertainly. "Uh…"
"So, what, are—are you saying I might not be as memorable?"
Chloe silently cursed this petulant boy's uncanny ability to take her completely off guard time and again. She hadn't stammered this much since she'd been forced to do a school play in the fourth grade. "No, I just meant—"
"Because I've gotten no complaints so far, I'll tell you that much."
She hid a small grin at the strange turn in conversation. "I'm sure Lana thinks you're fine."
Chloe was surprised, then, when he completely took this the wrong way. "What's that supposed to mean?" he shot back defensively.
"Nothing!" She was being truthful, so why did he seem to think she was being coy?
"What, you-- you think just because I'm into sports, I'm going to be like—freaking clumsy and bad at stuff like that?"
"I didn't say that!" She noted with dismay how coy that had sounded too. She bit her lip, suddenly consternated. "I'm sure you're *fine*. Really!"
"Oh, I see. I'm fine, but not memorable… like Kent," he retorted, utterly offended.
"Whitney! I have no idea," she said patiently.
"Well, then, kiss me and find out," he demanded, and his narrowed eyes and huffy pout made him look almost child-like in the hazy street light.
"Wha--?" she cried, stunned beyond belief. In the next instant, she made a stilted pointing gesture towards her ear, fully intending to make a crack about auditory hallucinations… but ridiculously enough, no words were coming out of her gaping mouth. It *was* moving. No actual sound though. Damn.
"I have had a day from hell," he said through gritted teeth. "A day from *hell*. I think the least—the very least you could do for me is to tell me whether or not I'm a better kisser than Clark Kent."
"But I don't—" But it suddenly struck her that she was way past the point of no return now. There was no way to explain that she had been joking, that she in fact had no memory of the only time she had ever been in lip lock with Clark, thanks to another one of Smallville's meteor mutants. In fact, each possible explanation her mind raced through was increasingly humiliating. Instead she settled upon, "If that's your idea of a pick-up line, you've got a lot to learn about women."
"Oh, grow up," he growled, and added viciously, "It's not like Kent will think you're cheating on him."
She snapped her head up, her expression changing from wounded to hardened in an instant. Her eyes were like daggers as she snapped, "God, you're an *asshole*." And with that, she reached across the truck, grabbed his collar, and in one swift motion that took him completely off balance, she jerked him towards her and kissed him with dutiful purpose.
With stubborn resentment from her end and unfeeling shock from his, it was a kiss in name only, their lips meeting unresponsively in midair for a brief second. Within a moment, she began pulling away and forming the question, "Happy?"
Unfortunately, the second syllable was refusing to come out. Whitney's lips still seemed to be in the way, strangely enough, despite the fact that she was sure she had backed away.
It foolishly took her a second to realize that Whitney Fordman was, in fact, kissing her back in earnest.
Her mind reeling and numb, she was unable to decide what to do next, and so she let him kiss her. And kiss her. She tried to remember to breathe as, in very small, very slow movements, he kissed both corners of her mouth, then the space between her lip and her nose. She didn't know at what point she'd closed her eyes. She also didn't know at what point her clutch of his collar had turned into her hand resting lightly on his chest. When he kissed her full on the lips again, this time her mouth opened slightly of its own accord.
It immediately became impossible to tell whose tongue was doing what to whom. She only had the dim sensation that kissing Whitney was terribly different than anything she had imagined in her most secret of fantasies, and on the heels of that realization came another one: it was because her imagination had been wholly preoccupied with images of Clark until this very moment.
This very moment, where the one thing that was starkly certain… was that Whitney was nothing at all like Clark.
She was sure Clark, for example, would never press his teeth into her lower lip like that, or pull on it so gently. Clark's lip would also never be lined with the faint spring of rough stubble like that, and… was she nuzzling her lips over his skin? Chloe blushed furiously with that awareness, and she bolted upright in her seat, her eyes snapping open impossibly wide. To her alarm, she realized Whitney was expectantly leaning towards her again, his eyes still closed, and his expression still caught up in the moment. So, she did the only thing that seemed sensible just then.
She punched him as hard as she could in the shoulder.
It certainly served its purpose. With a loud yelp, Whitney was instantly sitting back in his seat, holding his shoulder in pain and glaring at her resentfully. "What was that for?!" he cried.
"Can you please just drive me home?" she asked impatiently, avoiding his offended expression.
"W- why?" he asked. "I thought—"
"Fine, I'll walk." She lunged forward to collect her laptop awkwardly, but was stopped by his hand on her arm.
"Chloe," he said quietly. And she couldn't remember when anyone had ever made the simple act of speaking her name sound instead like a plea and a question all wrapped into one.
She blew air between her teeth, her gaze still glued to the dashboard. "You're a better kisser than Clark. There. Are you happy? Can I leave now?"
Her abrupt cynicism confused him. "I don't care about that," he said immediately, then fell into uncertain silence. His hand slid off of her arm, and she tried not to shiver at the sudden loss. "Just… that was kinda…"
"Stupid?" she offered, with sardonic cheer.
She found his disappointment oddly affecting. "I was going to say 'nice'."
Her eyes drifted up to meet his, but his expression was inscrutable. Her next words were calm, measured. "Look. I'm a lot of things, Whitney… but I'm not dumb."
"I know."
"You're… we're both confused."
His eyebrows knotted into a question. "Uh… about what?"
"You just found out your girlfriend is—"
"Oh. You know, I think … I think I've known for a while." He stared at his lap in shame at the confession.
"How could you stay with her?" she asked quietly, almost offended at the implications.
"I dunno. I guess I kept hoping I was wrong." He glanced back up at her. "You must really think I'm an idiot now."
"If you are, then I am too," she said simply, and he looked grateful for the response. "We're just… a couple of idiots, I guess."
"I guess so." He smiled at her uncertainly, and she returned the exact same smile.
"I just kissed my second guy this semester who's in love with Lana Lang, for example." She rolled her eyes at her own stupidity. "Truly, I must be a glutton for punishment."
"Yeah, well, I obviously have some kind of sixth sense for picking out women who only have eyes for Clark Kent."
"You're clearly a masochist."
"Tell me about it."
Her clutch on her laptop had loosened, and, the corners of her mouth tugging upward into an impish half-smile, she added brazenly, "You *are* a pretty good kisser though. Seriously. Lana's a dummy."
Whitney nodded, grateful for the conciliation. "Kent is too." He paused. "It *was* nice. The kissing."
"It was," she agreed amicably.
He skipped a beat, then threw here a hopeful side-long glance. "You wanna do it again?"
She gaped at him. "Whitney!"
"What! Do you?" And his face was the very picture of innocence.
She laughed, unsure, her blood still pounding in her ears. "I -- No! Goodbye!" Her eyes still wild with amazement, she threw open the truck door and hopped out in one fluid motion, taking off in the direction of her house without bothering to shut the truck's door behind her.
"Chloe!" he called after her.
"Good*bye*, Whitney!" she sang into the night air behind her, not looking back.
He found himself watching her retreating figure until, miniscule, she skipped up her own front steps and disappeared into her doorway. Satisfied she was safe for the evening, he reached across the seat to close the passenger side door, and was secretly pleased to be allowed one last inhale of Chloe's perfume, which still lingered on the seat backing. It was curiously musky and smelled faintly of almonds, not at all like the cloyingly sweet floral scents in which Lana always seemed to marinate.
Lana. Speeding off towards his own home, Whitney realized with sheer amazement that at the moment he was not, in fact, crushed like a helpless bug under the weight of the discovery he had made about her tonight… whatever the details ultimately turned out to be. Oh, his ego was definitely still throbbing with humiliation, but he also knew that was partially due to the fact that Chloe had borne witness to the entire thing. His cheeks burned at that knowledge.
Seeing Kent's truck there had stung, sharply, and it was a betrayal on all sorts of levels for which Whitney wasn't sure he'd ever find the words. He loved Lana—had loved her since the moment he'd first seen her… loved her with an aching, adoring uncertainty he never thought he was capable of before she had come along. But the one thing tonight had not done… was surprise him. He had seen this coming since the moment last fall when he had seen Lana gaze up at Kent with a wonder with which she had never looked at Whitney. Looking back, he felt a pang of embarrassment at how stupidly he had tried to eradicate the threat of Kent with the scarecrow incident, which now seemed glaringly juvenile to him.
And then there was Chloe. Chloe was the variable in this equation, although his head hurt to think of math after having just lived what was quite possibly the longest nine hours of his life. It suddenly struck him that if he were to be perfectly honest with himself, he would have to admit that the last few weeks' worth of stress, anxiety, insecurity and disappointment would have been a *lot* harder to trudge through, had Chloe Sullivan's bright, sunshine smile not been there to egg him on, to dare him to either match her wits or face the humiliation of being silenced by her superior ear for banter.
He thought he'd done rather well at that, all things considered.
Lana, by comparison, was considerably easier to get along with. The degree to which this realization dismayed him took him by surprise. Guys were *supposed* to like girls who were easy to get along with. Who were sweet, and complicit, who spoke softly, who never contradicted you, who were only happy when you were showering them with reassuring attention, who…
… were just like his mother.
The thought left an acrid taste in his mouth. He suddenly became painfully aware of the exact reason his father approved of Lana with so much enthusiasm. Because Lana was exactly the kind of girl his father would have picked out—had in fact picked out-- for himself at Whitney's age.
The only problem was, Whitney was nothing like his father. He knew this wasn't just something he told himself as reassurance. Their personalities had clashed with regular ferocity ever since Whitney had memory… with his father almost always winning out, of course. The things that his father had wanted for him had never been what he'd wanted for himself.
Except Lana.
The epiphany was closely followed by the absolute conviction that the elder Mr. Fordman would hate, absolutely, wretchedly loathe, Chloe Sullivan. The fantasy of the first meeting of Chloe and his father made Whitney smile smugly to himself as he pulled into his driveway. He could already anticipate his father's snapping criticism afterwards: Chloe talked too much. Chloe asked too many questions. Chloe never crossed her legs. Chloe dressed too trashy. Chloe would never, ever take seriously many of the things that were issues of life or death to his father—would rib Whitney, sometimes good naturedly and sometimes not, if Whitney himself would ever start to echo those priorities.
Every one of these insights made him feel increasingly sedated, and he indulged himself in further Chloe-musings as he wandered around the house, getting ready for bed in the eerie stillness. His continued meditation on Chloe Sullivan, he realized, was chasing away the strain of the day's happenings. That, and the sensation of her lips against his still lingered, if he tried hard enough to recall it.
As he drifted off to a much deeper sleep than he could have ever guessed was possible that evening, he groggily determined a few things:
Kissing Lana for the first time had been like claiming a wonderful prize he had won unexpectedly. Kissing Chloe tonight had been like…
Like making an extraordinary discovery. Like finding buried treasure.
Kent was even dumber than he'd ever thought possible.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
TBC…
XII.
Chloe's house was just a short drive away, but she had remained tight- lipped the entire trip as an exercise in self-restraint. It was either that, or sob on Whitney's shoulder—the last thing either of them needed, to be damn sure.
She couldn't think of anything to say to him that didn't sound incredibly adolescent, or shockingly invasive, or both. Still, with every mute second that passed, the ball of anxiety in the pit of her stomach grew more and more leaden.
Finally, she half-whispered, "Are you OK?"
"I'm fine," Whitney answered curtly.
"Are you sure?"
"I'm *fine*," he repeated, more forceful this time. Then he softened and added, "I'll be fine. Thanks."
"I'm sorry," she offered lamely, and he clicked his tongue in reprehension.
"What the hell for?"
"Back at the house—"
"Not your fault. Anyway, I don't want to talk about it," he snapped.
Taken aback, she nodded after a moment. He pulled into her street, but came to a halt at the foot. Whitney's nostrils flared furiously as he blurted out, "I would like to know what the hell he's got that I don't, though."
His voice contained such scorn and judgment that she hadn't realized he actually expected an answer until he turned to face her, virtually barking, "Huh? Can you tell me that? What's Kent got that I don't? Because no matter what I do, I can't win, and for *once*, I'd like to know why."
"Uh… I'm guessing that's not a rhetorical question?" she asked, her voice tentative.
"No!"
She swallowed nervously, and thought for a moment. "Well, he's—" Her brow furrowed in thought. She began again. "See, you're—" And she stared off into space intently for a few seconds before turning to study him, her fingers tapping softly on the truck's arm rest.
He bore the scrutiny with tense anticipation.
"You know what, Fordman," she mused. "I don't know. I guess… the only thing I can think of is that he doesn't have your temper."
"That's it?" he cried, his voice rising to near humorous pitch. "I get more pissed off than he does? The guy's practically not human! If he were any more laid back, he'd be furniture."
She shrugged and did a quick internal check. Urge to burst forth with sobs gone. Good. Good.
"I guess he's good looking, if you like that semi-dorky type," Whitney added sullenly. He caught her pointed stare and quickly added, "No offense."
Chloe rolled her eyes. "While I won't deny that Clark is definitely very easy on the eyes, that can't be it. I mean, it's not like you're totally Quasi Modo, anyway."
"I'm not who?"
"Oh, for Pete's sake!" She gave him a leveling look. "I just mean that all the girls at school practically faint whenever you walk by. You're practically the fifth member of N'Sync as far as they're all concerned. Don't even pretend like you don't know." With that, Chloe felt the blush spreading in her cheeks. Had she just told Whitney Fordman she thought he was cute? She could not believe her own audacity.
Whitney seemed considerably appeased by her answer, though. She sighed. "Clark's just a really, really nice guy."
"Yeah. Clark is so goddamn nice he makes me want to dry heave."
Chloe couldn't help herself; she gave a short, hollow laugh at that. At the sound of her laughter, she noted that Whitney seemed to relax just a notch as well. At least he didn't look like he was going to cry anymore either, which was decidedly a good thing, to say the least. Chloe felt sure that, had she been forced to deal with a weepy, sniveling Whitney Fordman this dreadfully overlong evening, the last remaining shreds of her sanity would have happily bid her farewell.
He let out a sullen breath and said, much softer, "Clark's such a nice guy that he's with somebody else's girlfriend as we speak."
Chloe winced. "Good point."
For the moment, Whitney seemed content to breathe steadily and in the process wind down, still gripping the steering wheel and lost in thought. She looked out the window into the quiet neighborhood, and without thinking, she swallowed thickly and joked, "I guess he's a memorable kisser, too."
Whitney gawked at her incredulously with a peculiarly pained expression. "You? You've kissed Kent? When was that?"
Was that the faintest note of jealousy she detected in his voice? Chloe rapidly blinked in succession, determined to dismiss the ridiculous notion from her head. "I… uhh… well, this one time…"
"I can *not* believe it. When were you planning on telling me that?"
She paused uncertainly. "Uh…"
"So, what, are—are you saying I might not be as memorable?"
Chloe silently cursed this petulant boy's uncanny ability to take her completely off guard time and again. She hadn't stammered this much since she'd been forced to do a school play in the fourth grade. "No, I just meant—"
"Because I've gotten no complaints so far, I'll tell you that much."
She hid a small grin at the strange turn in conversation. "I'm sure Lana thinks you're fine."
Chloe was surprised, then, when he completely took this the wrong way. "What's that supposed to mean?" he shot back defensively.
"Nothing!" She was being truthful, so why did he seem to think she was being coy?
"What, you-- you think just because I'm into sports, I'm going to be like—freaking clumsy and bad at stuff like that?"
"I didn't say that!" She noted with dismay how coy that had sounded too. She bit her lip, suddenly consternated. "I'm sure you're *fine*. Really!"
"Oh, I see. I'm fine, but not memorable… like Kent," he retorted, utterly offended.
"Whitney! I have no idea," she said patiently.
"Well, then, kiss me and find out," he demanded, and his narrowed eyes and huffy pout made him look almost child-like in the hazy street light.
"Wha--?" she cried, stunned beyond belief. In the next instant, she made a stilted pointing gesture towards her ear, fully intending to make a crack about auditory hallucinations… but ridiculously enough, no words were coming out of her gaping mouth. It *was* moving. No actual sound though. Damn.
"I have had a day from hell," he said through gritted teeth. "A day from *hell*. I think the least—the very least you could do for me is to tell me whether or not I'm a better kisser than Clark Kent."
"But I don't—" But it suddenly struck her that she was way past the point of no return now. There was no way to explain that she had been joking, that she in fact had no memory of the only time she had ever been in lip lock with Clark, thanks to another one of Smallville's meteor mutants. In fact, each possible explanation her mind raced through was increasingly humiliating. Instead she settled upon, "If that's your idea of a pick-up line, you've got a lot to learn about women."
"Oh, grow up," he growled, and added viciously, "It's not like Kent will think you're cheating on him."
She snapped her head up, her expression changing from wounded to hardened in an instant. Her eyes were like daggers as she snapped, "God, you're an *asshole*." And with that, she reached across the truck, grabbed his collar, and in one swift motion that took him completely off balance, she jerked him towards her and kissed him with dutiful purpose.
With stubborn resentment from her end and unfeeling shock from his, it was a kiss in name only, their lips meeting unresponsively in midair for a brief second. Within a moment, she began pulling away and forming the question, "Happy?"
Unfortunately, the second syllable was refusing to come out. Whitney's lips still seemed to be in the way, strangely enough, despite the fact that she was sure she had backed away.
It foolishly took her a second to realize that Whitney Fordman was, in fact, kissing her back in earnest.
Her mind reeling and numb, she was unable to decide what to do next, and so she let him kiss her. And kiss her. She tried to remember to breathe as, in very small, very slow movements, he kissed both corners of her mouth, then the space between her lip and her nose. She didn't know at what point she'd closed her eyes. She also didn't know at what point her clutch of his collar had turned into her hand resting lightly on his chest. When he kissed her full on the lips again, this time her mouth opened slightly of its own accord.
It immediately became impossible to tell whose tongue was doing what to whom. She only had the dim sensation that kissing Whitney was terribly different than anything she had imagined in her most secret of fantasies, and on the heels of that realization came another one: it was because her imagination had been wholly preoccupied with images of Clark until this very moment.
This very moment, where the one thing that was starkly certain… was that Whitney was nothing at all like Clark.
She was sure Clark, for example, would never press his teeth into her lower lip like that, or pull on it so gently. Clark's lip would also never be lined with the faint spring of rough stubble like that, and… was she nuzzling her lips over his skin? Chloe blushed furiously with that awareness, and she bolted upright in her seat, her eyes snapping open impossibly wide. To her alarm, she realized Whitney was expectantly leaning towards her again, his eyes still closed, and his expression still caught up in the moment. So, she did the only thing that seemed sensible just then.
She punched him as hard as she could in the shoulder.
It certainly served its purpose. With a loud yelp, Whitney was instantly sitting back in his seat, holding his shoulder in pain and glaring at her resentfully. "What was that for?!" he cried.
"Can you please just drive me home?" she asked impatiently, avoiding his offended expression.
"W- why?" he asked. "I thought—"
"Fine, I'll walk." She lunged forward to collect her laptop awkwardly, but was stopped by his hand on her arm.
"Chloe," he said quietly. And she couldn't remember when anyone had ever made the simple act of speaking her name sound instead like a plea and a question all wrapped into one.
She blew air between her teeth, her gaze still glued to the dashboard. "You're a better kisser than Clark. There. Are you happy? Can I leave now?"
Her abrupt cynicism confused him. "I don't care about that," he said immediately, then fell into uncertain silence. His hand slid off of her arm, and she tried not to shiver at the sudden loss. "Just… that was kinda…"
"Stupid?" she offered, with sardonic cheer.
She found his disappointment oddly affecting. "I was going to say 'nice'."
Her eyes drifted up to meet his, but his expression was inscrutable. Her next words were calm, measured. "Look. I'm a lot of things, Whitney… but I'm not dumb."
"I know."
"You're… we're both confused."
His eyebrows knotted into a question. "Uh… about what?"
"You just found out your girlfriend is—"
"Oh. You know, I think … I think I've known for a while." He stared at his lap in shame at the confession.
"How could you stay with her?" she asked quietly, almost offended at the implications.
"I dunno. I guess I kept hoping I was wrong." He glanced back up at her. "You must really think I'm an idiot now."
"If you are, then I am too," she said simply, and he looked grateful for the response. "We're just… a couple of idiots, I guess."
"I guess so." He smiled at her uncertainly, and she returned the exact same smile.
"I just kissed my second guy this semester who's in love with Lana Lang, for example." She rolled her eyes at her own stupidity. "Truly, I must be a glutton for punishment."
"Yeah, well, I obviously have some kind of sixth sense for picking out women who only have eyes for Clark Kent."
"You're clearly a masochist."
"Tell me about it."
Her clutch on her laptop had loosened, and, the corners of her mouth tugging upward into an impish half-smile, she added brazenly, "You *are* a pretty good kisser though. Seriously. Lana's a dummy."
Whitney nodded, grateful for the conciliation. "Kent is too." He paused. "It *was* nice. The kissing."
"It was," she agreed amicably.
He skipped a beat, then threw here a hopeful side-long glance. "You wanna do it again?"
She gaped at him. "Whitney!"
"What! Do you?" And his face was the very picture of innocence.
She laughed, unsure, her blood still pounding in her ears. "I -- No! Goodbye!" Her eyes still wild with amazement, she threw open the truck door and hopped out in one fluid motion, taking off in the direction of her house without bothering to shut the truck's door behind her.
"Chloe!" he called after her.
"Good*bye*, Whitney!" she sang into the night air behind her, not looking back.
He found himself watching her retreating figure until, miniscule, she skipped up her own front steps and disappeared into her doorway. Satisfied she was safe for the evening, he reached across the seat to close the passenger side door, and was secretly pleased to be allowed one last inhale of Chloe's perfume, which still lingered on the seat backing. It was curiously musky and smelled faintly of almonds, not at all like the cloyingly sweet floral scents in which Lana always seemed to marinate.
Lana. Speeding off towards his own home, Whitney realized with sheer amazement that at the moment he was not, in fact, crushed like a helpless bug under the weight of the discovery he had made about her tonight… whatever the details ultimately turned out to be. Oh, his ego was definitely still throbbing with humiliation, but he also knew that was partially due to the fact that Chloe had borne witness to the entire thing. His cheeks burned at that knowledge.
Seeing Kent's truck there had stung, sharply, and it was a betrayal on all sorts of levels for which Whitney wasn't sure he'd ever find the words. He loved Lana—had loved her since the moment he'd first seen her… loved her with an aching, adoring uncertainty he never thought he was capable of before she had come along. But the one thing tonight had not done… was surprise him. He had seen this coming since the moment last fall when he had seen Lana gaze up at Kent with a wonder with which she had never looked at Whitney. Looking back, he felt a pang of embarrassment at how stupidly he had tried to eradicate the threat of Kent with the scarecrow incident, which now seemed glaringly juvenile to him.
And then there was Chloe. Chloe was the variable in this equation, although his head hurt to think of math after having just lived what was quite possibly the longest nine hours of his life. It suddenly struck him that if he were to be perfectly honest with himself, he would have to admit that the last few weeks' worth of stress, anxiety, insecurity and disappointment would have been a *lot* harder to trudge through, had Chloe Sullivan's bright, sunshine smile not been there to egg him on, to dare him to either match her wits or face the humiliation of being silenced by her superior ear for banter.
He thought he'd done rather well at that, all things considered.
Lana, by comparison, was considerably easier to get along with. The degree to which this realization dismayed him took him by surprise. Guys were *supposed* to like girls who were easy to get along with. Who were sweet, and complicit, who spoke softly, who never contradicted you, who were only happy when you were showering them with reassuring attention, who…
… were just like his mother.
The thought left an acrid taste in his mouth. He suddenly became painfully aware of the exact reason his father approved of Lana with so much enthusiasm. Because Lana was exactly the kind of girl his father would have picked out—had in fact picked out-- for himself at Whitney's age.
The only problem was, Whitney was nothing like his father. He knew this wasn't just something he told himself as reassurance. Their personalities had clashed with regular ferocity ever since Whitney had memory… with his father almost always winning out, of course. The things that his father had wanted for him had never been what he'd wanted for himself.
Except Lana.
The epiphany was closely followed by the absolute conviction that the elder Mr. Fordman would hate, absolutely, wretchedly loathe, Chloe Sullivan. The fantasy of the first meeting of Chloe and his father made Whitney smile smugly to himself as he pulled into his driveway. He could already anticipate his father's snapping criticism afterwards: Chloe talked too much. Chloe asked too many questions. Chloe never crossed her legs. Chloe dressed too trashy. Chloe would never, ever take seriously many of the things that were issues of life or death to his father—would rib Whitney, sometimes good naturedly and sometimes not, if Whitney himself would ever start to echo those priorities.
Every one of these insights made him feel increasingly sedated, and he indulged himself in further Chloe-musings as he wandered around the house, getting ready for bed in the eerie stillness. His continued meditation on Chloe Sullivan, he realized, was chasing away the strain of the day's happenings. That, and the sensation of her lips against his still lingered, if he tried hard enough to recall it.
As he drifted off to a much deeper sleep than he could have ever guessed was possible that evening, he groggily determined a few things:
Kissing Lana for the first time had been like claiming a wonderful prize he had won unexpectedly. Kissing Chloe tonight had been like…
Like making an extraordinary discovery. Like finding buried treasure.
Kent was even dumber than he'd ever thought possible.
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TBC…