"Well this is going to be awkward." Chloe paced, wringing her hands.
"I managed to get some amaretto and sour mix so we can have a few drinks beforehand." Lana said, pulling out a paper bag from the pantry closet.
Chloe eyed her warily, "You're turning into a regular slush, Lana."
Lana swallowed hard and looked up at her on again, off again friend. "It'll loosen us up so we can put on a good show."
"What kind of a show are we talking about here?" Chloe asked anxiously.
Lana busied herself with looking for two glasses. "We're going to make out in public."
"Make out? You mean kissing and touching and stuff?"
"Yes, the general definition of Making Out."
"In public?"
"Yes"
"For the first time ever?" Chloe couldn't believe those words actually left her mouth once she said them. That sentence couldn't possibly lead anywhere good.
Lana paused in opening the bottles to look up at Chloe. She kept mentally kicking herself about her ridiculous, Will & Grace meets I Love Lucy inspired plan, nevertheless she put on a mask of confidence that she in no way, shape, or form felt.. 'This better work and it better be worth it', she thought as she quickly shot down the idea flitting across her mind that maybe she was emerging herself in other people's private lives so she didn't have to think about her mess with Jason, her lack of a job and the college applications she was almost ritualistically avoiding.
"Well, we could practice before we go out so it doesn't look forced at all."
Chloe knew that Lana was going to say that. She knew those would be the words to come out of the other girl's mouth as soon as she had asked that ridiculous question. She felt herself start to hyperventilate just a little. "Lana…fix me a very, very large drink please."
Lana laughed sharply and poured the drinks.
"As you wish." She said, handing Chloe her glass and regretting her own words as memories of The Princess Bride surfaced.
Chloe drank what Lana had given her far too fast, then suddenly screwed her face up and closed her eyes. "Kiss me."
"What?" Lana asked weakly, getting a bit of cold feet.
"Just kiss me and get it over with." Chloe demanded.
Lana frowned. "I don't think it works that way."
"Oh I think it works exactly that way. It's like jumping into a cold lake in summer time. You just have to get in there and get the shock over with so you can get use to the water. Now hurry up and do it before I loose my nerve."
"Ok," Lana took a deep breathe. "Just keep your eyes closed."
"Believe me I'm not opening them."
Lana leaned in and brushed her lips tentatively over Chloe's who stayed absolutely still and incredibly tense. She pressed her lips to Chloe's a little more firmly as the lips under hers started to soften and then gradually respond. Raising her hands to cup Chloe's face, she could feel the kiss becoming charged and heated. She felt Chloe's hands came up to grasp her waist. Lana's hands slid through Chloe's hair as she licked at Chloe's lips and closed her own eyes. Chloe opened her mouth to caress Lana's tongue with her own as her hands slid to Lana's back to hold her close.
The phone rang and they jumped apart instantly.
"Sullivan residence, Chloe speaking." She cleared her throat and tried to make her voice as steady as possible.
"Hey honey, I just wanted to tell you that it looks like I'm going to be staying late at work tonight."
"That's Ok Dad. Lana and I were just going to go out to the movies tonight anyway."
"I'm so glad you two are getting along better. I have to go, but tell Lana I told both of you to let your hair down and have fun tonight."
"Okay, Bye Dad"
"Bye Sweetheart"
Chloe hung up the phone and noticed that Lana still looked flustered.
"We should probably get going so we can eat and make the movie." Lana suggested.
"Yeah, I'll just go grab my purse and meet you in the car."
"OK"
Chloe blushed and Lana walked out the front door.
"I'll be right there." Chloe called after her.
Going upstairs, Chloe noted that her hands were still trembling a bit.
"Ok, Chloe Sullivan, you can do this. It's for a good cause." She started to give herself a pep talk. "And you're going to get to kiss Lana some more. And your thinking this out loud. You're talking to yourself, responding and analyzing the fact that you're talking to yourself. You're most definitely going to end up in Belle Reve right beside Lex after Lana and Clark get done with you both. But hey, it'll be worth it and at least you'll be in good company."
"Here's how I see it." Lana launched right into her strategy as soon as Chloe got into the car and shut the door.
"See what?"
"Tonight. The Plan."
"Oh?"
"We'll go to the Pasta House, be discreet in the way that screams 'we're being discreet while doing something that we need to be discreet about'. We'll hold hands and sit way too close on the same side of the booth. For desert, we'll split something so we can appear more intimate. When we get to the movies, we'll go in holding hands. It should be fairly crowded. We'll find someone we know who'll recognize us and sit right in front of him or her. Then we'll make out in earnest."
Chloe gulped. "Sounds good. Not too bad."
"Right." Lana's voice seemed different to Chloe. Strained.
"Good." Her own voice was still shaky and she couldn't look at Lana.
Lana started the car. "And we're off"
Chloe gazed out of the passenger side window, trying to think of a way she could get a story out of what they were doing.
A very long and rather strenuous day working for LuthorCorp had completely warn Gabe Sullivan out. He stared a bit mindlessly at the flickering lights of the television while he mostly pushed around the contents of his microwaved dinner. The opening and closing of the front door startled him out of his trance.
"Hi girls."
"Hi Gabe," Lana responded and Chloe chimed in with a simple "Hey."
Gabe raised his eyebrow to their dampened moods. "Was it a good movie?"
"Sure" Chloe shrugged.
Lana responded in a weary tone. "It didn't seem as long as it should have been."
"Well, you know time just flies…" Gabe attempted to make a lame joke, but in his exhaustion, he couldn't bring himself to complete it.
Chloe groaned "Dad" right on cue.
"Right. Well it's late, so you both better get to bed."
"Bed sounds good. We'll go to bed." Chloe said, strangely enough adding, "Separately, of course."
Gabe raised an eyebrow again. "Uh-huh"
"Of course, separately." Lana bobbed her head. Gabe noticed that she looked a little traumatized.
"Goodnight" Chloe and Lana chorused together and then promptly ran upstairs.
Gabe raised the other eyebrow and answered "Goodnight" to an empty room.
"Chloe, get down here!" Lana yelled in a shrill voice, instantly setting off the beginnings of a migraine in Chloe.
"What?" Chloe yelled right back down. Things between her and Lana had become even more tense and weird since their little outing the other night.
"Clark's coming up the drive."
"And?" Chloe really did not want to deal with this right now. Or ever. But being honest with herself, she realized that she spent a lot of time dealing with stuff she didn't want to because she was a bit of a push-over when it came to people she cared about. So she caved in and stomped down the stairs.
"You're going to tell him I'm not here and be all bitchy with him."
"Cause I'm your new girlfriend?" Chloe's mood started to brighten with the prospect of having a 'good' excuse to be 'all bitchy' with Clark. She still owed him for messing with her emotions in the Torch a while back.
Lana smiled brightly, passing Chloe on the stairs. "Yep, and I'll be upstairs monitoring the situation."
"This is so weird." Chloe muttered.
Lana called down, "It's Smallville, you should be use to weird by now."
Clark knocked on the door.
Lana whispered loudly "Get the door."
"I kind of figured that out on my own." Chloe whispered back before opening the door with an annoyed look upon her face.
"Chloe, Hi." Clark smiled brightly.
Chloe noted to herself that Clark never smiled that brightly unless it had something to do with Lana. Somehow she didn't seem to need to muster up the bitterness for her required scene with Clark, although after last night she was currently a little confused about whom she was bitter and jealous of.
"Hi Clark, what do you need?"
Clark's smile faltered. "Lana said I could stop by and borrow a book from her."
"You talked to Lana?"
"Yeah, yesterday"
"Oh."
"Yeah. We're going to try to be friends again." Clark said for what had to have been the millionth time in the last few years.
"Great, that's just great. But you and Lana were never really just friends were you?" Jealousy and anger in her voice, Chloe let her little green demon come out to play.
"Is there something wrong?" Clark's face was now twisted into the really confused puppy look he always used when he 'forgot' that he was suppose to meet Chloe somewhere or write a story for the Torch. 'That's OK.' Chloe thought, 'more fuel for the fire'.
"Wrong? What could be wrong?" The venom in her voice was worthy of a Luthor.
"Nothing I guess. Could you just tell Lana I'm here."
"She's not here."
"But her car's here." Clark pointed out.
"She went for a walk." Chloe countered.
"Alone? But isn't that dangerous?"
"In the middle of the afternoon? Listen Clark, don't go chasing her. She has a right to be alone if she wants to be alone." Chloe mentally derived him for his overactive hero-complex, while also acknowledging that yeah, they lived in Smallville.
"Could I wait here? She said I could borrow a book."
"Fine, wait here." Chloe shut the door in his face and went upstairs to see what Lana wanted to do.
Lana quickly handed her something and shoved her right back towards the stairs, "You're doing great, here's the book."
"Whatever you want oh girlfriend of mine."
Chloe went back downstairs, opened the door and handed Clark the book.
"Here's it is."
"I know Lana's here. You could have just said she didn't want to talk to me." Clark seemed really irritated and put out.
Chloe got an insane and cheap thrill at his anger. "I said she went for a walk."
"I heard her voice." Clark insisted.
"You heard wrong."
"I didn't tell you what book I wanted to borrow." Clark tried to poke holes in her logic.
"Did you stop to think she might have left it out with maybe a note attached." Chloe countered.
"Don't lie to me."
Chloe had to laugh at that. "You know, I don't think Clark Kent gets the right to call anyone else a liar."
"What's that suppose to mean?"
"What do you think it's suppose to mean?"
"Whatever, I'll see you around Chloe."
"Whatever!" Chloe slammed the door.
Chloe went back upstairs again to find Lana jumping up and down with a big grin plastered on her face.
"That was perfect!"
Martha strolled down the snack isle as fast as she could while Jonathon lingered near the Doritos when she overheard some of the women from the PTO speaking in rather loud hushed tones.
"You know what I heard?" Glenda Roberts said with a leer in her voice while noisily chewing bubblegum.
"No what?" Callie Jones asked.
"Gabe Sullivan's daughter is, you know, like that comedian…Helen."
"Who?" Callie screwed up her face.
"That woman with the talk show."
"Ellen??" Both Callie's and Martha's eyes widened.
"Yep, that's right." Her mouth smacked on the gum.
"You don't say?"
Martha prepared herself to interrupt this little gossip fest when Glenda answered back, "Chris Parkinson told my husband that his son saw her with her hands all over that Talon girl that lives with her."
"Lana Lang?" Callie half yelled while Martha mouthed the name.
"Yes! They were kissing and everything. Such a pretty girl too, I imagine she could have any boy she wanted."
Jonathan finally came up next to Martha and 'snuck' a bag of chips into the cart. She motioned him to stay quiet.
"Well, she's been dating Clark Kent, hasn't she?" Callie said that as if it meant something.
"I don't know about that. Those Kents are so reclusive. One never knows what kind of stuff they really get up to."
Jonathon's cocked his head to listen right along with Martha.
"The Sheriff did say that she thought he was a bit odd. I suppose that she could have meant queer now that I think of it."
Martha watched as her husbands face turn bright red.
"Well that would make sense, wouldn't it. A young man of that persuasion dates a lesbian to try to cover it up." Glenda rationalized.
Martha had to put a hand on Jonathon's arm to stop him.
"He's always with that Lex Luthor too. And you know what the tabloids say about him!"
"Certainly! Been there and done it all, literally."
The two women giggled.
"You know I even heard that Luthor boy would drive up to the school and pick up young Mr. Kent and take him back to the castle. Alone if you get my meaning." Callie said in between sniggers.
Glenda looked scandalized. "The gall of some people to do such things right out in the open! I remember Martha telling me one day that Clark got in trouble for arriving late to school after Lex Luthor picked him up fifteen minutes before the bus even arrived to take him there, supposedly on his way to work."
"Uh-huh. Doesn't take much of an imagination to tell what took them so long." Callie made a sucking sound and Martha had to step on Jonathon's foot to keep him back.
"Oh, I can't even begin to imagine."
The women giggled, leaving Martha and Jonathon standing in the middle of aisle nine red faced and dumbstruck.