DISCLAIMER: NOT MINE. I OWN NOTHING.

KISS ME

oXo

CHAPTER TWO

THREE CENTURIES LATER…ON A EUROPEAN VACATION…

CLARK

What they don't tell you about Europe is how completely lame it is.

I should have guessed, though. It was my parents' idea. They're not exactly renowned for their coolness – we are from Smallville, Kansas, after all and the name says it all – or their subtlety. They sent me on this school tour of Europe, supposedly for my education but really to get me away from Kansas for a month and out of my brooding state in my barn loft – my Fortress of Solitude, as my dad calls it, and the name says it all – while simultaneously being able to state with all parental authority and knowledge of knowing what's best for their son that "Clark is on tour in Europe, getting something interesting to write about on college essays." Not "Clark is trying to forget and move on."

Painful admission here: I didn't totally mind because my girlfriend, Lana, dumped me like last week's garbage when some older, insanely rich guy wooed her away with promises of being "open and totally honest" in their relationship. Lex Luthor. Billionaire. My former best friend. And now my ex-girlfriend's current boyfriend. That's a low blow and completely unfair. What teenage boy is "open and totally honest" in a relationship with a teenage girl? Lex be "open and totally honest?" I can't believe she fell for that. But then again, Lana Lang isn't exactly the girl next door I thought she was. Maybe they're perfect for each other. At least being here keeps me from seeing the two of them together, and also forces me to appear like I have some dignity and pride and won't go meddling in their relationship so they break-up and I go crawling back to her, begging for another chance. And who knows? Maybe I'll meet someone.

I was picturing clubs with snobby Eurotrash nobility, riding on Vespas, lounging in French cafés and Greek taverns, and, of course, the occasional topless beach – hey, I'm a teenage guy – (although it is a well-known fact that European women aren't big on shaving their, um, pitular area—I planned to look elsewhere). I thought at least there'd be some cool scenery – gardens, landscaping, meadows, fields and pastures, some outdoor animals grazing on the grass. Some…sun. I never imagined the suckitude I was about to experience—one big bus tour to every museum that offers a group rate. In Smallville, where I'm from, we have one museum, about the founding and history of the town. Here in Europe, every Podunk town like Smallville has ten or twenty. What small town with a population less than a football stadium needs ten or twenty museums? The bus pulls up in front of a museum and lets us out. Our school tour guide, Maddie Haroldhaus – Smallville High event organizer and planner extraordinaire – has this little red-and-blue flag with a picture of a crow in a cape on it – our school mascot – which makes walking behind her the ultimate in humiliation. She walks backward to whichever great work of art the museum's famous for. The assembled flock of Smallville Crows gawk for a full two minutes. Then it's off to exit through the gift shop to spend our Euros on stuff we wouldn't pay two cents for if it was in the Walmart back home.

It's not doing a thing to get my mind off Lex and Lana.

At least my friend Oliver is here. Guess my parents wanted someone older to keep me company and babysit me – hence his tour chaperone duties. Oliver Queen is also a billionaire who has known Lex Luthor most of his life – he and Lex went to a private prep school together and their families were friends and business partners. Oliver and Lex will never be friends or business partners – that's my favorite thing about Oliver right now. I'm glad he's pretending my mother didn't persuade him to tag along on a high school field trip of Europe just because of their political ties – he's my father Senator Jonathan Kent's biggest donor and bill funder. I don't even know what country we're in now. One of those lame ones you don't learn much about in geography – other than the history that pertains to the United States – like Germany, or maybe something weird and only known for food, like Belgium, or something way out there, like one of the "L" ones – there are a lot of names that start with "L." I don't pay much attention to tour-guide Maddie, but yesterday I heard her say the magic word: coast. We're near the beach. Finally the outdoors. Germany has a coast on the Baltic Sea. We must be in Germany. That's when I started formulating my plan.

I shake Oliver awake.

"What the…what time is it?"

"Five thirty, man."

"In the morning?"

"No, at night. It's almost time for dinner."

That gets him up. But when he sees how dark it is, he slumps back on the bed.

"It's still dark, dude."

Can't put anything over on Oliver, at least not where food or sleep are concerned.

"Okay, I lied. But I need to get out of this Tour of the Damned and have some fun in the sun outdoors. With all the dark, musty museums and storm cloud cover and incessant rain outside in every country we've been in the past three weeks, I don't feel right. Something's off. I need some sun. I need to recharge. That's not going to happen unless we can beat the seven o'clock meet-up time and head for the coast."

"Know what would be fun?"

"What, Oliver?" I'm hoping maybe he has some ideas, since I know my parents roped him into this tour – as payment for a political favor – same as they did me.

"Sleeping."

"It's not like they're going to let us sleep in, anyway. You're a tour chaperone. Soon Maddie'll be banging on the door, telling you to get ready and help her round up the small crows. This way, you can sleep when we hit the beach."

"Beach?"

Back home in Kansas, Oliver is a serious sun god – a habit from growing up in Star City on the west coast. Now he's the color of marshmallows.

"Sure, the beach." I knew I needed to appeal to his baser instincts. "Think of it, Oliver. Topless French chicks."

"Dude, we're not in France."

"Okay, topless German chicks. Does it make a difference, man?"

"Will there be food?"

Bingo. "Sure. There's a café across the street. We'll get breakfast to fill us up and some sandwiches and snacks for later, but first we have to get out of here before Maddie ropes us into another day on this Tour of the Damned."

Finally, I manage to get him up and out of bed and into some clothes. I'd actually sort of wanted to go look at this National Horticulture Reserve and Botanic Garden we passed yesterday on the way to Museum Number Three. I could see this huge giant sequoia from the road. Of course, we didn't have time to look at it. But I knew that Oliver was way more likely to go along with me to the beach – that speaks his language. At least it's not another dark, dusty art museum, and maybe we can hit the garden on the way back.

I drag Oliver to the concierge desk to ask for directions.

"You couldn't have done that while I was getting ready?" Oliver asks.

"You'd have gone back to sleep. You know, sometimes it's like you work at being a laid back playboy with not a care in the world."

"This boy prefers to spend his summer not working at anything, but playing and getting laid."

I roll my eyes and shake my head at his declaration. We have to stand there for a while, while the concierge guy flirts with the desk clerk. If he doesn't get over here soon, Maddie might catch us.

"Hey, little help here…" I try to make out his nameplate across the counter, but my vision is bothering me the past couple of days and isn't as clear. "Heimlich?"

He ignores us.

"Hey! Don't want to take time from your busy schedule."

When he finally figures out that we're not leaving, he comes over.

"Which way to the beach, Heimlich?" I ask.

"It is Heinrich." He gives me that special glare hotel concierges always give you when they figure out you're American or that you don't speak the language, like he ate a bad wiener schnitzel. Wait, I think that's Austria. Whatever. Like I'm supposed to speak every language in Europe. I took Spanish in school. The farms around Kansas actually have a large migrant worker population and it came in handy. Of course, we haven't been to Spain yet. At least, I don't think we have.

"The beach?" I repeat. "La playa?"

"Le plage," Oliver tries. He tries again. "Strand."

"Ah, yes. Strand." We've pushed a magic button, and suddenly the concierge is our best friend and now speaks perfect English. "The autobus leaves at nine thirty."

"We can't wait until nine thirty, Heineken," Oliver says.

Heimlich maneuvers a shrug. "That is when it goes."

If we have to wait until nine thirty, we're going to get caught by tour-guide Maddie, and I'm going to get stuck in another dark, dank museum. My girlfriend dumped me, my summer vacation is ruined, and this guy can't even help me have one decent day in the sun so I don't die? Okay, maybe that's an overly dramatic exaggeration. But isn't it, like, his job to be helpful? I start to lose my cool. "Is there another bus, maybe? Is this, like, the completely lamest country in Europe? No wonder you guys came in last place and received a participation ribbon in the wars the whole world was involved in."

Oliver nudges me. "Clark, you're gonna make him mad."

I was losing my cool and my temper. "Who cares? He doesn't understand me, anyway. Everyone in this country is—"

"Ah, you are correct, Herr," Heimlich interrupts, "and I am wrong. I have just remembered there is another autobus, a different route. A different beach."

I nod and give Oliver a look like – See? Told you.

"Would you write it down for us?" Oliver asks. "Please?"

"But of course."

The concierge hands us a bus schedule with the routes and times circled. "You want to get off here and then walk to the east." He sketches a map. It looks pretty complicated, but at least the bus leaves in twenty minutes.

"Thanks," Oliver says. "Listen Heineken, is there a place to get sandwiches?"

My cell phone rings. I check the caller ID: Maddie Haroldhaus, looking for us. I grab Oliver's arm. "We've got to go."

"But I'm hungry."

"Later." I drag him away.

"Thanks," he yells to Heimlich. "See you later."

Heimlich waves and he's actually smiling. He says something that sounds like "doubt it" but is probably just some weird German phrase. I pull Oliver out the door just as I spot Maddie stepping out of the elevator.

Luckily, she's already walking backward leading her small crows and doesn't see us.

oXo

"Good thing we got food first," Oliver says on the bus.

"Yeah, you mentioned that."

Actually, Oliver has mentioned that seven times, once every ten minutes that we've been on this bus ride.

"But it is a good thing. Otherwise, we'd be starving. In fact, I'm thinking about breaking out one of the sandwiches now."

Oliver bought enough sandwiches and beer (the legal drinking age here is sixteen!) for a family of four for a week. He also ate a four-egg cheese omelet with hash browns, a stack of buttermilk pancakes, and ten strips of bacon (the waitress called it the "American Breakfast"). Plus, since he got it to go, he actually just finished eating about twenty minutes ago.

"Forget food for a minute, man. Doesn't this bus ride seem a little long to you? I mean, this country isn't that big – even whole and no longer split in two. I brought my passport, but I wasn't planning on using it."

"It's long," Oliver agrees, eyeing the bag with the sandwiches.

I pick it up and hold it shut so he has to listen to me.

"And isn't it going—I don't know—sort of in the opposite direction of the way you'd think the Baltic Sea coast and beach would be?"

"The guy said it was a different beach, but maybe he lied."

"I think that guy messed us up on purpose because you kept getting his name wrong."

"I kept getting his name wrong? And didn't you say his country was lame and deserved to lose both world wars?"

"It is lame. And they did deserve to lose. Haven't you ever seen Schindler's List? So…you think we're going the wrong way, too?"

"Maybe." Oliver's looking at the bag with the sandwiches. "It's hard to think straight when you're hungry."

I'm about to give him a sandwich just so I can think when the bus driver announces that we've reached Heimlich's stop.

"Finally. Time to get off. This is where Heimlich said."

"Heineken, dork. Does that mean I can't have a sandwich?"

"Think how good it will taste when we're sitting on the beach."

Twenty minutes later, not only have we not found the beach, we haven't even found the first street Heimlich wrote on his map.

"It says go three blocks, then turn on St. Jude," Oliver says. "But it's been more than three blocks. Dude, it's been, like, six. Maybe we should turn back. Isn't St. Jude the patron saint of lost causes?"

I'm about to agree when I see a street called St. Jude. "This must be it."

But the next street isn't where it's supposed to be, either, even when we've walked three times as far as the map says. "Maybe you're right," I say. "This is a lost cause."

When we turn back, nothing looks the way it did the first time. The first time, there were houses and stores and bicycles. Now there's nothing but trees and, well…nature everywhere I look. "What the heck just happened?"

"To what?" Oliver is munching on a sandwich.

"To everything—the town, the people, society?"

Oliver wipes his mouth on his sleeve. "I didn't notice."

I see a little dirt road I hadn't seen before. I turn down it, gesturing to Oliver to follow me. "Come on."

But this isn't where we were before, either. It's like everything just disappeared into a fog. Oliver isn't noticing, since he's in a food fog of his own, created by the American Breakfast and German sandwiches. But then we run into something even he can't ignore.

It's a giant hedge. A solid wall of brambles.

"Now what?" I sigh.

"Go back."

"Back where? We're lost. This isn't where we were before. Besides, look." I gesture around me. "All these natural bushes and trees. Back in Kansas, if you had all this nature around, you'd definitely be near the beach at Crater Lake."

In fact, the hedge looks a lot like bramble bushes in Smallville. It has fuchsia flowers a little like the bougainvillea plant that grows there. The weird thing is that it must be three or four stories high.

"So where's the beach?" Oliver asks.

I shrug. "Not back there."

"But this road's a dead end."

"I know. But listen." I cup my hand to my ear to the bushes. "What do you hear?"

"Chewing," Oliver says.

"Well, stop chewing, dork."

Oliver finishes the last bite. "Okay."

"Now, what do you hear?"

Oliver listens real carefully. "I don't hear anything. But I don't have canine hearing like you. "

"Well, my dog ears don't hear anything either. Which means there must be nothing on the other side of that hedge—no city, no cars, no people, just nothing. The beach."

"So you're saying you want two guys to go play in the bushes together?"

"Don't be a dick."

"What? If we don't go through the bushes, we'd have to go over the hedge – and I don't know about you, but I can't fly."

"Dude, did you really have to go there? Look, what have we got to lose?"

"How about flesh and blood? Those thorns in those bushes look sharp and prickly enough to slice even the thickest of impenetrable skin like yours."

It's true. But I say, "Don't be a wuss."

"Can I have another sandwich at least?"

I grab the bag from him. "After the hedge."

Fifteen minutes later, there's nothing on any side of us except brambles.

"I bet I look like the victim in a slasher movie," Oliver says. "What's the German word for 'chain saw'?" He turns and looks my way and does a double take. "Houston, we have a problem. Dude, you're…bleeding."

"It's not that bad."

"The fact that you're bleeding at all is bad, Clark. You know what that means, right? I know of only two things that can hurt you and they both start with 'M.' And the last time I checked, all the 'meteor rocks' were back in Smallville."

"The flowers sort of smell nice." I inhale.

"Right. You stay and smell the flowers and pretend there isn't something weird – that neither of us can handle – happening here. I'm going back."

I grab his wrist. "Please, Oliver. I want to go to the beach. I can't handle another day without the sun. I'm obviously too weak. Look at me."

He pulls away. "What's the real deal? We both know the bleeding has nothing to do with the sun. It hasn't been dark gloomy skies with black clouds and rain storms that long."

I sigh. "I hate going to all those stupid museums. Looking at all that boring art makes my mind wander, and when my mind wanders, all I can think of is Lana kissing Lex…and Lana touching Lex…and Lana doing other things to Lex and with Lex that couples do in a relationship."

Oliver stops pulling. "Wow. That really hit you hard, huh?"

"Yeah." I thought I was just making stuff up to get Oliver to do what I want, but I have this sort of sick feeling in my stomach – and it's not from lack of sunlight or the reason I'm bleeding in the bushes. I'm telling the truth. My parents haven't called in two weeks – because they trust not only me, but for Oliver to babysit me and keep me out of trouble – and this trip is doing nothing to make me forget about Lana. I see her face in every painting in every museum—especially that Degas guy, who painted girls with no faces at all. I always did project whatever I wanted on her. I can't get away from the faceless girls. I can't get away from her. "Yeah. I just want to go to the beach for one day. I need to be outside in the sun. I feel weak and powerless…in more ways than one."

"Okay, dude. Only you go in front. You may be bleeding, but your skin is still stronger."

So I go up front, taking the full scratchy brunt of the brambles that I'm not used to for another twenty minutes—twenty minutes during which I don't think about Lex or Lana but only about the fact that if I lose too much blood, there'll be no one here to help because Oliver will already have bled to death and I can't get a common blood transfusion at any hospital. When we finally reach the other side, I stop.

"Wow," I say.

"What is it?" Oliver is still behind me.

"Definitely not the beach."