your first kiss is just a joke, something to make momma kent laugh the way she has been all day. you’re a boy who has missed his mother’s laugh for the last sixteen years and when momma kent tilts her head back and crows at your jokes it feels a little like coming home.
you really never realized how far you ran from it since that day.
so the first kiss is something for her, really, not for clark. you kiss her cheek first and says good night, sweet dreams, and then you do it to clark too, with her watching. laughter bubbles out of her mouth sweetly like a creek. she says your name with an exasperated sigh and you know that clark is rolling his eyes.
it’s nice having a gift that allows you to slip out of the room faster than they both blink. that way neither can see your cheek burning poppy red.
the second kiss is a sleepy habit. it’s been four weekends worth of staying over on kent farm to help with the crop haul and by the fifth saturday you know momma kent is more than used to you giving her cheek a sweet smooch in the mornings. she even lifts her chin a little when she sees you stumble into the kitchen at the break of dawn and there is always a little smile you two share before she sends you off to work.
so when clark is there one morning too, not already up and going at his other chores, he gets one just the same and it’s not until you’re both walking across the yard toward the tractor that either one of you says something about it.
“you know, i could get used to this,” he says.
and you, with your mind running a million miles a minute, can’t help but stupidly ask what. you know what he means and he knows you know what he means but when you turn to look at him and see the halo of the rising sun behind his head and he smiles you think he must really be a saint because he doesn’t actually SAY it.
instead he shrugs, says, “you helping out on the weekends.”
the third kiss is not a joke and it’s not an accident. it’s not even something that’s happened yet, really, but it’s going to because you’re an idiot who has been calculating the risk for several weeks now. you’re instantly reminded of the meme with the bird and the whole, being bad at math thing, and maybe your math will be off.
maybe he won’t smile the way he does when you do it in the morning on his cheek, when you do it in the evenings to make momma kent chuckle.
maybe he won’t ask you for help next weekend.
but maybe he will and you know what they say:
