Oliver Queen was not a man of many words. He had rather act than talk. That gift was reserved to someone else, a very bubbly, sassy blonde someone else.

That was why he was finding it so hard to keep the words he said, just two days ago, from replaying inside his brain.

Behind him, he could feel Felicity moving around, arranging her own working area with the computers they were able of stealing from QC, since they were both unemployed and unable of spending a lot of money in their technical resources.

Diggle was in front of him, pulling together some training areas, while grumbling under his breath about what to buy to Lyla to celebrate their upcoming baby.

And Roy, still sad and confused about Thea's words was walking around, trying to help Felicity with the heavy stuff.

Surrounded by these people, Oliver tried to keep those words he said from his mind. But they kept coming again and again, the touch of Felicity's hand when he gave her the Mirakuru cure still tingling in his fingers, the way she looked at him while he confessed imprinted in his mind, her sad smile when they talked on the island…

It was a farce to trick Slade… at least, that was what Oliver tried to convince himself of, during the entire time since the words "He took the wrong woman. I love you. Do you understand?" left his mouth in his desolated mansion.

But, no matter what he said to himself or what he tried to engage himself into, they kept repeating over and over and the images kept appearing and he couldn't fall asleep without remembering Felicity's awkward stance in the beach. He had felt that pull when they faced each other, when they tried to convince the other that it was only a charade. But it wasn't and they both knew it.

He now knew what it felt to say those words to her. Those words that, in the past, he used to repeat mindless, just because he felt it was the expected thing to do… because Laurel looked at him with those sad eyes and he felt guilty for cheating and lying and would say the words and see her smile… but even then, he knew he didn't mean them…

But that night, even knowing they were being watched, even keeping in mind that he was playing a part, it still felt the most truthful thing he ever said in his life. Because, he really loved Felicity Smoak, even if he choose to ignore it for the time being.

And for the time being it would be, but not too long… he knew he couldn't stop those feelings from growing each day, or the smile that naturally appeared every time he saw her or she smiled at him, the way his voice changed unconsciously to a softer tone when he was speaking with her or how his hand always found the way to her cheek, shoulder, arm, elbow, hand…

But for now, he knew he had to focus in his present battles. How to gain his family's business once again, how to revive the old name of the Queen family, but most important of all, how to find his sister, to know where and how she was… because Roy gave him her note and he could feel in her words the pain and suffering of his sister and how she was trying to run away from everything that could remind her of her past…

But, Oliver knew that, as soon as those things were taken care of, he would take Felicity on a walk. They would go and see the sunset on the beach, like he knew she liked to do, he would grab her hand, touch her fingers softly, stroke her soft skin and then, looking into her eyes, he would say everything that was inside his mind. He would say what he was really thinking while they played their charade, how it was not a play at all, that it was real, that they were real. That letting her walk into danger was the hardest thing he had to, his real "unthinkable" thing in all that ordeal, that see her with Slade's blade touching her neck and not do anything about that made him hate himself, that it felt like he was stabbing himself in the heart…

And he just hoped she would believe in him, because sure as hell, he would do anything to be with that woman for the rest of his life.