A/N: Here is chapter 7! I am soooooo sorry! I realize that this is really late, but this week was very hectic and crazy! But hey, better late than never right? So anyways with with my sincerest apologies... I give you...Chapter 7! I really hope you guys enjoy it! Thank you so much for all the great comments!
"I was watching TV," he explained lamely as Felicity felt herself turning as red as a tomato. She watched, mouth slightly agape in disbelief as James turned to Oliver with an easy smile and extended his hand. "You must be Oliver Queen."
She held her breath as Oliver hesitated for a split second and then shook James' hand, his fake billion-dollar smile easily spread on his face.
"James Hayes," she distinctly heard James say.
Suddenly she felt short of air. 'This isn't happening. This isn't happening' Her head was spinning and she wished more than anything that she would bolt upright at any moment and find herself in her bed, struggling to recover from a bad dream.
That didn't happen and it took all of her concentration to take slow, deep breaths instead of gasping for air like her lungs and brain demanded. A part of her wanted to hurl herself between the two men because this was too soon; James had just met the very person who symbolized her 'night life'—the life she'd sworn only a few days ago that she would keep him away from.
It was only when she noticed that the two men had stopped shaking hands and that Oliver's hard eyes were set on her, that she regained her composure and walked towards, a still very shirtless, James. "I—Um—I this is my Ja—uh James. He's…. my best friend," she looked back at Oliver who easily made the fake smile reappear. "James, this—uh…is Mr. Queen, but you knew that already since you shook his hand and everything. You're probably wondering why he's picking me up. Well you see, I was in a car accident a couple of days before I bumped into you and so my car—"
"Oliver what is taking so l—"
Diggle appeared behind Oliver and Felicity bit back the urge to groan and go hide in her room. 'Seriously? I can't get a break, can I? One lousy lie and this is what I get!' Digg's eyes were wide, his eyebrows high and mouth agape.
"I—It's not what it looks like!" She said loudly, waving her hands in front of her.
At this, James burst out laughing and she turned to him, eyes pleading him to stop. He really wasn't helping her case. He ignored her and turned to Diggle. "Hi, I'm James Hayes."
Diggle cleared his throat. "Uh…Diggle," he said forgetting his last name.
"Licity," James said turning to her and she caught the slight narrowing of Oliver's eyes at the mention of the nickname she hadn't heard since high school, "I'm going to finish getting dressed. I'll see you later."
She tore her eyes away from Oliver and Diggle, "Yeah. See you later…" She walked over to the round table where, only half an hour earlier, she had been drinking coffee, and took the keys from the table. Then she wearily walked back over to James, knowing she had a whole day of work ahead of her and dropped the keys of her apartment in his hand. "Lock up when you leave, I have the spare keys at the office."
He smiled and then turned to Oliver and Diggle once more, "Nice to meet you gentlemen." Both Oliver and Diggle had been raised with impeccable manners, but neither man replied. Diggle looked to dumbfounded and confused, and Oliver's jaw was set, his left fist discreetly clenching and unclenching. She narrowed her eyes at both men, but neither one seemed to get the message. James was completely unfazed, and he simply turned back to her, kissing her on the forehead before whispering: "Good luck. Your boss looks like he woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning." Without another word, he turned and walked into her room.
"My best friend," she explained to Diggle, whose eyes were about to pop out of their sockets.
Satisfied with her explanation, his expression shifted to one of amusement as he cast a sideways glance at a very angry-looking Oliver. She cringed; not only had she lied to him, but he'd found out in the absolute worst way possible.
"We're going to be late Felicity," Oliver said, turning and walking down the hallway.
She sighed, she would have to make this up to him with a lot more than a cup of coffee. She quickly grabbed her bag and her jacket and hollered a quick 'goodbye' to James before walking out.
"You are in trouble," Diggle said when they were in the elevator.
"I know."
The car ride was spent in tense silence. She kept her gaze firmly fixed on the passing city. When the car stopped in front of QC, she was ready to all but sprint out of the car. She made it to the executive elevator quickly, but Oliver was fast and stepped in beside her just before the door closed.
"You gave him the keys to your apartment?"
That was not what she'd been expecting him to say, so she simply stared. The elevator doors opened; he took her gently by the elbow and led her into his office. He let her go and walked over to his desk. She was left standing in the middle of the office, feeling beyond guilty.
"Oliver I—I'm so sorry…" She looked down at her feet, unable to meet his ice-blue eyes. "I'm sorry I lied. I didn't mean to—I mean I did, but I—I just needed to keep James away from—"
"Me."
Her head shot up and she met his steady gaze. His expression betrayed nothing, but she knew better. "No! I wanted to keep him away from the Arrow—from that part of my life."
"Me," he repeated.
She shook her head violently. He was partially right of course, but she needed him to understand. "I need him Oliver. I need him to be part of my normal life, so that I actually feel like I have a normal life." She couldn't stand the distance anymore; she felt like the further she stood, the more she hurt him. She moved to stand in front of him where he stood in front of his desk. "I chose this life Oliver," she said, knowing that he would blame himself. "I chose this life, but I need something outside of it. You have your mother and Thea, Diggle has Lyla, and I don't have anyone"
She sighed and looked down again. That sounded pathetic, but it was the truth.
"Mr. Queen, I was wondering if you had any intention of gracing us with your presence in the meeting today." She stiffened at the sound of Isabel Rochev's voice, but did not turn to look at her. "Of course you could stay here with your EA, I would be happy to tell the others that you are otherwise engaged."
"That won't be necessary Isabel," he said curtly. Felicity glanced up at Oliver. His eyes, like his voice, cut like steel and were set on Isabel. "We will be there shortly. Go ahead."
"Of course Mr. Queen," Isabel said mockingly.
As soon as she was sure Isabel had left, she turned on her heel and headed for the door. "We better go Oliver."
"Felicity."
She turned to him and waited, but he didn't say anything. He simply held her gaze for a moment, his eyes softening somewhat to let her know that he wasn't angry anymore. He turned to grab a file on his desk and she headed to her desk to put down her bag and grab her tablet.
Oliver waited for her at the elevator, and when she joined him, they headed to one of the many conference rooms. Everyone turned to look at them as they entered, but Felicity ignored them and sat down. Unfortunately, she found herself directly in front of Isabel who was busy glaring at her.
The meeting went smoothly, but Oliver was very distracted. More than once, Isabel had to almost yell at him to get his attention. Whenever this happened, he would simply blink a few times, glance at Felicity, and then answer whatever question he was being asked at the moment.
"Oliver!" This time Isabel had yelled loudly, and all the other men in the room, Felicity included, flinched, but Oliver didn't even bat an eye. Isabel huffed in annoyance.
Slowly, Felicity reached out to touch his shoulder, now genuinely worried about him. "Oliver," she said softly.
He turned to look at her, his eyes filled with worry, and then he sighed heavily and cleared his throat. "I think we need a break ladies and gentlemen," he said standing.
"It's only been an hour and a half Oliver. You just got here," Isabel said indignantly.
"Nevertheless, I think we need a break. We'll meet back here in ten minutes," without waiting for a response, Oliver walked out.
"Oliver, are you okay?" She asked when she found him sitting at his desk a few minutes later.
He nodded, giving a small smile to reassure her.
She gave him a small smile of her own, knowing that he just needed some air. She was about to walk out when Oliver called her: "Felicity."
"Yes?"
"Who is he?"
She knew what he meant. He wanted to know about James, about the life she'd had before Starling and QC. "My best friend," she said simply, tilting her head to the side and smiling. "He's my Tommy." She saw the flash of hurt in Oliver's eyes, but she needed him to understand just how important James had been to her at some point in her life and how nothing had changed since then.
"How long have you known him?"
"Since third grade. He was the new kid then. He made friends quickly, but we didn't become friends—we were nice to each other, but we didn't become friends; even back then I preferred to keep to myself most of the time. Anyway, in at the end of fourth grade, we were paired together for a huge project. I had to go to his house and he had to come to my house. From that moment on we were inseparable. He was good for me. He made me do things outside of my comfort zone and he was always there to catch me if I fell. I was good for him too—I think. "
"What happened?" Oliver asked once she had finished, his voice low, and eyes full of something she couldn't quite pinpoint.
"Well, we were the best of friends until the end of high school." She shrugged, "Life happened. I went to MIT and he went to Cambridge. We both had tons of work to do and then there was the time difference and I guess we just lost contact... I honestly don't know how I lived without him. I didn't realize how much I missed him until now…"
Oliver nodded. "Felicity?"
"Yes? "
"Whenever you need someone to talk to…about the things you can't tell him, I'm here," he said.
"Thank you," she smiled widely at him in gratitude and turned.
"And Felicity?"
She turned back to him, tilting her head slightly. "Yes?"
"You're going to have to make this up to me," he said smiling and leaning back in his chair.
She laughed, knowing that he was totally right. "I know. What did you have in mind?"
"I'm not sure yet. I'll let you know."
The rest of the day went by quite slowly. The meeting lasted another two hours and there was a stack of paperwork she needed Oliver to read over and sign. Despite his promises to her, he didn't even read one of the papers and she groaned when she realized she would have to force him to do it tomorrow.
She was busy installing an upgrade for the computers in the foundry, while Oliver and Diggle trained. The noises of grunting and punches being thrown were the only things that were keeping Felicity awake. Her eyelids were heavy and her head was nestled in-between her folded arms on the table.
She yawned and blinked at the screen: 37%. Her phone chimed: another message from James. They had been chatting since she'd come to the foundry, but Felicity told him that she would be working late, so he couldn't come over today. She eyed her phone, but yawned again and decided she would reply tomorrow. She lazily got up from the swivel chair and made her way to the couch facing the training mat.
"Felicity, if you're tired we could call it a night," she heard Oliver say.
Eyes closed, she lay down on he couch and waved him off. "No, no. Take your time. I'll just be over here, waiting for the installation to finish." She was even too lazy to move Oliver's shirt from under her head where it had been discarded on the couch, so she simply inhaled his scent and fell asleep.
A slight rocking sensation woke her and she found herself in Oliver's arms as he followed Diggle to the car. She was aware that she should have insisted that he let her down, but she was simply too tired to do so and she was almost sure he would have refused. When they made it to the car, she swung her legs and made a disgruntled noise, letting Oliver know that he could put her down. He shook his head slightly. "Sleep."
She made another disgruntled noise in protest, but Oliver simply opened the door and ducked inside the car, sitting down with her in his arms. "Oliver."
"Sleep," he repeated.
She didn't find his command hard to obey. As much as her mind told her to argue, she found that her body didn't respond, so she simply turned her head into his chest and fell asleep again.
She woke up in her own bed and quickly got ready for work. It was Friday and she was looking forward to a movie night with James and hopefully the whole weekend with James.
Just as she finished her coffee, there was a knock on her door and she opened it to find Oliver. "Morning," she said brightly.
"Somebody's in a good mood today. Morning," he said slightly amused.
"Yep. Let's go!"
"Not to rain on your parade or anything," he said when they were in the elevator; the almost apologetic look on his face let her know that he was about to rain on her parade,"but you do realize that we have a three-hour meeting today which Isabel will be attending as well as a one-hour meeting."
She narrowed her eyes at him, "You just rained on my parade."
He chuckled. "Sorry." He didn't sound sorry at all.
Time seemed to drop dead during the meeting. It felt like they had been sitting there for ages. Isabel looked angry, as usual, but Felicity tried not to let it affect her upbeat mood. She seriously doubted Isabel was even listening, how could she be when she was busy glaring daggers at her?
"Miss Rochev is something wrong?" Oliver said smoothly.
Felicity looked down at her tablet and bit her lip to keep from laughing. Oliver had obviously noticed the look Isabel had been giving her throughout the entire meeting.
"Actually, Mr. Queen, I am not too feeling well. I could use an aspirin and a glass of water," she directed the last part towards Felicity as if she expected her to get up and fetch her the aspirin and water.
"That's too bad. How about we take a break, so that you can go get an aspirin and a glass of water?" Oliver said, tilting his head to the side with a small smile.
Isabel looked surprised and even angrier than usual. That was obviously not the response she had wanted. The other men stood and began to file out of the conference room. "Ten minutes gentlemen. I want to make sure that Miss Rochev is able to get what she needs and has some time to recompose herself."
As soon as they entered his office Felicity burst out laughing. "Her face! She looked like she was about to stab you!"
He chucked, eyes full of amusement and she wished she had a camera because this was something she saw too little.
"Next time though Oliver, I can fight my own battles. It was funny, but you didn't really help solidify the fact that I am not sleeping with you." She began laughing again because it really was funny.
Oliver shrugged, "The opinion of Isabel Rochev doesn't interest me in the least."
When it was time to make their way back to the conference room, Oliver stood from his desk and Felicity, who had been reading over some files on the couch in his office, groaned loudly.
They had reached the door of his office when the elevator doors opened and James walked out; dressed in a suit and with a huge grin plastered on his face. His grin grew wider when he spotted her and she walked to into his open arms. "I got the job Licity! I'm officially Nicholas Storm's partner!" He breathed into her hair.
"Oh my gosh! James! That's great! Yay!" When he let her go, she stepped back, "You know what this means! We'll get to hang out again and have movie nights, and complain about our jobs—not that there's really anything to complain about Oliv—Mr. Queen—and oh my gosh I'm so excited! Did you tell your parents? Did you tell your sister? And you'll be moving here—you will be moving here won't you?"
James laughed, "Yes Licity. Although I will be going back and forth a lot at first since I have to close things with the other accounting agency that I work for."
"Yay! This is great! Isn't this great Oliver—I mean Mr. Queen?" She asked, turning to him.
His good humor from earlier seemed to have flown out the window however, because his shoulders were squared, his jaw was set, and his eyes were hard. He glanced down at her and cleared his throat. Instantly, his expression changed and he smiled, looking back at James. "Congratulations Mr. Hayes," he said extending his hand.
A/N: So there you have it! So? What do you guys think?
I hope you liked this chapter!
