Chapter 9
A loud noise jarred Oliver from a restless sleep. Realizing it was his phone ringing, he sat up quickly and grabbed it from the coffee table beside him, striking his kneecap on the corner of the table in the process. "Fuck," he swore as he answered his phone. "Hello?"
"For a guy who presumably spent last night engaged in a wild threesome with my cousin, you don't sound too chipper! What the hell, Ollie?"
Oliver winced as Lois' angry voice reverberated loudly from his phone. He promptly hit the down button on the volume, wondering if she had been this loud when they dated. "Lois, do you know what time it is?"
"It's 8:30, so time to be up and at 'em. And where the hell is my cousin?"
Oliver looked at his watch and groaned. "Lois, it's 8:30 in Metropolis, but here in California it's a little earlier than that."
"Trust me, you're going to need the extra time this morning for damage control before I fly out there and kick your ass," Lois retorted. "And if your PR team can't do a better job than this, they'll be on my shit list too. I mean, I ask you to take care of my baby cousin, and instead she gets dragged into your very crowded bedroom."
Oliver leaned back and took a deep breath as he rubbed his hand over the back of his neck. "Ok, first of all, I practically had to blackmail you before you told me where to find Chloe. And second of all, what the hell are you even talking about?"
"The news, Oliver! Jesus, you're a CEO and a vigilante, you'd think you'd be able to follow along better than this! There are photos of you, Chloe and Lanie all over the tabloid websites this morning amid speculation that you took them home for some two-on-one fun while your date was left to fend for herself and went home alone!"
Oliver drew the phone away from his ear slightly as she shouted at him. "Lois, you can't possibly believe that Chloe, Lanie and I were involved in a threesome last night. I took Lanie home and then I brought Chloe back to her place. And yes, I stayed here at Chloe's apartment because I couldn't find a spare key to use to lock up behind me, but I slept on the couch – the very small and very uncomfortable couch, I might add."
"Your PR people better start spinning then because the tone of the gossip is not at all kind to Chloe, and I'm sure this will all be in the papers tomorrow, followed by the gossip magazines. Hell, they're probably waiting outside for the money shot of you leaving this morning, too. We both know Chloe does not deserve that kind of attention, and she definitely won't appreciate it."
Oliver winced, closing his eyes and rubbing his hand down his face. Loud she might be, but Oliver knew Lois had a point. Chloe would definitely not appreciate her name being dragged through the mud, not when she was trying to concentrate on finishing her degree and building a name for herself as a reporter. If the gossip was as bad as Lois said, he'd be lucky if she allowed herself to be seen with him again. "Look, I'll take care of it, alright? I will get my PR team on the phone as soon as I hang up with you, and I will make sure this is cleared up."
"You'd better. And as soon as I can clear my schedule, and finish up some of these stories I'm working on, I'll be coming out there for a visit. If Chloe's not happy when I get there, I won't be happy – and if I'm not happy, I can promise that you won't be happy either. Do we understand each other?"
"We'll all be unhappy, I get it," Oliver said dryly. "Are we done now? Because apparently I have some calls to make."
Lois' response was to hang up on him, and Oliver sighed as he scrolled through his phone directory for Jay Halston and then waited for the other man to answer. "Jay, it's Oliver Queen. I'm afraid we have a little situation to deal with this morning."
Jay cleared his throat. "I'm aware, actually. You asked me to keep an ear out for any negative press about your friendship with Chloe Sullivan, and one of my team members called about an hour ago to let me know about the photos and speculation that popped up on the tabloid sites this morning. I'm on my way into the office now."
"How bad is it, exactly?" Oliver asked. "I got my own wakeup call this morning, but I haven't actually seen anything yet."
"For you, it's nothing we haven't dealt with before. It will be worse for Miss Sullivan because the one thing the tabloid sites all seem to have in common is that they are pitting Miss Sullivan against Miss Sinclair. They've basically turned it into a catfight, or at least the appearance of one."
Ok, that's not good, Oliver thought. He was pretty sure Chloe would not be amused by any part of this mess. He wondered if he could possibly keep it from her for a day until they had a chance to get a handle on the situation, but just as quickly dismissed the idea. Short of refusing to allow Chloe to leave her apartment or have access to her computer and phone, there was no way to prevent her from hearing about the tabloid rumors. "Look, I need you to take care of this as quickly and as quietly as possible. Obviously money is not a concern, so do whatever you have to do. "
"It would help if the three of you could be seen together – you, Miss Sinclair and Miss Sullivan, I mean," Jay suggested. "That would serve to eliminate the idea that the two of them are competing for you."
Oliver tried not to imagine how awkward that scenario would be, especially knowing that tabloid reporters were lurking somewhere and snapping photos. "I'll get back to you on that. In the meantime, keep me in the loop today." He hung up and glanced at his watch. It was now just after 7:00, so he headed into the kitchen to see what Chloe had for breakfast. He'd need to wake her up soon because he knew she was usually at work before 9:00. He hoped that if he had breakfast and coffee ready that she might not want to kill him after he told her what was going on. A quick look through her cupboards and refrigerator revealed tuna salad from a downtown deli, slightly stale bread, and little else, so he decided to go down to the corner café and bring breakfast back for her. He found her keys and was quietly locking the door when a voice behind him made him jump. He turned quickly, surprised to see that the person who'd snuck up on him was an older lady, probably in her late sixties. She was rather short but had a trim figure for her age, with short, gray hair that curled a bit under her jaw. Twinkling blue eyes met his wary brown ones.
"I'm sorry, dear; I didn't mean to startle you. I thought you might be Chloe, so I was coming to bring her breakfast." She held up a covered container and a thermos of coffee. "I'm Mrs. Chandler – I live right here, so I always hear her coming and going."
"Right," Oliver said. "I'm a friend of Chloe's. I was actually just going to get breakfast."
"Oh, there's no need. I have enough for both of you if you'll just wait a moment." She disappeared back into her apartment, returning a few minutes later with a second covered container. "Chloe is such a dear, always bringing me groceries and helping me with things around the apartment. Her friend Mike even fixed my sink a few weeks ago, and he installed a much sturdier lock on my door. I'm afraid the building super is rather lazy, and not one to do a very good job even when he does show up. So, I try to make sure Chloe gets at least a few good meals every week." She handed over the containers and the thermos.
Oliver smiled as he accepted the offering. "Thank you, Mrs. Chandler. I'm Oliver, by the way."
"Oh, I know who you are, dear. I've lived in Star City all my life. Now, you look like you need a bit more than scones and muffins in the morning, so I put some eggs and bacon on your plate. I was already cooking when I heard you, so it was no trouble. I clipped Chloe's article this morning too – would you mind giving it to her?" She held out a newspaper clipping and beamed at him as she patted his arm. "You tell Chloe to bring you by for dinner soon."
Oliver watched as Mrs. Chandler disappeared back into her apartment before turning to unlock Chloe's door again. He had just deposited everything on the coffee table when he heard Chloe coming out of her bedroom. He turned to find her staring at him rather blearily.
"What are you doing here?" Chloe asked. She looked completely confused about his presence in her apartment.
"I brought you home last night, remember?"
"Yes, but didn't you go home after that?" She walked across the room and sat on the sofa as she yawned again. "God, what time is it?"
Oliver glanced at his watch, thinking that after being ambushed by Lois, planning strategy with his PR guy, and being startled by the stealthy little old lady next door, he should really be calling it a day, not starting the day. "It is almost 7:30. Do you want some coffee?"
Chloe tilted her head at him. "Do I have coffee? I thought I ran out yesterday."
Oliver held up the thermos. "Courtesy of Mrs. Chandler, who, I'm convinced, is part ninja with ears like a bat."
Chloe was already in the kitchen, pouring coffee from the thermos into a mug. Her lips curved up at Oliver's words. "Don't tell me that a little old lady got the jump on you, Arrow." She shook her head and made a disapproving noise. "Someone needs to up his training, I think."
Oliver snorted. "I had other things on my mind."
Chloe took an appreciative sip of her coffee as she peeked inside the containers from her neighbor. "This one must be yours," she said, handing over the plate containing bacon and eggs and passing him a fork. She pulled a muffin from the other container and took a bite. Swallowing, she asked, "Not that I don't appreciate the ride home last night, but why didn't you go home?"
"I couldn't find a spare key and without a key, I'd have been leaving you here with one very flimsy lock protecting you. And you were kind of passed out, so I wasn't sure if you'd wake up enough to lock the door behind me." He ate a few bites of the omelet that Mrs. Chandler had prepared. "Wow, this is really good."
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure I won the lotto when it comes to neighbors. She insists on feeding me several times a week, so I bring her groceries and help her out with other things. Her husband passed away last year, and her daughter lives out of state, so I think she gets lonely. You know, she told me that she knew your parents – apparently she used to be a nurse at the hospital here."
Oliver raised his brows in surprise. "Really? She knew who I was this morning, but she didn't mention my parents. Not surprising though if she worked at the hospital; my mom helped out there as often as she could." Oliver took another bite of his omelet as he eyed Chloe rather warily, wondering how to tell her about the gossip sites. "Chloe, there's something I actually need to talk to you about this morning."
Chloe finished off her muffin, glancing at the clock as she jumped up and refilled her coffee mug from the thermos. "Can it wait until after I shower? I feel like my brain has cobwebs at the moment."
Oliver hesitated before nodding, and Chloe took off for the bathroom. As she got her things together and started running water in the shower, she wondered what Oliver needed to talk to her about. He had sounded kind of serious, so she supposed it might be League related. She quickly undressed and stepped under the warm spray, letting it wash away her fatigue. She had had a lot more to drink last night than usual, so she was surprised she wasn't suffering from the mother of all hangovers. She was tired, and she did have a slight headache, but the food, coffee, and shower were making her feel more human. She supposed the water Oliver had made her drink in the car helped too, and she smiled as she remembered how sweet he had been when helping her into the apartment the night before. But that memory was followed by other memories, and Chloe's hands stilled as she rinsed shampoo from her hair. She remembered him rubbing her feet, and she had asked him what it was like being irresistible to women, something that seemed to amuse him. But then she remembered the women from the bathroom the night before, and the way they had been discussing Oliver and all of their favorite parts of him, including his dimpled chin. She vaguely remembered thinking that she needed to tease Oliver about it, but now she was pretty sure her retelling had taken a U-turn somewhere. She covered her face with her hands, groaning – had she really told Oliver that his chin was lickable? God, no wonder he wanted to talk to her this morning; he probably thought she had been hitting on him and he wanted to reestablish the lines of friendship. And while no one ever died from embarrassment, she felt certain the coming conversation with him was going to test her humiliation threshold.
It was a much more subdued Chloe who joined Oliver in the living room about forty-five minutes later; Oliver had used the time to check some of the photos on the gossip sites for himself, and to say he was not looking forward to telling Chloe about the situation was an understatement. They eyed each other warily for a moment before they both started speaking at the same time.
"Chloe, I just want to say…"
"Oliver, I really need to explain…"
They both stopped, laughing a little uncomfortably. Oliver cleared his throat, gesturing for her to go first.
Chloe took a deep breath. "Look, I think I know why you want to talk to me this morning." She took a seat beside him on the couch and forced herself to look directly at him.
"You do?" Oliver wondered how she had found out so quickly; maybe someone had called or sent her a text?
Chloe nodded. "And I can certainly see why you might think I was hitting on you, but I'd just like to point out that I was more than a little drunk; and really it wasn't even what I was thinking, it was all those women in the bathroom. I was really just repeating what other women were saying about you, so you can see why it's nothing to be worried about. We're friends – just friends."
Oliver found himself wondering how it was possible for Chloe to talk that fast – out of her little ramble, he'd basically gotten something about talking to some women in a bathroom, but had no idea why it was an upsetting topic for her. "Was someone talking about you last night?"
Chloe sighed in exasperation. "They weren't talking about me, they were talking about you – pay attention, Oliver, this is embarrassing enough without having to repeat it." She was starting to look a little annoyed.
And apparently nonsensical rambling was a Sullivan-Lane trait. "Ok, what were they saying about me?" Oliver asked cautiously.
Chloe was now blushing a little as she said, "You know, they were talking about you and your, uh…assets. They mentioned your chin a few times, and that's the only reason I even thought about it. So, you can see that we don't really have to talk about this." She squirmed as she saw understanding dawn on Oliver's face, followed by a wide grin.
"Oh, you mean the fact that you find me lickable? Don't worry, I don't hold that against you – in fact, I can think of better places than my chin, but if that's what does it for you…oof!" Oliver broke off as Chloe threw a small pillow at him before she started to laugh.
"Ok, fine, tease all you want. Geez, I'm going to have to ask Sean what was in those martinis," she replied as she rolled her eyes at him.
Oliver's grin faded and he pulled her laptop forward on the coffee table, opening it to reveal Chloe's password screen. "I wish that was what I needed to talk to you about, but unfortunately it's something a little more serious. You and I – and Lanie and Ashlyn, I'm afraid – are headlining the gossip sites this morning."
Chloe's smile faded. "Wait, what?" She jerked her laptop forward and typed in her password. "Which sites?"
Oliver hesitated. "All of them?"
Chloe's fingers moved with lightning speed across the keyboard as she brought up different sites – the Planet, the Gazette, and a host of others. They all featured similar photos, although Chloe noticed the spin was a little different for each site. The Planet showed the most flattering photos of her with Oliver, but they also showed him helping her into her apartment building, followed by heavy innuendo about what happened next. It was the Gazette photos and headlines that infuriated her. In one photo, Chloe appeared to be falling-down-drunk as Oliver helped first her into the car, followed by Lanie. This photo had been placed beside one of Ashlyn, looking tired but regal as she left the Galaxy Club alone. Chloe's mouth fell open at the caption below the photos – 'Apparently two girls are better than one; Oliver Queen leaves the Galaxy Club with Gazette reporters Chloe Sullivan and Lanie MacAuley. Wonder what headline they were working on?'
Chloe opened her mouth, but for once words failed her.
Oliver winced at Chloe's shocked expression. He didn't think he'd ever seen her at a loss for words. "I'm sorry, Chloe. I want you to know that my PR people are already working on this. I was a little surprised that the Gazette printed something like this about its own reporters, but I left a message for your editor earlier. I have a feeling he didn't know about it."
"I am going to kill Gwyn Harris," Chloe finally said. "She was mad at me for not commenting on our friendship, and there's already bad blood between her and Lanie, so I have a feeling she's behind this. Regardless, I cannot believe that she blatantly insinuated that we were involved in a threesome – and that I'm basically prostituting myself for a story angle of some sort?" Her voice rose with each word until she practically shouted the last part. "If she wanted to throw down, she's picked a good opening gambit; I hope she's ready for mine!"
Oliver watched Chloe viciously stab at the keyboard, slightly fascinated by the fact that when enraged, her eyes turned an even brighter shade of green as a red flush tinged the apples of her cheeks. "Chloe, let's not get carried away here. I don't blame you for being upset, and I'm not happy about it either, but let's not start a war with the gossip reporters. We still have print to look forward to tomorrow, although I'm hoping my people can shut the nastier speculation down by then."
"Gwyn will be lucky if she's printing anything tomorrow; by the time I'm done hacking her computer and phone to get all of her sources, which I'll then post on the web, she'll have bigger problems to worry about," Chloe informed him grimly.
"Ok, you and Lois are scary, you know that? Let's just take a deep breath and calm down here. I don't like this either; the implication that I'm engaging in threesomes with reporters will not look good to my board of directors, and it's not like I'm into that kind of thing." When Chloe shot him an incredulous look, he said defensively, "Well I'm not…not anymore, anyway. I may still encourage the playboy gossip from time to time, but it's all within acceptable limits. Come on, stop typing and breathe," he encouraged her, putting his own hands over hers to still them.
Chloe took a few deep breaths, and she had to admit she did feel a bit calmer. "So you're saying I shouldn't go forward with my plan to annihilate Gwyn's career as a reporter?"
Oliver let out a slight laugh, squeezing her hands gently. "Why don't we wait until I hear back from Jay and see what he's able to accomplish today? If he can't help us, I'll fully endorse your seek-and-destroy mission. Lois and Lanie will probably help, and poor Gwyn won't know what hit her." He stood up and grabbed his jacket. "I need to get going – do you want a ride to the paper? I saw your car parked at Lanie's building last night." When Chloe hesitated, Oliver said, "I doubt being seen with me this morning is going to make anything worse; at least we won't look like we have anything to be ashamed of."
Chloe sighed. "You're right – give me five minutes."
They made it out of her building without incident, although Chloe noticed a couple of cars parked across the road. She suspected they belonged to photographers, but ignored them as she and Oliver got into his car and headed to downtown Star City. After Oliver dropped her off, Chloe tilted her chin up and walked briskly into the Gazette building. She felt her phone buzz and looked down to see that Lois was calling again. She briefly considered allowing it to go to voicemail, but figured she should get it over with. "Lois, I'm walking into work so now is not the best time to talk."
"I hope you're planning to go straight to the editor about what the society reporter posted," Lois replied. "Who the hell is this bitch anyway?"
"Gwyn Harris – she's a social climbing, society fringe dweller who uses her reporter status to meet men who can help keep her in the luxury she would like to become accustomed to," Chloe paused to swipe her ID card at the security desk. "Trust me, I plan to talk to the editor today and if Gwyn continues to come after me in print, she will really regret it."
"That's my girl," Lois said approvingly. "Sullivan-Lane's don't get mad…"
"-they find the enemy's weakness and fire at will," Chloe repeated laughingly. "The General taught us well – wait, you don't think he's heard about this do you?" That was a truly embarrassing thought.
"He probably got the news with his morning coffee," Lois said. "If any of his girls make the news, he knows about it. Gwyn will be lucky if she's not topping some kind of government watch list by noon, but that's her problem. What about your dad?"
Chloe got the same sinking feeling she always did when she thought about her dad. "We haven't really spoken in a while, so I doubt he'll be too concerned. He's not really the type to read the tabloids anyway."
"Does he know that you moved to California?"
Chloe placed her computer bag on her desk and sat down. "I called him to let him know my new address and phone number, but I haven't spoken to him since then. We're just not that close, you know that." Her tone was casual, but she felt the familiar hurt creep over her as she thought about her dad. "Meanwhile, I have an editor to talk to, so I'll call you later, ok?" She knew that Lois was tempted to meddle when it came to family issues, and she wanted to cut that conversation off before it started; she definitely couldn't deal with that on top of everything else today.
Lois seemed to sense this because she didn't push it. "Ok, call me later and let me know what Oliver's PR team gets done; I've already yelled at him today for his part in this."
"It's not his fault, Lois; you know that. He was pretty upset about it and I think he was worried that I was going to blame him for it, but I'm not going to let petty gossip affect our friendship." Chloe saw Lanie headed her way with Mike following closely behind. "Gotta go, but I'll call you later."
Lanie stopped at Chloe's desk. "You've heard, right? Gwyn is hiding at the moment, but when she crawls out of her hole I have a few words for her." When Mike snorted, she rounded on him. "Hey, when your 80-year-old grandmother calls you first thing in the morning to ask if it's true that you're playing 'sex games' with Hugh Hefner and his Playmates, you can pass judgment on my outrage."
Chloe's brows flew up and despite her own earlier outrage, she felt her lips twitch. "Sex games with Playmates?"
Lanie sighed. "Well, she got the story from her friend Margaret, who got it from her bridge partner Adele, who heard it from some apparently senile woman whose name I can't remember, who heard it from God knows who… somehow in the retelling, there was some confusion about which billionaire I was getting it on with."
Chloe started laughing. "I'm sorry, but you have to admit it's kind of funny."
"Yeah, it was funny until my mom called thirty minutes later to say that she and my dad saw this crap online – apparently my brother's girlfriend saw it, called him, and he opened his big mouth at breakfast – something he'll be appropriately sorry about later," Lanie muttered.
Chloe felt that earlier pang again. "You have family that's concerned – trust me, that's a good thing."
"Are we all calm now?" Mike asked. "I've been tailing Lanie since she got here because I actually feared for Gwyn's life. She has balls, I'll give her that."
"We're calm," Chloe assured him. "I have a plan that would effectively neuter Gwyn, but if I decide to carry it out, it would be done with a cool head; Sullivan-Lane war motto."
Lanie looked interested in this as Mike put his hands up and made a show of backing away from them slowly. "So, what's the plan?"
"First, to talk to the editor-in-chief," Chloe replied.
"Not necessary – Harry is already in there," Lanie said smugly, referring to their own editor, Harry Kiesler. "He was yelling about responsible reporting earlier, so I'm fairly certain none of this will make it into print in the Gazette; unfortunately, that still leaves a lot of gossip rags we have to worry about."
"Oliver has his PR team working on the worst of it. That's really all we can do right now, so I suggest that we get to work. The last thing we want is for everyone here to think Gwyn is getting to us," Chloe advised as she booted up her computer. "Lunch later?"
"I have a few sources to talk to this morning, but I should be back by 1:00 or so."
Lanie headed back across the newsroom, and Chloe logged in to check her Gazette email. Her brows flew up when she saw that she had close to 100 new emails. Curiously, she opened a few of them and quickly realized they were either from tabloid reporters requesting a statement about her involvement with Oliver, or they were from readers expressing their opinions about what they'd seen online. Aside from one or two people who apparently had issues with Ashlyn, the overwhelming majority seemed to think Chloe was a home wrecking whore – no matter that Oliver and Ashlyn were not actually a couple. Chloe leaned her head on her hand as she set about clearing her inbox, raising her brows at a few of the more colorful insults. The idea that she'd start getting hate mail hadn't actually occurred to her, but she realized now that it probably should have. She reminded herself that it wasn't the first time; her stories in high school hadn't won her any popularity contests either. If the opinions of her peers hadn't made her crack, random emails from strangers wouldn't either.
After clearing her inbox, she began researching a few leads she had. Three hours and a few phone calls later, she was ready to spend the afternoon writing up her notes on a new story that she'd been working on for a couple of weeks. When she had begun her research, it had strictly been a piece on an aide organization's philanthropic efforts, but Chloe was certain she now had enough evidence to push it into crime reporting. She didn't have enough to go to print yet, but she knew where to go to get what she needed. She went to the break room for a coffee refill and then began sorting through the mail that had been dropped off earlier. One envelope made her pause; it was small and plain, and her name was written on the front in black ink. She turned it over, but there was no address, so clearly it had been dropped off rather than mailed. She slid her letter opener across the top and pulled out a small, white page folded neatly in half. She opened it – two lines slanted across the page in unevenly printed letters:
'Keep digging and you'll be digging your own grave. Back off, bich.'
"Popular girl – fan mail?"
Chloe turned to find Ashlyn Sinclair standing behind her chair staring at her curiously. "Fan mail, hate mail – it's a fine line when you're a reporter," Chloe quipped as she quickly folded the page and shoved it into her laptop bag.
"So I see – do you often get threats about your stories?"
Chloe shrugged, appearing more nonchalant than she felt. "They can't spell 'bitch', so I doubt I'm dealing with a criminal mastermind."
Ashlyn tilted her head as she gave Chloe an appraising look. "Interesting outlook, I suppose. So, you're probably wondering what I'm doing here."
Chloe leaned back against her desk casually, aware that everyone in the newsroom was watching the two of them carefully. "If it's about the photos posted online this morning, Oliver has his PR people working on it, and my editor has already had a chat with the editor-in-chief, so I think it's mostly handled."
"Nice to know, but I'm actually here to invite you to lunch. I can call for a table at The Garden for 1:00 if that's ok?" Ashlyn smiled at her questioningly.
Chloe hid her surprise, instead returning the other woman's smile. "Sure – that's only a block from here, so I can meet you there."
Ashlyn's smile widened. "Great, I'll see you soon." She turned to walk out of the newsroom, appearing oblivious to all of the people who stared at her as she left. Chloe sat back down at her desk, pointedly ignoring the stares now directed at her. Gossip, hate mail, death threats, and now a lunch invitation from a woman I don't know if I should call friend or foe, Chloe thought ruefully. Good thing I don't scare easily.
A/N: Thanks to all of you who are reading and reviewing, it's appreciated. I meant to post on Friday, but I haven't been home much this weekend. I did manage to finish Chapters 10 and 11 today, and I changed a couple of things in this chapter. Hopefully it's worth the wait
Up Next: Chloe has lunch with Ashlyn, we have more Chlollie tabloid fodder, and Chloe starts chasing leads on a dangerous story that has the potential to bring down some powerful people in Star City. Chloe has an unexpected run-in with Green Arrow, and we have the return of the JL boys! I'll get the next chapter up in a few days.
