Felicity figured they had good eleven or twelve hours to kill before she could drive Oliver home the next morning and then head to Ramirez's place. She thought about the things they could do during that time. They could talk; they could sleep; and they could get horizontal and naked. When she got to that last option — which, to her disgust, was really the first one that popped into her mind — she felt her pulse speed up. What on earth was going on with her? She had never been a woman who was ruled by her desires and now they were threatening to override her better judgment.

Because as much as she liked Oliver and was attracted to him, she didn't think she trusted him. She understood that what had happened with the Bratva wasn't his fault. He'd been dealt a lousy hand, one that had begun with Jonas and been continued by Robert Queen. Oliver was doing his best to manage it; she couldn't fault him there. It was the fact that he'd told no one about it - that he hadn't told her about it - that was the kick in the ass. It was hard to believe his story wasn't relevant to Isabel's murder. The killer was imitating Oliver's grandfather, after all. Yet, if she hadn't recognized the meaning of his tattoo, she was certain he wouldn't have told her. So much for building a relationship based on truth.

Apparently her trust issues didn't stop her from wanting him, though. Good heavens.

Whatever thoughts Oliver had about spending the night, he kept his expression neutral. "It's probably better to be safe," he agreed. "Do you think we can rustle up something for dinner? It's been a long day and I haven't eaten since breakfast."

For her own part, Felicity didn't have much appetite. But eating was a good idea, she decided. It would fill some of the time.

"We can see what I've got in the kitchen," she offered. "But I warn you, by the end of the week, the cupboard is pretty bare. I usually restock on Sunday."

Oliver shrugged. "Well, let's look, anyway. Can't hurt."

Five minutes later he was standing in her kitchen, shaking his head. "How can anybody live like this?"

"There are options," Felicity said defensively. "There's mac and cheese. Or we could do pancakes."

"I'd prefer real food."

"Well, I don't have any foie gras." She used an exaggerated French accent on the words, foie gras. "With my salary, I only have haute cuisine a couple of times a month, and you've missed those dates."

Oliver responded to her sarcasm by folding his arms across his chest. She tried not to fixate on the size of his biceps. "I'm not talking haute cuisine, Felicity," he replied. "I'm talking steak or chicken, and some vegetables."

"Steak?" She lifted an eyebrow. "Maybe for someone in your tax bracket steak is an option, but the rest of us don't want to take out a mortgage to eat."

"The simulated beef isn't bad," Oliver countered, referring to the vegetable-based substitute that had been growing in popularity.

"Maybe," Felicity replied. "But it's a moot point, since I don't have any."

"No, you don't." He turned once more to her refrigerator as if hoping something had miraculously appeared in the minute they'd been discussing it. It hadn't.

"Does anybody around here deliver?" he asked.

She nodded. "Nuddy's. That's my usual option on the weekend."

"Nuddy's," Oliver repeated. "The bar that you were in this afternoon."

"Yup. Good pizza and subs. They make lasagna too."

Oliver recalled the big man with the eye patch at Nuddy's, who had kept an eye on him the entire time he'd been talking to Felicity. He imagined that same man showing up at Felicity's to deliver the food, and wondered how he would react to finding Oliver shirtless in her apartment.

Not well, he decided.

He closed the refrigerator door. "Mac and cheese, it is." He glanced at her small wine rack in the corner and added, "Does mac and cheese usually pair with a red or a white?"

She didn't blink. "White."

Dinners for Oliver generally fell into one of three categories: They were business meetings where deals were hammered out, tension masquerading as fellowship. They were evenings on the rubber chicken circuit where he sat listening to speeches on behalf of some foundation or other, with his current female companion beside him. (Sometimes he was the one giving the speech.) And they were solitary moments in the house, when he caught up on his email or watched television as he ate. Tommy occasionally joined him, but more often than not, when Oliver ate at home it was late and he was alone. Very seldom did he dine with someone purely for the sake of company, even on a date. And he never cooked with anyone.

So, it was an unfamiliar experience to be with Felicity as they prepared their meal of mac and cheese in her galley kitchen. Prepared, of course, was an exaggeration. She took the pre-made meal out of the freezer and threw it in the microwave while he searched her refrigerator and cupboards for options to doctor it up. They got in each other's way in the small space, brushing hips and elbows. It could have been fun - an excuse for further affection - except that things between them had become awkward. So, instead of turning contact into a caress, they hastily separated any time they touched.

He located a block of parmesan cheese in the refrigerator with only a couple of green spots. Good enough, he thought, and placed it on the counter.

"Too bad you don't have any proscuitto" he said.

Her brow furrowed. "Pro - what?"

"Proscuitto. It's an Italian, dry-cured ham. Great with parmesan. We could add it to the mac and cheese."

"Ham," she repeated flatly. "That would mean it's pork."

"Yes."

She shook her head. "Pork isn't a staple in this house - sorry."

She didn't explain and he decided not to pursue it.

"Do you cook a lot?" she asked, watching his hands as he deftly trimmed the mold off of the cheese.

"Hmmm?"

"You seem pretty comfortable in the kitchen. With your money, I assumed you have a live-in cook."

He shook his head. "I have a part-time cook. The truth is, I'm not home for dinner a lot. Raisa cooks a couple of times a week and she always leaves a few meals I can heat up. Otherwise, I fend for myself."

"Oh."

The bell on the microwave rang and she pulled the steaming pan out.

"Why don't you set the table," he suggested, "and pour the wine. I'll take care of the food."

"Right."

She'd found an old tee shirt for him in her closet with the words Code-blooded across the chest. She'd told him to put it on while muttering something about distractions. It was too big to be hers but on the small side for him, so he guessed it belonged to a former boyfriend, probably someone she'd met through a mutual love of computers. He wondered how close they'd been for Felicity to still have some of his clothes. Was he a college lover that had left after graduation, with her keeping the shirt as a fond memory? Or was he part of a more recent relationship?

He stirred onion and garlic powder into the mac and cheese, then grated some parmesan over the pasta. Felicity opened a pinot grigio that had been chilling in her wine cooler and poured a couple of glasses.

"A meal fit for a king," she said, gesturing at the mac and cheese as he put the pan on the table.

The humor in her voice sounded a little forced. It was clear she wanted to avoid the topic of Jonas and the Bratva. He didn't think that was a good idea in the long run, but decided to play along for the sake of a peaceful meal.

"A six-year-old king," he mock-argued. "Did anyone ever tell you that you eat like a kid?"

"I eat like a cop. I have a budget."

He said nothing, but gave her a look that told her he wasn't buying the excuse. Still, the mac and cheese wasn't as bland as he'd expected it to be. With the seasonings and cheese he'd added, it was creamy and a little zesty. Plus, he secretly enjoyed watching her tuck into it, without worrying about calories or carbs. He was grateful to have found something to enjoy, because conversation was scarce. There were long moments of silence, broken only by the clink of cutlery on plates.

He was beginning to think he'd made a big mistake, telling her about Jonas and the Bratva. She was cop, after all, and he'd confessed to making payments to organized crime. She could report him to her superiors and they would bring him in for questioning...or possibly even arrest him. The SCPD would be angry - and embarrassed - that their forensic accountants hadn't picked up on the payments when they'd examined QC's books and would react even more aggressively because of it.

I should have lied, he thought. Tommy's going to be royally pissed about this. Oliver knew he was a competent liar and could have made Felicity believe him. Things would be simpler if he had. Hell, they could probably be in bed now, making each other gasp with pleasure. But then that lie would always be between them, assuming there still was a them. At this point, it was tough to tell.

They finished the meal and began cleaning up, a repeat of preparation with the two of them crowded into the kitchen as they loaded the plates into the washer. Oliver began wondering what he was supposed to do after they'd taken care of this chore. He was spending the night, that much was for certain. Beyond that, he had no idea.

This is what happens when you give up control, he thought. You lose certainty. You lose predictability. He was rarely uncertain - not in business and not with women. He didn't like the feeling. But then it had been a long time since he'd cared so much about another person's opinion of him.

Fuck it, he thought. I'm not taking an entire night of this.

He watched as she wiped her hands on a towel and met her gaze when she looked up at him.

"Now what?" he asked.

"What do you mean?"

"You're angry with me. I get that. So what do we do now? Do we watch TV? Do we sit in your living room and try to talk it out?"

She paused, letting the towel dangle from her hands. "I'm not angry, Oliver. It's worse than being angry. I feel that I can't trust you - which is the last thing I want in any relationship. And I don't think talking it out is going to help."

"Why not?"

She hung up the towel and put her hands on her hips. "I'm not unreasonable. I understand that you didn't start this - that you've had the whole thing dumped on you by your father and grandfather. You should never have had to deal with it."

"But..."

"But I can't help thinking that if I hadn't recognized the tattoo, you wouldn't have told me about it. Certainly not tonight, and maybe not ever. From a professional standpoint, that means you withheld information that was relevant to a police investigation. It can be construed as obstruction."

He was disappointed, almost a little disgusted. "For God's sake, Felicity, can you stop being a cop for a minute and just be a person?"

"Fine. Then from a personal standpoint," she continued, giving him a pointed glare, "that means you were willing to go into a relationship without telling me about an important piece of your life. I don't know which is worse."

Her voice was calm, but there was a note of finality to it that frightened Oliver. He buried his fear in irritation. After all, he did think she was being unreasonable - at least a little. "Felicity, as you pointed out several times tonight, we haven't known each other very long. If you hadn't recognized the tattoo, it's true I may not have told you about its origins now. But it's not fair to assume that I would never have explained it to you."

"Really?" Her voice was sarcastic. "We've already slept together. When would you have told me, exactly?"

He rubbed the back of his neck. "Don't make it sound as if I had a game plan. This thing between us has taken me as much by surprise as it has you. I'm feeling my way around here. People don't unveil their entire lives to each other when they first meet. They share things gradually. That's the way it works - even if we jumped ahead a few steps and went straight to sex."

She pressed her lips together and shook her head.

"And it's not as if you've been an open book with me," he went on. "Hell - you guard your personal data like it's Fort Knox. Why the crazy security, unless you've got something you don't want people to know about?"

She stiffened and her chin jerked up. For a second Oliver was grateful that her weapon was on the couch in the living room. Now is probably not a good time to remind her that I tried to have her hacked.

But then she lowered her head and took several deep breaths. When her eyes met his, they were calmer. "Look, Oliver, forgetting both my murder investigation and our personal...relationship," she stammered a little on the word relationship, "I still have an issue with what you did. By paying the Bratva, you're helping to make a bad organization more powerful. I don't understand why you would do that."

He gave an incredulous snort. "You mean you don't understand me wanting to stay alive? Or you just don't believe I need the Bratva to do it?"

"I don't understand why you didn't come clean to the SCPD about all of this when you returned to Star City. That would have been the smart thing to do. They could have helped."

"Helped." He gave a bitter laugh. Of all the things she'd said to him thus far, that felt the most unfair. "Right, Felicity. Because the police were so sympathetic when I got home. I could tell they wanted to help when they held me in an interrogation room for forty-eight hours straight." He shook his head. "The SCPD had made up their minds that I'd killed my father in order to take over QC and every question they asked was directed toward proving it. Yeah, Felicity, that really made me want to come clean."

She stared at him, her eyes wide behind her glasses.

"And even if they were willing to give me the benefit of the doubt, how do you think the SCPD would have helped, exactly?" he continued, his anger still growing. "What would you all have done? Probably call the feds and execute some kind of sting operation to arrest the Bratva for taking protection money. Then my security would be gone and I'd be a sitting duck for the League."

She bit her lip and said nothing. He wasn't far off the mark, he thought, with his guess about the sting operation.

"As for not telling you," he continued, "I honestly didn't think it was relevant. And now that I have told you, I've put you in a predicament. You're a cop and I've confessed to doing something illegal. You're thinking you should report this, but then you're wondering if you'll get me killed if you do. Assuming you still like me even a little bit, I've created a dilemma for you."

She still said nothing.

He ran his hand over his head and exhaled, trying to expel some of his wrath. "Well, Felicity? What do you want to do? The ball's in your court."

She stared at him, a flush spreading across her cheeks. "Right now?" she said, her voice a little shaky. "Right now, I'm tired and I'm going to bed." She brushed past him on her way out of the kitchen. "You can sleep on the couch. In the morning, we'll get you home and I'll figure out what I want to do then."

He watched her walk through the living room, then heard her bedroom door close.

A/N: A number of people mentioned that they didn't like Felicity very much in the last chapter. They felt she should have been more understanding of Oliver's situation. While I get that, I also think she was in character for this AU and this story . In this world, Felicity only met Oliver two days ago and doesn't have much history with him. She's certainly attracted to him and may even be falling in love, but she also knows that there's a lot of gaps in her information. Plus, she's a cop, sworn to uphold the law. And Oliver is breaking it by giving money to organized crime. So I think it's normal for her not to immediately accept everything he says.

They talk about it a little more in this chapter, and Oliver has the chance to defend himself. He gives her some things to think about before they both turn in for the night.

Finally, we all know there has to be some challenges in this relationship. Things can't go perfectly smoothly or there wouldn't be as much of a story.