Chloe curled her hands around her cup. She was exhausted and a little tipsy. She should have protested when he'd spiked their beverages, but he looked like he could use it too, so she'd simply held her cup for the splash of gin. Now she felt light as a feather.

The living room was sparsely furnished: a large dining tables, sofas arranged to form a nook in the middle of the room, and two side tables. It was simple, and yet it was more homely that the apartment Lex had arranged for her would ever be.

Shelves lined one wall, filled with all kind of books. Another wall was paneled with wood. The third wall housed the bar and the entertainment system. The last one was all arches and curves the color of cream, that lead to the kitchen, a private office, the sleeping quarters, and God knew what else. The living room alone was bigger than most apartments she'd lived in.

Oliver had excused himself to find something for her to sleep in. It took longer than it should have, considering. She suspected he wanted to give her space. Also she didn't put it past him to call his doctor even though he promised to wait until morning. He was sneaky that way. A good kind of sneaky…

Her sigh made the steam from her tea swirled in complex volutes. A little smile tugged at her mouth, which she promptly drowned in the hot beverage. She wasn't blind. The man had the face of a fallen angel and the body of a god, with sex appeal to spare. But his kindness, his empathy, the humorous glint in his eyes when he winked at her or the way he'd cursed Lex every day to Sunday after her confession, those were not on display for the world to see. They were just hers. At least for tonight. Chloe sighed again. Maybe she wasn't immune to the charms of billionaires after all.

"Hal' sister forgot some stuff last time she was here."

Chloe lifted her eyes toward the man now dressed in sweats and another black tee-shirt. Nope. Not blind. Definitely not blind.

"She has a couple of inches on you, but it should fit you well enough until we can get your stuff. I put it on the bed in the guestroom."

"Thank— what do you mean get my stuff? I am just staying tonight. Oliver, I told you—"

"If you think I am going to watch you walk out of here to hole up in that soulless apartment until your next panic attack, you're sorely mistaken."

Darn. She'd forgotten stubborn like a pack of mules in the list of his attributes. Chloe opened her mouth to protest, but to her surprise her host didn't insist. Instead, Oliver walked to the bar for a bottle of water and joined her on the couch. The plush cushions in her back fluffed when he sat. Chloe swallowed a giggle.

Oliver watched her out of the corner of his eyes, sucking his water and frowning slightly, so she felt obligated to explain. "Seating on your couch is like sinking in a giant marshmallow." Then she noticed his stiff position. "Is your back bothering you?"

"I put on an ice patch." He whined, "it's cold…"

She snickered out loud this time. "You would so hate Kansas… This time of the year, the temperatures in Smallville are down to the forties. By Christmas, it will barely reach thirty degrees during in the day, and there will be snow everywhere."

Oliver seemed to consider her statement for while. Chloe put her mug on the side table before she leaned her cheek against the back of the couch to savour the peaceful silence that +enveloped them, her face to him.

"It was never cold on the island." She reopened her eyes to stare at his profile. Her heart fluttered. Oliver never talked about his lost years according to her gossip fest. "It could rain like crazy one day, a real monsoon with torrents of water you couldn't escape, then as soon as the sun appeared it sucked up all the humidity so it felt drier than the Sahara within minutes. There weren't rhyme nor reason to it. I had never realized how nice it actually is to have four seasons to rhythm the time until then."

She wanted to offer comfort, but she didn't dare touching him. What if she read too much in the strange intimacy growing between them? He'd offered shelter and to be her sound board for one evening, but they barely knew each other.

Chloe curled into the cushions, cautious to keep a foot between them. "I like Spring, when the air is so fresh you think your lungs will burst if you inhale too deep. Everything feels so new and… shy, I guess. As if the world needed to relearn how to be awake after Winter put it to sleep. Then the nature blooms and there are colors everywhere and it is just so vibrant… Like tulips."

Oliver nodded to himself. "I like Summer best." He gave her a saucy grin. "Summers are sexy."

Chloe snorted. "So predictable…"

"California born and breed, doll."

She froze at the nickname. Chloe scouted closer to the solid body next to her, grasping his arm. Oliver turned his head a fraction to examine her face at her sudden change in demeanor. His biceps flexed under her hand.

"He called me "doll"."

"Who?" The tension in Oliver's voice sent shivers down her spine.

"The vigilante, Green Arrow."

"You met him? When?"

"This evening." She hesitated. "Before I called you…"

Chloe wished she could backpedal to safer topics, talk more about the weather or her favorite flowers. His Adam Apple bobbed yet no word came out. Chloe steadied herself before she answered the silent question. "He didn't hurt me. He… spooked me, I think. Or I spooked myself. I feel so stupid… He wasn't menacing or anything, at least I don't think he was trying to threaten me. But he was hovering and crowding me and I… I just…"

"Hey." Oliver freed his arm to wrap it around her shoulder. "You're not stupid." His jaw clenched. "Scaring you is on him, not you. Playing the hero is not a free pass to terrify people."

"I suppose."

"You never said what you were doing downtown."

"Investigating…"

Her eyes drifted shut. Oliver' scent teased her nostrils with hints of amber and sandalwood. She wanted to bury her nose in his neck and just be. "Looks like yo—"

"What?"

She yawned. "His motorcycle. It looks like yours…"

Cocooned into Oliver's arms, the events of the night and her fright dwindled, as if she'd just seen a too realistic thriller and finally recognized it as fiction. "Sleepy…"

"That you are. And a little drunk, too. Come on. Time for bed."

She whined when he hauled her to her feet. "No peeking."

"I'm not helping you in your pajamas. I might be a gentleman, there's so much I can—" The rest of his sentence disappeared in the tint in her ears as she yawned once more.

She was out the second her head touch the pillow.