Chapter 3
"This food is delicious, Mrs. Queen."
"Felicity, how many times do I have to tell you to call me Moira."
"Sorry, I keep forgetting. I tend to call people that own the company that I work in Mr. or Mrs." Felicity said.
"Oliver is your boss though and you call him Oliver." Thea said with a little smirk on her face. She thought they were perfect for each other and she was getting a little tired of them dancing around each other.
"I mostly do that when I get annoyed with him."
"Which is a lot of the time." Oliver said.
"Well regardless of whether I call you Mrs. Queen or Moira, the food is delicious."
"Well thank you but it's not like I'm the one who cooked it."
"Right. You guys are rich and you have a cook and servants and all that stuff. Lucky. I can't even make a grilled cheese sandwich without setting my house on fire."
"Ollie can cook. I'm sure he can teach you," Thea said suggestively and gave a little wink at Oliver.
Felicity and Oliver both blushed a little and looked back down at their food and Oliver gave a little awkward cough. "Oy." Felicity muttered.
"Huh?" Thea questioned.
"Sorry. My Jewish side sometimes comes out when things get awkward."
"Things are only awkward when you make them awkward." Thea replied.
"Not in this case. In this case things just got pretty awkward with you insinuating that something is going on between Oliver and I." Felicity said. Then she remembered that Moira was at the table and turned to her. "Which isn't true. There is nothing going on between Oliver and I. Not that there's anything wrong with your son, it's just that there is nothing going on between us. Oy vey I should stop talking now." Felicity took a deep breath and then took a nice gulp of her wine. When she was setting it back down on the table she missed and spilled all over her dress. She jumped up and muttered a curse and then turned with an awkward smile to her three dinner companions. "Sorry my klutzy side also comes out when I make things more awkward for myself."
"Oops. Come, you can borrow something from my closet, we are probably about the same size." Thea said standing up. "We will be right back." She said as they started to make their way towards the stairs.
As they started up the steps Felicity turned to Thea and said "Aren't you afraid I'm gonna make things awkward again and spill something all over one of your amazing outfits?" Felicity said a little worried.
"Don't worry, rich remember? I have plenty of things to wear." Thea said.
"Okay good as long as you don't really care." Felicity let out a little sigh of relief.
"And anyways, if you ruin one of my fancy, expensive outfits I can always buy another one." Thea said with a little teasing smile.
"Oh gosh." Felicity muttered.
Thea laughed. "Don't worry, I'm only messing with you. Don't worry about it, you won't ruin one of my outfits. I have faith in you."
Felicity chuckled. She could always count on Thea to make her laugh. As they walked into the room Thea went straight to her huge walk-in closet to find something for Felicity to wear. "How about this one?" she asked coming out of the closet with a dress that Felicity thought might not be so appropriate for a Sunday night dinner. "Don't you think that's a little too much?" Felicity asked. "Something simpler would totally be fine."
"Simple? Don't you know me Felicity? The word simple is not in my vocabulary." Thea said with a chuckle, but she went back into the closet to try to find something else for her friend to wear. "So what's it like being my big brother's executive assistant?" She asked as she came out of the closet holding up another dress.
Felicity shook her head no at the dress, with a little frown. As Thea walked back into the closet Felicity answered her question "Let's just say I miss my old job in the I.T. department. Not that your brother is a bad boss or anything like that. I just don't think I'm really cut out to be an executive assistant to the CEO of Queen Consolidated."
"And what makes you think that?" came the reply from inside the closet.
"The fact that I wanna strangle Oliver every time he asks me for a cup of coffee. When I was first promoted to his EA I was so mad that I broke the coffee maker. He asked me to get him and his guest a cup of coffee and I was so happy to tell him that someone had broken the coffee maker violently. The look on his face was so worth it. It was probably not the smartest thing to do but I was pretty pissed off. I even quit and told him to send me back to the I.T. department but he said no, the jerk." She said it viciously but she was smiling at the memory of that day.
"I guess my brother didn't like you being so far away from him."
Felicity was then thinking about how Oliver said that she was "promoted" because he couldn't go down 18 flights of stairs every time they needed to discuss their nightly activities. Just the thought of that conversation made her cringe and smile at the same time.
"What are you smiling at missy?" Thea said when she came out of the closet with yet another dress and saw her friend smiling. "How about this one?" she said as she held up the dress for Felicity.
"I guess it'll do." She walked over and took the dress from Thea.
As she was about to walk into Thea's bathroom Thea stopped her. "Are you sure there is nothing going on between you and my brother?" she inquired.
"Come on Thea you know there isn't, we've been through this before I don't have feelings for Oliver and he doesn't have any for me." Felicity insisted. She had explained this to so many people so many times and it really hurt to have to keep reminding people, and herself, that Oliver didn't think of her like that. He didn't think of her the way she thought of him.
"I think you're wrong. So does everyone else. Doesn't the fact that so many people think you two belong together say something? I think you are the only person in the world who doesn't see the way he looks at you and he's the only person in the world who doesn't see the way you look at him. It's really sad how you're such a genius and yet you can't understand that he feels something for you. Something more than just friendship."
"Yeah that something more is that he's my boss."
"You and I, and everyone else in the world, know that that's not even slightly true."
"Thea, just stop. It would never work. He's said many times that with the life he leads he can't have a serious relationship, that's why things didn't work between him and Laurel."
"No. Things didn't work between him and Laurel because what they had was in the past. Also, she doesn't know all of him, you do. She hates half of who he is, she doesn't understand half of who he is, and that could never work. You know and love all of him. That's the major difference between you and Laurel."
"Thea. I don't want to keep having this discussion." Felicity stated sternly.
"Why?" Thea was being defiant purposely, she knew if she pushed hard enough Felicity would finally spill something, anything, she knew Felicity needed to get something off her chest and she was gonna help her do it.
"Because." Felicity stated simply.
"That's not an answer. I want a legit answer. You know me and you know I won't stop bugging you until I get one." She said and she stomped her foot for emphasis.
"Fine!" Felicity screamed, finally having had enough of this constant badgering. "Screw this! You wanna know the truth? Fine! I have feelings for Oliver. Can you please drop this?" Felicity really didn't want to discuss this right now, she just wanted to get dressed and go back down to finish her dinner. Oliver and Moira were probably already wondering where they were, they had been gone probably 20 minutes already.
"No. Now that you have finally admitted to yourself and someone else that you have feelings for my big brother we are going to talk about it." Thea was proud of herself that she got Felicity to admit that but she knew that now she was going to have trouble getting her to go farther in depth. But Thea was a determined girl and now that she had Felicity started she was going to get her to finish, she didn't care if she had to lock Felicity in her room, it was going to happen. She would do whatever it takes.
"Thea, please. I'm hungry and Oliver and your mom are probably wondering what is taking us so long."
"No. No excuses. Let them wait. We are going to sit down and talk." Thea sat down. She gave Felicity a pointed look until she sat down also.
"Fine. What?"
"You know what. What we have been talking about this whole time. You and my brother? When's it going to happen?"
"It's not"
"Bull."
"Thea…"
"You know it's bull. You and Oliver have feelings for each other and now that you have finally admitted your feelings for him we are going to talk about why it hasn't happened yet. So talk."
Felicity looked down and she realized she was still wearing the dress that she had spilled on. Hoping to stall she asked "Can I at least change first?"
"Fine."
Felicity got up and started walking to the bathroom when Thea stopped her. "What you said I could change and I'm going to change?"
"Change here."
"Excuse me?!"
"I will look away but there is a window in my bathroom and I know how badly you want to not have this conversation."
"So you think I'm going to sneak out your bathroom window? Really Thea?"
"Hey, you spend a lot of time with my big brother, I don't know how he has or hasn't rubbed off on you. I will turn around but you are not going into the bathroom."
"Urg. Fine. You are just as stubborn as your brother, if not more." She stood up and picked up the dress that she was going to change into. "Well, turn around." She reached behind her and tried to reach the zipper on the back of her dress but she couldn't reach it. "Thea?"
"Huh?"
"I can't reach my zipper." She heard a laugh. "Come on, just please help me" Thea turned around and started walking towards her and when she reached her she unzipped the dress, then walked back and turned back around so she was facing a wall. Felicity pulled her dress down and off then picked it up closed the zipper and put it on the bed.
Classic how at that moment when she was standing there in only her matching bra and underwear and holding the dress that she was about to put on, the door to Thea's room opened. Now if it was Moira that would have been awkward, but she would have considered it lucky because instead the person who had just walked into the room was Oliver.