It's just a drink. It's just a drink. It's just a drink. It's just a drink. You're fine. It's just one drink.
But would it just be one drink? Or would she let herself slip and have two? Three? Would she be able to be around him after three drinks? Would she be able to be around him sober?
She stood up from her desk and grabbed her coat. I can do this. It was just going to be a couple of drinks with an old friend. I can do this. She wasn't going to let her guard down. I can do this.
She kept chanting to herself as she closed up her office and walked to the elevator. She could do this. And if she couldn't, she had the next thirty floors to figure out an escape plan. But she was tired of running, especially from him. Leaving him without a saying a word all those years ago was cruel, and she knew he deserved answers. Answers you can't give him, she reminded herself, don't forget why you ran in the first place. She was so lost in her thoughts that she hadn't even realized she was already near the lobby. Time was up.
The elevator halted at the first floor and chimed for her to exit. Oliver Queen's blue eyes were the first things she saw when the door opened.
"Felicity," he breathed, those blue eyes shamelessly roaming her body, "you look lovely."
"I was aiming for professional," she squeaked out, palms starting to sweat. It might not be too late to run. You could do it. You'll have to leave the heels behind. Maybe security will get them for you.
"Are you ready to go?" Oliver asked, holding his arm out.
She slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow and gulped as he led her out of her building. This was actually happening.
"So where are we going?" She asked, trying to sound casual.
"My bar, actually," Oliver smiled, "Verdant."
"A synonym for green?" She wondered aloud, starting to get nervous. Green used to be her favorite color on him.
He nodded, giving her a sheepish grin, "You loved me in it so much that it became my favorite color as well."
If she wasn't uncomfortable before she definitely was now. It was too much. The whole thing was just too much. She was in way over her head. I told you that you weren't ready for this.
"It's just a quick drive down sixth," Oliver promised, squeezing her knee, "how was work?"
She breathed a sigh of relief. Work was a safe topic. She could totally talk about work. "It was nice. Pretty calm today. I had to catch up on all the paperwork and blue prints I was behind on approving. The divorce has been…time consuming."
"Divorce?"
She mentally slapped herself. Great, you took a safe topic and turned it into a personal one.
"Yes," she mumbled, "Ray and I had irreconcilable differences."
Well that's one way to put it.
Oliver opened his mouth to say something but paused as he glanced out the window, "We're here."
She sucked in a deep breath as she tried to prepare herself for the next couple of hours. Remember, it's just a few drinks.
She followed him out of the car and into Verdant, which was a club attached to Mr. Queen's old factory in the Glades.
"Interesting place to build a nightclub," she noted, "I like it."
He smiled and led her through a crowd of people dancing under the neon lights. At the end of the room was a corner labeled "VIP". Felicity tried not to let the intimacy of the little section get to her head. Drinks with a friend. Friend. Friend. Friend.
"Please tell me your taste in drinks has gotten better since high school," Oliver teased.
She laughed, shaking her head, "Cherry sours for life."
"I had a feeling you would say that," he chuckled, and before she could blink a bartender was placing the pink drink in front of her.
"You know me well, Oliver Queen."
"I used to."
An awkward silence washed over them, and Felicity took a long sip from her drink. Alcohol was definitely her friend right now.
"That's your queue to tell me all about yourself," Oliver nudged her, "I've been dying to know how you've been."
"You first," she stalled, needing liquid courage, "how's your mom? Thea?"
"Mom's good. She remarried a man name Walter Steele. It's kind of weird seeing her with someone other than Dad, but Walter's a good guy. And Thea is doing well, I guess. She had a bit of a drug problem for a while after Dad died, but she's getting better. I have to be careful around her, though. It's like stepping around land mines. One minute she's normal and then bam, I've pissed her off. I guess that's just her being a teenage girl. You used to be like that sometimes."
"You could be a real ass sometimes," Felicity shrugged, "always pushing my buttons."
A second cherry sour was placed in front of her; she didn't hesitate to start drinking it, "What happened with your dad?"
"He had a mole on his back. It looked harmless. I guess he started to notice the mole changing and growing, so he went to a dermatologist. In the matter of months that tiny little mole had spread cancer to his spine and to his brain. He walked in to get the mole checked out and walked out with a death sentence. I didn't even know he was sick until he was in the final stages of it. I was in Cuba for a while without cell service. When I got back in the states, he had weeks left. I came back home and he prepped me to take over the company. I held his hand when he died."
"I'm so sorry, Oliver," she whispered, overwhelmed with guilt. She should've been there for him.
"He asked about you," he told her, "a lot."
"I didn't know," she looked down, blinking back tears, "If I had known—."
"You would've what? Come back? You clearly didn't want to be found."
She downed the rest of her drink and shivered at the strength of it. A third glass was placed in front of her. "It's hard to explain."
"I can keep up."
"I found out I was pregnant right before graduation," she paused, observing the shock on his features, "I was embarrassed and didn't know what to do. Ray and I ran off. We got married and he let me go to college. He stayed home with our daughter and worked some crappy night job while I got my degree. I was at home one night messing around with my computer when I built a really intricate hacking system. It could get into anything. I sold it to the government for half a billion and I started my own company. I told Ray he could go back to school, but what was the point? He didn't have to. So while I was at work every day, our daughter was at school, and Ray was out playing golf of riding boats with his friends. I found out a week ago that his most recent hobby is sleeping with other women in our bed. So I took my daughter and we left."
He gaped at her.
"I had my reasons for running, Oliver. And I had my reasons for hiding too."
"But why from me? I thought that you were still mad at me for that night. I was so worried about you!"
"Why would I be mad at you for that, Oliver? I wanted it too." She thought back on that one night so many years ago.
They had been fighting. All they ever seemed to do was fight. He had just slept with half of the cheerleading team in one night and she was sick of it. She was sick of watching him use girls and sick of watching girls use him. She wanted to scream at him for not realizing he was better than that. She wanted to wave her arms in front of his face and tell him that if he could just keep it in his pants for five seconds he might realize that she has been in love with him for the last four years.
"I don't understand why you're getting on my ass about who I'm sleeping with," he grumbled, "as if it's any of your business."
"It's my business because you make it my business! Do you think I want to hear about all the girls you run through? I'm not your guy friends. That doesn't make you sound cool to me. You just sound like a walking, talking, breathing STD!"
"Well then why are you still here, huh? If you're so fucking grossed out Felicity then go home! I'm sure Ray would like to see you in places other than library. Go!"
She stared at him, tears running down her cheeks, "Take it back."
He walked towards her, shaking his head, "No. You're not my mom. Get off my back."
She reached up to slap him, or push him away, or maybe just shoot him the finger, but he caught her hands and yanked her up on her feet, "Let me go, Oliver."
It almost had a double meaning to it. She was done with him. She loved that boy more than she loved anything in the world — including her own boyfriend — but she wasn't going to sit and watch him self destruct. She was walking out that door and she was never coming back. No way in hell.
He seemed to catch it in her voice because something deep within him snapped, and he threw her down on the bed and climbed over her, "You know I'll never do that."
She wasn't sure if it was the alcohol in his system from the party he had been at, or if he had finally registered the energy that had been crackling between them all of these years, but either way Oliver Queen had his hands on her body and his lips on her neck.
"Oliver," she shuddered, "you have to st-stop."
"But do you really want me to, Felicity?"
And so he kept going.
"Hello? Earth to Felicity. Are you in there?" Present day Oliver was waving a hand in front of her face, "Where did you go?"
"I was just thinking about that night," she admitted, taking another sip from her drink, "I don't regret that night, Oliver."
"I don't either," he whispered, and the silence that followed was more sad than it was awkward.
Felicity cleared her throat and finished her drink. Slow down, Smoak. You don't want to have to be carried out of here. But another cherry sour was already waiting for her, and she was too weak to resist it. She stirred the drink with her straw and lifted it to her lips, she knew she was screwed when she couldn't taste the alcohol. She was definitely a few drinks away from joining the land of the slurring and stumbling.
"So how's Laurel?" She asked, trying to sound casual, "I bet planning a wedding is fun."
Oliver's eyes looked like they were about to bug out of his head, "You know Laurel?"
"Nope. I know Sara. She's my divorce attorney."
"Small world," he mumbled, looking uncomfortable.
"Mmhm," she agreed, looking down at her watch, "I have to go. My driver is here to get me."
"Right," he nodded, "you have a daughter you need to get home to."
"I do."
"What's her name?" He asked, moving to help her out of her seat.
"Mia," Felicity's liquid courage turned into liquid stupidity and she threw in, "it rhymes with Thea."
Biting down on her tongue as she waited for his response, she knew what he was thinking. He was remembering conversations between the two of them in his living room as they talked about names for future children.
"I guess you've been holding on to pieces of me as well," he noted, leading her back towards her car.
"You have no idea, Oliver," she smiled sadly, climbing into the backseat, "Goodbye."
"Goodnight, 'Lis. I'll see you soon."
It was a promise she knew he meant but one that she couldn't commit to. Seeing him again was dangerous. She knew better.
He closed her door and waved to her through the tinted window. She gulped, knowing that as much as tonight needed to be an ending, it was just the beginning.