—8—

"Are you planning to stay out there all night?"

The voice on the intercom made Chloe jump, looking around in surprise. She spotted a camera and rolled her eyes. How long had he known she was out there?

Chloe had made several attempts to ring the bell in the last ten minutes, but a new nervousness had taken over. After all of the phone calls, the weight of what she was doing had sunken in on her. She was lying. Lying to everyone. It was one thing to keep the occasional secret or to tell a little fib here and there, but this was open, blatant, straight-up lying. And to the people who loved and cared for her! She couldn't remember the last time she hadn't been completely honest with her mother. Not since high school, for sure.

And why? Why was she intentionally deceiving everyone she cared about? For Oliver Queen? For herself? Because she had been a little miffed that Dinah's marriage had made her pushier than ever? Surely she was more mature than that. Surely she was more intelligent than that! What had she gotten herself into? And with a man she knew almost nothing about! Oliver Queen, of all people. Oliver Queen, whose reputation proceeded him.

Standing as she was on the precipice of the greatest tangle of lies she was sure anyone had ever involved themselves in, she just hadn't been able to press the bell to ring it and let him know she was here.

But she had been spotted. And the elevator doors opened. She found Oliver waiting with a smirk in place, and two bottles of wine in either hand. He lifted them. "I didn't know which poison you preferred, so I got out the merlot and the moscato."

He might as well have had a pair of horns on his head, and a curly black mustache.

Well, she thought to herself, I always imagined the devil would be handsome. "Definitely the vodka," she said aloud.

He laughed at that, and shook his head, setting the bottles down on the counter and heading to his liquor cabinet for a bottle of vodka. That done, he poured them each a shot. He handed her one with a grin.

"So…" she asked, holding it with a sense of trepidation, "what are we drinking to?"

He thought for a moment before making his suggestion. "To leading our own damn lives the way we please."

She grinned. "Wonder what that must be like," she joked, clinking glasses before throwing the shot back.

An hour later, they were on separate couches, a little bit tipsy and still talking, tossing a stress-ball back and forth.

"Let's see…parents' names. Go." He tossed her the stress ball, which she caught lightly.

"Gabe and Moira. Yours?" she asked.

"Robert and Laura."

Chloe thought for a moment. "Childhood pets?" She tossed back the ball.

Oliver caught in one hand—even on a buzz, he apparently had amazing reflexes. "None. You?"

"I had Clark's farm. Didn't need pets."

"Kent?"

"Yeah, we were best friends growing up, so I spent almost all my time at his place. I wasn't really big on the horses, but his golden retriever Shelby was the greatest dog ever."

"Interesting," Oliver said. For not the first time that evening, he was feeling a prick of curiosity about Chloe's relationship with football star Clark Kent. He was beginning to wonder exactly how Clark had ended up with Chloe's cousin Lois. A thought occurred to him. "Romantic history," was all he said, tossing the ball back to her.

As anticipated, Chloe's face turned very red, and she no longer met his eyes. She reached for the vodka to pour herself another shot. Throwing it back with abandon, she determined how much of which stories to tell him. "Two serious relationships. Jimmy Olson in the early years of college. Davis Bloom for about a year later on."

"Not Kent?" he asked, honestly surprised.

Chloe allowed an internal sigh of relief that he had not interrogated her about Jimmy or Davis. "Nah. I mean, I had a crush on him for the better part of a decade, but at the end of the day, we were always just really good friends."

"Huh."

Turning the attention back to Oliver, she raised her eyebrows. "You?"

Oliver gave a short chuckle.

"Why don't you skip anything that lasted less than a year," Chloe said derisively. "Otherwise we'll be here all night."

Oliver gave her a sarcastic look before responding. "Honestly I'd say the only one that mattered was Tess Mercer."

"You and Tess?" Chloe looked shocked.

"Probably before you met her," he offered. "She was the only girlfriend I ever had serious intentions about, even though there were others that lasted a while."

"What ended it?"

"She did. Mostly." He dropped his head back on the couch and stared at the ceiling. "I dunno. I cared about her a lot, but I don't think I was as in love with her as I thought I was. If I had been, I probably wouldn't have let her go so easily."

Chloe thought of Tess and Emil. They had always seemed like a very sweet but unlikely couple. She could much more easily picture a fireball like Tess with someone like Oliver. "Did she give you a reason?"

Oliver shrugged, pretending it wasn't that big of a deal even though it was. "Said she needed someone more grounded. Thought I didn't take anything seriously." He caught the look on Chloe's face, which said plainly that she thought Tess was right. "Having a sense of humor doesn't mean I don't take things seriously," he said firmly.

Chloe raised her hands in surrender. "I didn't say anything."

"You were thinking it."

She suppressed a smile and started to pour them each another shot.

He raised his eyebrows as she did and couldn't help commenting, "You can really hold your vodka." He was surprised that she was still only a little tipsy, when they'd almost gone through the whole bottle together.

She smirked. "Lois taught me how to drink."

"Ah yes, the general's daughter," Oliver said, excepting the shot from her. "Some interesting relatives you've got."

Chloe laughed outright. "You have no idea."

"What do your parents do?"

She shrugged. "My dad's a plant manager for LuthorCorp. Mom's a stay-at-home."

"Huh."

"What?" she narrowed her eyes.

"Well how did your dad react to our 'engagement'?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well he works for LuthorCorp."

"And?"

"And the Luthors hate Queen Industries, and by proxy, so do most of their employees."

She chuckled, on a buzz from her last shot. "First, don't pretend that your company doesn't have an equal animosity for the Luthors, and second, my dad's not high enough on the food chain to care that much about the politics."

Oliver shook his head. "You are so weird."

She laughed. "Excuse me?"

"You're just really weird. You come from an unambitious family and grew up in a tiny little town that's actually called Smallville."

"Make your point," she glared. But she couldn't hold the glare, and she ended up laughing.

He grinned at her laugh. It looked like he was close to discovering just how many shots it took before she started to get properly drunk. He poured them both another one. "All I'm saying is you're quite the success story considering your background."

"What's wrong with my background?" she demanded, frowning at him and not taking the glass.

"Nothing. You just didn't grow up somewhere that was promoting that kind of ambition. It was all you." He gave her a little nod, as if to commend her.

She eyed the glass he was still offering, but reached for the empty glass and poured a new one. "I'll drink to that," she smirked, raising it to him. "You're falling behind anyway."

He laughed at that, and joined her in the drink. He was definitely a little tipsy, but he was far from his limit. He supposed it was only fair that he catch up to her since she'd end up drunk first regardless.

Chloe smacked her lips after the drink and looked around at the apartment, frowning. "Do you actually like it here?"

He laughed out loud. "Yes, actually. Why?"

She just shook her head, rising from the couch, albeit a little wobbly as she did so. "It's just so…you live in a miniature factory," she decided after a moment.

He laughed again, leaning back to watch her explore the place. "I believe the term you're looking for is 'modern.'"

"And I believe the term you're looking for is 'cold,'" she retorted, looking at the stainless steel everywhere. "And it's too clean. Where are your knickknacks?" she asked.

"My what?" he asked, finding the word hilarious.

"Knickknacks," she repeated. "Clutter. Personal items that serve no purpose except to take up space."

"Don't have those."

She snorted. "Yeah, I can see that." She looked around at him. "You are so boring."

This time he really laughed, holding his sides. "That—" he managed, "has got to be the first time a woman has said that to me."

"It's true," she said stubbornly. "Only someone with absolutely no personality would have an apartment this devoid of clutter."

"Maybe I just keep it tidy. Has that occurred to you?" he asked, noticing that Chloe had finished off the vodka with the last shot she'd poured. He stood up to get another bottle.

Chloe was shaking her head. "Nope. Even the tidiest people have knickknacks. You just keep it this clean to show off for women."

He smirked. "Partly true."

"All true," she argued stubbornly.

He rolled his eyes, not bothering to try to convince her otherwise.

"We should get you some knickknacks," she decided, inspecting his weight set along the far wall.

"Blueberry or apple?" he asked, referring to flavors.

"Apple."

He nodded, opening the new bottle and filling the glasses again. He brought her one. "So I still don't know what a knickknack is," he told her, clinking his glass to hers.

They drank before she explained. "It's like…little glass chickens. Or ceramic dogs Or those bottles of sand that have seashells in them."

He looked at her like she was crazy. "Why would I want either of those things?"

She shrugged, taking the bottle of apple vodka from him and taking a swig before offering it to him. He just stared.

"Ugh," she heaved a dramatic sigh. "I don't know. Because your great aunt Myrtle brought it to you from Florida," she made up. "Or because your 6 year old nephew made it. Whatever. The point is, all human beings have them. Has it occurred to you that we're going to have to kiss at some point?"

She changed the subject so abruptly and so seamlessly that her tone hadn't even changed from when she was talking about ceramic dogs. Oliver faltered for a second, completely surprised. "What?" he asked, trying to keep up.

"Kiss. You Tarzan. Me Jane. We're going to have to kiss."

"Why?"

She threw her hands up at the ceiling, as if wondering why she had to deal with this kind of stupidity, but it threw her slightly off balance, so he grabbed her arm to steady her.

"Because you know it's going to happen. At some point, somebody's going to be all, 'Well, Ollie, why don't you kiss the bride?' and you're gonna have to do it. And we're going to have to swap saliva and it's going to be so gross."

He laughed at her. "I resent that!"

"Well has it?" she demanded, not to be deterred.

"Has what?"

"Has it occurred to you?" she asked irritably.

He shrugged. "I guess. It's no big deal."

She glared at him.

He quirked an eyebrow. "Right?"

She snatched the vodka back from him and took another drink, walking away from him and returning to the couch.

"Am I missing something?"

"Of course not," she rolled her eyes, looking at him with undisguised accusation. "It's no big deal for you. Just like it will be no big deal for you that people are going to assume I'm sleeping with you. And it'll be no big deal for you when we finally break it off."

He raised an eyebrow, deciding maybe the second bottle hadn't been such a good idea. He sat down next to her to take it away. "It won't be that big of a deal for you, either."

"That's where you're wrong," she said, pouting when he took the bottle. "Because it's all one big double-standard. I'm going to go from being one of the most successful women in this city to that girl that Oliver Queen broke up with."

He frowned, suddenly feeling a little guilty. "We can always tell them you dumped me, you know." After all, his reputation would bounce back easily. Truthfully, there wasn't really that much at stake where he was concerned. But he realized she did have a lot at stake. He'd always heard that Chloe Sullivan was a cold business woman. He'd been told she kept a tight schedule and almost never made time for a personal life. He'd assumed she was uptight and didn't know how to have fun. For the first time, it occurred to him that she was just scared, and that was a carefully maintained facade.

Chloe laid her head back on the couch and stared at the ceiling. "No one would believe that."

He laughed. "Are you kidding?"

She shook her head.

"Look, Sullivan—"

"You're going to have to start calling me Chloe."

"Chloe," he said, smiling a little that she'd turned the tables on him. "I think you're underestimating yourself. And anyway, if you really want to, it's not too late to back out."

She rolled her head to the side to look at him. "That," she said, "is such a lie."

He shrugged. "All right, it is, but we could always come clean."

"Nope," she shook her head. "Rule number two."

"No one must know," he said for her, grinning a little. "You are a dedicated woman."

She nodded. "Never quit."

"Well, Chloe Sullivan," he said. "You'd better have some water before you go to bed tonight, or you're going to hate me in the morning even more than you already do.