Chapter 3:

Oliver led Felicity up to the room above the dance floor that he and Tommy used as an office. One wall of the room was a large floor to ceiling window that allowed them to see into and watch over the club without having to always be immersed in the loud and sometimes very drunk crowd. They had furnished the office area of the room with large industrial steel desks with glass tops and over-stuffed black desk chairs. On the other side of the room a comfortable black sofa and a sleek glass and metal coffee table sat in front of the large glass window. The other walls in the office held large bold pieces of artwork that gave the room brilliant pops of color. It held a very masculine and rich feel; perfectly complimenting the owners of the club.

When Oliver walked into the office he immediately cringed. It was a mess. He took a peek over his shoulder to see if Felicity looked offended by the mess but she seemed unaffected.

"Ummm…sorry, about the mess," he provided. "Tommy and I both try to keep up with it but he's been busy planning Laurel's party and I've been too stressed out about the club to do anything about it." He led Felicity over to the chair at his desk and pulled it out for her to sit. He picked up the trashcan next to his desk and with one wipe of his arm discarded all the old Styrofoam coffee cops that littered his desk top."

Felicity gave him an amused smile. "So, if you just log me into your computer I should be able to take a look and see what I can do." Oliver leaned across the desk, one arm brushing against Felicity's forearm, and tapped out his log on and password on the keyboard. Felicity was again caught in the scent of Oliver's cologne and had to bite down on her bottom lip to keep from letting out a breathy little moan of satisfaction. God, the man smelled delicious! When Oliver finished logging in and turned the keyboard towards Felicity it took her a second to return from her cologne-induced fog. She shifted in the chair and smiled awkwardly at Oliver, hoping he didn't realize she was practically sniffing him like a blood hound on the hunt. "Ok, let's see what we have here."

Oliver watched as Felicity's fingers floated across his keyboard. Her focus was completely on the screen in front of her and he used that advantage to catalogue her beautiful features. The first thing he had noticed about Felicity was the absolute brilliance of her eyes. They were a sparkling blue that had captivated him from the moment Sara introduced them. She had a beautiful heart-shaped mouth, and it was painted an alluring shade of bright red. She was, currently, worrying one of those lips between her teeth as she worked. Instinctually, he wanted to reach out and smooth that bottom lip out with his thumb but stopped himself from the highly inappropriate act.

Oliver was simply amazed at his reaction to Felicity. After his accident, all women had lost their appeal. He saw them and admired them but never felt the need to get involved. Once he and Tommy started the club his desire for women completely waned, probably because the type of women that frequented the high-class night club had only one thing on their mind; landing a rich man! Oliver had lived in that scene for too long and was no longer interested. But, Felicity, seemed to be the complete opposite of any other woman in the club. She was completely unassuming and seemed oblivious to her beauty. Her dress was the perfect melding of seductive and classy, her make-up was demure, and it seemed her only concession to opulent fashion was her black stiletto high heels. He noticed that those heels did amazing thinks to her long sexy legs and thought if she knew the effect they had on him, hell any man, she would never wear them again. She didn't seem like the type to want to attract that type of attention.

A small sigh brought his attention back to the task at hand and for some reason he did not like the look on Felicity's face at all. "What's wrong? How bad is it?"

Felicity seemed to take her time deciding on how to answer that question and decided that she would go with the good news first; because she just couldn't stand the panic marring such handsome features. She turned her chair a little to face Oliver, took a deep breath, and began, "Well, the good news is that…," she trailed off and moved quick hands across the keyboard and punctuated the end of her typing with a hard tap on the ENTER key, "you are officially back in business." She flashed him a brilliant smile and started to say something else but Oliver cut her off.

"Are you kidding me? Felicity, you're amazing!" Then he stopped. "Wait, good news? When people say that it usually means there's bad news to follow."

Felicity nodded. "Without getting into too much detail, and without using too many technical terms that you probably won't understand, because if you did understand them you probably would have been able to fix this yourself and never would have needed my assistance…" Oliver cleared his throat and raised an eyebrow to cut off her ramble. "Right, sorry….basically, your program is shit!"

Oliver blanched, "come again?"

Felicity tried to give Oliver a reassuring smile because she could tell that he was not going to take this news well and turned back to the screen to pull up some information she thought he'd need to see. "I'm really sorry, Oliver, but this system is archaic…and about to go out of business." Felicity gave Oliver a sympathetic look and continued. "The company that provides service to your POS is called RestCo and they're owned by a larger corporation named Versa Technology." Felicity pulled up an article on the computer but Oliver didn't need to read it.

"And Versa Technology is about to declare bankruptcy," he supplied. "My father had the news on this morning at breakfast. They talked about it during one of their business segments."

Felicity nodded, "Yes, I'm sorry." However, she hurried to add, "But that doesn't mean they'll technically close down all operations. There's a small possibility that your service won't be interrupted at all." Felicity tried to sound encouraging but from what she saw when she rebooted the system she was pretty sure the possibility of maintaining service was going to be very slim.

Oliver could tell by the look on her face that she really didn't believe that they would be able to continue using their current system. "Ok, so, you're the expert here. What do you suggest?"

Felicity nibbled on her thumb nail as she processed all of Oliver's options. "Honestly, the issue that caused your system to crash was a simple maintenance issue. If RestCo was fully operational this would have never happened. Someone should have caught this issue which tells me they're probably operating with a skeleton staff."

"How much time do you think we have until it goes down completely?"

Felicity reviewed the article online and considered what she saw when she hacked into RestCo's server. She eyed Oliver nervously, "A month, maybe two? You should probably start shopping around for new vendors, immediately!"

Oliver dropped into the chair next to his desk and let his head fall into the back cushion. "This is going to be a disaster."

Felicity was perplexed for a minute. Did Oliver really not know the resources that were available to him? "You know, you could always design your own system and run it in-house. You could tap into one of the servers at Queen Consolidated! Those babies never crash."

Oliver was completely confused. "I have no idea how to go about doing something like that."

Laughing Felicity reached out and patted Oliver's knee. "Oh, Oliver, you are going to be so happy I walked into your club tonight."

Oliver smiled and reached down to run one long finger over the top of her hand that was resting on his knee, "And why is that, Ms. Smoak?" He just couldn't resist touching her soft skin.

Felicity lost all focus as Oliver's fingered trailed over her hand leaving a burning trail in its wake. "Umm…well…you know…you just have to hire someone, you know, like an independent consultant, to design a program that fits your needs." 'Oh God, stop stuttering! Act like you've been around men before! "And then, we can just link you into the QC servers through a wireless signal."

Felicity stopped talking when Oliver circled her wrist with his thumb and finger and gently turned over her hand, and then he ran the same finger over the palm of her hand. He looked up at her through hooded lashes and asked, "Could you design something like that?" Oliver had no idea why he was flirting with Felicity but he just couldn't stop himself. He had to touch her. He hadn't done anything like this in a very long time but it was almost impossible to keep his hands off of her.

Felicity's mind completely stopped working. As soon as she felt Oliver's slightly calloused finger glide across the palm of her hand all brain functions had ceased. She could only focus on the spot of her hand where, Oliver's finger lay resting.

Suddenly, a new song started in the club below, the bass pounding, shaking the large window in the office and Felicity jumped, the noise suddenly springing her into action. She rolled the desk chair away from Oliver and quickly focused on shutting down the browsers she had opened on Oliver's computer.

This was happening way too fast for her. They had just met and the attraction between them practically sparked with electricity. Normally, Felicity wouldn't fight something, that in all honesty felt so good, but she didn't want her and Oliver to play games with each other. She knew without a shadow of a doubt that they could end up in bed together tonight; but where would it lead? She could not, would not, have a one night stand with him. She didn't actually have a problem with one night stands but they were mean to be just that…one night! There were too many connections between her and Oliver and after tonight their paths would surely cross again. And, things like that? Things like that just ended up awkward and uncomfortable for everyone involved. Her emotions were warring inside her with uncertainty!

Oliver tipped his head to the side and looked at Felicity. "What's wrong?" He was surprised when she backed away from his touch. He thought the physical attraction between them was mutual. Hell, he knew it was mutual and he couldn't understand why she jumped back like she had been electrocuted when he touched her. Slowly, he got up from the chair and leaned against his desk. He nudged her leg with his but Felicity refused to look up at him. Reaching out, he placed one finger under her chin and turned her face up to his, "hey, are you okay?"

Just then the door to the office swung open and a slightly less inebriated Tommy burst through the door, and if the bottle of water in his hand was any indication, Laurel had ended Tommy's alcohol consumption for the rest of the evening. "Oliver," he exclaimed! "The POS system is working. Roy practically broke down in tears he was so happy!"

Before turning around to acknowledge Tommy Oliver murmured to Felicity, "Roy is our head bartender."

"Ah," Felicity whispered back in understanding.

Oliver turned as Tommy approached, "Felicity fixed our computers. She's apparently some crazy computer whisperer," he said with a smile in her direction.

Tommy nodded in approval. "Well done, Felicity. I know I speak for both Oliver and myself when I say that we are forever in your debt."

Oliver rolled his eyes at Tommy's dramatic words but it made Felicity laugh. "Thank you but I really haven't solved your problem."

Tommy raised an eyebrow at Oliver but he waved it off. "We'll talk about it later, Tommy. Let's go back down to the party. I've decided I'm going to enjoy myself tonight."

After his proclamation, Oliver turned back to Felicity and leveled her with the sexy wink. He wasn't going to back away. There was something between he and Felicity and he was determined to pursue it. He hadn't felt this good in a long time!

Right then and there, Felicity decided that whatever was going on between her an Oliver was out of her control and she figured she might as well enjoy the ride. She reached up and took the hand that Oliver offered and turned her body into his so that their arms were crossed behind her back. Leaning in close she said to Oliver, "Let's go have some fun, then!"