Angel Face - Oliver Queen 🌷

12 || Stood Up 💔

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So, that's what I did, around 4 I went down to the Big Belly Burger, looking around for the Queen. There was no one in there, no one except Tommy and Carly behind the bar that I recognized from the other night that John brought us here. "Well, speak of the snitch," I walked up to my brother with a wide, sarcastic smile to his confused look. "You told Laurel, Oliver and I were fighting."

He let out a breathy chuckle, "she just so happened to notice you weren't following Oliver like a lost puppy, so..."

I gaped at him, reaching out to hit his arm but that only fueled his laughter. I shook my head, "speaking of, have you seen Oliver anywhere?"

"Nope," He shook his head and I scoffed, looking down at my phone 4:05. Late, like always. "If you want to kill some time we can get some lunch." I hesitated, knowing he'd question what was going on between Oliver and I and I didn't really want to talk about that, but what else was I going to do.

"Fine, but you're buying." I plopped down into the seat across from him and smiled widely when he rolled his eyes, but otherwise got up to go put an order in with Carly while I stayed at the booth, looking through the file. All I needed was one thing, the smallest thing to put a dent in the case to prolong him getting the needle until Laurel could prove him innocent.

And so far from what Laurel said when she checked in with me, Peter didn't have anything new to the case and I didn't exactly have the Hood on speed dial to see if he knew anything.

"You really are putting a lot of hours into this Declan thing," Tommy pointed out as he slipped back into his seat with our food, handing me a Dr. Pepper. "You actually think he's innocent."

"Someone does." I told him elusively.

"So, you said, but you didn't say who."

I looked up at hesitantly, I didn't know how'd he react to me talking with the vigilante. "The Vigilante."

"The guy in the hood?" Tommy echoed in disbelief with wide eyes. "Look, you're-- you're kidding."

I shrugged, "He tracked me down and asked me to look into the Declan case."

"But you've met him?"

"Twice," I nodded, stirring my drink with my straw absent mindedly as my brother stared at me like I'd gone crazy. And maybe I had. "I know, he goes against everything that I was ever taught to believe in. He breaks the law and God knows what else-"

"How are you not afraid that he is gonna do God knows what to you?" Tommy cut me off, instantly going into protective big brother mode and I rolled my eyes.

"He won't," I assured him, how sure I was written on my  face. "I don't know. I can feel it. Something about him is just... familiar."

Tommy blew out a short breath, shaking his head at me, "you have some odd taste in men you know that."

"Yeah?" I challenged. "I'm not the one sorta dating my best friends ex-girlfriend." He narrowed his eyes at me and I simply smirked back, popping a fry into my mouth. That's when my phone buzzed loudly across the table, and I hate to admit how eagerly I grabbed or how disappointed I was when I saw it was only a message from Laurel.

"How late is he?"

I sighed heavily, "Hitting the hour mark. Nothing's wrong though. Which means-" I broke off, shaking my head. I couldn't talk about Oliver with Tommy, they were best friends too and I wouldn't want to make Tommy feel like he needed to pick a side. "I'm not talking boy problems with you."

"Good. I didn't want to hear your problems anyway." Tommy said, his voice laced with sarcasm.

I looked up at him, pressing my lips into a thin line. "Fine," I gave in. "Do you think it's wrong of me, to expect Oliver to open up after everything that happened?"

Tommy frowned, "no, but I think you could be a little more understanding."

"Yeah, I know, but he's just so secretive all the time now," I slumped in my seat slightly. I knew I could be a little more understanding, but I just don't get how you could go from telling someone everything that happened to you, to not telling them anything. "I think there's something that he doesn't want me to know, which makes me want to know all the more."

"Harley," Tommy sat forward, a suddenly serious look on his face that startled me. "He went through something traumatic, you gotta give him a little time. He can't just go right back to the way things left off before it happened.

"So, you think I'm just being paranoid?" I asked, chewing my bottom lip in thought.

"I think you should talk to him."

As if on cue, Oliver appeared, waltzing up to the table like he wasn't an hour late, "Talk to who?" When neither responded he sighed. "I'm so sorry that I'm late."

"What happened?" I asked.

Oliver opened his mouth, then stopped, making me quirk an eyebrow at him, "I got held up."

"Is everything okay?"

"There was this thing with Thea." Oliver brushed it off like it was nothing, but it wasn't nothing to me. It was more lies, more secrets.

"And you couldn't call and tell me that you were going to be an hour late?"

Tommy let out a low whistle, tapping on the table, "Okay. You two have fun." He didn't get a response as he left.

"I'm really sorry," Oliver apologized softly. "It was unavoidable."

"What was unavoidable?" Oliver didn't answer. "Okay." I scoffed, pushing up out of my seat and going to leave, I wasn't going to sit there and put my all into our friendship, when he clearly didn't care enough to save it himself.

"Harley," he caught my arm before I could leave with desperate eyes. "Please..."

"No, Oliver, don't you get it? Every question gets a vague non-answer. What is so awful that you're afraid to tell me?"

He only stared at me, like he wanted to say something, like it was sitting right there on the tip of his tongue but something was stopping him from actually saying it. Before he could get a word out, his phone buzzed and he looked down on the screen. "Harley, I'm sorry, but I gotta go."

"Whats wrong?"

"I--I don't- uh, it's nothing." Oliver offered an unconvincing smile.

"Right, nothing," I scoffed, I don't know why I even bothered to ask. "Bye, Oliver." I brushed passed him and out the door. I was done trying to reach out to him.