A Shot in the Dark 🏹 Oliver Queen

THREE

"You know, I'm proud of you for doing this." Michelle said suddenly. They were halfway to the airport and the car had fallen quiet. Sadie and Stella were fast asleep, their mouths hanging open and heads rolled back against their carseats. Liam was paging through his standard dinosaur book, pointing out his favorite pictures to Bum-Bum the Stuffed Rabbit. A bulky pair of blue headphones covered his ears, the cord connected to the van's DVD players. A Pixar movie, was playing, but Liam had lost interest in it twenty minutes ago. Now it was just background noise as he explained to Bum-Bum the typical diet of a stegosaurus.

"Why?" Zoey wondered.

"You know how I told you I thought it'd be good for you to do something impulsive every once in a while? Jumping on a plane and going to see the guy you boned and then never saw again for five years is pretty impulsive. You're a little badass, you know that?!"

"First of all, I'm not going to see Oliver. In fact, if I didn't have to see him, that would be the ideal. Unfortunately, that wasn't an option Moira offered in her negotiations."

"Come on. You're not the least bit excited that you get to see him again?" Michelle prodded. "Until yesterday, you were going about your life thinking that you would never see him again. Now, you get a chance to tell him off. You can hate him without the guilt of hating a someone who died tragically. I say the first time you lay eyes on him, you pull him aside and give him a piece of your mind!"

"Michelle, it's been five years. What happened is in the past."

"Then let me tell him! FaceTime me and hand him the phone. Or better yet, we'll have Ethan come pick up the kids and I'll take Liam's ticket." Zoey shook her head, smiling like she thought Michelle was joking. "How are you not furious at the guy? If I were you, I would want to take a blowtorch to everything he owns, including his own demon form, but you're so zen about it all. How do you do it?"

"I knew who he was. He never promised that he'd change, or that he had any intentions of trying to change. I still let myself get involved with him. I don't get to be mad at him. I'm the one that made the mistake."

Zoey hadn't been completely honest with her friend. She was angry at him, and she regretted that she had never asked why he strung her along. After the ship had gone down, Zoey constantly thought about why she never asked him what was going on in his mind. But now, in retrospect, she didn't think she wanted to know. She didn't need to feel the hurt all over again. Besides, as pissed as she had been at Oliver, the person she'd truly been the most angry with for the last five years was herself.

Michelle must not have bought her response because she rolled her eyes. "Come on. How do you really do it?"

Zoey chuckled. "I've taken a lot kickboxing classes over the past five years." Michelle seemed to find this answer more satisfactory because she didn't push any further.

"Fine. Then be happy you can show off your hot little ass and make him see what he missed out on!"

"Michelle!" She barked in amusement. Zoey's face turned red and she looked over her should to make sure none of the kids had heard her.

"He's gotta know on some level that he made a huge mistake not dropping to one knee and proposing to you the second he met you. You're smart, you're beautiful, you're probably the nicest person I have ever met... I mean, you're a little awkward and you can't flirt with men to save your life, but he must have felt a little flurry of something stirring up in him when you two were together!"

Zoey shook her head. "That's just not who he is. I stopped trying to rationalize it a long time ago."

"Mommy?" Zoey was relieved when Liam interrupted from the backseat. She looked over her shoulder as Liam pushed one side of his headphones behind his ear.