Code Black // Arrow

16 | Ice Cream

The minuscule gape laid between Oliver's arm and my right thigh was more calculated than the casual position appeared to be. The left side of his body leaned against the side of the couch with his arm rested on top of the cushion beneath my body. We were engaged with the conversation at hand while simultaneously aware of the mere inch between our limbs, careful not to touch the other.

Oliver's keen observation of his own arm brought a sense of relief and appreciation through my body. He remembered how I didn't like to be touched and made sure he never did— as if his arm was glued to the spot on the couch.

The ice cream he brought over was dispersed into our bowls while Oliver kept the carton for himself and grabbed a silver spoon to eat it with. He settled on the floor near my end of the couch after Laurel and I returned to our respectable seats. The glass bowl numbed the pads of my fingers on both hands from the cool temperature of the ice cream, despite the remaining amount already melted at the bottom.

My stomach felt full after eating two bowls of the sweet delicacies. Ice cream and coffee were big weaknesses of mine. I could never bring myself to say no to them. Even back in high school when I would drink two cups of coffee at eleven at night and immediately regret it when I was still awake when my alarm went off for school.

A sense of calmness and nostalgia grew strong behind my sternum the longer time ticked by. Things had changed a lot since the last time the three of us were properly altogether as friends. This moment felt nice, even if none of us quite knew what to say.

The ice cream carton shifted in Oliver's hands before he carefully set it down on the table beside him. He dropped the spoon inside.

"This is as good as I can remember," he spoke, softly.

"You can never go wrong with ice cream," I added from beside him.

The end of my spoon dragged through the melted ice cream puddle at the bottom of my bowl. The silence that followed my statement caused me to lift my gaze and took notice of the slight furrow of Oliver's eyebrows at the base of his forehead.

"What is it, Olly?" I asked, inquisitively.

His brows furrowed even more at my question. His focus on the table diverted onto me beside him with a mystified expression on his face. After years of friendship, the ability to read Oliver's facial expressions and body language became a second language to me. The years he was gone didn't change anything, except for how he subconsciously tried to mask his emotions after being on his own for so long. We related to each other in that sense.

"There's something on your mind, isn't there?" I pressed, curious to know the reason behind his scrunched face. "That's why you came by, right? To talk?"

His head swiveled on his neck as he brought his face to peer straight ahead at the wall. Part of me still felt guilty for not being home when he went to look for me first, but I knew I could still listen to what he needed to say here.

"My mother wants me to join the company," Oliver announced after a few seconds. "Yeah, take my rightful place."

"But you just got back," I pointed out, baffled as to why Moira thought it was a good idea. "You haven't even fully adapted to being home again or a chance to relax. That's not fair to you at all."

He lightly shrugged his shoulders. Laurel pursed her lips at the conversation. She absentmindedly fiddled with the spoon between her fingers.

"I can't exactly picture you as the master of the universe," she stated and tapped the bottom of the bowl with her spoon.

"Do you even want to take over the company?" I inquired.

There was no doubt in my mind that Moira was being utterly selfish in her decisions to pressure her son into taking over Queen Consolidated. He barely had been home for a week after five years of being stuck on an abandoned island and his mother thought this was a smart idea. She wanted to believe everything was back to normal without taking into account how those five years affected Oliver.