Story of Us – Arrow – Ep7

Dinner and a Date?

He was standing at the door when her pizza guy walked up.  Tommy refused to talk to him, but he did grin at him.  When she opened the door, he had the sense to look slightly uncomfortable.  He wasn’t even sure why he was there, except to follow through on Dear Old Dad’s edict.

“Technically, I did get here ten seconds before this guy,” he said with a small smile.

She paid the pizza guy, and he followed her in.

“So, Tommy, what brings you by so late?”

“Well, I assumed, rightly, that you would be at home working tonight and I also assumed that you would be hungry,” he indicated the pizza in her hand, “Also, rightly.”

“I don’t know,” she said with a smirk, “This is a mushroom and olive pizza from Mario’s.”

“Ah! That is damn good pie!” he winced.

“Alright,” she said, putting the pizza box on the table, “What do you have to offer?”

“Spicy tuna on crispy rice from Toro’s,” he responded, not really looking at her, but knowing he had her favorite in hand.

“Ah…Damn you, Merlyn,” she said with a grunt as she grabbed the bag out of his hand.

He grinned at her, and she smiled slightly.

“I hope sushi was all you had in mind,” she said as she opened the bag.

“Uh…Actually, there was something I wanted to ask you,” he began, following her as she headed into the living room.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“Will you go out with me? Like on a date?” he asked.

“You brought me dinner so you could ask me to dinner?” she said, a little crease growing between her eyebrows.

“We-well, I also did throw you a really big charity gala,” he reminded her.

“See, I thought you threw it for the hundreds of people it would benefit,” she said.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, hundreds of people…plus one more,” he said with his patented smile.  She laughed and he continued, “Laurel, I get it.  This is all happening for us in the wrong order.  You know, first, we’re friends for many years, and then briefly, we are friends with benefits…extremely excellent benefits…And now I am just hoping that we can be two people sitting at the same restaurant at the same table at the same time. See, when I say it like that it doesn’t sound so scary, does it?”

She smiled at him, and he knew he had won her over again.  But the smile tempered before she asked, “Is this a real deal or something for Daddy to see and hear about?”

He sobered and replied, “Can’t it be a little bit of both?”

“Tommy, all you have to do is be honest about this,” she smiled again, “You don’t have to go through these elaborate wooing techniques to get me to go out with you.”

He smiled again, “Thanks, Laurel.”

Awkward!

He walked in the front door to find Thea and Oliver standing in the foyer.

“Oh, nice dress,” he told her, “Where you headed?”

“Upstairs, apparently,” she said grumpily, hardly giving him a look as she did just that.  He gave Oliver a questioning look.

“Long story,” Oliver whispered.

“Hey,” he said as Oliver turned to go to the library, “I heard about your mom, is she all right?”

“She’s resting upstairs.  More shaken up than anything.  I gotta run to this business thing, but I do appreciate you stopping by.”

“It’s no problem,” Tommy said with a frown.  It was obvious that Oliver still really couldn’t…or wouldn’t talk to him, “Just so long as your mom’s all right.”

“Yeah,” Oliver said, barely looking at him.

“Hey, one more thing,” he said, grabbing Oliver’s arm to make him look at him, “Mainly because I don’t want you to find this out from someone else, that someone else, especially Laurel.  We’re going to dinner.  As in a date.”

Oliver’s face was impassive, unreadable.

“That’s…that’s good,” he said softly.  Tommy wanted so badly for Oliver to yell at him, tell him he hated him, something…but finally, Oliver continued, “Laurel deserves someone special, and so do you.”

“Thanks, man,” Tommy responded with a small smile. His heart broke the whole time.

“I gotta run to this thing,” Oliver said as he turned away.

“All right, absolutely.  I’ll catch you later,” Tommy said, dropping his head. 

“Oh, and Tommy,” Oliver said, turning back to him with a small smile, “If you hurt her, I’ll snap your neck.”

There it was.  Oliver’s concern and love for Laurel.  He never could catch a break with Ollie. The anger that seemed to boil just under the surface of Oliver’s skin was in his eyes.  In a flash, it disappeared as Oliver grinned, “Ha ha, I’m just kidding.”

Tommy grinned before he walked away, but he knew better.  Oliver wasn’t as good of an actor as he thought he was. 

Cover Story

He felt like he was combusting from the inside.  The Indian meal had been Laurel’s idea.  He had let her choose and he was beginning to think she had chosen just to test him.  He buried his face in his napkin, the spices burning his nose and making his eyes water.

“What? Is it too spicy for you, Tommy,” she chuckled.

“No, no,” he protested, “Not really. I’m just, um, I’m just crying because I was thinking of a Hallmark commercial I saw earlier today, featuring a sick kitty.  It was very emotional.”

He looked up at her and they both laughed. He wiped his eyes finally as the server came up.

“Will there be anything else?”

“No,” he said as he handed the server his credit card, “Thank you.”

Laurel smiled and he replied, “Thank you for letting me take you to dinner.”

“Well,” she said with a small smirk, “thank you for letting me choose Indian.”

“You know, I read this article by a film critic once, who said if he could have one wish, it would be to watch his favorite movie again for the first time.  I kind of wish that was us.”

“So, you want dinner and a movie,” she said with a spark in her eye.

“No,” he said with a small smile, “I wish we had just met, and all this was just beginning and there wasn’t so much of me I wish you’d forget.”

“Well, keep saying nice things like that and maybe next time I’ll let you choose the restaurant,” she said with a sassy smirk.

He grinned, obviously happy that she was allowing this façade to become more and more real.

“Mr. Merlyn,” the server mumbled after approaching, “I’m afraid your credit card has been declined.”

“Did you swipe it a few times?” he asked, turning to the server, confused, “You know sometimes those things can get a little glitchy.”

“I did, and,” the server said as nicely as possible, “um, I’m afraid the credit card company wants me to confiscate it…Sorry.”

Tommy looked at Laurel, embarrassed.  Evidently, Dear Old Dad had decided he hadn’t done enough in a little under a week to prove all the things he wanted to Tommy to prove.

“Laurel,” he said, “I’m so…sorry.”

“No, Tommy,” she said as she pulled her purse to the table and pulled out her own card, “I understand.”

“Do you?” he asked, trying to hold his temper in check.  He suspected he and Dear Old Dad were also about to have a knockdown, drag out.

“I do, Tommy,” she said sadly, “Your dad?”

He sighed as she handed the server her card, “Yeah.”

Broke…

He tore into his dad’s house, the car barely settling in the gravel driveway before he was out of it.  He went to the back veranda where he knew his father was.  It was Tuesday.  His standing fencing riposte with Aron Szilagyi, the Hungarian 2012 Gold Medal Olympic fencing champion for the past six months happened every Tuesday like clockwork.  His father never chose anyone less than a gold medal winner for a fencing partner.  Accordingly, he knew Dad paid good money for it as well, but at that moment, he did not give a tinker’s damn what his father was doing or paying.

“Can I talk to you?” he yelled as he came up the steps, “Dad!”

“In case you haven’t noticed,” Dear Old Dad said, slightly out of breath, “I’m a little occupied at the moment.”

“I just talked to the accountant,” Tommy fumed, “he said my accounts were frozen.  He said my credit cards were all canceled!”

“I pay Sandy a king’s ransom each year in fees, Tommy,” his father said, continuing sparring, “When it comes to money, if he says it’s so, it’s so.”

“Do you think this is a joke?!” Tommy yelled over the clashing of the foils.

“No,” his father said, finally taking off his mask, “You are…Although I must say, your chronic irresponsibility and terminal laziness have lost their humor…Hmm…You’re wondering why now…The better question is, why not sooner?”

“It’s…It’s-It’s my trust fund,” Tommy pronounced weakly, though he knew it made no real difference.

“Which is made up of my money!  Oh, excuse me,” Dear Old Dad nearly snarled.  Then the snarl turned to a grin as he patted Tommy on the face with his gloved hand, “…was comprised.”

His father turned, put his mask back on, and continued with the sparring as if he had never been there. Conversation over. As a result, there was nothing more to it. He turned and walked back to his car, completely at a loss as to what to do next.

…But Not Broken

His first thought was to go to Oliver.  However, as tense as things had been between them lately, he knew he couldn’t do that.  Despite his “relationship” with Laurel, he knew Oliver was still nervous about Tommy’s knowing about the Hood.  His next choice was Laurel.  So, when he knocked on her door and she asked if he was okay, he almost broke down.

“I spoke to my dad today,” he said instead.

“I bet that was fun,” she grimaced.

“He explained to me what happened with my credit card yesterday…And my checking account” he said, walking into the room and sitting down on her couch “…and my savings account, my brokerage account, my stock portfolio.  He cut me off completely.”

“What?” she said as she sat next to him.

“My car got repossessed. That was fun,” he grumbled, the shock starting to set in, “Oh, and I have to move out of my apartment by the end of the month.”

“You are going to be fine, Tommy,” she said as she slid a little closer to him.  She grabbed his hand, adding, “In fact, you are going to be great…Merlyn money or not…And you know, I have a mushroom and olive Mario pizza in my refrigerator waiting to be eaten.”

“I suppose it’s already paid for, right?” he smirked.  Laurel always had known how to cheer him up, even just a little bit.

“Exactly,” she whispered as she leaned into him.  He stared at her for a moment and then leaned in and kissed her cheek.

“You are simply the best, Laurel,” he said quietly.

“I know,” she chuckled as she got up from the couch, his hand still in hers, and dragged him into the kitchen.

Previous: Legacies

Coming Soon: Vendetta