Prodigal Son

Chapter 11

Felicity took a long drink from her water bottle and then used the towel around her neck to wipe away the sweat still dripping from her forehead. Diggle ran a demanding class. A crowded class as well. The self-defense courses sponsored by Queen Consolidated were always well attended. He usually ran them twice a month and they were open to any employees at any level of skill as well as any members of Wildcat's Gym.

Wildcat's normally catered to a more hardcore fitness crowd that thought a few rounds in the boxing ring with helmet, pads and gloves meant they were already Rocky Balboa, but Diggle always had many first time students, mostly, but not all, women, as well as returning students. Before Diggle went through his standard lecture on self-defense which included some simple, basic moves and some common sense advice, he set up the more advanced students to practice holds and escape moves. The sweat was from how many times he expected them to repeat the drills under his exacting eye before moving on to work on the next skill. At least his official classes were a smidge less taxing than his private tutorials. Thank god for padded mats.

She tried to convince herself she had sweat enough to skip doing cardio, but dutifully went to refill her bottle at the cooler before picking out a stationary bike with a good view of the weight circuit. There were a number of muscled grunters dropping their barbells with attention getting clangs but it was Oliver's quieter, but no less intense, workout regime that had her attention. It had been nearly two weeks since the first time she'd seen him shirtless. It remained a good look. But all she was doing was looking. Strictly platonic looking.

Across the room, Oliver put down the free weights and moved toward a tall metal structure that in all the times she'd been to Wildcat's Gym, she'd never been able to figure out. It looked like a bar for chin ups but the bar wasn't fixed and the sides of the contraption went up at least 12 feet in the air. A heavy duty, metal notch shaped like a V cradled the bar, but above it were another half dozen similar V shaped notches, vertically spaced about 12 inches apart which made no sense unless on her days off the gym hosted membership to giants.

She watched with extra appreciation when Oliver grabbed the shirt he'd pulled off earlier and used it to mop his brow and wipe some of the excess sweat from his chest. His glistening, defined chest. Now that she knew Oliver's workouts were practically a form of spiritual meditation, should she appreciate the physical side effect less or more?

Oliver hit the gym at some point every day. That kind of schedule was too much for her, even with the free floor show, but Wildcat's had seen more of her in the last week than all of last month—ok, all of last summer. If she wasn't careful, this was going to become a habit.

After Thea left a befuddled Oliver, he'd changed his mind about visiting the Ramirez project and they'd gone over the schedule for the rest of the week. It looked like they were on track. Thursday looked routine except for a morning conference call with a big Foundation donor and Friday, the crew was all cutting out early so those attending the Foundation Gala would have time to get ready.

Promptly at five, as she was just shutting down her computer for the day, Diggle's reminder about the class had popped onto her phone. Oliver offered to drive them since he was planning a trip to the gym anyway and suggested, to save time, they pick up some take out to eat before they left. So they'd done that and while yes, she regretted that second egg roll before working out, she'd been oddly pleased about them keeping their dinner streak alive. Which was a silly thing to care about.

She went to college young, lived alone as an adult, and had grown up with her mother usually working evening shifts; Felicity had spent most of her life eating meals alone. She was fine eating alone. She liked eating alone. No one there to judge her on using wasabi on Taco Tuesday or making the dairy in a pint of Mint Chip her main source of protein on a particularly depressing Friday. Alas, also no one there to point out when she'd accidentally eaten a peanut but that was what the epi-pen was for. So the happy warmth in her chest when Oliver still wanted to grab dinner together even when they weren't working late really didn't make any sense. Or at least it shouldn't have.