✓ | GOLDEN LIAR ↠ Thomas Shelby.

26.

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.

              FELICITY HAD TAKEN IT upon herself to excuse herself from her afternoon behind the Garrison's bar, and that was why she now stepped through the threshold of the Shelby residence. Harry had been more than willing to let her have the rest of the afternoon off ― he claimed it was because she had worked so hard in the past year that she'd been there, which was true, but Felicity suspected that the original reason was rooted in his fear of the Shelby brothers. Most specifically Tommy. . . not that Felicity was keen to enforce the fact that he could get anything done in this city simply because of the fear he radiated. Taking advantage of said fear would feel wrong to the angel of a girl, no matter how much easier it made certain jobs or livelihoods.

The deep green curtains separating the two spaces had been flung open and the noise that emerged from the betting shop hit her almost immediately. Raucous yells filled the air as men called across the room to one another, yet the shop was not quite as crowded as it had once been, perhaps earlier in the year. Tommy had taken to narrowing down those counting the bets and money so that the chaos could now be seen as vaguely organised. . . although the mess of papers that sat on his desk now, of which Felicity could spot through the glass separating his office and the main area, said otherwise.

She pulled her mess of waves onto one side and barely attempted to flatten them down as she side―stepped through the jostling men, down towards the end of the room, where she had seen Tommy to be conversing with one of the others in a low voice. His eyes flicked up momentarily and it was in this quick second that he caught sight of the the blonde before him.

Tommy quickly dismissed the man beside him as his interest had instantly been skewed and landed upon the girl. He crossed the room to her and despite himself, despite the work persona of complete and utter seriousness that he kept up each day, a smile had found its way upon his features and he had no intention of ordering its dispersal.

Before he could utter a word, Felicity had risen up onto her tiptoes and greeted him with a soft kiss, halting all syllables

"Good afternoon," he chuckled against her lips. "Have I missed something? Why are you here?"

Felicity shook her head as she stepped backwards, smiling all the while. "Harry let me have the afternoon off," she explained with a grin. "Or rather, I told him I was taking the afternoon off and didn't give him any chance to stop me."

He laughed. "My, you're becoming more of a Shelby by the day!" Tommy exclaimed, and it wasn't hard to see the love that ran clear throughout his blue eyes.

"That's what happens when you're to be married to one," Felicity said with a shrug.

"Hey, I wasn't complaining."

Felicity beamed. "How long until you're finished for the day?

She did not miss the barely―audible sigh that left his mouth at her words, no matter how hard he tried to distract her from it by taking her hand and leading her out of the bustling centre of the room. Tommy kept the door to his office open by just over an inch or so before crossing the room to his drinks' cabinet and picking up a glass.

"D'you want a drink?" He asked as he poured himself one, the whiskey sparkling inside of its crystal encirclement.

Felicity nodded. "Please."

She then went ahead and sat atop the desk, gently nudging the papers to one side so that she might have a seat upon the oaken surface. Numbers and scrawled writing jumbled her vision on the majority of the parchments, whereas neat calligraphy was inked upon another on the other side of her, countering the others that were filled with bookies' digits and records.