THE GREAT WAR || T. SHELBY (3)

TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: Betrayal

A/N: Here we go, y'all! Shit is about to go down.

THE NEXT EVENING

THINGS BETWEEN THOMAS AND TABITHA WERE STILL TENSE.

It was the next evening and it had been the first time they had been in a room together since Tabitha left Thomas in that hotel room. They were both silent, not even looking at one another. Jack Nelson, the American, was coming over for dinner that night. The couple got dressed in their best, though Tabitha wore only all black. It was the only she seemed to like those days, and began to hate the sight of anything blue.

"We need to leave early to catch the first train to Liverpool, yes?" Tabitha asked Thomas, looking at herself in the mirror. No matter how times she looked at her reflection, she always hated who she saw.

"Yep."

"So eat early, finish early."

She then changed the conversation, remembering something she wished to bring up. Thomas had recently changed the combination to the safe. She had to know what it was and why he didn't tell her.

"You changed the combination of the safe. Why?" Tabitha questioned. "Have you got new secrets?"

"With the new business at hand, there are some things that I cannot share."

"What things?" she asked. Then her eyes landed on a pill bottle filled with white tablets. She then asked, "What are those tablets?"

"The doctor gave them me," Thomas shortly explained.

"Pain killers?" The brunette raised a brow with concern. "What pain?"

"Any pain that comes, Tab."

Another short answer. She didn't like when Thomas kept things from her and he'd been doing that a lot that recent. Tabitha  missed the days where they told each other everything. Where they didn't have secrets.

Tabitha walked over to Thomas and placed his necktie around the collar of his shirt. She then wrapped her arms around him from behind, and his hands rested on top of hers. He turned around to her and gently cupped his cheeks to make him look at her.

"When you're ready, I want you to tell me everything that's going on. It's like the clock's stopped ticking and I'm waiting for the bomb to explode," Tabitha told him with sincerity. We are in that quiet minute. That's where we live now."

"When I know everything..." Thomas trailed off, putting his hands on her arms. "I will tell you everything. I promise."

His voice was softer than it had been those last couple days. The way he used to speak to Tabitha, when things were alright between them.

Jack Nelson was...odd, in Tabitha's first opinion. She wondered if all Americans acted the way he did. Openly blunt about everything with no filter. He had a strong New York accent, stronger than Gina's. Did Theo and Penelope deal with such characters in New York in Pennsylvania, the brunette wondered.

"Oh, no, Gina's running wild, y'see. Harrods, dope, amphetamines, lords and ladies, you know, the whole
English aristocracy thing," Nelson bluntly said. "Fuck wine - whiskey," he told one of the  the footman and then asked Thomas,  "Shelby, you having whiskey?"