Riples and Waves

Blood, Sweat and Stitches

Though her room in the west wing was perfectly lovely, sleep was not in the cards for her that night. Anna had always had a pretty healthy relationship with sleep but that night the proverbial pea would be under her mattress no matter what she did.

So, she counted sheep, counted floor tiles, missed the wonderful escape of Netflix, and tried in vain to read the uninteresting books she found on the nightstand. It was all unsuccessful to pitiful degrees, and around dawn, the sun allowed her a good excuse to give up. Anna went down the stairs to a deserted golden mansion, aiming to find comfort in the kitchen, but finding a massacre instead.

Well, a sort of massacre anyway because there, leaning against the kitchen island was Tommy Shelby himself, coffee-stained white sleeves rolled up to his elbows as he tried in vain to wipe a seemingly multipliable pool of the dark liquid off the counter.

The scene was so absurd that Anna couldn't quite take it all in at first. Though he was a 1920's man, Tommy Shelby wasn't useless in the art of cleaning. It's just that he knew that having other people clean after him was a status thing just as much as tailored suits were and he didn't give up that privilege often.

"What are you doing here?" She asked expecting to startle him, but of course, Tommy showed no sign of being surprised.

"This is my house." He answered in a monotone, not even looking up from his cleaning to look at her.

"Oh, I see... Sorry, I thought we were past the non-answers stage of our relationship." Anna said, moving to a fruit bowl, picking up an orange from it, and moving in search of a knife to peel it. The moment of silence lasted between them up to the point where the orange's skin was fully off, and Anna did not look up until the fruit was ready for consumption.

"Arthur is coming" his words hung in the air like a death sentence.

"Did he..." she swallowed, fighting against the urge to choke on the words. "Did he do it?"

"Arthur has issues with either discretion or distraction, but never efficiency," Tommy said, turning his back to her and throwing the rag on the sink.

Anna sighed and forced herself to eat an orange piece. The mundaneness of discussing assassinations that felt like murder while eating fruit inside a light-filled kitchen was deeply offensive and yet undeniably necessary if they wanted to keep doing what they were doing.

"We can discuss the next steps after breakfast in my office," Tommy said and Anna already started shaking her head.

"Oh... well, I was hoping to leave before Lizzie woke up actually." Anna declared and Tommy raised a questioning eyebrow at it. "I really don't wanna impose on my boss's wife any further..." She took a step back, "...especially in her own house."

"Do you wanna fuck me?" Tommy said. His words, sharp as steel knives made her bleed before she felt the sting. When she did feel it though, not one emotion prevailed over the other. Anna found herself confused not because she didn't understand what had just happened but because her feelings and her eyes couldn't agree on an appropriate response.

That question wasn't all that foreign to her. Any girl who spent time on a dating app during her 20s - and Anna certainly had - knew all the variations of that question. In fact, she even had enough experience to appreciate that he was willing to ask instead of assuming, but the characteristic lack of emotion on Tommy's face, as he asked such a question was the confusing part. The comment wasn't lewd or suggestive in any way, he didn't even seem to be particularly curious about the answer like the boys that just want to make fun of a girl for her crush. He was a businessman gathering information. Trying to unlock her like he did everyone else.