IN BAD FAITH | peaky blinders | T.S

EIGHTEEN

LONDON, ENGLAND

TOMMY

18.

As his brothers smoked and laughed and drank beside him, Tommy couldn't shake Martha's face from his mind.

Part of him hated her for doing this to him; for being a distraction. Tommy always knew what he was doing and where he was headed, always one step in front of the rest, but her blue eyes and full cheeks and wide smile constantly interrupted his thoughts until he had to close his eyes and breathe to regain his concentration on the things around him.

The other part of him hated himself for the way he was behaving - his refusal to accept that there was something there, something niggling in the back of his mind, pulling him to her. But if he admitted that he wanted her then she would have to be his, a challenge to win. After everything that Tommy had done to her, after everything she had been through at the fault of his own hands, for once Tommy agreed that perhaps it was best to leave Martha in the back of his mind.

He drew a deep breath and brought his glass to his lips, John grinning at him from the end of the table.

"This is the life, eh brother," he shouted, raising his glass.

"I thought you hated London," Arthur interrupted as he pulled a woman walking past him onto his lap, her small frame dressed in jewels and diamonds. "How could anyone hate London," he mumbled into her hair.

An amicable smile played across Tommy's lips, amused by his brothers joy. He swigged from his glass again, scanning the room beyond them.

They were sat in the corner of a club, the people of London swanning at their feet. Music — if that's what you could even call it, Tommy thought — blasted from the centre stage where men and women jolted about like puppets on a string. He watched as they leaned over tables and snorted powder from the hands of their friends, washing it down with liquor before falling into each other's laps. Some women were dressed in layers of silk and fur, diamonds hanging around their neck, and others in short jewelled dresses that swung wildly with every twist of their body.

It was then that Tommy clocked her; a tall, thin, exotic looking woman with jet black hair that slipped up the back of her long neck and an emerald dress that fell to her thighs, glinting under the lights. Her arms were long and slender and seemed to glow through the hazy, smoke-filled. But someone else caught his attention, then — beside her stood a friend, Tommy assumed, much shorter and paler with thick brown curls falling to her shoulders, and for a second his breath caught in his throat as he could've sworn it was Martha.

He growled lowly at himself, at his inclination to think of her, and in a self-fuelled bout of fury, Tommy pushed himself from the stuffy booth and made his way over to the bar where the two women stood, faces animated in conversation. Somehow, some way, he had to get her out of his head.

As he approached, the beautiful woman watched him, her eyes even darker than her hair. A smile curled on her lips as she edged closer to Tommy. He ordered a drink, pure spirit, and let the liquid fall down his throat in one gulp. The smaller girl — the one that looked like Martha — hung back, hiding her face in her own drink.

"I don't think I ever see you here before," the foreign woman purred — Spanish or Mexican, Tommy bargained, her voice thick with the fruity accent.

"That's because I don't come here often," he answered cooly, staring straight forward.

"Hmm," she mused. "You're not from London either. Great place to party, if you know the right people." Smiling, she ran her fingers along Tommy's forearm, trailing the fabric of his expensive suit. For the first time in his life, he didn't enjoy the way she threw herself at him, like all the women did.