✓ | GOLDEN LIAR ↠ Thomas Shelby.

15.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

                 HE CAUGHT THE LOOK on her face before she did. It happened to be one of underlying dread that she was attempting to suppress from the world's vision, one full of weary realisation. 

She did not even realise the expression was clear upon her face until she caught a glimpse of his own. Full of concern, although it was evident that he was trying to only show half of just how much he cared. Her heart sighed at the thought of this.

"Are you going?" Felicity asked.

Tommy nodded, before raising an eyebrow at the coat that lay sullenly over her arm. "Are you?"

Felicity momentarily pulled an expression of confusion at his words before realising what he was referring to, and thus she shrugged. "I got something from John. . . Woods," she explained simply. "He arranged a time we could meet, something about talking to me about this whole. . . thing." She waved her hand in a vague circle, her features pulling themselves into yet another expression of disorientation. 

Concern morphed into flat-out worry but instead of urging her to say any more, Tommy blew out a huff. "That isn't the best arrangement, I'll say."

"Then it's a damn shame you don't got a say," she returned calmly, unfolding her coat and slipping her arms into the fabric. "Not on this, Tommy."

"Not on something that could affect whether or not this is a whole fucking debacle?"

Felicity shook her head. "I'm going, whether you agree to let me go or whether you don't."

If Tommy hadn't been so sure that the meeting would be a complete and utter failure, he might have found time to quietly marvel at the confidence that had emerged from her being in the last few weeks. Yet this was not the case, as he was certain that with Felicity going to talk quietly with her father, it would only result in either anger or tears. Perhaps both, but Tommy did not want to see any of those outcomes.

So he simply refrained from sighing, and instead turned towards the door. "You'll tell me if he says anything?" Posed as a question but left his lips as more of a demand. 

Felicity nodded warily. "Yes, Tom."

"Good." Tommy pulled on his own coat and curled his palm around the door handle before he paused, and turned back towards the girl. "Only because I said I wouldn't ever let him hurt you. I'm a man of my word, Felicity. I told you I wouldn't let you get hurt, and if you do, I'll be damned."

She allowed a smile to flicker across her features, tugging upwards on her lips. "I know, Tommy."

And when he opened the door out into the chaotic bustle of Watery Lane and allowed her to slip out first, her touch sparked inside of him. A groan built up inside him and so Thomas Shelby decided to get on with his day. . . anything to take his mind off of the golden haired girl.

⎯

"How was it?" Tommy asked as he sat across from her at the bar, a half-empty glass of whisky in one hand and an unlit cigarette in the other. 

She had hardly uttered a single to him since had walked through the oaken doors twenty minutes ago, and had instead kept herself busy by tidying away all of the menial things that weren't really too noticeable, and yet just fulfilling enough to distract herself from telling the blue-eyed male how things had gone with her father.