✓ | GOLDEN LIAR ↠ Thomas Shelby.

39.

CHAPTER THIRTY NINE.

               LOVE IS A RUTHLESS game, everyone said. Heartbreak was a twisting and turning maze made up of solely glass shards, but no one really liked mazes now, did they? Unrequited love was torture ― worse than heartbreak, worse than love, worse than it all combined. . . or so Felicity had thought. Up until now, she had so believed such a statement, but she was just about coming to terms with the fact that her heart ached for a man she had betrayed, and that it was far worse than what she had experienced when she was thirteen and completely and utterly infatuated ― and thus hurt ― by a boy who did not love her back. Breaking the pub window over such a thing had seemed to be a big event when she was so young, so naïve, so violently innocent that it was almost cruel to be so.  It wasn't a big thing, though. Not when she was now head over heels in love with a man that she suspected held the same towards her, but was not willing to give in for fear of getting hurt once more by the blonde girl. 

And that was why her heart ached as she watched him from across the bar, sitting amongst his family whilst he nursed the day's uneventful events with a tumbler of whiskey that he was hardly touching. 

John had taken to telling the others loud stories of him and Esme's kids, and whilst no one was truly paying attention to the words coming out of his mouth, and instead were simply amused as they looked at him with half glazed―over eyes, he had a way of keeping the attention on him and of entertaining the rest of his family. Especially so that his older brother's gaze might stop fighting him to try and wander over to the blonde that hid in the corner, trying to busy herself so that she too wouldn't look at her wedded partner. But even John couldn't stop him ― Tommy always had a will that was far too strong for his own good ― from wondering what was circuiting Felicity's mind at that moment. The girl he had once claimed to have known like the back of his hand. . . the girl he thought he did know like it. 

"So then they all came and, and. . . Tom! Tommy, Jesus Christ, listen!" John bellowed, unaware or perhaps unable to turn his volume down a notch. 

Tommy startled, before turning back to his brother. "I am." 

"Sure you are, Tom," John responded, frowning ever so slightly before allowing himself to go and see whatever it was that he had been distracted by. . . and then making an 'o' shape with his mouth as the realisation took its hold. He hadn't had much to say on the whole affair ― or at least, he hadn't said anything to Felicity about it ― and so Felicity had assumed he hadn't had much of an opinion on it. Or perhaps he had, but had allowed Tommy the time and space to make his own judgement and make the overall decision on it. 

"I am," Tommy pressed again, looking slightly annoyed as John continued to appear dubious. "Go on, finish with it. I'm listening."

He wasn't listening, and it didn't take any fool to be able to tell that. John realised that but he had grown tired of feeble arguments, so he let Tommy be and simply continued with whatever rubbish he had been spouting beforehand. 

Tommy stayed quiet, barely even trying to look attentive as he found his gaze still wandering over to where Felicity was hovering. She stood in the shadows, twisting a rag around and around her fist until it couldn't go any more, and then unwrapping it so that she might start it all again. It was a way to pass the time; a way to keep her attention away from the raven―haired man who was sat just six or so feet away from her. 

It wasn't long before he pushed back his chair with a violent screech and rose, ignoring the looks from his siblings as he made his way towards the countertop, the barrier that had been so rudely been put between him and Felicity.