Birmingham | Tommy Shelby x Reader

Part 8

Ready for bed after a rather rough day, (Y/N) ascended the stairs to get to the floor her apartment was on. Once she got to the second floor, she noticed that the door to the apartment Grace lived in was open. Finding that odd, she walked over to it with furrowed eyebrows.

"Grace?" she called out, peeking her head inside the apartment. She wouldn't normally do something like that, but the door was opened, so it was warranted.

"Yes?" the woman she was looking for answered, turning her head to look at her from where she was sitting at her dining table.

"Your door's open," (Y/N) answered, stepping inside after Grace had waved her in, "I was just coming to see if everything was ok...I wasn't sure if you heard about the things being stolen from George's apartment next door, but I didn't want the same to happen to you," she explained the reason why she was checking in.

"Oh, I didn't know that," she responded as a look of surprise formed on her face, "I was waiting for someone actually."

"Ok. I was just checking in," (Y/N) said as she clasped her hands together in front of her, "I'll leave you be now," she continued, taking a step backward then.

"No, you can stay," Grace stopped her, her statement surprising (Y/N). "I mean...I'm not doing anything until my visitor arrives, so you're more than welcome to stay for a while," she explained her reasoning behind the quick response.

"You'd be ok with that?" (Y/N) was hesitant to accept her offer. She seemed to be being uncharacteristically friendly for someone who was usually acting suspicious and on edge.

"Why not," the other woman responded with a smile, "I really have no one to talk to here; outside of work that is."

(Y/N) thought about Grace's statement for a second. She knew the woman wasn't lying...all she really did was go to the Garrison and then come back home, and there never seemed to be any visitors knocking at her door at any hour. In a way she related to her. She herself didn't have many people here either. If it weren't for the relationship she was able to build with Matthew, she'd be in the same exact boat.

"Ok," she said with a slight nod before she walked over to the table she was sitting at. As she got closer, she noticed that Grace was drawing. "You draw?" she asked with a bit of surprise in her voice.

"I try to. My mother taught me at a young age; said that all proper young ladies should know how to express themselves in some type of artistic way," she explained with a smile as she sat her pencil down on the drawing she was working on.

"Your mother and mine must be related then...I got the same talking to when I was young," (Y/N) told the other woman, watching her eyes light up as she shared the information.

"You draw too?" Grace asked, shock now clear in her voice.

"I haven't tried to in a long time. It's a hobby that got pushed to the wayside," she answered her question with a bit of a sheepish smile on her face. She wished that she still regularly predicted drawing, because when she did, she used to find calmness in it.

"Oh, well you're more than welcome to join in whenever I'm trying to," the blonde woman offered, motioning to her work in progress, which was her rendition of the vase of flowers that were sitting on the counter across from her.

"That's kind of you, Grace, but I'm not sure if I'll be taking that offer up," (Y/N) tried to reject the possibility as kindly as possible.

"Why not?" Grace asked with furrowed eyebrows.

"Well, because...well you and I haven't exactly gotten off on the right foot with each other," (Y/N) responded, bringing up the rocky relationship that had formed between the two women. Grace only sent her a confused expression in response, so (Y/N) continued, "you've tried to interrogate me in some way or the other in our last several conversations. I'm sorry, but I just don't think that that can be turned around and forgotten in the first attempt," she explained what she meant in her first statement.