Calloway // Michael Gray x Reader - Peaky Blinders Fanfic

Chapter 11

Calloway

The window-tapper wakes me in the morning. I'm tangled up in the softest, heaviest sheets and blankets imaginable — it's so warm, and so heavenly, I cannot get out of bed straight away.

It's the best I've slept in a long time.

Then I remember Michael.

I turn over to see him lying with his bare back to me, his legs bent. The vertebrae of his spine are barely visible in the morning light. I'm overcome with the strange urge to trace them with my fingertips until I push the thought away. I shared a bed with him. And he's half-naked. That's as far as it goes.

But then I frown. "Michael. Why are you curled up like a prawn?"

He sighs before sitting upright. "Because you stole my side of the bloody duvet all night."

"No, I didn't," I argue.

He turns, raising his eyebrows at the way I have the entire duvet bunched up around me, where I'm snuggled in like a cocoon. His eyes are heavy this early in the morning, his hair messed across his head.

"Well, you should have claimed your side more forcefully," I say, suddenly more than happy to part from the incriminating pieces of bedding.

He says, "I'll bear that in mind."

With a gentle flush rising to my cheeks, I get out of bed and take my toiletries into the bathroom. We each get ready for the day, moving awkwardly around each other — and he spends more time doing his hair in front of the mirror than I do. There's quiet between us, every noise amplified in this small room. The scraping of his razor. Me clasping my suspenders in the bathroom. His sip of water. My spray of perfume.

"Right," he finally says, checking his watch. "Ready to go?"

"We don't have to walk downstairs together," I point out, rolling my eyes.

"Suppose you're right," he agrees.

But even so, I hurry my movements, quickly clasping my earrings and adjusting my blazer, indescribably anxious about him leaving without me. And he lingers by the door, fussing at his cuff links and polishing his shoes until we both are ready.

I wonder if he feels the same way as me — it would be far less awkward to attend this conference together than to act like strangers in a room together. Or whether, like me, he finds small comfort in knowing another friendly face here.

We glance at each other for a moment, and then we go.

***

"As you might already be aware, interpersonal relationships are the heart of success in any business," says the conference speaker.

We're all sat on chairs in never ending rows throughout the room. I roll my eyes at the dull content. I suppose it makes sense they'd save the actual regulatory information for the last day — we might all just stop coming for this nonsense if they did it on the first.

"So today, we'll be working on building relationships," he beams. "Please turn to the person beside you and introduce yourself. You'll be partners for all activities for the next seven days."

Michael and I both turn away from each other at once.

But the man on my other side decides to partner up with someone else, and as I reluctantly twist back in my seat, I see Michael's in the same predicament.

"Looks like we're partners," he mutters.

"Calloway," I say sarcastically, holding my hand out to him as everyone else in the room is doing.