Bloody Hell just fall in love already!

Truth or dare?

The dinner had been going very well. Toby invited Christine over and now everyone was happily seated at the table. The long dining room table was completely full, with three people on the left side: Victoria, Anthony, and Christine. Three people on the right side: Stephen, Johanna, and Toby. With Nellie seated one head of the table, and Sweeney at the other, across from her. But it wasn't very possible for them to hold a conversation since the length of the long table separated them. Especially if they wanted to have a private conversation, which was now impossible.

However, Nellie still smiled as she watched the way Victoria seemed to be flirting with Stephen. She laughed at most everything he said, funny or not, she twirled a piece of her hair around on her finger, and her cheeks were a light shade of pink.

Sweeney was fighting the very strong urge to make a sarcastic comment and embarrass Victoria as a joke. But he knew she was already nervous enough, not to mention the fact that Nellie would probably hit him. So he kept his mouth shut.

"This must be the best turkey I've ever had, Mrs.Lovett." Stephen complimented as they all ate. Nellie smiled warmly at this.

"I agree ma'am, thank you for inviting me." Christine chimed in politely, offering a pretty smile.

"Thank you very much you two, you're both always welcome to join us any time you like."

"Mum, can we have cake for dessert?" Toby asked, not even having finished his dinner yet. God that boy loved cake.

Nellie laughed "I'm sure that can be arranged, but finish your turkey first." Nellie glanced over at Sweeney who wore an amused smile, they wondered if Toby would ever grow out of asking them for cake.

"So Stephen, where are you from?" Victoria asked, trying to learn more about him in the little time they had.

"Here in London actually, I became a coachman a few years ago but I've been studying to become a doctor." Everyone was rather impressed by this, becoming a doctor took a lot of patience and intelligence. And it certainly wasn't the easiest job.

"A doctor, why that's just wonderful! Wot a brilliant profession." Victoria beamed at this, causing Stephen to laugh and shrug his shoulders.

"Well, brilliant is one word to describe it I suppose." He turned to Sweeney "how did you get started with barbering, Mr.Todd?" He asked genuinely, much to Sweeney's surprise. Most times people don't care to hear about the work of a barber, the last person who asked about it was Charles, and he was doing it in a very condescending way.

"My father was a barber, and I always just took a liking to it." He answered honestly, there wasn't much of a story behind it all.

"He's the best barber in London." Toby chimed in proudly, he liked being able to tell people that his father was the best barber in all of London.

"Now that's something to be proud of," Stephen commented, smiling at Toby's comment.

But Sweeney shook his head "they exaggerate, I'm an average barber." At this, Nellie scoffed and everyone turned their heads in her direction.

"You needn't be so modest, you've always been a wonderful barber. Even when you were younger, your father didn't even need to teach you anything. You practically knew how to do it all yourself." Victoria smiled at how Nellie seemed to be bragging about him. But Sweeney cleared his throat awkwardly, he didn't really like being the center of attention which right now, he was.

"I'm gonna go get that cake." He said as he stood from the table, winking over at Toby. Really though, he just needed an excuse to leave the table for long enough for them to change the subject.