When The Boys Are Away

Part 5

Harlow stood frigidly with her mouth open, hardly believing that they were here at all. Her prayers had been answered as if by a miracle.

They all looked exactly the same, apart some a few bruises and scrapes here and there. Without hesitating any longer, she ran and launched herself at her brother who laughed at her actions along with the others, "Oh my god. I thought you were all going to die!" She admitted, embracing him in a long hug, before moving onto the next in line.

"John Shelby, I thought you'd be the first to go." She joked, as he rolled his eyes, pulling him into a hug as he ruffled her thick, brown hair.

"Arthur!" She grinned widely as he shadowed her expression, "Little Miss Harlow, I missed you my dear." After hugging the rest of them, she finally got to Tommy who rose an eyebrow and smirked, "Fancy you, ay. Taking over this business and telling the King, Mr Billy Kimber to fuck off." She shrugged and beamed at him before tugging him into a giant hug, leaning into his neck comfortingly.

"Trust me, he's no King. Compared to our Empire, he's a Duke at most. An ignorant, cowardly, annoying Duke." Harlow explained, feeling Tommy chuckle at her change in tone.

When she stepped back, she still couldn't believe they were all there until they sat in the chairs, staring at her expectantly. "What?" She asked, confused at what they wanted, until Tommy rolled his eyes, "Don't get offended, we've already seen Polly, Ada and Finn. They said you'd done amazingly with this business, so we're waiting to hear the best bits."

Harlow gasped dramatically, clutching her chest like she was dying, "Oh no. How dare you visit your actual family before the girl who lived opposite you for a few years." She laughed with the rest of them and Tommy shook his head, unable to hide his smile. A few years was a large under exaggeration, Harlow had grown up with the Shelbys since she was 7.

Looking around, she realised every chair had been taken, so she headed towards the door to grab a new one, but not before being blasted with about a thousand questions, "Where are you going?", "What are you doing?"

She laughed, "Calm down. Don't give yourself a stroke, I'm just getting a chair." She strolled out and noticed Anna still working, causing her to smile, "Hey Anna, you can leave early today. Take the day off." 

Hearing a quick grateful comment, Harlow nodded, grabbing a chair from Tommy's office before entering the room again. The other offices had been left untouched, so it was weird for Harlow to even enter.

Almost immediately she was bombarded with offers to carry the chair, which quite frankly made her either want to laugh or scream. She rolled her eyes, placing it near the others and muttered, "I think I can carry a chair myself, thanks."

"Okay, nobody cares. Just tell us what's been happening." John spoke fast, causing Arthur to hit his arm for his bluntness. John had always been up front, he didn't try to hide his feelings, unless they were one's of sadness. Harlow actually liked the fact she could easily tell what he was thinking, it wasn't exhausting like it was talking to Tommy.

"Well, first things first. Billy Kimber is a fucking lunatic. We now own four legal betting stalls at the races, we have an elite horse training academy in the stables for rich folk, a great horse riding program for the snotty rich kids, we own the biggest hotel in Birmingham, we own 8 pubs, a lot of factories, the betting shop is lively as ever, our horses are winning at the races, we own two clubs down in London and one in Manchester, we have storage facilities up the canal as far as Glasgow and right down to London for our gin production business and we have these new cool offices. We also have enough money to fill the fucking Titanic, it's ridiculous." Harlow listed off everything she could remember off the top of her head, watching their overwhelmed faces as she spoke.