✓ | GOLDEN LIAR ↠ Thomas Shelby.

13.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

               THOMAS SHELBY FOUND HIMSELF to be walking down Garrison Lane with a cigarette clenched between his lips and the arrogance present in his step as it could often be found. He nodded gruff greetings to the workers that passed him with bowed heads and mumbled replies. The odd delivery van passed him and traffic thrived among the low murmur of half-hearted conversations. 

He found himself stepping through the frosted glass doors to the Garrison pub in no time at all and his eyes caught sight of the girl behind the bar rapidly, to which he was forced to cough back the smile readying itself on his lips at the sight of the seemingly-happy blonde.

"Afternoon!" The girl's voice perked up from behind the bar, and as she glanced up from her quiet conversation with her friend, her hazel irises met his with a smile.

Tommy returned the greeting as he pulled the cap from atop his head and shrugged his arms out from the sleeves of his dark overcoat. Draping the heavy material over one arm, he turned to properly face the girl.

"Can you bring beer next door in twenty minutes?"

Felicity confirmed this as she tried not to let her heart drop at the sound of his sullen, emotionless words. . . or at the very least, tried not to let it be obvious that they had such an effect on her. "'Course."

He smiled shortly with thanks and crossed back through the sparsely crowded room, disappearing once more and leaving the girl to nothing but her thoughts and the tedious tasks behind the bar. She attempted to force her brain to rest and so picked up a worn cloth and shoved it through the ribbon of her apron. Picked up glasses, pushed chairs roughly underneath tables and cleaned up the chaos that had been left from the night before. Harry Fenton was not in yet, as per usual, and Grace had told her the day before that she would have to take today off in order to see to a relative that was in town. Once again, Felicity found herself with her thoughts. . . and the man in the next room who was despairingly hard to read.

It was not long before Tommy's two brothers walked through the frosted glass doors with laughter burbling from their lips. A thick cigarette jutted from the older one's mouth whilst a toothpick could be found clenched in between the younger's teeth, which was no surprise to the blonde, who swiftly greeted Arthur and John in the same tone as she had to their brother. She was quick to plaster a smile on her face the very same moment that they had stepped an inch over their threshold.

"Hiya, Ti," the youngest of them returned with a lazy beam upon his features.

"How's Esme?" The girl returned instead.

In the weeks that had followed John and Esme's wedding, Felicity had hardly had time to get to know the young woman. What with her spending the majority of her time either alongside Ada or in the parlour of the Shelby's residence, the girl had not seen much of John's new bride. 

"Great!" John returned with eagerness. "She's great, really. . . the kids adore her, thank God, 'specially Katie."

Felicity smiled tightly as she sensed how really, the man was thanking Tommy rather than the Lord above. . . not that there appeared to be much difference, from the way that he got up each morning with no intention other than to play such God and rule the streets of which he walked each day and each night.