Candy [THOMAS SHELBY]

Chapter Eighteen

The next morning, Josephine was puttering around the kitchen with a little notepad and pencil in her hands, making a list of things she needed to get when she made a trip to the market later that morning. Whilst the house was clean and fresh smelling, something she had no doubt believing Tommy was the reasoning behind why, it was utterly devoid of food. She had planned to visit Polly before she went though, the way she looked and acted the night before rubbed Josephine the wrong way and she had wanted to get to the bottom of it.

The sound of the front door opening and loudly closing put Josephine on edge, her whole body tensing because she knew that the door was locked as she had double checked earlier after she had made her way downstairs, she slowly pulled open the drawer, not wanting to alert the intruder and pulled out a knife, gripping the handle tightly and holding it threatenly in front of her as she didn't plan to go down without a fight.

"Josephine!"

"Fucking hell!" Josephine breathed out, her shoulders relaxing as the tension fled her body, though she still gripped the knife in her hand.

Tommy strutted into kitchen, pulling his cap off and carelessly throwing it on the table. He did all of this without looking at Josephine.

"Jo--" Finally looking up, Tommy paused as he took in Josephine's form, his eyes glinting in amusement as they catch the knife in her hands.

"You planning on doing something with that?" He asked, nodding towards the knife.

"I'm going to fling it at your head if you're not careful!" Josephine huffed at him before she turned to place the knife back in the draw and facing him again, "Why are you here?"

"I need your company today. For work." Tommy lit himself a cigarette

"But it's Saturday and I need to go to the market, there's nothing here."

"I'll get your shopping sorted and I'll pay you extra today, besides, I need to show you the new office." Tommy ran his eyes around the kitchen, he couldn't help the memories that overcame him whenever he was in or near the house. In fact, during the first few months of Josephine's absence, he had spent almost everyday in it, secluding and locking himself away from the outside world.

"When you say you'll pay me more, it makes me seem as if I'm a working girl." Josephine squinted at him, not liking the implication one bit.

"'New office'? You got a new place?" She continued on, finally acknowledging the rest of his sentence.

Tommy took a long drag of his cigarette, his eyes meeting hers, a pinch of sadness glinting in them, "A lot of things have changed in the past two years Josephine."

Josephine met his stare head on, she had never been afraid of his stare, no matter how harsh it was, though perhaps that was because she knew that he would never physically hurt her, memories of his father doing that towards his mother forever planted in his head, making so that when he was a child, he vowed against ever becoming like his father and he still aims to fulfil that vow.

Thomas Shelby was never exactly an angel, even before the war and Josephine knew that very well but she never had wanted him to change, she loves Tommy the way he is, even though she knew that her unceasing love for him would come back to bite her in the arse at some point.

Josephine mutely nodded, hearing the poorly disguised remorse in his voice before she brushed past him to go to the stairs, "I'll quickly get changed then."

Josephine had been surprised the night before when she had found all her old clothes still there, quite a lot remained as she was only able to pack a handful with her when she left after Cheltenam, but what surprised her the most was the fact that Tommy hadn't thrown them away but she wasn't going to dwell on it too much, appreciative of the fact that she didn't have to go out a waste her money on clothes.