In The Bleak Midwinter | T Shelby

ELEVEN - LATE NIGHT WHISKEY

"Finally, I'm finished."

Kaia sighed and stacked all her papers into a pile, placing down a paper weight on top of them before tidying up the rest of her desk.

It was dark outside now, it had been for the past two hours. Nine in the evening had just arrived and Kaia had watched the sun rise in the morning while she was sat at her desk, and she'd also watched it set over the horizon from the same seat.

The women had been behind on some deadlines and Lizzie had asked for some volunteers to stay late that Friday night and help finish the work. Most of the women had plans or had to get home to care for their children, but Kaia, Beth and Eliza had no commitments. The three of them, along with Lizzie, stayed behind for an extra four hours to get the work completed in time. They were promised an extra half days pay in return for their work, which hadn't been told to them before they volunteered, but they were glad they'd accepted from their goodwill alone.

"Thank you ladies, I'll see you on Monday." Lizzie said as the three of them began to pull on their coats and collect their bags.

Lizzie hadn't said anything to Kaia since she noticed the necklace. Deep down, Kaia felt guilty about it, she couldn't stop thinking about how Lizzie must've felt if she saw the necklace in Thomas' office and thought it was for her, only to see another woman wearing it minutes later.

Despite the empathetic feeling that was eating away at Kaia, there was another feeling that had slowly but surely edged it's way into her mind and her body.

Thomas Shelby had taken over Kaia's subconscious. She had been able to think of little else since she felt his fingers touch the skin on her neck or the way her stomach tied itself in knots when he looked at her. She'd not been the same since, no matter how much she tried to suppress the thought of him and the feeling of her stomach rising whenever someone walked past the office door, incase it was him. Though so far, it had never been him.

It had been a whole two weeks and Kaia hadn't laid eyes on Tommy once. She knew he was probably busy working since she'd barely seen her brother in those fourteen days either, and even her father had been at home less than usual since he'd been drafted in to help them too. That didn't get rid of the thoughts in her imagination, though, it only made them grow more.

"A drink? It's been a long week." Eliza suggested as the girls left the office arm in arm, walking down the street under the warm yellow glow of the street lamps.

"We might as well, come on."

The three of them ended up in The Marquis which wasn't far from the office. They decided to share a bottle of whiskey that evening, the stress of the week and heavy working hours of that particular day making them opt for something stronger than wine.

They chatted amongst themselves for a while, steering away from the topic of work or other women in the office for once, since they'd had enough of that for one week. Instead, they fell into a deep conversation about how they each felt about their lives and their current situations, which led to Beth exposing her secret to her friends.

"I'm seeing someone, it's nothing serious, we've only been out a couple of-"

"Oh my God!" Eliza squealed, clapping her hands in excitement at Beth's news, to which she rolled her eyes.

"Calm down. Like I said, we've only been seeing each other for just under a month. I'm not expecting to marry the guy, but I must admit, it is a nice feeling."

Kaia smiled at her, "We're happy for you, Beth. Tell us more, who is he?"

Beth proceeded to spill the details about her new man, telling the girls that he was a bank teller who worked in Birmingham city centre. She was in a restaurant with a friend around a month and a half ago when they bumped into one another as Beth was leaving and he was just arriving.