THE FRENCH KISSERS ― Thomas Shelby

27. bête noire

"You don't mind if I leave too, do you?" Andrea asked, teeth worrying at her bottom lip. Her mind was far away from there, gaze glued to the stables where Finn and Isaiah took turns drinking from the same bottle, both gawking at her.

"I don't think that's a good idea," Renée said, narrowing her eyes at the boys. "Boys like them, who think they can have everything, who are never denied anything... don't forget first and foremost they're Peaky Blinders."

"I know I should stay away from them... but they're so handsome!" Andrea twirled around, cheeks rosy and eyes sparkling. The moonlight slid across her face, reflected off the S on her chest. It still pained Rose every time she saw it, but Andrea wasn't hiding it, which must be a good thing. "Besides, this is my last night here. I should at least make it memorable, non?"

A sting flared up Rose's chest, spreading from her throat to her stomach and back to her battered heart. Christopher and Renée would leave England in the following days to raise their baby in France, and Andrea would go with them, because that's what was best for her. After what had happened with the Saurets, she deserved to live a safe live. It had been Andrea's choice to go back after all, and even if the separation from Finn would crush her, it was for the best. She wasn't a true Kisser, much less a Peaky Blinder. This was no life for someone like her.

Rose would miss her terribly.

"Is it even just Finn?" Renée sighed, one breath away from defeat. "Cause sometimes it looks like you're dating both of them."

"I'm in love with Finn," Andrea said. Then her lips curled up, mischievous and undoubtedly French. "But Isaiah likes to join sometimes, and in those moments I think I'm a little in love with him too."

Shocked gasps rippled through the group, but Andrea gave them no room to argue, skipping across the dew-covered grass to the two Peaky boys, already waving the bottle at her and chanting her name.

"Miss de La Cour, I do not approve of this! I do not approve at all!" Christopher shouted after her, the veins under the cross around his neck impossibly strained. "That girl will be the death of me, I swear to God. Did no one teach her the appropriate ways of the Lord? Christ, is one Blinder not enough for her? Must she really have two?"

Rose chuckled; in times, she would have hated the idea of Andrea mingling with Blinders too, but Finn and Isaiah had helped save her, so they'd earned their chance. Plus, it was always cruel to separate young love, and it rarely ended well.

Tuning out the frenzied chatter and the upbeat tunes of a jazz song, Rose looked around. She averted the orchestra; the sight of violins pained her still, made her arm feel even number. It burrowed a hole inside her she didn't know how to fill in. For so long music had been the one thing keeping her afloat, keeping her human, and now that she'd lost it she no longer knew how to keep that part of her.

She saw Ada talking to James, and then Raphael pulling him away to some secluded corner, where they'd be hidden from judging eyes. Arwen and Arthur, dancing barefoot on the grass, both clinging to each other for balance, trying not to fall. Kaya and Alfie, kissing under a willow tree, partially shrouded by the night and the long fluttering leaves. Johnny, fumbling with a Kisser in his car. In the distance, the wooden walls of the stables shook from wild laughter and wilder love.

Rose let out a sigh, utterly defeated. She had tried so hard to make her gang and her girls stay away from the Peaky boys, but in the end, it was useless. They were mixed together like dye in water. You could no longer separate them, could no longer have one without the other. And maybe that was not such a bad thing. Maybe it could even be good. Maybe she and Thomas— no. That was different. She and Thomas were not colors in the water – they were blood in the mud, and Rose wasn't sure who was which.