✓ | GOLDEN LIAR ↠ Thomas Shelby.

19.

Felicity laughed as she took it from his hands. "Let me." 

So he did, reluctantly, and Felicity suspected with amusement that the man hardly enjoyed being bettered at anything, let alone unfolding a rough piece of crumpled fabric. Within a minute, she had the blanket upon the grass and had taken the basket from his grasp as well, sitting down with a heavy thump and an exclamation of surprise as the dew still soaked her legs. 

"Are you planning on standing there all day?" Felicity asked in a pointed, bemused manner, shielding her eyes from the sun as she glared up at him.

Tommy responded simply by joining her on the grass and settling back so that he could tug gently on her arm, pulling her into his embrace. And so, falling against his chest, his heartbeat echoed through her steadily. She found it to be reassuring ― as though, so long as he had life in his veins and was holding her close, all would be alright in the world.

With the sky being surprisingly light and the weak, early spring sun casting their shadows onto the dewdrop-covered blades of grass, Felicity could not help but think that the day was turning out to be perfect. No noise, no stress, no nothing. Not a single thought about the previous weeks ― or even the upcoming ones, for that matter ― crossed her mind, and for that she was glad.

"I really wish these moments could last forever, Tommy," she sighed into the air. Yet this was a wish the pair had murmured to one another in the dark thousands of times, but never in the light. As though, as the moon succeeded the sun and the stars lit the way for travellers far and wide, it was okay to share such hopes. . . such wild, thoughtless hopes that both knew to be futile and impossible to have come true. 

"I know, darling," he acknowledged her words softly, for he too knew that this thought was one with no purpose and was said despite the both of them knowing that it was forever in vain. So he took to gently stroking the curls that fell atop his chest, and it was as though they were threads of gold. "I know."

Angels don't belong in Small Heath. The very thought that had crossed his mind on too many occasions to count, and it was one that refused to stop plaguing his mind. Tommy knew that if there was one place that Felicity should have found herself wound up in, it was in the very city he reigned each day. . . and just how she had been born to John Woods was forever going to be a mystery to him. The girl was too nice for her own good.

"We could go on a proper holiday once this is all over," she suggested to him, eyes still closed as his fingers combed her hair, twisting ringlets of gold around and around his pinkie. 

Tommy allowed himself to smile at her words, at the thought of the pair of them breaking free from their normal ordeals for a weekend. "That'd be perfect."

Felicity nodded, mirroring his expression. "Get away from everything, everyone, and go to the country. Or London? I never had the chance to go to London."

"We'd go to London, 'course," Tommy agreed, although his mind was beginning to become preoccupied. . . much to his annoyance, he found. "Although I can't promise it's very nice there ― full of all the smoke and shit."

She laughed, but caught the edge to his voice: the edge he had tried so hard to hide the minute it had appeared, the minute his mind had clouded with thoughts he hadn't wanted to acknowledge for at least another hour or so. 

Felicity wriggled into an upright position. "What's the real reason we're here, Tom?" 

Tommy mentally groaned. Forget being too nice ― she was far too observing for her own good. It was as though she could always discover whenever something was amiss, and although she knew when he would or wouldn't reveal just what was troubling, that rarely stopped her from asking. Felicity couldn't bear the thought of someone suffering and Tommy knew such a thing often plagued her. . . which gave him yet another reason for wishing she had not wound up in such a hellhole such as Small Heath. What good was ever going to emerge from having empathy in a place where hurt flooded its streets? He often feared it would overwhelm her and the urge to protect the doe-eyed girl grew forever stronger.