CHAPTER THIRTY NINE.
LOVE IS A RUTHLESS game, everyone said. Heartbreak was a twisting and turning maze made up of solely glass shards, but no one really liked mazes now, did they? Unrequited love was torture ― worse than heartbreak, worse than love, worse than it all combined. . . or so Felicity had thought. Up until now, she had so believed such a statement, but she was just about coming to terms with the fact that her heart ached for a man she had betrayed, and that it was far worse than what she had experienced when she was thirteen and completely and utterly infatuated ― and thus hurt ― by a boy who did not love her back. Breaking the pub window over such a thing had seemed to be a big event when she was so young, so naïve, so violently innocent that it was almost cruel to be so. It wasn't a big thing, though. Not when she was now head over heels in love with a man that she suspected held the same towards her, but was not willing to give in for fear of getting hurt once more by the blonde girl.
And that was why her heart ached as she watched him from across the bar, sitting amongst his family whilst he nursed the day's uneventful events with a tumbler of whiskey that he was hardly touching.
John had taken to telling the others loud stories of him and Esme's kids, and whilst no one was truly paying attention to the words coming out of his mouth, and instead were simply amused as they looked at him with half glazed―over eyes, he had a way of keeping the attention on him and of entertaining the rest of his family. Especially so that his older brother's gaze might stop fighting him to try and wander over to the blonde that hid in the corner, trying to busy herself so that she too wouldn't look at her wedded partner. But even John couldn't stop him ― Tommy always had a will that was far too strong for his own good ― from wondering what was circuiting Felicity's mind at that moment. The girl he had once claimed to have known like the back of his hand. . . the girl he thought he did know like it.
"So then they all came and, and. . . Tom! Tommy, Jesus Christ, listen!" John bellowed, unaware or perhaps unable to turn his volume down a notch.
Tommy startled, before turning back to his brother. "I am."
"Sure you are, Tom," John responded, frowning ever so slightly before allowing himself to go and see whatever it was that he had been distracted by. . . and then making an 'o' shape with his mouth as the realisation took its hold. He hadn't had much to say on the whole affair ― or at least, he hadn't said anything to Felicity about it ― and so Felicity had assumed he hadn't had much of an opinion on it. Or perhaps he had, but had allowed Tommy the time and space to make his own judgement and make the overall decision on it.
"I am," Tommy pressed again, looking slightly annoyed as John continued to appear dubious. "Go on, finish with it. I'm listening."
He wasn't listening, and it didn't take any fool to be able to tell that. John realised that but he had grown tired of feeble arguments, so he let Tommy be and simply continued with whatever rubbish he had been spouting beforehand.
Tommy stayed quiet, barely even trying to look attentive as he found his gaze still wandering over to where Felicity was hovering. She stood in the shadows, twisting a rag around and around her fist until it couldn't go any more, and then unwrapping it so that she might start it all again. It was a way to pass the time; a way to keep her attention away from the raven―haired man who was sat just six or so feet away from her.
It wasn't long before he pushed back his chair with a violent screech and rose, ignoring the looks from his siblings as he made his way towards the countertop, the barrier that had been so rudely been put between him and Felicity.
"You and me, let's go for a walk," he told her in a low voice.
Felicity could have sworn she felt her heart stop. She simply nodded, however, and followed him out of the pub and into the streets.
Cloaked in darkness, in shadows, in deep midnight blankets that hid the sins and evil of the city from the unaware eyes of onlookers, Small Heath felt comfortable to the girl who had roamed its streets for the entirety of her twenty four years of living, and the man felt the same. And yet, at the same time, he didn't. There had been so many hopes and dreams that came with the pair. . . Small Heath was supposed to be theirs for the taking, with him as its King and her as its Queen, or something less Shakespearean. The dirty concrete had supposed to hold their footprints as they walked side by side, not on opposite sides of the street, and the man with no fear and a huge reputation was supposed to be flanked by the woman with all of the innocence in the world and a heart made of glitter and gold. It was supposed to be theirs.
Felicity supposed that they were half there, though, as they now walked side by side. . . perhaps not as close as they once had been, but they were definitely walking the streets of Tommy's kingdom with their surnames matching and their stony demeanours crumbling at a speed that was relatively the same. But it wasn't how it was supposed to be ― he was only just learning to not be hostile towards the woman, and she was desperate to make up for every single one of her lies, but hardly knew where to begin with that.
"You don't belong here, Felicity," he eventually murmured, stopping dead in the middle of the road so that she had no choice but to do the same.
She started up, already indignant. "I'm not really sure what you mean by that," Felicity began, ready to argue should she have to.
Tommy could have rolled his eyes at the woman's hot―headedness, but he didn't. "I meant that you don't have to stay stuck behind that bar the whole time," he finished, trying not to let any emotion creep into his voice. . . although he suspected that it wouldn't take much for him to fail at that.
"Meaning. . .?"
He cleared his throat. "Meaning you could. . . you could work at the betting shop, instead."
Felicity's jaw almost dropped. "Tommy, I really don't think that would be the best of ideas," she countered tentatively, even though that was what she wanted the most in the world ― for everything to go back to normal.
"I've talked it all through with the family. It'd be fine."
"Are you sure?"
Oh, how she wished that she wouldn't argue and just go ahead with everything he was proposing. . . but she also knew that there would have been such an overwhelming sense of suspicion that came with Felicity, as it had been her to. . .
"I talked with Polly and Arthur and, well. . . they both came to agree that your father's to blame. Not. . . not you."
Weeks, even longer, she supposed, of trying to persuade him of that fact had finally paid off, although she didn't feel majorly smug of that. Felicity hadn't the slightest idea of what to say in response ― she supposed this must've been a big enough thing for him to suggest, as all of the past's worries and anxieties would have been coming back to remind him of her traitorous actions, and yet he still said it with all of his normal fluidity of speaking and. . . okay, he wasn't especially confident now, which was a betrayal to his usual character.
"When?" Was her soft―voiced response.
"Monday week," Tommy clarified immediately, and now that he was onto the 'planning' stage of the discussion and hence back in a comfortable zone, his confidence eased back into his words. "Polly's trying to get the offices organized, she's been on my case about it for months now, saying how you can't work properly when you're surrounded by mess. Bullshit, I say, but she's going ahead with it and I'm not about to try and stop her. . . You can start Monday week."
"That's soon. . ."
"Not really," he opposed. "It's a week and two days, so you've got that time to make sure the others trust you enough when you start back there."
Felicity nodded, and then shook her head. "I never worked there in the first place," she said slowly. "How will I know how to―?"
"You've helped me enough times to know it all, believe me," Tommy took to assuring her after a short pause, and he started off down the road again, ushering her to follow. "Come on."
So she did, she followed him just like she had pledged to do on their wedding day, when all they had wanted was an eternity and more with one another. They walked the streets of Small Heath for hours on end, with Tommy lighting up cigarettes and Felicity once again refusing them, as she was determined to get out of the habit once and for all, and all that could be seen beneath the dim light of the moon was the tiny sparks of that flew from his cigarettes as smoke spluttered and spurted its way into the sky.
Love is a ruthless game, they say.
AUTHOR'S NOTE!
i'm actually desperate for tommy and felicity to make up completely, you don't understand how much it hurts to write them being all hostile and shit :( i mean i know they're getting better but it still hurts.
(also! sorry for the short―ish chapter! more interesting ones will come, i promise)
anyway ― thank you so so much for reading! i love you all and am eternally grateful for all of your support omfg