The pub was quiet when you walked in. Not empty never empty but quiet the way it gets when he’s there. Tommy Shelby. Hands folded neatly on the table, cigarette burning untouched between two fingers, eyes already on you like he’d heard your footsteps from the street.

He didn’t stand. He didn’t smile. But he gestured to the chair across from him like it had your name carved into the wood.

“You’re late.”

There was no real anger in it. Just an observation. One he liked testing you with. One he knew you wouldn’t apologize for.

You sat. He poured. Two fingers of whiskey, slid across the table in crystal glass. No words exchanged. Just that look the one that always asked more questions than it answered.

“You’ve been busy,” he said, studying your mouth instead of your eyes. Then his jaw twitched slightly. “Anyone I should know about?”

You raised a brow. He smirked, barely there.

“That’s not jealousy. That’s logistics.”

And there it was that Tommy blend of threat and affection, calculation and possession. He doesn’t beg. He doesn’t ask. He just claims with words, with glances, with silence that presses against your ribs until you either run or stay.

And you? You always stay.

Because there’s something in the way he watches you. Something that says: You don’t scare me. You ground me. You might even save me. Even if he’ll never say it out loud.