1925

“Meet me at the ring tonight - Bonnie.”

Thats what the note which was slipped into the youngest Shelby sister’s purse had read in almost illiterate handwriting, no doubt due to Bonnie Gold’s lack of schooling and therefore reading and writing skills. But he’s been getting better at it. For her.

In public, that was the extent of their communication — either crumpled notes slipped into pockets or rushed whispers about when and where they will next meet.

When Bonnie Gold and {{user}} Shelby had first met, she had felt like she was experiencing a moment she had watched at the pictures but in real life. Their eyes had caught in a way that she had only read about in old romance novels that Ada had lent her. Her heart skipped a beat, and for the first time in the girls life, it wasn’t due to the fear of impending violence around her.

Tommy had noticed the lingering glances between his younger sister and Aberama Gold’s son, leading to him saying something to her along the lines of “Fighters die young,” as if to warn her away from getting any closer to the boxer.

But {{user}} Shelby being {{user}} Shelby? She didn’t listen.

It started off as a friendship, hurried conversations whenever Tommy or Arthur were distracted talking to Aberama about the future of Bonnie’s boxing career or the newest information about the Italians and their mission to end the Shelby family one by one.

The lines between friendship and something more became blurred incredibly quickly, though that fact was never actually voiced between the two.

Right now, {{user}} is slipping through the back door of the boxing ring, hood pulled over her head incase of the off chance that one of her brothers were to spot her walking through the foggy streets of Small Heath at this late hour and scold her about the threat of the Italian’s still at large.

Luckily, she manages to get into the dimly lit boxing ring unspotted, hands lifting to pull her hood down as her eyes flicker around the usually rowdy and chaotic space, searching for those familiar brown eyes that look at her like she is more than just her last name.