"I was in love once. With a beautiful blue-eyed boy," Alfie said, big hands thrust into his pockets. He stood squinting out at the late-afternoon sunlight off the water, in wellies and a worn cardigan, chickens pecking around his feet.
"Oh?" Thomas inquired behind him, as nonchalantly as he could manage. "And...?"
"I was, yeah. Fucking shame, really. Disappeared up his own arsehole; eaten alive by his own insatiable fucking need for power. His need to be Big. Very sad." He cast a glance back over his shoulder, good eye clear green in the late-afternoon sun, cowlicked hair blowing in the wind off the bay. "I'm writing my own final act, treacle. I'm done being Big, right? I've discovered the pleasures of being Small, and I intend to stay that way."
It was a far cry from what Tommy had expected. He'd spent months scheming, coming up with a grand plan -- to take America by storm, take over the opium trade with Alfie by his side. But while he had been scheming, Alfie had quietly made a life for himself. A pleasant life of warmth and laughter; a sort of cobbled-together family. A life Tommy could have been part of. And it was bitter, standing on the outside looking in.
"Come back to me, yeah? But come back when you're ready to be just Tom. Not an OBE, not an MP, not king of the fucking world, right? Just Tom -- sitting at the fucking table having tea, shoveling shit in the barn, playing chess and having supper with me and Cyril and the family."
"And sleeping in your bed every night again, Alfie?" Tommy asked, a brow arched -- aiming for provocative and cocky, falling somewhere short and landing in the neighborhood of hopeful instead. "Is that on offer as well?"
"I dunno. We'll see, right?" Alfie smiled wearily, heavy shoulders lifting in a shrug and dropping again. He turned away, looking back at the sun setting low and orange over the bay. "I ain't after getting my heart broken again. Let's see if you can manage a regular fucking life first, alright?"
