[ cont @widowedfcked ]
He watched her light the smoke with a bemused expression; not exactly pleased, but more amused than irritated, lucky for her. The pub was busy; he’d taken her outside as soon as he’d seen her, it wouldn’t do for her to be seen in a place like this, and he didn’t like the small ripple that’d gone through the residents - most of them his men, none of them used to a woman like that in their establishment, all glossy hair and red lipstick and a fur edging on her coat that cost more than three month’s pay. He tapped his hand absently against the soot-grime brick of the back wall. They were in the yard; the smoke from the furnace should’ve choked her, but she didn’t seem like the sort to flinch. He ignored her ‘message’ utterly.
“You’ve got a right nerve, coming in here,” he said, instead, and he looked her up and down, something significant in the drag of his eyes - not exactly a caress, and not exactly appreciative. “Think that ‘cause you’re carrying a message from Shelby you’re untouchable, and maybe you’re right about that, I don’t know, he’s a big fuckin’ man now: but you should be more careful. Dismiss your cab a few streets down, did’ja? That’s a long way for a woman like you to walk before one of my boys spots you and gets you somewhere safe. Lots of dark alleys.”
He moved quickly, for a big man. He took the cigarette from her, turned it over in his fingers, didn’t smoke it; she’d left an imprint of scarlet around the damp end, and he watched it burn down thoughtfully; only when his fingers were threatened did he drop it on the cobbles, where it went out in the puddles with a faint hiss. “Don’t,” he said, “be stupid again. If Tommy’s sent you to keep a fuckin’ eye on me or whatever the hell it is goes on in that mind of his, that’s fine, that’s fair, be my guest, but call the office if you need to come in.We can meet somewhere civilised, or I’ll get someone to pick you up, yeah? No point sending you back to Tommy in a box. It’d scupper his plans, and he gets all pissy when that happens. Breaks glasses, and stuff.”