Two weeks later

Niamh waited for the front door to close before she leapt up off of the kitchen chair she was sitting on and hurried upstairs to her room. Rummaging to the back of the wardrobe, she pulled out a basket of things she had hidden in there and tipped them out onto the bed. The first thing she needed to do was wrap up the gifts she had gotten Alfie for his birthday; the birthday she only knew about thanks to Karina passing on the information about a week ago.

It had been hard to know what to buy the man who had everything he could ever want but she had decided in the end to purchase things that she thought might make him happy. She had started off with having Alfie's driver, Ishmael– who was an absolute sweetheart– drive down to Margate to purchase a few sticks of rock candy. She knew Margate was Alfie's favourite place because it had come up in conversation during her first night in Camden. The second gift was a thick scarf that Alfie desperately needed now that the weather was growing colder and he would come home from walking Cyril at night with a blue tinge to his skin. The other two gifts were a record of Puccini's 'Madame Butterfly' which Alfie had confessed to Niamh some weeks ago that he enjoyed greatly but Cyril had chewed the last record up, and a new waistcoat as his current favourite one had more holes than a spider's web. It wasn't much but Niamh hoped he appreciated the thought behind each gift and she also hoped he wouldn't be angry.

From what Karina had said, Alfie ignored his birthday every year whenever she and Ollie tried to celebrate with a birthday dinner for him, claiming that he didn't need to be reminded he was another year older and uglier. But Karina personally thought it was just his way of pretending that it didn't bother him that he had no one else, no family or anything, to celebrate with.

"I know he loves us in his own way," Karina had said with a fond smile. "But it's not the same as an actual family, is it?"

And Niamh knew exactly what she meant. After all, her family always celebrated each other's birthdays with gifts and a special dinner or perhaps a party. So while she knew Alfie wouldn't appreciate a party of any kind, she figured that the least she could do was to make him a birthday dinner that the two of them could enjoy together. Karina had offered to help but Niamh wanted to do it herself. She couldn't exactly explain why but it felt important to her that she had been the one to prepare everything for Alfie, and she had about ten hours to get it all done which was more than enough time. She just hoped that Alfie stuck to his word of coming home early that night because he had been working incredibly late the past couple of weeks; leaving early and coming home well past midnight, making Niamh thankful that she at least had Karina for company during the day if she needed it.

It hadn't gone unnoticed by Niamh that Alfie had only begun working late since they almost kissed the night after dinner at Ollie and Karina's. Well she thought they almost kissed. It had certainly seemed as though they were going to and when she spoke to Karina about it, the woman wholeheartedly agreed. So Niamh's confusion only seemed to multiply now that Alfie was almost avoiding her. Or perhaps he really was just busy with the bakery. She hoped that was the case anyway. She decided the best thing to do was to try and put it from her mind and just get on with making Alfie's birthday one he wouldn't forget.

Slamming down his pen, Alfie put his head in his hands and rubbed his temples, wishing he could rid himself of his pounding headache through sheer will alone. Unfortunately he was going to have to take an aspirin, which he pulled from a paper sachet in his desk drawer and washed down with a glug of his lukewarm sugary tea.

Waiting for the medicine to kick in, he listened to the noises coming from downstairs, keeping an ear out for anything else going wrong because for the past week or two his employees had been driving him up the proverbial wall. It was bad enough having to deal with Ollie and his shenanigans every day but at least he could usually be counted on to keep the men in line, however even Ollie was struggling of late. Alfie blamed the intake of new employees but as far as he was concerned, they had one day to learn what they were doing and that was more than generous enough. So any mistakes made after that weren't acceptable and he made sure they knew it. But some of the daft fuckers still couldn't grasp their simple job roles and his patience was wearing thinner with each passing day.

What Alfie wasn't willing to admit, even though the thought crossed his mind multiple times a day, was that he was still frustrated about what had almost happened with Niamh the other week and that too was playing a small part in his working late every day. He had been about to kiss Niamh and she had been about to let him; he had seen it in her eyes, because the desire in them matched his own whether she even realised it or not. But since they had been interrupted and she had disappeared off to her room, they had gone back to how they were before; polite conversations and jokes and just sort of skirting around the issue. And while Alfie was more than happy with the friendship that had grown between them, which was humorous really given that he was a man who didn't care about having friends, the knowledge that Niamh might want more yet wasn't brave enough to say it niggled at him. Although not as much as the fact that he apparently was too much of a wimp to do something about it either. Bloody women were more trouble than they were worth because they turned even the hardest of men into mush and he wasn't alright with it. Only Niamh was worth any amount of trouble to him and that realisation was utterly terrifying.

"Sorry to bother you, Alfie," came a tentative knock at the door from Ollie.

"Fuck off," Alfie growled.

"Erm, Alfie, it's for you," came Ollie's somewhat timid reply.

"Yeah I fuckin' guessed that seein' as it's my office door you're knockin' on but I said fuck off and I meant it."

"Alfie, I don't mean to be rude but-"

"Right, I'm fuckin' comin'," he huffed, standing up from his chair and stomping over to the door which he yanked open angrily. "I said fuck off and I- oh, Niamh, sorry, love. What you doin' 'ere? Ollie, why the fuck didn't you tell me it was Niamh?"

"I tried but you-"

"Ollie, you wouldn't mind running downstairs and checking for one of my gloves in the car, would you?" Niamh interrupted, the look in her eyes silently telling Ollie that she was just getting him away from his boss before he could take a full ear bashing.

"Yeah of course, Niamh," he smiled gratefully. "Won't be a minute."

"Thank you, Ollie," Niamh smiled back, turning her attention to Alfie who was scowling down at her, although with far less venom than the daggers he had been shooting at Ollie. "I brought you some dinner."

"Don't I think I didn't just notice what you did with Ollie then," he narrowed his eyes at her, but the twitch of his lips told her he wasn't really angry.

"I didn't do anything," Niamh grinned, placing a basket on top of the desk as Alfie shut the door and meandered around the office to his chair.

"So you said somethin' about dinner?" he sat down with a grunt, his stomach growling hungrily.

"I did," Niamh nodded. "I was waiting for you to come home but when I called and Ollie said you definitely wouldn't be back early, I had Ishmael bring me round."

"You didn't have to do that," Alfie murmured, watching as she pulled out a plate covered with a cloth and slid it across to his side of the desk. It smelled lovely; he couldn't deny that, and his mouth started watering the second he removed the cloth and saw a beef roast on the plate before him, which just so happened to be his favourite meal.

"I know," she smiled. "But a certain somebody told me it was your birthday today."

"Bloody Karina," Alfie muttered under his breath. "Well it was very kind of you but it's just another day to me, you know."

"Oh, so you won't want these then?" Niamh held the basket out to him and he could see a few brown paper wrapped packages.

"What are they?" he frowned.

"They're birthday presents, of course," she exclaimed with a laugh. "But if it's just another day then I suppose I can find someone else to give them to."

"Now hang on, I never said," Alfie grumbled, taking the basket before Niamh could stop him. "What I mean to say is that seein' as you've gone to so much trouble for me, the least I can do is show some appreciation, yeah?"

"That's true," Niamh's smile was a smug one, which didn't go unnoticed by Alfie.

Opening the gifts one by one, Alfie appreciated the fact that instead of staring at him, Niamh wandered to the bookcase over at the back of the office and pretended to browse through the titles so that he didn't feel uncomfortable with the attention on him. Every so often he'd catch her eyes flickering in his direction before she turned back to the books, waiting for him to say something which was a good few minutes in coming.

"Well you've been a busy bee, aint you?" he said finally.

Niamh turned to look at him, a smile appearing on her face when she realised he wasn't upset.

"You like them then? The presents?" she checked.

"They're very… thoughtful," was his answer.

Walking towards him slowly, Niamh only had to bend down slightly to brush her lips against his bearded cheek, right above his scar.

"Happy birthday, Alfie," Niamh murmured, pulling back to look at him as she chewed her lip self consciously.

"Niamh," he mumbled, reaching out to cup her face in his hand. "Thank you… for all of this."

"You're welcome," she smiled. "You'd better eat your dinner before it gets too cold."

Nodding, Alfie brushed his thumb over her cheek once before dropping his hand.

"I'm guessin' you've probably already eaten seein' as there's only one plate ehre but I wouldn't mind some company while I eat," Alfie muttered, taking his seat and waving a hand in the direction of the chair opposite. "Unless you're desperate to get back home?"

"I think I could spare you half an hour," Niamh teased.

"Gosh that's generous aint it?" Alfie snorted.

The impish grin on Niamh's lit up the dark office and Alfie decided right there and then that this had turned out to be the best birthday ever.