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“Thank you,” I said, buttoning my jacket. “Both of you. That was… I don’t have words.”
“You don’t have money either,” Jade said, not unkindly.
“No.”
Scarlett kissed my cheek. Jade patted my head like a dog who’d done a good trick. Then they were gone through the curtain together, and I walked out across the main floor with a damp patch in my jeans and my jacket held strategically low.
It was only on the pavement that I checked my pockets.
My wallet was empty. I knew that. What I hadn’t thought about were my car keys, which were on the floor of the VIP booth, where they’d fallen out during the four most exciting minutes of my life.
Dez wouldn’t let me back in. “Club rules, mate. Once you’re out, you’re out.” He said he’d hand them in at the bar. The bar was shut.
So I walked to the bus stop. The night bus wanted two pounds fifty. I had a pound coin and some fluff. The driver looked at the coin, then at my jeans, and waved me on with an expression of deep, weary pity.
I sat at the back. The bus smelled of chips. A woman in a hen-party sash fell asleep on my shoulder.
I got home at four. I picked the car up on Monday, on the way to the job centre, and Dez handed me the keys with a perfectly straight face.
“They said you lasted four minutes,” he said.
Ending 8 of 25: Bus Fare. Go back and try a different choice for the full happy ending.