← Back
I went back inside. I don’t know what I was thinking. I think I was thinking I was on a roll.
Jade was at the bar. I sat down next to her and asked for a dance.
She leaned in to kiss my cheek, then stopped an inch from my neck and sniffed.
“Vanilla,” she said.
“Sorry?”
“You smell of vanilla and cigarettes.” She sat back and looked me up and down: the rumpled collar, the stain on my shirt I hadn’t noticed under the alley streetlight. “And that’s Scarlett’s lipstick on your ear.”
“I can explain.”
“Babe, I don’t need you to explain. I’ve worked here seven years.” She laughed, properly delighted. “You went out the fire door to go home, got a handjob off my mate in the alley, and came back in for seconds. That’s actually impressive.”
At the end of the bar, Scarlett had come back from her break. She saw the two of us together and her smile vanished.
“Oh, she’s going to kill you,” Jade said happily.
She didn’t kill me. She walked over, took my drink out of my hand, finished it and said, “I said pick me first. Not pick me, then her, then whoever’s free.” Then she walked away.
Jade gave me one song on the floor, out of pity, and told Dez the whole story, loudly. By the time I left, the bar staff were calling me Vanilla.
I didn’t go back for a month. When I did, they still were.
Ending 24 of 25: Wrong Perfume. Go back and try a different choice for the full happy ending.