Tragic Smile

The G Word

"Hey, Nick. Where are you?" I walked in to the club and called out for him.

"I'm in the office." I heard his deep voice reply and I began making my way towards the office.

We only got home at twelve minutes past nine and I had managed to shower and get dressed and get to the club for ten just like Nick had asked.

Nick was sitting at the table, punching numbers in to his calculator with a stressed expression on his face. "What's wrong?" I frowned.

"There's three hundred pounds missing from the takings. I've calculated it three times and it's coming up short every time." He groaned.

"Here, let me try." I walked over to the table and stood beside him and began putting the numbers in the calculator. I done it twice over before realising he was right. The tills were short of three hundred pounds.

"It just doesn't make sense. Who would be so silly to take three hundred? As if I wouldn't notice." He looked angry now.

"Don't we have CCTV?" I pointed up to the TV displaying all the cameras at once on it.

"Yeah, I'm going to have to get Callum over to get through all the tapes and I'll hopefully be able to sort it out." He rolled his eyes.

I sat down across the table and smiled. Ready to start the day.

"Okay, let's brain storm. We need another theme night." He pushed the calculator and books aside.

"We have tomorrow free then we could do next Saturday?" Nick looked down at the diary on the table.

Wait? What?

"No, it's the final of the boxing tomorrow? This place will be full of people for that." I reminded him.

His jaw tightened, "actually, it's been moved to Sunday."

My stomach dropped. The final was on my birthday and on the anniversary...

"But I thought it was tomorrow? How am I supposed to have dinner with Sid's parents and be here to support Jack? I already text his parents arranging it for Sunday." I furrowed my brows.

"I'm sorry, it's just the way things have went. I'm sure Jack will be able to tell you all about his fight after. You shouldn't break tradition with Sid's parents but." He was acting weird. Even more weirder than normal.

"But Jack is in the final. I helped get him in the final." I ran my hands through my hair. Either way I was going to have to let someone down. Sid's parents or Jack. It didn't feel right breaking tradition but I can't imagine Jack going up to fight his biggest match yet and me not being there.

He shrugged his shoulders, "I'm sure Jack will understand."

This was horrible. I had no idea how this was going to go down.

I was in reorganising the store room for around two hours and taking a note of the stock when Jack walked in. "Hey beautiful." He walked up behind me and kissed under my ear, his favourite spot.

"Oh hey." I instantly felt sick about telling him the bad news.

"I thought I would take you for some lunch before I start work at half one?" He suggested.

I put my clipboard down and smiled at him. This would be the perfect time to tell him. How bad can it be? Surely he will understand. He knows how important Sid is to me.

"I would love to." I lead the way, pulling his hand behind me.

I told Nick I was popping out for a hour and I would go back to finishing the stock check when I was back.