[impexium_user_2045937]

Let me tell you about the worst three hours of my life. Not the time I broke my arm falling off a skateboard. Not the time my first girlfriend dumped me by text. Worse than both. Because this time, I had no one to blame but myself and a very enthusiastic golden retriever.

My name’s Charlie. I’m thirty-three. I manage a small bookstore – the kind with creaky floors and a cat that isn’t technically ours but sleeps on the poetry section anyway. I’ve been engaged to a woman named Maya for fourteen months. She’s a nurse. Works nights. Has the patience of a saint and the organisational skills of a military general. I have neither.

The ring wasn’t expensive. Maya didn’t want expensive. She wanted simple. A thin gold band with a tiny opal. Her grandmother’s birthstone. It cost me three hundred pounds, which at the time felt like a fortune and now feels like the best money I’ve ever spent.

I lost it on a Tuesday.

The dog – a golden retriever named Toast, because he’s the colour of burnt bread and just as chaotic – had knocked over my nightstand while chasing his own tail. The ring must have fallen off the stand. I’d taken it off the night before to moisturise. Stupid habit. I know that now.

I tore apart the bedroom. Nothing. Checked the bathroom. Nothing. Checked the dog’s bed, the dog’s mouth, the dog’s everything. Nothing. Toast sat there wagging his tail, completely innocent, completely useless.

Maya was coming home in four hours. She’d notice. Of course she’d notice. She notices everything. She’d smile her kind smile and say “it’s okay, we’ll find it,” and I’d feel like the biggest failure in London.

I sat on the floor. Back against the wall. Phone in my hand. No idea what to do.

That’s when I saw the icon. A purple and gold thing I’d installed weeks ago during a bout of insomnia. The vavada app. I’d never opened it. Didn’t even remember downloading it. Probably saw an ad. Probably told myself “just for fun.” Definitely forgot about it until exactly this moment.

I opened it.

The app was slick. Faster than the website. Cleaner too. No annoying pop-ups. Just a simple lobby with games arranged by colour. I wasn’t looking to win. I was looking for a distraction. Something to fill the next four hours so I wouldn’t sit here spiralling about a ring that was probably inside the dog.

The vavada app had a welcome banner: “First deposit? Get 50 free spins.” I deposited twenty pounds. Small. Safe. The cost of a pizza I wouldn’t order.

The spins were on a game called “Jungle Gems.” Bright colours. Monkeys. A soundtrack that sounded like a rainforest having a party. I played on mute because the dog was finally sleeping and I didn’t want to wake him.

First twenty spins: nothing. A few tiny wins. My balance dipped to fifteen pounds.

Spin twenty-three: three scatter symbols. A bonus round. I had to match gems in a cave. Each match revealed a multiplier. I matched four. My balance jumped to forty-one pounds.

Spin thirty-one: another bonus. This time the cave was bigger. More gems. More multipliers. My balance hit sixty-eight pounds.

By the time the fifty spins ended, I had ninety-three pounds. Nearly five times my deposit. Not life-changing. But enough to make me sit up straight.

I should have cashed out. I know that. But the vavada app had a little notification – “Your balance qualifies for the weekly tournament.” I clicked it. A leaderboard. Top fifty win cash prizes. I was in sixty-third place.

Sixty-three. So close.

I deposited another twenty. Then another. My total deposit hit sixty pounds. My balance was a hundred and thirty. I was in fifty-eighth place. Still close. Still not there.

The dog woke up. Stretched. Walked over to the bookshelf. Sniffed something. I ignored him. I was too focused on the leaderboard.

Then Toast sneezed.

Something small and gold flew out of his nose.

I froze.

The ring. Thin gold band. Tiny opal. It had been up his nose. For three hours. The entire time I was tearing apart the bedroom and panicking and downloading casino apps, the ring was lodged in my dog’s nostril.

I grabbed it. Wiped it on my shirt. Held it up to the light. Perfect condition. A little slimy. But perfect.

I laughed. Then I almost cried. Then I looked back at the app.

My balance was still a hundred and thirty pounds. The tournament was still running. I was still in fifty-eighth place.

I pressed the spin button one more time. For luck. For the dog. For the ring.

The reels spun. Three golden tigers. A jackpot line I’d never seen before. My balance jumped from a hundred and thirty to four hundred and ten.

I withdrew everything. Four hundred and ten pounds. Enough to buy the ring three times over. Enough to take Maya to dinner. Enough to buy Toast a very large bag of treats for being an absolute idiot.

The money arrived two days later. I didn’t tell Maya about the nose incident. I just put the ring back on the nightstand – inside a drawer this time – and smiled when she came home.

“Everything okay?” she asked.

“Perfect,” I said. “Just perfect.”

I still have the vavada app on my phone. It’s on the last screen, next to a weather app I never use. I open it sometimes. Not to play. Just to look at the purple and gold and remember the Tuesday when a golden retriever taught me that panic is temporary, luck is weird, and the best wins are the ones you never expected.

The ring is on Maya’s finger now. Safe. Where it belongs. And Toast is asleep on the couch, dreaming about whatever dogs dream about.

Probably chasing golden tigers.

• This discussion was modified 1 week, 4 days ago by  impexium_user_2045937.