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I took three more wallets in the next hour and a half.

All of them from slimy older guys who leered at me, their eyes drinking in my body like they had permission to look.

The second one was easier now I knew how it worked.

He had slicked-back black hair, smelled like strong cologne and talked too loudly.

The third was a man trying to hit on a woman, probably his colleague, who nodded politely while he mansplained at her.

I noticed her eyes glazing over, her beautifully manicured nails tapping against the side of her wine glass. She wasn’t paying any attention to him.

I was.

He leaned toward her, trying to get her to flirt back, or show any kind of recognition of his self-assured greatness, and I had to wonder if she noticed when I lifted not just his card wallet but a money clip from his pocket, too.

If she did, she didn’t say anything. I never even made eye contact with her.

The fourth guy was a real asshole, shouting at the female bartender for getting his order wrong. She was politely apologetic as she remade his fancy bourbon cocktail, and I didn’t feel bad at all about sliding his wallet out of his jacket pocket while he was berating her.

Leaving with four wallets didn’t feel like chickening out.

I signaled to the bartender and paid up, in cash from my own wallet.

He might remember me in the morning – the girl who had read Pride and Prejudice and tipped decently on a few glasses of soda and French fries – but he would forget me by the weekend.

I stuffed my book and pens back into my backpack, on top of the wallets I didn’t dare look at, then zipped it up tightly and wandered slowly back to our room, wanting to keep up my easy-going disguise until I was safely away from wandering eyes.

Brooke wasn’t there when I walked in, and I wanted to throw up and scream and dance around the room all at the same time. I wanted to dig into the wallets and count the cash.

I didn’t do any of that.

I forced myself to have a shower, letting the hot water soothe my tense muscles.

I’d always done a lot of thinking in the shower, since it was a safe space in a way almost nowhere else in my life was.

It didn’t take long for little tendrils of guilt and shame to start creeping around me.

Growing up, we’d never had much, and I was used to not asking for things – money included.

Taking it from someone else, even if they could afford to lose it, didn’t sit completely right with me.

‘Jessie?’

‘I’ll be out in a second,’ I called back, relieved that Brooke had made it to the room safely.

I turned the water off, wrapped myself in a towel and changed into my pajamas before leaving the bathroom.

Brooke was at the mirror, unpicking her complicated hairstyle. ‘Well?’ she asked.

‘You go first,’ I said, wanting to surprise her with my haul.

I rubbed the towel over my hair, trying to wring out as much of the water as I could, and sat on the bed to braid it before we went to sleep. Not that I could go to sleep any time soon. I was too hyped up.

Brooke went over to the dresser and pulled out a crisp white pillowcase, laughing as she turned it out and eight, maybe ten, wallets tumbled out of it.

‘Easiest thing in the world.’

‘Shit, Brooke,’ I murmured. ‘I only got four.’ That seemed almost pathetic now.

I pulled over my backpack and fished them out. ‘Oh, and a money clip.’

‘That’s really good, Jessie. Especially for your first time!’

‘What are you going to do with the wallets?’ I asked, curious, as Brooke started to sort through them.

‘Dump them,’ she said. ‘I’m just going to take out the cash. Taking the credit cards and using them is a whole other ball game.’

The nerves that had consumed me earlier in the evening now settled in a rock of anticipation in my stomach.

I’d be devastated if my wallets didn’t bring in much cash.

There was no way I could better Brooke’s haul, so I wasn’t going to aim for equality.

But being able to contribute, and being part of whatever this was …

that had become increasingly important to me.

‘Ready?’ Brooke asked.

‘Absolutely.’

‘Pick one.’

I grabbed one of the wallets I’d taken, though I couldn’t remember which man it had come from. Dark-brown leather with a snap closure. I flipped it open and went straight for the dollar bills.

‘Eighty-five. No – ninety. That’s a ten, not a five.’

I set the bills down on the bed and put the wallet to one side.

‘Good start. I want to see what’s in that fucking money clip.’

I laughed, and Brooke prized it open, tugging free the folded bills.

‘Holy shit, Jessie. There’s like … almost three hundred bucks here.’

We kept going, back and forth, tit for tat, until we had eight hundred and twenty-five dollars in front of us.

Brooke fell silent. I looked up at her, and she seemed to sparkle in the artificial hotel room light.

‘Holy shit,’ she breathed again, and I couldn’t hold it in anymore.

I let out a strangled scream and bounced on the bed, displacing all the bills we’d stacked in careful piles.

‘Jessie!’ Brooke yelled, then she did the same, bouncing on the bed next to me, before collapsing on her side in a fit of giggles.

I laid down next to her. ‘Not bad for one night’s work.’

‘I knew you’d be great,’ she said, her face alight with a mix of excitement and satisfaction.

When she reached for me, I let her pull me into a hug, and for a second we tangled together, elbows and knees and wild energy, before we both flopped onto our backs, breathless. She grasped my hand and squeezed it, and didn’t let go.

Brooke tipped her head to the side and smiled at me, her cheeks flushed, and my heart stuttered. This didn’t feel like a friends thing, it felt different, like we were right on the edge of something more .

Brooke swallowed hard and her eyes grew intense, and I didn’t dare look away.

Was she going to kiss me?

How would she react if I kissed her?

I looked down at our joined hands, then back at Brooke. Electricity sparkled between us for a second more, before Brooke turned her head and looked up at the ceiling, still smiling.

‘I knew it,’ she said again, and I let myself bask in the feeling. Brooke believed in me. My heart almost hurt from how good it felt to hear that.