Minutes earlier on the night bus, she had stuffed our engagement ring down the front of my shirt.  Our stop had come up.  As I shuffled my way to the exit alone, one of the two hoodies in front of me half turned.

‘Smoke on this,’ he said, and I heard a fizzing as he tossed something into the bus.

‘You fucking bastards!’ Someone yelled.  The firework was kicked out of the doors just before they closed, bouncing off the bus stop advertising to under the bus.  I was walking away when the loud, cringing sound went off.  One fellow in the bus had decided to confront them, banging on the door of the bus, shouting threats.  The two hoodies taunted him from the outside as the bus stood at the red light at that immediate corner.

‘Put in in the hole,’ I heard one of them say, as another firework went off somewhere beneath the bus.  The light changed, and the two scampered off across the intersection.  Around that corner, a tall, shaven-head man was pacing around his motorcycle parked on the paving.

‘What the fuck man?’ He said, looking at me pleadingly.  I stopped, thinking he was going to talk about the two pyrotechnicians just witnessed.

‘They come in, they meet two guys, then they just go.  That’s supposed to be my fiancee.’  He looks at me wide-eyed. ‘My fucking fiancee!’

I turn and keep walking.