The Love Wager by Lynn Painter

            “Do you?”

            “No.” She shook her head, her soaked hair slapping more water in her face. “I never did.”

            He grabbed her arm and pulled her closer to the building they’d stopped in front of, so they were under an awning. He looked down at her and said, “Christ, Hal, this isn’t how I wanted to tell you. But the thing is—I think I’m in love with you.”





Jack


            He watched as her mouth dropped open in shock, and then it snapped shut. She looked up at him with those big green eyes, but no words came out.

            She just stared at him.

            “Maybe say something, Hal,” he said.

            “Okay, I’ll say something.” She was shivering a little, but her face was full of hot anger. “That is a terrible thing to say, you dick.”

            Her words hit him like a punch in the stomach, and he tried reading her expression as he said, “I tell you I love you and you call me a dick?”

            “You didn’t tell me you love me, you said you ‘think’ you’re in love with me.” She was gritting her teeth, looking mad as hell as she shivered in the damp night air. “Who do you think you are—Darcy in the rain, telling Elizabeth that he loves her in spite of her inferior birth?”

            He had no clue what to say to that.

            “It took you two weeks of radio silence to come up with the genius epiphany that you may possibly be in love with me but you really aren’t a hundred percent sure?”

            Fuck. Wrong word choice.

            She said, “I knew I was in love with you the minute you fell out of the stupid closet at the rehearsal dinner. It didn’t take me a fucking fortnight to get to ‘possibly.’ ”

            Hope shot through him, even as he opened his mouth to defend himself. If she’d been in love with him at the rehearsal dinner, she had to still have feelings for him, right? And why the hell hadn’t she said anything that night? He said, “If I’m Darcy in the rain, then you’re Mr. Smith, too stubborn to hear what I’m trying to tell you as you ramble on about the way I worded my feelings.”

            She squinted at him. “Who in the hell is Mr. Smith?”

            “Boiled fucking potatoes are an exemplary vegetable—that is Mr. Smith!”

            “Wait.” Her mouth formed a big, gaping O. “Are you calling me Mr. Collins?”

            He nodded and said, “I’m trying to tell you something, but you’re too caught up in your own thoughts and opinions about everything to hear my words, Mr. Collins.”

            Jack couldn’t believe he was communicating in Hallie’s bizarro language, but they were talking, and she was finally listening, so he was going to roll with it.





Hallie


            Hallie’s mind raced as she listened to him insult her in the most wonderful way. She still felt hot and angry, but she also felt like something was happening.

            He said, “Forgive me for not wanting to put a label on my feelings, but I don’t know shit about love, okay? All I know is that you’ve ruined every single thing about my life.”

            She scoffed. “I have?”

            “Yes.” He swallowed and said, “I can’t drive by a Burger King without thinking of french fries in bed; I can’t hear a British person speak without remembering your fucking awful accent; I can’t see a diamond ad without picturing your stupid grinning face at the Borsheim’s counter; and I can’t hear my phone buzz without wishing it would be some asinine text from you.”

            “Jack.” She felt a little light-headed. It wasn’t a romantic confession of undying love, but it was everything she’d ever wanted.

            He said, “Everything in my life was fine before, but now it’s so different and I hate it.”

            “I hate it, too,” she said, stepping just a tiny bit closer.

            He ran his thumb over her wet cheek. “I’m so sorry I haven’t called you.”

            She shivered. “Me, too.”