The Love Wager by Lynn Painter

            Chuck: Jamie wants to know how swipe-happy you are.

            Hallie snorted and responded: I haven’t swiped on anyone yet. I’m just window shopping.

            Hallie was surprised by the eye candy. She simply hadn’t expected there to be so many relatively attractive specimens. But she could already see the cross-referencing problems.

            Hallie: One guy is cute, but he’s wearing a backward hat and holding a beer in every single picture.

            One guy has a nice face, but the fact that he thinks a picture of him holding up the head of a deer he killed by the antlers is a good profile photo tells me we wouldn’t be soul mates.

            Hallie rolled her eyes when Chuck responded with Just go for it, you pussy!

            She was going to take her time, and maybe not even swipe on anyone for a few days. There was no hurry—

            “Holy shit!” Hallie squinted and clicked on the profile. It sure looked a lot like the wedding dude . . .

            Jack Marshall.

            Yep.

            Dear God, it was him.

            The photo was from the wedding—she’d remember him in that tux forever—so it had to have been taken the night she ended up sheet-wrestling with him. He was smiling and holding up a glass of champagne—giving his toast—and man, he was a stunningly beautiful human.

            Whoa, he was a landscape architect. That sounded . . . interesting.

            For some reason, she was surprised to see a guy like him on the app. He’d seemed too confident and dashing to be single.

            But then she remembered.

            Holy God, the man had bought an engagement ring and planned to propose a week ago. A week ago he’d been in love enough to pop the question, and now he was already on the app looking for ladies?

            Clearly there was something majorly wrong with him.

            She didn’t know what possessed her, but she wanted to mess with him. Hallie clicked on the message box and started typing.

            Hey, Jack, it’s Hallie, the bartender from your sister’s wedding! Why haven’t you called? I really thought we connected and you were going to call, but . . . did you lose my number?

            She sucked in a breath when she saw the conversation bubbles. Holy crap, he was responding! He was probably freaking out at the thought of a throwaway one-nighter coming for him, and something about that idea made her cackle.

            After a few minutes, a message popped up:

            Jack: Hey there, Hallie. I had a lot of fun with you after the wedding, and you seem like a cool person.

            Oh, dear God, he thought she was serious. She typed:

            God, Jack, relax. I’m just messing with you. I DO NOT WANT TO DATE YOU.

            Jack: Uh wow ok.

            Hallie: I saw your profile when I was shopping for soul mates and thought it would be fun to give you a heart attack. I never gave you my number and I didn’t expect you to call.

            Conversation bubbles popped up and went away. Popped up and went away. Finally he messaged: So . . . you’re on here legitimately looking for love?

            Hallie: Pathetic, right? But don’t worry, you’re not on my list.

            Jack: First of all, I’m doing the same thing, so I’m going to go with no, that’s not pathetic. Second of all, I can’t believe I’m not on your list after our amazing night together.

            Hallie groaned and looked up from the phone; she couldn’t believe he brought it up. But she also couldn’t hold in the smile as she typed: We were just so hammered—it’s all kind of a blur.

            Jack: But . . . ?

            She let out a little squeaking sound and kicked her feet against the mattress, unable to believe they were having this conversation.

            Hallie: But what? All in all, it was a fine time.

            The reality was that the night had been red-hot and so good, but she’d also been crazy drunk, so that meant nothing. Kermit the Frog might’ve been able to scratch her itch if enough whiskey had been involved.