The Love Wager by Lynn Painter

            “Objector’s choice,” Sophie said, her lips turning up into a little smile as she tilted her head and looked in my direction. Yeah, she heard me. “What should we drink?”

            “Whiskey,” I said, wondering what her usual drink of choice was. Because when she was dressed as a bride, I would’ve pegged her as a cosmo drinker, perhaps someone who enjoyed a nice chardonnay. But this Twinkie-tossing, wild-eyed girl was a bit of a mystery. “Unless you’re dialing back to something lighter.”

            “Not at all,” she said, pulling the elastic from her hair and shaking out the half-bun. “But tequila punches too hard.”

            “Have a shot with us, Objector,” Emma said, or rather, squealed. “The pizza’s already on the way.”

            “First of all, you have to stop calling me that.”

            “Why?” Sophie asked, putting her hands on her hips and screwing her eyebrows together. “What’s your real name again?”

            “Max,” I said.

            “Max,” she repeated, raising her eyes to the ceiling as if it held an opinion on my name. “I mean, that’s a fine name and all, but The Objector is next level.”

            “It makes me sound like an off-brand superhero.”

            She snorted a little laugh, and I noticed her freckles when she crinkled her nose. “Like a lawyer who got stuck in radioactive waste, right?”

            “Exactly,” I agreed.

            “Which whiskey, Objector?” Emma asked, gesturing toward the bar. “You’re drinking with us, right?”

            “Thank you, but I can’t—”

            “Of course he isn’t,” Sophie said, rolling her eyes and climbing onto one of the two barstools. “He is a man, and it’s their job to disappoint us. Please pour me a shot, Em.”

            “Didn’t you just call me your hero?” I asked, sliding my hands into my pockets as she ignored me and reached for the shot glass. “Like two minutes ago?”

            “Your actions were heroic and I’m very grateful,” she said, circling a perfectly manicured fingernail over the top of the tiny glass and turning her back to me. “But I said what I said. Emma, my love, will you pour my whiskey shooter, please?”

            Something about the all-knowing way she said it and her absolute dismissal of me made me shrug out of my jacket, toss it on the sofa, and grab the stool beside her.

            “Make that two, please.”





                                     Photo by Jackson Okun





            LYNN PAINTER lives in Omaha, Nebraska, with her husband and pack of wild kids. She is a community columnist for the Omaha World-Herald, as well as a regular blogger for their parenting section. When she isn’t reading or writing, she can be found eating her feelings and shotgunning cans of Red Bull.





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