The Love Wager by Lynn Painter

            “You’re a pig.”

            “Chill. It’s Stephen’s motto, not mine.”

            Hallie said through her laugh, “So do you have any potential dates you can do Wednesday?”

            “I actually have two.”

            “Shut your stupid mouth!” Hallie yelled into the phone. “Since last night, you have chatted up two girls with enough of a potential connection to facilitate a date?”

            “For the record,” he said, “I started talking to one of them yesterday before the speed dating thing.”

            That made Hallie pause. She had no reason to expect him to tell her everything, but she felt a little . . . weird . . . that he hadn’t mentioned it. “So Wednesday . . . ?”

            “That works.”

            She went back to the dating app after they hung up and set the date up with the dentist, and when they closed out the chat because he had to go coach his niece’s little league soccer team, Hallie—ovaries imploding—was surprisingly excited about the date.

            Stephen seemed promising, and if all else failed, there would be tacos.





Jack


            Jack looked at the caller ID before raising the phone to his ear. “What’s wrong?”

            “Nothing,” Olivia said, sounding confused. “Why?”

            “Because we don’t talk on the phone. This is weird.”

            “Yeah, but I’m super bored. Shoe full of broken toes, remember?”

            “Oh, yes, that’s right,” he said, regretting the decision to answer the phone. He was trying to finish up work and go home, and he knew for a fact that Olivia’s boredom was only going to slow him down. Still, he asked, “How are the little nubbins, by the way?”

            “Less swollen,” she said. “And marginally less purple.”

            “Gross.”

            “Right?”

            “Listen, Liv, I’m trying to wrap things up here. Did you actually need something?”

            “Rude,” she said under her breath, before adding, “I just wanted to tell you that I really like Hallie. That’s all.”

            “Okay . . . ?” He said, “Me, too. What’s your point?”

            “Nothing. I’m just really glad she’s around to push you into finding a match.”

            “For fuck’s sake, Liv, why are you so obsessed with my love life?”

            “Because I worry about you being sad,” she said. “Sue me for caring.”

            “I was hammered at Billy’s that night. Will you please, for the love of God, just forget what I said?”

            “You just sounded so sad and lonely, Jack.”

            “I was lit, not lonely.”

            He felt like a pathetic fuck whenever she brought it up, because he had been going through some weird emo phase over the past couple years. He had friends, coworkers, family—his life was full of people—yet he felt alone a lot.

            Even when he was with them.

            Shit—that is the literal definition of loneliness, isn’t it?

            “Fine, you weren’t lonely.” She sounded utterly unconvinced. “Just promise me you’ll take the app seriously and keep trying, even when it sucks.”

            “I will if you’ll promise to butt the hell out of my life.”

            “Deal,” she said.





Hallie


            Before she had a chance to get off the couch, her phone started ringing.

            “Hello?”

            “Hi, um, is this Hallie?”

            “Yes . . . ?”