The Love Wager by Lynn Painter

            “He’s not going to kick my ass,” he proclaimed as he walked over and dropped to the floor beside her. “Because I won’t let him.”

            “I’m going to go get some air,” Ruthie said.

            Jack looked up at her, and the girl was so scrawny and childlike in her weirdness that he felt somehow protective of her. “Do you want me to go with you?”

            She rolled her eyes. “Look at you, Prince Charming, so scared of a cat ass-whooping that you’re going to accompany me to the parking lot. Bugger off.”

            “You bugger off, Ruthie,” he replied, which made her burst into her wildly out-of-control laughter as she exited the room.

            “Oh, my God—she loves you, Jack,” Hallie said with a grin as she petted the beast. “I’ve never seen Ruthie so sweet to a guy before.”

            He gave her side-eye and ran a hand over the cat’s back. “The first thing she said to me was ‘Your car is a symbol of everything that’s wrong with our world.’ ”

            Hallie laughed. “But then what did she say?”

            “That at least it didn’t have fuckwit vanity plates . . . ?”

            “See? That little aside means she forgives your capitalistic nature.”

            “Oh, thank God.” He laughed, and over the smell of animal, he could smell her perfume. He wasn’t sure what she wore, but it always drifted into his awareness in the same way he could always sniff out barbecue when he walked into a restaurant.

            “I can’t believe you have an Audi and a truck, by the way,” she said, her forehead crinkling. “You must be really good at landscraping.”

            “Did you just say landscraping?”

            She rolled her eyes and nodded. “I swear I’m sober.”

            He reached out a hand and scratched the cat’s huge head. “I should hope so—it’s seven thirty in the morning.”

            “Wanna hold him?”

            “After witnessing Ruthie’s beatdown?” He looked at her upturned face and fought the urge to trace the line of freckles on her cheek. “No, thanks.”

            “Chicken.”

            “Listen,” Jack said, watching the cat watch him. “This guy knows that you are his. He has found his person. He doesn’t want to be handed off to someone else now that he’s met you.”

            “Do you really think that?” she said, smiling like an overexcited toddler at Christmas.

            “I do.”

            “You think I’m his person?” she asked, her eyes on his. “That’s kind of beautiful, Marshall.”

            He shrugged. “I know, I’m a beautiful fucking genius.”

            That made her laugh and smack his arm. She said, “I suppose we should probably go to work now, huh?”

            He stopped petting the cat and wondered if her building actually even allowed cats, or if she’d even thought to check. He said, “Probably.”

            “If I pay you,” she said, climbing to her feet with ginormocat in her arms, “will you swing by here after work so I can take him home?”

            He stood. “I guess, but only if you’re paying me.”

            She gave him a look and said, “Add it to my tab.”

            After she returned the cat and filled out all the paperwork, Hallie got a text from Ruthie as they exited the building.

            “O-kay.” She read the message and shook her head as they walked toward the parking lot. “Ruthie says that she got bored and grabbed a ride home, and also that she’s throwing an adoption party for me and Purr Anthony Hopkitten this weekend.”

            “You’re not seriously naming him that, are you?”

            She grinned and shrugged. “I have a hard time telling Ruthie no.”