The Love Wager by Lynn Painter

            After she walked away from him, Hallie started filtering through everything in her head. She was on autopilot as she went to the restroom, washed her hands, and stepped onto the escalator. Jack’s words, Alex’s words, Olivia’s words—they all looped through her mind, and by the time she approached the baggage claim area, she had it figured out.

            And it fucking sucked.

            She’d been Jack’s low-hanging fruit, just like Olivia had predicted, and when he’d seen her connecting with someone else after he’d gotten dumped, after he’d spent two weeks in Minneapolis being sad and lonely about his uncle Mack, he’d ruined it for her.

            Why else would he have kept his conversation with Alex a secret?

            When he’d been holding her in her bedroom, making her feel better about her breakup while she bawled, the right thing to do would’ve been to say, I told him about the bet—that’s probably why.

            But he hadn’t said a word.

            He’d let her cry her eyes out without even mentioning it.

            And then he’d offered to swoop in and be her Prince Charming.

            She had no idea what to make of this information after everything that had happened between them last night. It had been an amazing, perfect night for her, but what exactly had it meant to him?

            God, was she just overthinking everything?

            She knew she was, but on the other hand, she’d thought Ben was about to propose when he actually had realized that she wasn’t someone he could love, as hard as he tried. So what if Jack was happy right now with his easily picked, low-hanging fruit? Would it last? Or would he ultimately realize that as hard as he’d tried to make her the solution to his loneliness, she wasn’t the one?

            “I thought you got lost.”

            Hallie turned around, and there was Jack, grinning down at her with their luggage piled in front of him. His smile made her stomach drop, and as she turned her lips up into a smile, she kind of wanted to cry.

            She said, “I just saw Alex.”

            His smile disappeared. “The blond clown?”

            She nodded. “He wants to call me later. He said he regrets breaking things off.”

            His Adam’s apple moved when he swallowed, but that was the only change to his countenance. He didn’t look like he had anything at all to confess. “You gonna wait by the phone, TB?”

            She shrugged and tried to sound teasing when she said, “I guess time will tell.”

            He slid his fingers between hers. “I’ll just have to keep you too busy to hear the phone, then.”

            They took the shuttle to his car, and Hallie thought it felt like it’d been years since they’d left town. Jack kept hold of her hand, but they were both quiet, and it felt like there was a huge, unspoken issue hovering over them.

            When they got to his car, she called Ruthie to check on Tigger and tell her they were on the way. Ruthie said she couldn’t bear to part with her cat baby and might have to borrow him the next day.

            “So he finally stopped hitting her?” Jack asked.

            “Apparently so.”

            They settled into silence as he pulled away from the parking lot, and Hallie was relieved when he took a work call. She was able to get in her own head and think while he discussed the concrete finish that was going to be used in an upcoming project.

            The one lesson she’d learned from the Ben breakup—thank you, Dr. McBride—was that the most important thing was for her to be honest with herself about how she felt about every little thing, good or bad.

            So her first honest admission: She loved Jack. She wanted Jack. What she wanted, more than anything in the world, was to pretend she’d never talked to Alex at the airport. She wanted to throw herself into being with Jack, living like they had over the weekend.

            But her second honest admission: She would rather lose any romantic possibilities with him now than go through what she’d gone through with Ben later. That had been hell, and she was positive it would be ten times worse with Jack.

            Her third honest admission: She wasn’t mad he’d told Alex about the bet—it wasn’t a super-sworn secret or anything—but she was livid that he hadn’t mentioned it sometime between Alex dumping her and now.