The Love Wager by Lynn Painter

            “Why did you care?” She inhaled through her nose, her eyes flashing, and she said, “And it was like that, Jack, because you’re wholly responsible for him breaking up with me.”

            He ground his teeth together so hard it felt like they might shatter. Why did he care? Because I have huge fucking feelings for you, Hallie Piper.

            Not that he could tell her that now.

            She said, “I can’t believe you let me cry over him without telling me the truth.”

            He wanted to apologize, because he did feel like trash about that, but his mouth couldn’t form the words when she was looking at him like that.

            Like she was livid because he’d ruined her relationship with that guy.

            Because she wanted Alex, not him.

            “My apologies, Hal,” he said as he finished putting on his pants, feeling like a chump for grabbing at the chance to sleep with her one last time. He hadn’t been able to resist being close to her again, even knowing he’d regret it afterward.

            Hell, if he were being honest, he’d been half hoping it would change things.

            “Sure,” she said, biting down on her lower lip and yanking up the sheet a little higher.

            Looking at her suddenly felt physically painful, and he had to get the hell out of there before he made a fool of himself. “I’ve got to go move my car before it gets towed.”

            He pulled on the rest of his clothes, and as he grabbed his keys from the kitchen counter, she said, “Bye, Jack.”

            And then she went back into the bedroom and closed the door.

            Well, fuck.





Chapter

TWENTY-NINE



Hallie


            Jack: Can I call you?

            Hallie dropped her phone on her desk, sighed, and hated the way her heart was racing at the sight of his name on her phone.

            Because it had been two weeks.

            Two weeks of radio silence.

            At first, she’d been glad he hadn’t texted—she needed a clean break, emotionally speaking, from their games. She’d cried through her shower and halfway to work the morning after their last time, whereupon she decided to nut up and knock it off.

            Jack was her very best friend, and that was all that mattered.

            But then . . . he never came back. He didn’t call her and he didn’t send a single text.

            In her wildest dreams, she wouldn’t have imagined he would just disappear from her life.

            She missed him so much it was almost unbearable. She closed out of her spreadsheet and texted: It’s 6pm and I’m swamped and trying to finish so I can leave.

            Before she could add to that, her phone started ringing.

            “Son of a bitch,” she whispered, just before she answered with a terse, “Hello?”

            “Hey. How’s work?”

            How could the sound of his voice be so overwhelming? She looked at the wall clock and said, “Great. What’s up?”

            “Do you maybe want to get some food tonight?” He sounded serious, and she hated that that was what they’d become: serious people who didn’t talk anymore. “I was hoping maybe we could eat and kind of figure out what’s going on with us.”

            Her brain screamed, Where the hell have you been for two weeks?!

            She sighed. “I’m behind and have to play catch-up. Sorry.”

            “What about tomorrow night?” Jack asked.

            She wasn’t sure why she said it, but she said in her breeziest voice, “I actually have a date.”

            “Oh.” She heard him clear his throat before he said, “Through the app?”

            “Yeah.”

            “Still trying to win the bet, then?”