The Love Wager

Jack

“So it’s cigars and scotch on the east patio for the gents and cosmos on the west patio for the ladies.”

Jack watched Hallie’s sister put the microphone back on the stand, and he thought it was interesting how different they were. Lillie seemed great, but Hallie was just so . . . Hal.

“Are you freaking kidding me?”

Speak of the devil.

He turned around as Hallie approached, looking put together again. No more eye makeup smears, no more red lipstick all over. He missed the mess. He played innocent on her remark and said, “Pardon?”

“Where are we—Victorian England? The gentlemen will retire for scotch and cigars while the ladies rest their delicate constitutions?” She watched as the rehearsal guests started heading for their respective patios. “What if I want a cigar?”

He looked at her lips. Couldn’t keep his eyes off them, all of a sudden. He asked, “What exactly is a constitution?”

Hallie shrugged. “I don’t know, but I’m positive mine is just as strong as yours.”

“You wish.” He patted down a piece of her hair that was sticking up. “Do you even want a cigar?”

“Not really,” she said, smoothing down the same piece of hair while finally meeting his eyes. “But I don’t want a damn cosmo, either.”

“C’mon, Jack,” Chuck said, walking over and giving a chin nod toward the east exit. “Time for us gents to get our stogies on.”

“I want to go with you guys—”

“Get over here, Hal,” Hallie’s mother half shouted from the west exit. “Please?”

“Git,” Chuck said, giving Hallie a tiny push. “Go be a good little female.”

“Screw you,” she said to Chuck, and then she pointed at Jack and said, “Be ready to hold my hair tonight, because if I have to drink cosmos with my mother and talk about what happens on the wedding night, swear to God I’m getting hammered.”

He and Chuck were still laughing when she turned and marched away, and there was nothing he could do but watch her go.

What a fucking force.

•   •   •

“So, can I ask you a question about Hal?”

Jack slowly shook his head and exhaled a puff of cigar smoke, watching it rise in the night sky. “If you must, Chuck.”

Chuck cleared his throat and said, “So, things are good with her?”

Jack tilted his head and looked at the guy. He really, really liked Chuck. Chuck was nerdy and nice and funny as hell. Jack said, “Yeah.”

“So you like her a lot?”

“Yeah.” Jack looked at the other side of the patio, where the groomsmen were playing some stupid drinking game, and said, “I do.”

“Here’s the thing.” Chuck frowned and said, “Did she tell you anything about Ben?”

“Who’s Ben?” he asked, fully knowing it was Hallie’s ex.

“Who’s Ben?” Chuck lowered his eyebrows and said, “Ben Marks, her ex . . . ?”

“Oh, that guy.” Jack raised the cigar to his mouth and looked over at the man in question, who was talking to Hallie’s dad. He looked like the kind of guy who enjoyed talking about what he smelled in his wine. “I don’t know much about him.”

“I’ll give you the dirt, but you never heard this from me, okay?”

Jack gave a nod.

“Hallie and Ben dated for a few years and were living together.”

Holy shit. “Years?”

Chuck nodded. “He’s this wannabe sophisticate, passive-aggressive asshole who made her feel like shit about herself. Convinced her to do things like play tennis and buy a Volvo.”

“A fucking Volvo?”

“Yes. Shit. I hate that guy and also Volvos.” Chuck leaned back in his patio chair and looked up at the dark sky. “It seemed like he made her feel like her Hallie-ness was embarrassing or something—I’m paraphrasing, by the way. This is my analysis after seeing them together for years.”

Jack fucking hated that guy.

Didn’t really mind Volvos, though, he thought as he took a long drink of whiskey.

“One day, out of the blue, Ben came home and told Hallie that he’d had an epiphany. He realized that he was in love with the idea of her—what he thought she could be—but not actually her.”

Jack lowered his glass. “What the fuck does that even mean?”

“That he didn’t love her. That he loved what he wanted her to be but she never, like, got there for him.”

“Shit.” Jack pictured Hallie crying after Alex broke things off and felt like an even bigger asshole for causing that. She might not have had deep romantic feelings for him, but she didn’t need another guy to make her feel like she was less than.

Because she was fucking everything.

“Between you and me,” Chuck said, leaning a little closer and lowering his voice, “I disconnected Ben’s car battery like three times after that, just to fuck with him and make him late for work.”

“That is awesomely psychotic,” Jack said with a laugh, puffing on his cigar and looking at the asshole Hallie used to love. “I think I really like you, Chuck.”

“You know that fucker had no idea what was wrong when it wouldn’t even turn over,” Chuck said, chuckling.

The conversation soon turned to Volvos. Chuck was clearly a car guy—and a Volvo hater—and saw something in Jack that made him think they were of a like mind. Jack just listened, enjoying the cigar and trying to imagine not finding Hallie to be enough. He couldn’t.

“Hey, jackasses.” She came out of nowhere in the darkness, just walking across the grass, and Jack found it a little hard to breathe. Hallie was still wearing the white dress, but her curls had come undone, leaving her hair a little wild and wavy, and she was no longer wearing any jewelry. Her smile was big and her eyes were twinkling and her high heels were dangling from her fingers.

“I’m telling, you scandalous piece of shit,” Chuck teased.

“Shhhh,” she said, glancing toward the rest of the groomsmen, who had now switched to playing cards. “I ran all the way around the building and had to climb that fence.”

Jack was looking at the fence she’d pointed to when she snatched the cigar from between his fingers and sat down on the ground between his and Chuck’s chairs. She looked up at him, her head leaning back in a way that exposed the entirety of her graceful throat, and she said, “You don’t mind, do you?”

He watched her take a puff and thought it was on-brand for Hal that she looked completely natural smoking a cigar.

“You know, you’re going to ruin the back of your dress, sitting on the cement like that,” Jack said.

“I already got chocolate all over the ruffle—see?” She moved the ruffle, which appeared to be affixed in place with silver duct tape, and he saw that its underside was splattered with a big, brown stain.

“Please explain the duct tape.”

“The bartender helped me. Bartenders always have a handy tool kit,” she said.

“And the chocolate?”

“I had DoorDash bring me a Frappuccino and then I dropped it on the patio.”

Chuck snorted. “You’ve been fucking busy since we saw you an hour ago.”

“Yeah, I have,” she said. “Also, Jamie told me that if I ever made it to the other side, I was supposed to tell you that her phone is dead, she faked sick, and now she’s up in the room.”

“Sweet.” Chuck stood and, without another word, just left.

“Listen, Jack,” Hallie said, looking at his collar instead of his face. She seemed casual, but something weird was going on with her. “My mother is going to be looking for me very soon, and I’m not going back—they can’t make me. I think I’m going to just call it a night and go up to the room.”

“Hal.”

“Yeah?”

“Look at me.”

Her green eyes looked bright as she looked at him and said, “What?”

“Are we cool? You okay after the whole . . . closet thing?” He noticed the goose bumps on her arms and instinctively began taking off his jacket.

She rolled her eyes and gave him a grin as he draped it over her shoulders. She stood and pulled it tighter against her, looking even tinier as she burrowed into the jacket. “I’m fine, and thank you for the jacket, you chivalrous delight.”

He set down his glass and stood. “Let’s go.”

Her eyebrows dipped down. “You don’t have to leave the party just because I am.”

He shrugged, wanting nothing more than to be alone with her in their only-one-bed room, even if sex was off the table. “I want to.”

Thankfully, no one noticed as they left the patio and went back into the hotel. He wanted Hallie all to himself.