The Love Wager

Christmas Eve

“This is amazing!” Jack’s dad kept staring at the baseball, turning it around in his hand so he could see all the signatures. “I can’t believe you got me this, Jackie boy! Did you see it, Will?”

Hallie and Jack shared a grin from where they were sitting on the floor by the Christmas tree. Since they’d both found each other on the app at the same time, he won the ball and she won his airline miles.

“Yeah, Dad, I saw it,” Jack’s brother said, muttering Jackie boy under his breath like it was an obscenity.

“I knitted you a scarf with my own hands,” Olivia said, glaring at her dad from her spot on the couch beside Colin. “But sure, a stupid baseball is amazing.”

“You don’t get it,” Jack said, shaking his head. “You weren’t there.”

“Because you didn’t invite me,” Olivia said.

“You hate baseball.”

“Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like to be invited,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Assbags.”

“Language, Olivia,” Jack’s mom said, looking at Hallie with wide eyes like she was shocked by what Olivia had said. “I apologize for her.”

“It’s okay,” Hallie said.

“Yeah, Hal curses like a damn sailor,” Jack teased.

“I do not!”

“Jackson Alan,” his mother warned, “knock it off.”

Hallie’s mouth dropped open before she whispered, “Your name is Jackson Alan? Like the country singer, only flipped?”

“My mother loves country music,” he said, sounding embarrassed.

They had Christmas Eve dinner with his family, and when they were finally finished and on the way home, Jack said, “Your present is in the glove box if you want it.”

“Classy,” she said, yanking open the glove box as fast as she could.

She didn’t see anything wrapped in holiday paper, but there was a manila envelope with her name on it. She glanced over at him and said, “If you’re suing me for something, Marshall, I swear to God I will cut you.”

“Open it,” he said.

She ran a finger under the seal, then reached in a hand and pulled out the papers. She started flipping through them, one by one, and she was blinking back tears by the time she figured it out.

“You’re taking me back to Vail?” It looked like he’d made reservations for the same room they’d been in the first time, only this time they were getting there by train. “For seven nights?”

“Ten-day trip total.” He glanced over, put his hand on her knee, and said, “It was the best vacation I’ve ever been on, except for the whole terrified-of-blowing-my-cover-and-losing-my-best-friend stress. So how about we go back without all the worry and family and ex-boyfriend?”

“This is the very best present ever!” she squealed, clasping all the paperwork to her chest with one hand and putting her other hand over his. “Thank you, Jack.”

That’s only part of the present, he thought, picturing the ring box in his closet as she teasingly rained kisses over his face while he drove. He knew it was probably too soon, but he also couldn’t stop himself. Hallie was everything he’d never known he wanted, and it seemed unwise for him to drag his feet when his forever girl was right there in front of him.

“You’re welcome,” he said, watching the neighborhood Christmas lights rush by as he drove.

“You have to wait until Christmas morning,” Hallie said, turning up the Michael Bublé song playing on the radio, “for your best present ever.”

And it occurred to him, when he woke up under the Christmas tree the next morning with Hallie’s cat sitting on his neck and her knee in his back, that he already had it.