The Love Wager

“Come on, Jack,” Hallie said, grinning from where she was sitting on the floor with an enormous orange tabby on her lap. “Ruthie’s right. You have to see if you two pass the friend compatibility test.”

It was asinine. The entire visit had been absolutely asinine so far, and his abs hurt like he’d just left the gym because he’d been laughing so damn hard.

Ruthie, Hallie’s beautiful bald friend who was wearing what looked to be a pirate’s shirt and booty shorts (with her Docs, of course), had insisted that whatever cat Hallie selected had to elicit emotions from all three of them.

Hallie fell instantly in love with the fattest old cat she’d ever seen, and when she’d put him on her lap, it’d seemed like fate. The cat started purring and pushing his face into her hand and holy shit, it seemed like Hallie had found her animal.

Then batshit-crazy Ruthie made her statement about the friend compatibility test, and she’d taken the cat from Hallie. The second she cradled him in her arms, he’d lifted one of his mammoth paws and delivered a three-punch smackdown right to her forehead.

Jack had laughed his ass off.

But Ruthie hadn’t let the cat go. She’d professed that she loved his energy and was drawn to his passion, so she sat there while the thing smacked her two more times and then bolted for the door.

Then the girl started sneezing because she was allergic, and once Hallie got the cat back in her arms, he settled right down and went back to purring.

“Come sit down right next to little Hallie,” Hallie crooned, patting the floor beside her. “I want to see if he kicks your ass or not.”

There was something about her face when she was being a smartass. Hallie’s eyes almost twinkled, and he imagined that’s exactly what she’d looked like as a pain-in-the-ass little kid.

“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.”

“You tell Ruthie that I already named him and you have a hard time telling me no.”

She gave him a snort-laugh. “What’s your name for him?”

He hit unlock and she pulled open the passenger door of his car. “Umm . . . Tigger.”

She got in the car and said, “I might not hate that,” before slamming the door closed.

When he got in and buckled his seat belt, she was grinning and looking at her phone. “Alex says he likes Ruthie’s name.”

Why did that make Jack want to steal her phone and toss it out the window?

“Sounds like Alex is a moron.”

She rolled her eyes and laughed. “You’re not getting the baseball, you jag.”

She texted Alex back as Jack drove his car a little too fast, and the way she grinned and made tiny noises frustrated the shit out of him. It was annoying. When he finally pulled up in front of her office, she looked up and said, “Wow, I can’t believe we’re here already.”

“Right?” he managed, irritated by how sucked into her phone she’d been.

“Well, thanks for this morning. I’m so excited to go back and get Tigger, if you’re still down.”

“Sure. What time do you get off?”

“Five, but whenever you can get here works. Also, would you mind if we swing by Target first, so I can buy things like cat litter and an adorable cat bed?”

“Let’s at least be honest with ourselves here,” he said, getting distracted by the curl of her eyelashes as she blinked and listened to him. “If we go to Target for cat stuff, you know we’ll end up leaving with a million other things, like, ten hours later.”

“I know,” she said, sounding excited as she opened her door. “I promise it’ll be fun. We’ll try on outlandish clothing and put on a fitting room fashion show.”

That was so her. He said, “That’s fun?”

“It will be when we do it.” She climbed out of the car, and once she was out, she leaned on the door and said, “Thanks for being so cool, Jackie boy.”

“See you at five, Piper.”

He was smiling as he pulled away, but when he met his sister, Olivia, for lunch a few hours later, he was not.

“So she texts me to tell me that Alex is going to take her to get the cat instead.”

“So?” Olivia looked at him like he wasn’t making any sense as she squirted ketchup onto her burger.

“So the guy is a total douchebag, and the whole reason I went this morning was because she didn’t want to take him.”

“So she changed her mind.” Livvie put the bun back on her burger. “Since when do you care about who your friends take with them when they get a cat?”

“I don’t care,” he said, annoyed that she didn’t get it. “I just think she might be rushing things with this guy.”

He explained to her their post-date Taco Hut routine, and how Hallie had ignored his text during their last one.

Olivia screwed up her face in that overdramatic duh expression she’d given him a thousand times when they were kids. “She’s finally found someone decent, who has real boyfriend potential, and you’re pissed?”

“I’m not pissed, Liv.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Really.”

“Really.” Jack stabbed his fork through his side salad and said, “I just want her to find someone better.”

Olivia leaned back in her chair. She crossed her arms over her chest, tilted her head, and said, “Holy shit, you have feelings for her.”

“No, I don’t.” He dropped his fork and said, “Why in the hell would you say that?”

“So you only like her as a friend.”

“That’s right.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.” Jack wanted to growl at Olivia, but like he was in a cheesy rom-com, an image of Hallie saying bartender every time Vanessa had called her a waitress played in his mind, followed by the sound of her laughter as that stupid fucking cat burrowed into her black skirt and covered it with orange fur. His chest hurt and he felt a little light-headed. “Shit. I don’t know.”

Olivia’s mouth dropped open and she gasped, but she quickly closed it and held up a hand. “It’s not up to me to know anything about your feelings. But, Jack, if you don’t want her to go out with this guy, why don’t you just mess up their next date?”

“This is what the advice columnist has to offer? They should fucking fire you.”

“No, listen. Just something stupid, like canceling their dinner reservation before they get there or showing up at the cat adoption place even though he’s going because you just want to help your bestie.”

“I have to go.” Jack stood, banging his knee on the table in the process and growling through his teeth, “Dammit.”

“I’m not done, you tool,” Livvie said, staring at him with huge eyes like he’d lost his mind as she shoved a fry into her mouth. “And you literally haven’t taken a bite of your lunch yet. Sit your ass down.”

“Can’t.” Jack shook his head and headed for the door, needing air because he wasn’t sure he could handle his epiphany. He wasn’t sure he could handle how stupid he’d been. He needed to be alone and think, so he said to Olivia over his shoulder, “I have to bail, Liv.”

A few hours later, he found himself walking into the animal shelter. The minute he went through the door, he could see Hallie and Alex, standing at the counter. Hallie was talking to the woman behind the desk, and Alex was saying something that was making her smile.

Jack was supposed to be the one making her smile.

He walked up to Hallie and said, “Where’s our cat?”

“Jack,” she said, looking surprised. “What are you doing here?”

He shrugged, feeling a little stupid but also happy about the way she was looking at him. “I just thought after we saw Tigger’s propensity for rage this morning, you might need some help getting him home.”

“Hi, I’m Alex,” the blond clown said, smiling and extending his hand.

“Jack,” he replied, shaking the guy’s hand. “Nice to meet you.”

“And I’m Carole,” said the woman who was standing behind the counter in a light blue smock. “Let’s go get your cat.”

Jack followed Hallie as she tried to get her fat boy into a kennel that she and the clown had apparently just purchased at Target. Dammit. The cat did not want to go in, and it seemed as if Jack and Alex were in some sort of primitive contest to win Hal’s favor by being the one to succeed.

Alex tried patience, holding out his hand and waiting in a crouch for Tigger to come over. Hallie, on the other hand, kept trying to pick him up, but the furball was not having it. In the end, Jack won, simply because he was quick and basically landed on top of the cat and pinned him down until Hallie could get him scooped into the carrier.

When they were finished at the shelter, Hallie said, “I’m so glad you came, Jack. Obviously we couldn’t have done this without you.”

“Yeah,” Alex added, smiling at Jack even as they both shared a knowing look about what was really going on.

“No problem,” he said as she looked at her cat through the kennel door.

“We’re going back to Hallie’s for Chinese takeout,” Alex said, stepping marginally closer to her. “Want to join us?”

Hallie looked up from the kennel and right at Jack, grinning and making a funny face. He wasn’t sure if it was meant to convey Please come and save me or Don’t you dare; I want to be alone with my date.

“I’ve got plans, but thanks,” he said.

As Jack walked to his car, he cursed his sister and her stupid ideas, because there was no way his visit to the shelter did a damn thing to derail Alex’s progress with Hallie, or to put Jack in some better position—not that he necessarily wanted to be in a better position.

But a few days later, when he wanted Hal to meet him at Taco Hut but she couldn’t because she and Alex had fancy dinner reservations, he lost his damn mind. He heard Olivia’s voice in his head, dialed the fancy seafood bistro, and said, “I need to cancel a dinner reservation.”