The Love Wager

Content Warning: This section includes sexual content and cursing.

Hallie misses Jack, who has become her best friend. She meets Alex at Starbucks and asks him if he will go to Vail with her and be her date for her sister’s wedding. Alex replies that he would love for them to become a couple. Hallie is concerned that things with Alex “felt forced, like they were each playing the part of two people falling in love” (140). She thinks their romance is a little too polished, like a Christmas movie on the Hallmark Channel. Jack texts that Alex isn’t the one for her, but Hallie is disappointed when he doesn’t say why. She frets that Jack might be falling for Kayla, an attractive grad student, and she has a sleepless night, worried that things with Jack might be changing.

Jack, recently returned to town, heads to Hallie’s apartment with catnip. Jack thinks he “had changed in Minneapolis. He’d realized that as scared as he was of screwing up what they already had, he wanted to move forward” with Hallie (142). The thought of confessing his feelings terrifies him. Alex is leaving Hallie’s apartment and asks Jack to take some toys to Tigger.