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“Bet?” Elia’s voice was a whole lot squeakier than it should have been.

“Oh yeah, we made a bet at the beginning of the year after the first meeting. We need to know who won,” Ethan explained.

“What exactly is the prize?” Kamryn asked, keeping her hand locked in Elia’s. “Maybe we’ll get to pick the winners.” She sent Elia a look, having way more fun messing with the kids than Elia was.

Elia was mortified—at least somewhat. The fact that the kids seemed so excited was more than what she’d been hoping for. And she wasn’t clueless about the fact that she knew the kids were talking about her relationship with Kamryn. She just hadn’t thought it had gone so far as a bet.

“The loser has to wear a clown costume to the next Speech meet,” Bristol said.

“Oh, no. That’s a no on that one,” Elia jumped in. “It’ll turn our next meet into a joke.”

Bristol laughed. “We knew you’d say that, so we came up with an alternative. They don’t wear it during the competition time, just before and after and all the other time we’re there.”

Elia pursed her lips. She didn’t like it, but she couldn’t argue with it. “And how do you determine the loser?”

“Whoever had the farthest date.”

Kamryn glanced at Elia and nodded her head, as if asking if Elia wanted to tell them or not. “What’s the prize for the winner?”

“A hundred bucks and a pair of AirPods.”

“Not a bad prize,” Kamryn commented. She turned to Elia, squeezing her fingers. “How much fun do you want to have with this?”

“I’m not sure what you mean.” Elia’s chest was still tight with tension. “I’m not surewecan have fun with this.”

“Sure we can.” Kamryn faced the class full of kids again, and she leaned forward toward the desk to grab the dry erase marker off the desk. “We’ll start with January. How many of you picked dates in January?”

Kamryn walked up to the white board and wrote down the month on it. Then she started to write names under it. She went backward from January all the way to August before she stopped.

“All right.” Kamryn turned back around and glanced at Elia with a smart look in her eyes.

Elia wasn’t sure she was ready for this. Not that she ever would be.

“For those of you who thought it was before August, I’m going to tell you right now that you’re wrong.” Kamryn put her hands on her hips and looked around the room, eyeing each one of the students. “And by the way, after we finish this, I expect you all to jump into groups of three so you can do mirrors. All right? No complaints.”

Elia stepped closer to her and leaned in. “What date are we actually talking about? Because I can think ofseveralthat could be relevant.”

“Crap, you’re right.” Kamryn wrinkled her nose. “That first ethics meeting.”

Elia had to think about which date that was, because it wasn’t their first time kissing or even the first time that Kamryn had asked her for a kiss. But it probably was the first time that she had given in to the fact that she wanted more with Kamryn, and when they’d made some sort of commitment to try a relationship.

“All right.”

Turning back to the class, Kamryn pointed at January. “You all lose the bet.”

The groans echoed through the room, although that month hadn’t held the majority of the names on it. In fact, it was September, which would be the correct month. Had they been that obvious? Elia took the marker from Kamryn and walked up to the white board.

“Who had what date?”

Bristol read off the specific days, and the one student who had picked January thirtieth groaned loudly.

“Eddy, seems you’re the loser.”

“That sucks.”

Elia shrugged at him and then handed the marker back to Kamryn. “Gotta keep you on their good side at least for now. Since they’ll soon learn that being in the administration isn’t about wanting to be liked.”

Kamryn chuckled. “Fine.” She walked up to the white board and immediately started crossing out names under each month other than September. The kids reacted each and every time she put a line through a name.