(Read Your Best Bet before reading Sealing the Deal -- It'll make more sense!)

Sealing the Deal

Sequel one-shot to Your Best Bet

by i found nemo

They made a bet on their friends. But what started out as a small wager turned into something so much bigger – and this time, there’s more at stake than a lot of money. They just don’t know it…

It started with a grin.

Tim Bohr gave me one of those lazy, slow grins. The ones girls couldn’t resist – least of all, me. I saw him from across the room in our writing class, and though he’d never ever said a word to me before, we’d begun a seemingly innocent flirtation, exchanging covert glances and winks in class. There was that one time I seemed to recall vividly; the time when we’d both gotten to the first day of class at the same time. He’d opened the door for me to go in first, but I brushed up against his shirt as I did so. I turned red immediately at this and silently vowed never to make any eye contact with him – much less talk to him – EVER.

The only problem was that in the middle of that first day of class, I couldn’t help but look over at him. He wasn’t the most attractive boy I’d ever seen, but he was the best-looking guy in our writing class. That much I couldn’t deny.

I later came to recognize him as one of Sketchy Brent’s friends. Sketchy Brent (his name didn’t actually include the ‘Sketchy’, of course) was the boy that my friend Amy was falling all over; she’d met him at a frat party and consequently had begun to see him everywhere after that (a number of sightings were due to the fact that she had a class with him). Being that we lived in the same dorm and were pretty good friends, I was usually with Amy when she saw Sketchy Brent. Sometimes he was alone, but most of the time Sketchy Brent was surrounded by his friends. While Amy only had her eye on Sketchy Brent, he didn’t do anything for me. It was his friends that always caught my attention. Tim Bohr was one of them.

So that meant that because of my association with Amy, I saw Tim everywhere too. Having a class with him didn’t really help either. We still hadn’t spoken a word by the second week of class, so I was surprised when he caught up with me after class while I was walking back to the dorms.

“Hey, aren’t you always with that girl Amy?” he asked.

I didn’t think his question deserved an answer, since we both knew the answer to that. But when he repeated it again, thinking I hadn’t heard him, I quipped, “Aren’t you always with that guy Brent?”

Tim grinned. That was the grin that started it all. “Touché,” he responded. “So how long do you think it’s going to take them to hook up?”

There was no way I’d heard him correctly. “Excuse me? I’m sorry, but I don’t know who you’re talking about,” I told him.

“Brent and Amy,” he elaborated. “They so want each other. I think Brent’s in love with her.”

I was taken aback by what he said. “She’s been eyeing him too,” I admitted. “But I don’t think that would ever go anywhere.”

“How would you know that?” Tim wanted to know.

“They’ve been seeing each other everywhere for the past three months, and neither of them has done anything about it,” I explained confidently. “If they haven’t done anything by now, they’re never going to do it.”

“Fifty bucks says they start going at it before the end of midterms,” he proposed, just as self-confidently.

I laughed, deciding to just go along with it. “Fifty bucks says they won’t until after midterms,” I shot back, knowing this was highly probable because no one ever saw Amy during midterms. Grades were more important to her than boys, so even if she and Sketchy Brent had a little something going on, I knew I could count on the fact that Amy would totally put him on hold.

Tim considered this counter-offer, and stuck his hand out. “Deal,” he said, waiting for me to shake his hand.

I stopped right where I was and looked at him, confused. “What?”

“You’re on,” he clarified. “You just agreed to a bet with me.”

“I didn’t agree to anything!” I barely managed to stutter. “I was just joking!”

“Rule number one in bet making: ‘A bet is officially created when at least two people make their wagers,” Tim recited. “Didn’t you know?”

I didn’t. “Where did that rule come from, anyway?” I demanded. “I think you just pulled it out of your ass.”

“There’s a lot more where that came from if you don’t seal this deal,” Tim said playfully.

“Let me guess. Rule number two: An official bet is officially sealed when the two people shake hands,” I said.

Tim shook his head. “Between a guy and a girl, it’s usually sealed with a kiss,” he raised his eyebrows suggestively.

“No way,” I said firmly.

He stuck his hand out. “I guess we can bend the rules just this once…”

I’m not sure what possessed me to do it, but for some unfathomable reason, I stuck my own hand out and shook hands with Tim.

Deal.

--

After we parted ways, I realized I was going to have to somehow force Amy to approach Sketchy Brent. Because at the rate they’d been going, they’d never talk. Ever. So I needed a way to speed things up, but not fast enough that they’d somehow miraculously be an item by midterms.

Tim Bohr thought he could hook them up in two weeks, but he didn’t know my friend didn’t operate that way.

I would have to plan this carefully. There had to be particular steps in approaching and befriending Sketchy Brent. I had a feeling things would fall together once they were friends, especially since I knew Sketchy Brent liked Amy. But how was I going to get Amy to talk to him when she wouldn’t even do anything herself?

It took a lot of thinking, but it turned out the answer was obvious. So at dinner, I bet her five dollars to say hi to Sketchy Brent. It sounded like a simple, easy enough task to get them started. One that Amy couldn’t say no to, especially from the way I was careful to word it.

She looked puzzled at first. “You’re trying to pay me to say hi to the guy I’ve crushed on for the past three months?” she asked, completely dismayed.

Well, yes. And I explained this to her. “It’s time we did something about that crush,” I told her. “Come on. The guy lives next door to us. We see him at lunch and dinner all the time. And you have a class with him! He must know who you are by now. So say hi to him next time we see him or you owe me five. Deal?”

It was too easy. She thought about it for a moment before quickly agreeing. As my luck would have it, Sketchy Brent and his friends were coming up the stairs towards Commons just as we were leaving. Amy didn’t notice when I made eye contact with Tim, nor did she see the wink he sent my way. She was too preoccupied with following through with her side of the bet.

And she did. Sketchy Brent said hi to her as well, and I could see the triumphant look on Tim’s face when our friends exchanged awkward greetings. Tim thought he had this in the bag, but I was going to keep this game in my favor.

I was confident of that until Tim decided to make things a little bit more complicated.

That was when I began to wonder exactly what the heck I'd just gotten myself into.

--

“I’ll bet you he asks her to study with him,” Tim mused as we walked back from class together.

I had already gotten Amy to sit next to Sketchy Brent in the biology class they shared. I thought things were going pretty well. But I knew Tim wanted to speed things up so the odds would be in his favor.

“Good luck with that,” I smirked.

“What’s wrong with it?” Tim wanted to know.

“Uh, for one, they’ve only ever had one conversation. And besides, Amy would never study with him,” I told him smugly.

“I think you’re wrong. So you’re on, Kelsey,” he challenged me, determined. “One hundred dollars says that he’ll ask her to study with him, and she’ll say yes. I’ll add fifty to that pot if you can get Amy to get Brent’s number.”

“One hundred says she might say yes, but fifty dollars that they’ll never get around to studying since your friend’s a major slacker,” I informed him. “And she’ll definitely have his number. Just wait.”

We shook on it. I was quite confident about this wager. So confident, in fact, that there was a certain bounce in my step as I entered my dorm, with a grin plastered the rest of the evening.

--

The good news is that Amy got Sketchy Brent’s number. The bad news is that I lost the major part of that bet. So badly, in fact, that I didn’t even wait for Tim after class so we could walk back to the dorms together. No, this time I was the first person out the door, determined to put as much distance between the two of us as possible.

At this rate, I already owed Tim one hundred dollars, with the potential of losing fifty more if Amy and Sketchy Brent hooked up before midterms were over. I needed one more chance to win.

Tim left me alone for a few hours after class, probably knowing I needed to sulk. I instantly fell asleep on my bed, only to be woken up several hours later by loud tapping on my window, which happened to be right above my head. Needless to say, I was annoyed, and seeing Tim standing outside my window only fueled the frustration.

“What do you want?” I asked grumpily as I yanked my window open.

He smirked. “Aw, come on Kels, don’t tell me you’re still mad,” he said.

“I’m not mad,” I insisted.

“You didn’t wait for me after class,” he pointed out. “Seemed like you couldn’t get out of there fast enough.”

“You’re a big boy. You don’t need someone to walk you back from class,” I snapped.

I’d expected his ego to be wounded by this, at the very least, but this only served to elicit a chuckle.

“Maybe you should back out of this bet before you lose any more money,” he told me, eyes twinkling.

No way in hell was I backing out, not when there was so much on the line.

“I’ll bet you two hundred and fifty dollars that Amy kisses Brent before he can get to it,” I announced to Tim.

Of course he agreed.

I had already made this bet with Amy the night she exchanged numbers with Sketchy Brent (which had been my downfall, really, because they wouldn’t have studied together if Sketchy Brent didn’t have a number to call). But I had only made that bet to ensure that she and Sketchy Brent wouldn’t get together until after midterms. I’d bet her to kiss him at his party – partly so that I could have the satisfaction of collecting my winnings from Tim when it happened. But now I was complicating things even more by bringing another facet into my bet with Tim. The bets were all a tangled web now.

The total pot was up to nearly five hundred dollars now. There was no way Tim could win this bet now that I’d secured the estimated time of Sketchy Brent and Amy’s hookup.

But there were a lot of things I’d failed to count on or foresee, like that karma might bite me in the ass for making bets on my friend, or even the fact that maybe Tim was making his own side bets with Sketchy Brent.

The latter I had definitely not seen coming. I mean, who had I been kidding? Did I really think that Sketchy Brent was suddenly taking initiative after three months of nothing? How could I have fooled myself into thinking Tim wasn’t going to play dirty too?

But it was official. We showed up to the post-midterms party – me, anticipating the satisfaction of wiping that infuriating smirk off Tim’s face when I won; and Amy, nervously waiting to see Sketchy Brent so she could finish our bet. And when midway through the party, I saw Sketchy Brent make the first move, I almost choked on the shot of tequila I’d just done. I thought my plan had been foolproof.

Apparently not.

Tim found me seconds later, working his way through the throngs of people and tried not to look too pleased with himself.

“I do believe I just officially won the bet,” he declared over the music, grinning ear to ear like a Cheshire cat.

“You did not!” I cried. “We bet on when they’d get together, and I said after midterms. It’s after midterms, so I win!”

“You also bet me two hundred and fifty that she’d kiss him first, but that didn’t happen,” Tim pointed out.

I let out a sigh, defeated. “How about we call it even?”

Tim’s eyes weren’t on me; they were watching something else. I didn’t bother turning around to see; I didn’t care.

I was moderately shocked when he grabbed my arm and dragged me over towards the edge of the party, against the wall.

“What are you doing?” I protested. “You can’t just manhandle me like this!”

“You just lost a bet,” Tim told me, still not looking at me. “You really want to argue with me?”

“You cheated!” I practically howled. “There’s no other way you could have won!”

“How would I have cheated?” he wanted to know. This time he whirled around to meet my fierce glare.

“There’s no way Sketchy Brent kissed her first,” I said firmly, “Because I bet Amy she’d do it first.”

I didn’t realize my slip-up until it was too late.

Tim’s lively brown eyes narrowed and the corners of his lips turned up. “Funny, because I did the same thing with…what did you just call him? Sketchy Brent?”

What the hell. He’d done the same thing?

At the sight of my gaping mouth, Tim smirked and reached out to push my jaw back up. “Not very attractive, even if you are drunk.”

I immediately swatted his arm away, trying to ignore the somersault my stomach seemed to do when he touched me, not to mention the jolt that went up my spine.

“Whatever. You cheated,” I told him, wondering how I was going to weasel my way out of this. Sure, I had the money in my bank account, but I didn’t really want to waste it on a stupid little bet.

“And if my calculations are correct, you owe me three hundred and fifty dollars,” Tim said smugly.

“Like hell I’m going to fork over that much money,” I told him angrily. “You cheated!”

“I did not cheat! If I did then you did too,” Tim shot back. “So we’re even.”

We were standing against the wall now, and in my peripheral vision I saw a couple standing next to us. To my dismay, it was Amy and Sketchy Brent.

“Amy! Did you just kiss Sketchy Brent?” I demanded. As if I really needed confirmation of what we all already knew. Hell, I was just a glutton for punishment, wasn't I?

Her answer only sealed my fate. I shook my head sadly. I needed to find a way out of this – and fast.

“Who the hell is Sketchy Brent?” I barely heard Sketchy Brent ask. “Wait. Me?”

Oops. I hadn’t meant for that to slip. That was the second time tonight I’d slipped on that moniker. I sent Amy a look, desperately hoping to convey how sorry I was about that.

Amy hastened to drop the subject, and finally she turned to answer my original question. “No, he kissed me.”

“Hah!” Tim crowed gleefully; he’d been standing next to me watching the entire exchange. “I knew he’d make the first move!’

I elbowed him as hard as I could, and I had the pleasure of seeing him wince at that. And now, thanks to Tim, both our friends wanted to know what we were talking about.

I’d never really considered Amy – or Sketchy Brent, for that matter – finding out about this. But now it was too late, and I had nothing left to lose (except for maybe my virginity, but that’s another story…).

So I said as casually as I could, “Tim and I made a bet on you guys two weeks ago. We bet on how long it would take you guys to get together.

Amy was visibly pissed. “Is that why you bet me five dollars to say hi to him?” she demanded.

At the same time, Sketchy Brent asked Tim, “Is that why you bet me fifteen dollars to talk to her?”

Tim and I simultaneously turned and glared at each other accusingly. We’d both done the same thing the entire time.

“Yeah,” we admitted together.

“And then just to make it more fun, I bet with Tim that you’d be the one to kiss Sketchy Brent, not him kissing you,” I added, still glaring at my cohort. “Except Tim cheated and made a side bet with Sketchy Brent that he didn’t have the balls to kiss you first!”

“I didn’t cheat! If I did, then you did too, because you bet Amy more money to do it first!” Tim protested. “I won this bet fair and square!”

We both turned to look at Amy and Sketchy Brent, waiting for them to take sides and chime in on the argument.

Instead, Sketchy Brent asked, “You guys bet on us?” Then he turned to look at Amy. “You and Kelsey bet on me?”

They had a brief exchange of heated words before I finally cleared my throat.

Amy scoffed. “I can't believe were just manipulated into this situation by these two,” she glared at us accusingly.

“How much money were you guys throwing around?” Sketchy Brent wanted to know.

“A few hundred,” Tim replied casually, grinning at me in triumph. “Owing you a hundred bucks is petty cash now that I’ve won!”

Okay, really now. Was he asking for another argument? One look at his face told me he was, so I let him have it.

“Kelsey,” Tim finally said loudly. “This wasn’t really about Amy and Brent.”

“Excuse me?” I asked, still fired up.

“I didn’t start this bet because I really cared about how long it would take for them to hook up. Although I do think we did a good deed,” he conceded, nodding in their direction. He was right. They were making out now, and I wasn’t very surprised. It was about damn time.

“So why’d you start this bet, then?” I demanded. “To make some petty cash? Because you thought there was no way I’d win?”

“Why’d you agree? Because you thought the same thing,” he countered. His features softened. “It was the best way I could think of to get you to start talking to me.”

I was startled by this confession. What the hell was he talking about? We had a fairly small writing class together. He’d had hundreds of chances to talk to me!

“Why would you need an excuse to talk to me?” I asked.

He shrugged. Now he was suddenly shy, not the familiar smirking asshole I’d come to know so well. “I don’t know,” he mumbled. “It’s just…I kind of thought you were cute and all that first day.”

“You could have talked to me in class,” I reminded him. “I’m approachable. I’m not going to shut you down for saying hi.”

“I don’t think you realize how intimidating you are in class,” he told me. “You argued with our TA and won.”

“Phil should not be working on a degree in English Literature,” I informed him lightly, referring to the TA of our writing class who’d given me a completely undeserved score on the paper we’d turned in. I’d gone to him and challenged him on it, and had come out with a significantly higher grade. Phil was a dimwit and a pushover.

Tim grinned at that. “Still, you’ve always been kind of a mystery to me. I wanted to see how you’d react.”

“Am I still intimidating?” I asked, slightly smirking now.

“Not so much,” Tim shook his head ruefully. “You’re still scary-looking, but…”

I swatted his arm. “Are you seriously going to make me pay you for the bet?”

Tim thought about this, and the sly grin that replaced his thoughtful demeanor instantly put me on my guard. “I’ll cut a deal with you. Replace the money with a kiss.”

Seriously?

He nodded in confirmation, seeing my reaction. Seriously.

I thought about this. It was one kiss with Tim – a good looking guy who I was admittedly attracted to – versus losing a few hundred dollars to him. When I thought about it like that, it was obvious.

“What the hell,” I told him with a roguish grin. He looked surprised. “Why not? Deal.”

So this time, instead of shaking on it, I sealed the deal the way Tim had once told me most guys and girls sealed bets. And this time, I made the first move.

Tim may think he fully won the bet, but I never lost anything to begin with.

A/N: So this is the sequel, I suppose, to Your Best Bet. If you haven’t read that, then I suggest you read that one-shot; this one will probably make more sense if you do.

I don’t think Kelsey and Tim’s one-shot was anywhere near as exciting as Amy and Sketchy Brent’s, but I thought I’d give it a try anyway. Hopefully you enjoyed it. I just thought it would be interesting to show the other side of the story. On a side note, I've actually been working on the latest chapter of Accidentally in Love -- really! After over a year of absolutely NOTHING, I had inspiration and time, and I hope it doesn't disappoint. I'm hoping to post it by next week. Work has finally gotten busier and I get home and throw myself on the couch and watch the Olympics. That's my life...

Comments or critiques? Maybe some kind words? I love and appreciate any reviews; although I don’t have time to reply to them, I read them all. Much love to my readers! Thank you for taking the time to read my work.