Sofia was having an … iing evening. Mostly thanks to, of course, the usual suspeatalie.

  As the team wound down their day over dinner, she had beeed close to Sofia, their thighs toug within the fines of the booth. In all hoy, even that simple skin tact would have been enough to fluster her. Despite their ret dungeon expeditions and Natalie's enthusiastivolvement in their hastily made bet, Sofia could hardly be sidered experienced in such matters. Yet, experience alone didn't cure nervousness—it merely provided familiarity, which might dampen the feeling but not wholly erase it.

  More importantly, it wasn't that Natalie was ag friehan usual, purposefully brushing against her and generally hanging close, but rather, that their bet was ing to a close. Tomorrow would be mostly filled with taking out the gobli, followed by a long trip back to Te and handling all of the various errands that would e with returning to the academy.

  So that meant tonight was the night.

  The st opportunity before their bet ended.

  And Natalie had made her iions clear. How she inteo 'finish off her training.' Hence, she was feeling unusually hot, even if all Natalie was doing was hanging a bit closer than usual. Because the subtext of why she was doing so was rather btant.

  The teasing was far subtler than usual, a Sofia couldn't help but squirm her way through the evening, uo fight away a blush that persisted through half their versations—or would at least reappear whenever Natalie did so much as touch shoulders or turn a grin toward her. Sofia would almost have preferred if Natalie had been more btant ieasing.

  Which maybe she was. By not doing so. If that made any sense.

  It was, Sofia decided, extremely unfair that both teasing her and not teasing her had exactly the same effect.

  There was a single lull in the mortification, during which, after dihey had a postmortem discussion on how they'd hahe goblin enters of the day before and the more intense one several ho. Such talks were on, of course, for any delving party, no matter how experiehey frequently had them during lunch chatters, when it came to the weekly dungeon runs, though they were informal things.

  Some teams were more structured about post-bat analysis, going through postmortems with a seriousness not befitting lun casual talk, but one of the bes of having a team of five who were both friendly with each other and passionate about their professio that such discussions just happened. For Teudents, post-dungeon analysis was almost a mode of small talk.

  Ohose practical discussions had ed up, they had returo more casual topics, and so the brief distra was lost, and Natalie's 'actal' touches returhus so had Sofia's growing nervousness. It was a very intense squirming iomach, the anticipation of what was ing, to the extent she was almost relieved wheime came that they were heading upstairs.

  Sofia didn't even realize she had followed Natalie into her bedroom until the redhead turo her, raised an eyebrow, and amusement tugged on her lips.

  "Uh. I help you?"

  Sofia blinked, genuinely fused for a sed. Then she looked backward, at the door closed behind her—which she had closed—and remembered that despite all of Natalie's exte-teasing the previous two hours, they hadn't spoken a word about their pns for the night. Certainly Natalie hadn't dropped an invitation, or an instru for that matter, for Sofia to join her in her bedroom.

  Dumbly, Sofia tried to e up with an excuse, but failed. At least with suffit speed to not embarrass herself. That, of course, only pstered on an even smugger grin, and Natalie ughed at her.

  "Just wao say hi, or did you have something else ponight?" Natalie teased.

  "The bet is almost over."

  Natalie raised her eyebrows in mock surprise. "Is it? I almost fot."

  "Stop pying around." Her cheeks heating up, Sofia walked to the window, putting her back to Natalie and gazing out into the uninspiring view of Tarenhelm's tryside. "You mentio yourself: this is our st night here. And you've been ag strange."

  "Strange? How so?"

  Sofia didn't expin herself; Natalie knew what she'd been doing, h so much closer than usual and sneaking in 'actal' touches.

  "Still, I might've fotten," Natalie said. "Why not take the risk?"

  "You didn't fet."

  "Could still take your ces. Because if I had fotten, then I wouldn't get to cash in. The bet would've passed and been over with."

  Cash in. Such a crude way to phrase it. So … dismissive. Narrowing it down to some 'payout.' Like this whole thing was just about sex. Natalie getting to have some fun with her reward, and nothing more.

  But, wasn't it that?

  Sofia's thoughts went back to that versation with Jordan. Or both of them, she supposed, among a dozen other smaller, less coordinated efforts to discover what Sofia's feelings were oter. That woman really did meddle too much.

  The silence had gone on a sed too long, so Sofia sniffed and replied. "You didn't fet. You're much too perverted to give up on that opportunity. You've been thinking about it all day."

  Having been staring out the window to save herself from Natalie's amused blue eyes, she didn't see the proach to rest her hands on her hips. When Natalie's response came, the words were right o her ear, low and breathy. They sent a shiver down her spine and made her stomach ch.

  "I was going to make fun of you for yo, for saying that of course I was thinking about you all day," Natalie murmured. "But you're right. I have been."

  Sofia swallowed. It was rather ridiculous how fast her heart started smming at those words. She'd faced down actual monsters and goo tours and been less filled with nervousness—by several orders of magnitude.

  "Well," Sofia said. "A bet is a bet. So let's get it over with, yes?"