Fifty minutes and a blink later, I dragged myself out of the zone and bounded up to the front of the room before Griffin could excuse everyone.

“Winters?” he asked while he powered down his gear.

“I’ve been appointed head of”—I cringed as I tried not to puke over the words—“Code Club.”

Griffin’s eyes widened, and he choked on a laugh. “Principal Tanner sent me an informative text before you stumbled in here.” He gave me a pitying look before he gestured to the students dying to get out of their seats. “Feel free.”

“Okay,” I said, turning to face the room.

I focused on Amber, the few streaks of pink in her dark hair that fell just short of her eyes and tightened around her ears. She was beyond easy to look at and took some of the sweat out of my palms. “If anyone is looking to get in some extra coding time or needs help with other programming stuff…” I lost my train of thought when Amber’s green eyes popped up to mine as if she just realized I’d been speaking. “Um.” I cleared my throat. Today had been too long already, and now I’d have to stay after school three hours longer for this damn club.

I needed to reboot.

I cleared my throat. “I’ll be here right after school. Today, Wednesday, and Friday.”

Amber tilted her head.

Another student, Holly, one of the sole six girls in the class, shot her hand into the air. “Is it an extra credit thing?”

I shook my head, my palms smacking against my thighs. “Nope. Just a…club.” I refused to call it Code Club. It was bad enough on its own. Anything truly worthwhile would be strictly underground; putting a spotlight on what we were doing kind of took the point out of hacking.

“It’s just for knowledge,” I continued. “Practice. That sort of thing.” Now that the words left my mouth, I could practically feel Tanner laughing his ass off in his office. He knew as well as I did that Griffin was lucky to have a full eighteen-student class. Coding was tricky, hard, and really only enjoyable to those who actually wanted to learn the skill. Doing it for an extra three hours a day without any other incentives? Forget about it.