“What?” Jake asked innocently, crossing his arms over his chest while he sized Dean up. “I meant in this club.”

He so didn’t. Anyone could tell that. And if it wasn’t so damn embarrassing, I might’ve appreciated his protectiveness. As it was, I’d already mortified myself enough in front of Dean. I didn’t need Jake adding to it.

“It’s okay,” Dean said, his voice calm. He looked Jake in the eye, never losing his gaze. “Of course I am,” he said. “I’m not like…” He narrowed his eyes. “Like assholes not to be named. I actually give a damn about her.”

Jake tipped his chin, scanning Dean’s face for a few moments before he nodded. “Good. Because she’s important to me. And I already let one jerk hurt her.” He spared me a glance full of regret. “I’ll never let that happen again.”

Dean shook his head. “I’d never hurt her. And I’m glad she has friends like you.”

I gaped at them both before stomping my foot. “Her is standing right exactly here! And she’s doing just fine taking care of herself.” I rolled my eyes, waving off Hannah as I bolted into the coding room, leaving them to as much of their macho-protective-whatever talk they wanted.

My skin still blazed by the time Dean scooted into his seat across from me. He opened his gear with a smirk on his face, like earning Jake’s approval had meant something to him.

I dutifully ignored him, electing instead to draw up a practice run of CTF, since Mr. Griffin had decided to work later than normal. Usually he left us to our devices on Code Club days, but some kind of performance reports kept him in the room with us today—which meant I couldn’t possibly work on the website. Normally, I’d use this time to reassure the firewalls around the site and read more comments to get an idea for the next blog post.

The idea of Mr. Griffin catching me was enough to stop that urge dead in its tracks.

After an hour, I’d successfully completed a crypto CTF challenge—this one more math based than I liked, making it ten times harder to crack.

“You two make me look bad,” Griffin said, and both Dean and I had to blink a few times to register his presence. “Work harder than I do,” he continued, his bag over his shoulder.

“Code Club is no joking matter, Mr. Griffin,” Dean said, barely holding back a laugh. “I’ve had to change the font on the school’s website for the third time this month. Tanner thinks Times is outdated.”

“Totally,” I said. “And Code Club takes long hours and dedication and…” I never made it any further, submitting to the fit of giggles as Mr. Griffin nodded his head back and forth.