Place Your Bets (2/2)
"So, who won the pool?"
They one by one turned towards Abed, who at some point when Jeff wasn't paying attention had pulled out a small black notebook and was carefully flipping through its pages.
"…Wait, what?" The group ignored Jeff, keeping their eyes on Abed, watching as he methodically flipped through the notebook, dragging his finger down a column as he scanned each page.
"You guys bet on me and Annie?" Abed looked up from the notebook.
"It didn't start out that way. Britta and I had an argument about whether or not you would ever admit your feelings for Annie and ask her out. Britta said that it would never happen, but I figured it would hit you at Graduation how you couldn't let your time at Greendale go by without letting her know how you felt about her, which would lead to asking her out to Mori's Steak House, which is kind of a cliché in hindsight, but some things are cliché for a reason. They work. Anyway, we ended up betting on whether or not you two would ever go out, but then Shirley pointed out that if we didn't set an end date for the bet, technically the only way Britta could win is if one of you died; otherwise, you could end up hooking up when we're all senior citizens and I would still win the bet. So we decided to make the bet on whether or not you would ask her out on or before Graduation day, or "G-Day", as we call it." Britta broke in.
"No one but him or Troy calls it that. We put $20 bucks on it, but the rest of the group wanted to get in on it too, and then Pierce mentioned it to one of the hipsters, and Shirley gossiped about it to someone in the women's bathroom, and before we knew it, the entire school wanted in. So Abed decided the easiest way was for everyone to put up $20, pick a date, and whoever was closest would win."
"So what did you all say?"
"Well, I kept Graduation, Britta chose 10 years after Graduation, or as she put it, "When it would finally hit you that there was a chance you could die old and alone and miserable and would reach out to the only person who could still stand to be around you more than a few seconds at a time…"
"I may have been really bitter at the time." Britta explained.
"…Shirley picked the first day of senior year…Pierce picked - and again I'm quoting - "Never, 'cause he's gay." And Troy decided that you'd actually been dating since the debate kiss freshman year and the entire time since then has simply been an elaborate ruse to hide your relationship."
"When did you start this whole thing?" Jeff asked.
"Well, Britta and I first started talking about it after the…incident, for lack of a better term, at the beginning of sophomore year, so the bet went school wide probably a little after Halloween that year."
"Yeah, enough with the history lesson. Who won the bet, Abed?" Shirley asked, impatience getting the better of her.
"The winning pick was…drum roll please…" Troy immediately began beatboxing. "…Close enough. The winner, picking the exact day… Professor Ian Duncan."
"Just how much money was in this pool, anyway?" Jeff asked.
Abed consulted his notebook again.
"20 bucks a pop, times 152 teachers and students is…$3,040."
"I just tweeted the results and Duncan replied he's on his way to collect." Pierce said.
Indeed, Duncan walked into the study room just a few moments later.
"Alright, losers, where's my money?" He crowed. Abed reached into his bag and pulled out a thick roll of cash which he tossed to Duncan.
"$3,040. Count it if you like; make sure it's all there." Duncan quickly started thumbing through the bills.
"$460…$480…$500." He stopped and put the $500 in his pocket, still grinning. "No more cheap hooch for me! Then again if I stick with the cheap stuff, I'll be able to buy, and hence drink, a heck of a lot more of it. Pleasure doing business with you, Winger." He tossed the rest of the roll onto the table in front of Jeff and walked out of the room.
The group stared at Jeff as he started counting the money. It was Abed who spoke.
"What the hell just happened?"
"Oh, I forgot to mention. I found out about your little pool months ago, and gave Duncan $500 to make the bet for me."
"And what, you decided to play along and act all outraged to what…fuck with us?" Britta asked.
"Pretty much, yeah. I mean, don't get me wrong, the money is nice, but it was mostly to fuck with you."
"But how did you even find out about it?" Jeff just scoffed.
"Come on, do you really think it's possible for nearly the entire school to get involved in something like this without it eventually getting back to me? You know what the rumor mill at Greendale is like. It's a miracle that neither of us heard for as long as we did. Nobody around here can keep a secret for long. You know, except for me and Annie dating right under your noses for four months."
"Oh yeah? Well, what do you think Annie would have to say about you exploiting your relationship for monetary gain?" Shirley asked.
"Hey, I just passed Duncan in the hallway. Was it really over 3,000 dollars?" Annie practically bounced into the study room with a gigantic smile on her face.
"Wait a minute! You knew about this?" Shirley yelped.
"Of course. It was my idea." Annie smirked as the group stared at her in shock while Jeff just smiled.
While everyone else had been talking, Abed had gone back to his notebook.
"Wait a minute…Duncan placed his bet three months ago. So you knew about this for three months and didn't say anything to any of us?" Annie shrugged sheepishly.
"We were going to confront you guys at first… we were both pretty mad when we found out. I mean, we'd been sneaking around because we thought you guys would explode when you found out we were dating, only to find out that you're treating our personal life like it's a game!" Annie had started out calmly, but by the time she finished talking her voice had climbed to a shout. The group was stunned at her outburst. Troy, Pierce, Britta, and Shirley had the decency to look slightly shamed at their actions. Abed's expression remained the same as it always did, but Jeff could guess how he felt about making Annie upset. Annie took a deep breath to regain her composure before continuing. "Not only that, you didn't even consider what would happen if we found out about this and weren't in a relationship! So instead of confronting you, we thought you might learn a lesson this way."
"Also, do you have any idea how much it costs to drive three towns over every time we go out on a date?" Jeff joked. "Half of this," he held up the roll of cash, "is gas money."
"The point is, we decided to get back at you guys some way, and I thought of using someone who hadn't entered yet in exchange for a part of the winnings."
"It was my idea to use Duncan. She wanted to use Leonard." Jeff said with distaste.
"Well, I didn't want to use someone who was considered a friend, in case it looked suspicious."
"So wait, did you know that Abed was outside Jeff's apartment that night? Did you guys plan on getting caught?" Britta asked.
"No, that was unexpected. We'd actually just started talking about when and how to tell you that we were dating. We were planning on inviting all of you to Mori's after Graduation and letting you know then, using the pool to pay for it. Then Jeff texted me that you were interrogating him about our relationship, and we decided it was time to come clean about everything."
"Now, if there are no other questions - and actually even if there are, 'cause I don't care anymore -Annie and I have to get going. We have to get ready for our date tonight. Milady."
Annie smiled at him.
"Milord."
They exited the room together, leaving the rest of the study group sitting around the table in shock. Britta turned to Abed.
"Twenty bucks says they break up by the end of the year."
"Oh, that's not nice, betting on them again…I got twenty says they're married within three years."
"Twenty bucks they break up when Winger realizes he's gay."