Chapter 1

Love In Your Arms

Maria was completely and utterly in love. Or at least she thought she was but others like her two best friends Candice Michelle and Jeff Hardy knew better. It was more like in lust and the object of her affection was John Cena.

"Just look at him Candice. He's like Hercules with those muscles." She let out a dreamy sigh and Candice let out an annoyed sigh of her own.

"Are we looking at the same person?" Candice had tried plenty of times to focus Maria's romantic attention on someone else who she believed deserved Maria's attention but her attempts were to no avail.

Maria believed they were meant to be. In her mind no one but her deserved to be with him. Of course that didn't guarantee she was with him, because she wasn't. She and John were hardly even friends. He knew to stay away from her. He saw the looks she gave him. He had a girlfriend by the name of Michelle McCool and was very much in love with her. Real true love not like the kind Maria felt for him.

Maria was not obvious to the fact that John had a girlfriend. She knew that fact pretty well having to share a locker room with Michelle and all. But it didn't deter her in the slightest bit of making John hers because she believed they belonged together.

Candice and Maria were currently in the cafeteria of the arena. They had come in hopes of avoiding Layla and Regal who wanted to talk in Layla and Candice's shared locker room. If Candice knew she would only watch Maria drool over John instead she would have stayed in her room.

"Snap out of it Maria. He's taken." Candice said as she stood up in hopes of leaving and finding something better to do. Not wanting to look like a fool sitting there staring at John by herself Maria stood up too and followed Candice out of the room.

"If you would help me come up with something he won't be taken for long."

"I'm not getting in on one of your little schemes to break them up. They are happy together and should be left alone."

"They are not happy together. He's practically begging to get away from her. He's trapped. She has him like a caged bird and only I can see it. He pleads to me through those beautiful eyes to set him free. So that's what I am going to do. I am going to open the cage door for him and he will fly straight to me and then he will truly be happy." Maria finished her rant with a satisfied smile and dreamy look on her face. Candice knew right away she had lost her.

"We'll see about that." Ending the conversation Candice and Maria continued to walk around the arena until they reached Jeff's locker room. Upon finding it Maria simply barged in without knocking.

"Hello, Jeffrey." She said as she walked in past him to sit on one of the benches in the room. Candice did the same but slapped Jeff's head as she walked past him. Jeff closed the door glad he had just finished changing into his ring attire before they came in.

"And who do I owe the pleasure of this visit to?" He said as he went back to lacing up his shoes.

"The horrible God of Boredom. He has seemed to have taken an unkindly liking to me today." Candice said as she stood up and began walking around his room. "Where's Matt?"

"I don't know. Shouldn't you be getting ready for the show?" He was done lacing his shoes and had moved on to stretching and preparing his body for his match.

"Sadly we are not on the card tonight." Candice had moved on from walking around the room aimlessly to snooping through Matt's things.

"What do you plan on doing then?"

"I know what I'll be doing. Can you believe John has three appearances tonight? Three! I mean talk about my lucky day. He's in the main event too so his match should be extra long! I just know he's going to be extra sexy today. Did you see him? The sexiness just pours off of him. That's probably why he's with that witch. Some of his sexiness probably leaked off of him and on to her making her look halfway decent in his eyes." She finally paused to catch her breath. "If my theory holds true then that means all I have to do is hang around him and poof I'm sexier in his eyes!"

"Possibly…"Jeff said looking at Candice for help but she was too busy digging through Matt's things.

"So it's settled. Now I have to make an outline and everything. I expect you guys at my room door tomorrow morning at nine. I'll have the outline ready and everything we need to do." She then got up from her seat and walked back to her locker room to start on the outline.

"Why didn't you help me?" Candice simply turned with a raised eyebrow at Jeff. "Now she's going to be obsessing over this new plan of hers and roping us into it!"

"You left me to talk her out of 'Operation: Concoct a Love Potion for John to Drink'. She didn't even ask for your help with that one or the other one with the love spells. She took me to some freaky witch stores. I had to be the lab rat with both of those. I even got a stomach virus from one of her potions."

"I only did that because you left me out to dry on the one where she tried to make me seduce Michelle."

"Oh yeah, I remember that one." Candice said laughing. "It doesn't matter because now, she wants both of us."

Maria was in her locker room sitting on the floor. She believed that her plans came better to her while sitting on the floor. She had her notebook in her lap with half of the outline done, but she wasn't writing anymore. Instead she had her ultimate death glare focused on Michelle who was on the other side of the room preparing for her match. It was obvious to everyone but Michelle that Maria did not like her. Maria liked to think that Michelle knew but pretended she didn't just to spite her, but Michelle honestly didn't know Maria didn't like her.

Before Michelle and John had got together, she and Maria had been really close. They were friends and did a lot of things together, but John changed everything. Part of their friendship had been based on their like for John. They would spend hours together gushing over everything about him.

But then one day when Maria had been working up the nerve to finally do something about the crush, Michelle got paired up with him for a match. After the match he asked her to dinner and things just went on from there.

All of the time Maria and Michelle used to spend together was transferred over to Michelle and John time. With that the animosity began to build up and Maria ended up hating Michelle. It was during this time that she became friends with Candice and Jeff.

She wanted to leave the room before she said or did something she regretted but it was her hate for Michelle that fueled most of her schemes. So she lessened her glare and turned her attention back on her plan. But it didn't work for long. Kelly Kelly walked in and started talking to Michelle. Their conversation quickly turned to John and Maria knew she had to get out. She refused to sit there and listen to them talk about John and Michelle's love life while she was there. So she got up to find Candice again. She needed someone she could rant to.

Walking down the hallway she bumped into Ted DiBiase. Now Ted was a special case. In a way he was just like Maria. He had an object of his affections who he believed was his one true love, and that person was Maria. He was enthralled by her. But it was hard to figure out if he was in lust like Maria, or if he really did love her. But he was lucky because she considered him a friend at least, so half of the battle was done for him.

"Teddy! It's been ages since we've talked." He smiled and opened his arms for a hug. "How have things been for you?"

"Everything's good for me, what about you?"

"Ughh Horrible." She said remembering what happened before she bumped into him. She then explained what happened in the locker room and her new plan to get John.

"Maria, trust me on this, you do not need to be around him to get some of his 'sexiness' to rub off on you." It was said with air quotes on the sexiness too. "You are more than sexy. You're beautiful, and it's his problem if he can't see that."

"Awww ! Thank you. That's so sweet of you to say that. But I have faith in this plan. It will be the one that works. I'm going to make it work!" With new found determination she set off to find Candice again because she was going to make some kind of plan work. It was going to work because she was beautiful. Teddy said so himself.

Ted on the other hand was left stunned. That was not the first time something like that had happened to him. Often he would tell her something he believed would put down John and make her see he was the one for him and it always ended with her faith in John renewed and him being seen as a great friend.

Candice was still in the Hardy locker room. Jeff had gone to fight his match and she had grown bored of looking through both of their things. She would have left but she knew there was nothing else to do but listen to Maria rant, so she stayed where she was.

"Waiting for me Baby?" Matt walked into the room smiling. Candice however didn't return the smile.

"Say it a little louder. I don't think the crowd heard you." She said as Matt walked over to where she was sitting and pulled her up from her seat.

"Oh come on. No one's here and Jeff is still in his match. Besides we haven't had some good alone time in five days." She gave in to him and gave him the kiss she knew he was waiting for. They pulled away for air and Matt rested his head on her shoulder. "I love the way you smell." He inhaled deeply and she could feel the smile on his face. "Please remind me why we have to keep this a secret."

"I've told you this a million times. Maria is crazy enough and feeling sorry with herself for not having someone. That's why she's after John like this. If she knows we're together she's going to think she needs someone too. And the fact that we do not know how Jeff will react."

"Yeah there's always that." He said sighing, but not lifting his head from it's resting place. "I wish he didn't like you. I feel so bad about this. He's my brother, but I can't be without you."

"I know just give it some more time."

They stayed like that for some time, but their time together came to a quick end when someone barged through the door. Candice quickly shoved Matt away from her afraid that she had been too late. Luckily for them, Maria was too concerned with writing something down in her notebook to take notice of the scene in front of her. By the time she did look up Candice was back sitting and Matt had moved over to his things to take off his gear.

"Candice I need your help. I've changed the operation. It's now Operation Make John Realize I am Beautiful! Teddy gave me the idea. Wasn't that so sweet of him?"

"Yeah, who knew he was so nice? Why don't you go after him instead?" Candice like most people knew how Ted felt about Maria. She had been trying to convince Maria to go out with him for the last three months but it wasn't working. She wanted to just tell her flat out that the guy was in love with her but she knew it wasn't her place to disclose that information.

"Teddy? Oh please. We're friends. That's it. He likes someone else anyway." Another reason why she wouldn't go out with him. She was convinced he like someone else. Of course she didn't know that person was her.

"Yeah sure he does. Now what were you saying about this plan?"

This is something new that came to me. I figured new year=new story so here it is.I have no idea how often updates will be, but I do know I plan on having fun with this one so writing chapters should come easy. I hope you enjoy