AN: Hello, my dears! Happy New Year!

No, your eyes are not deceiving you. I have FINALLY posted chapter 10 for Much Ado About Spying! I hope you all like it:)

Disclaimer: The characters and the Gallagher Girl universe belong to Ally Carter, and the plot of this story is based on Shakespeare's play, 'Much Ado About Nothing.'

Chapter 10: Cammie's POV

"Okay, but what if he holds my hand, or–or puts his arm around me?" Liz's eyes grew wide and she gasped, then in a loud whisper she continued. "What if he kisses me on my lips!?"

Macey grabbed Liz's cheeks and smooshed the lips in question into a fish face. "Sweetheart, those are all good things. We want them to happen. It means he likes you. Now, calm down. I'm trying to touch up your lip gloss, and to do that I need you to Stop. Talking."

"Sorry," Liz said, but it sounded more like, "soowee."

Then Macey released her face and continued applying.

"And remember, Liz," Bex said. "We're all going to be there as back up. If you get nervous, you know the signals for extraction maneuvers 1 through 7."

I eyed Bex sternly. "I thought we all agreed that number 7 was too extreme."

She shrugged. "You say extreme, I say effective."

"Bex-"

"Okay, okay! No extraction maneuver number 7. It's not like we have the 3 wombats to make it work anyway," Bex grumbled.

Macey rolled her eyes. "Liz is going on a date, guys, not a mission. Can't she just enjoy her date with Jonas alone?"

In unison the three of us turned to look at Macey like she was crazy. It was almost as if she didn't know CoveOps rule #21 or something!

"Fine!" Macey said, capping the lip gloss and tossing it in her bag. "What do I know? I'm just the only one here who has actually been on a date before." She reached up and adjusted a bobby pin in Liz's hair. "I guess we should go grab our comms and binocuglasses so we can spy on our friend's first date like normal people."

Liz jumped up. "Binocuglasses! I knew we were forgetting something!" Then she ran out of the room.

"Liz, no!" Macey got up and rushed after her. "I was kidding! Come back so I can fix your hair!"

Sighing I looked to Bex. "Is Macey right? Should we just let Liz go on a normal date?"

"We're spies, love. This is normal for us."

And I couldn't argue with that logic.

"Well, then we'd better get going." I could already hear everyone making their way down to the foyer.

"Oh! Wait a sec, Cam!" Bex said then jumped up and pulled a very pink and very un-Bex-like envelope from her desk. "I need to ask a favor of you."

"Umm." I eyed the envelope warily. "O…kay. What's up?"

She smiled wide and held out the envelope. "Could you please give this to Grant for me?"

Dumbstruck, I instinctively took it, but then shook my head and shoved it back at her. "What? No! Since when have you liked Grant?!" Were all of my friends doomed to lose their minds to these Blackthorne boys?

Bex wrinkled her nose. "I don't like Grant."

"Then what is this?" I waved the envelope in her face.

"A friendship card."

"A friendship card?" I repeated.

"Yes," she said defiantly.

"How come you've never given me a 'friendship card?'"

She crossed her arms. "Well, for starters you're being very judgmental about it, so there's that."

I raised an eyebrow at her. "Bex. There's a heart sticker on it."

Bex swore in Chinese then pressed her lips. After a long moment she finally spoke. "Fine. It's not a friendship card, but it's not a love letter either."

"Come on, Bex. Do you really expect me to believe-"

"Look, I really didn't want to say anything, but Grant has been having a hard time lately, so I wanted to write him a note of, um…encouragement."

I looked at the envelope again. "A note of encouragement in a pink envelope with a heart on the outside?"

"What of it?"

"Well, isn't that a little, I don't know, misleading?"

"Is it not meeting some kind of 'note of encouragement' standard?"

How was I supposed to know? This whole interaction was confusing me. I couldn't tell if Bex liked Grant and was simply being uncharacteristically shy, or if she really was just trying to help out her fellow classmate.

In the end, I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt. And besides, if I was being honest, Bex wasn't the type of person to declare her love via note. She'd challenge him to a sparring match, and if he won, she'd allow him to take her out.

"Fine, Bex. I'll give him your note."

"Brilliant!" she exclaimed, then grabbed me by the shoulders, spun me around, and pushed me out the door.

"Now let's go downstairs so you can give it to him."

I looked over my shoulder at her. "But why can't you give it to him?"

Bex waved a hand. "Everyone knows I'm not the sappy type, Cam. It would be totally weird if anyone saw me give it to him."

"I guess." We'd already walked down a flight of stairs when I stopped. "Wait! Who thinks I'm the sappy type?"

"Alright, guys, is everyone in position? Peacock, do you have my six?"

My comms remained silent.

"Peacock!"

"Yes, Cam! Geez! I can see your flat six from here. You know, you really should try that glute workout I was showing you."

I rolled my eyes and turned to look where I knew Macey'd be. "Can you at least try to take this a little bit more seriously?"

Across the distance of the Roseville town square, I watched her cross her arms. "For the sake of my dignity, no."

"Then why did you agree to be the reserve on this mission?"

"Partly because I love you despite the fact that you're calling Liz's date a mission, but mainly because I'm genuinely concerned about what you and Bex might do if left to your own devices."

Oh shoot! Bex! I was the backup. I was supposed to be watching her at all times.

"Duchess!" I said urgently into my comms, but then I spun right into her.

Bex smiled. "You already know I hate that bloody code name, no need to shout it at me."

"What are you doing?! Why aren't you watching Liz?"

"Calm down, Cam," she said, placing her hands on my shoulders and turning me to face the road leading to the movie theater. "They're right there. From here it would only take me 6.45 seconds to render Jonas unconscious if he were to do anything untoward. Though, it would only take me 1.73 seconds if you would've let me bring the tranquilizer."

I looked sideways at her.

"But, of course, I would never bring such a dangerous weapon on such a low-level mission such as this one, suchly." She fluttered innocent eyes at me, and I laughed.

"Go to your position," I told her, smacking her hands away.

But she only replaced one of her hands, sliding an arm across both my shoulders. "Why don't we walk together? Mr. Solomon said to maintain our cover, and it would look less suspicious if we didn't walk alone. After all" – she leaned in conspiratorially – "we are helpless teenage girls."

We shared a knowing smile then started after Liz and Jonas.

"Also," she continued, "I wanted to ask you about the card for Grant."

I sighed. "Don't worry. I already gave it to him."

Up ahead Liz and Jonas turned a corner, so I picked up my pace marginally; I didn't want them to be out of sight for too long.

"I know, but, uh… how did it go? What happened?"

I wasn't sure why she cared all that much if she really didn't have feelings for him like she claimed, but I shoved that thought down and told her, "I think you did the right thing in making that card for him. He was so excited about it that he wouldn't even let me get a word in edgewise. The poor guy even hugged me."

"He what?"

I shrugged. "I guess you can't judge a book by its cover. Grant looks tough, but everyone needs help sometimes, even the people who are too afraid to ask for it." Usually, it was those kinds of people who needed it the most.

Bex looked a little like she was in pain. "Please, Cam. Please tell me you didn't say that to him."

"Why not? It's nothing to be ashamed of. I wish someone had told me to see a therapist in the years right after dad died. It helps a lot of people."

Bex face palmed. "Oh, my…you know what?" – she straightened and dropped her hand – "It doesn't matter. Was anyone else there? Anyone who might've seen you give the card to Grant?"

I scrunched my nose. "Zach was there."

"And?" she prompted.

And what? Bex was being weirdly nosey about something she could've just done herself and gotten all of the first-hand information she wanted. But I wasn't about to miss out on an opportunity to vent about Zach.

"And that guy is really something else."

Bex brightened. "Really?"

"Really! When I gave the card to Grant, Zach looked beyond confused. Like, how terrible of a person do you have to be to not notice when your best friend is going through it? I thought Zach was only a pain around me, but apparently he is always awful."

Just then, Bex stomped past me, her smile turned completely stormy.

"Um, Bex? You okay?" I asked. "You seem angry."

"Oh, I'm great, Cam! Just great! Cuz you're right. You'd have to be a terrible, terrible person if you were to miss something so completely bloody obvious about the people around you!"

Finally! Someone was agreeing with me about Zach! It had taken almost half a decade, and I would've wept if I hadn't promised myself long ago that Zach would never be the reason for my tears again. Happy, frustrated, angry, or otherwise.

"I'm glad you think so," I told her, then I grabbed her arm and pulled her along. "Come on, Bex. Jonas and Liz are walking into the theater, and you have to make sure you get the best vantage point behind them."

Once they'd all found their seats in the theater room and the movie started playing, I felt much more relaxed. Phase two of Liz's Perfect First Date was dinner – which would involve a whole new set of security and surveillance challenges – but until then, I could enjoy some alone time in the hall outside the theater. What could possibly go wrong on a date to the movies?

"Hey, Gallagher Girl." I looked up instinctively at the nickname to find Zach walking toward me. What did he want? I was about to ask when he said, "Liz in there?" with a jerk of his head at the door. Then, without breaking stride or waiting for an answer, he pushed his way into the theater room. Into a live op. Into my best friend's first date.

Oh. Hell. No.

Zach wasn't about to screw this up, too.

Seeing red, I followed him inside. Thankfully, he was still standing at the back of the theater, scanning the seats for the happy couple. A second later, he spotted them and took a step down the theater's dark aisleway. But he never made it farther than that because I was there, smacking a hand over his mouth, twisting his arm at an odd angle, and pulling him backward out the theater doors.

He tried to break free, but I twisted harder and dragged him into the ladies room. It wasn't until we were in a stall that I released him, practically throwing him onto the closed toilet seat. With a hiss of pain, he brought the arm I'd grabbed forward and rubbed his wrist.

Wimp.

The space was already tight, but that didn't prevent me from leaning forward till our faces were just inches apart and saying, "What the hell are you doing here?"

Zach scowled up at me. "Experiencing the weirdest kidnapping ever. You usually take your victims to the bathroom? Death by swirly?"

"Stop trying to be cute," I sneered. He opened his mouth, but I pointed my finger in his face. "And don't say that you don't have to try to be cute, or I might just strangle you."

Zach grasped my hand and gently pushed it to my side, then his eyes narrowed flirtatiously, and he smiled devilishly. "Wasn't even thinking it, but it's good to know you were, Gallagher Girl."

He's hot.

I yanked my hand away as heat crawled up my neck and cheeks, and I leaned back against the stall door and crossed my arms, putting as much space between us as possible. What the heck had just happened? Where had that thought come from? It had to have been the proximity. And the eyes. And, perhaps, his mouth. Also, the thing he did with his hand. Yep. That had to be it. Zach had never responded to my aggression with calm, so it obviously threw me off.

Looking squarely at his nose, rather than his eyes or mouth, I managed, "Seriously, Zach, what are you doing here?"

He threw his arms wide (well, as wide as they could go in a tiny bathroom stall). "We're at the movie theater; I came to watch a movie."

He mimicked my cross-armed stance with a satisfied smirk, and whatever stupid spell he'd briefly put on me was broken. Cocky and self-satisfied Zach, I was used to.

"Really? What movie?"

His smile faltered. "Um-"

"Where's your ticket?"

"About that-"

"Why. Are. You. Here?"

The smile and easy-going façade dropped, and he looked away. "I need to talk to Liz."

"I gathered as much, but in case you haven't noticed, she's on a date right now."

He seemed to mull it over for a moment until he finally came to a conclusion that he clearly wasn't happy about. "Fine. I'll talk to her later. Satisfied?"

Now, normally, I would've been. Really. There were plenty of logical reasons why someone might want to talk to Liz. Homework question. Her mother's fried chicken recipe. The sudden desire to talk in-depth for 5+ hours about all of the great unsolved mathematical equations of the world. But those were small things, and Zach not only knew that this was Liz's first date, but also his best friend Jonas' first date. I knew he wasn't a romantic, but I didn't think he'd crash a date just because he wasn't a fan of hugs, kisses, and Valentine's Day. Whatever it was that brought Zach in search of Liz, it was big.

"Why do you need Liz?" I tried to ask casually.

Zach shrugged. "Not important."

"Clearly," I said dryly.

"Cammie," he said slowly, "let me out."

I moved to block the lock on the stall door. "No. I want to know what kind of problems you're trying to dump on my best friend."

Zach stood then, bringing us chest to chest. I tried to shove him away, but he caught my wrists and pinned them to my sides, and I felt a shock ripple through me as he flexed his fingers ever so slightly. "Don't make me move you," he warned.

But all I could think was How? This stall barely had enough room for both of us to breathe, much less fight.

"Don't make me embarrass you," I scoffed.

He groaned in frustration. "I'm serious, Cammie."

"Ditto," I said, then I fainted.

Well…I pretended to faint. And as his arms released my wrists in favor of grabbing my waist, I took the opportunity to slam my palm into his sternum. With his breath knocked out of him, he let me go and staggered back into the toilet seat, coughing and choking.

I rolled my eyes. "Come on, you big baby. Arms above the head,"—I pulled his arms up— "you know how to recover from thi-"

A painful knee to the stomach sent me backward into the stall door, and this time I was the one gasping.

Zach smirked. "You're not the only one who knows how to fake it."

I smiled back at him, until I realized what I was doing and replaced it with an irritated glare.

"Are you going to tell me why you need Liz?"

"Nope."

I swung a punch at him, but he grabbed my arm and used my momentum to pull me past him, effectively flipping our positions. On the release, I stumbled into the toilet seat, and when I spun around, Zach was already turning the lock.

Not on my watch.

Before he could fully exit the stall, I pulled myself into a standing position on the seat, then I launched at him, latching myself onto his back.

"What are you doing?!" he yelled, but I ignored him as I wrapped my legs tightly around his torso, reached back, braced my arms on either side of the stall doors, and yanked him back inside. While he found his footing, I let go of the wall long enough to snap the lock back in place.

"Alright, Zach," I huffed. "Now I'm going to get down, and we're going to talk about this-oof!"

Air rushed out of me as Zach slammed his back (i.e. me) into the wall. Simultaneously, his elbow came down and jabbed into a pressure point on my thigh. With a breathless cry, I released his torso and dropped my feet to the floor. Circling my wrists, he untangled himself the rest of the way, then spun me around till he was the one at my back, holding me to him.

"Nice try, Gallagher Girl," he said lowly in my ear, "but I won't be sharing with the class today."

Still catching my breath, I closed my eyes and leaned my head back against his chest. The action surprised me, and I felt Zach stiffen, but to be honest, I didn't care. I was tired. I was so tired of fighting him. The year without him had made me forget how exhausting it all was. Or maybe it had never been this exhausting, but for some reason this year I was fighting harder than before.

"Fine," I croaked, "you win. I know whatever it is, is your business, but…but I just worry, okay? For my girls. And I know they can take care of themselves, but finding love is a big deal for a spy, and I don't want anything to ruin this for her."

Zach sighed, and for a long moment we just stood there. Understanding each other under the glow of the fluorescent lights (which were no doubt washing me out), and it was…nice. I almost expected us to stay like that forever, but then he brought his hand up and took the comms out of my ear.

"Hey!"

"Coding," he said quietly.

"What?"

"Coding," he said again. "I need Liz's help with a very…personal…coding project."

The word "personal" came out rough, like it would've been happy to remain lodged in his throat.

"I don't know how long it will take," he continued, "and I know it's a big favor, but believe me when I say I wouldn't be asking her if I didn't need some outside help." Subconsciously, he rested his cheek on my head. "I need to crack this code."

Liz was great at cracking codes. The best. But how would she be able to keep up with her schoolwork, help Zach break this code, and nurture a budding relationship? Not even Liz would be able to do that. One of those areas would suffer.

"Zach," I started. "Maybe Liz isn't the best option-"

"Stop talking."

My eyes snapped open, and I tried to pull away from him. "Zach! All I'm saying is—mmph-"

His palm clapped over my mouth, and I was this close to biting him when I heard the footsteps and then the opening of a door. The bathroom door.

Oh, no. Someone is in here! What if she finds Zach? He can't be arrested for being a peeping-tom! The Academy would get him out, of course, but the whole thing would go straight to the media, and-

A decidedly un-female groan of relief echoed off the bathroom walls, and my eyes bulged.

Oh. My. Gosh. I brought Zach into the wrong bathroom.

Ew. Ew. Ew times one thousand! I'd been touching a boy toilet seat, and boy stall walls, breathing boy bathroom air, and to top it all off, I was touching a boy!

It was all too much. I tried to break free again, but Zach jerked me around my middle, and despite the mouth covering, a girly squeak made its way out. Zach and I both tensed as the sounds of urination stopped.

"Hello?"

Oh, my gosh.

"Anyone in here?"

Oh, my gosh.

I heard the sound of a zipper followed by the jingling of a belt buckle, and then the man started walking. I sagged against Zach in relief, but then the footsteps stopped in front of the row of stalls.

"Is there a woman in this bathroom being harmed?!" the man shouted.

I tried to yank at Zach's hand, but he held on and called back, "No."

I made a noise of protest, to shut him up, but too late I realized that that probably didn't help our case.

"I don't believe you!" the guy yelled. "I'm coming in!"

Oh, for the love!

As the man winded back to no doubt kick down the door, I elbowed Zach in the gut, freeing myself. A moment later, the man burst through the stall door, but I was ready for him. And in the next second, the man was on the floor, sleeping soundly with a napotine patch stuck to his forehead.

Zach gaped at me. "You just knocked out a civilian!"

I bent down to check the man's pulse, then angrily threw over my shoulder, "Well, I wouldn't have had to if you would've kept your mouth shut and let me do the talking."

"You?"

"Yes, me! He knew a girl was in here, so I could have easily said, 'Oh, my gosh! I'm, like, totally in the wrong bathroom. Tee hee! My bad!' Issue resolved!"

I proceeded to remove the patch and place the man in as comfortable position as possible against the bathroom wall. When I stood and turned, Zach was looking at me warily.

"What?"

"It's scary how much you can get away with by acting like a dumb girl."

I shrugged. "It's scary how many people don't believe it's acting."

"Touché"

We exited the bathroom, Zach first to make sure the coast was clear, with me following behind. Once in the theater hall again, we turned to each other, and I was surprised that out of every moment within the past 20, this was the one that chose to be awkward. This was the first time in, well, forever that we'd actually resolved a fight, and now we didn't know what to do with ourselves.

"Well, that was an…experience," I started.

"Yep." He rocked on his heels like an idiot. "I'll, um, see you back at school, I guess."

He started to turn away, but I grabbed his arm. "Wait, Zach."

"Yeah?"

"I'll do it," I said.

His brows drew together. "Sorry if I'm slow on the pick-up, Gallagher Girl, but…do what?"

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, praying that I wouldn't regret this later. Opening my eyes, I said, "You told me you needed outside help, so I'll do it. I'll help you break this code of yours."

Bex's POV

"This is all your fault?"

"My fault?!" I exclaimed, meeting Grant's glare with an incredulous look. "How is this my fault?"

"'Note of encouragement?'" he mocked with air quotes. "You were supposed to tell her it was a love letter!"

I threw up my hands. "I panicked, okay? She asked me if I liked you, and my knee-jerk response was not a chance in Hell, so I had to come up with something!"

"We did," he shouted back. "We did come up with something: Operation Cammie Writes A Love Letter And Makes Zach Jealous. Not Operation Cammie Writes An Encouraging Note And Makes Zach Confused! They both think I need to see a shrink now!"

"Fine," I conceded. "I screwed up the plan. We can just make a new one." I thought it over for a moment. "When scientists want animals to mate, they put them in an enclosure, so maybe we could just lock them in a room together and—"

"It won't work."

I spun at the sound of a voice behind me, fists at the ready to knock the last three minutes of Grant and I's conversation out of their head if need be. But it was only Macey. Her arms were crossed, and her smile was amused as she casually leaned in the doorway.

"McHenry," Grant said, relaxing his face into an easy smile. "What can we do for you?"

"Actually, Grant, I came here to offer my services." She kicked herself off the doorframe and walked into the room. "You guys think Zach and Cammie are idiots for not realizing that their aggression toward one another is simply a manifestation of gallons upon gallons of sexual tension…and I agree. But you're not going to get them to stop being idiots by shoving them onto each other. They need to be coaxed."

My eyes darted to Grant, looking for confirmation. He nodded curtly. He knew as well as I did that if we were going to try to get our two most stubborn friends to see something that they'd purposefully blinded themselves to, we were going to need all the help we could get.

"What do we do?" I asked.

Macey smiled wickedly.

AN: Thank you, all, for reading chapter ten! I know I suck at updating, but if any of y'all are still here with me, still reading, I can't tell you how much I appreciate your support and patience. You have all of my love:)

A few things:

First, has anyone watched the show New Girl? If not, I highly recommend it! It's hilarious, and it's literally my favorite show! I bring this up because season 2, episode 2, minutes 15-17 played a small role in the creation of this chapter. If you're bored or need a new show, check it out. It's on Netflix:)

Second, if you're an aspiring writer, my one piece of advice for you is to never try to write about a physical altercation that takes place in a bathroom stall. Just, don't. It took me, I don't know, 85,000 tries to write that scene (it was more like four, but you get my point), and it was not fun. So, if you ever catch yourself thinking about writing a fight scene in a bathroom stall, shut that thought down. I pass this wisdom on to you. This is my legacy.

Third, I hope you all have a wonderful new year! Let's do more good than bad, spread more love than hate, and bless others more than we curse them in 2021, yeah?

Much love, Rachel