Chapter 2

Price of Company

The next morning Candice and Jeff found themselves waiting in Maria's room as she showered and got dressed. They had made sure not to arrive at nine because they knew she wouldn't be ready. They arrived at ten thirty instead only to find Maria still in the bed sleeping. Sensing someone watching her Maria did awaken, but refused to discuss anything about John Cena looking like she did (which wasn't bad at all) so she rushed into the bathroom to take a shower and prepare herself for the day.

That left Candice and Jeff alone in the room. Candice nervously shifted around the room before sitting down on the bed. Ever since she and Matt had started dating some odd months ago she had never been comfortable being alone with Jeff in silence. Her guilt would eat away at her and she could feel the words of her confession clawing their way up her throat trying to escape from her mouth. The guilt was even larger when the previous night had been spent with Matt, which it had been.

"Wake me up when she's done." Jeff said as he plopped back onto the bed next to Candice.

Candice and Jeff had been friends since her arrival to the WWE. He was one of the first people she met and became friends with. She loved how down to earth he was and how he didn't care what others thought of him. But even in those early days of friendship with Jeff there was a spark between Candice and Matt. He intrigued her. To her he was a tall, dark, mysterious and handsome hunk that she had to have. Neither Candice nor Matt took any actions towards their feelings until about a year into the friendship. It started with light flirting and joking. But right as they began developing thoughts of taking the next step Jeff dropped a bomb on Matt.

He told him of his enormous crush on Candice. That immediately halted anything Matt was thinking of doing with Candice. He stepped right into the protective older brother role and severed any ties he had with Candice. But since that day a good two years ago Jeff had still not confessed his feelings to Candice and they were way larger than a crush now.

Matt tried extremely hard to stay away from Candice. He even told her about Jeff's feelings hoping she would understand why they couldn't be together, but that wasn't enough. The feelings between them were too strong and they eventually gave in. They knew what they had was wrong and that they were hurting someone they both loved, but not matter how hard they tried to separate they were continually pulled together like magnets.

"Okay now that I am beautiful again, it's time to discuss this plan." Maria barged out of the bathroom fully dressed with little books in her hands. She quickly moved across the room and sat down on the bed behind Candice. She threw a book at Jeff and it hit his stomach causing him to sit up and let out a sound that was between a strangled cat and a surprised bird. Candice turned around on the bed just in time to catch the book Maria sent flying towards her back. "Now these are top secret guys. Guard these with your life. If these were to fall into the wrong hands, all hell would break loose."

"When did you find time to write out the plan with scripts included and make it into a book between last night and now?" Jeff said as he flipped through the book.

"Don't worry about that. Now, on to more important and better things. This is Operation: Make John See How Beautiful I Am Compared to the Troll Michelle. I have written out the detailed happenings of this operation. Each of you has your own parts in it. There is ultimately three big major phases and steps. Phase one is working my way in and being noticed. While I do this you two are going to snoop around and find out what he likes and dislikes. Then with that information I move on to phase two which is becoming friends. The friendship would mean more time around him and he will see my beauty. Phase three is simply the move Michelle out and move me in phase. Some how, I don't know how yet, we will move her out of the picture and get me in there and voila, John and I are together at last!"

"Oh that John sure is a god in the ring. How on earth does he stay so fit? Are you serious? Do you know what would happen to me if I went around the guys saying this?"

"No Jeff, mines is so much better. Oh Michelle that boyfriend of yours is so hard to get in touch with. He must spend all day at the gym to stay fit like that. Oh wait he doesn't? What else could he possibly do? He feeds starving kids in Africa? Reads to orphaned children, and adopts abused rabbits too? I just knew he had a good soul deep down. Don't you feel bad for tainting him with your skanky evil bitchness?"

"Aren't they prefect? This would make the perfect movie. I was thinking of sending it to a director out in Hollywood!" Candice and Jeff answered with blank stares. "Well back to the plan for now. I want to start on this immediately. So I want you guys to go around and ask as many people as you can to tell you about him. Then on Monday I'm going to need you Candice to distract Michelle while John's in our locker room so I can have some alone time with him."

"I'm oozing from excitement about having this conversation with her!" Candice said in a monotone voice.

"That's the sprit to have. Just imagine if the plan works on the time line I have planned for it John could be all mine in as little as two months!"

"Well I have to go I'm on the card for the show tonight." Candice said as she got up from the bed and walked over to the door.

"Wait you're leaving you book."

"Oh yeah. I wouldn't want to leave that behind."

"Candice wait." Jeff got up from the bed and hurried after her. When he caught up to her she was halfway down the hallway. "I was just thinking that since both of us are booked for tonight we could travel to the arena together like we used to." He said as he nervously scratched the back of his head.

Candice didn't know what to say. Of course Jeff was on the card too. Why did she not think of that last night when she and Matt agreed to travel together? They had thought it would be the alone time they had been praying for. She couldn't just say no to him. Matt was his brother and she was his best friend. It would seem suspicious if she didn't let him got along with them.

"Oh well I'm traveling with Matt." All of the nervousness left his face and dejection replaced it instead. "But you could always come with us. I mean I only agreed to go with him because I didn't know you had to go too."

"Yeah, that'll work too. What time are you leaving?"

"About two."

"Okay see you then."

Maria was having no luck with her plan so far. She couldn't find anyone to talk about John with. The only people she ran into where his close friends and she wasn't stupid enough to ask them. If she did then word would get back to John that she was going around asking people about him and then her plan would come to a dead end because he wouldn't want to spend time with her.

She was aimlessly walking around the hotel when she heard a voice that stopped her heart. She quickly stopped to track where it was coming from. When the direction was clear she quickly walked over to where she heard it coming from. The closer she got the faster her heart rate picked up. She was so close she thought her heart was going to jump into her throat. Finally she peaked her head around the corner and there he was. Well the back of his head was all she saw but to her it was a beautiful back of the head. He was alone talking into his phone walking with his gym bag slung across his shoulder.

Moving quick before he was out of her reach she practically ran up to him. Right as she was about to tap him she stopped. What would she say? Wasn't it rude to interrupt his phone conversation? Her simple hesitation was too long. By the time she made up her mind to tap him he had arrived at his room and walked in.

"And so we meet again." She jumped at the voice not hearing any footsteps but turned around and managed a half smile at who she saw.

"Hey Teddy."

"Not as enthusiastic as yesterday. Is something wrong?" He asked as he walked up to her examining her face as if it would tell him what was wrong.

"It's nothing, just bored with no one to bother." This time the smile she put on was slightly more genuine.

"Well I was just heading off to lunch. You can come if you want."

"Sure nothing else for me to do around here." And with that said they were off, but before the left the hallway Maria cast one last glance at John's room door. 'So close', she though as she turned back to follow Ted, so close but still so far away.

Candice walked quickly to the garage of the hotel with Jeff trying hard to keep up with her. He had offered to take her bags and she dumped them all on him before practically running to the garage. Neither she nor Jeff had been able to contact Matt to tell him about the change in plans. Candice knew that she had to go ahead of Jeff and alert Matt because she knew he was going to be standing there perched against the car waiting to say something that would give them away.

"Candice could you please slow down just a little? I mean you don't have the lightest bags." Jeff said as he struggled with the bags he was carrying.

"Can't keep up?" She said as she sped up a little to put more distance between them. It was then that Matt finally came into her view.

"Hey Candy Bab–?" Matt abruptly stopped what he was saying when he saw Candice mouthing something he couldn't make out and jerking her head towards something behind her. "Is there something wrong with your neck or voice or something?" He asked moving forward to check for himself, but as he reached out to take her head in his hands she moved out of his reach and walked right past him. "Well good afternoon to you too." He rolled his eyes about to complain about her attitude more when he finally saw Jeff who was struggling with the bags. "Jeff?"

"Yeah, a little help here?" Matt quickly went to his brother and took some of the bags from him.

"I didn't know you were coming with us." He said as he threw the bags into the trunk of the car.

"Maybe if you answered you phone once in a while you would know." Candice said from her position in the passenger seat of the car. She was getting over the heart attack she nearly had.

"I told you last night that my phone was dead and I lost my charger." Matt said slamming the trunk closed angry that Candice was taking her anger out on him.

"You guys were together last night?" Both Candice and Matt froze.

"Yeah at the arena when you went to do your match. We were talking in the locker room and he told me then." Candice said quickly recovering from her shock.

"Oh." Candice shot Matt a dirty look as he sat down in the driver seat of the car and he just smiled sheepishly back at her.

Maria looked up from eating her lunch to see Ted staring at her from across the table. The lunch had been fairly quiet, Maria too wrapped up in how close she was to the love of her life and Ted too wrapped up in Maria.

"Is there something on my face?" She asked as she grabbed the nearest napkin and began wiping the area around her mouth.

"Yes, there is something on your face." He said as he continued to stare at her, cracking a slight smile at her trying to look at her reflection through her spoon.

"I don't see anything where is it?"

"You'll see it one day."

"What?"

"Nothing, you got it."

"Are you sure? Because once, Candice let me go all day with a piece of spinach in my teeth, and it wasn't like a little speck either. It was a full blown leaf. I though I was hot stuff that day too. I even approached this hot guy too thinking I was going to make him into a pile of goo with my good looks. Everything was going good until I smiled at him. I never saw someone laugh so hard in my life. Then the worst part was this old man next to him didn't realize it was spinach. He though I didn't have my front tooth so he spent the better part of a hour discussing how he had to go two months without teeth before he got his dentures. So are you sure I got it?"

"Yeah you got it." He said laughing. He loved it when she did that. Rambled on without a care in the world, never realizing how much she was talking. It was when she was really herself. Not caring about John or anyone else.

"Okay. Thanks for telling me unlike Candice. But anyways how are things with you? Before yesterday I hadn't seen you for a while. What have you been up to?"

He shrugged and looked down at his plate and began rearranging his food. He wasn't even hungry. He only invited her out just so he could spend some time with her. What did he say? That the majority of his time had been spent thinking of her. That he couldn't stand walking around looking at her just to see her looking at John. It upset him, made his stomach churn and anger would rise in his chest. John didn't deserve her attention. It should have been him she was pinning after.

"I've just been working on my ring skills, nothing too major." Telling her how he felt wouldn't matter. It wouldn't change things. He wasn't stupid. He didn't think that by telling her he was in love with her would suddenly make her love him back and forget about John. He was a realist. And for him his reality was the fact that she might not get over John anytime soon. It hurt to think about it that way, but it was the truth.

"What about the lucky lady you've been crushing on?"

"Not going so well. I think it may be better to cut my losses and try to move on."

"Teddy!!!! You can't! We do not give up! We fight for what we want. We do it until they want us too. You make them notice you. Make her so that she can't go a minute without thinking of you. "

"But she likes someone else and—"

"Make that someone you!"

"I can try but this is it. I mean I've spent over eight months fretting over this girl and look where it's gotten me. This is the last time I try."

"Okay how about this. We make this our last time for both of us. Maybe it's time for me to move on too. This is my last operation to get John."

"And if we both fail?"

"Then, I don't know. Maybe it will be time to move on and find another guy to focus my attention on."

"Like me?" He said smiling. He could live with those results.

"Oh please Teddy. You don't want me. But I'm pretty sure we can find you another woman. One who isn't too dumb to realize how amazing you are."

He just gave a small smile. Was one last run worth it? What if her plan was successful? It was a horrible thought to think but for his sake he hoped it wasn't. He might go crazy if John ended up with her.

So there's chapter 2. Hope you like it :)