Like Wildfire

Chapter 1

"There is a kind of merry war betwixt Signior Benedick and her; they never meet but there's a skirmish of wit between them."

-Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing

September

Ben

First day of senior year. Yippee. Ben pulled into a parking space and turned off the ignition. Out of habit, he turned his head to the right, but Trissa's truck wasn't parked next to him. Not anymore. Since sophomore year, when they'd begun driving themselves to school, they'd parked next to each other and everyday he'd crawled into the cab of her pickup to greet her with a morning kiss. He loved kissing her, loved how she tasted like cherry candy, how she smelled like warmth and sunshine, how she felt like heaven in his arms. She was the first girl he'd ever kissed, way back in freshman year after the Back to School Dance. He remembered how nervous he'd been all night as he'd watched her dance and laugh with her friends. She's so beautiful. He knew all his friends wanted to ask her to dance, including his best friend, Peter, but Ben had finally screwed up the courage and claimed her first, before anyone else did, and the bro code demanded Peter back off as long as Ben was interested. They'd danced together the rest of the night and he'd somehow found the courage to kiss her—on the cheek—before she left. But she'd given him her phone number and he called her the next day. And the day after that. A week later he'd kissed her for real. She was the only girl he'd ever kissed, something he'd never regretted, even now when things were so awful between them.

How had they come to this? They'd been so solid, so in love, and then she called it quits. Ben still wasn't sure why, but he was thoroughly sick of all the gut-churning worry and stress. He'd waited on pins and needles all summer, hoping and praying she'd come back to him. Only his extended absence, first on a trip to Europe with his parents and then a three week intensive football training camp, had kept him from crawling back to her and doing exactly what he'd sworn never to do: beg.

Fine. If that's the way she wanted it, who was he to contradict her? He was so done with girls! Well, maybe not totally. He shouldn't get carried away, after all. He was done with relationships. Yeah, that's what he was done with. He didn't need a girlfriend. There was a whole world of women waiting out there. He was a decent-looking guy and not nearly as shy as he used to be. He'd show her. He would play the field this year and have a great time doing it. Yep. That's exactly what he'd do. Starting today. He sighed and stared out his windshield. Crap.

A sharp rap on the driver-side window startled him out of his reverie. "Yo, Ben! You gonna sit in your Jeep all day?" It was Peter, waiting expectantly, arms crossed and hip cocked.

He wanted to tell him to shut up so he could continue sulking, but they'd been best friends since elementary school and you didn't take your bad moods out on your best friend if you could help it. Ben sighed and grabbed his backpack from the passenger seat. "I'm coming."

Peter threw an arm around Ben's neck for a moment. "Hey, cheer up, man! It's senior year! We're almost done with this giant shit-fest, otherwise known as high school!"

Ben chuckled. "Yeah. Just nine months to go."

"Ouch. Seems like a long time when you put it like that—long enough to pop out a baby. Unless you're an elephant. I've heard it takes them like 2 years or something to have a kid." He retrieved his arm and ran his hand through his black curly hair. "Oh, well. It'll never be over if we don't start." Peter was always the optimistic one. "You seen Trissa yet?"

"Nope. And I'm not going to look for her. I'm moving on."

"Huh. Since when?" Peter tried to look serious, but Ben could see he was holding back a grin.