Like Wildfire

Chapter 5

                         "Even she: Leonato's Hero, your Hero, every man's Hero."

                                                            -Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing

John

He watched his plans fall apart from across the cafeteria. Damn. Ah, well. It had been a lame-ass idea from the get-go. His stomach churned acid as he watched Cam and Hope talking and flirting. Such an asshole. He turned his back on the group before he puked all over the place.

"Looks like your plan didn't work too well." Brad stuffed an enormous amount of pizza in his mouth and laughed, spewing bits of food.

"Shut up, Brad. And close your mouth. God, you're disgusting!" He shoved his own tray away, his appetite ruined.

Connie reached her hand to cover his. "Hey. Don't worry. It's no big deal. We'll think of something else."

He was irritated by her, but didn't want to piss her off. She had a nasty habit of cutting him off when she was mad at him and he had needs, like any other guy. It frustrated him that she had that small amount of power over him, but not frustrated enough to stop trying to get it whenever he could. He wasn't about to shoot himself in the...foot. "Well, I'm open to ideas."

"Hmm. Maybe we need to go after Hope this time." Connie sneered at the group across the cafeteria before turning back to John. "She's such a little goody-goody! I'd love to see her taken down a notch or two."

Brad laughed again, swallowed, and wiped his face with a rough paper napkin. "I've got an idea."

"Spill," John ordered.

"Look over there at Meg." He gestured across the room to where Trissa and Hope's friend sat with some students. "She's kind of in to me. We hooked up after the dance and had a pretty good time."

"So? Why should I be interested in who you're screwing?" John sneered at his friend. Meg wasn't exactly a tough nut to crack; he'd hooked up with her himself more than once.

"Work with me, John. Notice how Meg and Hope have similar hair?"

John saw that they indeed both had dark, nearly black hair of a similar length. "Yeah, so?"

"What if we make Cam think his precious little Hope is screwing around on the side? I don't think he'd like that. Do you?"

"How would you pull that off?"

"I'm thinking a little sex tape would do the trick. Connie's a wiz with Photoshop and video editing. If I get you some raw footage, could you superimpose Hope's face over Meg's? Can you make it look believable?"

Connie smiled, but not in a nice way. "Faces are tricky. I think we can find a way to make it believable, make Cam think it's Hope, without her face, especially with a cell phone quality video. Let me think about it for a while, okay?"

"You do that." John smiled for the first time all day. "Let me know when the clip is ready."

***

Ben

He was running late for lunch, of all things, and hoped the food line was still open. If not, maybe he could sweet talk the cafeteria lady into making him a sandwich. His math teacher had kept him after class to talk about a recent quiz he'd bombed. He hadn't done well in math since Trissa dumped him; she was a math wiz and used to help him with his homework. She had a way of explaining things that made sense to him. She was also great at talking him down from anxiety and frustration. Homework was a much more painful process without her.