Setting: district 12 before hunger games
Finally school was over for the day, I headed out of the classroom excited to get home. Yesterday Gale and I had come up with large haul and after selling most of it at the Hob he let me have the turkey, it was a rare treat as we would usually sell it for a good price rather than keeping it.
"Hey Katniss," I heard my name called out across the school yard, I turned to see a boy heading towards me. I didn't know his name but I'd seen him around school a few times with Gale.
"I'm Josh," he said when he reached me.
"Gale's friend?" I asked.
"Yeah that's right," he said with a smile, "I want to show you something."
"What is it?" I eyed him suspiciously.
"It's more something you have to see," he said as he headed away from me, "you won't find out just standing there come on," he called over his shoulder.
Intrigued but still wary I followed a few steps behind him, as we rounded the corner of on the school building I saw Gale, lips lock with some girl pushing her up against the wall. Josh quickly step in front of me trying to obstructing my view of the scene, or was it Gale's view of me.
"Shit sorry Gale," Josh said as Gale looked up.
"Don't worry about it," Gale said, "we were just going to go somewhere else any..," his sentence cut short when he saw me standing behind Josh. His gaze quickly shot back to Josh, I could almost feel the anger radiate off him.
I guess Josh could too as he said in a forced cheery voice, "what, you said she wasn't your girlfriend, what's wrong with…"
He was cut off by Gale "yeah I said she wasn't my girlfriend, I never said you could talk to her," there was a sickening crunch as Gale's fist hit Josh square in the face.
Josh swore, blood was streaming down his face.
"Don't let me catch you even looking at her again, get out of here," Gale said. I could hear the strain in his voice as he tried to control his anger as Josh not needing to be told twice headed back around the corner holding his nose.
"Gees Gale," the girl with him said "a little over protective don't you think."
He turned to me "Katniss, did you want to make out with him?"
"No," I managed to get out.
"Still you might have checked it with her first, what if she did?" the girls said.
"Then I would have hit him twice as hard," Gale said.
"Come on Katniss," he said as he walked past me, "some other time Joan," he called as he turned around the corner. I looked at the girl who hadn't done a very good job of buttoning up her shirt and turned to follow a fuming Gale.
I had to jog to keep up with him, he never turned back to look at me and didn't slow his pace until we reached the woods. When he finally stopped I wished he hadn't, I could see from the look on his face he hadn't calmed down one bit. I've seen Gale angry plenty of times raging about the Capitol but never this angry, well at least not at me.
"What the hell was that, do you have any idea what he would have done to you if I wasn't there?" he yelled at me. He'd never yelled at me before, I hadn't even done anything.
Hurt I yelled back "Something similar to what you were doing to that girl."
"Big difference," he said "she wanted it," he sent icy daggers my way with his eyes.
"I can look after myself Gale," I countered.
"Clearly you can't," he spat, "let me guess he said he wanted to show you something, and being as naive as you are you feel for it."
I blushed giving him his answer, "I didn't know," I said looking at my feet.
"I know," he said as he got control of his voice, "I probably should have warned you about that, but now you know don't go behind there with any boy no matter what they say they have to show you. And while we're at it don't even think of going… actually you're better off not going anywhere alone with a guy ok."
I couldn't help it the irony of what he said made me laugh, right now alone in the woods with Gale the most private place I knew. He caught my drift and a smirk crossed his face.
"Ok," he corrected himself, "except for me," and gave me a smile finally himself again.
"I'm sorry for yelling I was just…," he left his sentence unfinished.
"That's ok, thanks for…," I left mine half said as well.
"Come on you'll be late for dinner I know how keen you were to have that turkey," he said.
We headed back to the district arguing over the best way to cook a turkey. Just before we stepped out of the woods he stopped taking my face in both his hands kissed me lightly on the lips. Shocked, I just l stood there.
"I just didn't want your first kiss to be stolen by some idiot," he said letting go of me.
"Oh," is all I said too surprised to really reply and not really sure how I felt about what just happened.
He laughed, "I guess I'm being a bit of a hypocrite today," smiling he headed through the fence.